hog in armourhog in armorn.
/ˌhɒɡ ɪn ˈɑːmə/, U.S. /ˌhɔɡ ən ˈɑrmər/, /ˌhɑɡ ən ˈɑrmər/ 1. † b. depreciative. An ironclad ship considered to be less effective than its outward appearance suggests. Obsolete.
a. Chiefly humorous and depreciative. An awkward or clumsy person; esp. a person who is uneasy or awkward in his or her clothing. Chiefly in similative expressions. Now rare.Frequently used of a person considered to be less refined than his or her clothing suggests.
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the world > textiles and clothing > clothing > wearing clothing > [noun] > one who is ill at ease in clothing
hog in armour1659
1659 J. Howell Prov. Eng. Toung 19/1 in Παροιμιογραϕια He looketh like a Hogg in armour.
1661 K. W. Confused Characters 66 You'd take him to be a Hog in Armour; just such another bumble arst fur-fact piece of Mortality.
1774 Westm. Mag. 2 457 I never see Alderman —— on horseback, but he reminds me of an hog in armour; and yet a knowledge of dress is what this man has been all his life aiming to acquire.
1820 W. Scott Monastery I. ix. 279 I wish you good even,and a safe riddance out of your garment of durance, in which you have much the air of a hog in armour.
1834 Blackwood's Mag. Sept. 419/2 We should have..given the fashionable world an opportunity of forming their own judgment, in full fig, of a hog in armour.
1858 A. Trollope Three Clerks II. ix. 185 But he did not carry his finery like a hog in armour, as an Englishman so often does when an Englishman stoops to be fine.
1895 N.Y. Times 19 Sept. 3/5 [They] strutted about in their unbending garments like so many hogs in armor.
1901 Chambers's Jrnl. Mar. 151/2 Viscount Damerel was a big, clumsy man, about forty-five years old. He was richly dressed, yet looking like a hog in armour.
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society > travel > travel by water > vessel, ship, or boat > war vessel > [noun] > iron-clad or armoured ship
Ironside1861
armour-clad1862
ironclad1862
hog in armour1864
1864 J. R. Lowell Let. 18 Aug. (1893) I. 341 One lucky shot may sink one of those hogs in armor.
1865 Examiner 11 Mar. 146/2 If these vessels are made as proposed, to combine the greatest speed with the most efficient armament, they will be far superior to the slugs with iron skins, and the huge, unwieldy hogs-in-armour.
1871 Times 28 Sept. 6/3 It is wonderful that the Admiralty for the last 20 years have been building their hogs in armour to defy shot and shell, ignoring the terrible attack of this superior power [sc. a steam ram].
1875 Titusville (Pa.) Morning Herald 20 Mar. ‘Just like all the rest of them cowardly hogs in armor!’ grumbled old Saxon. ‘They're never steady long enough in a sea-way to give a man a chance to lay a gun handsomely.’
2. An armadillo; spec. the nine-banded or long-nosed armadillo, Dasypus novemcinctus. Now historical.
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the world > animals > mammals > order Edentata > [noun] > family Dasypodidae (armadillo) > member of genus Dasypus
hog in armour1729
tatouete1753
mule armadillo1827
pichi1827
peba1834
poyou1834
tatouay1834
tatouhou1834
tatou-peba1834
tatou-poyou1834
1729 in W. Dampier et al. Coll. Voy. IV. iv. 96 Here is..a little Animal that is somewhat less than a Land-Turtle, having a jointed shell on his Back..the Spaniards call it a Hog in Armour.
1796 J. G. Stedman Narr. Exped. Surinam I. x. 222 Tattu or armadillo... This animal is with propriety sometimes stiled a hog-in-armour.
1834 Blackwood's Mag. 36 40/2 Why, they have two monkeys on board, and a kangaroo, and a hog in armour.
1873 E. Bulwer-Lytton Kenelm Chillingly I. i. v. 37 If it be hard to drive a common pig,..a hog in armour is indeed undrivable.
1946 Internat. Jrnl. Amer. Linguistics 12 213/1 What he had at first taken to be the native Carib name for the armadillo or tatou, ‘haginamah’, was in reality no more than the local pronunciation of hog-in-armour.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, November 2010; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
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