billingsgate

Found this fossil of a word in a historical novel, published in 1951. Don’t remember ever reading or hearing it before.

billingsgate — vehemently expressed condemnation or disapproval; practiced fluency and variety of profane or obscene abuse; abuse, the most general term, usually implies the anger of the speaker and stresses the harshness of the language.

Origin: the fish merchants of Billingsgate in London were famous for their vulgar language.

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