1. The motley coat of a fool or buffoon.
1589. Nashe, Martins Months Minde, To the Reader, Wks. (Grosart), I. 166. When they shall put off their fooles coat.
1599. B. Jonson, Ev. Man out of Hum., III. i. Of as many colours, as ere you saw any fooles coat in your life.
transf. and fig. 1709. H. Chandler, Effort agst. Bigotry, 17. Non-Conformists, Church-men … or whatever Fool’s Coat of Distinction their uncharitable envious Neighbours put upon them.
1718. Warder, True Amazons (ed. 2), 54. Their [the Wasps’] Fools Coat, and hoarse Voice, doth soon discover them.
1735. Pope, Donne Sat., IV. 220.
| Our Court may justly to our Stage give rules, | |
| That helps it both to fools’ coats and to fools. |
2. (See quot.)
a. 1700. B. E., Dict. Cant. Crew, A Fool’s-Coat, a Tulip so called, striped with Red and Yellow.
3. A name for the goldfinch.
a. 1682. Sir T. Browne, Birds Norfolk, Wks. 1852, III. 322. A kind of anthus, goldfinch, or fool’s coat, commonly called a draw-water, finely marked with red and yellow, and a white bill.
4. A bivalve mollusc, Isocardia cor, better known as heart-shell (Cent. Dict.).
