sb. [f. STOOP v.1 + GALLANT sb. = F. trousse-galant, recorded a. 1590 in Paré, Œuvres, XXII. v. (1641), 530.
The Fr. equivalent is an objective compound of the vb.-stem; it is uncertain whether the Eng. word is a compound of the same type, or a phrase with the verb in the imperative and the sb. used vocatively. Cf. the following quot.
1551. Loughborough Register, in J. Nichols, Hist. Leicester (1804), III. II. 891/2. The Swat, called New Acquaintance, alias Stoupe, Knave, and know thy Master.]
Something that humbles ‘gallants’; originally, a name for the ‘sweating sickness’; later used gen. Also attrib. or adj.
1551. in Gentl. Mag. (1808), LXXVIII. II. 1057. The hole Sickness, called Stup-gallant.
a. 1560. T. Hancock, in Narr. Reform. (Camden), 82. The posting swet, that posted from towne to towne, throwghe England, and was named stope gallant, for hytt spared none, for ther were dawncyng in the cowrte at 9 a’clocke thatt were deadd or aleven a’clocke.
a. 1571. Bp. J. Leslie, Hist. Scot. (Bannatyne Club), 81. Thair wes ane seknes universallie in the moneth of September [1510] in Scotland,… it wes callit be the peple stoup galland.
1579. Spenser, Sheph. Cal., Feb., 90. Youngth is a bubble … Whose way is wildernesse, whose ynne Penaunce, And stoopegallaunt Age the hoste of Greeuaunce.
1583. Melbancke, Philotimus, K ij. Old cramped sires in their stoupe gallant age.
1596. Nashe, Saffron Walden, Wks. 1910, III. 114. Comedie vpon Comedie he shall haue … One shal bee called … Stoope Gallant, or The Fall of pride.
1862. Wraxell, trans. V. Hugo’s Les Misérables, III. lxvii. 332. Your stoop-gallant is called cholera.
¶ Used allusively as verbal phrase.
a. 1661. Fuller, Worthies, Surrey (1662), 84. His Lordship … enforced them to stoop gallant, and to vail their Bonnets for the Queen of England.
