Forms: α. 7–9 tatterdemallion, (7 tatter-, totter-de-mallion, -timallion). β. 7–9 tatterdemalion, (7 tatter-, totterdemalian, -dimalian, -demalean, 8 -demelon). [f. TATTER sb.1, or more prob. TATTERED a., with a factitious element suggesting an ethnic or descriptive derivative. The earlier pronunciation rhymes with battalion, Italian, stallion, as shown by the frequent doubling of l.]
A person in tattered clothing; a ragged or beggarly fellow; a ragamuffin.
α. 1611. B. Jonson, Introd. Verses, in Coryat’s Crudities. This Horse pictur’d showes that our Tatter-de-mallian Did ride the French Hackneyes and lye with th’ Italian.
a. 1626. Middleton, Mayor of Queenb., V. i. He’s not so wise as he ought to be, to let such tatterdemallions get the upper hand of him.
1630. Capt. Smith, Trav. & Adv., xvi. 30. Yet those tattertimallions [Tartars] will have two or three horses, some foure, or five.
1642. Howell, For Trav. (Arb.), 37. Great numbers of poore French tatterdimallians, being as it were the Scumme of the Countrey.
1693. Oxford-Act, 2. Loyal Oxford … Soon form’d in Squadrons and Battalions To Swinge the Duke’s Tatterdemalions.
a. 1700. B. E., Dict. Cant. Crew, Tatter-de-mallion, a ragged, tatter’d Begger,… having better Cloths at Home.
1879. Scribner’s Mag., XIX. 296/1. It is rare to see a tatterdemallion in Paris.
β. 1608. Dekker, Belman Lond. (1640), 3. Rector Chory (the Captain of the Tatterdemalions).
1622. Dekker, Virg. Mart., III. i. Among so many millions of people, should thou and I onely be miserable totterdemalions?
1637. Heywood, Roy. King, II. vii. A Tatterdemalean, that stayes to sit at the Ordinary to day.
1650. Howell, Giraffi’s Rev. Naples, I. 7. A few poore Tatterdimalians had made all that noise.
1771. Smollett, Humph. Cl., 24 May. Mrs. Bramble, turning fron him, said, she had never seen such a filthy tatterdemalion, and bid him begone.
1858. O. W. Holmes, Aut. Breakf-t., xi. 108. A group of young tatterdemalions playing pitch-and-toss.
b. attrib. or as adj.
1614. J. Cooke, Greene’s Tu Quoque, Kj b. Puh, the Italian fashion? the tatterd-de-malian fashion hee meanes.
1651. Biggs, New Disp., § 53. That Tatterdemalion Linostema of Peripatetical and Galenical predicaments.
1837. Carlyle, Fr. Rev., I. IV. iii. Saint-Antoine … reinforced by the unknown Tatterdemalion Figures, with their enthusiast complexion and large sticks.
1855. Chamier, My Travels, II. vi. 85. The most beggarly remnants of tatterdemalion garments.
1893. Spectator, 25 Nov., 738/1. These tatterdemalion scraps and fragments of political discontent.
Hence (nonce-wds.) Tatterdemalionism, the style or practice of a tatterdemalion; Tatterdemalionry, the body of tatterdemalions.
1840. Blackw. Mag., XLVIII. 491. Hungarian, Croatian, and Wallachian tatterdemalionry.
1876. ‘Mrs. Alexander,’ Her Dearest Foe, ix. 72. He was an immense favorite with the afflicted Mills, who remembered him in his school-boy days of tatterdemalionism.
1884. Dumbarton, Vale of Leven, etc., 27. The tatterdemalionism with which we usually associate the abodes of such.
1887. Blackw. Mag., CXLI. 821. His coat was out at both elbows…. It was a kind of defiant tatterdemalionism that the Colonel liked to hug.
