Obs. rare. [In sense 1, = OF. turlupin, in med.L. turlupīn-us (14th c., Du Cange), of unknown origin. In later F. in other senses: see below, also Littré and Hatz.-Darm.]
1. A name given to a sect of heretics in the 14th c., who are said to have maintained that one ought not to be ashamed of anything that is natural.
1639. Fuller, Holy War, III. xix. (1840), 149. Turlupins; that is, dwellers with wolves … being forced to flee into woods.
1804. Ranken, Hist. France, III. ii. § 1. 198. We shall not trace their [the Waldenses’] progress under the new names of Wickliffites, Lollards, Turlupins, Bohemians, etc. in other countries.
1882–3. Schaff’s Encycl. Relig. Knowl., III. 2407/2. Gregory XI in 1373 urged the king of France to support the Dominicans against the Turlupins.
1910. Encycl. Brit., XIV. 592/2. [A woman, Jeanne Daubenton] being the head of a sect called the Turlupins. The Turlupins reappeared in 1421 at Arras and Douai and were persecuted in a similar way.
¶ 2. By Urquhart taken to render F. tirelupin in Rabelais, said by Duchat to be a name given in 1372 to a certain people who imitated Cynics, and lived on lupins which they gathered (tiraient) in the fields.
Cotgrave and Littré (who spells tirelopin) treat this as a separate word. Cotgr. has ‘Tirelupin, a catch-bit, or captious companion; a scowndrell, or scuruie fellow’; ‘Turlupin, a grub, mushrome, start-up, new-nothing, man of no value.’ Urquhart applied Cotgrave’s explanation of turlupin to tirelupin.
1653. Urquhart, Rabelais, I. Prol. So saith a Turlupin or a new start-up grub of my books, but a turd for him. [Rabelais, Aultant en dict ung Tirelupin de mes livres: mais bren pour luy.]
[Mod. F. has turlupin in the sense ‘buffoon, merry-andrew’ (from the name assumed by an actor in French farce a. 1630), hence ‘a sorry jester, a low punster,’ and turlupinade a low pun or word-play. Cf. obs. Ital. turlupino (Douce) = ‘turluru a foole, a gull, a ninnie, a patch’ (Florio).]
