subs. (old).—1. A term of contempt: cf. BALDHEAD. [The frontal plate of the coot is destitute of feathers.] Hence BALD AS A COOT = as bald as may be [TYNDALE, Works (1530), ii. 224, s.v.].
[1616. BEAUMONT and FLETCHER, The Knight of Malta, i. 1. Unfledge them of their … perriwigs, And they appear like BALD-COOTES in the nest.]
1823. BYRON, Don Juan, XIV. lxxxiii. Shut up the BALD-COOT bully, Alexander!
1848. C. KINGSLEY, The Saint’s Tragedy, III. iv. 176. Your princesses, that … demean themselves to hob and nob with these black BALDICOOTS [i.e., monks with shaven crowns]!
2. (old).—See quot.
1823. BADCOCK (‘Jon Bee’), Dictionary of the Turf, etc., s.v. PIGEON. A … [young man] who parts with his blunt freely at gambling, and is rooked; older persons also stay and get plucked sometimes, until they have not a feather to fly with. Such men, after the plucking, become BALD-COOTS.
