or blockers, subs. (common).—1. Small pieces of meat of indifferent quality, trimmings from the joints, etc.: exposed for sale on the blocks or counters of butcher’s shops in cheap neighbourhoods: as opposed to meat hung on hooks.
1848. Fraser’s Magazine, XXXVII., 396. Forced to substitute a BLOCKER of meat, with its cheap accompaniment of bread and vegetables … for poultry and rump steaks.
1851–61. H. MAYHEW, London Labour and the London Poor, I., 54. For dinner … they buy BLOCK ORNAMENTS, as they call the small, dark-coloured pieces of meat exposed on the cheap butchers’ blocks or counters. Ibid., p. 516. What they consider a good living is a dinner daily off good BLOCK ORNAMENTS (small pieces of meat, discoloured and dirty, but not tainted, usually set for sale on the butcher’s block).
1884. Punch, No. 2063, 29. And eager-faced women must bargain for tainted BLOCK ORNAMENTS still.
1887. Standard, Jan. 20, The Poor at Market. Watching a man who stands with his wife and little girl before a butcher’s shop, let us see what they have to choose from, in buying for the next day’s dinner. On the shelves set out in front of the shop meat scraps are offered at 31/2d. the lb.; better scraps (or BLOCK ORNAMENTS, as they are termed) at 4d.; somewhat shapeless small joints of beef from inferior parts at 5d., one coarse shoulder of mutton at the same; tolerably good-looking meat at 6d.; mutton chops at 7d. and 8d.; and rump steak at 10d.
1899. R. WHITEING, No. 5 John Street, iii. Dinner, two penn’orth o’ BLOCK ORNYMINT, and a penn’orth o’ bread.
2. (colloquial).—A queer looking man or woman—one odd in appearance (HOTTEN).
