subs. (popular).—A fool; a soft-head; a ‘go-along.’ For synonyms generally, see BUFFLE, and more particularly infra.
ENGLISH SYNONYMS. Blockhead; chuckle-head; chowder-head; cod’s-head; chump or chump of wood; dunderhead; flat; go-along; goosecap; greenlander; gulpin; juggins; thick-head; lights; loony; looby; lubber; mooney; mug; muggins; mutt; ninny-hammer; nincompoop; nizzie; pigeon; sawney; Simon, or Simple Simon; slow-coach; soft-horn; sop; Tom Tug. To which may be added ‘cupboard-headed,’ ‘half-boiled,’ ‘not all there,’ and ‘off one’s chump,’ used also of one not compos mentis; a thick (Winchester College).
FRENCH SYNONYMS. Une tête de pioche (popular: pioche = pickaxe or mattock); un poulet d’Inde (popular: poule d’Inde = turkeyhen); un couillé (popular); un paroissien de Saint Pierre aux bœufs (popular); un noc (popular = a ‘juggins’); un loffiat (popular: this is formed from a species of French back slang, lof = fol reversed. On the same lines we get la loffitude = ‘stupidity’ or ‘nonsense’; bonisseur de loffitudes = ‘a nonsense monger’; also solliceur de loffitudes = ‘a journalist’); un Jean-bête (common: Cf., English ‘Johnnie’ and ‘Jack’); barré (= cabbage-headed); une vieille bouillote (popular); une bourriche (popular: ‘a hamper’); une badouille (popular: also = ‘a hen-pecked husband’); être déboulonné (popular: literally = ‘unpinned’ or ‘unbolted’); un fifilolo (popular); un daim (popular); être de la tribu des Bênicoco (military); ètre du 14 bénédictins (popular); une bestiasse (this term has passed into the language); bête comme chou (= ‘extremely stupid’); bête comme un pôt (= a perfect ass); bête comme ses pieds (= an arrant fool); un abruti or ahuri de Chaillot (popular: Chaillot, in the suburbs of Paris, is a common butt, much as are Hanwell, Colney Hatch, etc.; abrutir ‘to stupify, to besot, to imbrute’); une tête de boche (common: = a wooden head; also a German); un bidon de zinc (military = ‘a can’ or ‘flask’); un cul or cul d’âne (popular: cul d’âne = ‘the rump of an ass’; Cf., English ‘ass’); un cantaloup (popular: literally a melon); un cube (a ‘regular idiot’); un canarie; être un c (a euphemistic phrase); un busard or buson or une buse (an allusion to the stupidity of the buzzard); une couenne (popular: = ‘pig-skin.’ ‘Est-il couenne!’ ‘What an ass!’); un coquardeau; un couillon (popular: a cullion, used in friendly jocularity = abashed, crestfallen, and above all idiotic); un espèce de cafouilleux (popular = ‘a bally bounder’); un arguche (thieves’); battre comtois (thieves’ = to play the fool); un baveux (a driveller: one who does not know what he is talking about); un boniface (popular); n’avoir pas cassé la patte à coco (thieves’ = ‘as big a bloody mug as they make ’em’).
SPANISH SYNONYMS. Asnazo (m; properly ‘a big jackass’); asno (m); bambarria (m; also = an accidental but successful stroke at billiards, ‘a fluke’); bobalias (m; a colloquialism for ‘a very stupid fellow’); borro (m; properly a wether not two years old); echacantos (m); gentil hombre de placer (= ‘a buffoon’ or ‘clown’); guillote (m; literally a husbandman, one who enjoys the produce of a farm. Cf., ‘joskin’); Juan lanas (vulgar); mamacallos or mamaluco (m); naranjo (m; properly the citrus aurantium); pandero (m; also ‘a timbrel’); pinchauvas (m = a despicable person); porra (f); es un solemne bobo (‘he is a downright booby’); zamacuco.
PORTUGUESE SYNONYMS.—Bamburrio; macacada; tauso; pãosinho.
1682. BEHN, The False Count (1724), III., 146. Thou foul, filthy CABBAGE-HEAD. [M.]
1862. J. R. LOWELL, The Biglow Papers, II., 228.
| For, take my word for ’t, when all ’s come an’ past, | |
| The KEBBIGE-HEADS ’ll cair the day et last. |
c. 1880. Broadside Ballad, ‘Right before the missis too.’
| I’ve had a dreadful row | |
| All through a chum named Tommy Sheen, | |
| I ought to call him CABBAGE-HEAD, | |
| He is so very green. |
