subs. (tailors’).—The dull season. [A correspondent of Notes and Queries (1 S., viii., 439) says it is of German origin, and remarks that many hundreds of London tailors are of German nationality. The German phrase is die saure Gurken Zeit (pickled gherkin-time). Hence, it is said, the expression ‘Tailors are vegetarians,’ because they live now on ‘cucumber’ and now on ‘cabbage.’ Quoted by Grose (1785).] Cf., quot., 1821.
1821. P. EGAN, Tom and Jerry [ed. 1890], p. 60. The chap in the corner … has been chaffing Spendall … about his being so CUCUMBERISH as to be compelled to ‘gammon the draper’ [which means when a man is without a shirt, and is buttoned up close to his neck, with merely a handkerchief round it to make an appearance of cleanliness, it is termed, ‘gammoning the draper.’]
