subs. (old).—1. A simpleton; an idiot.
1598. SHAKESPEARE, All’s Well that Ends Well, iv. 3. A dumb INNOCENT that could not say him nay.
1605. JONSON, CHAPMAN, &c., Eastward Hoe, v. 1 (DODSLEY, Old Plays, iv. 299). Again, if you be a cuckold, and know it not, you are an INNOCENT; if you know it and indure it, a true Martyr.
1609. JONSON, Epicœne, or the Silent Woman, iii. 4. Do you think you had married some INNOCENT out of the hospital, that would stand with her hands thus, and a playse mouth, and look upon you.
1634. BEAUMONT and FLETCHER, The Two Noble Kinsmen, iv. 1.
| She answered me | |
| So far from what she was, so childishly, | |
| So sillily, as if she were a fool, | |
| An INNOCENT! |
1639. BEAUMONT and FLETCHER, Wit without Money, ii.
| There be three kinds of fools,—(mark this note, gentlemen, | |
| Mark it, and understand it.)… | |
| An INNOCENT, a knave-fool, a fool politic. |
1785. GROSE, A Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue, s.v. INNOCENTS. One of the INNOCENTS; a weak or simple person, man or woman.
1811. GROSE and CLARKE, Lexicon Balatronicum, s.v.
2. (American).—A corpse; a STIFF (q.v.).
1859. G. W. MATSELL, Vocabulum; or, The Rogue’s Lexicon, s.v.
3. (American).—A convict.
1859. G. W. MATSELL, Vocabulum; or, The Rogue’s Lexicon, s.v.
THE MURDER (SLAUGHTER, or MASSACRE) OF THE INNOCENTS, subs. phr. (parliamentary).—The abandonment, towards the end of a session, of measures whether introduced by the Government or by private members, when they would have no chance of passing.
1859. Times, 20 July, p. 7, col. 3. The Leader of the House would have to go through that doleful operation called THE MASSACRE OF THE INNOCENTS, devoting to extinction a number of useful measures which there was not time to pass.
1860. Punch, xxxviii. 255.
| I brooded o’er my discontents, | |
| Saying—‘The Notice-paper thins: | |
| Now that with early June begins | |
| THE MASSACRE OF INNOCENTS.’ |
1870. London Figaro, 6 Aug. So vigorously has THE SLAUGHTER OF THE INNOCENTS been proceeding that the Appropriation Bill was read a first time in the House of Commons on Wednesday.
1871. Times, ‘Leader’ 9 May. THE MASSACRE OF THE INNOCENTS has begun.
1872. The Saturday Review, 20 July. When the proposals of a member will stand the test of being expressed in a Bill, they are often of great value, and have an effect on legislation, and on the conduct of the Government, although they are MASSACRED WITH HUNDREDS OF OTHER INNOCENTS at the end of the Session.
1879. Graphic, 9 July, p. 50. Formerly … THE MASSACRE OF THE INNOCENTS was chiefly confined to measures which owed their existence rather to individual and sectional enthusiasm than to the deliberate wishes of the nation.
