English
mallemaroking
Mallemaroking comes from French marotte ‘jester's sceptre’.
- Frenchc. 1600–presentmarotte‘jester's sceptre’
- Englishearliest quotation 1958mallemaroking
attested reconstructed ? uncertain or disputed
Lineage
- Frenchc. 1600–presentmarotte‘jester's sceptre’
- Englishearliest quotation 1958mallemaroking
Earliest quotation: 1958, Punch: “Just because I had one gin before and a…”
The story
Generally considered to derive from Dutch, although a specific etymon is unclear.uncertain The source flags this step as uncertain. Century and some other old dictionaries derive it from a confusion of two similar Dutch words, namely *mallemerok (‘foolish woman’) (from malle (‘foolish’) + *marok, from French marotte (‘jester's sceptre’)) and *mallemok (‘sailor of a whaling vessel’), but the first of those words is not attested, and the second is not attested with the claimed meaning (but see mollymawk).
Every English word from French marotte
Today it means
noun The act of carousing on icebound Greenland whaling ships.
Language periods are conventional ranges, not dates for this word.
Etymograph / French marotte / mallemaroking