Strephon
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English
[edit]Etymology
[edit](This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium.)
Proper noun
[edit]Strephon
- Traditional masculine name used for the male lover in pastoral poetry.
- 1749, Henry Fielding, chapter IX, in The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling, volumes (please specify |volume=I to VI), London: A[ndrew] Millar, […], →OCLC, book VI:
- As when two doves, or two wood-pigeons, or as when Strephon and Phyllis (for that comes nearest to the mark) are retired into some pleasant solitary grove, to enjoy the delightful conversation of Love […]
- 1855, Frederick Lawrence, The life of Henry Fielding:
- […] those palmy days of pastoral revelry;—when every lover was a Damon or a Strephon, and his beloved a Delia or a Celia.
- 1862, Theodore Winthrop, Edwin Brothertoft:
- I am still sick with his sentimentality of a Strephon. He is a flippant coxcomb.
- 1901, The Atlantic Monthly, volume 87:
- All their tunes were gay and lively ones, and the younger men moved their feet to the music, while a Strephon at the lower end of the lists seized upon a blooming Chloe, and the two began to dance "as if," quoth the Colonel, "the musicians were so many tarantula doctors."
Noun
[edit]Strephon (plural Strephons)
- A pastoral male lover.