Talk:wagpastie

Etymology

I have looked for an etymology but haven't found much and nothing that agrees. The material I have so far is:

• A note in Early Plays from the Italian (1911) says: wagpasty: -pasty perhaps inceptive, 'in the moulding'; or implies 'fond of tarts'.
• A note in Club Law (1907) says: wagpastie, a term applied to a boy. [...] The sense of the word is not clear, especially as in two cases above it is spelt 'wage-pasty' (where 'wage-' probably was taken to mean 'wager'). We have forms, however, which may be analogous in 'wag-string' (Two Angry Women of Abington, Hazlitt-Dodsley, vii. 279), 'wag-halter' and 'wagtail' (in which 'wag' has a transitive force) and 'wagmoire' (Spenser, Sheph. Cat. Sept. 130), a dialectic form of 'quagmire' or 'quake mire.' If 'wagpastie' is formed analogously to 'wagmoire' it may mean 'quivering pasty' (one still calls a boy 'a piece of quicksilver'). If 'wag-' has a transitive force, the original meaning of the word is obscure. The word 'wag,' a merry fellow, is conjectured by Wedgwood to be short for 'waghalter.'
• The entry in The Century Dictionary (c. 1890) says: wagpastie, n. [Appar. lit. 'a pie-stealer,' < wag, v., + obj. pastie, pasty, pie.] A rogue.

Of these, I think "pie-stealer" is the most likely. However, I can't find any other source that backs it up. - AdamBMorgan (talk) 05:25, 10 May 2018 (UTC)