mazard
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English[edit]
Pronunciation[edit]
Etymology 1[edit]
Probably from mazer, the head being compared to a large goblet.
Alternative forms[edit]
Noun[edit]
mazard (plural mazards)
- (archaic slang) Head; skull.
- c. 1599–1602 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act V, scene i], page 277:
- Why ee'n ſo: and now my Lady Wormes, / Chapleſſe, and knockt about the Mazard with a Sextons Spade;
- 1808, Richard Graves, The Spiritual Quixote, page 127:
- This roused the tinker's choler, already provoked at Tugwell's amorous freedom with his doxy, and he gave him a click in the mazard. Tugwell had not been used tamely to receive a kick or a cuff; he, therefore, gave the tinker a rejoinder, […]
- 1906, Ambrose Bierce, “Iconoclast”, in The Cynic’s Word Book, London: Arthur F. Bird […], →OCLC, page 170:
- For the poor things [worshippers] would have other idols in place of those he [the iconoclast] thwacketh upon the mazzard and dispelleth.
Etymology 2[edit]
Compare French merise (“wild cherry”).
Noun[edit]
mazard (plural mazards)
- A kind of small black cherry.