Note 3. 4. 13 — GLOSSARY

Cioppinos. Jonson spells the word as if it were Italian, though he says in the same sentence that the custom of wearing chopines is Spanish. The NED., referring to Skeat, Trans. Phil. Soc., 1885-7, p. 79, derives it from Sp. chapa, a plate of metal, etc. ‘The Eng. writers c 1600 persistently treated the word as Italian, even spelling it cioppino, pl. cioppini, and expressly associated it with Venice, so that, although not recorded in Italian Dicts. it was app. temporarily fashionable there.’ The statement of the NED. that ‘there is little or no evidence of their use in England (except on the stage)’ seems to be contradicted by the quotation from Stephen Gosson’s Pleasant Quippes (note 1. 1. 128). References to the chopine are common in the literature of the period (see Nares and NED.). I have found no instances of the Italianated form earlier than Jonson, and it may be original with him. He uses the plural cioppini in Cynthia’s Revels, Wks. 2. 241. See note 4. 4. 69.