Note 2. 2. 123 — GLOSSARY

Picardill. Cotgrave gives: ‘Piccadilles: Piccadilles; the severall divisions or peeces fastened together about the brimme of the collar of a doublet, &c.’ Gifford says: ‘With respect to the Piccadil, or, as Jonson writes it, Picardil, (as if he supposed the fashion of wearing it be derived from Picardy,) the term is simply a diminutive of picca (Span. and Ital.) a spear-head, and was given to this article of foppery, from a fancied resemblance of its stiffened plaits to the bristled points of those weapons. Blount thinks, and apparently with justice, that Piccadilly took its name from the sale of the “small stiff collars, so called”, which was first set on foot in a house near the western extremity of the present street, by one Higgins, a tailor.’