trumpery
(n.) [ˈtrʌmpəri] — (1) deceit, fraud, imposture, trickery; often used in the plural. Obsolete; (2) ‘Something of less value than it seems’; hence, ‘something of no value; trifles’ (S. Johnson); worthless stuff, trash, rubbish, usually a collective singular; now rarely, plural; (2a) Applied to material objects; (2b) Applied to abstract things, as beliefs, practices, discourse, writing, etc.: Nonsense, ‘rubbish’; (2c) Applied contemptuously to religious practices, ceremonies, ornaments, etc. regarded as idle or superstitious; (2d) showy but unsubstantial apparel; worthless finery; (2e) Horticulture: weeds or refuse, such as hinder the growth of valuable plants. Obsolete exc. dialect; (2f) applied to a person, esp. a woman: cf. trash, e.g. white trash; (adj.) of little or no value; trifling, paltry, insignificant cant; worthless, rubbishy, trashy (OED)
This word originates in France—tromperie, meaning roughly deceit, from tromper, to deceive, cheat—whence it embarked on a short boat ride across the Channel to Britain where it appears to have caught on at least as early as the late 15th century, if not earlier, so the Brits doubtless have a greater familiarity with it, even though we here in the U.S.A. can boast being home, none too happily or belatedly enough, to the genuine article and as much of the attendant folderol as can be stuffed in an ill-fitting blue suit.
Of course, having identified trumpery’s straightforward origin, we must also note that its subsequent employment by speakers of the language has been quite “diverse,” as we are not uncontroversially inclined to say today, and as the above assortment of definitions will attest. Nothing especially odd or curious about that, since many words seem to ramify, so to speak, and take on related or not so related meanings as the years pass and the people continue to converse. But what strikes us here at WOTD as odd is that the word appears to have fallen out of common use by the end of the 19th century, or at least that’s what the usage examples provided by the dictionary suggest, the most recent of which cited by the OED include Anthony Trollope’s 1869 choice of the word as both an adjective and as a noun in his novel, He Knew He Was Right:
“I don't know how this quarrel came up,” exclaimed Priscilla, “and I don't care to know. But it seems a trumpery quarrel,—as to who should beg each other's pardon first, and all that kind of thing. Sheer and simple nonsense! Ask him to let it all be forgotten.“ (1a)
“You said that you were to be poor, but he is very rich. And I am beginning to understand that these titles of yours are something like kings’ crowns. The man who has to wear them can’t do just as he pleases with them. Noblesse oblige. I can see the meaning of that, even when the obligation itself is trumpery in its nature. If it is a man’s duty to marrv a Talbot because he’s a Howard, I suppose he ought to do his duty.” (1b)1
and a couple of specialized uses and a glossary definition from 1886-88 a few short years later:
“Never didn zee the fuller place o’ this yur, vor old kettles, vryin pans, bottles, pan-shords [A piece of broken pottery, called also shord.] and all sorts o’ trumpery; ‘tis one body’s work a’most vor to bury the rummage they drows in here. (2a)
The home-field do look ter’ble rough wi’ all they dashles an’ trumpery, take ‘n skim [mow down bents and mocks (tufts).] un over.” (2b)
TRUMPERY [truum ‘puree], sb. Rubbish of any kind; weeds or any undesirable growth.
“Thick there spot o’ ground must be a-spit up so deep’s ever can, he’s all vull o’ trumpery.” (2c)2
And yet in earlier centuries the word has been used by an impressive gaggle of eminent scribblers all of whom would surely be included in any comprehensive Who’s Who of Writers of English Poetry and Prose:
by William Shakespeare (more than once): in Winter’s Tale, IV. iv. 711-716:
“Ha, ha, [says Autolycus] what a fool Honesty is! And Trust, his sworn brother, a very simple gentleman! I have sold all my trumpery. Not a counterfeit stone, not a ribbon, glass, pomander, brooch, table book, ballad, knife, tape, glove, shoe tie, bracelet to keep my pack from fasting.” (sense 2a),
and in The Tempest, IV. i. 206-209:
“[Says Prospero to Ariel] This was well done, my bird./Thy shape invisible retain thou still:/The trumpery in my house, go bring it hither, /For stale to catch these thieves.” (sense 2d)
by Sir Walter Raleigh, (sense 2a), in “A Discourse of the First Invention of Shipping” in Judicious & Select Essays and Observations, (London: Printed by T.W. for Humphrey Moseley & and are to be Sold at the Princes Armes in St. Pauls Church-yard, 1650.), p. 41:
“And if the Impositions laid on these things, whereof this Kingdome hath no necessary use, as upon Silkes, Velvets, Gold and Silver Lace, and cloaths of Gold, and Silver, Cut works, Cambricks, and a world of other trumperyes. doth in nothing hinder their vent here: But that they are more used, then ever they were, to the utter impoverishing of the Land in generall, and of those Poppinjayes that value themselves by their out sides, and by their Players coats…”
by Sir Thomas Browne, (sense 1), in Pseudodoxia Epidemica, Book vii., Chapt. xii., p. 309:
“But as his [the devil’s] malice is vigilant, and the sinnes of men doe still continue a toleration of his mischiefs, he resteth not, nor will he ever cease to circumvent the sonnes of the first deceived; and therefore expelled his Oracles and solemn Temples of delusion, he runnes into corners, exercising minor trumperies, and acting his deceits in Witches, Magicians, Diviners , and such inferiour seducers.”
by John Milton, (sense 2c), in Paradise Lost, Book iii., ll. 473-480: [as Satan observes on his way to subvert mankind the deluded monks in the “Limbo of the Vanities.”]
“… and many more too long,/ Embryo’s and Idiots, Eremits and Friers/ White, Black and Grey, with all thir trumperie./ Here Pilgrims roam, that stray’d so farr to seek/ In Golgotha him dead, who lives in Heav’n [i.e., Christ]; / And they who to be sure of Paradise/ Dying put on the weeds of Dominic,/ Or in Franciscan think to pass disguis’d;”
by John Dryden, (sense 2b), in The Satires of Decimus Junius Juvenalis. Translated into English Verse. By Mr. Dryden, and Several Other Eminent Hands. Together with the Satires of Aulus Persius Flaccus. Made English by Mr. Dryden. With Explanatory Notes at the End of Each Satire. To which is Prefix’d a Discourse Concerning the Original and Progress of Satire. (Printed for Jacob Tonson at the Judge’s-Head in Chancery-Lane; near Fleetstreet, MDCXCIII.), Satire vi., p. 96:
“Now should I sing what Poisons they provide;/ With all their Trumpery of Charms beside:/ And all their Arts of Death, it would be known/ Lust is the smallest Sin the Sex can own.”
This satire is just one in which Juvenal gives vent to his broadly misogynistic sentiments. See, if you want, more in The Satires of Decimus Junius Juvenalis. Translated into English Verse. By Mr. Dryden, and Several Other Eminent Hands. Together with the Satires of Aulus Persius Flaccus. Made English by Mr. Dryden. With Explanatory Notes at the End of Each Satire. To wh : Juvenal : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive
by Daniel Defoe, (sense 2b), in Political History of Devil. (Oxford: Printed by D. A. Talboys, For Thomas Tegg, 73, Cheapside, London, 1840.), p. 23:
“Now, not to enter into all the metaphysical trumpery of the schools, nor wholly to confine myself to the language of the pulpit, where we are told, that to think of God and of the Devil, we must endeavour first to form ideas of those things which illustrate the description of rewards and punishment [that is, what Christianity teaches is in store for us believers] …”
by Oliver Goldsmith, (sense 2f), in The Vicar of Wakefield: A Tale. Supposed to be written by Himself. Sperate miseri, cavete fælices. Vol. II. (Salisbury: Printed by B. Collins Newbery, in Pater-Noster-Row, London. 1756.), p. 44:
“Out I say, pack out this moment, tramp thou infamous strumpet, or I’ll give thee a mark thou won’t be the better for this three months. What! you trumpery, to come and take up an honest house, without cross or coin to bless yourself with; come along I say.”
by Jonathan Swift, (sense 2f), in A Complete Collection of Genteel and Ingenious Conversation, According to the Most Polite Mode and Method Now Used at Court, and in the Best Companies of England. In Three Dialogues. By Simon Wagstaff, Esq; (London: Printed for B. Motte, and C. Bathurst, at the Middle Temple-Gate in Fleet-street, 1738.), Dialogue III, p. 195:
Lady Arsw. A dull unmannerly Brute! Well, God send him more Wit, and me more Money.
Miss. Lord! Madam, I would not keep such company for the World.
Lady Smart. O Miss, ’tis nothing when you are used to it: Besides, you know, for Want of Company, welcome Trumpery.
by Maria Edgeworth, (sense 2d), in “Out of Debt, Out of Danger,” in Popular Tales. Vol. I. (London: Printed for J. Johnson, St. Paul’s Church-yard, By C. Mercier and Co. Northumberland-court, Strand, 1804.), p. 376:
“What is the matter?” cried Mrs. Ludgate, advancing. Her husband lifted up his eyes, saw her, started up, and stamping furiously, exclaimed, “Cursed, cursed woman! you have brought me to the gallows, and all for this trumpery!” cried he, snatching her gaudy hat from her head, and trampling it under his feet. “For this—for this! you vain, you ugly creature, you have brought your husband to the gallows!”
by Sir Walter Scott, (multiple uses): in John Buchan, Sir Walter Scott. (New York & Chicago: A.L. Burt Co., 1932.), p. 308:
“I see you have got a critic in the Athenaeum,” he [Scott] once wrote to Lockhart, “Pray don't take the least notice of so trumpery a fellow. There is a custom among the South American Indians to choose their chief by the length of time during which he is able to sustain a temporary interment in an owl’s nest. Literary respect and eminence is won by similar powers of endurance.”
in The Letters of Sir Walter Scott: 1787—1807. Centenary Edition. Volume I. Edited by H. J. C. Grierson. (London: Constable and Company Ltd; Bombay, Calcutta, Madras: Oxford University Press; Toronto: The Macmillan Company of Canada, Limited, 1932.), p. 398:
“As for Macniels Poems* I perfectly agree with you & to complete the matter the man himself is as splenetic ... [MS. defective] and conceited as his trumpery is insipid.” (Letter to Miss Seward, 23 November 1807)
* The Poetical Works of Hector Macneill, Esq. A New Edition Corrected and Enlarged. Veritatis simplex oratio est. Edinburgh. Printed by James Ballantyne for Mundell & Co. &c. 1806. The first edition is London, 1801. The poems, some of which date as far back as 1779, are ballads, elegies, etc. in the sentimental and elegant style of Gray and Collins or their imitators, and Scotch poems of the kind Burns had set the example of. [footnote in this volume of Letters]
in The Letters of Sir Walter Scott, 1828-1831. Volume II. Edited by J.C. Grierson. (London: Constable & Co. Ltd., 1936.), p. 401, in Letters of Sir Walter Scott (ed.ac.uk) :
“I should not have been so long your debtor my dear Miss Baillie for your kind and valued letters had not the fake knave at whose magic touch the Iona pebbles were to assume a shape in some degree appropriate to the person to whom they are destined, delayd finishing his task. I hope you will set some value upon this little trumpery brooch because it is a harp and a Scotch harp and set with Iona stones.” (Letter to Joanna Baillie, 23 November 1810)
in The Letters of Sir Walter Scott, 1828-1831. Volume IV. Edited by J.C. Grierson. (London: Constable & Co. Ltd., 1936.), p. 512:
“DEAR JOHN,—With your fraternal aid of £400 James will be bang up till I return. As you are a collector of my fugitives I send you a trumpery thing to the tune of God preserve the Emperor Francis sung at the Provosts Gala with good approbation.” (Letter to John Ballantyne, 1816)
in The Letters of Sir Walter Scott, 1828-1831. Volume XI. Edited by J.C. Grierson. (London: Constable & Co. Ltd., 1936.), pp. 164, 293, 376, and 403 seriatim, immediately below:
“As to poor Terry, I see nothing to pray for but a speedy release. Tell Sophia that I give my willing consent to the use of my name in every way that can benefit this poor family. I thought something might be made descriptive of the trumpery here with vignettes &c which might be got up for Mrs. Terry’s advantage with your assistance. I could fin[i]sh the thing in a week.” (Letter to J. G. Lockhart, 3 April 1829), p. 164.
“I will send you my trumpery as soon as I can collect it. Percy Reed was a real person and actually slain by a Clan calld Crossar so I intrusted him to* the imaginary death of Keeldar.”
* He probably means “intrusted to him.” [footnote in Collected Letters.] (Letter to Abraham Cooper, 1 February 1830), p. 293.
“We were in bustle over ears [—] that is Anne and I [—] for though we were in furnished lodgings yet the house being Jane[‘]s mother[‘]s we had a world of trumpery to remove after living there in winter time for above three years.” (Letter to Maria Edgworth, 23 July 1830), p. 376.
“The fault of Robespierre was too active liberalism a noble error. Hav[e] you [noticed] how the most severe tyranny and the most bloodthirsty anarchy are glossed over by opening the account under a new name. The varnish might be easily scraped of[f] all this trumpery and I think my friends the braves Belges are like to lead to the conclusion that the old names of murder and fire raising [are still in fashion].* But what is worse the natural connection between the Higher & lower classes is broken the former reside abroad & become gradually but certainly strangers to their countries laws habits and character.”
* These four words are supplied from Lockhart. [footnote in this volume of Letters.] (Letter to Lady Louisa Stuart, 31 October 1830), p. 403.
by Robert Southey, (sense 2c) in The Book of Church. Seventh Edition. (London: John Murray, Albemarle Street, 1859.), Chapt. xii., p. 224:
“If religion was to be cleared from the gross and impious fables with which it was well-nigh smothered; if the Manichean errors and practices which had corrupted it were to be rooted out; if the scandalous abuses connected with the belief of Purgatory were to be suppressed; if the idolatrous worship of saints and images was to be forbidden; if Christianity, and not Monkery, was to be the religion of the land; ... then was a radical change in the constitution of the monasteries necessary: ... St Francis, St Dominic, and their fellows, must dislodge with all their trumpery, and the legendary give place to the Bible.”
by Benjamin Disraeli, M.P. (sense 1), in Tancred: Or, The New Crusade. In Three Volumes. Vol. I. (London: Henry Colburn, Publisher, Great Marlborough Street, 1847.), Chapt. iv., p. 142:
“In the blaze and thick of the affair, Irish Protestants jubilant, Irish Papists denouncing the whole movement as fraud and trumpery, John Bull perplexed, but excited, and still subscribing, a young bishop rose in his place in the House of Lords, and, with a vehemence there unusual, declared that he saw ‘the finger of God in this second Reformation,’ and, pursuing the prophetic vein and manner, denounced ‘woe to those who should presume to lift up their hands and voices in vain and impotent attempts to stem the flood of light that was bursting over Ireland.’”
by William Makepeace Thackeray, (sense 2a), in Vanity Fair. A Novel without a Hero. With Illustrations on Steel and Wood by the Author. (London: Bradbury and Evans, 11, Bouverie Street, 1848.), Chapt. liii, p. 479:
“Rebecca gave him all the keys but one: and she was in hopes that he would not have remarked the absence of that. It belonged to the little desk which Amelia had given her in early days, and which she kept in a secret place. But Rawdon flung open boxes and wardrobes, throwing the multifarious trumpery of their contents here and there, and at last he found the desk. The woman was forced to open it. It contained papers, love-letters many years old—all sorts of small trinkets and woman’s memoranda. And it contained a pocket-book with bank notes. Some of these were dated ten years back, too, and one was quite a fresh one—a note for a thousand pounds which Lord Steyne had given her.”
The above quotation is the text from Thackeray’s novel that appears in numerous editions available from the Internet Archive. We could not find the edition the OED claims is the source for the text of the usage example from Thackeray they provide: “Drawers and cupboards crammed with the dirty relics and congregated trumperies of a couple of generations of Lady Crawleys.” [the OED says this reference is to some edition of Vanity Fair, Chapt. xliv., p. 393.]
by Charlotte Brontë, (sense 2d), according to Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell, The Life of Charlotte Brontë. (New York and London: Harper & Brothers Publisher, 1900.), Chapt. 23, p. 528, in The life of Charlotte Brontë : Gaskell, Elizabeth Cleghorn, 1810-1865 : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive :
“I wrote to Mr. Stocks, requesting him to change it [a black mantle] for a white mantle of the same price; he was extremely courteous and sent to London for one, which I have got this morning. The price is less, being but 1 l. 14s.; it is pretty, neat, and light, looks well on black; and, upon reasoning the matter over, I came to the philosophic conclusion that it would be no shame for a person of my means to wear a cheaper thing; so I think I shall take it, and if you ever see it and call it ”trumpery” so much the worse.*
* From a letter to Ellen Nussey, dated April 23, 1851. [footnote in Gaskell’s biography]
by Matthew Arnold, (adj. sense), in Essays in Criticism. (London and Cambridge: Macmillan and Co., 1865.), vii., “Joubert,” p. 226:
“Nay, take these words of Chateaubriand, an old man of eighty, dying amidst the noise and bustle of the ignoble revolution of February, 1848 : “Mon Dieu, mon Dieu, quand donc, quand donc serai-je délivré de tout ce monde, ce bruit; quand donc, quand donc cela finira-t-il?” Who, with any ear, does not feel that those are not the accents of a trumpery rhetorician, but of a rich and puissant nature,—the cry of the dying lion? I repeat it, Chateaubriand is most ignorantly underrated in England; and we English are capable of rating him far more correctly if we knew him better.”
and by our very own Harriet Beecher Stowe, (sense 2f), in Uncle Tom’s Cabin; Or, Life Among the Lowly. Vol. I. (Boston: John P. Jewett & Company. Cleveland, Ohio: Jewett, Proctor & Worthington. 1852.), Chapt. xviii., p. 310:
“Well, in the Lord’s sight, an’t wool as good as har, any time?” said Dinah. “I’d like to have Missis say which is worth the most,—a couple such as you, or one like me. Get out wid ye, ye trumpery,—I won’t have ye round!”
This surely constitutes a user pedigree of which any word could justly boast. And so, the apparent disappearance of this word from the written record—and has anyone heard this word uttered anywhere recently—is not only unfortunate but especially odd, not only because of this catalogue of august users but because beginning in the same 19th century with the rapid growth and spread of industrialization came a dramatic increase in the manufacture and distribution of often hastily and carelessly made goods of various sorts made available in quantity for the masses. This proliferation of schlock, geegaws and imitation knock-offs of pretty much every description which is increasingly and ceaselessly available in especial abundance at, for example, souvenir stands, road-side vendors, dollar stores and baseball stadia on “fan appreciation days” in towns and larger metropolises pretty much anywhere on earth would seem to demand an omnibus term to make referring to these product lines as easy as corn flakes or cherry-cokes.
Today, of course, a widespread revival of this word is particularly apropos as we also have presented for our entertainment and consideration two hastily and shoddily manufactured imitation presidential candidates, one even with the almost identical name that more than echoes this new old word and so reminds us of what we would probably mean when using trumpery in our daily discourse, for which purpose I herewith hopefully (in its original adverbial sense) pass it on.
1a & 1b Anthony Trollope, He Knew He Was Right. With Illustrations by Marcus Stone. (London: Strahan & Co., Publishers, 56 Ludgate Hill, 1870.), pp. 90 (1a) and 443 (1b). See He knew he was right : Trollope, Anthony, 1815-1882 : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive
2a & 2b & 2c Frederic Thomas Elworthy, Member of the Council of the Philological Society, Dialectal and Archaic Words and Phrases Used in the West of Somerset and East Devon. (London: For the English Dialect Society, Trübner & Co., Ludgate Hill, 1886.), pp. 555 (2a), 674 (2b), 778 (2c). See The West Somerset word-book; a glossary of dialectal and archaic words and phrases used in the west of Somerset and East Devon : Elworthy, Frederick Thomas, 1830-1907 : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive