A Dictionary of Epithets and Terms of Address
People who are considered to be repulsive have regularly been described as reptiles since at least the eighteenth century. Fielding refers in Tom Jones to a ‘reptile of a critic’, for instance.
‘Avoid my sight, thou reptile,’ is said by Dr Primrose to Mr Thornhill in Oliver Goldsmith’s The Vicar of Wakefield, and he means it as a serious insult.
The word occurs vocatively, either as a covert endearment, as in Absolute Beginners, by Colin MacInnes, or as a true insult. An example of the latter is in Getting it Right, by Elizabeth Jane Howard, where one man calls another ‘you fucking little reptile’. Reptilia, of course, are animals that move by creeping or crawling.
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