The term may probably be derived from her skill in shaping or cutting out the various garments of which Caxton gives so quaint an inventory.  Her vocation was the very same as that of the tailleuse of present times—­the Schneiderinn, she-cutter, of Germany.  Palsgrave likewise gives this use of the verb “to shape,” expressed in French by “tailler.”  He says, “He is a good tayloure, and shapeth a garment as well as any man.”  It is singular that Nares should have overlooked this obsolete term; and Mr. Halliwell, in his useful Glossarial Collections, seems misled by some similarity of sound, having noticed, perhaps, in Palsgrave, only the second occurrence of the word as before cited, “sheres for shepsters.”  He gives that author as authority for the explanation “shepster, a sheep-shearer” (Dict. of Archaic Words, in v.).  It has been shown, however, I believe, to have no more concern with a sheep than a ship.

The value of your periodical in eliciting the explanation of crabbed archaisms is highly to be commended.  Shall I anticipate Mr. Bolton Corney, or some other of your acute glossarial correspondents, if I offer another suggestion, in reply to “C.H.” (No. 21. p. 335.), regarding “gourders of raine?” I have never met with the word in this form; but Gouldman gives “a gord of water which cometh by rain, aquilegium.”  Guort, gorz, or gort, in Domesday, are interpreted by Kelham as “a wear”; and in old French, gort or gorz signifies “flot, gorgees, quantite” (Roquefort).  All these words, as well as the Low Latin gordus (Ducange), are doubtless to be deduced, with gurges, a gyrando.

ALBERT WAY.

Rococo (No. 20. p. 321.).—­The history of this word appears to be involved in uncertainty.  Some French authorities derive it from “rocaille,” rock-work, pebbles for a grotto, &c.; others from “Rocco,” an architect (whose existence, however, I cannot trace), the author, it is to be supposed, {357} of the antiquated, unfashionable, and false style which the word “Rococo” is employed to designate.  The use of the word is said to have first arisen in France towards the end of the reign of Louis XV. or the beginning of that of Louis XVI., and it is now employed in the above senses, not only in architecture, but in literature, fashion, and the arts generally.

J.M.

Oxford, March 18.

Rococo.—­This is one of those cant words, of no very definite, and of merely conventional, meaning, for any thing said or done in ignorance of the true propriety of the matter in question. “C’est du rococo,” it is mere stuff, or nonsense, or rather twaddle.  It was born on the stage, about ten years ago, at one of the minor theatres at Paris, though probably borrowed from a wine-shop, and most likely will have as brief an existence as our own late “flare-up,” and such ephemeral colloquialisms, or rather vulgarisms, that tickle the public fancy for a day, till pushed from their stool by another.