codpiece an ostentatiously indelicate part of
the male dress, which was put to several uses,—to stick pins in, to carry the purse
in, etc., THE TWO GENTLEMEN OF
VERONA, ii. 7. 53, 56;
MEASURE FOR MEASURE, iii. 2. 107; MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING, iii. 3. 126; THE WINTER'S TALE, iv. 4. 602; KING LEAR, iii. 2. 27, 40 (on the last of which
passages, Marry, here's grace and a cod-piece; that's a wise
man and a fool, Douce observes, “Shakespeare has with
some humour applied the above name [codpiece] to the
Fool, who, for obvious reasons, was usually provided with this unseemly part of dress in a
more remarkable manner than other persons”);
“codpieces,”
LOVE'S LABOUR'S LOST, iii. 1.
174.
A General Glossary to Shakespeare's Works. Alexander Dyce. Boston. Dana Estes and Company. 1904.
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