First recorded in 1645–55; originally the kind of speech often heard at Billingsgate, a London fish market at the gate of the same name
Billingsgate is rude, abusive language. If a political debate is becoming nasty and insulting, it's good to have a moderator who will demand an end to the billingsgate. The British term billingsgate is less familiar in the U.S. — but it's a great way to refer to a particularly coarse form of verbal abuse. It comes from London's Billingsgate Fish Market, a 17th-century open-air market where ill-mannered fishmongers hollered raucously, haggling over prices using rude and vulgar language. The word can be used for any kind of foul-mouthed vituperation: "No arguing about sports rivalries at my birthday party! It always turns into pure billingsgate!"
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
The best Baedeker of billingsgate and other U.S. lingua frank since Mencken.
From Time Magazine Archive
Nor is he shy about lapsing occasionally into the Yorkshire-accented billingsgate that he has perfected over the years in leading T.U.C.'s toughest negotiations�including British Ford's acceptance of unions at Dagenham during World War II.
From Time Magazine Archive
And there, some say, he also goes in for union-busting and Bowery billingsgate.
From Time Magazine Archive
The object of all this billingsgate is a devoutly religious�and highly litigious�Quaker who has never been known to fire a shot, lift his fist, or even raise his soft voice in anger.
From Time Magazine Archive
He has a Shakespearean mastery of the technicalities of every art and mystery, an appalling command of billingsgate and of the language of the cuisine, and would tire Falstaff and Prince Hal with base comparisons.
From Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 2 by Mabie, Hamilton Wright
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
