little gentleman in black velvet
- little gentleman in black velvet
obsolete
a mole
King William III, who was hated by the Jacobites (and still is by many of the Irish), was riding a horse which stumbled on a molehill. He fell off, broke his collar bone, and died from complications which ensued. It was treasonable to impugn what Catholics and others saw as the usurping Hanoverian monarchs.
If you wished to venerate the mole, you were better to refer to him obliquely:
The little gentleman in black velvet who did such service in 1702. (W. Scott, 1816)
How not to say what you mean: A dictionary of euphemisms.
R. W. Holder.
2014.
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