Humpty Dumpty

Humpty Dumpty
   One of the best-known nursery rhymes in English tradition, which has excited much misguided speculation and theory. What has been obscured by centuries of illustrated children's books is that the rhyme is simply a riddle, and the hearer has to guess the answer as 'egg', but nowadays we all know the answer before we say the rhyme. The first known text only dates from 1797, although the term 'Humpty Dumpty' (meaning an ale-and-brandy drink) is recorded about a century before. Numerous close analogues from continental Europe do not help to date the rhyme, as they are all from 19th-century sources.
   ■ Opie and Opie, 1997: 252-5.

A Dictionary of English folklore. . 2014.

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  • Humpty Dumpty — [hump′tē dump′tē] n. a short, squat character in an old nursery rhyme, a personification of an egg, who fell from a wall and broke into pieces …   English World dictionary

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  • humpty-dumpty — n. (pl. ies) 1 a short dumpy person. 2 a person or thing that once overthrown cannot be restored. Etymology: the nursery rhyme Humpty Dumpty, perh. ult. f. HUMPY(1), DUMPY …   Useful english dictionary

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