Still, so early as the days of Gower, its corrupted _leman_ had become a sobriquet for one of loose, disorderly habits.[548] (2) _Nicknames from Peculiarities of Disposition—Objectionable._ The mention of such names as ‘Baud,’ ‘Parramore,’ ‘Leman’ or ‘Lemon,’ ‘Proud,’ ‘Proudman,’ and ‘Proudfoot,’ which we have charitably set in the list of complimentary nicknames, as having, perchance, risen at a time when the meaning of the words conveyed a totally different idea from that which they now convey, brings us to the category of those which can scarcely seek any shelter of such a kind. ‘Lorel,’ ‘Lurdan,’ and ‘Lordan,’ together with the once familiar ‘losel’ and ‘losard,’ denoted a waif, or stray, one who preyed upon society, exactly identical, in fact, with the Latin ‘perditus.’ Thus we find Herod, in the ‘Townley Mysteries,’ saying to his officers— Fie, losels and lyars, lurdans each one, Tratours and well worse, knaves, but knyghts none. ‘Cocke Lorelle,’ too, speaks of— Lollers, lordaynes, and fagot berers, Luskes, slovens, and kechen knaves. Cotgrave explains a ‘loricard’ to mean a _luske_, _lowt_, or _lorell_. This _luske_, from the old French _lasque_, or _lache_—slothful—though now wholly obsolete, did much duty formerly. The adjective _luskish_ and the substantive _luskishness_ are often found. In law _lache_ still survives as a term for culpable remissness. Our ‘Laches,’ ‘Lashes,’ ‘Laskies,’ and ‘Lusks,’ I am afraid, therefore, come of but an indifferent ancestry. Nor can anything better be said of our ‘Paillards’ or ‘Pallards.’ We still talk of a ‘pallet,’ the old ‘paillet,’ or straw bed, from ‘paille,’ chaff. A paillard was a cant term for a lie-a-bed. By ‘ribaldry’ we always mean that which is foul-mouthed in expression. This was ever its implication. A ‘ribaud,’ or ‘ribaut’ belonged to the very scum of society. He was a man who hung on to the skirts of the nobility by doing all their more infamous work for them. Chaucer, wishing to comprise in one sentence the highest and the lowest grades of society, speaks in his ‘Romance’ of ‘king, knighte, or ribaude.’ ‘William le Ribote,’ therefore, mentioned in the ‘Chapter House Records of Westminster,’ or ‘William Ribaud’ (W. 15), could not have borne the best of characters, I am afraid. Although not quite so degraded in the world’s esteem as some of these last, we may here include our ‘Gedlings,’ reminiscences of the old ‘Gadling’ or ‘Gedling,’ one who gadded about from door to door to talk the gossip and scandal—the modern tattler, in fact. Our former ‘Gerard le Gaburs’ and ‘Stephen le Gabbers’ were equally talkative, if not such ramblers. As overmuch talking and jesting always beget a suspicion of overstretching the truth, so was it here. Wicklyffe uses ‘gabbing’ in the sense of lying, and an old poem says:—