| obs. |
base fellow (Taras); mean person (Taras); hairy (hairy in the fetlocks, hairy round the heels, hairy-heeled; синонимы: a cad, a bounder, an outsider. //
The term came out of bloodstock breeding. It used to be said that it was a sign of poor breeding if a horse had too much hair about the fetlocks. It didn't take much to shift the saying, figuratively, to humans. Of course, it applied only to thoroughbred racehorses and to humans who aspired to belong to society's equivalent: working horses such as shires have very hairy feet, but then they're common as muck.
The expression was rather variable, also appearing as hairy in the fetlocks, hairy round the heels, hairy-heeled, even at times simply hairy, though it doesn't seem to be connected to any of the many other senses of that word. Dating-wise, its heyday was of the late nineteenth century to the middle of the twentieth. You can still find it on occasion, but it's now outmoded, a term solely of elderly upper-class men remembering their youth. krolikova) |
