Herbert
name, noun, slang ·Moderate ·High school level
Definitions
- 1 A working-class youth, especially male. slang
"It was the Ulster Annual Jamboree. For weeks past, hundreds of spotty-faced herberts, with yodelling voices and chin fuzz, had tied three million knots, started ten thousand twig fires, and completed six hundred leaf fires; perfect training for round about 3000BC but bloody useless in the twentieth century."
- 2 A foolish or contemptible person, especially male. slang
"For quotations using this term, see Citations:herbert."
- 1 A male given name from the Germanic languages, in modern use partly transferred back from the surname.
"Herbert, Sydney, Milton, Seymour. You know, all the time I was growing up I thought those were the most ordinary Jewish first names, until someone pointed out that they were British last names. I guess to my great-grandparents those names must have sounded so modern, so sophisticated, so - non-Eastern European. And now they're just Uncle Miltie, Uncle Sy, Uncle Herb. Do other people have Uncle Donne and Uncle Wordsworth?"
- 2 A surname originating as a patronymic.
"And you, Sir Walter Herbert, stay with me."
- 3 A small town in North Otago, New Zealand.
- 4 A rural locality in Litchfield Municipality, Northern Territory, Australia.
- 5 A former government town in South Australia.
Show 2 more definitions
- 6 A town in the Rural Municipality of Morse No. 165, Saskatchewan, Canada.
- 7 An unincorporated community in Boone County, Illinois, United States.
Example
More examples"Herbert Hoover won the election of 1928."
Etymology
From Old French Herbert, from Frankish *Hariberht.
* (working-class youth): From the name Herbert. The term was popularised by the punk movement but predates it.