What Do You Buy from a Costermonger? Wondrous Words Wednesday

Regency novels always provide new words. Authors are usually good about making it clear what the meaning is from context so you don’t have to figure it out, as in this passage from An Unwilling Bride by Jo Beverley, about a Marquess galloping through London streets on a rainy night:

When a costermonger yelled, “Bloody nobs!” and pelted him with some of the less choice of his wares, he caught one of the apples and shied it back to accurately knock off the man’s felt hat.

Clearly, a costermonger sells apples. For the less obvious words, I found a great resource: Regency Lingo. They list this word as costard monger and define it as a seller of fruits, particularly apples.

If you write about Regency romances or any other topic related to Great Britain, please join me on Friday for my new weekly blog hop of posts for lovers of all things British. For the grand opening, since there hasn’t been much warning, I’m going to suggest that bloggers link up their favorite British-related post of all time from their blog. What is yours?

Wondrous Words Wednesday is hosted by Bermudaonion’s Weblog. Kathy says: “Wondrous Words Wednesday is a weekly meme where we share new (to us) words that we’ve encountered in our reading.”