half-sir

Updated: May 12, 2025

"Murdher alive, ay, sure enough! Faith, I didn't think o' that!" "Well, go up now an' spake to Misther Eccles about the land; maybe somebody else 'ud slip in afore us, an' that wouldn't be pleasant. Here's your brave big coat, put it an; faix, it makes a man of you gives you a bodagh* look entirely; but that's little to what you'll be yet, wid a blessin' a Half-Sir, any way."

William Carleton - Phil Purcel, The Pig-Driver; The Geography Of An Irish Oath; The Lianhan Shee: Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of: William Carleton, Volume Three

* A person vulgar, but rich, without any pretensions but those of wealth to the character of a gentleman; a churl. Half-sir; the same as above. "And so sign's on him," a fourth would add, with comic gravity, "he wasn't bred to shabbiness, as you may know by his fine behavior and his big whiskers."

William Carleton - The Ned M'Keown Stories: Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of: William Carleton, Volume Three