Guys in Rags

This chapter resumes the narrative, with numerous examples of the development of the meaning of “guy” and “guys” from 1640 to 1908. “Guy” first extended from designating a person’s name to include also an effigy of that person, then sometimes to more than just one effigy or any effigy, not just the effigy of Guy Fawkes. And gradually, in the 18th century, “guy” began to designate any living man of low class who, to use the definition in the Oxford English Dictionary, was “habited in grotesquely ragged and ill-assorted garments.” That allowed “guy” to expand further, to a man with any garish outfit, not necessarily ragged or ill-assorted. Conversely, any man could be a guy by overdressing or otherwise calling attention to himself by his costume. By 1908, “guy” could refer to any lower-class man, as well as any man if he dressed funny.