| Sumario: | The article discusses the use of the word "loach," in the book "The Merry Conceited Jests of George Peele." One of the jests variously refers to a particular victim of one of the confidence tricks attributed to Peele in the jestbook as "excellent asse," "little foole," "Hitchcocke," "bulfinch" and "this loach." Used as a pejorative meaning "simpleton," the last of these epithets deserves mention. Loach as a pejorative epithet may have been fashionable among Peele's circle of acquaintances. The Oxford English Dictionary records its use to mean "simpleton."
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