coxcombry

plural coxcombries

1. countableusuallyA behaviour or manner that is characteristic of a coxcomb; a foppish behaviour.

   He was clean shaved; clean shaving is a favorite coxcombry of the deacon class.

   1865, Theodore Winthrop, chapter IX, in John Brent

2. uncountableusuallyBehaviour or airs characteristic of a coxcomb; foppishness.

   He paused, grimly regarding it, while a dash of pleased coxcombry seemed to mingle with the otherwise savage satisfaction expressed in his face.

   1855, Herman Melville, chapter XI, in Israel Potter

   3 more examples

   His manner was perhaps the more seductive, / Because he ne'er seem'd anxious to seduce; / Nothing affected, studied, or constructive / Of coxcombry or conquest: no abuse / Of his attractions marr'd the fair perspective, / To indicate a Cupidon broke loose, / And seem to say, "Resist us if you can" -- / Which makes a dandy while it spoils a man.

   1824 March 26, [Lord Byron], Don Juan. Cantos XV. and XVI., London: […] [C. H. Reynell] for John and H[enry] L[eigh] Hunt, […], →OCLC, canto XV, stanza XII

   There was a half-sigh floating through his pages for those days of intellectual coxcombry, when ideas come to us affecting the embraces of virgins, and swear to us they are ours alone, and no one else have they ever visited: and we believe them.

   1859, George Meredith, chapter 1, in The Ordeal of Richard Feverel. A History of Father and Son. […], volume (please specify |volume=I to III), London: Chapman and Hall, →OCLC

   A man emasculated by coxcombry may spend more time upon the arrangement of his clothes than any woman, but even then there is no fetichism in his idea of them--they are still only a covering he uses for a time.

   1871, Thomas Hardy, chapter 3, in Desperate Remedies, part 13