herbert

plural herberts

1. slangpunk subcultureA working-class youth, especially male.

   Because of my appearance, I was accosted by a couple of spotty herberts on the way […]

   2007, Bobby Smith, Margaret Oshindele-Smith, One Love Two Colours

   4 more examples

   It was the Ulster Annual Jamboree. For weeks past, hundreds of spotty-faced herberts, with yodelling voices and chin fuzz, had tied three million knots, started ten thousand twig fires, and completed six hundred leaf fires; perfect training for round about 3000BC but bloody useless in the twentieth century.

   1963, Spike Milligan, Puckoon

   […] everything was busy now with the usual mix of herberts, and because this was Brunel University there was a lot of students, the sort who wouldn't normally go see a punk band […]

   2000, John King, Human punk

   I was a proto-hippy in '66 - '67 and by about August '67 the bandwagon jumpers, the media and all manner of assorted herberts had turned up to spoil everything.

   2007, Paul Marko, The Roxy London WC2: A Punk History

   Into this haunted house stumble a couple of modern-day herberts, Alison and Mike (Charlotte Ritchie and Kiell Smith-Bynoe). They have inherited Button Hall after the last of the Button family died. When they arrive to take stock of the place, the unseen ghosts mill around the couple in the great hall - and some don't like what they see. "She's exposing her knees! And she's got a tattoo! exclaims the buttoned-up Edwardian Lady Button.

   2019 April 15, Stuart Jeffries, “Ghosts review - a silly sitcom that will make you die laughing”, in Guardian Online, archived from the original on 16 Apr 2019

2. slangA foolish or contemptible person, especially male.

   For quotations using this term, see Citations:herbert.

alternative Hebbard

1. A male given name from the Germanic languages, in modern use partly transferred back from the surname.

   To be clear what we're talking about, read Cronon's piece. He offers a great introduction to the concept, and its originator, Herbert Butterfield.

   2012 October 3, Rebekah Higgitt, “Why whiggish won't do”, in The Guardian, →ISSN

   1 more example

   Herbert, Sydney, Milton, Seymour. You know, all the time I was growing up I thought those were the most ordinary Jewish first names, until someone pointed out that they were British last names. I guess to my great-grandparents those names must have sounded so modern, so sophisticated, so - non-Eastern European. And now they're just Uncle Miltie, Uncle Sy, Uncle Herb. Do other people have Uncle Donne and Uncle Wordsworth?

   1989, David Leavitt, Equal Affections, →ISBN, page 215

2. A surname originating as a patronymic.

   And you, Sir Walter Herbert, stay with me.

   c. 1593 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedy of Richard the Third: […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act V, scene iii]

3. A small town in North Otago, New Zealand.
4. A rural locality in Litchfield Municipality, Northern Territory, Australia.
5. A former government town in South Australia.
6. A town in the Rural Municipality of Morse No. 165, Saskatchewan, Canada.
7. An unincorporated community in Boone County, Illinois, United States.