English · Idiom Historical

A Paul's man

Preserved but no longer current.

Both English Tiếng Việt

Meaning · English

A braggart; a captain out of service, with a long rapier; so called because the Walk down the centre of old St. Paul's, London, was at one time the haunt of stale knights.

Nghĩa · Tiếng Việt

người khoe khoang, kiêu ngạo

Machine-translated — suggest a fix

Era: ca. 1898 (Victorian)

Sources & notes

Reproduced from Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable (1898 edition, public domain; archive.org, retrieved 2026-07-31; OCR text, minor errors possible). Reflects the scholarship and attitudes of its era.

Topics: Historical slang (1800s)

Common questions

What does “A Paul's man” mean?

A braggart; a captain out of service, with a long rapier; so called because the Walk down the centre of old St. Paul's, London, was at one time the haunt of stale knights.

Is “A Paul's man” formal or informal?

No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.

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