Scarlet Pimpernel
Preserved but no longer current.
An elusive intriguer. The phrase comes from the nickname of the hero of several novels by Baroness Orczy. In 1905 The Scarlet Pimpernel told the adventures of a royalist partizan in the French Revolution, who took the pimpernel as his emblem when he saved victims from the guillotine, and played other tricks on the Sansculottes.
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.
Common questions
What does “Scarlet Pimpernel” mean?
An elusive intriguer. The phrase comes from the nickname of the hero of several novels by Baroness Orczy. In 1905 The Scarlet Pimpernel told the adventures of a royalist partizan in the French Revolution, who took the pimpernel as his emblem when he saved victims from the guillotine, and played other tricks on the Sansculottes.
Is “Scarlet Pimpernel” formal or informal?
No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.