ORIGIN OF THE WORD WORSTED.
Worsted, in the county of Norfolk, though formerly a town of considerable trade, and much celebrity, is now reduced to a village, and the manufactures, which obtained a name from the place, are removed to Norwich and its vicinity.
Shakspeare has not been very courteous towards the worsted gentry; had he lived in our times, they might have worsted him for a libel: he says in King Lear, "A base, proud, shallow, beggarly, three suited, hundred pound, filthy, worsted stocking knave."
P.T.W.
I asked a poor man, how he did? He said, he was like a washball, always in decay.—Swift.