Newfangled

Origin of: Newfangled

Newfangled

This expression dates from the 15th century in the sense of something newly in fashion or newly invented. Shakespeare used it in this sense in several of his works. Rosalind in As You Like it, Act IV, Scene I, says, “More clamorous than a parrot against the rain, more new-fangled than an ape, more giddy in my desires than a monkey.” In Sonnet 91, Shakespeare writes, “Some in their garments, though new-fangled, ill.” Fangled is an archaic word for made or fashioned and comes from the Anglo-Saxon fang meaning spoils or something taken or captured. The common English word fang, referring specifically to the teeth of animals, comes from the same source because fangs are the so-called canine teeth, which are the teeth that animals use to take or capture prey.