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After a fashion

Posted by R. Berg on July 05, 2001

In Reply to: After a fashion posted by S. Mikell on July 05, 2001

: I can't seem to find the origin of this one. Any ideas.

The relevant sense of "fashion" as a noun in the Oxford Engl. Dict. is sense 5, "Manner, mode, way." Earliest example with "after" is dated 1539: "[They] passed through the Cytie in good ordre after A warlike facion." Another example: "Subjects serious in themselves, but treated after my fashion, non-seriously" .

A subsection of sense 5 has the definition "In depreciatory sense, 'After,' 'in,' 'a' or 'some fashion': somehow or another, in a sort, tolerably, not too well." An example for this sense: "Providence . . . has made me a lady after a fashion" .

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