masherdom

English

Etymology

masher +‎ -dom

Noun

masherdom (uncountable)

1. The world of mashers (fashionable men of the late Victorian era).
   • 1887, Harriet W. Daly, Digging, Squatting, and Pioneering Life in the Northern Territory of South Australia, page 357:

     Life is still primitive enough on the "backblocks" to dispense with anything approaching "masherdom." White linen suits and freshly-starched collars may be seen on the Palmerston esplanade, but at the diggings and on the cattle stations, the ordinary bushman toilette is the one most in vogue - a flannel shirt or blouse, broad leather belt, knee-breeches and boots, with a brigand-like sombrero of smaller dimensions than those affected by our latest celebrity, "Buffalo Bill," and his companion cow-boys at the Wild West Show.

   • 1895 December 18, “Amusements”, in The Macleay Argus, number 656, Kempsey, N.S.W., page [3]:

     Now persons who are not clasified among those whom we have alluded to, have their own ideas on social subjects, and realise that billiard and card playing, loafing around pubs., patronising a play (when opportunity offers) with one’s “best girl,” and in the splenditude of Sunday attire, with a high collar and all the etceteras of masherdom, imagining that it is only a case of “look and conquer,” do not sum up the whole happiness in life.