Skip to content
Vinony

Herbert

proper noun

  1. male given name
  2. family name
L476747 on Wikidata ↗

Wiktionary

Pronunciation: /ˈhɝbɚt/ / /ˈhɜːbət/

name

Etymology: From Old French Herbert, from Frankish *Hariberht.

  1. A male given name from the Germanic languages, in modern use partly transferred back from the surname.

    “Herbert, Sydney, Milton, Seymour. You know, all the time I was growing up I thought those were the most ordinary Jewish first names, until someone pointed out that they were British last names. I guess to my great-grandparents those names must have sounded so modern, so sophisticated, so - non-Eastern European. And now they're just Uncle Miltie, Uncle Sy, Uncle Herb. Do other people have Uncle Donne and Uncle Wordsworth?”

    “To be clear what we're talking about, read Cronon's piece. He offers a great introduction to the concept, and its originator, Herbert Butterfield.”

  2. A surname originating as a patronymic.

    “And you, Sir Walter Herbert, stay with me.”

  3. A small town in North Otago, New Zealand.
  4. A rural locality in Litchfield Municipality, Northern Territory, Australia.
  5. A former government town in South Australia.
  6. A town in the Rural Municipality of Morse No. 165, Saskatchewan, Canada.
  7. An unincorporated community in Boone County, Illinois, United States.

noun

Etymology: * (working-class youth): From the name Herbert. The term was popularised by the punk movement but predates it.

  1. A working-class youth, especially male.

    “It was the Ulster Annual Jamboree. For weeks past, hundreds of spotty-faced herberts, with yodelling voices and chin fuzz, had tied three million knots, started ten thousand twig fires, and completed six hundred leaf fires; perfect training for round about 3000BC but bloody useless in the twentieth century.”

    “[…] everything was busy now with the usual mix of herberts, and because this was Brunel University there was a lot of students, the sort who wouldn't normally go see a punk band […]”

  2. A foolish or contemptible person, especially male.

    “For quotations using this term, see Citations:herbert.”