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Malaprop, Mrs.: A vain, good-natured woman in Sheridan’s “Rivals”, remarkable for her misapplication of words.
Mrs. Mal.: There, sir, an attack upon my language! what do you think of that? — an aspersion upon my parts of speech! was ever such a brute! Sure if I reprehend anything in this world, it is the use of my oracular tongue, and a nice derangement of epitaphs. [From] Sheridan, Rivals, iii. 3.
[“Sheridan” here refers to Richard Brinsley Butler (1751-1816); his work cited is The Rivals (1775)]
Above excerpted definition and passage from The Century Cyclopedia Of Names, Benjamin E. Smith, Editor (The Times, London, and The Century Co., New York,1904), at page 645.
