billingsgate

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The Word of the Day for February 18 is:

billingsgate   \BIL-ingz-gayt\   noun
     : coarsely abusive language

Example sentence:
     A steady stream of billingsgate could be heard coming from 
the basement after my father hit his thumb with his hammer.

Did you know?
     From the time of the Roman occupation until the early 
1980s, Billingsgate was a fish market in London, England, 
notorious for the crude language that resounded through its 
stalls. In fact, the fish merchants of Billingsgate were so 
famous for their swearing that their feats of vulgar language 
were recorded in British chronicler Raphael Holinshed's 1577 
account of King Leir (which was probably Shakespeare's source 
for _King Lear_). In Holinshed's volume, a messenger's language 
is said to be "as bad a tongue ... as any oyster-wife at 
Billingsgate hath." By the middle of the 17th 
century, "billingsgate" had become a byword for foul language.