This glossary appeared in the program of the 1991 performance of The Grand Duke by The Gilbert & Sullivan Very Light Opera Company. Permission is hereby granted to use the material on this site for any purpose.

Act I :

• Pfennig Halbpfennig - Literally, penny half-penny. Tuppenny ha'penny is British slang for anything inferior and trivial.
• Comedian/Comédienne - terms used to refer to actors (not necessarily comic ones)
• Soubrette - an actress who plays the young and saucy roles.
• quite a dashing sposo - Italian for male spouse
• But it's bilious on the whole - upsetting to the liver
• hoyden - a spirited, tomboyish girl
• like turtle her first love confessing - turtle-dove
• what folly fell - what dreadful folly
• castle gibbet - gallows
• may not fight with falchions bright - sword, esp. a broad curved one
• orthography foregoes her spells - a pun about bending the rules of spelling
• ipso facto - Latin for "by the very act" (that is automatically)
• King's evidence - evidence provided by an accused person about his alleged partners in crime (like State's evidence)
• compromising bonhomie - French word for geniality
• as o're our penny roll we sing - a cheap type of bread
• rich mock turtle, thick and clear - namely a soup (also cheap)
• two-shilling gloves - even these are expensive by the Duke and Baroness's standards
• Waterbury watches - cheap watches make in Waterbury, Connecticut
• give this man his gruel - made him take his punishment
• this plebian man of shoddy - "plebian" means "of the masses" and "shoddy" is a kind of inferior woolen cloth
• when two doughty heroes thunder - valiant
• verbum sat. - more legal language from the Notary; this is an abbreviation for a Latin phrase meaning a word to the wise is sufficient (verbum sat sapienti)
• I'm not an ascetic - one who denies himself the creature comforts
• the jolly jinks - merry-making (as in "high jinks")
• as merry as a grig - A phrase that may mean "as merry as a cricket" (and just how merry is that?) or "grig" may be a corruption of "Greek," making this a reference to Troilus and Cressida where a character is called "a merry Greek indeed."

Act II :

• Eloia! and Opoponax! - Fake Greek-sounding exclamations. Opoponax from the Greek for "all-healing", was medicinal plant, and in Gilbert's day, trade name of a line of perfumes
• pay 'em ... in oboloi and drachmae - Greek coins
• with a dithyrambic lecture - in the style of a boisterous Greek hymn to Dionysus
• in the period Socratic, every dining room was Attic - that is, from Attica, a region in eastern Greece (where Athens is)
• periphrastic methods spurning - rejecting long-winded methods
• steady "cram" - the way students often prepare for an exam
• Mrs. Grundy - a character mentioned in an 18th century play, now used as a symbol of prudish British propriety
• dress in Coan silk - silk from the Greek isle of Cos
• hoity-toity vixenish viragoes - snooty, ill-tempered, overbearing women
• ingenue - the role of sweet, naive young thing
• hard as the millstone nether - the nether millstone is the lower of the two millstones used to grind flower (it's quite hard)
• lily-white laughing leman - paramour
• as sulky as a super - (actor lingo) short for &quit;supernumerary" an actor with a non-speaking part who, if not in something as jolly as G&S, might get surly
• "tol the riddle lol" - nonsense words
• technical bogie - a frightening apparition, although in this case only legally, not literally
• magnum of merry champagne - a double-sized bottle
• Pommery '74 - the 1874 vintage of the fine French champagne
• Come, bumpers, aye every so many - glasses filled to the brim
• a pretty job-lot of second-hand nobles - a group of diverse articles bought as a unit, often of inferior quality
• rook the pigeon and the gull - a bird pun about taking advantage of suckers
• Allons, encore, garçons, fillettes, vos louis d'or, etc. - Come now, again, boys and girls, your 20-frank gold coins, etc.
• the law forbids the banns - announcement of a proposed marriage