Dictionary of Phrase and Fable—P

Pumpernickel

Brown George or rye-bread used by Westphalian peasants.

His Transparency of Pumpernickel.
So the Times satirised the minor German princes, “whose ninety men and ten drummers constituted their whole embattled host on the parade-ground before their palace; and whose revenue was supplied by a percentage on the tax levied on strangers at the Pumpernickel Kursaal.” (July 18, 1866.)

Thackeray was author of the phrase.

Source: Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, E. Cobham Brewer, 1894
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