¹guy

On November 4, 1605, a man named Guy Fawkes was arrested in London for having planted barrels of gunpowder under the houses of Parliament as part of a plot to blow up the buildings. The failure of this conspiracy is still celebrated in England on the evening of November 5, Guy Fawkes Day. One custom of this holiday was to burn rag and straw images of Guy Fawkes, known as guys, on bonfires. Later, the word guy was extended to similar images, and then to a person of grotesque appearance. In the United States, the word has come to mean simply “man,” “fellow,” or “person.”