wally [E20th] The origin of wally as a mild insult is uncertain. There is an earlier use of wally [L19th] in the sense of a large pickled cucumber or gherkin, which may be connected, but the origin of this is also unknown, although the French used cornichon ‘gherkin’ as an insult. Then there are a few instances, between the 1920s and 1970s of wally being used for an unfashionable person, so the sense ‘daft person, idiot’ would have arisen from that.