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from bruno:
My OED lists popinjay as
i) first refering to the parrot (probably from "jay")
(c 1320, from French),
ii) then to representation of a parrot in tapestry or
signage (1420) and later a target shaped like a parrot
used in archery practice (1548);
iii) approbatively for a person in fine clothes (1310)
iv) lastly pejoratively for a person showing "vanity
conceit...and mechanical repetition of another's words"
(1528).
The earliest citation for sense iv) is William Tindale
in Obedience of the Christian Man: "The priest ought to
christen them in the English tongue and not play the
popinjay with a Credo save ye."
I would guess the echo of "Pope" (i.e. priest parrots
the words of the popish church?) is intentional in
Tindale, but the word had been around for two
centuries...
William Tindale, first translator of the Bible into
English, (also an ancestor of [a certain person we know --tm]) was arrested in Antwerp as a heretic and burned
at the stake by the Holy Roman Imperial authorities in
1536.