A glossary of Tudor and Stuart words, especially from the dramatists

by Walter W. Skeat

P

paciens, ‘patience’, a name given in the north and north-west of England to the bistort; ‘The herbe [Tobacco] is . . . garnished with great long leaves like the paciens’, Harrison, Descr. of England, Chronology, 1573 (ed. Furnivall, p. lv). See NED. (s.v. Passions).

pack, to practise deceitful collusion, to plot. Titus And. iv. 2. 155; packed, confederate, Com. Errors, v. 1. 219; contrived, Fletcher, Span. Curate, iv. 5 (Bartolus).

packing, confederacy, conspiracy, collusion. Tam. Shrew, v. 1. 121; Massinger, Gt. Duke of Florence, iii. 1 (Giovanni).

pad, a toad, proverbial saying, a pad in the straw, a lurking danger; ‘In straw thear lurcketh soom pad’, Stanyhurst, tr. of Aeneid, i. 656; Gosson, School of Abuse, 63; Gammer Gurton’s Needle, v. 2 (Chat). In Yorks. ‘pad’ is used for a frog (EDD.); Icel. padda, a toad; Flem. padde, ‘crapauld’ (Plantin).

paddock, a toad. Hamlet, iii. 4. 190; a frog, ‘Padockes, grenouilles’, Palsgrave, 502. In gen. prov. use for a frog or toad (EDD.).

pad, a path, track. B. Jonson, Staple of News, ii. 1 (P. Can.); horse pad, a horse-path, Bunyan, Grace Abounding (NED.); high pad, the highway, Harman, Caveat, 84; also, a highwayman, ‘The High-Pad or Knight of the Road’, R. Head, Canting Acad. 88. Pad, a road-horse, a pad-nag, Shirley, Witty Fair One, i. 1. 5. Hence padder, a foot-pad, Massinger, New Way to pay, &c., ii. 1 (Marrall); padding, robbing on the highway, ‘Ride out a-padding’, Dryden, Princess of Cleves, Prol. 29. ‘Pad’ is in gen. prov. use for a path in various parts of the British Isles (EDD.). Low G. pad, path; padden, to go on foot (Koolman).

pad, a wicker pannier; ‘A haske is a wicker pad’, Glosse by E. K. to Spenser, Shep. Kal., Nov., 16. In prov. use in the eastern counties, see EDD. (s.v. Pad, sb.⁵), and NED. (Pad, sb.⁴).

pagador, pay-master. Spenser, State of Ireland (Wks., Globe ed., 657). Span. pagador, a paymaster (Stevens).

pagan, a cant term of reproach. A paramour, 2 Hen. IV, ii. 2. 168; a bastard, Fletcher, Captain, iv. 2 (Host).

paggle, to hang loosely down, like a bag. Greene, Friar Bacon, iii. 3 (1421); scene 10. 63 (W.); p. 171, l. 1 (D.).

paigle, a cowslip. B. Jonson, Pan’s Anniversary (Shepherd, l. 7); spelt paggles, pl., Tusser, Husbandry, § 43. 25. In gen. prov. use (EDD.).

painful, painstaking, laborious. L. L. L. ii. 23; Tam. Shrew, v. 2. 147; ‘Such servants are oftenest painfull and good’, Tusser, Husbandry, 170. Still in use in the north country (EDD.).

painted, adorned with bright colouring; ‘A peinted sheathe’, a handsome exterior, Udall, tr. of Apoth., Diogenes, § 190; pride, vainglory, id., Socrates, § 56; ‘Peinted termes’, grandiloquence, id., Antigonus, § 14.

painted cloth, cloth or canvas painted in oils and used for hangings in rooms. L. L. L. v. 2. 579; As You Like It, iii. 2. 290; 1 Hen. IV, iv. 2. 28. It often showed moral pictures. See NED.

pair of cards, a pack of cards; ‘A payre of cardes’, Ascham, Toxophilus, p. 49; Fletcher, Sea-voyage, i. 1 (Tibalt). See Nares.

pair of organs, an organ. Middleton, A Mad World, ii. 1 (Sir B.); ‘Unes orgues, a payre of organs, an instrument of musyke’, Palsgrave, 183. See NED. (s.v. Organ, 2 c).

pair-royal, in cribbage and other card games, three cards of the same denomination; a throw of three dice all turning up the same number of points, as three twos, &c. Hence, a set of three persons or things, Ford, Broken Heart, v. 3; ‘That great pair-royal of adamantine sisters’, Quarles, Emblems, v; Howell, Lex. Tetraglotton, Dedication; Butler, Ballad upon the Parliament (last line; pair-royal, riming with trial); ‘That paroyall of armies’, Fuller, Pisgah, iv. 2. 22. See Nares and NED. ‘Prial’ is in prov. use in various parts of England in the sense of (1) a ‘pair-royal’ in cards, (2) three of a sort, (3) a gathering of persons of a similar disposition (EDD.). See [parreal].

paise; see [peise].

pall, to become faint, to fail in strength. Hamlet, v. 2. 9; Phaer, Aeneid ix (NED.); to enfeeble, weaken; to daunt, appal, King James I, Kingis Quair, st. 18; Fletcher, Bloody Brother, ii. 1 (Latorch); Peele, Sir Clyomon (ed. Dyce, 532).

palliard, a lewd person, a thorough rascal. Dryden, Hind and Panther, ii. 563; Middleton, Roaring Girl, v. 1 (Song). Palliards, one of the twenty-four orders of Vagabonds; beggars who excited compassion by means of artificial sores, made by binding some corrosive to the flesh; see Harman, Caveat, p. 44, and Aydelotte, p. 27. F. paillard, ‘a knave, rascall’, &c. (Cotgr.); lit. one who lies on straw; F. paille, L. palea, straw.

palm, the flat expanded part of a deer’s horn, whence the points project. Chapman, tr. of Iliad, iv. 124.

palmplay, a game resembling tennis, but played with the hand instead of a bat. Surrey, Prisoned in Windsor, 13; in Tottel’s Misc., p. 13. Cp. F. jeu de paume (Dict. de l’Acad., s.v. Paume).

palped, that can be felt, palpable. Webster, Appius, iii. 1 (Icilius); Heywood, Brazen Age (Hercules), vol. iii, p. 206. L. palpare, to feel.

palt, to trudge; ‘Palting to school’, Nice Wanton, in Hazlitt’s Dodsley, ii. 165.

palter, to shift, shuffle, equivocate. Macbeth, v. 8. 20; Ant. and Cl. iii. 11. 63.

paltock, a short coat, sleeved doublet. Morte Arthur, leaf 89, 27; bk. v, c. 10; OF. paletocque; ‘Paltocke, a garment, halcret’ (Palsgrave). ME. paltok (P. Plowman, B. xviii. 25); paltoke (Prompt. EETS., see note, no. 1569). F. palletoc, ‘a long and thick pelt or cassock, a garment like a short cloak with sleeves’ (Cotgr.). See Dict. (s.v. Paletot).

Paltock’s inn, a mean or inhospitable place; Paltock is probably here a proper name, but the allusion is unknown. Gosson, School of Abuse, p. 52; Stanyhurst, tr. of Aeneid, iii, l. 65 (a rendering of the Lat. ‘pollutum hospitium’, l. 61).

pampestry, a corrupt form of palmistry. Mirror for Mag., Bladud, st. 25. ME. pawmestry (Lydgate, Assembly of Gods, 870).

pamphysic, concerning all nature. B. Jonson, Alchem. ii. 1 (Subtle). Gk. παμ- + φυσικός.

panada, panado, bread boiled to a pulp, and flavoured with currants, sugar, &c. Panada, Massinger, A New Way, i. 2 (Furnace); panado, Middleton, The Witch, ii. 1 (Gasparo). In Eastward Ho, ii (Quicksilver), the word is spelt poynado. Span. panada. See Stanford (s.v. Panade).

panarchic, all-ruling. A nonce-word. B. Jonson, Alchem. ii. 1 (Subtle). Gk. πάναρχος, all-ruling + -ic.

panax, all-heal; a healing plant, whence opopanax is made. Middleton, The Witch, iii. 3 (Firestone). L. panax; Gk. πάναξ, πανακής, all-healing.

pandora, a ‘bandore’, a musical instrument, a kind of lute. Rowley, All’s Lost, ii. 1. 4; pandore, Drayton, Pol. iv. 63. Gk. πανδοῦρα. See Stanford.

paned hose, breeches made of strips of different coloured cloth joined together; or of cloth cut into strips, between which ribs or stripes of another material or colour were inserted or drawn through. Beaumont and Fl., Woman-hater, i. 2 (Lazarillo); Wit at several Weapons, iv. 1 (Cunningham). From pane, a patch of cloth. OF. pan, L. pannus.

panel; see [pannel].

pannam, bread (Cant). Middleton, Roaring Girl, v. 1 (Song); Harman, Caveat, p. 83.

pannel, a panel; a piece of cloth placed under the saddle to protect the horse’s back; also, a rough saddle. Butler, Hud. i. 1. 447; ‘A straw-stufft pannel’, Hall, Sat. iv. 2. 26; panel, Tusser, Husbandry, § 17. 5. OF. panel, a piece of cloth for a saddle, F. ‘paneau (panneau), a pannel of a saddle’ (Cotgr.).

pannikell, the brain-pan, skull. Spenser, F. Q. iii. 5. 23. L. panniculus, the membranous structure of the brain, see NED. (s.v. Pannicle).

pantler, the officer of a household in charge of the pantry. 2 Hen. IV, ii. 4. 258; Brome, Jovial Crew, i. 1 (Springlove); ‘A pantler, panis custos, promus’, Gouldman. ME. pantelere, ‘panitarius’ (Prompt. EETS. 326, see note, no. 1571).

pantofle, a slipper, Massinger, Bashful Lover, v. 1; Unnat. Combat, iii. 2 (Page); Fletcher, Wildgoose Chase, ii. 2 (Servant); Spanish Curate, iv. 1 (Ascanio); ‘Baseæ . . . a kynde of slippers or pantofles’, Cooper, Thesaurus. F. pantoufle (1489 in Hatzfeld). The usual English stress on the first syllable facilitated the corruptions: pantapple (Baret), pantable (Sydney, Arcadia), pantocle (Ascham, Scholemaster, ed. Arber, 84), assimilated to words in -ple, -ble, -cle. See NED.

pap: phr. pap with a hatchet, infant’s food administered with a hatchet instead of a spoon; an ironical phrase for a form of reproof or chastisement; ‘They give us pap with a spoon before we can speak; and when wee speake for that wee love [like], pap with a hatchet’, Lyly, Mother Bombie, i. 3 (Livia); the name of a controversial tract attributed to Lyly.

parage, lineage; esp. noble lineage, high birth. Morte Arthur, leaf 110, back, 5; bk. vii, c.5; ‘Of high and noble parages’, Udall, Roister Doister, Act i, sc. 2; ed. Arber, p. 17. OF. parage, ‘parente, affinité; noblesse, naissance illustre’ (Didot); see Moisy. O. Prov. paratge, ‘naissance noble, noblesse’ (Levy); Med. L. paraticum, see Ducange (s.v. Paragium).

paramento, an article of apparel. Fletcher, Love’s Pilgrimage, i. 1 (Incubo). Span. paramento, ornament; Med. L. paramentum, ornament; parare, ‘ornare’ (Ducange). See [pare].

paranymph, friend of the bridegroom. Milton, Samson, 1020. F. paranymphe, ‘. . . an assistant in the . . . ordering of bridall businesses’ (Cotgr.). Gk. παράνυμφος, friend of the bridegroom (John iii. 29); Gk. παρά, beside; νύμφη, bride.

parator; see [paritor].

paravaunt, beforehand, first of all. Spenser, F. Q. iii. 2. 16; vi. 10. 15. F. par avant.

parboil, to boil thoroughly. B. Jonson, Every Man in Hum. iv. 1 (Downright). See Dict.

parbreak, parbrake, to vomit. Skelton, Duke of Albany, 322; Hall, Satires, i. 5. 9; Palsgrave. 478; Horman, Vulg. 39 (NED.); also, as sb., vomit, Spenser, F. Q. i. 1. 20. ME. parbrakynge, ‘vomitus’ (Prompt.); the usual form in Prompt. is brakyn, ‘vomo’ (see ed. EETS., Index, p. 749).

parcel, a portion, part, share; ‘A parcel of ground’, Bible, John iv. 5; Fitzherbert, Husbandry, § 68. 63; Merry Wives, i. 1. 237; item, particular, All’s Well, iv. 3. 104; small party, L. L. L. v. 2. 160.

parcel, partly; parcel-gilt, partly gilded, esp. of silver ware. 2 Hen. IV, ii. 1. 94. Parcel, used for parcel-gilt, Beaumont and Fl., Coxcomb, iv. 3 (Mother). So also parcel-bawd; Meas. for M. ii. 1. 63; Fletcher, Captain, i. 1 (Lodovico). Parcel-popish, Fuller, Worthies, Somerset. See NED. (s.v. Parcel, B. 1).

parclose, perclose, close, conclusion, esp. of literary matter. Warner, Alb. Eng. Epit. (ed. 1612, 377); Quarles, Sol. Recant. vii. 97. Norm. F. parclose, conclusion (Moisy); see also Didot.

parcloos, parclose, an enclosed space in a building, small chamber. Caxton, Hist. Troye, leaf 9, back, 25. Anglo-F. parclose, an enclosure (Gower); OF. parclouse, ‘clos, lieu cultivé et fermé de murs ou de haies’ (Didot).

pardalis, a panther. Dryden, Hind and Panther, iii. 667; pardale, Spenser, F. Q. i. 626. Gk. πάρδαλις, fem., a panther.

pare, to adorn. Caxton, Hist. Troye, leaf 245, back, 26; Knight of la Tour (EETS.), p. 67, l. 2. Hence parement, an ornament, id., leaf 236. 27. See [paramento].

paregal, fully equal. Skelton, Dethe of E. of Northumberland, 134; peregall, id., Speke Parrot, 430. Norm. F. paregal, ‘parfaitement égal’; see Moisy (s.v. Parigal). See [peregall].

parel, ‘apparel’, clothing, attire; ‘A shining parel . . . of Tirian purple’, Surrey, Aeneid iv, 337. Hence, parrelments, clothes, Heywood, Witches of Lancs., i (near end), Wks. iv. 186. ME. paraille, clothing (P. Plowman, B. xi. 228). Norm. F. apareiller, ‘parer, orner’ (Moisy).

parerga, unimportant matters, secondary business. B. Jonson, Magnetic Lady, i. 1 (Compass). Gk. πάρεργα, pl. of πάρεργον, by-work.

parget, ornamental work in plaster. Spenser, Visions of Bellay, ii. 9. Anglo-F. pargeter, projeter, jeter et répandre en avant (Ch. Rol. 2634); see Moisy (s.v. Parjeter). See Dict., and see [pergit].

parish-top, a large top kept for public exercise in a parish. Twelfth Nt. i. 3. 44. See [town-top].

paritor, parator, ‘apparitor’, a summoning officer of an ecclesiastical court. Fletcher, Span. Curato, v. 2 (Bartolus); parator, Heywood, 2 Edw. IV (1 Apparitor), vol. i, p. 161. L. apparitor, a public servant, such as a lictor (Cicero).

parket, a ‘parakeet’. Marston, The Fawn, ii. 1 (Nymphadore).

parlance, speaking, speech; parleying. Speed, Hist. Gt. Britain, ix. 12. 575 (NED.). Norm. F. parlance, ‘entretien’ (Moisy).

parlant, one who parleys, or takes part in a conference. Warner, Alb. England, bk. iii, ch. 19, st. 32.

parle, a parley, conference. Tam. Shrew i. 1. 117; Hamlet, i. 1. 62; to parley. L. L. L. v. 2. 122.

parlous, alarming, mischievous, ‘perilous’, shrewd. Mids. Night’s D. iii. 1. 14; Richard III, ii. 4. 35.

parmesant, cheese made in the duchy of Parma. Middleton, The Changeling, i. 2 (3 Madman); parmesent, Ford, ’Tis pity, i. 4 (Poggio). F. parmesan, Ital. parmegiano, belonging to Parma. See Stanford (s.v. Parmesan).

parnel, a wanton young woman. Phillips, Dict., 1678; Becon, Popish Mass (Works, iii. 41), see NED. ME. pernelle (P. Plowman, B. iv. 116); F. peronnelle, ‘une femme de peu’ (Dict. Acad., ed. 1762). ‘Parnel’ orig. a feminine Christian name, ME. Peronelle (Gower, C. A. i. 3396); OF. Peronelle, a Christian name from St. Petronilla. Hence the surname Parnell (Bardsley, 582).

paroli, at faro or basset, the leaving of the money staked and the money won as a new stake; a doubling of the stakes. Farquhar, Sir Harry Wildair, ii. 1 (Banter); id., ii. 2 (Wildair). Ital. paroli, ‘a grand part, set, or cast at dice’; parolare, ‘to play at a grand part at dice’ (Florio). See Stanford.

paronomasia, a pun, play upon words; ‘The jingle of a more poor paranomasia’, Dryden, Account of Annus Mirabilis. Gk. παρονομσία. See Stanford.

parreal, ‘pair-royal’; meaning three of a sort. ‘The we’s, which is a distinct parreal of wit bound by itself’, &c., Parson’s Wedding, ii. 3 (Wanton). The allusion is probably to the public-house sign, ‘We Three Loggerheads be’, a jocular painting of two silly-looking faces, the unsuspecting spectator being of course the third. See History of Signboards (1866), p. 458. See [pair-royal].

parrelments; see [parel].

parsee, the trail of blood left by a wounded animal; ‘A . . . dogge that hunts my heart By parsee each-wheare found’ (i.e. found everywhere by means of the blood-trail), Warner, Albion’s England, bk. vii, ch. 36, st. 90; ‘Ascanius and his company, drawing by parsie [by the trail] after the stagge’, id., prose addition to bk. ii, § 22. F. percé, lit. pierced; hence, a wounded animal. Finally, confused with pursue. See [persue].

parson, a prov. pronunciation of ‘person’. Middleton, No Wit like a Woman’s, iii. 1 (Sir G. Lamb.); Dekker, Honest Wh., Pt. I, iv. 1 (Servant).

part, a party, a body of adherents or partisans; ‘The part of Chalengers’, Spenser, F. Q. iv. 4. 25.

partage, a share. Fletcher, Fair Maid of the Inn, iii. 2 (Mariana). Anglo-F. partage, sharing (Gower, Mirour, 1654).

parted, gifted with good parts. Tr. and Cr. iii. 3. 96; Massinger, Gt. Duke of Florence, iv. 2 (Sanazzaro).

Partlet, a word used as the proper name of any hen; also applied to a woman. Winter’s Tale, ii. 3. 75; 1 Hen. IV, iii. 3. 60. ME. Pertelote, the name of the hen in Chaucer’s Nun’s Priest’s Tale (C. T. B. 4075, 4295, 4552).

partlette, a neckerchief or handkerchief. Tyndale, Acts xix. 12, partlettes = ‘semicinctia’ (Vulgate), σιμικίνθια, aprons; partelettes, Cranmer’s Bible, 1539; ‘Un collet ou gorgias de quoi les femmes couvrent leurs poictrines, a partlet’, Hollyband, 1580 (NED.).

pash, the head; usually in a depreciatory sense. Wint. Tale, i. 2. 128. In prov. use in Scotland (EDD.).

pash, to dash into pieces. Massinger, Virgin Martyr, ii. 2 (Harpax); Tr. and Cr. ii. 3. 213; v. 2. 10; to hurl, Greene, Orl. Fur. i. 2 (414) (Orlando). In prov. use in various parts of England (EDD.).

pashe: in phr. for the pashe of God, Roister Doister, iv. 3; for the pashe of our sweete Lord Jesus Christ, id., v. 5; for the passion of God, id., iv. 3.

pass, to go beyond, exceed, surpass. Merry Wives, i. 1. 310. Hence passing, surpassing; ‘Passing the love of women’, Bible, 2 Sam. i. 26; Spenser, F. Q. i. 10. 24; extremely, Mids. Night’s D. ii. 1. See EDD. (s.v. Pass, vb. 8).

pass, to care, reck; ‘I do not pass a pin’, Greene (Alphonsus), i. 1; to pass of, to care for, regard, ‘I pass not of his frivolous speeches’, id., Friar Bacon, i. 2. 271; to pass for, to care for, Marlowe, Edw. II, i. 4 (Edward).

passado, a motion forwards and thrust in fencing. L. L. L. i. 2. 184; Romeo, ii. 4. 26; iii. 1. 88. Cp. F. passade, Sp. pasada, It. passata.

passage, a game at dice; ‘Passage is a game at dice to be played at but by two, and it is performed with 3 dice. The caster throws continually till he hath thrown dubblets under ten, and then he is out or loseth, or dubblets above ten, and then he passeth, and wins’, Compleat Gamester, 1680, p. 119 (Nares); ‘Passe-dix, such a game as our Passage’, Cotgrave; ‘Learn to play at primero and passage’, B. Jonson, Ev. Man out of Hum. i. 1 (Carlo); Rowley, A Woman never vexed, ii. 1. 3. See [court-passage].

passant (in heraldry), walking and looking toward the dexter side, with three paws down, and the dexter forepaw raised; said of an animal. Merry Wives, i. 1. 20. F. passant, passing.

passata, the same as [passado]. Nabbes, Microcosmus, ii. 1 (Choler).

passe-measure, passameasure (Florio, 1598, s.v. Passamezzo), a slow dance of Italian origin, a variety of the ‘pavan’; a passy measures Pavyn, Twelfth Nt. v. 1. 205; passa-measures galliard, Middleton, More Dissemblers, v. 1 (Page). Ital. passamezzo, for passo e mezzo, i.e. a step and a half; see NED.

passement, gold or silver lace, braid of silk or other material. Puttenham, Eng. Poesie, iii. 1 (Arber, 150). F. passement; Span. passamano, ‘lace of gold, silver or silk for cloaths’ (Stevens).

passion, sorrow, grief. Middleton, No Wit like a Woman’s, i. 3 (Dutch Merchant); iii. 1 (Weatherwise); a pathetic speech, Massinger, The Old Law, i. 1 (Simonides).

passionate, sorrowful; compassionate, loving, pitiful. King John, ii. 1. 554; Richard III, i. 4. 121; Shirley, Changes, i. 2; Spenser, Colin Clout, 427.

pastance, pastime; ‘For my pastance, hunt, syng, and daunce’, Song by Henry VIII; The Four Elements, in Hazlitt’s Dodsley, i. 23 (l. 5). F. passe-temps; see Montaigne, Essais, III. xiii (ed. 1870, p. 584), on ‘cette phrase ordinaire de “Passe-temps” ’.

pastillo, a small roll of aromatic paste prepared to be burnt as a perfume. B. Jonson, Devil an Ass, iv. 1 (Wit.). L. pastillus, an aromatic lozenge (Horace).

pastler, a maker of pastry, confectioner. Udall, tr. of Apoph., Alexander, § 9; ‘Cooks or Pastelars’, Stow, Survey of London (ed. Thoms, 115). ME. pastelere, ‘pastillarius’ (Prompt. EETS. 329, see note, no. 1582). OF. pastellier (Godefroy).

patache, a tender, a vessel attending a squadron of ships; ‘Ships, pynaces, pataches’, Dekker, Wh. of Babylon; Works, ii. 256. Span. patache (Stevens). Probably a Dalmatian word, cp. Med. L. bastasia, ‘naviculae apud Dalmatas species’ (Ducange). See Stanford.

patch, a clown, a paltry fellow. Macbeth, v. 3. 15; Massinger, Virgin Martyr, ii. 1 (Hireius).

†pathaires, explosive outbursts (?). Arden of Fev. iii. 5. 51. Not found elsewhere.

patish, to agree upon, bargain for; ‘The money, which the pirates patished for his raunsome’, Udall, tr. of Apoph., Julius, § 1; ‘To pattish, patise, covenant, pacisci’, Levins, Manip. ‘Pattish’ is given as an obsolete Yorks. word in the sense of ‘to plot or contrive together’ (EDD.). Cp. OF. patis, ‘pacte, traité’ (Didot); patiser, to agree upon; deriv. of L. pactum, an agreement.

patoun, the meaning is uncertain. In B. Jonson, Ev. Man out of Hum. iv. 4, ‘the making of the patoun’ may refer to the moulding of the tobacco into some shape for the pipe; cp. F. pâton, lump or pellet of paste (Dict. de l’Acad., 1762).

patrico, a hedge-priest among the gipsies, who performed marriages. Fletcher, Beggar’s Bush, ii. 1. 4; B. Jonson, Barthol. Fair, ii (Waspe), near the end. See Aydelotte, p. 19.

patrone, a ‘pattern’, copy, sampler, exemplar; ‘Make all thynges accordynge to the patrone’ (κατὰ τὸν τύπον), Tyndale, Heb. viii. 5. The Gk. τύπος is so rendered in Cranmer’s Bible (1539), and in the Geneva Bible (1557); Coverdale, 2 Kings xvi. 10. F. patron, ‘modèle, exemple’ (Gloss. to Rabelais). O. Prov. patron, ‘modèle’ (Levy).

patten, a form of pattern. B. Jonson, Every Man in Hum. iii. 5 (or 2) (E. Knowell); ‘A Patten, prototypon’, Levins, Manip.

paunce, pawnce, the ‘pansy’, or heart’s-ease. Spenser, Shep. Kal., April, 142; Warner, Alb. England, bk. v, c. 28, st. 43; panse, Holland, Pliny, xxi. 10. 92. OF. panse, pense, thought, O. Prov. pensa, ‘pensée’ (Levy).

pauncie, the pansy. Tusser, Husbandry, § 43. 24; F. pensée, ‘a thought, also the flower Paunsie’ (Cotgr.).

pautener, pawtener, a wallet, scrip. Skelton, Ware the Hauke, 44; ‘Pautner, malette’, Palsgrave. ME. pawtenere, pawytnere, ‘cassidile’ (Prompt. EETS. 330, see note, no. 1592). F. pautonniere, ‘a shepherd’s scrip’ (Cotgr.).

pavan, a stately dance in which the dancers were elaborately dressed. Puttenham, Eng. Poesie, i. 23 (Arber, 61); pavin, Twelfth N. v. 1. 207; paven, Fletcher, Mad Lover, ii. 2 (near end); pavion, Sir T. Elyot, Governour, i. 19. 12. F. pavane, Ital. pavana, Span. pavana (pabana). See Stanford.

pavis, a convex shield large enough to cover the whole body, used esp. in sieges; ‘The shotte . . . they defended with Pavishes’, Hall, Chron. Hen. VIII, 42; ‘A pavis coveris thair left sydis’, Douglas, Aeneid vii, 13. 67; as used on board a ship, ranged along the sides as a defence against archery, Lydgate, Siege Harfleur (Arber’s Garner, viii. 16). Span. paves (Stevens); Ital. pavese, palvese (Florio); Med. L. pavenses, pl. (Ducange); perhaps from Pavia, see Hatzfeld (s.v. Pavois).

paw, improper, nasty, obscene; ‘Paw words’, Wycherley, Country Wife, v. 2 (Horner); ‘Marrying is a paw thing’, Congreve, Love for Love, v. 2 (Tattle). From paw, or pah! interj., expressive of disgust.

Pawn, ‘the Pawn’; a corridor, which formed a kind of bazaar, in Gresham’s Royal Exchange. Westward Ho, ii. 1 (Justiniano); ‘Little lawn then served the Pawn’, T. Campion (ed. Bullen, 114). See Nares. F. pan (de muraille), used in the Low Countries in the sense of ‘une gallerie ou cloistre, lieu ou on vend quelque marchandise, ou où on se pourmeine, ambulacrum’ (Kilian, 1599, s.v. Pandt). Cp. Du. pandt, ‘a Covert-walking place, or a gallerie where things are sould’ (Hexham).

pax, a tablet bearing a representation of a sacred object, kissed by the celebrating priest at mass, and passed round to be kissed by others. Hen. V, iii. 6. 42. Eccles. L. pax, ‘instrumentum quod inter Missarum solemnia populo osculandum praebetur’ (Ducange); also called osculatorium, see Dict. Ch. Antiq. (s.v. Kiss, 903).

payne mayne, white bread of the finest quality; ‘Payne mayne, payn de bouche’, Palsgrave. ME. payndemayn (Chaucer, C. T. B. 1915); payman, ‘placencia’ (Voc. 788. 32). Anglo-F. pain demeine, Med. L. panis dominicus, lord’s bread, bread eaten by the master of the house; cp. L. vinum dominicum, Petronius, Sat. § 30. See [demain].

payre, to impair, make worse, spoil. Fitzherbert, Husbandry, § 4. 26; § 97. 3. See [appair].

paytrelle, ‘poitrel’, breastplate for a horse. Morte Arthur, leaf 119, back, 2; bk. vii, c. 17. Anglo-F. peitral (Moisy). See Dict. (s.v. Poitrel).

peace, to keep silence; ‘Peace, foolish woman. Duchess. I will not peace’, Richard II, v. 2. 80; ‘He peaste and couched while that we passed by’, Sackville, Mirror Mag., Induction, lxxii.

peak, to make a mean figure, to play a contemptible part. Hamlet, ii. 2. 594; peaking, sneaking, mean-spirited, Merry Wives, iii. 5. 71.

peak, to droop, to be sickly, Macbeth, i. 3. 23; Tusser, Husbandry, § 67. 27. The word ‘peaking’ is used in the sense of sickly, wasted away, in many parts of England and Scotland, see EDD. (s.v. Peak, vb.² 1 (2)). See [pick].

peak-goose, a dolt, a simpleton. Ascham, Scholemaster (ed. Arber, 54); Prophetess, iv. 3 (1 Guard); spelt pea-goose, Beaumont and Fl., Little French Lawyer, ii. 3 (Dinant); Cotgrave (s.v. Benet); Chapman, Mons. d’Olive, iii. 1 (Rhoderique).

peakish, remote, solitary; ‘Did house him in a peakish grange Within a forest great’, Warner, Alb. England, bk. viii, ch. 42, st. 2; ‘Snow on Peakish Hull’ (hill), Drayton, Pastorals, Ecl. 4 (Ballad of Dowsabel, st. 5); ‘A pelting grange that peakishly did stand’, Golding, tr. of Ovid, Met. vi. 521 (L. obscura). See NED., where ‘Peakish’ is shown to refer (probably) to the ‘Peak’ in Derbyshire.

pearl, a disease of the eye. Middleton, Span. Gipsy, ii. 1 (Costanza). In Scottish use (EDD.). ME. perle of þe eye, ‘glaucoma’ (Prompt.).

pease, pese, a pea. Spenser, Shep. Kal., Oct., 69; ‘A pese above a perle’, Surrey, The Lover excuseth himself, in Tottel’s Misc., p. 25; ‘Not worth two peason’, Surrey, Frailty of Beauty, id., p. 10; Peason, peas, Tusser, Husbandry, § 53, st. 9. ME. pese, ‘pisa’ (Prompt.); OE. pisa, piosa, a pea (Sweet).

pease, peaze, to pacify, satisfy, ‘appease’. Ferrex and Porrex, iii. 1 (Gorboduc); iv. 1 (Videna); Surrey, tr. of Aeneid ii, l. 147. ME. pese, to appease (Chaucer, C. T. H. 98; so Lansdowne MS.; Ellesmere, apese). OF. apaisier (Didot).

peat, used as a term of endearment to a girl, with various shades of meaning; ‘A pretty peat’, Tam. Shrew, i. 1. 78; ‘Lettice and Parnell prety lovely peates’, Drayton, Man in Moon, ix; used as a term of obloquy, ‘Proud peat’, Fletcher, Wife for Month, i. 1 (Sorano); Massinger, Maid of Honour, ii. 2. See Nares. In prov. use in Scotland for a girl, gen. as a term of obloquy, ‘a proud peat’, see EDD. (s.v. Peat, sb.²).

peaze; see [peise].

peccadillo, a collar. Wooden peccadillo, wooden collar (i.e. the pillory); Butler, Hud. iii. 1. 1454. See [pickadil].

peck, meat (Cant). Middleton, Roaring Girl, v. 1 (Song); ‘Bene pecke, good meate’, Harman, Caveat, p. 86; ‘Let’s cly off our peck’, Brome, Jovial Crew, ii. 1 (Song).

peculiar, private, belonging to one person only; ‘The single and peculiar life’, Hamlet, iii. 3. 11.

ped, a wicker pannier; ‘Dorsers are Peds or Panniers’, Fuller, Worthies, Dorset, 1; Tusser, Husbandry, § 17. 5. In common prov. use in E. Anglia and E. Midlands, also in Somerset and Devon (EDD.). ME. pedde, ‘idem quod paner’ (Prompt.). See [pad] (3).

pedee; see [peedee].

pedescript, that which is written by the foot (not the hand); said humorously by one who had been kicked; with pede- substituted for manu-. Shirley, Honoria, iv. 1 (Dash).

pedlar’s French, unintelligible jargon. Middleton, Family of Love, v. 3 (Club).

pee, a coat of coarse cloth; also, of velvet; ‘A velvet pee’, Fletcher, Love’s Cure, ii. 1 (Lazarillo). Du. pije, ‘a pie-gowne, or a rough-gowne, as souldiers and sea-men weare’ (Hexham); whence pea-jacket.

peeble, pebble; ‘The chaste stream, that ’mong loose peebles fell’, Cowley, Davideis, i. 677 (NED.); peeble-stone, Golding, Metam. i. 575. The usual Scottish pronunc. (EDD.).

peedee, a foot-boy, serving-lad, drudge. Lady Alimony, ii. 1 (1 Boy); pedee, J. Jones, tr. of Ovid’s Ibis, 160, note (NED.); Phillips, Dict., 1706.

peek, peke, to peep. Skelton, Magnyfycence, 667; ‘I peke or prie’, Palsgrave. In common prov. use (EDD.).

peel-crow; see [pilcrow].

peeled, bald, shorn, with tonsured head. 1 Hen. VI, i. 3. 30.

peep, an eye or spot on a die. Middleton, Father Hubberd’s Tales, ed. Dyce, v. 581. Also, a pip on a card; Herrick, Oberon’s Palace, l. 49; ‘Pinta, among Gamesters a peep in a card’ (Stevens). ‘Peep’ is the usual word for ‘pip’ of a card, die, or domino in NE. Derbyshire and S. Yorkshire (H. Bradley). Cp. ‘peep’ in prov. use in the sense of a single blossom of flowers growing in a cluster, see EDD. (s.v. Pip, sb.² 1). See [pip].

peepin, pepin, a pippin. Dekker, O. Fortunatus, v. 2. See Dict. (s.v. Pippin).

peevish, self-willed, obstinate. Two Gent. iii. 1. 68; Merry Wives, i. 4. 14; Massinger, Virgin Martyr, iii. 3 (Harpax); ‘Pertinax hominum genus, a peevish generation of men’, Burton, Anat. Mel., Pt. iii, § 4. Hence peevishness, obstinacy, ‘An inbred peevishness and engraffed pertinacity’, Holland, Livy, 1152. See Trench, Select Glossary; also Trench, Synonyms of the New Testament, Pref. to 8th ed., p. xxi.

pegma, pegme, a kind of framework or stage used in theatrical displays or pageants, sometimes bearing an inscription; also, the inscription itself; ‘In the centre . . . of the pegme there was an aback or square, wherein this eulogy was written’, B. Jonson, Jas. I’s Coronation Entertainment (Wks., Routledge, p. 529, after inscription ‘His Vincas’; ‘We shall heare . . . who penned the Pegmas’, Chapman, Widow’s Tears, ii. 3 (Ianthe). L. pegma, Gk. πῆγμα, framework fixed together.

peise, paise, weight, heaviness; ‘A stone of such a paise’, Chapman, tr. Iliad, xii. 167; peaze, a heavy blow, Spenser, F. Q. iii. 2. 20; to weigh, ‘To weigh and peise the mountains’, Holland, Amm. Marcell. 28 (NED.); to estimate the weight of a thing, Dekker, Old Fortunatus, ii. 1 (Soldan); to poise, ‘The workeman . . . Did peise his bodie on his wings’, Golding, tr. Metam. viii. 188; ‘Ne was it (the island) paysd Amid the ocean waves’, Spenser, F. Q., ii. 10. 5; to weigh down, Richard III, v. 3. 100; Middleton, Family of Love, ii. 4 (Maria); to put a weight upon, so as to retard, ‘ ’Tis to peize the time’, Merch. Ven. iii. 2. 22. ME. peisen, to weigh: ‘I wolde that my synnes . . . weren peisid, in a balaunce’ (Wyclif, Job vi. 2); Anglo-F. peise, pres. s. of peser; to weigh, to ponder, think (Ch. Rol. 1279); L. pensare, to weigh, ponder.

pelamis, a young tunny-fish. Middleton, Game at Chess, v. 3. 11. L. pelamys; Gk. πηλαμύς.

peld, ‘peeled’, stripped; ‘Of all thing bare and peld’, Phaer, Aeneid i, 599 (L. egenos). See [peeled].

pelican, a retort with a fine end, like a bird’s beak. B. Jonson, Alchem. ii. 1 (Face); iii. 2 (Subtle); iv. 3 (Face).

pelowre, a plunderer, Morte Arthur, leaf 245, back, 31; bk. x, c. 48. ME. pelowre, thiefe, ‘appellator’ (Prompt. EETS. 331).

pelt, a light shield. Fisher, True Trojans, ii. 5 (Belinus). L. pelta, Gk. πέλτη, a leathern shield.

pelt, to strike a bargain; ‘I found the people nothing prest [not at all ready] to pelt’, Mirror for Mag., Severus, st. 16. Perhaps the same word as pelt, to strike. See NED.

pelting, petty, trashy, contemptible. Richard III, ii. 1. 60; Meas. for M. ii. 2. 112; Two Noble Kinsmen, ii. 2. 328.

peltish, irritable, ill-tempered; ‘Peltish wasps’, Herrick, Oberon’s Palace, 17. Cp. ‘pelt’, in prov. use for a fit of ill-temper, see EDD. (s.v. Pelt, sb.⁵ 8).

penner, a pen-case, case for holding pens. Two Noble Kinsmen, iii. 5. 139. A Scottish word for a tin cylinder used for holding pens, pencils, &c. (EDD.). ME. pennere, ‘calamarium’ (Prompt.).

penny-father, a miser, skinflint. Two Angry Women, ii. 1 (Philip); ‘Nigeshe penny fathers’, More’s Utopia (ed. Lumby, 102). Hence the surname Pennyfather; see Bardsley’s English Surnames, 482.

pensel, a pennon, little banner. Morte Arthur, leaf 244, back, 12; bk. x, c. 43; ‘Pensell, a lytell baner, banerolle’, Palsgrave. Anglo-F. pencel (Didot); OF. penoncel (La Curne). Med. L. penuncellus (Ducange).

pentagoron, a pentagram, a mysterious cabalistic figure supposed to have great magical power. Rowley, Birth of Merlin, v. 1. 49; pentageron, Greene, Friar Bacon, i. 2. 222. Properly pentagonon. Gk. πεντάγωνος, pentagonal, having five angles.

†pentweezle, a term of abuse. Massinger, The Old Law, iii. 2. (Lysander).

pepper: phr. to take pepper in the nose, to take offence, to be vexed. Middleton and Rowley, Spanish Gipsy, iv. 3. 10; Lyly, Euphues, pp. 118, 375. See Nares.

†peppernel, a bump or swelling. Beaumont and Fl., Knt. of the B. Pestle, ii. 2 (Wife). Not found elsewhere.

percase, perchance. Bacon, Colours of Good and Evil, § 3. See Nares.

perceiverance, mental perception. Middleton, The Widow, iii. 2 (Violetta). See Nares.

perche, to pierce. Ascham, Toxophilus, 137, 138. In prov. use in the north, esp. in Yorks., also in Lincoln, see EDD. (s.v. Pearch). ME. perchyn, ‘perforare’ (Prompt. EETS. 44, see note, no. 208); perche, ‘to Thirle’ (Cath. Angl.). Norm. F. percher, ‘percer’ (Moisy).

perchmentier, a maker or seller of parchment. Gascoigne, Steel Glas, 1095.

perdie, a form of oath = By God!; used often merely as an asseveration. Hen. V, ii. 1. 52; Hamlet, iii. 2. 305; King Lear, ii. 4. 86; Spenser, F. Q. ii. 6. 22. ME. pardee (Chaucer, C. T. A. 563, 3084). OF. pardee (F. par Dieu) Norm. F. Dé = Dieu (Moisy).

perditly, desperately. Heywood, Dialogue 3 (Mary); vol. vi, p. 118. Cp. L. perdite amare, to love desperately.

perdu, perdue, a soldier sent on a forlorn hope; one who is in a perilous position or in desperate case. King Lear, iv. 7. 35; Beaumont and Fl., Mad Lover, i. 1 (Cleanthe); Little French Lawyer, ii. 3. 3; Chapman, Widow’s Tears, ii. 1 (Lysander). F. perdu, lost.

peregall, fully equal. Spenser, Shep. Kal., Aug., 8; Skelton, Speke Parrot, 430; no peregal, without an equal; Marston, Antonio, Pt. I, iii. 2 (Catzo). See [paregal].

perge, go on, proceed. Wilkins, Miseries of inforst Marriage, ii (Ilford); L. L. L. iv. 2. 54. L. perge, imper.

pergit, a pargetting; ‘Painting’s pergit’, the plastering (of a woman’s face) with paint, Drayton, Pastorals, iv. 78. See [parget].

periapt, an amulet. 1 Hen. VI, v. 3. 2. F. ‘periapte, a medicine hanged about any part of the body’ (Cotgr.). Gk. περίαπτον, a thing fastened round one, an amulet (Plato).

periment, a ‘pediment’ (NED.). A workman’s term. L. operimentum, a covering (Vulgate, Ezek. xxviii. 13). See Dict. (s.v. Pediment).

perish, to destroy. 2 Hen. VI, iii. 2. 100; Bacon, Essay 27, § 5. Cp. the Yorks. use: ‘If thou goes out to-night it will perish thee’ (EDD.), and the Irish, ‘Ah, shut that door; there’s a breeze in throught it that would perish the Danes’, Joyce, 168.

perk, saucy, pert, brisk, smart. Spenser, Shep. Kal., Feb., 8. In gen. prov. use in the North and in the Midlands (EDD.). As vb., to perk it, to thrust oneself forward, to behave presumptuously; ‘Miriam began to perk it before Moses’, Bunyan, Case Consc. Resolved (ed. 1861, ii. 673); to be perked up, to be made smart, Hen. VIII, ii. 3. 21; to perk up, to stick up, ‘(Hattes) pearking up’, Stubbes, Anat. Abuses (ed. Furnivall, 50).

perpetuana, a very durable woollen stuff, sometimes called everlasting. B. Jonson, Cynthia’s Revels, iii. 2 (Hedon); Marston, What you Will, ii. 1. 8. From L, perpetuus, perpetual.

perron, peron, a large block of stone, used as a platform, or a funeral monument, or other purpose. Morte Arthur, leaf 207, back, 28; bk. x, c. 2. F. ‘Perron, an open lodge, passage, or walk of stone raised; some quantity of staires, directly before the foredoore of a great house; also, a square base of stone or metal, some five or six foot high, whereon in old time Knights errant placed some discourse, challenge, or proofe of an adventure,’ Cotgrave. Anglo-F. perrun, a block of stone (Ch. Rol. 12).

perry; see [pirrie].

persant, piercing. Spenser, F. Q. iii. 9. 20. F. perçant, pres. pt. of percer, to pierce.

perséver, to persevere, continue in. Hamlet, i. 2. 92; King Lear, iii. 5. 23.

perspective, an optical instrument for looking through or viewing objects with; a telescope; ‘The heavens . . . whereof perspectives begin to tell tales’, Sir T. Browne, Hydriotaphia; ‘Whose eyes shall easily . . . behold without a perspective the extreamest distances’, id., Rel. Med., Pt. 1, § 49; Webster, Duchess Malfi, iv. 2 (1 Madman); id. (Bosola), near end; a microscope, ‘A tiny mite which we can scarcely see Without a perspective’, Oldham, 8th Sat. of Boileau, 7 (ed. Bell, p. 203); a picture contrived to produce a fantastic effect; e.g. appearing confused or distorted except from one particular point of view, or presenting different aspects from different points. Rich. II, ii. 2. 18.

perspicil, a telescope, optic glass. B. Jonson, Staple of News, i. 1 (P. jun.); New Inn, ii. 2 (Frank); Beaumont and Fl., Faithful Friends, v. 2. 2. See Nares. L. (16th cent.) perspicilia, spectacles (Ducange).

perstand, to understand. Gascoigne, Works, i. 78; Peele, Sir Clyomon, ed. Dyce, p. 492, col. 1, p. 499. A blend of two words—perceive and understand.

perstringe, to censure. B. Jonson, Magn. Lady, end of ii. 1 (Damplay). L. perstringere.

persue, the trail of blood left by a wounded animal, the ‘parsee’. Spenser, F. Q. iii. 5. 28. Cp. ‘Now he has drawn pursuit [old ed. pursue, i.e. the trail] on me, He hunts me like the devil’; Fletcher, Bonduca, v. 2 (Petillius). See [parsee].

†persway, to assuage, alleviate. B. Jonson, Barth. Fair, ii. 1 (Overdo). Not found elsewhere.

pert, lively, brisk, sprightly; in good spirits; ‘Trip the pert Fairies’, Milton, Comus, 118; Mids. Night’s D. i. 1. 13. In gen. prov. use in England, see EDD. (s.v. Pert, also Peart).

pert, open, easily perceived. Spenser, Shep. Kal., Sept., 162. Short for apert, open. F. apert; L. apertus.

peruse, to inspect, examine. Com. Errors, i. 2. 15; Hen. VIII, ii. 3. 75; peruse over, to read over, King John, v. 2. 5.

pester’d, pestred, crowded together; ‘Pestred in gallies’, Gosson, School of Abuse, p. 32 (end); ‘Confin’d and pester’d in this pinfold here’, Milton, Comus, 7; North’s Plutarch (in Shak. Plutarch, ed. Skeat, 175). For impestered; ‘Empestré, impestered, intricated, intangled, incumbered’, Cotgrave. See Dict. (s.v. Pester).

pesterous, cumbersome, troublesome. Bacon, Henry VII (ed. Lumby, p. 196).

pestle, the leg and leg-bone of an animal, most freq. a pig in the phr. a pestle of pork; ‘Pestelles of porke’, Boke of Kervynge (Furnivall, 164). In prov. use in many parts of England (EDD.). The pestle of a lark, used fig. for a trifle, something very small, Hall, Satires, iv. 4. 29; ‘Rutlandshire is but the Pestel of a Lark’, Fuller, Worthies, Rutland, ii. 346. A pestle of a portigue, used jocosely in speaking of a gold coin (a portigue), as eatable meat, to starving sailors, Fletcher, Sea Voyage, i. 3 (Tibalt).

petar, a petard, bomb, a case filled with explosive materials. Hamlet, iii. 4. 207; Beaumont and Fl., Double Marriage, iii. 2 (Gunner); petarre, Shirley, Gamester, iv. 1 (Young B.).

peterman, a fisherman. Eastward Ho, ii. 1 (or 3) (Quicksilver). In reference to St. Peter.

Peter-see-me, a kind of Spanish wine. Middleton, Span. Gipsy, iii. 1 (near end); Brathwait, Law of Drinking, 80; Philecothonista (1635), 48 (Nares). Sometimes only Peeter, Beaumont and Fl., Chances, v. 3 (Song). Pedro Ximenes was the name of a celebrated Spanish grape, so called after its introducer, see NED. Cp. the spelling Peter-sameene in Dekker, Honest Wh., Pt. II, iv. 3 (1st Vintner).

pettegrye, ‘pedigree’. Stanyhurst, tr. of Aeneid, i. 386. See Dict.

petternel, a ‘petronel’, horse-pistol. Return from Parnassus, i. 2 (Judicio). Hence, petronellier, a soldier armed with a petrenel; Gascoigne, Weeds, ed. Hazlitt, i. 408. See Dict. (s.v. Petronel).

petun, tobacco. Taylor’s Works, 1630 (Nares). F. petun, a native South American name of tobacco (a Guarani word); see NED.; ‘Petum femelle, English Tobacco; Petum masle, French Tobacco’ (Cotgr.). See Stanford.

pewl, to cry as a babe; ‘Here pewled the babes’, Sackville, Induction, st. 74. See Dict. (s.v. Pule).

pex, for pax. Warner, Alb. England, bk. vi, ch. 31, st 16. See [pax].

pheare, a common spelling of [fere], q.v. Two Noble Kinsmen, v. 2. 122; pheer, Marmion, The Antiquary, i. 1 (Gasparo).

pheeze; see [feeze].

phenicopter, a flamingo. Nabbes, Microcosmus, iii. 1 (Sensuality). Gk. φοινικ- (from φοῖνιξ), crimson, and πτερόν, feather. Spelt phœnicopterus, Sir T. Browne, Vulgar Errors, bk. iii, c. 12 (near the end).

philander, a lover, one given to making love to a lady, a male flirt. Congreve, Way of the World, v. 1 (Lady Wishfort); Tatler, no. 13, § 1. This word for a lover became fashionable through the popularity of a Ballad of 1682 about ‘the Fair Phillis’ and her ‘Philander’; see NED. The Greek word ‘Philander’ was misunderstood as meaning a loving man, but φίλανδρος was used originally of a woman, one loving her husband.

Philip, a familiar name for a sparrow. King John, i. 231; Middleton, The Widow, iii. 2 (Violetta). See Nares. Still in use in Cheshire and Northants (EDD.). See [Phip].

Philip and Cheiny, an expression for two or more men of the common people taken at random; Udall, Erasmus, Apoph., Pompey, 1. Also, Philip, Hob and Cheanie, Tusser, Husbandry, 8. Also, name for a kind of worsted or woollen stuff of common quality; ‘Thirteene pound . . . T’will put a Lady scarce in Philip and Cheyney’, Fletcher, Wit at several Weapons, ii. 1 (Lady Ruinous). See NED. (s.v. Philip, 4) and Davies, Eng. Glossary.

philomath, a lover of learning, esp. a mathematician. Congreve, Love for Love, ii. 1 (Sir Sampson). Gk. φιλομαθής.

Phip, a familiar name for a sparrow, a contraction for [Philip], q.v.; Sir Philip Sidney, Astrophel, Sonnet 83; Lyly, Mother Bombie, iii. 4 (Song).

Phitonesse, the witch of Endor; ‘Heavenly breath, of Phitonessa’s power, That raised the dead corpse of her friend to life’, Middleton, Family of Love, iii. 7. 5; ‘I call In the name of Kyng Saul . . . He bad the Phitonesse To wytchcraft her to dresse’, Skelton, Phylyp Sparowe, 1359. ME. Phitonesse, the witch of Endor (Gower, C. A. iv. 1937); Phitones, Barbour’s Bruce, iv. 753 (see Notes, p. 563); phitonesses, witches (Chaucer, Hous F. iii. 1261). Med. L. phitonissa for pythonissa, a woman inspired by Python (Ducange). Cp. Vulgate, in the story of the witch of Endor, 1 Sam. xxviii. 7 (‘mulierem habentem pythonem’). Gk. πνεῦμα πύθωνα, a spirit of Python, Acts xvi. 16. See note, no. 729 in Prompt. EETS., p. 600, and [fitten].

phonascus, a singing-master; ‘Why have you not, like Nero, a phonascus?’, Lee, Theodosius, iv. 2 (Marcian). Misprinted phenascus in The Modern British Drama, i. 329. L. phonascus (Suetonius); Gk. φωνασκός, one who exercises the voice; from φωνή, voice.

phrenitis, a kind of frenzy or madness. Ford, Lover’s Melancholy, iii. 3 (Corax). Gk. φρενῖτις, delirium.

phrontisterion, a place for thinking or studying, an academy or college. Tomkis, Albumazar, i. 3. 10; phrontisterium; Randolph, Muses’ Looking-glass, iii. 1 (Banausus). Gk. φροντιστήριον, a place for meditation, a thinking-shop (Aristophanes).

physnomy, fisnomy, face, ‘physiognomy’. Shirley, Gamester, iii. 3 (Hazard); fisnomy, All’s Well, iv. 5. 42.

picardil; see [pickadil].

picaro, a rogue, knave. Shirley, The Brothers, v. 3 (Pedro); Pickaro, Middleton, Span. Gipsy, ii. 1 (Alvarez). Span. picaro, ‘a rogue, a scoundrel, a base fellow’ (Stevens).

picaroon, pickaroon, a rogue. Wycherley, Plain Dealer, ii (Manly); ‘Are you there indeed, my little Picaroon?’, Otway, Atheist, ii. 1; a pirate, ‘A French Piccaroune’, Capt. Smith, Virginia, v. 184 (NED.); a small pirate ship, Farquhar, Recruiting Officer, v. 5 (Brazen).

pick, to waste away, to droop. Middleton, Chaste Maid, i. 1. In prov. use in Lincoln, S. Midlands, and south-west counties, see EDD. (s.v. Peak, vb.²). See [peak] (2).

pick, to throw, Coriolanus, i. 1. 204; ‘I pycke with an arrow, Je darde’, Palsgrave.

pick: in phr. to pick mood, to pick a quarrel; ‘Whoso therat pyketh mood’, Skelton, Against the Scottes, Epilogue, 21.

pick: picked, refined, exquisite, fastidious, King John, i. 1. 193; picking, dainty, fastidious, 2 Hen. IV, iv. 1. 198.

pick, the spike in the middle of a buckler, Porter, Two Angry Women, in Hazlitt’s Dodsley, vii. 318. Also, a toothpick, Fletcher, Mons. Thomas, i. 2 (Sebastian).

pickadil, pickadel, the expansive collar fashionable in the early part of the 17th cent. Blount, Glossogr., 1656; Beaumont and Fl., Pilgrim, ii. 2 (1 Outlaw). Spelt picardill, B. Jonson, Devil an Ass, ii. 1 (Pug); Underwood (NED.). See [peccadillo].

pickaroon; see [picaroon].

picke-devant, pickadevant, a short beard trimmed to a point. Heywood, The Royal King, vol. vi, p. 70. Also, a man with a picke-devant, Heywood, Challenge, v. 1; vol. v, p. 68. F. pique-devant, an expression only found in English. See Nares (s.v. Pike-devant).

pickeer, to pillage, plunder; to practise piracy, Fuller, Worthies, Hants (1662, ii. 10); to skirmish, reconnoitre, spelt pickear, Lovelace, Lucasta (Poems, 1864, ii. 203); to wrangle, spelt pickere, Butler, Hud. iii. 2. 448. See NED.

pickle, to deal with in a minute way, lit. to pick in a small way. Ascham, Scholemaster (Arber, 158). Hence pickling, trifling, paltry, Gascoigne, Supposes, i. 2 (Pasiphilo). [R. L. Stevenson uses the word ‘to pickle’ in the sense of ‘to trifle’; see Letters (Sept. 6, 1888).]

pick-packe, pick-a-back; ‘He gets him up on pick-packe’, B. Jonson, Barth. Fair, ii. 6 (Stage-direction); Greene, Friar Bacon, i. 2 (260); scene 2. 89 (W.); p. 156, col. 1 (D.). ‘Pick-pack’ (or ‘a pick-pack’) is still in use in Yorks., see EDD. (s.v. Pick-a-back). The German word for ‘pick-pack’ is Huckepack. For numerous forms of this word see NED.

pickthank, a flatterer, a mischief-maker. 1 Hen. IV, iii. 2. 25; Beaumont and Fl., Maid’s Tragedy, iii. 1 (Evadne); pickthank tales, tales told to curry favour, Dekker, Shoemakers’ Holiday, i. 1 (Lacy). In prov. use in the British Isles (EDD.).

pick-tooth, a toothpick. B. Jonson, Ev. Man out of Humour, iv. 1 (Fallace). In use in Glouc. (EDD.).

piddle, to work or act in a trifling, paltry way. Ascham, Toxoph. (ed. Arber, 117); Fletcher, Wit without M. i. 2; to trifle or toy with one’s food, J. Dyke, Sel. Serm. (1640, p. 292); Pope, Horace’s Satires, ii. 2. 137. In common use in this sense in various parts of England, see EDD. (s.v. Piddle, vb.¹ 1).

pie, pye, a magpie. 3 Hen. VI, v. 6. 48. In common prov. use (EDD.).

piece, a piece of money of the value of 22 shillings. Pepys, Diary, March 14, 1660 (N. S.). A piece of eight, the Spanish dollar of the value of 8 reals, or about 4s. 6d., B. Jonson, Every Man in Hum. ii. 1. 6 (see Wheatley’s note); Alchemist, ii. 3 (Face).

piece, a painting, a picture, Bacon, Henry VII (ed. Lumby, 4); Pepys, Diary, Feb. 27, 1663 (N. S.).

pied, variegated, parti-coloured. Spelt pyed, B. Jonson, Every Man in Hum. i. 5 (Matthew); spelt pide, Milton, L’Allegro, 75 (ed. 1632).

pieton, a foot-soldier; hence, a pawn at chess; ‘Pietons, or fotemen’, Caxton, Hist. Troye, leaf 87, back, 6; ‘They [the pawns] be all named pietons’, id., Game of Chesse, bk. iii, c. 1 (beginning). F. ‘pieton, a footman, also, a Pawn at Chess’ (Cotgr.).

pig, sixpence (Cant); ‘Fill till’t be sixpence, And there’s my pig’, Fletcher, Beggar’s Bush, iii. 1 (1 Boor).

pigeaneau, a dupe, a gull. Farquhar, Sir Harry Wildair, iv. 1 (Marquis). F. pigeonneau, a young pigeon, a dupe; dimin. of pigeon.

pigeon-holes, the name of a game; the same as [troll-my-dames], q. v.; ‘Dice, cards, pigeon-holes’, Rowley, A Woman never vext, i. 1 (Old Foster); in Hazlitt’s Dodsley, xii. 101; ii. 1. 3; in Hazlitt, xii. 120.

pigeon-livered, applied to one incapable of anger; ‘I am pigeon-livered and lack gall’, Hamlet, ii. 2. 605. A pigeon was supposed to have no gall, and so to lack capacity for anger or resentment. ‘Sure he’s a pigeon, for he has no gall’, Dekker, Honest Wh., Pt. I, i. 5 (Castruchio).

pight, pt. t. pitched; ‘Under Pomfret his proud Tents he pight’, Drayton, Agincourt, 97; ypight, pp., ‘Underneath a craggy cliff ypight’, Spenser, F. Q. i. 9. 33; pight, Tr. and Cr. v. 10. 24. ME. pighte, pt. t. of picchen; y)pight, pp., see Dict. M. and S. (s.v. Picchen).

pigsnye, a darling, a pet, commonly used as an endearing form of address to a girl. Dryden, Tempest, iv. 3; Farquhar, Love and Bottle, i. 1. Spelt pigges-nye, Lyly, Euphues, 114. In Butler, Hud. (ii. 1. 560), Pigsneye occurs in the sense of a ‘dear little eye’.

pike: in phr. sold at a pike, Kyd, Cornelia, v. 444 (not far from end). Here Kyd translates from F. vendre sous une pique, which refers to the L. phrase venalis sub hasta, ‘that can be sold by auction’. It looks as if Kyd did not understand the allusion.

pike: in phr. on the pike, ‘a-peak’; used of an anchor, when the cable has been hove in so as to bring the ship just over it. Greene, Looking Glasse, iii. 1. F. à pic, ‘perpendiculairement’ (Dict. de l’Acad., 1762).

pilch, to pilfer, to filch. Tusser, Husbandry, § 15. 39; ‘Pilche, miche, suffurari’, Levins, Manip. In prov. use in Worc. and Glouc. (EDD.).

pilcher, a term of abuse, prob. meaning one who ‘pilches’; it is sometimes punningly connected with the word pilchard (see below). B. Jonson, Poetaster, iii. 4; Fletcher, Wit without Money, iii. 4.

pilcher, a pilchard. Beaumont and Fl., Wit without Money, iii. 4. 1; Beggar’s Bush, iv. 1 (Clause).

pilcher, a scabbard. Romeo, iii. 1. 84. Not found elsewhere.

pilcrow, a name for the paragraph-mark, printed as ¶. Tusser, Husbandry, p. 2; spelt peel-crow, Beaumont and Fl., Nice Valour, v. 1 (Lapet); ‘Pilcrow, paragraphus’, Coles, Lat. Dict.; ‘Paragraphe, Pillcrow’, Cotgrave. Cp. ME. pylcraft in a boke, ‘Asteriscus, Paragraphus’ (Prompt.); pargrafte, paragraphus (Ortus Voc.). See Notes on Eng. Etym., s.v.

pile, the metal head of an arrow. Drayton, Pol. xxvii. 337; head of a dart, Chapman, tr. of Iliad, iv. 139; a Roman javelin, Dryden, Hind and Panther, bk. ii, 161. L. pilum, the heavy javelin of the Roman foot-soldier.

pile, a small castle; ‘A little pretie pile or castle’, Udall, tr. of Apoph., Antigonus, § 27; ‘Certayne pylys and other strengthis’, Fabyan, Chron., Pt. VII, fol. cxxxvii; repr. (1811), p. 512, l. 16. ME. pile, a stronghold (P. Plowman, C. xxii. 366). See NED. (s.v. Pile, sb.²).

pill, to plunder, spoil, to commit depredation. Richard II, ii. 1. 246; Richard III, i. 3. 159; to pill and poll, Mirror for Mag. 467 (Nares).

pilling, plunder, spoliation. Gascoigne, Steel Glas, 445. Pilling and polling, J. Harrington, Prerog. Pop. Govt., ii. 2 (ed. 1700, p. 332). See [poll].

pill, to strip. Merch. Ven. i. 3. 85; Lucrece, 1167. In common prov. use in the sense of peeling, stripping off the outer skin, the rind or bark, see EDD. (s.v. Pill, vb.¹ 1).

pillowbeer, a pillow-case. Locrine, iv. 4. 6; Middleton, Women beware Women, iv. 2 (Sordido). ME. pilwe-beer (Chaucer, C. T. A. 694); bere, a pillow-case (Boke Duchesse, 254).

pimp-whiskin, a pimp. Ford, Fancies Chaste and Noble, i. 2 (Spadone). See [whiskin].

pin, a small knot in wood. Ascham, Toxophilus, p. 121.

pin, a peg fixed in the very centre of a target. Hence, to cleave the pin, to hit and split this peg, to make the best possible hit. L. L. L. iv. 1. 138; Romeo, ii. 4. 15.

pinax, a tablet, picture. Sir T. Browne, Letter to a Friend, § 32. Gk. πίναξ, board.

pin-bouk, some kind of bucket for liquids. Drayton, Moses, bk. iii, 165. OE. būc, pail. See Dict. (s.v. Bucket).

pindy-pandy, a formula used as equivalent to handy-dandy, in the game of choosing which hand a thing is hidden in. Dekker, Shoemakers’ Holiday, iv. 5 (Firk).

piner, pyner, a pioneer; ‘My piners eke were prest with showle and spade’, Mirror for Mag., Aurel. Anton. Caracalla, st. 40; ‘He pyners set to trenche’, id., Burdet, st. 70. See Dict. (s.v. Pioneer). See [pion].

ping, to urge, push. Mirror for Mag., Fulgentius, st. 9. Still in use in the west country, see EDD. (s.v. Ping, vb.² 1). OE. pyngan, to prick, L. pungere.

pingle, to work in an ineffectual way, to trifle, to ‘piddle’. Women’s Rights, 152 (NED). Hence, pingler, a trifler, Two Angry Women, ii. 2 (Coomes); Lyly, Euphues (ed. Arber, 109). ‘Pingle’ is in prov. use in this sense in Scotland and the north of England, see EDD. (s.v. Pingle, vb.¹ 2). Cp. Swed. dial. pyngla, to be busy about small matters (Rietz).

pinion, the name of an obsolete game at cards. Interlude of Youth, (ed. 1849, p. 38). See NED.

pink, to stab with any pointed weapon. B. Jonson, Every Man in Hum. iv. 2; a stab with a rapier or dagger, Ford, Lady’s Trial, iii. 1 (Fulgoso). Low G. pinken, to strike (Schambach).

pink, a sailing vessel. Fletcher, Woman’s Prize, ii. 6. 17. See Nares and NED. Du. pinck, ‘a pinke or a fishers boate; a sounding barke’ (Hexham).

pink, to contract, make small (the eyes). Heywood, Spider and Fly (Nares); contracted small (said of the eyes), ‘Plumpie Bacchus with pinke eyne’, Ant. and Cl. ii. 7. 121. Du. pincken, to shut the eyes (Hexham).

pinkany, a small, narrow, blinking eye; a tiny or dear little eye; ‘Those Pinkanies of thine’, Field, Woman a Weathercock, iv. 2 (Wagtail). Applied to a girl, usually as a term of endearment, Porter, Angry Women, iii. 2 (Philip).

pink-eyed, having small, narrow, or half-closed eyes; ‘Maids . . . that were pinke-eied and had verie small eies they termed Ocellæ’, Holland, Pliny, xi. 335; spelt pinky-eyed, Kyd, Soliman, v. 3. 7 (Hazlitt’s Dodsley, v. 359). A Lanc. word, see EDD. (s.v. Pink, adj.¹ 4).

pinnace, a go-between, in love affairs. B. Jonson, Barth. Fair, ii. 1 (Overdo). A fig. sense of ‘pinnace’, a small attendant vessel.

pinner, a ‘pinder’, one who impounds stray cattle. Greene, George-a-Greene, i (Bettris, 1. 236); ed. Dyce, p. 256, col. 1. ‘Pinder’ (or ‘pinner’) is in prov. use in various parts of England, see EDD. (s.v. Pind, vb. 1 (1)). ME. pyndare of beestys, ‘inclusor’ (Prompt. EETS. 336, see note, no. 1638). See Dict. (s.v. Pinder).

pinson, a thin-soled shoe of some kind, Withal (ed. 1608, p. 211); ‘Pynson, sho, caffignon’, Palsgrave. ME. pynson, sok (Prompt. EETS., see note, no. 1642).

pintas, las, the Spanish name for the card-game called basset; ‘A las Pintas, (playing) at basset’, Adventures of Five Hours, iv. 1 (Diego); in Hazlitt’s Dodsley, xv. 265. Span. pintas, basset; pl. of pinta, ‘among Gamesters a peep in a card’ (Stevens).

pion, to dig, trench, excavate. Hence pyonings, Spenser, F. Q. ii. 10. 63. Pioned, trenched, Tempest, iv. 1. 64. OF. pioner, to dig (Godefroy). See [piner].

pip, a spot on a card; hence, a unit; ‘Thirty-two years old, which is a pip out’, Massinger, Fatal Dowry, ii. 2 (Bellapert). The allusion is to a game called One-and-thirty, which differs from 32 by 1. So also in Shirley, Love’s Cruelty, i. 2 (Hippolito). See [peep].

pipple, to blow with a gentle sound (of the wind). Skelton, A Replycacion, ed. Dyce, i. 207; id., Garl. of Laurell, 676. Hence ‘pippler’, a name for the aspen in Devon, see EDD. (s.v. Pipple).

pique, a depraved or diseased appetite. Butler, Hud. iii. 2. 809. L. pica, a depraved appetite; a F. form (not found).

pirrie, pirry, a blast of wind, a squall. Elyot, Governour, i. 17, § 5; spelt perry, Look about You, sc. 29 (Richard), in Hazlitt’s Dodsley, vii. 482. ME. pyry, a storm of wind (Prompt. EETS., see note, no. 1643).

pishery-pashery, trifling talk. Dekker, Shoem. Holiday, iii. 5 (Eyre); finery, fallals, id., v. 4 (Eyre).

pist!, hist!, an interjection, to draw attention. Middleton, No Wit like a Woman’s, i. 3 (Sir O. Twi.).

pistolet, a name given to certain foreign gold coins, ranging in value from 5s. 10d. to 6s. 8d. Proclamation, May 4, 1553 (NED.); in later times = pistole, worth about 16s. 6d. ‘Each Pistolet exchang’d at sixteen shillings six pence’, Heylin, Examen Hist. i. 268 (NED.); B. Jonson, Alchemist, iii. 2 (Face); also called a double pistolet, Fletcher, Span. Curate, i. 1 (Jamie).

pitch, a vertex, head; also, a projecting part of the body, the shoulder, the hip; ‘His manly pitch’ (used for both shoulders, collectively), Marlowe, 1 Tamburlaine, ii. 1. 11.

pitch and pay, to pay down money at once, pay ready money. Hen. V, ii. 3. 51; Middleton, Blurt, Mr. Constable; i. 2 (Blurt); Mirror for Mag., Warwicke, st. 14; Tusser, Husbandry, § 113. 24.

plaça, a square, parade, public walk. Shirley, The Brothers, i. 1 (Carlos). Span. plaça (plaza).

plackerd, the forepart of a woman’s petticoat; ‘For fear of the cut-purse, on a sudden she’ll swap thee into her plackerd’, Greene, Friar Bacon, i. 3. See NED. (s.v. Placard).

placket, an apron or petticoat: hence transf. the wearer of a petticoat, a woman, Tr. and Cr. ii. 3. 22; the opening or slit at the top of a skirt or petticoat, King Lear, iii. 4. 100; a pocket in a woman’s skirt, ‘Which instrument . . . was found in my Lady Lambert’s placket’, Hist. Cromwell (NED.).

plage, a region, country. Marlowe, 1 Tamburlaine, iv. 4 (Tamb.); 2 Tamb. i. 1 (Orcanes). F. plage, region (Cotgr.). L. plaga, a region.

plaice-mouth, a mouth drawn on one side. Spelt plaise-mouth, B. Jonson, Silent Woman, iii. 2 (Epicene).

plaie, wound. Surrey, tr. of Aeneid, iv. 2. F. plaie; L. plaga.

plain, to complain. King Lear, iii. 1. 39; ‘Plaindre, to plaine,’ Cotgrave.

plain, to plane. Chapman, tr. of Odyssey, v. 322. Hence, Plainer, a carpenter’s plane, id., v. 314.

plain-song, a simple melody. Ascham, Toxophilus, p. 41; hence, ‘the plain-song cuckoo’, Mids. Night’s D. iii. 1.

planch, to board. Planched, covered with boards, Meas. for M. iv. 1. 30; to plaunche on, to clap on (something broad and flat), Gammer Gurton’s Needle, i. 2. 12. F. planche, a plank.

plancher, a wooden floor, a flooring of planks; used in pl. Arden of Fev. i. 1. 42; also boards (of a ship); Drayton, Pol. iii. 272. F. plancher, ‘a boorded floor’ (Cotgr.).

plange, to lament, grieve. Warner, Alb. England, bk. v, p. 25, st. 31. L. plangere.

planipedes, pantomimes or entertainments with dancing; ‘The common players of interludes called Planipedes, played barefoote vpon the floore’, Puttenham, Eng. Poesie, bk. i, c. 15; p. 49. L. planipedes (Juvenal).

plant, the sole of the foot; ‘Knotty legs, and plants of clay’, B. Jonson, Masque of Oberon, song 5. F. plante, the sole. L. planta.

plasma, a form, mould, shape; ‘There is a Plasma, or deepe pit’, Heywood, Iron Age, Part II (Orestes, in a mad speech); vol. iii, p. 424. Gk. πλάσμα, anything formed or moulded.

platic, an astrological term used of an ‘aspect’ of a planet (NED.). B. Jonson, Staple of News, iv. 1 (P. Can.). Spelt platique, Fletcher, Bloody Brother, iv. 2. Med. L. platicus, late Gk. πλατυκός, -ικός, broad, diffuse.

plaudite, plaudity, shout of applause, approval; ‘Cristall plaudities’, Tourneur, Revenger’s Tragedy, ii. 1. L. plaudite, applaud ye.

play-pheer, playfellow. Two Noble Kinsmen, iv. 3. 103. See [fere].

pleasant, to render pleasant; ‘Some pleasant their lives’, Manchester Al Mondo (ed. 1639, p. 51); ‘This tedious mortality, pleasant it how man can’, id., p. 62.

plight, to fold, pleat, to intertwine into one combined texture. Spenser, F. Q. ii. 6. 7; plighted, folded, Milton, Comus, 301; pleated, King Lear, i. 1. 283 (Quarto edd.); Greene, Description of the Shepherd, 21 (Dyce, 304). ME. plyte, to fold (Chaucer, Tr. and Cr. ii. 1204). Anglo-F. plit (Gower) = Norm. F. pleit (Burguy), whence E. plait. See Dict. (s.v. Plait).

plompe, a cluster, clump, mass; ‘A plompe of wood’, Morte Arthur, leaf 30, back, 19; bk. i, c. 16 (end); plompes, troops, bands; Gascoigne, Fruites of Warre, st. 129. See [plump].

plotform, a scheme, design, plan, contrivance. Grim the Collier, ii. 1 (Clinton); in Hazlitt’s Dodsley, viii. 423; a level place constructed for mounting guns, Gascoigne, Art of Venerie, Works (ed. 1870, ii. 304). See Dict. (s.v. Plot), and Notes on Eng. Etym., p. 219.

plough. The parts of a plough are enumerated in Gervase Markham’s Complete Husbandman (1614), quoted in Notes to Fitzherbert’s Husbandry, p. 128, where they are fully explained. I merely enumerate them here. (1) Plough-beam, a large and long piece of timber, forming an arch for the other parts; (2) The skeath (sheath), a piece of wood 2½ feet long, mortised into the beam; (3) Principal hale, the left-handle; also called plough-tail or plough-start; (4) Plough-head or share-beam, about 3 feet in length; (5) Plough-spindles or rough-staves, two round pieces of wood that joined the handles together; (6) Righthand-hale, or plough-stilt, smaller and weaker than the other; (7) Plough-rest, a small piece of wood, fixed to the plough-head and righthand-hale; (8) Shelboard, i.e. shield-board, a strong board on the right side of the plough; (9) Coulter, a long piece of iron in the front, to cut the soil; (10) Share; (11) Plough-foot, or plough-shoe, before the coulter, to regulate the depth of the furrow. The ploughman also had with him a plough-mall or small mallet; and, originally, a plough-staff or aker-staff, for clearing the mould-board when required.

plough-staff, an instrument like a paddle for cleaning a plough, or clearing it of weeds. Tusser, Husbandry, § 17. 21. In use in Scotland and the north country, see EDD. (s.v. Plough, II (49)).

Plowden. Proverb: The case is altered, quoth Plowden. For various explanations see Grose, Local Proverbs (ed. 1790), Shropshire, and Ray, Proverbial Phrases (under A), ed. Bohn, 147.

ployden; ‘A stub-bearded John-a-Stile with a ployden’s face’, Marston, Dutch Courtezan, iii. 1 (Crispinella). Not explained.

pluck: in phr. to pluck down a side, in card-playing, to cause the loss or hazard of the side or party with which a person plays. Beaumont and Fl., Maid’s Tragedy, ii. 1 (Dula). See Nares.

plumb, perpendicularly; ‘Plumb down he drops’, Milton, P. L. ii. 933. In prov. use in various parts of England, also in U.S.A., see EDD. (s.v. Plum, adj.¹). F. ‘à-plomb, perpendicularly, downright’ (Cotgr.). See Dict. (s.v. Plump).

plume, said of a hawk, to pluck feathers from a bird; also, to pluck, despoil. Davenant, The Wits, ii. 1 (Ample); Dryden, Absalom, 920.

plummet, a leaden bullet, hurled from a sling. North, tr. of Plutarch, M. Antonius, § 23 (in Shak. Plut., p. 190); a sounding-lead, used fig. a criterion of truth, ‘Lay all to the Line and Plummet of the written word’, Gilpin, Demonology, iii. 17. 140 (NED.).

plump, a troop, flock; ‘A whole plump of rogues’, Beaumont and Fl., Double Marriage, iii. 2 (Guard); ‘A plump of fowl’, Dryden, tr. of Aeneid, xii. 374; Theodore and Honoria, 316. See Nares. See [plompe].

plunge, to overwhelm (with trouble or difficulty); ‘(He) was so plunged and gravelled with three lines of Seneca’, Sir T. Browne, Rel. Med. i. 21.

plunge, a critical situation, crisis, a dilemma. Greene, Looking Glasse, iii. 2. Phr.: to put to a plunge, Middleton, Roaring Girl, iv. 1 (Sir Alexander). ‘Il est au bout de son breviaire, he is at a plunge or nonplus’, Cotgrave (s.v. Breviaire). Cp. the Northants phrase, ‘I was put to a plunge’, see EDD. (s.v. Plunge, sb.¹).

Plymouth cloak, a cudgel or staff, carried by one who walked in cuerpo, and thus facetiously assumed to take the place of a cloak; ‘Shall I walke in a Plimouth Cloake (that’s to say) like a rogue, in my hose and doublet, and a crabtree cudgell in my hand?’, Dekker, Honest Wh., Pt. II, iii. 2 (Matheo); ‘A Plymouth cloak, that is, a cane or staff’, Ray’s Proverbs out of Fuller’s Worthies (ed. Bohn, 201); Grose, Local Proverbs in Glossary, 1790. See Nares.

pocas palabras, the Spanish for ‘few words’. Wonderfull Yeare 1603 (ed. 1732, p. 46); paucas pallabris, Tam. Shrew, Induct. i. 5. Span. palabra, Med. L. parabola, ‘verbum, sermo’ (Ducange); a parable, similitude (Vulgate, in N. T.) See Stanford.

poinado, a poniard. Heywood, The Royal King, vol. vi, p. 70; Return from Parnassus, i. 2 (Judicio); ‘Poinard, or Poinado’, Phillips, 1658.

poinet, poynet, an ornament for the wrist, a wristlet or bracelet. J. Heywood, The Four P’s, in Anc. Brit. Drama, i. 10, col. 2; Hazlitt’s Dodsley, i. 351 (altered to poignet). F. poignet, wrist; poing, the fist. See NED.

point, a tagged lace for attaching hose to the doublet, and for fastening various parts where buttons are now used. Tam. Shrew, iii. 2. 49. Very common, and the perpetual subject of jokes and quibbles; 1 Hen. IV, ii. 4. 238; Twelfth Nt. i. 5. 25.

point: in phr. point of war, a short strain sounded as a signal by a trumpeter. 2 Hen. IV, iv. 1. 52; Greene, Orl. Fur., ed. Dyce, p. 94; Peele, Edw. I, i (Longshanks); ed. Dyce, p. 378. See NED. (s.v. Point, sb.¹ 9).

point: in phr. to point [F. à point], to the smallest detail, completely; ‘Armed to point’, Spenser, F. Q. i. 1. 16; Tempest, i. 2. 194; ‘Are ye all fit?’ 1 Gent. ‘To point, sir’, Fletcher, Chances, i. 4. 2.

point-device (-devyse), completely, perfectly, in every point. Twelfth Nt. ii. 5. 176; extremely precise, scrupulous to the point of perfection, As You Like It, iii. 2. 401. ME. poynt devys: ‘Her nose was wrought at poynt devys’ (Chaucer, Rom. Rose, 1215); Anglo F. à point devis, or devis à point, arranged to a proper point or degree. See NED.

pointed, pp. appointed. Spenser, F. Q. vii. 7. 12.

poise, a weight (for exercise), a dumb-bell; ‘Poyses made of leadde’, Sir T. Elyot, Governour, bk. i, c. 16, § 1; poyse, heavy fall; Spenser, F. Q. i. 11. 54. See [peise].

poisure, poise, balance, effect. Beaumont and Fl., Wit without Money, i. 1 (Valentine).

poking-stick, poker, a stick or iron for setting the plaits of ruffs. Wint. Tale, iv. 4. 228; Beaumont and Fl., Mons. Thomas, iii. 2. 2. Poker, Dekker, Honest Wh., Pt. I, ii. 1 (Bellafront).

poldavy, polldavy, a sort of coarse canvas; ‘Poldavy, or buckram’, Peacham, Comp. Gentleman, c. 6, p. 54; Howell, Letters, vol. i, sect. 2, let. 10 (1621). See Nares, and NED. Named from Poldavide, dep. Finisterre, France; near Daoulas, whence E. dowlas (Phil. Soc. Trans., May, 1904). The name is Breton, meaning ‘David’s pool’.

poldron; see [pouldron].

pole-ax; see [pollax].

polehead, a ‘poll-head’, a tadpole. Marston, What you Will, ii. 1 (Quadratus); ‘Cavesot, a polehead, black vermine wherof frogs do come’, Cotgrave. Still in common use in the North; in Banffsh. the form is powet (or powit); see EDD. (s.v. Powhead). ME. polhevede (Gen. and Ex., 2977).

polepennery, extortion of pence; ‘To scrape for more rent is polepennery’, Wily Beguiled, sc. ii (1st quarto, 1606).

politien, a politician. Puttenham, Eng. Poesie, bk. iii, c. 4, pp. 158, 159; politians, pl., Lyly, Sappho, i. 3. OF. policien, a citizen, a politician (Godefroy).

poll, to cut off the head of an animal, Chapman, tr. of Iliad, xvi. 112; to cut short the hair, Greene, Upst. Courtier, D. iij. b. (NED.); to plunder by excessive rent-raising, More’s Utopia (ed. Lumby, 29); to poll and pill, Bacon, Hen. VII (ed. Lumby, 148); Spenser, F. Q. v. 2. 6.

pollard, an animal without horns, either one that has lost its horns, or one of a hornless variety, used jocosely of a man who is not a cuckold. Beaumont and Fl., Philaster, v. 4 (Captain). See Nares.

pollax, pole-ax, a battle-axe; ‘At hande strokes they use not swordes but pollaxes’, More’s Utopia (ed. Lumby, 141); a halbert carried by the body-guard of a king or great personage, ‘Bec de faulcon, a fashion of Pollax borne by the Peeres of France, and by the French King’s Pensioners’, Cotgrave; ‘Mazzière, a halberdier or poleaxe man, such as the Queene of England’s gentlemen pencioners are’, Florio.

pollenger, a pollard tree. Tusser, Husbandry, § 35. 13.

poller, one who exacts fees, an extortioner. Spelt poler, Bacon, Essay 56, 4.

poll-hatchet, a poll-axe; hence, one who wields a poll-hatchet; a term of abuse or contempt. Spelt powle-hatchett, Skelton, Garl. of Laurell, 613; and see Skelton, ed. Dyce, i. 23, l. 29.

polony, a sausage made at Bologna, Italy. In Lord Cromwell, iii. 2. 131, Hodge, writing from Bologna, says that he is ‘among the Polonyan Sasiges’. See Dict.

pomeroy, a variety of apple. Spelt pom-roy, Peacham, Comp. Gentleman, c. 1, § 2. See NED.

pomewater, a large juicy kind of apple. L. L. L. iv. 2. 4; Dekker, Old Fortunatus, iv. 2 (Shadow); ‘When a pome-water, bestucke with a few rotten cloves shall be more worth than the honesty of a hypocrite’, Vox Græculi (in Brand’s Pop. Antiq., ed. 1848, i. 17). A Hampshire word (EDD.).

pommado, an exercise of vaulting on a horse with one hand on the pommel of the saddle. B. Jonson, Cynthia’s Revels, ii. 1 (Mercury), where we find ‘the whole, or half the pommado’. Marston has pommado reverso, said to mean the vaulting off the horse again. If so, ‘the whole pommado’ may refer to both actions, and ‘the half pommado’ to one of them. F. pommade, ‘the pommada, a trick in vaulting’ (Cotgr.).

pompillion, an ointment made of the buds of the black poplar; ‘Populeon, Popilion or Pompillion’, Cotgrave. OF. populeon (Godefroy, Compl.). See NED.

pompillion, a term applied in contempt to a man. Fletcher, Women Pleased, iii. 4 (Bartello). Not found elsewhere. See below.

pompion, a pumpkin. Tusser, Husbandry, § 41; B. Jonson, Time Vindicated (Fame); ‘Pompon, a pumpion or melon’, Cotgrave. A Lanc. word for a pumpkin, see EDD. (s.v. Pumpion). Du. pompoen, ‘a pompion, pumpkin’ (Sewel).

pon, a pan, hollow, basin. Drayton, Pol. xxviii. 169. The pronunc. of ‘pan’ in the north-west of England (EDD.).

ponder, weight. Heywood, Silver Age, A. ii (Alcmena); vol. iii, p. 102; a heavy blow, id. (Hercules), p. 142.

pontifical, bridge-making. Milton, P. L. x. 313. L. pons (bridge) + facere (to make). It may be noted that L. pontifex (a pontiff) has probably nothing to do with bridge-making. See NED.

pooke; see [pouke].

poop-noddie, pup-noddie, cony-catching, the art of befooling the simpleton; ‘I saw them close together at Poop-noddie, in her closet’, Wily Beguiled, in Hazlitt’s Dodsley, ix. 242; see NED.

poor-john, a coarse fish (usually hake), salted and dried. Temp. ii. 2. 28; Beaumont and Fl., Lover’s Progress, i. 1. 15. See EDD. (s.v. Poor).

pooter, the same as [poting-stick], q.v. Warner, Alb. England, bk. ix, ch. 47, st. 8.

pope-holy, sanctimonious, hypocritical. Foxe, Martyrs (ed. 2, 205 b, 2); pop-holy, Skelton, Replycacion, 247; Garland of Laurell, 612. ME. pope-holy (P. Plowman, B. xiii. 284). In Chaucer, Rom. Rose, 415, Pope-Holy is used in the sense of ‘Hypocrisy’, being the translation of the papelardie of the French original.

popering, a kind of pear, brought from Poperinghe in W. Flanders. Heywood, Wise Woman of Hogsdon, iii. 2 (Y. Chartley); a poprin pear, Romeo, ii. 1. 38.

popler, porridge (Cant). Middleton, Roaring Girl, v. 1 (Song); Poppelars, porrage, Harman, Caveat, p. 83; popplar of yarum, mylke porrage, id., p. 86; poplars of yarrum, Brome, Jovial Crew, ii. 1 (Song).

popping, chattering; said of one whose talk is mere popping sound; foolish; ‘A poppynge fole’, Skelton, Magnyfycence, 234; ‘Pratynge poppynge dawes’, id., Replycacion, 39.

popular, populous; ‘How doth the popular City sit solitary!’, Jackson, True Evang., T. iii. 184; ‘The most popular part of Scotland’, Kirkton, Church History, 215 (EDD.). See NED., and Davies, Suppl. Gl.

porcpisce, a ‘porpoise’. Dryden, All for Love, iv. 1 (Ventidius); porpice, Drayton, Polyolb. v. 235. See Dict.

porpentine, a porcupine. Hamlet, i. 5. 20; 2 Hen. VI, iii. 1. 363; used by Shaks. seven times, in four of these as the sign of an inn; Ascham, Toxophilus (Arber, 31). See NED.

porret, poret, a young leek or onion. Tusser, Husbandry, § 39. 31; ‘Porret, yong lekes’, Palsgrave. F. porrette, ‘maiden leek, bladed leek, unset leek’ (Cotgr.). Norm. F. poret, see Moisy (s.v. Porrette).

port, to carry. B. Jonson, Magn. Lady, i. 1 (Compass); ‘Ported spears’, Milton, P. L. iv. 980.

port, deferential attendance. Chapman, tr. of Iliad, i. 517; state, splendid manner of living, Merch. of Ven. i. 1. 124.

port, the gate of a city. Coriolanus, i. 7. 1; v. 6. 6; Great Bible of 1539, Ps. ix. 14 (Prayer-book); Beaumont and Fl., Maid in the Mill, i. 1. 2; Massinger, Virgin Martyr, i. 1 (Sapritius). F. porte, a gate.

portague, a Portuguese gold coin, worth varying according to time between £3 5s. and £4 10s. B. Jonson, Alchem. i. 3. Spelt portigue, Fletcher, Rule a Wife, v. 5. 5; portegue, Phillips, Dict., 1658; pl. portagues, Strype, Eccl. Mem. (ed. 1721, i. 18. 138); also, porteguez, Davenant, News fr. Plymouth (NED.). The s (z) of Span. Portugues, Pg. Portuguez, ‘Portuguese’, was taken as a plural, hence the English forms portegue, &c.

portance, carriage, bearing, deportment. Coriolanus, ii. 3. 232; Spenser, F. Q. ii. 3. 5; ii. 3. 21.

portcannons, ornamental rolls or ‘canions’ round the legs of breeches; see [canion]. Butler, Hud. i. 3. 926.

portcullis, an Elizabethan coin, stamped with a portcullis. B. Jonson, Ev. Man out of Humour, iii. 1 (Shift).

porter’s lodge, the place where great men used to exercise summary punishment upon their servants; ‘To the porter’s lodge with him!’, Fletcher, Maid in the Mill, v. 2 (Don Philippo); Massinger, Duke of Milan, iii. 2 (Graccho).

portesse, a portable breviary which can be taken out of doors. Bible, Translators’ Preface, 9; Stubbes, Anat. Abuses (ed. 1882, 77). ME. portos (Chaucer, C. T. B. 1321); portos, ‘portiforium’ (Prompt. EETS. 342, see note, no. 1662). OF. portehors (Godefroy), Church L. portiforium (Ducange). See Dict.

portmantua, a ‘portmanteau’. Middleton, A Mad World, ii. 2 (Mawworm).

port-sale, public sale to the highest bidder; ‘The soldiers making portsale of their service to him that would give most’, North, tr. of Plutarch, M. Brutus, § 18 (in Shaks. Plut., p. 124); ‘Persons were sold out-right in port-sale under the guirland’ (sub corona veniere), Holland, Livy, xli. 1103; see NED. (s.v. Port, sb.²).

possede, to possess. Sir T. Elyot, Governour, bk. iii, c. 3, § 2.

possess, to put one in possession of a fact. Meas. for M. iv. 1. 44; Merch. of Ven. i. 3. 65; King John, iv. 2. 41.

post, as set up before the door of a sheriff or magistrate. Posts were used to fix proclamations on; and were sometimes painted anew when a new magistrate came into office; ‘A sheriff’s post’, Twelfth Nt. i. 5. 157; ‘Worship, . . . for so much the posts at his door should signifie’, Puritan Widow, iii. 4. 12.

post, a messenger, Merch. Ven. ii. 9. 100; v. 1. 46. Also, a post-horse, 2 Hen. IV, iv. 3. 40. Hence, to post, to go with speed, hasten, Richard II, i. 1. 56; iii. 4. 90; v. 5. 59; ‘Thousands . . . post o’er land and ocean without rest’, Milton, Sonnet xix; post over, to hurry over, treat with negligence, 2 Hen. VI, iii. 1. 255.

post and pair, a card-game, played with three cards each, wherein much depended on vying, or betting on the goodness of the cards in your own hand. The best hand was three aces; then three kings, queens, &c. If there were no threes, the highest pairs won; or the highest game in the three cards. B. Jonson, Love Restored (Plutus); ‘The thrifty and right worshipful game of Post and Pair’, id., Masque of Christmas (Offering). See Nares.

postil, an explanatory note or comment on a word or passage in the Bible. Earle, Microcosmographie, § 2 (ed. Arber, 23); postill, to annotate, Bacon, Henry VIII (ed. Lumby, 193). ME. postille (Wyclif, Prol. 1 Cor.); see NED. Mod. L. postilla, a gloss on the Bible (Ducange).

post-knight, a knight of the post, a notorious perjurer. A Knack to know a Knave, in Hazlitt’s Dodsley, vi. 538. See [knight of the post].

posy, a short motto, orig. a line or verse of ‘poesy’, inscribed within a ring, on a knife, &c. Hamlet, iii. 2. 162; Middleton, Widow, i. 1 (Francisco); a bunch of flowers, Marlowe, Passionate Sheph. iii. See Dict.

pot. In the expressions to the pot, or to go to pot, or to go to the pot, the reference is to the cooking-pot; ‘Your poor sparrows . . . go to the pot for’t’, Webster, White Devil (ed. Dyce, p. 37); to the pot, to destruction, Coriolanus, i. 4. 47; Peele, Edw. I (ed. Dyce, p. 389).

potargo, ‘botargo’, cake made of the roe of the sea-mullet. Fletcher, Sea-Voyage, iv. 3 (Master). Prov. poutargo, ‘caviar’ (Mistral, Calendal). See Dict. (s.v. Botargo); also Stanford.

potch, to poach an egg. B. Jonson, Staple of News, iii. 1 (P. jun.).

potch, to thrust. Coriolanus, i. 10. 15. Still in use in Warw. in this sense. See EDD. (s.v. Poach.)

potestate, chief magistrate. Morte Arthur, bk. v, c. 8; p. 174, l. 30; pl., Gascoigne, Supposes, iii. 3 (Damon).

pot-gun, used contemptuously for a small fire-arm; ‘How! fright me with your pot-gun?’, Beaumont and Fl., Knight of Malta, iv. 4 (Norandine).

poting-stick, a piece of wood, bone, or iron, for adjusting the pleats of a ruff. Marston, Malcontent, v. 3 (Maquerelle); Yorkshire Tragedy, i. 74. OE. potian, to push, thrust.

potshare, a potsherd. Spenser, F. Q. vi. 1. 37. In use in Lonsdale, Lancashire, see EDD. (s.v. Pot, 17 (65)).

pottle, half a gallon, or two quarts. Dekker, Honest Wh., Pt. I, ii. 1 (Roger); a pottell oyle (i.e. of oil); Naval Accounts of Henry VII, p. 16. ‘Pottle’ (a measure of two quarts) is still in use in Cheshire (EDD.).

pouke, pooke, a ‘puck’, demon, goblin; ‘Chymæra, that same pooke’, Golding, Metam. vi. 646; ‘Nor let the Pouke nor other evill sprights . . . Fray us’, Spenser, Epithalamion, 341. ‘Pouk’ (‘pook’), a mischievous fiend, still in use in Sussex and Shropshire, see EDD. (s.v. Puck, sb.¹). ME. pouke: ‘I wene that knyght was a pouke’ (Coer de Leon, 566); OE. pūca (Napier’s OE. Glosses, 23. 2).

pouke-bug, for puck-bug, a malicious spectre. Stanyhurst, tr. of Aeneid, iii. 594. See [bug].

pould, bald-headed, or with lost hair. Two Noble Kinsmen, v. 1. 91.

pouldre, to beat into powder or dust. Spenser, F. Q. i. 7. 12; to spot, id., iii. 2. 25. OF. pouldre (F. poudre).

pouldron, poldron, a shoulder-plate; a piece of armour covering the shoulder. Warner, Alb. England, bk. xii, c. 70, st. 13; Drayton, David and Goliath. OF. espauleron, a shoulder-plate; espaule (F. épaule), shoulder. See NED.

poulter, a dealer in poultry. Webster, White Devil (Flamineo), ed. Dyce, p. 19; 1 Hen. IV, ii. 4. From poult, a chicken.

poulter’s measure, poulterer’s measure; a fanciful name for a metre consisting of lines of 12 and 14 syllables alternately, common in Surrey and Gascoigne. See Gascoigne’s Steel Glas (ed. Arber, 39).

poult-foot, powlt-foot, a club-foot, Lyly, Euphues (Arber, 97); B. Jonson, Poetaster, iv. 7. See NED. (s.v. Polt-foot).

Poultry, the Counter prison in the Poultry, London. Middleton, Phœnix, iv. 3 (1 Officer); ‘Some four houses west from this parish church of St. Mildred is a prison-house pertaining to one of the sheriffs of London, and is called the Compter in the Poultrie’, Stow’s Survey (ed. Thoms, p. 99).

pounce, to ornament (cloth, &c.) by punching small holes or figures; also, to cut the edges into points and scallops, to jag. ‘A . . . cote, garded and pounced’, Sir T. Elyot, Governour, bk. ii, c. 3, § 1; Skelton, Bowge of Courte, 508. Cognate with Norm. F. ponçon, ‘poinçon, instrument de fer ou d’acier servant à percer’ (Moisy).

pouncet-box, 1 Hen. IV, i. 3. 38; a Shaks. term for a small box for perfumes, with a perforated lid. It may be for pounced box, from pounce, to perforate. See above.

pouncing, the action of powdering the face with a cosmetic, ‘Pouncings and paintings’, Beaumont and Fl., Wit without Money, iii. 1 (Valentine); Knight of Malta, ii. 1 (Norandine). See NED. (s.v. Pounce, vb.³ 3).

pouned, impounded, shut up (as horses) in a pound; ‘Married once, a man is . . . poun’d’, Massinger, Fatal Dowry, iv. 1 (Novall jun.). Cp. pounded; ‘fairly pounded’ (i.e. married), Colman, Jealous Wife, ii. 1 (Sir H. Beagle).

powder, to sprinkle with salt, to salt. 1 Hen. IV, v. 4. 112. Hence Powder-beef, salted beef, Dekker, Shoemakers’ Holiday, ii. 3. 4. Also, to sweat in a hot tub, to cure disease; Meas. for M. iii. 2. 62; powdering-tub, Hen. V, ii. 1. 79.

practice, scheming or planning, treachery. King Lear, ii. 4. 116; B. Jonson, Catiline, iii. 5 (Catulus). See Nares.

practive, practical, active, expert; ‘Most hardy practive knights’, Phaer, Aeneid viii, 518. See NED.

†prage, a spear or similar weapon; ‘Their blades they brandisht, and keene prages goared in entrayls Of stags’, &c., Stanyhurst, tr. of Aeneid, i. 197. Is prage a misreading of prāge = prange = prong (see NED.)?

praise, to appraise, value. Puritan Widow, ii. 2. 14. In prov. use in Somerset, see EDD. (s.v. Prize, v.² 1).

prancome, a prank, trick. Gammer Gurton’s Needle, i. 2 (Hodge). Not found elsewhere.

prank, showily dressed; ‘Pretie pranck parnel’, Appius and Virginia, in Hazlitt’s Dodsley, iv. 120. See Dict. (s.v. Prank, 1).

prankie-cote, pranky coat; a jocose term for a fellow full of pranks. Udall, Roister Doister, iii. 3. 117. Not found elsewhere.

prats, buttocks (Cant); ‘Prat, a buttocke’, Harman, Caveat, p. 82; ‘Set me down here on both my prats’, Brome, Jovial Crew, ii. 1 (Mort).

prease, to press. Spenser, F. Q. i. 12. 19; to throng, F. Q. ii. 7. 44; a press, crowd, throng, F. Q. ii. 10. 25; Chapman, tr. of Iliad, i. 226. Gk. ὄχλος in Luke viii. 19 is rendered by prease in Tyndale and in Cranmer’s Bible, also in the Geneva and AV. versions. See Nares. This is still the pronunc. of ‘press’ in Lanc. (EDD.).

precisian, one who is very punctilious, Merry Wives, ii. 1. 5; synonymous with ‘Puritan’, ‘He’s no precisian, that I’m certain of, Nor rigid Roman Catholic’, 13. Jonson, Every Man in Hum. iii. 3. 102; Massinger, New Way to Pay, i. 1. 6. See Nares.

pree, short for pree thee, prithee, i.e. I pray thee. Marston, What you Will, iii. 2 (Holofernes).

pregnant, pressing, compelling, cogent, convincing; hence, clear, obvious. Meas. for M. ii. 1. 23; Othello, ii. 1. 241. OF. preignant, pressing, pp. of preindre, L. premere, to press; cp. preignantes raisons (Godefroy, Compl.).

pregnant, receptive, fertile, imaginative. Twelfth Nt. iii. 1. 101; ready, ‘The pregnant Hinges of the knee’, Hamlet, iii. 2. 66; phr. a pregnant wit, Heywood, Maidenhead Lost, i. F. prégnant (Rabelais), L. praegnans.

prepense, to consider beforehand, to premeditate. Sir T. Elyot, Governour, bk. i, c. 25, § 2; Spenser, F. Q. iii. 11. 14. See [purpense].

presence: phr. in presence, present; often, in reference to ceremonial attendance upon a person of superior, esp. royal, rank, Barclay, Cyt. and Uplondyshman (Percy Soc. 13); Richard II, iv. 1. 62; a place prepared for ceremonial presence or attendance, a presence-chamber, ‘The two great Cardinals Wait in the presence’, Hen. VIII, iii. 1. 17; chamber of presence, Bacon, Essay 45. Evelyn, Diary, Dec. 5, 1643.

presently, immediately. Temp. iv. 42; v. 101; Two Gent. ii. 1. 30; ii. 4. 86; Bible, 1 Sam. ii. 16; Matt. xxvi. 53. See Bible Word-Book. Cp. F. ‘presentement, presently, quickly, anon, at an instant, speedily, suddenly’ (Cotgr.).

president, a precedent. Bacon, Essay, Of Great Place; Of Innovations; Of Judicature.

press, press-money, i.e. prest-money, as paid to an impressed soldier. Beaumont and Fl., Faithful Friends, i. 2 (Marcellius).

prest, ready. Merch. Ven. i. 1. 160; Marl., 2 Tamburlaine, i. 1 (Orcanes); Dido, iii. 2. 22. An E. Anglian word (EDD.). ME. prest (Chaucer, Tr. and Cr. iii. 917). F. ‘prest, prest, ready, full-dight; prompt; quick’ (Cotgr.); now written prêt.

Prester John, the name given in the Middle Ages to an alleged Christian priest and king originally supposed to reign in the extreme East, beyond Persia and Armenia; but from the 15th cent. generally identified with the King of Ethiopia or Abyssinia (NED.). ‘I will fetch you a tooth-picker now from the farthest inch of Asia; bring you the length of Prester John’s foot’, Much Ado, ii. 1. 276; Dekker, Old Fortunatus, ii. 1 (near end); ‘The great Christian of Æthiopia, vulgarly called Prester, Precious or Priest-John’, Sir T. Herbert, Travels, 130. For the history of the subject see Col. Yule’s article in Encycl. Brit. xix. 715. See Stanford.

prestigiatory, relating to ‘prestigiation’, juggling, deceptive, delusive; ‘The art prestigiatory’, Tomkis, Albumazar, i. 7; ii. 3.

prestigious, practising juggling or legerdemain, deceptive, illusory; ‘That inchantresse . . . by prestigious trickes in sorcerie’, Dekker, Whore of Babylon (Wks. 173, ii. 195); ‘Prestigious guiles’, Heywood, Dial. 18 (Minerva), vi. 250. Late L. praestigiosus, full of deceitful tricks; praestigium, an illusion, praestigiae, juggler’s tricks; cp. F. prestiges, ‘deceits, impostures, juggling tricks’ (Cotgr.). See Dict. (s.v. Prestige).

pretence, pretense, an assertion of a right; a claim; ‘Spirits that in our just pretenses arm’d Fell with us’, Milton, P. L. ii. 825; an expressed aim, intention, purpose or design, Two Gent. iii. 1. 47; Winter’s Tale, iii. 2. 18.

pretenced, pretensed, intended, purposed, designed. More’s Utopia (ed. Lumby, 8). Late L. praetensus, for praetentus, pp. of praetendere.

pretend, to stretch something over a person for defence; ‘Who . . . his target alwayes over her pretended’, Spenser, F. Q. vi. 11. 19; to put forward, set forth, ‘To that wench I pretend honest love’, Middleton, Changeling, iv. 2. 91. L. praetendere, to stretch forth.

pretor, one holding high civil office, a name for the Lord Mayor of London. Westward Ho, i. 1 (Justiniano); Webster, Monuments of Honour, § 1. Med. L. praetor, ‘urbis praefectus’ (Ducange); ‘Meyr, maior, pretor’ (Prompt. EETS. 284); cp. Cath. Angl. 225.

prevent, to anticipate. Merch. Ven. i. 1. 61; Twelfth Nt. iii. 1. 94; Bible, Ps. xviii. 5; cxix. 148; 1 Thess. iv. 15, &c. See Bible Word-Book.

preving, preeving, proving, trial. Spenser, Mother Hubberd, 1366. See [prieve].

prick, to spur; hence, to ride. Spenser, F. Q. i. 1. 1; prickant, riding along, Beaumont and Fl., Knt. of the B. Pestle, ii. 2 (Ralph).

prick, the pin, or peg originally fixed in the very centre of the white, or circular mark upon the butt shot at by archers. Also called the pin, or clout. Ascham, Toxophilus, p. 99; at the prickes, beside the butts, id., p. 98.

prick, the highest point, apex, acme; ‘To pricke of highest praise’, Spenser, F. Q. ii. 12. 1; ‘The hygh prycke of vertue’, Udall, Erasmus, Paraph. Matt. iii. 30; phr. prick and praise, very high praise, Middleton, Family of Love, ii. 4 (Mrs. G.); ‘She had the prick and praise for a prettie wench’, London Prodigal, iv. 1. 15.

prick-eared, having sharply pointed, erect ears; prycke-eared, Fitzherbert, Husbandry, § 77; Hen. V, ii. 1. 44.

pricket, a buck in his second year, having straight unbranched horns. L. L. L. iv. 2. 12; Beaumont and Fl., Knt. of the B. Pestle, iv. 5 (Ralph). ME. pryket, ‘capriolus’ (Prompt. EETS. 316; see notes, no. 1681).

prickle, a wicker basket, for fruit or flowers. B. Jonson, Pan’s Anniversary (Shepherd, l. 3). In Kent used for a basket of a certain measure (EDD.). See NED.

prick-me-dainty, finical in language and behaviour. Udall, Roister Doister, ii. 3 (Trupeny). Still in use in Scotland (EDD.).

prick-song, music written down or sung from notes. Romeo, ii. 4. 21; Ascham, Toxophilus, p. 41. ‘The nightingale’s song, being more regularly musical than any other, was called pricksong’ (Nares). ‘Prick-song’ used to mean counterpoint as distinguished from ‘plain-song’, mere melody.

priefe, preife, proof, trial. Spenser, F. Q. ii. 1. 48; Mother Hubberd, 408. Priefe = F. preuve, as people (pron. peeple) = F. peuple.

prieve, to prove. Spenser, F. Q. v. 4. 33; vi. 12. 18. Prieve = OF. prueve (preuve); L. próbat, with the stress on the stem-syllable, whereas prove = F. prouver (OF. prover) = L. probáre.

prig a prancer, to steal a horse (Cant). Fletcher, Beggar’s Bush, v. 2 (Higgen); Audeley, Vagabonds, p. 4; Harman, Caveat, pp. 42, 43, 84. See Dict. (s.v. Prig, 1).

prima-vista, an old game at cards, resembling primero, and sometimes identified with it. Primviste, Earle, Microcosmographie, § 13 (ed. Arber, p. 33); ‘Prima . . . a game at cardes, called Prime, Primero, or Primavista’ (Florio). Ital. prima vista, ‘first seen, because he that can first show such an order of cards wins the game’ (Minsheu).

primum mobile, the ‘First Movement’, in the Ptolemaic system of astronomy, the outer sphere (of a system of spheres), which turns round from east to west once in 24 hours, carrying all the inner spheres with it. Bacon, Essay 15, § 4; Essay 51 (end). In Dante the Primum Mobile is called the Crystalline Heaven (‘Cielo Cristallino’), see Paget Toynbee’s Dante Dictionary.

princox, a pert saucy boy or youth, a conceited young fellow, Romeo, i. 588. A north-country word, see EDD. (s.v. Princock).

prink, to set off, show off, trim; ‘To prink and prank, exorno’, Coles, 1699. Prinke it, to show off, Gascoigne, Complaint of Philomene, st. 21, p. 93.

print: phr. in print, to the letter, exactly. L. L. L. iii. 173; ‘Gallant in print’ (i.e. a complete gallant), B. Jonson, Ev. Man out of Humour, ii. 2 (Fallace). In prov. use in E. Anglia, Oxf., Sussex, see EDD. (s.v. Print, 3).

prise, pryse, the note blown at the death of a hunted beast; ‘Thenne kynge Arthur blewe the pryse’, Morte Arthur, leaf 63. 25; bk. iv, c. 6. F. ‘prise, the death or fall of a hunted beast’ (Cotgr.).

privado, a favourite, intimate friend. Bacon, Essay 27, § 3. Span. privado, a favourite (Stevens); Port. privado, ‘favori, homme en faveur auprès d’un prince’ (Roquette). Med. L. privatus, ‘familiaris, amicus’ (Ducange).

private, private interest. B. Jonson, Catiline, iii. 2 (last speech).

prize, a contest, a match, a public athletic contest. Merch. Ven. iii. 2. 142; a fencing contest, Dekker, Honest Wh., Pt. II, ii. 2 (Prentices); a turn in a match, ib., v. 2 (Infelice); phr. to play a prize, to engage in a public contest, to play one’s part, Beaumont and Fl., Hum. Lieutenant, v. 2 (Lieutenant); Massinger, New Way to Pay, iv. 2 (end); Titus Andron. i. 1. 399; B. Jonson, Volpone, v. 1. Hence Prizer, one who fights in a ‘prize’ or match, As You Like It, ii. 3. 8. F. ‘prise, a hold in wrestling; estre aux prises, to wrestle or strive with one another’ (Cotgr.).

prize, to offer as the price; to risk, stake venture. Greene, Friar Bacon, iv. 3 (1784); scene 13. 41 (W.); p. 175, col. 1 (D.); to pay a price for, Spenser, F. Q. iv. 11. 5.

proake, to ask. Mirror for Mag., Claudius T. Nero, st. 4; ‘To proke, procare’, Levins, Manip.

proceed, to advance, in one’s University course, from graduation as B.A. to some higher degree; ‘He proceaded Bachelour of Divinitye in the sayde Universitye of Cambridge’, Foxe, Bk. of Martyrs, 1297; Middleton, A Chaste Maid, iv. 1 (Tim).

prochinge, approaching. Sackville, Induction, line 1. Cp. Sc. prochy-madame (Prush-madam!), a call to cows, Ramsey, Remin. = F. approchez, Madame!, see EDD. (s.v. Proochy).

procinct, readiness, preparation; ‘Procinct of war’, Chapman, tr. of Iliad, xii. 89. L. procintus, readiness for action.

prodigious, portentous, horrible. Mids. Night’s D. v. 419; King John, iii. 1. 46.

proface, much good may it do you. 2 Hen. IV, v. 3. 30; Chapman, Widow’s Tears, iv. 2 (Lysander). OF. prouface, ‘souhait qui veut dire, bien vous fasse’ (Roquefort); prou, advantage + fasse (L. faciat), may it do. See Nares.

profligate, routed. Butler, Hud. i. 3. 728. L. profligare, to strike down, overthrow.

profound, to fathom, to get to the bottom of. Sir T. Browne, Rel. Med., pt. 1, § 13.

prog, to search about, esp. for food; ‘Man digs . . . He never rests . . . He mines and progs, though in the fangs of death’, Quarles, Job xiv. 60; ‘Each in his way doth incessantly prog for joy’, Barrow, Sermon, Rejoice evermore; ‘We need not cark or prog’, id. In prov. use in various parts of England, see EDD. (s.v. Prog, vb. 2).

progress, the travel of the sovereign and court to visit different parts of his dominions. Webster, White Devil (Flamineo), ed. Dyce, p. 9; Massinger, Guardian, i. 1 (Durazzo). Progress-block, a block for a new fashion of hats, to be used on a progress, Beaumont and Fl., Wit at several Weapons, iv. 1.

proin, proyne (of a bird), to preen, prune, to trim or dress the feathers with the beak. B. Jonson, Underwood, Celebr. Charis, v; Gascoigne, Complaint of Philomene, st. 59, p. 98. Spelt prune, Spenser, F. Q. ii. 3. 36; Cymb. v. 4. 118; 1 Hen. IV, i. 1. 98. ME. proynen (Chaucer, C. T. E. 2011). OF. poroign-, pres. pt. stem of poroindre, to trim feathers (Godefroy), L. pro + ungere, to anoint.

proine, proyne, to prune trees. Gascoigne, Steel Glas, l. 458; Bacon, Essay 50; Drayton, Pol. iii. 358; Two Noble Kinsmen, iii. 6. 292; Homilies 1, Falling fr. God (NED.); Machin, Dumb Knight, iii. 1. Norm. F. progner (Moisy), OF. proignier, to prune (Godefroy), Romanic type, protundiare, deriv. of L. rotundus, round. Cp. F. rogner des branches, des racines, ‘couper tout autour’ (Hatzfeld). See [royne].

project, to set forth, exhibit. Ant. and Cl. v. 2. 121; to presage, ‘When the south projects a stormy day’, Dryden, tr. of Virgil, Georg. i. 622.

projection, the application of ‘the elixir’ to the metal which is to be transmuted into gold. B. Jonson, Alchem. ii. 1 (Mammon).

proller, a prowler, wandering beggar. Chapman, tr. of Odyssey, xi. 490.

promont, a headland. Middleton, The Changeling, i. 1 (Vermandero); Drayton, Pol. iv. 7. 1.

promoter, a professional accuser, a common informer; ‘Enter two promoters’, Middleton, A Chaste Girl, ii. 2; Dekker, Honest Wh., Pt. I, v. 2 (1 Madman); Tusser, Husbandry, § 64. 11. See Cowell’s Interpreter.

prompture, prompting, instigation. Meas. for M. ii. 4. 178.

prone, a sermon delivered in commemoration of a founder or benefactor; ‘The founder . . . used to be commemorated in some Prone’, T. Hearne, Remains (ed. Bliss, 655); ‘All founders and benefactors were duly and constantly commemorated in their Prones’, id., 754. F. ‘prone, notice given by a Priest unto his Parishioners . . . of the holy days, of Banes of Matrimony, of such as desire to be relieved or prayed for, &c.’ (Cotgr.).

proof, proof-armour, strong defensive armour. Beaumont and Fl., Chances, i. 10 (Fred.). Proof-arm, to put on armour of proof, Hum. Lieutenant, ii. 3 (Leucippe).

proper, handsome, fine. Tam. Shrew, i. 2. 144; Much Ado, i. 3. 54; 1 Hen. VI, v. 3. 37; ‘He was a proper childe’, Bible, Heb. xi. 23 (= ‘elegantem infantem’, Vulgate). Very common in prov. use, see EDD. (s.v. Proper, 5).

proper, belonging exclusively to one, peculiar to one, Meas. for M. i. 1. 30; v. 1. 111; Shirley, Arcadia, iii. 1 (3 Rebel).

properties, rude paintings for scenery, or stage appliances. Shirley, Bird in a Cage, iii. 2 (Carlo); dresses for the actors, id., iv. 2 (Donella).

property, an implement, tool for a purpose. Merry Wives, iii. 4. 10; Jul. Caesar, iv. 1. 40; to use as a tool, King John, v. 2. 72.

propice, propitious, favourable. Udall, tr. of Apoph., Augustus, § 31; propise, Sir T. Elyot, Governour, bk. i, c. 4. F. propice; L. propitius.

propriety, peculiarity, special nature. Bacon, Essay 3, § 2; property, Dryden, Marriage a la Mode, v. 1 (Rhodophil). F. ‘proprieté, a property speciality in; the nature, quality, inclination of’ (Cotgr.).

prospective, a magic glass or crystal in which it was supposed that distant or future events could be seen, Bacon, Essay 26; glasse prospective, Greene, Friar Bacon, v. 110. The word also means a telescope, J. Taylor (Water Poet), Fennor’s Defence (NED.). Also, a scene, a view, Porter, Angry Women, i. 1. 12. F. prospective, ‘the prospective or optick art; also, a bounded prospect, a limited view’ (Cotgr.).

prostrate, one who is prostrate as a suppliant or a vanquished foe, Otway, Don Carlos, i. 1.

protense, extension, a story long drawn out. Spenser, F. Q. iii. 3. 4. L. protensus, drawn out; pp. of protendere, to draw forth.

protract, delay, procrastination. Ferrex and Porrex, iv. 2 (Porrex).

provand, food, provisions. Coriolanus, ii. 1. 267; Caxton, Reynard (Arber, p. 60). Flemish, provande, Fr. provende, Romanic type provenda for eccles. L. praebenda, a daily allowance (Dict. Christ. Antiq.).

provant, provender, food. Fletcher, Love’s Cure, ii. 1. Also, one who deals in provisions, a sutler. Beaumont and Fl., Four Plays in One, i. 1 (Nicodemus). Hence, Provant, of or belonging to the ‘provant’ or soldier’s allowance, and therefore, of common or inferior quality, Webster, Appius and Virg. i. 4; B. Jonson, Every Man in Hum. iii. 1 (Bobadil).

provecte, advanced; ‘Provecte in yeres’, Sir T. Elyot, Governour, bk. i, c. 4, § 3. L. provectus, pp.

providence, foresight, timely care. Massinger, New Way to Pay, iii. 2 (Overreach); Shirley, Hyde Park, iii. 1. 5.

provincial garland, a garland given to one who had added a province to the Roman Empire. Ford, Broken Heart, i. 2 (Calanthia).

prowest, most valiant. Spenser, F. Q. i. 4. 41; ii. 8. 18. OF. prou, valiant (Bartsch). See Dict. (s.v. Prowess).

prune, the fruit. Stewed prunes, often referred to as being a favourite dish in brothels. Meas. for M. ii. 1. 93; 1 Hen. IV, iii. 3. 128; cp. Fletcher, Mad Lover, iv. 5 (Eumenes). Spelt proin, in proin-stone, Peele, Sir Clyomon (ed. Dyce, p. 500).

prune; see [proin].

pry, prie, a local name of the small-leaved lime (Tilia parvifolia). Tusser, Husbandry, § 35. 15. An Essex word, see EDD. (sv. Pry, sb.¹ 4).

ptrow, interj., tut! an exclamation of contempt. Heywood, Jupiter and Io, vol. vi, p. 267, l. 3.

Pucelle. Joan la Pucelle, Joan of Arc, the Maid of Orleans, 1 Hen. VI, i. 4. 101; i. 6. 3. F. pucelle, a maid, virgin.

puckfist, puckfoist, the fungus usually called a puff-ball. Beaumont and Fl., Custom of the Country, i. 2 (Rutilio); B. Jonson, Poetaster, iv. 5 (Tucca). Named after ‘Puck’. See [pouke]. A common prov. word (EDD.). The ‘puff-ball’ was also called Bull-fist, Puff-fist, and Wolf’s-fist, see Cotgrave (s.v. Vesse de loup); see NED. (s.v. Fist).

puckle, a kind of bugbear or goblin. Middleton, The Witch, i. 2 (Hecate). OE. pūcel, a goblin (NED.), dimin. of pūca; see [pouke].

puckling, little goblin; used as a term of endearment by a witch. Heywood, Witches of Lancs. ii. 1 (Mawd.); vol. iv, p. 187. See above.

pudder, pother, confusion, turmoil. King Lear, iii. 2. 50 (1623); Ford, Fancies Chaste, iii. 3 (Romanello). A common prov. word (EDD.).

pudding-time, in, in good time, lit. in time for dinner, as dinner often began with pudding. Like will to Like, in Hazlitt’s Dodsley, iii. 219; Butler, Hud. i. 2. 865. Still in use; see EDD.

pudding tobacco, tobacco compressed into sausage-like rolls. B. Jonson, Cynthia’s Revels, ii. 1 (Mercury); Middleton, Roaring Girl, iii. 2 (Laxton).

pudency, modesty. Cymbeline, ii. 5. 11. L. pudentia, modesty.

pug, to pull, to tug; ‘What pugging by the ear!’, Appius and Virginia, in Hazlitt’s Dodsley, iv. 120. In prov. use from Warw. to Dorset, see EDD. (s.v. Pug, vb.²).

pug, a bargeman; ‘In a Westerne barge, when with a good winde and lustie pugges one may go ten miles in two daies’, Lyly, Endymion, iv. 2; Westerne pugs, men who navigated barges down the Thames to London; ‘The Westerne pugs receiving money there [in plague time] have tyed it in a bag at the end of their barge, and trailed it through the Thames’, Dekker, Wonderfull Yeare (NED.).

puggard, a thief (Cant). Middleton, Roaring Girl, v. 1 (Moll).

pugging tooth, Winter’s Tale, iv. 3. 7. Meaning uncertain. Usually taken as = thieving, cp. [puggard]. In Devon ‘pug-tooth’ means eye-tooth (EDD.). Possibly there may be a play of words here: Autolycus’s hungry eye-tooth (pug-tooth) set on edge tempts him to thieve (pug) ‘the white sheet bleaching on the hedge’.

puke, a superior kind of woollen cloth, 1 Hen. IV, ii. 4. 78. M. Du. puuc, puyck, name of the best sort of woollen cloth (A.D. 1420). Du. puyck, woollen cloth (Hexham); puik, choice, excellent (Sewel).

puke, the name of the colour formerly used for the cloth named ‘puke’. ‘Pauonaccio cupo, a deep darke purple or puke colour’ (Florio, ed. 1598); ‘Pewke, a colour, pers’, Palsgrave. See NED.

pull: in phr. to pull down a side, ‘to cause the loss or hazard of the side or party with which a person plays’ (Nares); ‘If I hold your card, I shall pull down the side’, Massinger, Duke of Florence, iv. 2 (Cozimo); id., Unnatural Combat, ii. 1 (Belgarde).

pullen, poultry, chickens. Tusser, Husbandry, 87. 5; Beaumont and Fl., Scornful Lady, v. 2 (Elder Loveless); poleyn, Fitzherbert, Husbandry, 146. 21. In common prov. use in the north country and in E. Anglia (EDD.). OF. poulain, young of any animal (Hatzfeld). Med. L. pullanus, see Ducange (s.v. Pullani).

pulpamenta, delicacies. B. Jonson, Ev. Man out of Humour, v. 7 (Macilente). A word used by Plautus for tit-bits, delicacies.

pulpatoon, a dish made of rabbits, fowls, &c., in a crust of forced meat. Nabbes, Microcosmus, iii. 1 (Tasting). Span. pulpelón, a large slice of stuffed meat.

pulvilio, fine scented powder, cosmetic powder. Etherege, Man of Mode, iii. 3 (Sir Fopling); Pulvilio-box, a scent-box, Wycherley, Plain Dealer, ii (Manly). Hence pulvil, to perfume with scented powder, Congreve, Way of the World, iv. 1 (beginning). Ital. polviglio, fine powder. See Stanford.

pumey, ‘pumice’. Peele, Anglorum Feriae, 26 (ed. Dyce, p. 595); pumie-stone, Spenser, F. Q. iii. 5. 39; Shep. Kal., March, 89.

pun, to pound, to beat, pummel. Tr. and Cr. ii. 1. 42; pund, pt. t., Heywood, King Edw. IV, First Part (Spicing); vol. i, p. 19. In common prov. use from the north country down to Glouc., see EDD. (s.v. Pound, vb.³). OE. punian, to pound, beat, bray in mortar.

puncheon, a kind of dagger. Phaer, tr. of Aeneid, vii. 664 (L. dolones). O. Prov. ponchon, ‘poinçon’ (Levy).

puncto; see [punto].

punctual, no bigger than a point, very small; ‘This opacous Earth, this punctual spot’, Milton, P. L. viii. 23.

punese, a bug. Butler, Hud. iii. 1. 437. F. punaise.

†pung, a ‘punk’, courtesan. Middleton, Mich. Term, iii. 1 (Lethe). Not found elsewhere.

punkateero, a purveyor of punks, a pander. Middleton, Blurt, Mr. Constable, iv. 1 (Curvetto). A jocose formation from punk, a strumpet, in imitation of Span. mulatero, muleteer, from mulo, mule. Not found elsewhere.

punto, a small point; in a punto, in a moment, B. Jonson, Every Man in Hum. iv. 7 (Bobadil); a nice point of behaviour, a ‘punctilio’, ‘Puntos and Complementes’, Bacon. Adv. L., bk. ii, c. 23, § 3; a stroke or thrust with the point of the sword or foil, Merry Wives, ii. 3. 26; punto riverso, a back-handed thrust, Romeo, ii. 4. 27; punto beard, a pointed beard, Shirley, Honoria, i. 2 (Alamode). Ital. and Span. punto, L. punctum, a point.

purchase, to acquire, obtain, gain. Tempest, iv. 1. 14; Richard II, i. 3. 282. Hence, purchase, acquired property, wealth, Webster, Duch. Malfi, iii. 1 (Antonio); spoil, booty, 1 Hen. IV, ii. 1. 101; Hen. V, iii. 2. 45; Spenser, F. Q. i. 3. 16; Marlowe, 1 Tamburlaine, ii. 5 (Theridamas). See Dict.

purfle, to embroider along an edge, to border, to ornament. Spenser, F. Q. i. 2. 13; ii. 3. 26; Milton, Comus, 995; ‘Pourfiler, to purfle, tinsell or overcast with gold thread’, Cotgrave.

purfle, the contour or outline of anything, the profile. Chapman, Byron’s Conspiracy, iii. 1 (Breton).

puritan, used ironically for a courtesan (Cant). Marston, What you Will, iii. 3 (Slip).

purlieu, ground near a forest, which having been made forest, was by perambulation (OF. puralee) separated from the same, see Manwood, Forest Laws, cap. 20; ‘In the purlieus of this forest’, As You Like It, iv. 3. 77. The form purlieu (for an older purley) is probably due to popular etymology, i.e. to association with F. pur lieu, L. purus locus, a free open space; purley, Randolph, Muses’ Looking-glass, iv. 3 (Nimis); purley-man, one who has lands within the ‘purlieu’ (NED.); Pourlie man, Cowell’s Interpreter (s.v. Purlue). Anglo-F. puralé (-lée), a going though, ‘perambulatio’ (Rough List, s.v. Purlieu). See NED.

purpense, to determine beforehand; ‘James Grame . . . wilfully assented and purpensed the murdre, &c.’, Act 12 Hen. VII, c. 7; ‘A purpensed malice’, Udall, Erasmus’s Paraph. Mark iii. 30. Anglo-F. purpenser: agwait purpensé, ‘insidiis praecogitatis’ (Laws of William I, § 1, 2); see Moisy. See [prepense].

purpose, conversation, discourse. Spenser, F. Q. ii. 2. 45; ii. 6. 6; ii. 8. 56; Much Ado, iii. 1. 12; to converse, discourse, F. Q. ii. 12. 16. OF. pourpos (purpos), a purpose (Godefroy), cp. F. propos, a purpose, design, also, speech, discourse (Cotgr.).

purprise, an enclosure, enclosed area. Bacon, Essay 56 (Judicature). Norm. F. purprise, pourprise, ‘pourpris, enceinte, enelos, demeure’ (Moisy); porprise (Didot); porprendre, ‘investir, entourer’ (Didot). Med. L. porprisa, porprisum, ‘possessio vel locus sepibus, muris, ant vallis conclusus’; see Ducange (s.v. Porprendere).

purse, to steal purses. Beaumont and Fl., Scornful Lady, ii. 1 (Yo. Loveless).

purse-net, a net, the mouth of which could be drawn together by a string. Webster, Devil’s Law-case, iv. 2 (Ariosto); Appius, iv. 1 (Advocate).

purveyance, providence. Surrey, tr. of Aeneid, iv, l. 58; provision, equipment, Spenser, F. Q. i. 12. 13. ME. purveyaunce, providence, also, provision (Chaucer). See Dict. (s.v. Purvey).

push, a pustule, pimple; ‘Black poushes or boyles’, Sir T. Elyot, Castel of Helthe, bk. iii, c. 7; ‘Pimples or pushes’, Udall, tr. of Apoph., Diogenes, § 6. Still in use in many parts of England, see EDD. (s.v. Push, sb.³).

push, interj., pish! Massinger, The Old Law, ii. 1 (Simonides); Middleton, Mich. Term, ii. 3 (Shortyard). Very common in Middleton.

push-pin, a childish game noticed by Strutt, Sports, v. 4. 14. In L. L. L. iv. 3. 169; Herrick, Hesper., Love’s Play at Push-pin. Also called put-pin.

pussle, a maid, girl, drab. Stubbes, Anat. Abuses (ed. Furnivall, 78); ‘A puzell verie beautifull’, Holinshed (ed. 1587, iii. 545); Laneham’s Letter (ed. Furnivall, 23); ‘The Fayre Pusell’, W. de Worde, Treatyse of a Galaunt (see title of the play). F. pucelle, a maid.

put, a silly fellow, a ‘duffer’ (Cant). Shadwell, Squire of Alsatia, i. 1 (Shamwell). See Slang Dict., 1874.

put case, suppose. Middleton, A Chaste Maid, ii. 1 (end).

put forth, to lend out (money). B. Jonson, Ev. Man out of Humour ii. 1 (Puntarvolo). Cp. Temp. iii. 3. 48; Sonnet cxxxiv. 10.

put on, to put on a hat. This was the occasion of much empty compliment. Webster, Devil’s Law-case, ii. 1 (Ariosto). Putting off his hat, taking it off, 2 Hen. IV, ii. 4. 7.

put up, to sheathe a sword, to replace it in the scabbard. Temp. i. 2. 469; Twelfth Nt. iii. 4. 343; put up (without a following sb.), Middleton, The Widow, i. 2 (Martino).

puther, pother, trouble, disturbance. Buckingham, The Rehearsal, ii. 4 (Bayes); pudder, K. Lear, iii. 2. 50 (1623); poother, Coriolanus, ii. 1. 234.

put-pin, ‘Playing at put-pin’, Marston, Scourge of Villainy, Sat. viii. 205. See [push-pin].

puttock, a bird of prey of the kite kind. 2 Hen. VI, iii. 2. 191; Cymb. i. 1. 140; Puritan Widow, iii. 3. 110; ‘Puttocke, escoufle’, Palsgrave. In common prov. use for a kite or buzzard, see EDD. (s.v. Puttock, sb.¹ 1 and 2). ME. puttocke, ‘milvus’ (Prompt. EETS. 339, see note, no. 1647). Puttock is a not uncommon surname, see Bardsley, 493. An older form for this surname was Putthawke, see Chronicles of Theberton (Suffolk), by H. M. Doughty, 1910, p. 177, ‘That year [1748] John Puttock or Putthawke was churchwarden.’ Can puttock, the name of the bird, stand for pout-hawk, from the pouts, i.e. small birds, on which it feeds? [For pout, see NED. (s.v. Poult).]

puzell; see [pussle].

pylery hole, the hole through which the head of the offender was thrust in the pillory. Skelton, Magnyf. 361. OF. pillorie (Ducange, s.v. Pilorium), O. Prov. espilori, espitlori (Levy); Med. L. *spect’lorium < *spectaculorium, a place for a ‘spectacle’ (L. spectaculum).

pyonyng; see [pion].

pyromancy, divination by fire. Greene, Friar Bacon, i. 2 (186); scene 2. 15 (W.); p. 155, col. 1 (D.). Gk. πυρομαντεία, divination by fire.

Pythonissa, the witch of Endor; ‘Saith the Pythonissa to Saul’, Bacon, Essay 35. L. pythonissa, applied to the witch of Endor (1 Sam. xxviii), see Vulgate, Lib. 1 Regum xxviii, Argument (‘Saul pythonissam consulit’); properly, a woman possessed with Python, the spirit of divination, cp. Vulgate, Lib. 1 Regum xxviii. 7 (‘Mulier pythonem habens in Endor’). See [Phitonessa].