[Postillon], m. (thieves’), pellet used as a mode of communication between prisoners, or between a prisoner and outsiders.
Un postillon est tout simplement une boulette de mie de pain pétrie entre les doigts et renfermant une lettre, un avis.—Mémoires de Canler.
Envoyer le ——, to correspond thus. (Popular) Postillon d’eau chaude, engine driver, “puffing billy” driver; hospital assistant whose functions consist in administering clysters to patients, an operation described by Molière as “clysterium donare.”
Postillonner (thieves’), to correspond by means of the “[postillon]” (which see); (familiar and popular) to spit involuntarily when talking.
Posture, f. (popular), en ——, apothecary, or “pill-driver.” Termed also “potard.”
Pot, m. (thieves’), cabriolet, a kind of gig. Termed also “cuiller à pot, or potiron roulant.”
Enlevez le gré, le pot et les frusquins du sinve qui s’est esgaré avec les miens.—Vidocq. (Take away the horse, the gig, and the clothes of the fool who ran away with mine.)
Pot, crucible used by coiners. (Popular) Fouille au ——, man who is fond of taking liberties with women.
Il fallait le voir toujours en petoche autour d’elle. Un vrai fouille-au-pot, qui tâtait sa jupe par derrière, dans la foule, sans avoir l’air de rien.—Zola.
Potache, m. (students’), pupil at a lycée, a government school. Probably a corruption of “potasse,” from “potasser,” a slang term used by students to signify to work. L. Larchey says the origin of the word may be found in “pot-à-chien,” college cap.