Pourri, adj. (familiar), full; —— de chic, very elegant, dashing, “tsing tsing.”
Pousse, f. (thieves’), police, gendarmerie. (Popular) Ce qui se ——, money, “loaver.” See [Quibus]. (Roughs’) Filer, or refiler une —— à quelqu’un, to hustle, “to flimp;” to throw down. Y veut m’ coller un coup d’sorlot dans les accessoires; je l’y file une pousse et j’te l’envoie dinguer sur le trime. He tried to kick me in the privy parts; I threw him down and sent him sprawling in the road.
Poussé, adj. (thieves’), drunk, or “canon.” See [Pompette].
Pousse-au-vice, f. (popular), Spanish fly.
Pousse-bateau, m. (popular), water.
Pousse-café, m. (familiar), a small glass of brandy or ligueur drunk after taking coffee, le repousse-café being a second glass.
Pousse-cailloux, m. (popular), infantry soldier, “wobbler.” In the slang of the cavalry, “mud-crusher, or beetle-crusher.”
Pousse-cul, m. (familiar and popular), obsolete, “archer,” or soldier of the watch.
Pousse-cul, pour archer, ou ce qu’on appelle vulgairement à Paris des sergens, ou des archers de l’écuelle, qui vont d’un côté et d’autre pour prendre les gueux.—Le Roux.
Nisard, in his interesting work, De quelques Parisianismes populaires, says that the foot-soldiers of the watch were termed “pousse-culs,” whereas the mounted police went by the name of “lapins ferrés,” lapin being the general term for a soldier, as shown by a letter from a general of the army in Italy to Bonaparte, written in true Spartan-like spirit:—