On the same word, the author in another place remarks as follows: "As long back as my memory will carry me, down to the present day, there has been scarcely a monosyllable in our language which seemed to convey so stinging a reproach, or to let a man down in the general estimation half as much, as this one word PLUCK."—p. 288.
PLUCKED. A cant term at the English universities, applied to those who, for want of scholarship, are refused their testimonials for a degree.—Oxford Guide.
Who had at length scrambled through the pales and discipline of the Senate-House without being plucked, and miraculously obtained the title of A.B.—Gent. Mag., 1795, p. 19.
O what a misery is it to be plucked! Not long since, an undergraduate was driven mad by it, and committed suicide.—The term itself is contemptible: it is associated with the meanest, the most stupid and spiritless animals of creation. When we hear of a man being plucked, we think he is necessarily a goose.—Collegian's Guide, p. 288.
Poor Lentulus, twice plucked, some happy day
Just shuffles through, and dubs himself B.A.
The College, in Blackwood's Mag., May, 1849.
POKER. At Oxford, Eng., a cant name for a bedel.
If the visitor see an unusual "state" walking about, in shape of an individual preceded by a quantity of pokers, or, which is the same thing, men, that is bedels, carrying maces, jocularly called pokers, he may be sure that that individual is the Vice-Chancellor. Oxford Guide, 1847, p. xii.
POLE. At Princeton and Union Colleges, to study hard, e.g. to pole out the lesson. To pole on a composition, to take pains with it.
POLER. One who studies hard; a close student. As a boat is impelled with poles, so is the student by poling, and it is perhaps from this analogy that the word poler is applied to a diligent student.
POLING. Close application to study; diligent attention to the specified pursuits of college.