Petro´nius (C. or T.), a kind of Roman “beau Brummell” in the court of Nero. He was a great voluptuary and profligate, whom Nero appointed Arbiter Elegantiæ, and considered nothing comme il faut till it had received the sanction of this dictator-in-chief of the imperial pleasures. Tigellinus accused him of treason, and Petronius committed suicide by opening his veins (A.D. 66).
Behold the new Petronius of the day,
The arbiter of pleasure and of play.
Byron, English Bards and Scotch Reviewers (1809).
Petruccio = Pe.truch´.e.o, governor of Bologna.—Beaumont and Fletcher, The Chances (1620).
Petru´chio, a gentleman of Vero´na who undertakes to tame the haughty Katharina, called “the Shrew.” He marries her, and, without the least personal chastisement, reduces her to lamb-like submission. Being a fine compound of bodily and mental vigor, with plenty of wit, spirit, and good-nature, he rules his subordinates dictatorially, and shows he will have his own way, whatever the consequences.—Shakespeare, Taming of the Shrew (1594).
Beaumont and Fletcher wrote a comedy called The Tamer Tamed, in which Petruchio is supposed to marry a second wife, by whom he is hen-pecked (1647).
Pet´ulant, an “odd sort of small wit,” “without manners or breeding.” In controversy he would bluntly contradict, and he never spoke the truth. When in his “club,” in order to be thought a man of intrigue, he would steal out quietly, and then in disguise return and call for himself, or leave a letter for himself. He not unfrequently mistook impudence and malice for wit, and looked upon a modest blush in woman as a mark of “guilt or ill-breeding.”—W. Congreve, The Way of the World (1700).
Peu-à-Peu. So George IV. called Prince Leopold. Stein, speaking of the prince’s vacillating conduct in reference to the throne of Greece, says of him, “He has no color,” i.e. no fixed plan of his own, but is blown about by every wind.
Peveril (William), natural son of William the Conqueror, and ancestor of Peveril of the Peak.
Sir Geoffrey Peveril, a cavalier, called “Peveril of the Peak.”
Lady Margaret Peveril, wife of Sir Geoffrey.