Butler (1600), Milton (1608), and Dryden (1630) came between the first and second clusters. Thomson (1700), Gray (1717), Collins (1720), Akenside (1721), Goldsmith (1728), and Cowper (1731), between the second and the third.
Pleonec´tes (4 syl.), Covetousness personified, in The Purple Island, by Phineas Fletcher (1633). “His gold his god” ... he “much fears to keep, much more to lose his lusting.” Fully described in canto viii. (Greek, pleonektês, “covetous.”)
Pleydell (Mr. Paulus), an advocate in Edinburgh, shrewd and witty. He was at one time the sheriff at Ellangowan.
Mr. Counsellor Pleydell was a lively, sharp-looking gentleman, with a professional shrewdness in his eye, and, generally speaking, a professional formality in his manner; but this he could slip off on a Saturday evening, when ... he joined in the ancient pastime of High Jinks.—Sir W. Scott, Guy Mannering, xxxix. (time, George II.).
Pliable, a neighbor of Christian, whom he accompanied as far as the “Slough of Despond,” when he turned back.—Bunyan, Pilgrim’s Progress, i. (1678).
Pliant (Sir Paul), a hen-pecked husband, who dares not even touch a letter addressed to himself till my lady has read it first. His perpetual oath is “Gadsbud!” He is such a dolt that he would not believe his own eyes and ears, if they bore testimony against his wife’s fidelity and continency. (See [Placid].)
Lady Pliant, second wife of Sir Paul. “She’s handsome, and knows it; is very silly, and thinks herself wise; has a choleric old husband” very fond of her, but whom she rules with spirit, and snubs “afore folk.” My lady says, “If one has once sworn, it is most unchristian, inhuman, and obscene that one should break it.” Her conduct with Mr. Careless is most reprehensible.—Congreve, The Double Dealer (1694).
Pliny (The German), or “Modern Pliny,” Konrad von Gesner of Zurich, who wrote Historia Animalium, etc. (1516-1565).
Pliny of the East, Zakarija ibn Muhammed, surnamed “Kazwînî,” from Kazwîn, the place of his birth. He is so called by De Sacy (1200-1283).
Plon-Plon, Prince Napoleon Joseph Charles Bonaparte, son of Jerome Bonaparte by his second wife (the Princess Frederica Catherine of Würtemberg). Plon-Plon is a euphonic corruption of Craint-Plomb (“fear-bullet”), a nickname given to the prince in the Crimēan war (1854-6).