Prue (Miss), a schoolgirl still under the charge of a nurse, very precocious and very injudiciously brought up. Miss Prue is the daughter of Mr. Foresight, a mad astrologer, and Mrs. Foresight, a frail nonentity.—Congreve, Love for Love (1695).
Prue. Wife of “I”; a dreamer. “Prue makes everything think well, even to making the neighbors speak well of her.”
Of himself Prue’s husband says:
“How queer that a man who owns castles in Spain should be deputy book-keeper at $900 per annum!”—George William Curtis, Prue and I (1856).
Prunes and Prisms, the words which give the lips the right plie of the highly aristocratic mouth, as Mrs. General tells Amy Dorrit.
“’Papa’ gives a pretty form to the lips. ‘Papa,’ ‘potatoes,’ ‘poultry,’ ‘prunes and prisms.’ You will find it serviceable if you say to yourself on entering a room, ‘Papa, potatoes, poultry, prunes and prisms.’”—C. Dickens, Little Dorrit (1855).
General Burgoyne, in The Heiress, makes Lady Emily tell Miss Alscrip that the magic words are “nimini pimini;” and that if she will stand before her mirror and pronounce these words repeatedly, she cannot fail to give her lips that happy plie which is known as the “Paphian mimp.”—The Heiress, iii. 2 (1781).
Pru´sio, king of Alvarecchia, slain by Zerbi´no.—Ariosto, Orlando Furioso (1516).
Pry (Paul), one of those idle, meddling fellows, who, having no employment of their own, are perpetually interfering in the affairs of other people.—John Poole, Paul Pry.
Prydwen or [Pridwin] (q.v.), called in the Mabinogion, the ship of King Arthur. It was also the name of his shield. Taliessin speaks of it as a ship, and Robert of Gloucester as a shield.