Pickaninny, a young child is thus styled by the West Indian negroes. The word is now completely naturalized among sailors and water-side people in England.
Pickers, the hands.—Shakspeare.
Pickle, a miserable or comical position; “he is in a sad PICKLE,” said of any one who has fallen into the gutter, or got besmeared. “A PICKLE herring,” a comical fellow, a merry-andrew.—Old. Also, a mischievous boy; “what a PICKLE he is, to be sure!” Derived from his always getting into a PICKLE, or mess.
Pickles! gammon; also a jeering and insulting exclamation.
Pick-me-up, a revivifying drink taken after a debauch; a tonic.
Piece, a contemptuous term for a woman; a strumpet.—Shakspeare. Not always objectionable nowadays. A “barber’s clerk” does not object to hear his sweetheart or wife called “a nice PIECE;” and gentlemen of the counter-jumping fraternity describe their “young ladies” as “nice PIECES of goods.”
Pieman. In tossing, the man who cries is called the PIEMAN. In the old days when the itinerant PIEMAN’S duty was to toss or sell, and his call was, “Hot pies, toss or buy, toss or buy,” he was always supposed to be entitled to the cry, the intending eater “skying the copper.” An active and efficient police have, however, improved tossing—so far, at all events, as PIEMEN and poor people are concerned—off the face of the earth, and gaming of all descriptions is now a luxury confined to the rich.
Pig, a mass of metal,—so called from its being poured in a fluid state from a [SOW], which see.—Workman’s term.
Pig, a policeman; an informer. The word is now almost exclusively applied by London thieves to a plain-clothes man, or a “nose.”