Pub, or PUBLIC, a public-house; “what PUB do you use?” i.e., which inn or public-house do you frequent?
Public patterers, swell mobsmen who pretend to be Dissenting preachers, and harangue in the open air to attract a crowd for their confederates to rob.
Pucker, poor or bad temper, difficulty, déshabillé. Pucker up, to get in a bad temper.
Puckering, talking privately.
Puckerow, to seize, to take hold of. From the Hindostanee, PUCKERNA.—Anglo-Indian.
Pudding-snammer, one who robs a cook-shop.
Puff, to blow up, or swell with praise; declared by a writer in the Weekly Register, as far back as 1732, to be illegitimate.
“Puff has become a cant word, signifying the applause set forth by writers, &c. to increase the reputation and sale of a book, and is an excellent stratagem to excite the curiosity of gentle readers.”
Lord Bacon, however, used the word in a similar sense a century before. Sheridan also seems to have remembered the use of the word, vide Mr. Puff.