[1717.—"... a Pavilion lined with Imboss'd Perpets."—In Yule, Hedges' Diary, Hak. Soc. ii. ccclix.]
1754.—"Being requested by the Trustees of the Charity Stock of this place to make an humble application to you for an order that the children upon the Foundation to the number of 12 or 14 may be supplied at the expense of the Honorable Company with a coat of blue Perpets or some ordinary cloth...."—Petition of Revd. R. Mapletoft, in Long, p. 29.
1757.—Among the presents sent to the King of Ava with the mission of Ensign Robert Lester, we find:
"2 Pieces of ordinary Red Broad Cloth.
3 Do. of Pérpetuánoes Popingay."
In Dalrymple, Or. Rep. i. 203.
PERSAIM, n.p. This is an old form of the name of [Bassein] (q.v.) in Pegu. It occurs (e.g.) in Milburn, ii. 281.
1759.—"The Country for 20 miles round Persaim is represented as capable of producing Rice, sufficient to supply the Coast of Choromandel from Pondicherry to Masulipatam."—Letter in Dalrymple, Or. Rep. i. 110. Also in a Chart by Capt. G. Baker, 1754.
1795.—"Having ordered presents of a trivial nature to be presented, in return for those brought from Negrais, he referred the deputy ... to the Birman Governor of Persaim for a ratification and final adjustment of the treaty."—Symes, p. 40. But this author also uses Bassien (e.g. 32), and "Persaim or Bassien" (39), which alternatives are also in the chart by Ensign Wood.
PERSIMMON, s. This American name is applied to a fruit common in China and Japan, which in a dried state is imported largely from China into Tibet. The tree is the Diospyros kaki, L. fil., a species of the same genus which produces ebony. The word is properly the name of an American fruit and tree of the same genus (D. virginiana), also called date-plum, and, according to the Dictionary of Worcester, belonged to the Indian language of Virginia. [The word became familiar in 1896 as the name of the winner of the Derby.]