Pick-me-up. A stimulating beverage or a medicinal tonic as a remedy for languor or lowness of spirits.
Pick up. An Americanism for a cold dinner composed of the fragments of the previous day’s joint. Sometimes such a one is called a “Pick-up Dinner.”
Picts. The Lowlanders of Scotland, called by the Romans picti, or painted men, because, they stained their skins with woad.
Pie Corner. It has been considered curious that the Great Fire of London should have broken out in “Pudding Lane” and ended at Pie Corner. Scarcely less curious was it that this Pie Corner was an eating-house. Its sign was “The Pie,” a corruption of “Magpie.”
Piedmont. Expresses the French for “mountain foot.”
Pierrot. French for “Little Peter.”
Pig and Whistle. A tavern sign corrupted from “Piggen Wassail.” Piggen expressed the Anglo-Saxon for a milking pail, of which pig was the diminutive. When a large party frequented the alehouse the liquor was set before them in a piggen, each helping himself from it with his pig, or mug. “Wassail” was, of course, the Anglo-Saxon Was hæl (“Be in health”). See “[Hail].”
Pigeon English. That employed by the Chinese in their commercial relations with Europeans. The word pigeon is a native corruption of “business,” which it seems impossible for a Chinaman to pronounce correctly. Their business English is therefore a jargon of many languages heard by him in the “Open Ports.”
Pig in a Poke. See “[Buy a Pig in a Poke]” and “[Let the Cat out of the Bag].”
Piggott Diamond. One of the smaller diamonds of celebrity, weighing 82¼ carats. This was brought to England from India by Lord Piggott in 1818, when it passed into the hands of Messrs Rundell & Bridge.