Punch, v. To bore or perforate by driving a sharp instrument.
Punch, s. A pointed instrument, which, driven by a blow, perforates bodies; a liquor made by mixing spirit with water, sugar, and the juice of lemons or oranges; an implement for cutting out hat or card waddings.
To make Punch.—A wine-glass nearly full of best refined lump sugar pounded. Twelve ditto of cold spring water, a lime, and half a lemon, (or if no lime, a whole lemon, which might yield about half a wineglassful of juice). Two wineglasses brim full of old Jamaica rum. Let the sugar be well melted, and the lemons thoroughly amalgamated with it and the water, before you add the spirit.
It is better to make the punch with boiling water the night before it is required for use. Strain it in the morning, and place the bottles in a well or stream of water, sheltered from the sun. When wanted at dinner time, you will have a cooler and much more mellow beverage than if the water had been taken from the spring.—Hawker—Wild Sports.
Puncture, s. A hole made with a sharp point.
Pungent, a. Pungent, sharp on the tongue, acrid; piercing, sharp, acrimonious, biting.
Punt, s. A light flat boat for fishing and shooting.
Dressing for Punts and Canoes.—To keep gunning punts and canoes from leaking, or, as those who use them call it, weeping, melt a pint of tar with a pound of pitch, and either half a pint of common oil, or a proportional quantity of suet. You have then only to pour a little of this mixture into the seams of your punt, and, instead of bedaubing her all over the bottom, as we did in the old school, seven or eight years ago, have the bottom painted with one or two coats of red lead, which will last much longer, and with which the boat rows much lighter.
White resin and mutton suet is even a better dressing, and by far the lightest of any.