perdie, a form of oath = By God!; used often merely as an asseveration. Hen. V, ii. 1. 52; Hamlet, iii. 2. 305; King Lear, ii. 4. 86; Spenser, F. Q. ii. 6. 22. ME. pardee (Chaucer, C. T. A. 563, 3084). OF. pardee (F. par Dieu) Norm. F. Dé = Dieu (Moisy).
perditly, desperately. Heywood, Dialogue 3 (Mary); vol. vi, p. 118. Cp. L. perdite amare, to love desperately.
perdu, perdue, a soldier sent on a forlorn hope; one who is in a perilous position or in desperate case. King Lear, iv. 7. 35; Beaumont and Fl., Mad Lover, i. 1 (Cleanthe); Little French Lawyer, ii. 3. 3; Chapman, Widow’s Tears, ii. 1 (Lysander). F. perdu, lost.
peregall, fully equal. Spenser, Shep. Kal., Aug., 8; Skelton, Speke Parrot, 430; no peregal, without an equal; Marston, Antonio, Pt. I, iii. 2 (Catzo). See [paregal].
perge, go on, proceed. Wilkins, Miseries of inforst Marriage, ii (Ilford); L. L. L. iv. 2. 54. L. perge, imper.
pergit, a pargetting; ‘Painting’s pergit’, the plastering (of a woman’s face) with paint, Drayton, Pastorals, iv. 78. See [parget].
periapt, an amulet. 1 Hen. VI, v. 3. 2. F. ‘periapte, a medicine hanged about any part of the body’ (Cotgr.). Gk. περίαπτον, a thing fastened round one, an amulet (Plato).
periment, a ‘pediment’ (NED.). A workman’s term. L. operimentum, a covering (Vulgate, Ezek. xxviii. 13). See Dict. (s.v. Pediment).
perish, to destroy. 2 Hen. VI, iii. 2. 100; Bacon, Essay 27, § 5. Cp. the Yorks. use: ‘If thou goes out to-night it will perish thee’ (EDD.), and the Irish, ‘Ah, shut that door; there’s a breeze in throught it that would perish the Danes’, Joyce, 168.
perk, saucy, pert, brisk, smart. Spenser, Shep. Kal., Feb., 8. In gen. prov. use in the North and in the Midlands (EDD.). As vb., to perk it, to thrust oneself forward, to behave presumptuously; ‘Miriam began to perk it before Moses’, Bunyan, Case Consc. Resolved (ed. 1861, ii. 673); to be perked up, to be made smart, Hen. VIII, ii. 3. 21; to perk up, to stick up, ‘(Hattes) pearking up’, Stubbes, Anat. Abuses (ed. Furnivall, 50).