†persway, to assuage, alleviate. B. Jonson, Barth. Fair, ii. 1 (Overdo). Not found elsewhere.
pert, lively, brisk, sprightly; in good spirits; ‘Trip the pert Fairies’, Milton, Comus, 118; Mids. Night’s D. i. 1. 13. In gen. prov. use in England, see EDD. (s.v. Pert, also Peart).
pert, open, easily perceived. Spenser, Shep. Kal., Sept., 162. Short for apert, open. F. apert; L. apertus.
peruse, to inspect, examine. Com. Errors, i. 2. 15; Hen. VIII, ii. 3. 75; peruse over, to read over, King John, v. 2. 5.
pester’d, pestred, crowded together; ‘Pestred in gallies’, Gosson, School of Abuse, p. 32 (end); ‘Confin’d and pester’d in this pinfold here’, Milton, Comus, 7; North’s Plutarch (in Shak. Plutarch, ed. Skeat, 175). For impestered; ‘Empestré, impestered, intricated, intangled, incumbered’, Cotgrave. See Dict. (s.v. Pester).
pesterous, cumbersome, troublesome. Bacon, Henry VII (ed. Lumby, p. 196).
pestle, the leg and leg-bone of an animal, most freq. a pig in the phr. a pestle of pork; ‘Pestelles of porke’, Boke of Kervynge (Furnivall, 164). In prov. use in many parts of England (EDD.). The pestle of a lark, used fig. for a trifle, something very small, Hall, Satires, iv. 4. 29; ‘Rutlandshire is but the Pestel of a Lark’, Fuller, Worthies, Rutland, ii. 346. A pestle of a portigue, used jocosely in speaking of a gold coin (a portigue), as eatable meat, to starving sailors, Fletcher, Sea Voyage, i. 3 (Tibalt).
petar, a petard, bomb, a case filled with explosive materials. Hamlet, iii. 4. 207; Beaumont and Fl., Double Marriage, iii. 2 (Gunner); petarre, Shirley, Gamester, iv. 1 (Young B.).
peterman, a fisherman. Eastward Ho, ii. 1 (or 3) (Quicksilver). In reference to St. Peter.
Peter-see-me, a kind of Spanish wine. Middleton, Span. Gipsy, iii. 1 (near end); Brathwait, Law of Drinking, 80; Philecothonista (1635), 48 (Nares). Sometimes only Peeter, Beaumont and Fl., Chances, v. 3 (Song). Pedro Ximenes was the name of a celebrated Spanish grape, so called after its introducer, see NED. Cp. the spelling Peter-sameene in Dekker, Honest Wh., Pt. II, iv. 3 (1st Vintner).