pickle, to deal with in a minute way, lit. to pick in a small way. Ascham, Scholemaster (Arber, 158). Hence pickling, trifling, paltry, Gascoigne, Supposes, i. 2 (Pasiphilo). [R. L. Stevenson uses the word ‘to pickle’ in the sense of ‘to trifle’; see Letters (Sept. 6, 1888).]
pick-packe, pick-a-back; ‘He gets him up on pick-packe’, B. Jonson, Barth. Fair, ii. 6 (Stage-direction); Greene, Friar Bacon, i. 2 (260); scene 2. 89 (W.); p. 156, col. 1 (D.). ‘Pick-pack’ (or ‘a pick-pack’) is still in use in Yorks., see EDD. (s.v. Pick-a-back). The German word for ‘pick-pack’ is Huckepack. For numerous forms of this word see NED.
pickthank, a flatterer, a mischief-maker. 1 Hen. IV, iii. 2. 25; Beaumont and Fl., Maid’s Tragedy, iii. 1 (Evadne); pickthank tales, tales told to curry favour, Dekker, Shoemakers’ Holiday, i. 1 (Lacy). In prov. use in the British Isles (EDD.).
pick-tooth, a toothpick. B. Jonson, Ev. Man out of Humour, iv. 1 (Fallace). In use in Glouc. (EDD.).
piddle, to work or act in a trifling, paltry way. Ascham, Toxoph. (ed. Arber, 117); Fletcher, Wit without M. i. 2; to trifle or toy with one’s food, J. Dyke, Sel. Serm. (1640, p. 292); Pope, Horace’s Satires, ii. 2. 137. In common use in this sense in various parts of England, see EDD. (s.v. Piddle, vb.1 1).
pie, pye, a magpie. 3 Hen. VI, v. 6. 48. In common prov. use (EDD.).
piece, a piece of money of the value of 22 shillings. Pepys, Diary, March 14, 1660 (N. S.). A piece of eight, the Spanish dollar of the value of 8 reals, or about 4s. 6d., B. Jonson, Every Man in Hum. ii. 1. 6 (see Wheatley’s note); Alchemist, ii. 3 (Face).
piece, a painting, a picture, Bacon, Henry VII (ed. Lumby, 4); Pepys, Diary, Feb. 27, 1663 (N. S.).
pied, variegated, parti-coloured. Spelt pyed, B. Jonson, Every Man in Hum. i. 5 (Matthew); spelt pide, Milton, L’Allegro, 75 (ed. 1632).
pieton, a foot-soldier; hence, a pawn at chess; ‘Pietons, or fotemen’, Caxton, Hist. Troye, leaf 87, back, 6; ‘They [the pawns] be all named pietons’, id., Game of Chesse, bk. iii, c. 1 (beginning). F. ‘pieton, a footman, also, a Pawn at Chess’ (Cotgr.).