plough. The parts of a plough are enumerated in Gervase Markham’s Complete Husbandman (1614), quoted in Notes to Fitzherbert’s Husbandry, p. 128, where they are fully explained. I merely enumerate them here. (1) Plough-beam, a large and long piece of timber, forming an arch for the other parts; (2) The skeath (sheath), a piece of wood 2½ feet long, mortised into the beam; (3) Principal hale, the left-handle; also called plough-tail or plough-start; (4) Plough-head or share-beam, about 3 feet in length; (5) Plough-spindles or rough-staves, two round pieces of wood that joined the handles together; (6) Righthand-hale, or plough-stilt, smaller and weaker than the other; (7) Plough-rest, a small piece of wood, fixed to the plough-head and righthand-hale; (8) Shelboard, i.e. shield-board, a strong board on the right side of the plough; (9) Coulter, a long piece of iron in the front, to cut the soil; (10) Share; (11) Plough-foot, or plough-shoe, before the coulter, to regulate the depth of the furrow. The ploughman also had with him a plough-mall or small mallet; and, originally, a plough-staff or aker-staff, for clearing the mould-board when required.
plough-staff, an instrument like a paddle for cleaning a plough, or clearing it of weeds. Tusser, Husbandry, § 17. 21. In use in Scotland and the north country, see EDD. (s.v. Plough, II (49)).
Plowden. Proverb: The case is altered, quoth Plowden. For various explanations see Grose, Local Proverbs (ed. 1790), Shropshire, and Ray, Proverbial Phrases (under A), ed. Bohn, 147.
ployden; ‘A stub-bearded John-a-Stile with a ployden’s face’, Marston, Dutch Courtezan, iii. 1 (Crispinella). Not explained.
pluck: in phr. to pluck down a side, in card-playing, to cause the loss or hazard of the side or party with which a person plays. Beaumont and Fl., Maid’s Tragedy, ii. 1 (Dula). See Nares.
plumb, perpendicularly; ‘Plumb down he drops’, Milton, P. L. ii. 933. In prov. use in various parts of England, also in U.S.A., see EDD. (s.v. Plum, adj.1). F. ‘à-plomb, perpendicularly, downright’ (Cotgr.). See Dict. (s.v. Plump).
plume, said of a hawk, to pluck feathers from a bird; also, to pluck, despoil. Davenant, The Wits, ii. 1 (Ample); Dryden, Absalom, 920.
plummet, a leaden bullet, hurled from a sling. North, tr. of Plutarch, M. Antonius, § 23 (in Shak. Plut., p. 190); a sounding-lead, used fig. a criterion of truth, ‘Lay all to the Line and Plummet of the written word’, Gilpin, Demonology, iii. 17. 140 (NED.).
plump, a troop, flock; ‘A whole plump of rogues’, Beaumont and Fl., Double Marriage, iii. 2 (Guard); ‘A plump of fowl’, Dryden, tr. of Aeneid, xii. 374; Theodore and Honoria, 316. See Nares. See [plompe].
plunge, to overwhelm (with trouble or difficulty); ‘(He) was so plunged and gravelled with three lines of Seneca’, Sir T. Browne, Rel. Med. i. 21.