A glossary of Tudor and Stuart words, especially from the dramatists

by Walter W. Skeat

plunge, a critical situation, crisis, a dilemma. Greene, Looking Glasse, iii. 2. Phr.: to put to a plunge, Middleton, Roaring Girl, iv. 1 (Sir Alexander). ‘Il est au bout de son breviaire, he is at a plunge or nonplus’, Cotgrave (s.v. Breviaire). Cp. the Northants phrase, ‘I was put to a plunge’, see EDD. (s.v. Plunge, sb.¹).

Plymouth cloak, a cudgel or staff, carried by one who walked in cuerpo, and thus facetiously assumed to take the place of a cloak; ‘Shall I walke in a Plimouth Cloake (that’s to say) like a rogue, in my hose and doublet, and a crabtree cudgell in my hand?’, Dekker, Honest Wh., Pt. II, iii. 2 (Matheo); ‘A Plymouth cloak, that is, a cane or staff’, Ray’s Proverbs out of Fuller’s Worthies (ed. Bohn, 201); Grose, Local Proverbs in Glossary, 1790. See Nares.

pocas palabras, the Spanish for ‘few words’. Wonderfull Yeare 1603 (ed. 1732, p. 46); paucas pallabris, Tam. Shrew, Induct. i. 5. Span. palabra, Med. L. parabola, ‘verbum, sermo’ (Ducange); a parable, similitude (Vulgate, in N. T.) See Stanford.

poinado, a poniard. Heywood, The Royal King, vol. vi, p. 70; Return from Parnassus, i. 2 (Judicio); ‘Poinard, or Poinado’, Phillips, 1658.

poinet, poynet, an ornament for the wrist, a wristlet or bracelet. J. Heywood, The Four P’s, in Anc. Brit. Drama, i. 10, col. 2; Hazlitt’s Dodsley, i. 351 (altered to poignet). F. poignet, wrist; poing, the fist. See NED.

point, a tagged lace for attaching hose to the doublet, and for fastening various parts where buttons are now used. Tam. Shrew, iii. 2. 49. Very common, and the perpetual subject of jokes and quibbles; 1 Hen. IV, ii. 4. 238; Twelfth Nt. i. 5. 25.

point: in phr. point of war, a short strain sounded as a signal by a trumpeter. 2 Hen. IV, iv. 1. 52; Greene, Orl. Fur., ed. Dyce, p. 94; Peele, Edw. I, i (Longshanks); ed. Dyce, p. 378. See NED. (s.v. Point, sb.¹ 9).

point: in phr. to point [F. à point], to the smallest detail, completely; ‘Armed to point’, Spenser, F. Q. i. 1. 16; Tempest, i. 2. 194; ‘Are ye all fit?’ 1 Gent. ‘To point, sir’, Fletcher, Chances, i. 4. 2.

point-device (-devyse), completely, perfectly, in every point. Twelfth Nt. ii. 5. 176; extremely precise, scrupulous to the point of perfection, As You Like It, iii. 2. 401. ME. poynt devys: ‘Her nose was wrought at poynt devys’ (Chaucer, Rom. Rose, 1215); Anglo F. à point devis, or devis à point, arranged to a proper point or degree. See NED.

pointed, pp. appointed. Spenser, F. Q. vii. 7. 12.