post, as set up before the door of a sheriff or magistrate. Posts were used to fix proclamations on; and were sometimes painted anew when a new magistrate came into office; ‘A sheriff’s post’, Twelfth Nt. i. 5. 157; ‘Worship, . . . for so much the posts at his door should signifie’, Puritan Widow, iii. 4. 12.
post, a messenger, Merch. Ven. ii. 9. 100; v. 1. 46. Also, a post-horse, 2 Hen. IV, iv. 3. 40. Hence, to post, to go with speed, hasten, Richard II, i. 1. 56; iii. 4. 90; v. 5. 59; ‘Thousands . . . post o’er land and ocean without rest’, Milton, Sonnet xix; post over, to hurry over, treat with negligence, 2 Hen. VI, iii. 1. 255.
post and pair, a card-game, played with three cards each, wherein much depended on vying, or betting on the goodness of the cards in your own hand. The best hand was three aces; then three kings, queens, &c. If there were no threes, the highest pairs won; or the highest game in the three cards. B. Jonson, Love Restored (Plutus); ‘The thrifty and right worshipful game of Post and Pair’, id., Masque of Christmas (Offering). See Nares.
postil, an explanatory note or comment on a word or passage in the Bible. Earle, Microcosmographie, § 2 (ed. Arber, 23); postill, to annotate, Bacon, Henry VIII (ed. Lumby, 193). ME. postille (Wyclif, Prol. 1 Cor.); see NED. Mod. L. postilla, a gloss on the Bible (Ducange).
post-knight, a knight of the post, a notorious perjurer. A Knack to know a Knave, in Hazlitt’s Dodsley, vi. 538. See [knight of the post].
posy, a short motto, orig. a line or verse of ‘poesy’, inscribed within a ring, on a knife, &c. Hamlet, iii. 2. 162; Middleton, Widow, i. 1 (Francisco); a bunch of flowers, Marlowe, Passionate Sheph. iii. See Dict.
pot. In the expressions to the pot, or to go to pot, or to go to the pot, the reference is to the cooking-pot; ‘Your poor sparrows . . . go to the pot for’t’, Webster, White Devil (ed. Dyce, p. 37); to the pot, to destruction, Coriolanus, i. 4. 47; Peele, Edw. I (ed. Dyce, p. 389).
potargo, ‘botargo’, cake made of the roe of the sea-mullet. Fletcher, Sea-Voyage, iv. 3 (Master). Prov. poutargo, ‘caviar’ (Mistral, Calendal). See Dict. (s.v. Botargo); also Stanford.
potch, to poach an egg. B. Jonson, Staple of News, iii. 1 (P. jun.).
potch, to thrust. Coriolanus, i. 10. 15. Still in use in Warw. in this sense. See EDD. (s.v. Poach.)