potestate, chief magistrate. Morte Arthur, bk. v, c. 8; p. 174, l. 30; pl., Gascoigne, Supposes, iii. 3 (Damon).
pot-gun, used contemptuously for a small fire-arm; ‘How! fright me with your pot-gun?’, Beaumont and Fl., Knight of Malta, iv. 4 (Norandine).
poting-stick, a piece of wood, bone, or iron, for adjusting the pleats of a ruff. Marston, Malcontent, v. 3 (Maquerelle); Yorkshire Tragedy, i. 74. OE. potian, to push, thrust.
potshare, a potsherd. Spenser, F. Q. vi. 1. 37. In use in Lonsdale, Lancashire, see EDD. (s.v. Pot, 17 (65)).
pottle, half a gallon, or two quarts. Dekker, Honest Wh., Pt. I, ii. 1 (Roger); a pottell oyle (i.e. of oil); Naval Accounts of Henry VII, p. 16. ‘Pottle’ (a measure of two quarts) is still in use in Cheshire (EDD.).
pouke, pooke, a ‘puck’, demon, goblin; ‘Chymæra, that same pooke’, Golding, Metam. vi. 646; ‘Nor let the Pouke nor other evill sprights . . . Fray us’, Spenser, Epithalamion, 341. ‘Pouk’ (‘pook’), a mischievous fiend, still in use in Sussex and Shropshire, see EDD. (s.v. Puck, sb.1). ME. pouke: ‘I wene that knyght was a pouke’ (Coer de Leon, 566); OE. pūca (Napier’s OE. Glosses, 23. 2).
pouke-bug, for puck-bug, a malicious spectre. Stanyhurst, tr. of Aeneid, iii. 594. See [bug].
pould, bald-headed, or with lost hair. Two Noble Kinsmen, v. 1. 91.
pouldre, to beat into powder or dust. Spenser, F. Q. i. 7. 12; to spot, id., iii. 2. 25. OF. pouldre (F. poudre).
pouldron, poldron, a shoulder-plate; a piece of armour covering the shoulder. Warner, Alb. England, bk. xii, c. 70, st. 13; Drayton, David and Goliath. OF. espauleron, a shoulder-plate; espaule (F. épaule), shoulder. See NED.