Provisions. See [Ration].
PROVISIONAL, (Provisionel, Fr.) Temporarily established.
PROVISIONALLY, (Provisoirement, Fr.) by way of provision, or temporary arrangement. This adverb is frequently used both in French and English to distinguish the exercise of temporary functions from that of permanent appointments.
PROVOST-Marshal, of an army, is an officer appointed to secure deserters, and all other criminals: he is often to go round the army, hinder the soldiers from pillaging, indict offenders, execute the sentence pronounced, and regulate the weights and measures used in the army when in the field. He is attended by a lieutenant’s guard, has a clerk, and an executioner.
PROWESS, valor, bravery in the field, military gallantry.
PSILOI, light armed men among the Greeks, who fought with arrows and darts, or stones and slings, but were unfit for close fight. They were in honor and dignity inferior to the heavy armed. Next to these were the peltasti, a middle sort of foot soldiers between the hoplitai and the psiloi, being armed with spears, but far inferior in bigness to those of the heavy armed; their name is taken from their narrow shields, called Peltæ. Potter’s Greek Antiquities, vol. II. chap. 3.
PUBLICANS, persons who keep alehouses, &c. for the accommodation of travelers. In England, troops upon the march, or in quarters, may be billeted on them.
PUCKA fever, Ind. a putrid fever. The bilious fever of tropical climates.
PUCKALLIES, Ind. leathern bags for carrying water. They are placed on the backs of oxen. The word is also used for water-carriers.
PUDLAYS, pieces of stuff to do the office of levers or hand spikes.