1898. Pink 'Un and Pelican, 35. Just as we were all taking a peg at the bar . . . a local postman delivered that letter.
2. (old).—A blow: spec, (old boxers') a straight drive in the pit of the stomach: see Dig and Wipe. Whence pegging = a beating.—Grose (1785).
c. 1600. [Collier, Dram. Poet. (1831), ii. 198]. Strike a pegge into him with a club.
1748. Smollett, Roderick Random, xxviii. Pegs on the stomach without number.
3. (common).—A foot or leg: cribbage-pegs: see Creepers.
1841. Punch, i. 243. You'll not stir a peg out of where you are untill you pay me for my throwble.
1851-61. Mayhew, Lond. Lab. iii. 221. The donkey stopt short and wouldn't move a peg.
1862. Lowell, Biglow Papers, ii. 99. To rise a peg an' jine the crowd that went for reconstruction.
d. 1874. Hood, Faithless Nelly Gray. The army-surgeons made him limbs; said he, 'They're only pegs; But there's as wooden members quite As represent my legs.
1887. Sims, Referee, 7 Nov. A bow-wow . . . right through my 'rank-and-riches' Did my cribbage-pegs assail.
4. (common).—A tooth.
5. (thieves').—A shilling; a bob (q.v.).
1857. Ducange Anglicus. The Vulgar Tongue, 39. Lawyer Bob draws fakements up; hers tipped a peg for each.
6. (colloquial).—A step; a degree: cf. sense 1. Hence to take down A peg = to humiliate; to hoist a peg higher = to advance.
1625. Court and Times, Chas. I. i. 58. Two maids . . . fell a-talking together of the brave times that would be shortly . . . when . . . the Bishop of Chester that bore himself so high should be hoisted a peg higher to his little ease.
d. 1677. Barrow, Pope's Supremacy (Encyclopædic Dict.). To screw papal authority to the highest peg.
1664. Butler, Hudibras, ii. 2. Trepanned your party with intrigue, And took your grandees down a peg.
1834. Dowling, Othello Travestie, i. 4. I'll take you down a peg, and stop your music.
1848. Jones, Sketches of Travel, 163. If they didn't get their nations tuck down a peg or two, then I'm terribly mistaken.
1869. Daily Telegraph, 6 Sept. It was her duty to bring him down a peg or two. She did her duty.
1882. Literary World, 3 Feb. The brilliant young athlete wanted taking down a peg.
1888. Detroit Free Press, 1 Sep. It was Hallam who . . . not liking a certain condescension in his manner, resolved to take him down a peg or two.
1891. Gould, Double Event, 195. You took me down a peg, Jack, and I deserved it.
1892. Nisbet, Bushranger's Sweetheart, 85. We were regarded . . . as blooming swells, who wanted taking down a peg or two.
1900. Free Lance, 6 Oct., 8, i. 'Taking him down a peg' [Title].
7. (colloquial).—A text; an excuse.
1791-1823. Disraeli, Curiosities of Literature. His successors now only made use of the sentences as a row of pegs to hang on their fine-spun metaphysical questions.
1871. Globe, 22 Sep. Given a peg—that is to say, some scrap of news or incident of passing interest—upon which to hang a string of historical, argumentative, or moral reflections.
1885. Field, 17 Oct. A peg whereon to hang an account of a hunt breakfast.
8. (colloquial).—A diminutive of Margaret: also Peggy.
Verb, (old).—1. To drive.
1819. Moore, Tom Crib, 80. I first was hired to peg a hack.
