To have (or take) pepper in the nose, verb. phr. (old).—1. To be testy; to offend quickly; to get angry. Fr. la moutarde lui monte au nez.
1362. Langland, Piers Plowman, xv. 197. There are ful proude-herted men paciente of tonge, And boxome as of berynge to burgeys and to lordes, And to pore peple hav peper in the nose.
d.1529. Skelton [Dyce, Works, ii. 38]. For drede of the red hat Take peper in the nose.
1547. Heywood, Dialogues, sig. G. Hee taketh pepper in the nose, that I complayne Vpon his faultes.
1570. Elderton, Lenton Stuffe [Halliwell]. For every man takes pepper i' the nose For the waggynge of a strawe.
1578. North, Plutarch, 173. Wherewith enraged all (with pepper in the nose) The proud Megarians came to us, as to their mortal foes.
1590. Tarleton, Newes out of Purgatorie [Halliwell]. Myles, hearing him name the baker, took straight pepper in the nose, and, starting up, threw of his cardinals roabes.
1595. Florio, Worlde of Wordes, s.v. Montare su la Bica, to take pepper in the nose, to be sore angrie.
1607. Marston, What you Will, Induction. He's a chollerick gentleman: he will take pepper in the nose instantly.
1611. Chapman, May-Day, iii. Because I entertained this gentleman . . . he takes pepper i' the nose.
1639. Optic Glasse of Humors [Nares]. A man is teisty, and anger wrinckles his nose, such a man takes pepper in the nose.
1653. Middleton and Rowley, Spanish Gipsy [Anc. Dr., iv. 190] Take you pepper in your nose, you mar our sport.
c.1662. Rump Songs [Nares]. Alas, what take ye pepper in the nose To see king Charles his colours worne in pose?
1670. Ray, Proverbs [Bohn (1883), 174]. s.v.
Pepper-and-Salt, adj. (common).—Light
grey; mingled black and
white: applied to fabrics.
1843. Dickens, Chuzzlewit, xxvii. A short-tailed pepper-and-salt coat.
1876. Eliot, Daniel Deronda, xlii. A man in a pepper-and-salt dress.
Pepper-box, subs. phr. (old).—A
revolver.
The Pepper-boxes (or castors), subs. phr. (common).—Domes or cupolas: specifically the National Gallery in Trafalgar Square, but applied to any dome-shaped building: cf. Boilers.
1855. Thackeray, Newcomes, xxii. Think of half a mile of pictures at the Louvre! Not but that there are a score under the old pepper-boxes in Trafalgar Square as fine as the best here.
1887. Frith, Autobiog., i. 56. What the students called the pepper-box, namely, the centre cupola of the new National Gallery in Trafalgar Square.
1901. Daily Telegraph, 2 Feb., 10, 5. Godalming's Pepperbox is to be preserved. This is the local appellation by which the old market house and former town hall is known, and the title was bestowed on it because the shape of the structure, which stands in the middle of the main street, is more like that article of domestic use than anything else.
See Pepper, verb. 3.
Pepperidge. To pay the pepperidge,
verb. phr. (provincial).—To
pay one's footing (q.v.):
as a schoolboy has to pepperidge
his mates when he puts on a new
suit of clothes.
Pepper's Dragoons, subs. phr.
(military).—The Eighth Hussars.
Pepst, adj. (old).—Drunk: see
Drinks and Screwed.
1577. Kendall, Flowers of Epigrammes [Nares]. Thou drunken faindst thyself of late; Thou three daies after slepst: How wilt thou slepe with drinke in deede, When thou art thoroughly pepst?
