1879. Horsley, in Macmillan's Mag., Oct. While I was looking about I piped a little peter (parcel). Ibid. After we left the course we . . . got a peter (cash-box) with very near a century of quids in it.
2. (Australian prison).—A punishment cell: see Box.
3. (poachers').—A partridge.
4. (venery).—The penis: also St. Peter (q.v.): see Prick.
5. Intj. (old).—An oath: cf. Mary!
6. See Peter-see-me.
7. (old gaming).—See quot.
1762. Wilson, The Cheats, iv. 1. Did not I . . . teach you . . . the use of up-hills, down-hills, and petars.[*]
[* Note. Terms applicable to false or loaded dice, or to the knavish mode of handling them.]
Verb. (gaming).—1. To call (in whist) for trumps by discarding an unnecessarily high card: see Blue-peter.
1887. Notes and Queries, 7 S. iv. 356. The Blue Peter . . . is always used when a ship is about to start. . . . Calling for trumps, or petering, is derived from this source.
2. (old).—To cease word or deed; to stow it (q.v.).—Vaux (1819).
3. (auctioneers').—To run up prices: see Peter Funk.
To peter out, verb. phr. (colloquial).—To fail; to become exhausted.
1876. Boston Post, 5 May. The speculator recommended a gentleman . . . to sell out at any sacrifice, as the mines were petered out.
1877. New York Tribune, 28 Feb. The influence of the Hon. , formerly a Democratic politician of some prominence, seems to have quite petered out.
1888. Missouri Republican, 15 Feb. The Boston Herald thinks the Hill boom is petering out.
1893. Bret Harte, Dow's Flat. Then the bar petered out, And the boys wouldn't stay.
1899. M. A. P., 8 Ap., 315, 2. In 1869 rumours went abroad that the Comstock mines were petering out.
To go (or pass) through St. Peter's needle, verb. phr. (old).—To be severely disciplined: of children.
To rob (or borrow from) Peter to pay (or clothe) Paul, verb. phr. (old).—To take of one to give to another; to manœuvre the apostles (q.v.).—Grose (1785). [John Thirleby, the first and only bishop of Westminster (1541-50), 'having wasted the patrimony allotted by the King (Hen. VIII.) for the support of the see was translated to Norwich, and with him ended the bishopric of Westminster.'—Haydn, Dignities: see quot. 1661.]
1548. Barclay, Eclogues [Percy Soc., xxii. p. xvii.] They robbe St. Peter to cloth St. Paul.
1653. Urquhart, Rabelais, iii. iii. You may make a shift by borrowing from Peter to pay Paul ['faciez versure' = Lat. versurum facere], and with other folks earth fill up his ditch.
1661. Heylin, Hist. Ref. Ch. Eng., i. 256. The lands of Westminster so delapidated by Bishop Thirlby that there was almost nothing to support the dignity . . . Most of the lands invaded by the great men of the Court, the rest laid out for reparation to the Church of St. Paul, pared almost to the very quick in those days of rapine. From hence came first that significant byeword (as is said by some) of robbing Peter to pay Paul.
Peter Collins (theatrical).—See
quot.
