interest in a wife's estate (Grose, 1785); petticoat-merchant = a whoremonger (see Molrower); petticoat-pensioner (squire, or -knight, or squire of the petticoat) = a male keep (q.v.); petticoat-hunting = whoring; petticoat-led = infatuated of a woman; petticoat-loose (of women) = 'always ready'; up one's petticoat = unduly intimate, &c.—B. E. (c.1696); Grose (1785).
1607. Dekker, Northward Hoe, v. 1. Where's this wench to be found? here are all the moveable petticoats of the house.
1662. Rump Songs, ii. 41. The late Petticoat Squire From his shop mounted higher.
1690. Dryden, Amphitryon, i. 1. Venus may know more than both of us, For 'tis some petticoat affair.
1690. Wilson, Belphegor, iv. 2. Thou shalt supply my place—all petticoats are sisters in the dark.
c.1707. Old Song, 'The Irish Jigg' [Farmer, Merry Songs and Ballads (1897), iv. 181]. In short I found it was one of the Petticoat sort . . . And then I went to her, resolving to try her.
1717. Prior, Lucius [Epilogue]. Fearless the petticoat contemns his Frowns; The Hoop secures whatever it surrounds.
1725. Bailey, Coll. Erasmus, 186. What does this petticoat-preacher do here? Get you in and mind your kitchen.
1749. Smollett, Gil Blas [Routledge], 356. This . . . made me suspect that he was tied to the string of some petticoat in the hamlet.
1766. Brooke, Foot of Quality, 1. 199. I am quite impatient to be instructed in the policies and constitution of this your petticoat government.
1830. Buckstone, Cabdriver, i. Do you think the gentlemen are to have all the loaves and fishes? Petticoats must be provided for.
1834. Ainsworth, Rookwood, ii. 6. Disarmed—defied by a petticoat . . . What! afraid of a woman?
1849. Kingsley, Alton Locke, xxvii. Out came the very story which I had all along dreaded, about the expurgation of my poems, with the coarsest allusions to petticoat influence.
1897. Mitford, Romance of Cape Frontier, 1. i. There was a petticoat in the case.
See Smock.
Petticoat Lane, subs. phr. (common).—Middlesex
Street, E.: a
well-known rendezvous of old-clothes
dealers, mostly Jews. [In
Yiddish = Pilomet = the initials
(in Hebrew) P. L. Also Dover-street,
Piccadilly, the seat of the
Court milliner.
1887. I. D. B., 251. 'What do you think?' ejaculated Soloman, falling back on Pilomet for his expletives.
1901. D. Telegraph, 9 Nov., 5, 5. The dovecotes of Petticoat-lane, as Dover-street is now called, and its vicinity are fluttered by rumours of a great invasion of London during the Coronation festivities by representatives of French firms.
Pettifogger, subs. (old: now
recognised).—An attorney of the
baser sort: a sharking lawyer.
Hence (generally) = one given
to mean or underhand practices,
and as verb. = to conduct business
in a sharp or paltry way.
Whence derivatives: Pettifoggery,
Pettifogging, and Pettifogulise.—Grose
(1785).
1576. Fleming, Panopl. Epist., 320. As for this pettie fogger, this false fellowe that is in no credite or countenance.
1577. Harrison, Desc. of Eng. [Holinshed's Chron. (Shakspeare Soc.), i. 206]. Brokers betweene the pettie foggers of the lawe, and the common people.
1588. M. Kyffin, Terence's Andria, iv. 5. I should be exclaimed vpon to bee a beggerly fogger, greedily hunting after heritage.
c.1600. Norden, Spec. Brit. Cornw. (1728), 27. The baser sorte . . . verie litigious . . . whereof the Fogers and Petie Lawiers . . . gett . . . great advauntage.
