c. 1707. Old Ballad [Durfey, Pills (1707), ii. 160]. For in your warm Beds Your Physick works best; And tho' in the taking Some stirring's required, The motion's so pleasant You cannot be tir'd.
2. (common).—Strong drink; medicine (q.v.); lush (q.v.): see Drinks and Screwed.
3. (pugilists').—Hard hitting; punishment (q.v.): also as verb.
4. (gaming).—Losses: wagers, points, and so forth. Also as verb.—Bee (1823).
1821. Egan, Life in London, ii. v. If you do not get punished in your person, yet you may be most preciously physicked in your clie.
Phyz. See Phiz.
Pi (or Pie), subs, (printers').—1.
Type, jumbled and mixed. [Ordinarily
a compositor, when distributing
type, reads a line or
sentence and is enabled to return
it to 'case' with expedition:
with Pi, however, each 'stamp'
has to be recognised separately.]
Fr. le pâté: faire du pâté = to
distribute pi; German, zwiebelfisch
(= 'fish with onions').—Bailey
(1728). Also as verb.
d. 1790. Franklin, Autobiog., 176. One night, when, having impos'd my formes, I thought my day's work over, one of them by accident was broken, and two pages reduced to pi.
1837. Carlyle, Fr. Revol., ii. ii. iv. Your military ranked arrangement going all (as the typographers say of set types in a similar case) rapidly to pie.
2. (booksellers').—A miscellaneous collection of books out of the alphabet (q.v.).
Adj. (general.)—Virtuous; sanctimonious: e.g., 'He's very Pi now, he mugs all day'; 'He Pi-jawed me for thoking.' Whence, pi-jaw (or gas) = a serious admonition; pi-man = Sim (q.v. )
1901. To-Day, 22 Aug., 124, 2. The one blot on her staircase was an individual who . . . had turned ostentatiously pious. "I 'ates them pi-men," Mrs. Moggs was wont to say, "as often as not it's sheer 'ypocrisy."
Piazzas. To walk the piazzas,
verb. phr. (old).—To quest for
men; now 'to walk the streets.'—Bee
(1823). [The piazzas
were those in Covent Garden,
only a portion of which now
(1901) remain.]
Picaroon (pickaroon or picaro),
subs. (old).—A rogue; a shabster:
also as verb. = to rob; to
prowl in quest of plunder.—B. E.
(c. 1696); Grose (1785). Also,
on the picaro = on the make
(q.v.). See Pick, verb. 1.
c. 1617. Howell, Letters, 1. iii. 30. I could not recover your diamond Hatband, which the Picaroon snatched from you in the Coach, tho' I used all Means Possible.
1653. Middleton, Spanish Gypsy, ii. i. The arts . . . used by our Spanish picaroes—I mean filching, foisting, nimming, jilting.
1675. Crowne, Country Wit, iii. i. These night-corsairs and Algerines call'd the Watch, that picaroon up and down the streets.
1749. Smollett, Gil Blas, vii. ii. Monsieur de Santillane . . . I see you have been in your time a little on the picaro.
1821. Scott, Kenilworth, xx. Notwithstanding thy boasted honesty, friend . . . I think I see in thy countenance something of the pedlar, something of the picaroon.
Picayune, subs. (American).—Formerly
the Spanish half-real in
Florida, Louisiana, &c.: now a
five cent. piece or any small coin.
Also (generic) money; rhino
(q.v.). Whence picayune (or
picayunish) = small; mean; of
little value. [Cf. Title of a
famous journal, The New Orleans
Picayune (the price of which is
five cents).]
