tune one's pipes, and to pipe one's eye. Hence, to shut (or put) up the pipes = to be silent. Also, piper = a broken-winded horse: a roarer (q.v.).
1383. Chaucer, Canterbury Tales [Skeat], l. 2752. The pypes of his longes gonne to swelle.
c.1400. Towneley Myst. [Camden Soc.], 103. Who is that pypys so poore?
1560. Pilkington, Sermons [Parker Soc.], 601. If that were true, physicians might put up their pipes.
1579-80. Lyly, Euphues, 278. Hee also strayned his olde pype, and thus beganne. . . .
d.1663. Sanderson, Works, ii. 45. Neither John's mourning nor Christ's piping can pass the pikes.
1749. Smollett, Gil Blas, 1. v. I happened one day to scratch myself, upon which, setting up my pipes, as if he had flayed me my mother . . . turned my master out of doors.
1772. Burlesque Trans. Homer, ix. 392. His wife came last, and rubbed her eye, Then tun'd her pipes. Ibid., ii., 72. Sink me, says one, there hardly pipes A braver fellow than Ulysses.
1790. Dibdin, Song. Why, what's that to you if my eyes I'm a piping, A tear is a comfort, d'ye see, in its way.
[?]. Brownie of Bodsbeck, ii. 155. He's coming, poor fellow—he's takin a pipe to himsel at the house-end—his heart—is as soft as a snaw-ba'.
1825. Jones, Song, 'True Bottom'd Boxer' [Farmer, Musa Pedestris (1896), 93]. With ogles and smellers, no piping and chiming.
1829. The Prigging Lay [Vidocq's Mem., iv.]. There's a time to pipe, and a time to snivel.
1843. Dickens, Martin Chuzzlewit, xxxii. He had got it into his head that his own peculiar mission was to pipe his eye; which he did perpetually.
d.1845. Hood, Faithless Sally Brown. He heav'd a bitter sigh, And then began to eye his pipe, And then to pipe his eye.
1899. Whiteing, John St., 88. Nance is called to oblige with a song. She is shy . . . But the Amazon brings her forward with a stern 'Pipe up, yer blessid little fool.'
3. (Scots').—In pl. = the bagpipes. Hence to tune one's pipes = to talk or write.
4. (old).—A boot: see Trotter-cases.—Vaux (1819).
5. (venery).—The female pudendum: see Monosyllable.
Verb. (old).—See subs. 1 and 2.
3. (American).—To waylay; to intercept.
4. (thieves').—To watch; to spy. Also to pipe off. Fr. allumer. See Nark. Whence piper = a spy.
1886-96. Marshall, 'Pomes' from the Pink 'Un ['Nobbled'], 115. I waited to pipe off the fun.
1898. Pink 'Un and Pelican, 87. His mission up there on the roof was to exclude . . . any who sought to pipe off the contest through the skylight.
1888. Sims [Referee, 12 Feb.]. If I pipe a good chat, why I touch for the wedge.
1899. Daily Telegraph, 7 Ap., 8, 3. Then, King Kid. You piped him. There's a child o' sin, now.
The Queen's pipe, subs. phr. (common).—The kiln in the great East Vault of the Wine-Cellars of the London Docks, where useless and damaged goods that have paid no duty are burnt: as regards tobacco a thing of the past, stuff of this kind being distributed to workhouses, &c.
1871. Echo, 27 Jan. All that was not sold will be burnt, according to custom, in Her Majesty's tobacco pipe. We cannot think such waste justifiable.
1899. Daily Mail, 21 Mar., 3, 3. Tea for the Queen's pipe. Five hundred and eighty-two half-chests of tea were seized by the sanitary authorities of the Port of London.
To put one's pipe out, verb, phr. (common).—1. To spoil sport or a chance; 'to take the shine out'; and (2) to kill: see Light. Fr. casser sa pipe.
