1708-10. Swift, Polite Conversation, i. She wears her Cloaths as if they were thrown on her with a pitchfork.
1879. Nineteenth Century, 277. Your young city curate pitchforked into a rural benefice . . . is the most forlorn . . . of all human creatures.
Pitch-kettled, adj. phr. (old).—Puzzled;
stuck fast; confounded.—Grose
(1785).
d. 1800. Cowper, Ep. to Lloyd, 32. I fairly find myself pitch-kettled, And cannot see . . . How I shall hammer out a letter.
Pitchpole, verb. (old colloquial).—1.
To sell for double the cost.
2. (schoolboys').—To turn a somersault.
Pitch-up, subs. phr. (Winchester
School).—One's home circle; a
crowd or knot of people; a set
of chums. Hence, to pitch up
with = to associate with.
Pit-hole (or Pit), subs. (colloquial).—A
grave. Hence, as
verb.—to bury.
1607. Puritan, i. 2. All my friends were pit-holed, gone to graves.
2. (venery).—See Pit.
Pitman. See Pit.
Pit-of-darkness, subs. phr.
(venery).—The female pudendum:
see Monosyllable. Also
Pit-mouth, and Pit-hole.
Pitter-patter, verb. (common).—To
palpitate; to 'go pit-a-pat.'
Pittle-Pattle. See Pit-a-pat.
Pitt's-picture, subs. phr. (old
political).—A bricked-up window.
[To save Pitt's Window-tax].—Grose
(1785).
Pizzle, subs. (venery).—1. The
penis: see Prick. Also, as verb.
= to copulate: see Ride.—Bailey
(1728). Whence (2) a
scourge: as made of bull's pizzles.
1607. Dekker, Northward Hoe, iv. 1. Doll. This goat's-pizzle of thine—. Bell. Away! I love no such implements in my house.
1749. Smollett, Gil Bias, i. vi. I felt across my shoulders five or six hearty thwacks with a bull's pizzle.
Place, subs. (colloquial).—(1) An
alx>de; a place of business: see
Diggings. (2) A jakes, or house
of ease (g.v.): see Mrs. Jones.
The place, subs. phr. (venery).—The privities (q.v.): see Monosyllable and Prick: also place of ease.
1759-67. Sterne, Tristram Shandy, ix. xx. You shall see the very place, said my uncle Toby. Mrs. Wadman blushed.
Place of sixpenny sinfulness, subs. phr. (old).—The suburbs: specifically a bawdy-house so situated.
1607. Dekker, Westward Hoe, v. 3. 'Go, sail with the rest of your bawdy-traffickers to the place of sixpenny sinfulness . . .' 'I scorn the sinfulness of any suburbs in Christendom.'
See Spot.
Placebo, subs. (medical and
general).—1. A pacifying dose:
hence (2) a sop of placation.
Whence, to sing (or hunt, or
go to the school of) placebo
= to be servilely complaisant, or
time-serving; to 'hold with the
hare and hunt with the hounds.'
1362. Langland, Piers Plowman's Vision, 1. 1991. Preestes and persons With Placebo to hunt.
c. 1383. Wyclif (?) Leaven of Pharisees, iv. [Mathew, Unpr. Eng. Wks. of Wyclif (1880), 15]. Zif thei visyten not pore men in here sikenesse but riche men with preue massis and placeboes and diriges.
