1855. Bristed, Eng. Univ., 258. If a man is plucked—that is, does not get marks enough to pass—his chance of a Fellowship is done for.
1886. Stubbs, Medieval and Mod. History, 386. I trust that I have never plucked a candidate . . . without giving him every opportunity of setting himself right.
2. (venery).—To deflower: see Dock.
1608. Shakspeare, Pericles, vi. 5. Never plucked yet, I can assure you. Is she not a fair creature.
Against the pluck, adv. phr. (old).—Against the inclination.—Grose (1785).
To pluck the Riband, verb. phr. (old).—See quot.—Grose (1785).
c.1696. B. E., Dict. Cant. Crew, s.v. Pluck the Riband, or Pluck Sir Onion, ring the Bell at the Tavern.
See Crow; Pigeon; Nose; Rose.
Pluck-penny, subs. phr. (old).—See
quot.
1643. Theeves, Theeves, 2. He that is once so skilled in the art of gaming as to play at Pluck penny, will quickly come to sweepstake.
Plug, subs. (common).—1. A silk
hat: also plug-hat: see Golgotha.
1872. Clemens, Innocents at Home, . . . A nigger in a biled shirt and a plug-hat.
1888. Eclectic Mag. Cæsar was the implacable foe of the aristocracy, and refused to wear a plug-hat up to the day of his death.
2. (common).—A man or beast, short and thick-set: see Forty-guts.
1872. Clemens, Innocents at Home. An old plug-horse, that eat up his market value in hay and barley in seventeen days by the watch.
1888. Brooklyn Daily Eagle, 22. April. Some . . . screamed with delight, and others . . . anathemised the jockey who rode the plug they had backed.
3. (artisans').—A workman whose apprenticeship has been irregular; a turn-over (q.v.): specifically (in America) a craftsman who has learned his business in casual or evening classes. Such teaching is called plug-teaching.
4. (common).—Anything damaged or deteriorated: as an unsuccessful book; an old horse; coins bored full of holes and plugged with base metal; a shop-soiled bicycle; and so forth. Also old plug. Hence (generally) plug = any defect—moral, physical, or otherwise.
1888. Texas Siftings, 3 Nov. Can't sell you a ticket for that quarter; it's plugged.
5. (schools').—A translation; a crib (q.v.); a pony (q.v.).
1853. Bradley, Verdant Green. Getting up his subjects by the aid of those royal roads to knowledge, variously known as cribs, crams, plugs, abstracts, analyses, or epitomes.
6. (American).—A loafer, well-dressed or other: see Plug-ugly.
Verb. (Western States).—1. To hit with a bullet.
2. (venery).—To copulate: see Greens and Ride.
Plug-hat. See Plug, subs. 1.
Plug-tail, subs. phr. (old).—The
penis: see Prick.—Grose (1785).
Plug-ugly, subs. phr. (American).—A
Baltimore street rowdy, circa
1860-80. Hence any loafer or
rough (q.v.).
