1678. Butler, Hudibras, 111. i. Had rifled all his pokes and fobs.
1868. Temple Bar, xxiv. 538. I prigged an old woman's poke on the fly.
1879. Horsley, Macm. Mag., xl. 504. A poge, with over five quid in it.
1883. Echo, 25 Jan., 2, 3. The POKE, which a pickpocket glories in having appropriated, is the Saxon bag or purse.
1888. Echo, 18 Dec. He heard a woman demanding money of the accused, who replied, "What have you done with the £2 I gave you out of the poge?"
2. (thieves').—Stolen property.
3. (colloquial).—A thrust or push; a dig with the fingers; 'a blow with the fist' (Grose, 1785). As a verb. POKE has always been literary.
1849. Bulwer, Caxtons, xvii. 1. 'But,' concluded Uncle Jack, with a sly look, and giving me a poke in the ribs.
4. (venery).—(1) An act of coition, and (2) a mistress: a Good (or bad) poke = an expert (or the reverse) at the game. Also as verb = to copulate: cf. push and see Greens and Ride. Whence poke- (or poking-) hole = the female pudendum. See Poker.
1709. Durfey, Pills to Purge Melancholy . . . May I never more pogue the hone of a woman.
5. (colloquial).—A poke-bonnet.
1876. G. Eliot, Daniel Deronda, xxiv. A grey frieze livery, and a straw POKE.
6. (American).—A dawdler; a LAZY-BONES (q.v.).
d.1891. Lowell, Fitz Adam's Story [Century]. They're only worn by some old-fashioned pokes.
Colloquialisms are:—To POKE ABOUT (or ONE'S NOSE INTO) = (1) to meddle, and (2) to busy oneself aimlessly or officiously; whence poke-nose = a meddler, and as adj. = offensively intrusive; to poke fun = to ridicule; TO POKE BOGEY = to humbug; to buy a pig in a poke (see pig); to poke fly (tailors') = to show how; to poke a smipe (old: cf. Medical Greek) = to smoke a pipe: see Marrow-skying; to poke borak (see BORAK).
1837. Barham, Ingoldsby Legends, 1. 280. Poking your fun at us plain-dealing folks.
1838. Neal, Charcoal Sketches, 111. 124. Don't you be poking fun at me now, Judge; this is too serious a matter.
1853. Thackeray, Barry Lyndon, i. 'What's the Latin for gooseberry, Redmond?' says she. She was always poking her fun, as the Irish phrase it.
1857. Kingsley, Two Years Ago. Poking about where we had no business.
1862. New York Tribune, 7 June. The Senate refused to tax watches, plate, and dogs. The main reason for this refusal is the large expense of collecting, and the poke-nose scrutiny involved in levying such taxes.
d.1865. Life of Abraham Lincoln, 137. It was often said of Mr. Lincoln that he liked nothing so much as to poke fun at his advisers in the Cabinet, but those who could appreciate him knew very well, what a depth of wisdom and earnest lay under the slight drapery of jest.
POKER, subs. (old).—1. A sword;
a CHEESE-TOASTER (q.v.).—B. E.
(c.1696); Grose (1785).
2. (venery).—The penis: see Prick. Hence, to burn one's poker = to get a pox or clap, Grose (1785); and poker-breaker = a married woman.
3. (Oxford).—A bedel (q.v.) carrying a silver mace before the Vice-Chancellor; also the mace itself: also holy poker. Frequently used as an oath.
