1870. Chambers's Mis., No. 77, 4. The boy is employed in handing the cartridges, for which he is honoured with the name of powder-monkey.
Power, subs. (old: now colloquial).—A
large number or quantity:
also poweration. Whence
powerful, adj. and adv. = extremely;
also (quot. 1847) eloquent.
[?]. MS. Cotton, Vespas. A, xxv. Then came into Inglond kynge Jamys of Skotland, with a pouar of men, after Alhalow tide.
1675. Wycherley, Country Wife, iii. 2. Lord, what a power of brave signs are here.
1740. Richardson, Pamela, ii. 389. I am providing a power of pretty things for her.
1751. Smollett, Peregrine Pickle, ii. "He has a power of money, and spends it like a prince."
1777. Sheridan, Trip to Scarborough, iv. 1. These lords have a power of wealth indeed.
1847. Darley, Drama in Poterville, 94. Mr. Gwie. a 'powerful man,' was expected to make a 'great effort.'
1848. Burton, Waggeries, 23. He felt it tickle powerful from the top of his head to the end of his starn-fin.
1851. Hooper, Dick McCoy's Sketches, 36. "Is he lazy much?" 'Powerful.'
d.1869. Carlton, New Purchase, II. 8. This piano was sort o' fiddle like,—and with a powerful heap of wire strings. Ibid., 74. Yes, Mr. Speaker, I'd a powerful sight sooner go into retiracy among the red, wild aborigines of our wooden country, nor consent to that bill.
1872. Chambers's Miscellany, No. 152, 3. 'Was there a good fair to-day?' 'There was, ma'am, a power and all of people in it.'
1876. Clemens, Torn Sawyer, 34. You can work when you're a mind, Tom . . . But it's powerful seldom you're a mind to, I'm bound to say.
1892. Tit-Bits, 17 Sep., 419, 2. He's powerful bad, miss.
Powos (The), subs. (military).—The
Prince of Wales's Own (West
Yorkshire Regiment), formerly
The 14th Foot. Also "The Old
and Bold"; "Calvert's Entire."
Pow-wow, subs. phr. (American).—Noise:
hence (political) = a
noisy meeting, and as verb. = to
take part in such: also to frolic.
[From N.A. Indian pow-wow
= a council.]
1825. Neal, Bro. Jonathan, III. 37. Off she goes; and if all they say's true, turned witch herself, an' cussed poor Bet with sich a pow-wow. Ibid. (1833). Down Easters, vii. 105. Glancing at the ladies' cabin, where a tremendous pow wow had just broken out. Such a screaming of mothers! and such a squalling of babies!
1885. New York Herald, 22 June. The Know-Nothings were holding their grand national pow-wow . . . and laying it on thick that "Americans shall rule America."
Pox, subs. (old).—Syphilis: sometimes
qualified as French-
(Italian-, German-, or Indian-)
pox, for which, and other
synonyms see French-gout and
Ladies'-fever. Whence, verb.
= to syphilize; and pocky, or
pockified (adj.) = syphilized.
Used vulgarly and popularly as a
petty oath or common malison
(e.g., Pox! Pox on't! Pox
take you! What a pox! With
a pox! &c.: see the Elizabethan
drama passim). Hence poxter
= a syphilist; poxopholit = an
opponent of the Contagious
Diseases Acts; poxology =
the study of siph. (q.v.); and
poxologist = a pox-doctor, a
siphophil (q.v.).—B. E. (c.
1696); Grose (1785). [Originally
and occasionally as in quots.
1594 and 1631, the small-pox;
but for some three centuries specialized
as above.] See Horse-pox.
