1870. L. Oliphant, Piccadilly, v. 188. Is it not enough to puff your dinner-parties in the public journals at so much a 'notice.'
1872. D. Telegraph, 30 Nov. Cicero lays it down that a seller has no right to employ a puffer to raise prices. Ibid. With very few exceptions, the bona-fide private bidder has not the slightest chance in a sale-room against the puffer and the dealers.
1876. Hindley, Cheap Jack, 217. We . . . often acted as puffers or bonnets, to give him a leg up.
1884. Graphic, 27 Dec., 659, 1. It is rather surprising that puffery as a fine art should have made so little progress.
1888. New York Mercury, 21 July. Every professional . . . is afflicted with an unquenchable thirst for newspaper publicity, hence press paragraphers, or . . . puff-workers . . . do a thriving trade.
1893. Westminster Gas., 20 Feb., 3, i. He is one of our finest actors, yet has never reached the prominence of his rivals, because he has been almost quixotish in avoiding the puff direct or indirect.
1899. Whiteing, John St., v. It ain't worth while to puff 'er up abaht it.
3. (tramps').—A sodomist.
4. (common).—The breath: whence to puff and blow = to gasp; out of puff = winded; puff-guts = a fat man; a jelly-belly (q.v.).—Grose (1785). Also (tailors') = life; existence: e.g., 'Never in one's puff'; the cop of one's puff = the copestone of one's life.
c.1777. Kilmainham Minute [Ireland Sixty Years Ago, 88]. You'd bring back de puff to my belows, And set me once more on my pins.
1886-96. Marshall, 'Pomes' ['The Age of Love'], 26. He's the winner right enough! It's the one sole snip of a lifetime—simply the cop of one's puff.
To puff the glim, verb. phr. (horse-copers').—See quot.
1891. Tit-bits, 11 Ap. Old horses are rejuvenated [by] puffing the glim, that is, filling up the hollows . . . found above all old horses' eyes, by pricking the skin and blowing air into the loose tissues underneath.
Puffer, subs. (common).—1. A
locomotive; puffing-Billy;
and (2) a small river tug or
launch: also puff-puff.
1899. D. Telegraph, 29 March, 7, 1. The wonderful puff-puft [which] breathed smoke and spat fire and screamed if it saw a station or another train.
1901. Troddles, 143. Down went Wilks with a blare . . . broken by lamentation for his puff-puff.
See Puff, subs. 1.
Pug, subs. (old).—1. An endearment;
and (2) a whore.
1567. Drant, Horace, 11. iii. Call it pugges and pretye peate.
1602. Marston, Antonio and Mellida, ii. 1. Good pug, give me some capon.
1607. Dekker and Webster, West ward Hoe, ii. 2. The lob has his lass . . . the western-man his pug, the serving-man his punk . . . the puritan his sister.
1611. Cotgrave, Dict., s.v. Gouge. A Souldier's pug or punke, a wh that followes the camp.
1660. Howell, Lex. Tetra. My pretty pug, ma belle, m'amie.
1653. Urquhart, Rabelais, 1. iii. A jolly pug, and well-mouthed wench.
1678. Dryden, Kind Keeper, Epil. 18. In all the boys their father's virtues shine, But all the female fry turn pugs, like mine.
3. (pugilists').—A pugilist: also pugil (old). Hence Pug's-acre = a corner of Highgate cemetery where Tom Sayers and other pugilists lie buried.
1692. Hacket, Life of Williams, i. 37. He was no little one, but saginati corporis bellua, as Curtius says of Dioxippus the pugil.
