to essay a woman, TO mess ABOUT (q.v.), to PADDLE (q.v.); TO pull over = to catch, to arrest: a general verb of action, see Nab; to pull about one's ears = to ruin, to chastise. See Bacon; Baker; Cap; Crow; Dead Horse; Devil; Foot; Horns; Longbow; Stakes; String; Vest; Wires; Wool.
1589. PUTTENHAM, Art of Eng. Poes., 34. Nothing pulleth downe a man's heart so much as aduersitie and acke.
1596. Spenser, Faerie Queene, v. ii. 41 [TWYRHITT, 252]. He PULLETH DOWNE, He setteth up on hy.
1610. Shakspeare, Coriolanus, iii. 2. Let them pull all about mine ears . . . yet will I still be thus to them.
1616-25. Court James I. [Oliphant, New Eng., 70. As to the verbs we see PULL IN HIS HORNS].
1625. Massinger, Duke of Florence, iv. 2. If I hold your cards I shall pull down the side; I am not good at the game.
1640. Howell, Vocall. Forrest, 104. In political affairs as well as mechanical, it is farre easier to pull down then build up.
1749. Fielding, Tom Jones, xii. xiii. As the vulgar phrase is, [he] immediately DREW IN HIS HORNS.
17[?]. Fessenden, Yankee Doodle [Bartlett]. And then she flew straight out of sight As fast as she could pull it.
1818. Scott, Midlothian, iv. 51. Jeanie Deans is no the lass to pu' him by the sleeve, or put him in mind of what he wishes to forget.
1819. Vaux, Memoirs, s.v. Pull or Pull Up, to accost; stop. Ibid. To pull up a jack, is to stop a post-chaise on the highway.
1825. Macaulay, Gladstone on Church and State. The world is full of institutions, which . . . never ought to have been set up, yet, having been set up, ought not to be rudely pulled down.
1849. Punch's Almanack, 'Fortune Tellers Almanack.' You are going too fast, and . . . you ought to pull up.
1853. Dickens, Bleak House, xxxvii. I shall be all right! I shall pull through, my dear.
1855. Browning, Fra. Lippo Lippi. The Prior and the learned pulled a face.
1857. Hughes, Tom Brown's Schooldays, 1. v. The Slogger pulls up at last . . . fairly blown.
1857. Snowden, Mag. Assistant (3rd ed.), 446. To steal from shop doors—TO PULL DOWN.
1867. Anderson, Rhymes, 17. He preached, an' at last drew the auld body's leg, Sae the kirk got the gatherins o' our Aunty Meg.
1868. Trip through Virginia [De Vere]. Driver, when will you pull up? I don't pull up at no tavern till I gets home.
1870. Figaro, 9 Nov. These sweepstakes, in which the commissioners are always to pull off the money, may help to lessen the figures in the Parliamentary estimates.
1871. Globe, 12 May. Colonel Corbett was about to speak, but he was pulled up by the Speaker.
1877. Five Years' Penal Servitude, iii. He occasionally took what required a little screw in the morning to counteract and enable him to pull himself together before going his rounds with the doctor.
1882. D. Telegraph, 9 Nov. Before the train pulls up at the next station.
1882. Field, 28 Jan. All equal to the work put in their hands, and helped to pull the author through. Ibid. (1886), 27 Feb. The Middlesex men now PULLED THEMSELVES TOGETHER.
1888. Cornhill Mag., Oct. 'Phantom Picquet.' I am very hopeful of your regiment arriving in time to pull us through.
1888. Missouri Republican, 24 Feb. He knows that if he keeps his money in the show business any longer he will lose it all, and so he has pulled out.
1888. Churchward, Blackbirding, 216. Then I shall be able to pull the leg of that chap . . . He is always trying to do me.
1889. Francis, Saddle and Mocassin [Slang, Jargon and Cant]. For a minute or two they stood looking at one another, and then Doc pulled out.
