1598. Chapman, Blind Beggar [Shepherd (1874), 3]. Who could have picked out three such lifeless puppies, Never to venture on their mistresses.
1609. Shakspeare, Tempest, ii. 2, 159. I shall laugh myself to death at this puppy-headed monster.
c.1620. Fletcher and Massinger, Little French Lawyer, ii. 3. Go, bid your lady seek . . . Some unexperienced puppy to make sport with.
1639. Chapman and Shirley, The Ball, iv. Oh, my soul, How it does blush to know thee! bragging puppy!
d.1680. Rochester, From Art. to Chloe. The unbred puppy, who had never seen A creature look so gay or talk so fine.
1690 Crowne, Eng. Friar, ii. 1. My Lord, prithee marry thy daughter to my puppy.
1697. Vanbrugh, Provoked Wife, i. The surly puppy! Yet he's a fool for it.
1703. Steele, Tender Husband, v. 2. "What does the puppy mean? His wife under a hat?
1740. Fielding, Wedding Day, ii. 13. Your master is is a negligent puppy, and uses me doubly ill.
1749. Smollett, Gil Blas [Routledge], 104. A puppy of fashion, and a she-wolf of the stage. Ibid., 155. The affectation of a puppy, and the pertness of a wit.
177[?]. R. Cumberland, The Jew, v. 1. I knew your honour at the length of the street, and saw you turn into this tavern: the puppily waiter wou'd have stopt me from coming up to you.
1775. Sheridan, Rivals, ii. 1. None of your sneering, puppy! no grinning, jackanapes!
1778. Burney, Evelina, lxxvi. I am by no mean such a puppy as to tell you I am upon sure ground.
1811. Austen, Sense and S., xxxiii. The puppyism of his manner.
1836. Dickens, Pickwick, xxxv. Silly young men, displaying various varieties of puppyism and stupidity.
1851. Smedley, Lewis Arundel, xl. His whole demeanour blasé and puppyish in the extreme.
1858. G. Eliot, Mr. Gilfil's Love-Story, ii. Men . . . were inclined to think this Antinous in a pig-tail a "confounded puppy."
2. (common).—A blind man. Fr. sans-mirettes; sans-châsses.—Matsell (1859). Also as adj. = blind.
Puppy-snatch, subs. phr. (old).—A.
snare; a plant (q.v.).
1670. Cotton, Scarronides [1692], 10. It seem'd indifferent to him Whether he did sink or swim; So he by either means might catch Us Trojans in a puppy-snatch.
Purchase, subs. (old).—Plunder:
as verb. (or to live on one's
purchase) = (1) to live by
swindling, thieving, or black-*mailing.
To get in purchase
= to beget in bastardy. [O. Fr.
purchacier = to procure.]
1512-3. Douglas, Virgil, 303, 4. And first has slane the big Antiphates,—Son to the bustuous nobyl Sarpedoun, In purches get ane Thebane wensche apoun.
1590. Spenser, Fairy Queen, 1. ii. 16. Of nightly stelths, and pillage severall, Which he had got abroad by purchas criminall.
1592. Greene, Disputation [Works, x. 207]. But looke he neuer so narrowly to it we haue his pursse, wherein some time there is fat purchase, twentie or thirtie poundes.
1597. Shakspeare, 1 Henry IV., ii. 1, 101. Gads. Give me thy hand: thou shalt have a share in our purchase, as I am a true man. Cham. Nay, rather let me have it, as you are a false thief. Ibid. (1599), Henry V., iii. 2. They will steal anything and call it purchase.
1607. Puritan, i. 4. The slave had about him but the poor purchase of ten groats.
1610. Jonson, Alchemist, iv. 4. Do you two pack up all the goods and purchase.
1613. Webster, Devil's Law-Case, ii. 1. Tailors in France they grow to great abominable purchase, and become great officers. Ibid. (1623), Duch. of Malfi, iii. 1. They do observe I grow to infinite purchase, the left hand way.
c.1620. Fletcher and Massinger, False One, iii. 2. I scorn to nourish it with such bloodly purchase, Purchase so foully got.
