1440. Prompt. Parv. [Camden Soc.] . . . Purcy in wynd drawynge.
1596. Shakspeare, Hamlet, iii. 4. The fatness of these pursy times.
1607. [?Middleton] or W [?entworth] S [?mith], Puritan, i. iv. I . . . by chance set upon a fat steward, thinking his purse had been as pursy as his body; and the slave had about him the poor purchase of ten groats.
18[?]. H. Luttrell, Mayfair (1827), 11. 16. Of tedious M.P.'s, pursy peers, Illustrious for their length of ears.
1820. Irving, Sketch-Book, 264. A short, pursy man, stooping . . . so as to show nothing but the top of a round, bald head.
d.1832. Crabbe, Works, iv. 12. Slothful and pursy, insolent and mean, Were every bishop, prebendary, dean.
c.1871. The Siliad, xiv. The pursy man, whose Capital's his God.
Purting-glumpot, subs. phr.
(common).—A sulker.
Puseum (The), subs. (Oxford University).—The
Pusey House in
St. Giles's St.
Push, subs. (old).—1. A crowd;
an assembly of any kind: e.g.
(thieves') = a band of thieves;
(prisons') = a gang associated in
penal labour; (general) = a knot
or party of people, at a theatre, a
church, a race-meeting, &c. Fr.,
abadie, tigne, vade, trépe. (It.,
treppo; O. Fr., treper = to press,
to trample).
1672. Wycherley, Love in a Wood, ii. 1. I will not stay the push. They come! they come! oh, the fellows come!
1718. C. Higgin, True Disc., 13. He is a . . . thieves' watchman, that lies scouting . . . when and where there is a push, alias an accidental crowd of people.
1754. Disc. of John Poulter, 30. In order to be out of the push or throng.
1819. Vaux, Memoirs, s.v. Push . . . When any particular scene of crowding is alluded to, they say, the push . . . at the spell doors; the push at the stooping-match.
1830. Moncrieff, Heart of London, ii. 1. He's as quiet as a dummy hunter in a push by Houndsditch.
1852. Judson, Myst. of New York, 11. ii. This is one ver grand push.
1877. Davitt, Prison Diary. Most of these pseudo-aristocratic impostors had succeeded in obtaining admission to the stocking-knitting party, which, in consequence, became known among the rest of the prisoners as the "upper ten push."
2. (thieves').—A robbery; a swindle: also as in sense 1. Thus, 'I'm in this push! = 'I mean to share'—an intimation from one magsman to another that he means to stand in (q.v.).
1772. Bridges, Burlesque Homer, 248. Tho' now-a-days So bold a push Would make an honest Hebrew blush.
3. (colloquial).—Enterprise; energy: also pushery = forwardness.
18[?]. D'arblay, Diary, iv. 45. I actually asked for this dab of preferment; it is the first piece of pushery I ever was guilty of.
Verb. (venery).—To copulate: see Greens and Ride: also to stand the push; to do a random push; and to play at push-pin (push-pike or put-pin). Whence pushing-school = a brothel: see Nanny-shop.—B. E. (c.1696); Grose (1785).
1560. Rychardes, Misogonus [Halliwell]. That can lay downe maidens bedds, And that can hold ther sickly heds: That can play at put-pin, Blowe-poynte, and near lin.
1623. Massinger, Duke of Milan, iii. 2. This wanton at dead midnight, Was found at the exercise behind the arras, With the 'foresaid signoir . . . she would never tell Who play'd at pushpin with her.
1656. Men Miracles, 15. To see the sonne you would admire, Goe play at push-pin with his sire.
