irritable; short-tempered; (2) mean; (3) flabbergasted (q.v.); and (4) variable. Also STREAKED.
1647. Cowley, The Mistress, 'Wisdom.' Some streaks, too, of Divinity ran, Partly of Monk, and partly Puritan.
1848. Lowell, Biglow Papers. 1 S. ii. But wen it comes to bein' killed, I tell ye I felt streaked, The fust time 'tever I found out wy baggonets wuz peaked.
1855. Haliburton, Human Nature, 1 S. Daniel Webster was a great man, I tell you; he'd talk King William out of sight in half an hour. If he was in your house of Commons, he'd make some of your great folks look pretty streaked.
18[?]. Widow Bedott Papers, 121. You know almost everybody has their queer streaks.
1856. Stowe, Dred, 1. 120. Just act, now, as if you had got a streak of something in you, such as a man ought for to have who is married to one of the very first families in old Virginia.
1888. Eggleston, The Gray sons, xviii. Mrs Button had been churning, and the butter 'took a contrary streak,' as she expressed it, and refused to come.
2. (common).—A run; a sequence of prosperities or adversities.
Verb. (common).—To decamp swiftly; to go with a rush: also TO MAKE STREAKS, TO STREAK OFF LIKE GREASED LIGHTNING, or TO GO LIKE A STREAK.
1604. Heywood, If You Know Not Me [Pearson, Works (1874) 1. 292]. Have you beheld the like [a blazing star]? Look how it streaks.
1768. Ross, Helenore. O'er hill and dale with fury she did dreel, A' roads to her were good and bad alike; Nane o't she wyl'd, but forward on did streak.
1843. Carlton, New Purchase, 1. 78. I was certain it wasn't no fox or wolf, but a dog; and if I didn't streak off like greased lightnin'.
1845. Simms, Wigwam and Cabin, 85. 'Twas a satisfaction to have such a horse, and 'twas a pleasure to crop him, and streak it away, at a brushing canter, for a good five miles at a stretch.
1847. Ruxton, Far West, 79. What brings a duck a streaking it down stream, if humans ain't behind her? and who's in these diggins but Indians?
1850. Porter, Tales of South-west, 165. When I did get near, he'd stop and look, cock his ears, and give a snuff, as if he'd never seen a man afore, and then streak it off as if I had been an Indian.
1855. Haliburton, Human Nature, 59. As soon as I touched land, I streaked it for home, as bard as I could lay legs to the ground.
1856. Dow, Sermons, 111. 108. The way they are streaking it down the dark road to ruin is sorrowful to steam locomotives.
1865. Downing, Letters, 91. I streaked it for Washington, and it was well-nigh upon midnight when I reached the White House.
1869. Stowe, Oldtown, 172. They jest streaked it out through the buttery-door.
1886. Field, 25 Sep. Mayflower, first to take the breeze, went streaking away from Galatea.
Streamers, subs. pl. (common).—The
Aurora Borealis; Northern
Lights.
1805. Scott, Lay of Last Minstrel, ii. 8. He knew, by the streamers that shot so bright, That spirits were riding the northern light.
Stream's-Town, subs. phr.
(venery).—The female pudendum:
cf. Monosyllable
(Grose). See Tipperary fortune.
Street, subs. (old colloquial).—1.
The people living in a street.
1594. Shakspeare, Love's Lab. Lost, iv. 3, 281. The street should see as she walk'd overhead.
