pigeon
A weak silly fellow easily imposed on. To pigeon; to cheat. To milk the pigeon; to attempt impossibilities, to be put to shifts for want of money. To fly a blue pigeon; to steal lead off a church.
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pigeon
A gullible or soft person. The French cant, or Argot, has the word PIGEON, dupe—"PECHON, PESCHON DE RUBY, apprenti gueux, enfant (sans doute dérobé)". The vagabonds and brigands of Spain also used the word in their Germania, or robbers’ language, PALOMO (PIGEON), ignorant, simple. In the sporting world sharps and flats are often called "rooks and PIGEONS" respectively—sometimes "spiders and flies."
Pigeon English
An incorrect form of "Pidgin-English" (q.v.).
pigeon's milk
Boys and novices are frequently sent on the first of April to buy pigeons milk.
pigeon-english
The English spoken by the natives of Canton and other parts of China.
pigeon-flying
Or BLUEY CRACKING, breaking into empty houses and stealing lead.
pigeons
Sharpers, who, during the drawing of the lottery, wait ready mounted near Guildhall, and, as soon as the first two or three numbers are drawn, which they receive from a confederate on a card, ride with them full speed to some distant insurance office, before fixed on, where there is another of the gang, commonly a decent looking woman, who takes care to be at the office before the hour of drawing: to her he secretly gives the number, which she insures for a considerable sum: thus biting the bite
piggy
A toe.
piglice
The police.
pigs and whistles
Trifles. To go to pigs and whistles is to be ruined, to go to the deuce.
pigs can fly
something is impossible
pigs in clover
People who have money but don't know how to behave themselves decently. Also, a game consisting of a box divided into recesses into which one has to roll marbles by tilting the box.
pike
A turnpike; "to bilk a PIKE," to cheat the keeper of the toll-gate. Mr. Tony Weller makes many amusing remarks on PIKES and PIKE-keepers. Since the first edition of this work was published, PIKES and PIKE-keepers have departed from amongst us, so far as London and its immediate vicinity are concerned.
pike it
Is said as a hasty and contemptuous, if not angry, dismissal, "if you don’t like it, take a short stick and PIKE it." This is but a form of the attempts at rhyming smartness common in London.
pikey
A tramp or gipsy. A PIKEY-cart is in various parts of the country one of those habitable vehicles suggestive of a wandering life. Possibly the term has reference to one who constantly uses the PIKE, or turnpike road.
pilate asked
Quidest veritas? And then some other matter took him in the head, and so up he rose and went his way before he had his answer. He deserved never to find what truth was. — BP.
pilate voice
A loud, ranting voice. In the old mysteries all tyrants were made to speak in a rough, ranting manner. Thus Bottom the Weaver (tf.v,), after a rant "to show his quality," exclaims, "That's 'Ercles' vein, a tyrant's vein"; and Hamlet describes a ranting actor as "out-heroding Herod.
pilau
filthy
pile
A sum of money; generally the whole of a man’s private means. A term originally peculiar to Californian miners, in reference to their accumulated dust and nuggets. American gamblers speak of "putting all the PILE on" when they fancy anything very much. "To go the whole PILE" runs level with our sporting phrase, "To go a raker."
pile Pelion on Ossa
To add a burden to an already difficult situation
pile up
Accumulate or increase in amount or number
pilgrim
A newcomer.
Pilgrim Fathers
The term applied to the English founders of Plymouth Colony, Mas- sachusetts, in 1620. They belonged to the church founded at Leyden by John Robinson. Having obtained a grant of land in New Jersey they came over from Holland and sailed from Plymouth in the Mayflower on September 6th, 1620. The party consisted of 78 men and 24 women.
pilgrim's salve
A sirreverence, human excrement.
pill
A doctor.—Military. PILL-DRIVER, a peddling apothecary.
pill in the pocket
Recognized English idiom; full definition pending editorial review.
pill mill
A medical facility or doctor that overprescribes painkillers
pill-box
A doctor’s carriage.
pillaloo
The Irish cry or howl at funerals.
pillar to post
To be sent or moved from one place to another repeatedly
pillow talk
Intimate conversation between people in a romantic relationship
pilot balloon
A small balloon sent up to try the wind; hence, figuratively, a feeler; a hint thrown out to ascertain public opinion on some point.
pilot engine
The leading engine when two are needed to draw a railway train; also an engine sent ahead of a trarn carrying important personages, etc., to ensure that the line is clear.
pilot fish
The small sea-fish, Naucrates ductor, so called because it is supposed to pilot the shark to its prey.
pimp
A male procurer, or cock bawd; also a small faggot used about London for lighting fires, named from introducing the fire to the coals.
pimp steak
A hot dog.
pimp whiskin
A top trader in pimping.
pimpsy
Very easy.
pin
In or to a merry pin; almost drunk: an allusion to a sort of tankard, formerly used in the north, having silver pegs or pins set at equal distances from the top to the bottom: by the rules of good fellowship, every person drinking out of one of these tankards, was to swallow the quantity contained between two pins; if he drank more or less, he was to continue drinking till he ended at a pin: by this means persons unaccustomed to measure their draughts were obliged to drink the whole tankard.
pin
"to put in the PIN," to refrain from drinking. From the ancient peg tankard, which was furnished with a row of PINS, or pegs, to regulate the amount which each person was to drink. Drunken people are often requested to "put in the PIN," from some remote connexion between their unsteadiness and that of a carriage wheel which has lost its linch-PIN. The popular cry, "Put in the PIN," can have no connexion with the drinking PIN or peg now, whatever it may originally have had.
pin down
To determine or establish something precisely
pin money
Money for personal or discretionary use
pin money
A woman's allowance of money for her own personal expenditure.
pinch
At a pinch; on an exigency.
pinch
To steal or cheat; also, to catch, or apprehend.
pinch one off
Recognized English idiom; full definition pending editorial review.
pinchbeck
Inferior, deteriorated. Anything pretending to more than its proper value is said to be PINCHBECK.
pinchers
Rogues who, in changing money, by dexterity of hand frequently secrete two or three shillings out of the change of a guinea. This species of roguery is called the pinch, or pinching lay.
Pindaric Verse
Irregular verse J a poem of various metres, and of lofty style, in imitation of the odes of Pindar. Alexander's Feast, by Dryden, and The Bard, by Gray, are examples.
pine away
To slowly deteriorate or decline in health or spirits
Pine-tree State
Maine, which has forests of these trees, and bears a pine-tree on its coat of arms.
pingas
money
pink
The acme of perfection. The scarlet garb worn in the hunting-field.
pink bits
The vagina.
pink canoe
The vagina.
pink cigar
The penis.
pink oboe
The penis.
pink slip
a layoff or termination notice
pink up
Of a transplanted organ: to acquire a pinkish hue as a result of blood entering it from the circulatory system.
pinking-dindee
A sweater or mohawk. IRISH.
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