Page:Farmer - Slang and its analogues past and present - Volume 5.pdf/159

 1765. Walpole, Letters, 13 Oct. Yes, yes, Madam, I am as like the Duke de Richelieu as two peas; but then they are two old withered grey peas.

Pease-kill. To make a pease-kill, verb. phr. (Scots' colloquial).—To squander lavishly: e.g. when a man's affairs go wrong and interested persons get the management of his property it is said 'They're makin' a bonny pease-kill o't.' A law-suit is said to be a pease-kill for the lawyers. [Jamieson.]

Peas-field. To go into the peas-field, verb. phr. (old).—To fall asleep: see Balmy.—Ray (1670).

Peat, subs. (old).—A delicate person: esp. a young girl. Also = (ironically) a spoilt favourite.

1578. King Lear [Nares]. To see that proud pert peat, our youngest sister.

1593. Shakspeare, Taming of Shrew, i. 1. A pretty peat! 'tis best Put finger in the eye.

1605. Jonson, Chapman, &c., Eastward Hoe [Old Plays (Reed), iv. 279. God's my life, you are a peat indeed.

1632. Massinger, Maid of Honour, ii. 2. You are a pretty peat, indifferent fair too.

Pea-time. In the last of pea-time (or -picking), phr. (American colloquial).—In decline of years; 'hard-up'; passé. Pea-time is past = dead; ruined; gone beyond recall.

1848. Lowell, Biglow Papers There's oller's chaps a-hangin' roun' that can't see pea-time's past.

Pebble, subs. (venery).—In pl. = the testes: see Cods.

My pebbles, phr. (old).—A familiar address.

1843. Moncrieff, Scamps of London, iii. 1. Dick, my pebble. Ibid. Now, my pebbles, I'll give you a toast.

Pebbly-beached, adv. phr. (common).—Without means; stony-broke (q.v.); high-and-dry (q.v.). Hence to sight (or land on) a pebbly beach = to be face to face with ruin; to pebble beach = to suck dry, to clean out: see Dead-broke.

1836-96. Marshall, Age of Love ['Pomes,' 26]. Yiffler could see himself stranded, for he could sight a pebbly beach. Ibid. (Beautiful Dreamer), 65. I was able to see that my beautiful dreamer had pebble-beached me.

1889. Lic. Vict. Gaz., Jan. One of those mysteries which only those who have been pebbly-beached can reveal.

1898. Pink 'Un and Pelican, 278. Fleet St. can possibly 'give a bit of weight' to most places as a 'run' for the utterly wagless, rapless, and pebble-beached.

1901. Referee, 21 Ap., 9, 2. In the slang of the day a gentleman who is "stony broke" describes himself as Pebbly Beach. With a deficit of fifty-three millions to warrant the change, "Hicks Beach" may now be fairly substituted.

Pec, subs. (Eton College: obsolete). Money: see Rhino. [From Latin pecunia.]

Peccavi, intj. (colloquial).—An acknowledgment of offence, mistake, or defeat. To cry peccavi = to confess to wrong-doing or failure. [Latin = 'I have sinned.']—Grose (1785).

1578. Whetstone, Promos ana Cassandra, 32.

1611. Beaumont and Fletcher, Knight of the Burning Pestle, iy. 1. Make him sing peccavi ere I leave him.

Peck (or pek), subs. (Old Cant).—1. Food of any kind; grub (q.v.); a meal; a feed: also peckage. Hence ruff-peck (q.v.) = bacon; gere-peck = a turd; peck and booze = meat and drink; rum-peck (q.v.) =