Page:Farmer - Slang and its analogues past and present - Volume 5.pdf/166

 2. (old).—See quot.

c. 1696. B. E., Dict. Cant. Crew, s.v. Peg at Cocks, to throw at them at Shrovetide.

3. (old).—To beat.

4. (common).—To drink frequently; to tipple.

1883. Miss Braddon, Golden Calf, xxv. There is a great deal of what is called pegging—an intermittent kind of tippling which goes on all day long.

5. (Stock Exchange).—To fix a market price, and prevent fluctuation by buying all that is offered at it, thus debarring lower quotations; or, selling all that the market will take at it, thus preventing higher quotations.

1891. New York Herald, 31 May, 6, 2. Portuguese have also been well pegged, but other 'Internationals' have been featureless.

6. (old).—To run : cf. to peg away.

1884. Le Fanu [Temple Bar, August, 484]. Away with me out of the hall-door, that chanced to be open, and down the street I pegged like a madman.

7. (venery).—To copulate: also to peg up (or down): see Greens and Ride.

To peg away (at or on), verb. phr. (colloquial).—1. To work persistently; to put in licks (q.v.). Cf Fr. aller son petit bonhomme de chemin. Hence pegging = plodding.

1749. Smollett, Gil Blas [Routledge], 167. Large pieces of bread and good substantial slices of roast meat, at which we began pegging with all possible pertinacity.

1837. Dickens, Pickwick Papers, xxx. Peg away, Bob, said Mr. Allen to his companion, encouragingly. Ibid., Bleak House (1852), xvii. 143. I should peg away at Blackstone and all those fellows with the most tremendous ardour.

1856. Bret Harte, Dow's Flat. But Dow in his well kept a peggin', in his usual ridiculous way.

1862. Thackeray, Philip, vii. He's been pegging away at the olives and maceroons.

1864. Daily Telegraph, 19 Oct. The plan of pegging away must end either in the capture of Richmond, or in the utter discomfiture of the attacking force.

1864. Glasgow Herald, 10 Dec. In all I find only an echo of the words of their chief, to keep pegging away till the end comes.

1873. Pall Mall Gazette, Jan. To peg away continually is, as we well know, the loftiest idea of modern statesmanship, but it is necessary to find something to peg at, as even a statesman pegging away at nothing, and beating the air with vain motions may become ridiculous.

1879. Leland, Abraham Lincoln, xi. President Lincoln, when asked what we should do if the war should last for years, replied, "We'll keep pegging away."

1888. Black, House-boat, vii. The rain keeps pegging away in a steady, unmistakeable, business-like fashion.

18[?]. American Hebrew, xxxix. 52. We have gradually worked and pegged along year by year.

2. (colloquial).—To fight.

To peg into, verb. phr. (colloquial).—To hit; to 'let drive.'

1834. Dowling, Othello Travestie, ii. 5. You peg it into him, and pray don't spare him.

1889. Lic. Vict. Gas., 18 Jan. Peg into him, snacks.

To peg out, verb. phr. (colloquial).—1. To die: see Hop the Twig.

1870. Echo, 10 Mar. Then the heart-broken man exclaimed, Oh, George, George, why did you peg out?

1884. Daily Telegraph, 9 Oct., 2. 3. He was told that it was so bad that it might peg-out any minute.

1892. Daily Chronicle, 28 Mar., 5, 6. I thought I was going to peg out last night.