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 1591. Garrard, Art Warre, 299. That either they may enter Pesle Mesle, or kill some Chiestana, or make such a slaughter of Soldiours.

1663. Butler, Hudibras, i. 3. To come pell-mell to handy blows.

1664. Cotton, Virgil Travestie (1st ed.), 109. Too't they fell, Roaring and Swaggering pell mell.

c.1709. The Female Scuffle [Durfey, Pills to Purge (1709), iv. 18]. Both Pell-Mell fell to't, and made this uproar, With these Compliments, th'art a Baud, th'art a Whore.

bef. 1733. North, Examen (1740), i. iii. 48, 151. He falls in pesle-mesle.

1764. W. Tavernier, Trav., ii. 16. They fought hand to hand with their sables, pesle mesle.

1767. Sterne, Tristam Shandy [Works (1839), ix. xxvi. 386.] To attack the point of the advancing counterscarp, and pele mele with the Dutch, to take the counterguard.

1837. Cooper, Europe, ii. 188. The revolution has made a pele mele in the Salons of Paris.

1850. Lytton, Harold, vii. iii. For some minutes the pele mele was confused and indistinct

1865. Ouida, Strathmore, i. iii. They fell pele mele one on another.

1892. Fennell, Stanford Dict., s.v. Pele-mele The form pesle mesle is earlier Fr. (Cotg.). Early Anglicised as pelle(y) melle(y).

Pelt, subs. (old).—1. A hurry: hence to pelt (or go full pelt) = to go as hard or as fast as may be.

1843. Dickens, Christmas Carol. The clerk ran home to Camden Town as hard as he could pelt.

2. (common).—A rage; a passion; a blow: also pelter. As verb. = to be violently angry; pelting (or out for a pelter) = very angry, passionate.—B. E. (c. 1696); Grose (1785).

1594. Shakspeare, Lucreece [Malone, Supp. i. 554]. Another smother'd seems to pelt and swear.

1608. Topsell, Hist. Serpents, 250. In a pelting chafe she brake all to peaces the wenches imagery worke.

1632. Vicars, Virgil [Nares]. Troyes Illioneus brave With a huge stone a deadly pelt him gave.

1677. Wrangling Lovers [Nares]. That the letter, which put you into such a pelt, came from another.

1688. Grubb, British Heroes [Percy, Reliques], line 99. George hit th' dragon such a pelt.

1697. Unnatural Brother. Which put her ladyship into a horrid pelt.

1819. Moore, Tom Crib, 23. A pelt in the smellers set it going like fun.

1865. Kingsley, Hillyars and Burtons, iii. I wasn't really in a pelter.

3. (colloquial).—The skin.

1694-6. Dryden, Virgil, Georgic, iii. 672. A scabby tetter on their pelts will stick.

4. (old).—A miser; a stingy fellow: also pelter.

1552. Huloet, Dict. s.v. A pelt or pinchbecke.

1577. Kendall, Flowers of Epigrammes. The veriest pelter pilde maie seme To have experience thus.

1587. Gascoigne, Works [Nares]. Yea let such pelters praite, Saint Needam be their speed, We need no text to answer them but this, the Lord hath neede.

5. (old).—Clothes; sometimes in pl.: spec. garments made of 'peltry' = the furs of beasts.

1567. Harman, Caveat [E. E. T. S. (1869), 76]. Many wyll plucke of their smockes, and laye the same vpon them in stede of their vpper sheete, and all her other pelte and trashe vpon her also.

1585. Nomenclator [Nares]. A pelt, or garments made of wolves and beares skin, which nobles in old time used to weare.

1630. Taylor, Works [Nares]. For they from sundry men their peltes can pull, Whereby they keepe themselves as warme as wooll.

Verb. 1. See subs., sense 2.

2. (tailors').—To sew thickly.