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 Preach, verb. (colloquial).—To moralise out of season; to cant (q.v.): as subs.—(1) a sermon; and (2) canting talk. Hence preaching-shop = a church (or chapel); preachifying = tiresome moralising; preachy-preachy = long-windedly moral; preachman = a clergyman; preachment = affectedly solemn cackle.

1592. Marlowe, Edward II., iv. 6. Come, come, keep these preachments till you come to the place anointed.

1595. Shakspeare, 3 Henry VI., i. 4. Was't you that revell'd in our parliament, And made a preachment of your high descent?

1597. Hooker, Eccles. Polity, v. 28. No sermon, no seruice. Which ouersight occasioned the French spitefully to terme religion in that sort exercised a mere preach.

1644-5. Howell, Letters, II. 33. Some of our preachmen are grown dog-mad.

1795. Burns, Spoken at the Theatre, Dumfries [Century]. Old Father Time deputes me here before ye, Not for to preach but tell his simple story.

1822. Douglas Jerrold, Black Ey'd Susan, i. 2. Tut! if you are inclined to preach, here is a mile-stone—I'll leave you in its company.

1847. Thackeray, Vanity Fair, 1. x. 'Shut up your sarmons, Pitt, when Miss Crawley comes down,' said his father; 'she has written to say that she won't stand the preachifying.' Ibid. (18..), Ballads of Policeman X (A Woeful New Ballad). And them benighted Protestants, on Sunday they must go Outside the town to the preaching-shop by the gate of Popolo.

1889. Academy, 19 Oct., 260. She has the art of making her typical good women real and attractive never prudish or preachy.

1894. Moore, Esther Waters, xvii. I don't 'old with all them preachy-preachy brethren says about the theatre.

To preach at Tyburn-cross, verb. phr. (old).—To be hanged: see Ladder.

Precious, adj. and adv. (colloquial).—Worthless; great; overnice: as precious little = very little; a precious humbug = an eminent rascal, and so forth.

1383. Chaucer, Cant. Tales, Prol. to Wife of Bath's Tale [Tyrwhitt], line 5659. In swiche estat as God hath cleped us, I wol persever, I n'am not precious.

1535. Coverdale, Trans. of Bible, Ezek. xvi. 30. Thou precious whore.

1605. Jonson, Volpone, i. 1. Your worship is a precious ass.

1612. Webster, White Devil, iv. 4. Now my precious gypsy We have many wenches about the town heat too fast.

c.1616. Fletcher, Bonduca, iv. 2. Run, run, ye rogues, ye precious rogues, ye rank rogues. Ibid. (1617), Mad Lover, iii. 3. Oh, you're a precious man! two days in town, and never see your old friend.

1749. Smollett, Gil Blas [Routledge], III. This precious abigail was just as young, just as pretty, and just as loose as her mistress.

1784. Connoisseur, No. 7. This precious fooling, though it highly entertained them, gave me great disgust.

1777. Sheridan, School for Scandal, v. 2. A precious couple they are.

c.1790. Song, 'The Flash Man of St. Giles' [Farmer, Musa Pedestris (1896), 74]. For we have mill'd a precious go.

1792. Lord Thurlow, Lett. to Cowper [Cowper's Letters (1834), ii. 318]. Precious limbs was at first an expression of great feeling, till vagabonds, draymen, &c., brought upon it the character of coarseness and ridicule.

1821. Egan, Life in London, ii. ii. Suke swears by her precious sparklers that she will have a fight.

1837. Dickens, Pickwick Papers (1857), 443. Precious warm walking, isn't it? said Lowden, drawing a Bramah key from his pocket, with a small plug therein to keep out the dust.

1857. Hughes, Tom Brown's Schooldays, 1. v. Precious little good we get out of that. Ibid., II. vii. It's a precious sight harder than I thought.

1869. Blackmore, Lorna Doone, xxvii. A precious heavy book it was.