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 big, In thy old Age to dwindle to a Whigg, By Heaven, I see thou'rt in thy Heart a Prigg.

1702. Steele, Funeral, iv. Trim sounds so very short and priggish—that my name should be a monosyllable! Ibid. Tatler, No. 77. A cane is part of the dress of a prig.

1714. Spectator, No. 556. His companion gave him a pull by the sleeve, begging him to come away, for that the old prig would talk him to death.

1749. Robertson of Struan, Poems, 83. T'other unperforming puny Prig Could only with his Page retire and f.

1749. Smollett, Gil Blas [Routledge], 265. He is a young barrister, with more of the prig than the lawyer about him.

1752. Adventurer, No. 12. He placed more confidence in them, than he would in a formal prig, of whom be knew nothing but that he went every morning and evening to prayers.

1752. Foote, Taste, ii. How I adore the simplicity of the antients! How unlike the present priggish, prick-eared puppets!

1836. Dickens, Sketches, 23. Little spare priggish men, who are perfectly satisfied wilh their own opinions, and consider themselves of paramount importance.

1849. Thackeray, Dr. Birch (The Doctor). A more supercilious little prig a more empty, pompous little coxcomb I never saw.

1851. Borrow, Lavengro, lxvii. The subjects being, if I remember right, college education, priggism, church authority, tomfoolery and the like.

1857. Trollope, Three Clerks, xlvii. I think I'll take out that about official priggism—hadn't I better?

1857. Hughes, Tom Brown, i. 2. Your great Mechanic's Institutes end in intellectual priggism.

1861. Kingsley, Ravenshoe, lv. Lord Hainault, who was accused by some people of priggishness, was certainly not priggish before Lord Saltire. He was genial and hearty.

1884. Stevenson [Eng. Illustr. Mag., Feb., 303]. One is even stirred to a certain impatience with a character so destitute of spontaneity, so passionless in justice, and so priggishly obedient to the voice of reason.

1871. Geo. Eliot, Middlemarch, xi. A prig is a fellow who is always making you a present of his opinions.

d.1882. Emerson, Clubs. One of those conceited prigs who value nature only as it feeds and exhibits them.

1884. Oxenham, Short Studies, 150. There is a deficiency, a littleness, a priggishness, a set of vulgarity.

1885. Notes & Queries, 7 S. ii. 438. All but the very priggish admit that the folk-lore of the people can teach us several things not to be learned in any other manner.

1892. McCarthy and Campbell-Praed, Ladies' Gallery, 53. Fancy a fellow studying Homer when he was camping out in the bush! Not that he is a prig. It slipped out quite naturally when we were talking.

1898. Saturday Review, 10 Dec., 769, 2. Courteous even at the risk of being branded as priggish.

3. (Old Cant).—A tinker.

1567. Harman, Caveat (1876), 59. These droncken Tynckers, called also Prygges.

Verb. 1. See subs. 1.

2. (old).—To ride.—Harman (1573); Dekker (1608); Rowlands (1610); Head (1665); B. E. (c.1696); Coles (1724); Grose (1785).

3. (venery).—To copulate: see verb., sense 2, and Ride.—B. E. (c.1696); Grose (1785). Whence, as subs. = a fornicator.—Bee (1823).

1707. Shirley, Triumph of Wit, 'Maunder's Praise of Strowling Most.' Wapping thou I know does love then remove, Thy drawers, and let's prig in sport.

4. (Scots').—To haggle; to cheapen. Hence prigger and prigging.

1512-3. Douglas, Virgil, Prol. 238, b. 55. Sum treitcheoure crynis the cunye, and kepis corne stakkis; Sum prig penny, sum pyke thank with preny promit.