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 1888. Howells, Annie Kilburn, xxix. He was in such a pucker about her.

1883. Payn, Thicker than Water, xiii. Mary's letters, therefore, were among the few things that did not agitate Mrs. Sotheran, or, to use her own homely phrase, put her into a pucker—a moderately cold perspiration.

PUCKER-WATER, subs. phr. (old).—An astringent: used to counterfeit virginity.—Grose (1785).

PUCK-FIST (or PUCK-FOIST), subs. phr. (old).—A braggart. [Nares: equivalent to 'vile fungus,' 'scum of the earth.']

1601. Jonson, Poetaster, iv. 4. Valiant? so is mine arse. Gods and fiends! he dares not fight with a puck-fist. Ibid. (1630), New Inn. Oh, they are pinching puck-fists.

1607. Dekker, Northward Hoe, i. 2. Do you laugh, you unseasonable puck-fist?

1608. Middleton, Epigrams [Halliwell]. Old father puckfist knits his arteries, First strikes, then rails on Riot's villanies. Ibid. (1657), More Dissemb. than Women, iv. 3. What pride Of pampered blood has mounted up this puck-foist?

1619. Fletcher, Cust. of Country, i. 2. But that this puck-fist, This universal rutter.

1630. Taylor, Works [Nares]. These puckfoyst cockbrain'd coxcombs, shallow pated, Are things that by their taylors are created.

1633. Ford, Love's Sacrifice, ii. 1. Sanazar a goose, Ariosto a puck-fist to me.

PUD (or PUDSEY), subs. (colloquial).—A hand; a fist.

1823. Lamb, Distant Correspondents. Those little short puds.

Verb. (colloquial).—To greet affectionately or familiarly.

PUDDER, subs. (old colloquial).—Confusion; bother: cf. pucker. Also as verb. = to bustle; to search; to dabble; to potter (q.v.).

[?]. Harl. MS., 388 [Halliwell]. My Lorde Willoughbie's counsell, though to little purpose, made a great deale of PUDDER.

1605. Sylvester, Du Bartas, i. 5. Some almost always pudder in the mud Of sleepy pools.

1609. Beaumont and Fletcher, Scornful Lady, ii. 2. Some fellows would have cried out now and kept a PUDDER.

1642. Milton, Apol. for Smeet [Works (1806), i. 211]. Able enough to lay the dust and pudder in antiquity, which he and his, out of stratagem, are wont to raise.

1663. Dryden, Wild Gallant, i. You need not keep such a pudder about eating his words.

1664. Cotton, Virgil Travestie, 19. Then, then indeed began the pudder.

c.1670. Locke, Understanding, 13. Contrary observations that perplex and pudder him if he compares them.

1674. Fairfax, Bulk and Selvedge [Halliwell]. So long as he who has but a teeming brain may have leave to lay his eggs in his own nest, which is built beyond the reach of every man's puddering-pole.

d.1731. Ward, Simple Cobbler, 2. Such as are least able are most busie to pudder in the rubbish, and to raise dust.

1759. Sterne, Tristram Shandy, 11. ii. What a pudder and racket!

1840. Judd, Margaret, i. 16. Parkins's Pints has been making a great pudder over to England.

PUDDING, subs. (thieves').—1. Drugged liver: used by burglars to silence house-dogs.

1877. Horsley, Jottings from Jail. When I opened a door there was a great tyke lying in front of the door, so I pulled out a piece of pudding and threw it to him, but he did not move.

2. (venery).—Coition: see Greens. Also the penis: see Prick. In the pudding club (or WITH A BELLY-FUL OF MARROW pudding) = pregnant.