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 The pure quill, phr. (common).—The best; the 'real thing': any person or thing of superlative quality. See A 1 and O. K.

1888. Detroit Free Press; Aug. When religun is religun, an' it's the pure quill there's never one of us but kin take it in large doses.

Purge, subs. (common).—Beer; swipes (q.v.): as in the barrack-room wheeze—"Comrades, listen while I urge; Drink, yourselves, and pass to purge."

Purger (or perger), subs. (common).—Primarily a teetotaller; a tea-pot sucker: hence a term of contempt.

c.1864. Vance, Chickaleary Cove. My tailor serves you well, from a perger to a swell.

puritan, subs. (Old Cant: now recognised).—1. A name given in contempt (c.1564-9) to clergymen and laymen who wanted a simpler, and what they considered a 'purer,' ceremonial than was authorised: by extension, a man or woman setting up for better (esp. chaster) and more pious than their neighbours. Hence, Puritanism = a condition of exacerbated righteousness; "unco' guidness"; a habit of life beyond impeachment, strict, godly, and austere. Also, as adj. = sour, precise, malevolently and tyrannically severe. Also Precisian (q.v.).

1567. Three Fifteenth Century Chronicles [Camden Soc.], 143. About that tyme were many congregations of the Anabaptysts in London who cawlyd themselves Puritans, or Unspotted Lambs of the Lord.

1598. Shakspeare, All's Well, i. 3. Though honesty be no puritan, yet it will do no hurt; it will wear the surplice of humility over the black gown of a big heart. Ibid., Twelfth Night (1602), ii. 3. Marry, sir, sometimes he is a kind of puritan. Ibid. (1604), Winter's Tale. But one puritan among them, and he sings psalms to horn-pipes.

1599. Chapman, Hum. Day's Mirth [Shepherd (1874), 26]. Why, every man for her sake is a Puritan. The devil I think will shortly turn Puritan, or the Puritan will turn devil.

1605. Jonson, Chapman, &c., Eastward Hoe, ii. 1. Your only smooth skin is your Puritan's skin; they be the smoothest and slickest knaves in a country.

1607. Dekker, Westward Ho, ii. 2. The serving-man has his punk, the student his nun the puritan his sister.

1650. Barnaby's Journal, 5. To Banbury came I, O prophane-One! Where I saw a Puritane-One.

c.1690. B. E., Dict. Cant. Crew, s.v. Puritans, Puritanical, those of the precise Cut, strait-laced Precisians, whining (as Osborn saies) for a sanctity God never yet trusted out of Heaven.

1705. Hearne, Diary, 17 Nov. Magd. hall: the chief members of which were always rigid puritans, for whom he could not have a very fair opinion upon account of their unmercifull usage of Archbishop Laud.

1705. Ward, Hud. Rediv., 1. x. 24. So Puritans, the World to cheat, Appear in Garb precisely neat.

1902. D. Telegraph, 2 May, 5, 1, "Special Law Reports." Mr. Tindal Atkinson called attention to the fact that at this particular licensing meeting no fewer than twenty-three out of thirty-seven applications for music license renewals were refused. No fault was suggested, no evidence offered, and that went to show that the magistrates, perhaps owing to the particular composition of the Bench at the time, and the views they took in regard to the matter, did not decide each case upon its merits, but upon a view of their own. It was true they might become so puritanical that the Legislature might think fit to say that no music license should be granted to a licensed house. The Lord Chief Justice: You must not say these magistrates have acted puritanically. I do not think they have done so. Mr. Tindal Atkinson: I only made the general observation that the Legislature might become so puritanical. I was not reflecting on the justices. The Lord Chief Justice: I thought you used the word puritanical in a secondary sense.