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 1440. Prompt. Parv. [Camden Soc.] Purcy in wynd drawynge.

1596. Shakspeare, Hamlet, iii. 4. The fatness of these pursy times.

1607. [?Middleton] or W [?entworth] S [?mith], Puritan, i. iv. I by chance set upon a fat steward, thinking his purse had been as pursy as his body; and the slave had about him the poor purchase of ten groats.

18[?]. H. Luttrell, Mayfair (1827), 11. 16. Of tedious M.P.'s, pursy peers, Illustrious for their length of ears.

1820. Irving, Sketch-Book, 264. A short, pursy man, stooping so as to show nothing but the top of a round, bald head.

d.1832. Crabbe, Works, iv. 12. Slothful and pursy, insolent and mean, Were every bishop, prebendary, dean.

c.1871. The Siliad, xiv. The pursy man, whose Capital's his God.

Purting-glumpot, subs. phr. (common).—A sulker.

Puseum (The), subs. (Oxford University).—The Pusey House in St. Giles's St.

Push, subs. (old).—1. A crowd; an assembly of any kind: e.g. (thieves') = a band of thieves; (prisons') = a gang associated in penal labour; (general) = a knot or party of people, at a theatre, a church, a race-meeting, &c. Fr., abadie, tigne, vade, trépe. (It., treppo; O. Fr., treper = to press, to trample).

1672. Wycherley, Love in a Wood, ii. 1. I will not stay the push. They come! they come! oh, the fellows come!

1718. C. Higgin, True Disc., 13. He is a thieves' watchman, that lies scouting when and where there is a push, alias an accidental crowd of people.

1754. Disc. of John Poulter, 30. In order to be out of the push or throng.

1819. Vaux, Memoirs, s.v. Push When any particular scene of crowding is alluded to, they say, the push at the spell doors; the push at the stooping-match.

1830. Moncrieff, Heart of London, ii. 1. He's as quiet as a dummy hunter in a push by Houndsditch.

1852. Judson, Myst. of New York, 11. ii. This is one ver grand push.

1877. Davitt, Prison Diary. Most of these pseudo-aristocratic impostors had succeeded in obtaining admission to the stocking-knitting party, which, in consequence, became known among the rest of the prisoners as the "upper ten push."

2. (thieves').—A robbery; a swindle: also as in sense 1. Thus, 'I'm in this push! = 'I mean to share'—an intimation from one magsman to another that he means to stand in (q.v.).

1772. Bridges, Burlesque Homer, 248. Tho' now-a-days So bold a push Would make an honest Hebrew blush.

3. (colloquial).—Enterprise; energy: also pushery = forwardness.

18[?]. D'arblay, Diary, iv. 45. I actually asked for this dab of preferment; it is the first piece of pushery I ever was guilty of.

Verb. (venery).—To copulate: see Greens and Ride: also to stand the push; to do a random push; and to play at push-pin (push-pike or put-pin). Whence pushing-school = a brothel: see Nanny-shop.—B. E. (c.1696); Grose (1785).

1560. Rychardes, Misogonus [Halliwell]. That can lay downe maidens bedds, And that can hold ther sickly heds: That can play at put-pin, Blowe-poynte, and near lin.

1623. Massinger, Duke of Milan, iii. 2. This wanton at dead midnight, Was found at the exercise behind the arras, With the 'foresaid signoir she would never tell Who play'd at pushpin with her.

1656. Men Miracles, 15. To see the sonne you would admire, Goe play at push-pin with his sire.