1859. Eliot, Adam Bede, ix. The little puss seems already to have airs enough to make a husband as miserable as it's a law of nature for a quiet man to be when he marries a beauty.
1885. F. Locker, Mabel. My jealous Pussy cut up rough The day before I bought her muff With sable trimming.
2. (sporting).—A hare, or rabbit.
1821. Scott, Kenilworth, xxix. Thou shalt not give Puss a hint to steal away—we must catch her in her form.
1886. Field, 27 Feb. Dusting her hare about half a dozen times up to the fence, where puss escaped.
3. (venery).—The female pudendum: see Monosyllable: also pussy and pussy-cat: Fr., chat; angora. Hence, TO feed one's pussy = to copulate.
1664. Cotton, Virgil Travestie, 107. Æneas, here's a Health to thee, To Pusse and to good company.
4. (local Woolwich: obsolete).—A cadet of the Royal Military Academy. [The uniform was a short jacket with a pointed tail: vide old pictures at the R.A. Institution, Woolwich.]
Puss-gentleman, subs. phr. (old).—An
effeminate.
1782. Cowper, Conv., 284. I cannot talk with Civet in the room, A fine puss-gentleman that's all perfume.
Pussy-cat, subs. phr. (clerical).—1.
A Puseyite.
2. See Puss, subs., sense 4.
Put, subs. (old).—1. A rustic; a
shallowpate; also country put.—B.
E. (c.1696); Grose (1785).
1688. Shadwell, Sq. of Alsatia, i. Belf, sen. I always thought they had been wittiest in the Universities. Sham. A company of putts, meer putts.
1708-10. Swift, Polite Conversation, ii. He's a true Country Put.
1772. Bridges, Burlesque Homer, 531. Orestes, last, a country put, Got such a cursed knock o' th' gut. Ibid., 55. Just such a queer old put as you.
1782. Chambaud, Dict., 11. s.v.
1847. Thackeray, Vanity Fair, 1. xi. The captain has a hearty contempt for his father, I can see, and calls him an old put.
2. (old).—A harlot: see Tart. [Fr. putain.] Hence putage = fornication. Also (3, venery) = an act of coition; intromission: also to do a put, to have a put-in, to put it in, to put in all, and to play at two-handed put: see Greens and Ride.
c.1720. Durfey, Pills to Purge, &c., vi. 251. My skin is White you see, My Smock above my Knee, What would you more of me, put in all?
1730. Broadside Song, 'Gee ho, Dobbin' [Farmer, Merry Songs and Ballads (1897), ii. 203]. I rumpl'd her Feathers, and tickl'd her scutt, And played the round Rubber at two handed Put.
3. (Stock Exchange).—See quot. 1884: also put and call.
1776. Cibber, Refusal, i. Gran. And all this out of Change-Alley? Wit. Every shilling, Sir; all out of Stocks, Putts, Bulls, Rams, Bears, and Bubbles.
1884. Bisbee and Simonds, Law Prod. Ex., 50. A put is an option to deliver, or not deliver, at a future day.
1889. Rialto, 23 Mar. Having a pocket order from the promoters, which gives him the put and call of as many shares as he requires for his purpose.
Phrases more or less colloquial merit a mention:—To put off (-by or -on) = (1) to baffle, delay, or dismiss, (2) to foist or deceive, and (3) to get rid of or sell: whence a put-off (put-by or put-on), subs. = a shift, trick, or excuse; to put to = to ask a question, advice, &c.; to put down = (1) to baffle or suppress,
