Dictionary of Americanisms - P-R



P.
PAAS. (Dutch, Paasch.) This Dutch name is still commonly applied to the
festival of Easter, in the State of New York.

PACKAGE. A general term, comprehending bales, boxes, &c. of merchandise.--
Pickering. Dr. Johnson and the early lexicographers do not notice the
word. Recent authors, however, Knowles and Reid, give it a place in their
dictionaries.

PAINT. In some of the Southern States, a horse or other animal which is
spotted, is called a paint.

PAINTER. In the country the popular name of the cougar or panther (felis
concolor). Vanderdonck, in his "History of the New Netherlands," called it
a lion; and Mr. Emmons, in his "Massachusetts Report," speaks of it as the
Puma or American Lion.

"You don't know the way," said Obed; "snakes'll bite ye; there's painters
in the woods, and wild cats and owls.--Margaret, p. 27.

PAIR OF STAIRS. An expression often used for a flight of stairs.

PALMETTO. (Genus, chamærops.) A species of American dwarf palm; cabbage
tree.--Worcester.

PALMETTO STATE or CAPITAL. The State or capital of South Carolina; so
called from the arms of the State, which contain a palmetto.

In the delightful temperature of to-day, with the rich foliage of the
trees in green luxuriance, and the perfumes of a thousand beds of flowers
burdening the air, the Palmetto Capital is exceedingly pleasant.--Letter
from Charleston, N. Y. Tribune.

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PAPPOOS. (Algonkin.) Among the native Indians of New England, a babe or
young child.--Webster. It is also applied to Indian infants by the whites.

PARIK. A public square or enclosure is so termed in New York. The Park,
formerly called the Commons, and in which stands the City Hall, contains
nearly eleven acres of ground; St. John's Park, called the Hudson Square,
has above four acres.

PARTLY. Mr. Pickering notices the use of this word in the sense of nearly,
almost, in some towns of the Middle States. Ex. 'His house is partly
opposite,' i. e. nearly opposite to mine. 'It is partly all gone; 'i. e.
nearly all gone.

PASSAGE. Enactment; the act of carrying through oll the regular forms
necessary to give validity; as the passage of a law, or of a bill into a
law, by a legislative body.--Webster. Mr. Pickering says this word "is
criticised by the English reviewers as an American innovation." It is not
in the English dictionaries in this sense.

His agency in procuring the passage of the stamp act was more than
suspected.--Hosack.

PATROON. (Dutch, patroon, a patron.) A grantee of land to be settled under
the old Dutch governments of New York and New Jersey.

The following articles from the "Freedoms and Exemptions" granted to the
Dutch West India Company, will show what were some of the privileges of
the Patroons:
Art. 3. All such shall be acknowledged Patroons of New Netherland who
shall, within the space of four years next after they have given notice to
any of the Chambers of the Company here, or to the Commander of the
Council there, undertake to plant a colonie there of fifty souls upwards
of fifteen years of age; one-fourth part within one year, and within three
years of the sending of the first, the remainder, to the full number of
fifty persons, to be shipped from hence, on pain, in case of wilful
neglect, of being deprived of the privileges obtained, etc.

Art. 5. The Patroons, by virtue of their power, shall and may be
permitted, at such places as they shall settle their colonies, to extend
their limits four miles along the shore, that is, on one side of a
navigable river, or two miles on each side of a river, and so far no the
country as the situation of the occupiers will permit, etc.

Art. 8. The Patroons may, if they think proper, make use of all lands,

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rivers, and woods lying contiguous to them, for and during so long a time
as this Company shall grant them to other Patroons or particulars.

For a further account of the privileges of the Patroons, See O'Callaghan's
History of New Netherland, Vol. I. p. 112.

PAWPAW. (Lat. annona triloba, ficus Indicus.) A wild fruit-bearing shrub,
remarkable for its beauty. The fruit is nutritious, and a great resource
to the Indians. "So many whimsical and compounded tastes are contained in
it," says Mr. Flint, "that a person of the most hypochondriac temperament
relaxes to a smile when he tastes the pawpaw for the first time."--Geog.
of the Mississippi Valley.

PAYEE. The person to whom money is to be paid; the person named in a bill
or note to whom the amount is promised or directed to be paid.--Webster.
This useful word is not in the English dictionaries.

TO PEAK.}
TO PEKE.} To peep; to pry into. It is quite common in the popular language
of New England to hear this word, which Dr. Webster supposes to be the
same as peep. If it is a corruption, which is doubtful, the examples will
show that its use is not modern.

Now whereof he speketh;
He cryeth and he creketh,
He pryeth and he peketh.--Skelton, Colin Cloute, Vol. I. 312.

That other pries and pekes in everie place.--Gascoigne, p. 301.

He's a lazy, good-for-nothin' fellow. He's no better than a peaking mud-
sucker.--Margaret, p. 20.

PEAKED. Sickly looking.--Todd. Applied to a person who is sickly, and
whose face presents sharp angles. Holloway says, that in England they say
of a sickly person, "he looks pale and peaked.' The same expression is
often heard in the Northern States.

But there was a lawyer, a sanding up by the grove, lookin' as peaked and
as forlorn as an unmated coon.--Sam Slick in England, ch. 11.

PEA-NUT. The common name for the fruit of the arachis hypogea. It is also
called the ground nut and earth nut. (French, pistache de terre.)

PEARIFORM. Pear-shaped. A hybrid expression.

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The Western mounds are usually simple cones in form; but they are
sometimes truncated, and occasionally terraced, with graded or winding
ascents to their summits. Some are elliptical, others peariform, and
others square or parallelogram, with flanking terraces.--Squier on the
Aboriginal Monuments of the Mississppi Valley.

PECCAN NUT. The nut of the peccan tree, the carys oliviormia of the
Southern States.

PECK OF TROUBLES. Great trouble.

Neptune at that his speed redoubles,
To ease them of their peck of troubles.--Cotton, Virgil Travestie, B. I.

When I wrote my last letter to you, I was in a peck of troubles, and it
did seem to me like heaven and earth was inspired agin me.--Maj. Jones's
Courtship, p. 106.

PECKISH. Hungry.--Grose.

PEEKY. A term applied to timber and trees, in which the first symptoms of
decay are shown.

The species of decay to which the cypress tree is liable, shows itself in
detached spots in close proximity to each other. Timber affected in this
way is denominated by raftsmen, peeky.--Dickeson on Cypress Timber.

PEEL. A broad thin board with a long handle, used by bakers to put their
bread in and out of the oven.--Johnson. The term is by many applied to a
common shovel.

PEERT. This word has the same signification as perk, but is much more
frequently employed. It is either an altered form of the word perk, or a
corrupt pronunciation of pert. The phrase, 'as peert as a lizard,' is
sometimes heard. It is used in a good as well as a bad sense, and
especially of one who is recovering, or 'looking up,' after a fit of
sickness.

I gave her the best bend I had in me, and raised my bran-new hat as peert
and perlite as a minister.--Robb, Squatter Life.

Speaking of the recovery of his wife from sickness, Major Jones says:
Mary's rite piert, and her child is making a monstrous good beginnin' in
the world.--Courtship, p. 200.

That fellow must think we were all raised in a saw mill, he looks so peert
whenever he comes in.--Hoffman, Winter in the West.

Well, I starts off pretty considerable peert and brisk, considering I was
weak.--Carlton, The New Purchase, Vol. I. p. 178.

PEE-WEE. The name given by boys to a little marble.

p. 247

PEET-WEET. (Genus, totanus.) The spotted Sandpiper or Sand-lark of
ornithologists, but better known among the people by the name of peet-
weet, in allusion to its notes; or of teeter and tilt-up from its often
repeated grotesque jerking motions.--Dr. DeKay in Nat. Hist. of New York.

PEMICAN. A far-famed provender of man, in the wilds of North America,
formed by pounding the choice parts of the meat very small, dried over a
slow fire or in the frost, and put into bags made of the skin of the slain
animal, into which a portion of melted fat is then poured. The whole being
then strongly pressed and sewed up, constitutes the best and most portable
food for the "voyageurs," and one which, with proper care, will keep a
long time. Fifty pounds of meat and forty pounds of grease make a bag of
pemican. Sweet pemican is another kind, made chiefly of bones.--Dunn's
Oregon, p. 59.

PENN. The common abbreviation for Pennsylvania.

PERFECTIONIST. One pretending to perfection; an enthusiast in religion.--
Webster.

Among the highest puritan perfectionists, you shall find people of fifty,
threescore, and fourscore years old, not able to give that account of
their faith which you might have had heretofore from a boy of nine or
ten.--South's Sermons, Vol. IV.

There be met a perfectionist, ready for heaven,
Only waiting till Heaven was willing;
And he found him one-half a perfect fool,
The other half a perfect villain.--Devil's New Walk, Boston, 1848.

PERIAUGER. (Spanish, piragua.) A small schooner without a bowsprit, and
with a lee board, used in the waters of New York and New Jersey.

Steamboats, lighters, periaugers, scows, clam-boats, and nondescript water-
witches of every sort, have arrived hourly from quarantine, loaded with
almost entire villages of men, women, and children [German and Irish
emigrants]--N. Y. Commercial Adrertiser.

PERIODICAL. A magazine or other publication, that is published at stated
or regular periods.--Webster.

PERK. Lively; brisk; holding up the head.--Webster. This old word, still
provincial in England, is used in the interior

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of New England, and is commonly pronounced peark (the ea as in pear).--
Pickering.

My ragged ronts
They wont in the wind wag their wriggle tails,
Perk as a peacock; but now it avails.--Shepherd's Calendar.

PERSIMMON. (Diospyros Virginiana.) This tree is unknown in the North-
eastern parts of our country; but south of latitude 42° it is found
throughout the United States. It varies exceedingly in size, being
sometimes sixty feet in height, with a trunk twenty inches in diameter,
but more frequently does not attain half these dimensions. The fruit is
about an inch in diameter, and is powerfully astringent. The wood is very
hard, and is used for large screws, mallets, shoe lasts, wedges, &c. In
clearing the forests, the persimmon is usually preserved; and it is
probable that the quality of the fruit might be improved by cultivation.--
Encyc. Amer.

PERTEND UP. Better; more cheerful.--Sherwood's Georgia.

PESKILY. Very; extremely; confoundedly. I know not the origin of this New
England word.

Skeered, says he, sarves him right; he might have known how to feel for
other folks, and not funkify them so peskily.--Sam Slick in England.

I'm peskily sorry about that mare.--Ibid. ch. 08.

The Post Office accounts were the next bother; and they puzzled all on us
peskily.--Maj. Downing's Letters, p. 139.

PESKY. Great; very; exceedingly.

I found [looking for houses] a pesky sight worse job than I expected.--
Downing, May-day in New York, p. 36.

I wonder how he's on't for face-cards; ha! ha! So pesky slow, we shan't
get through to-night.--Margaret, p. 305.

The thing of it is, people has got to be so pesky proud and perlite.--
Ibid. p. 141.

PETER FUNK. At the petty auctions a person is employed to bid on articles
put up for sale, in order to raise their price. Such a person is called a
Peter Funk; probably from such a name having frequently been given when
articles were bought in. At the mock auctions, as they are called in New
York, this practice of having by-bidders is carried to a great extent; and
strangers, unacquainted with their tricks, are often cheated

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by them. Grose describes a person similarly employed in England, under the
name of puffer.

PHEESE. A fit of fretfulness. A colloquial, vulgar word in the United
States.--Worcester. The adjective pheesy, fretful, querulous, irritable,
sore, is provincial in England.--Forby. Also written feeze, which see.

PICAYUNE. The name for the Spanish half real in Florida, Louisiana, etc.
See Federal Currency.

PICAYUNE. Sixpenny. Sometimes used metaphorically for small.

There is nothing picayune about the members of St. George's [Cricket]
Club; for the love of sport, they will almost invariably enter upon
matches that other clubs would not accept.--N. Y. Herald.

PICKANINNY. A negro or mulatto infant. Used in the Southern States. Mr.
Boucher, in his Glossary, suggests that this word is from the Spanish
picade niño, pequeno niño. It is more probably of African origin.

I jest sauntered in as he was puttin' up the pickaninny yaller gal, about
five years old.--Robb, Squatter Life.

PICK-BACK. On the back.--Johnson. We often use the word with children. To
ride pick-back, is for a child to ride across one's back, with its arms
around the neck.

For as our modern wits behold,
Mounted a pick-back on the old,
Much farther off; much farther he,
Rais'd on his aged beast, could see.--Hudibras.

TO PICK. To eat like a bird; that is, slowly and by small morsels. Ex. 'I
have little appetite, but think I can pick a bit;' 'You will find some
good picking on that fowl.'

PICKLE. To have a rod in pickle, or in soak, is to have a flogging
prepared for one. The phrase is often used in jest, here as in England.

PICK-UP. A pick-up, or a pick-up dinner, is a dinner made up of such
fragments of cold meats as remain from former meals. The word is common in
the Northern States.

PIECE. A little while. 'Stay a piece.' Provincial in the north of
England.--Johnson. The common expression is, 'Wait a bit.'

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PIG-NUT. (Lat. juglans porcina.) A small species of walnut.--Michaux,
Sylva.

PIG-YOKE. Among seamen, the name for a quadrant, from its resemblance to a
pig-yoke.

PILE. (Dutch, pyl.) An arrow. This word is still retained by the boys of
New York.

PIMPING. Little; petty; as, 'a pimping thing.'--Skinner. Used in the
interior of New England.

Was I little? asked Margaret. Yes, and pimpin' enough. And I fed your marm
with rue and comfrey-root, or ye never'd come to this.--Margaret, p. 19.

ON A PINCH. On an emergency.

At a fight in Albany, New York, on the 12th instant, one man was stabbed
desperately with a dirk. Upon a pinch, they can stah a little at the
North.--New Orleans Paper.

They can't go ahead of us in England in racin'. We have colts that can
whip chain-lightnin' on a pinch.--Sam Slick in England, ch. 19.

I have the best accommodations in the city, said the landlord. I can lodge
200 persons with all the ease in the world, and 300 upon a pinch.--Perils
of Pearl Street, p. 142.

PINE BARRENS. A term applied to level, sandy tracts, covered with pine-
trees, in the Southern.States.--Worcester.

The road which I had to travel, lay through a dreary and extensive forest
of pine trees, or, as it is termed by the Carolinians, a pine-barren,
where t habitation is seldom seen, except at intervals of ten or twelve
miles.--Lambert's Trarels, Vol. II. p. 226.

PINK. Used here as in England, like the word flower, to denote the finest
part, the essence; as, ' She is the pink of perfection.'

I am the very pink of courtesy.--Shakspeare, Romeo and Juliet.
Then let Crispino, who was ne'er refused
The justice yet of being well abused,
With patience wait; and be content to reign
The pink of puppies in some future strain.-- Young.

Mr. Smoothly was the mirror of fashion, and the pink of politeness.--
Perils of Pearl Street, p. 25.

PINK-STERN. (French, pinque.) A vessel with a narrow stern; hence all
vessels so formed are called pink-sterned.--

p. 251

Chambers. This species of craft is very common in the waters of New
England.

PINION. A species of pine tree, growing on the head waters of the
Arkansas; common to that region as well as to New Mexico, the Rocky
Mountains, etc. Wild turkeys frequent groves of these trees for the sake
of their nuts.

PINXTER. (Dutch, pingster.) Whitsunday. On Pinxter Monday, the Dutch
negroes of New York and New Jersey consider lhemselves especially
privileged to get as drunk as they can.

Pinkster fields, and pinkster frolics, are no novelties to us, sir, as
they occur at every season; and I am just old enough not to have missed
one of them all, for the last twelve years.--Cooper, Satanstoe, Vol. I. p.
90.

PINXTER BLUMACHY. (Dutch.) A familiar name in the Siate of New York for
the azalea nudiflora. May-apple is another name for the same plant.

PIPE-LAYING. This term, in political parlance, means any arrangement by
which a party makes sure of a certain addition to its legitimate strength
in the hour of trial--that is, the election. In other words, to lay pipe
means to bring up voters not legally qualified.

It were too long a story to tell the origin of the term at length. In
brief, it arose from an accusation brought against the Whig party of this
city (New York) some years ago, of a gigantic scheme to bring on voters
from Philadelphia. The accusation was made by a notorious Democrat, of not
very pure political character, who professed to have derived his
information from the agent employed by the Whigs for the service. This
agent had actually been employed by certain leaders of the Whig party, but
on a service deemed legitimate and proper in the art of electioneering.
He, however, turned traitor, and, as was alleged by the Whigs, concocted a
plot with the notorious Democrat to throw odium upon the Whigs. A mass of
correspondence was brought forward in proof, consisting mainly of letters
written by the agent to various parties in New York, apparently describing
the progress and success of his operations. In these letters, as if for
the purpose of concealment, the form of a mere business

p. 252

correspondence was adopted--the number of men hired to visit New York and
vote, being spoken of as so many yards of pipe--the work of laying down
pipe for the Croton water being at that time in full activity.

The Whig leaders were indicted, on the strength of these pseudo
revelations, and the letters were read in court; bu[t] the jury believed
neither in them nor in the writer of them, and the accused were acquitted.

The term pipe-laying," however, was at once adopted as a synonym for
negotiations to procure fraudulent votes.--[J. Inman.]

PIRATE. A sea-robber; any robber; particularly a book-seller who seizes
the copies of other men.--Johnson.

Some of our large publishing houses may not be aware that there is such
good authority for applying the term pirate to them, as is found in the
following quotation:
This poem was written for his own diversion, without any design of
publication. It was communicated but to me; but soon spread, and fell into
the hands of pirates. It was put out, vilely mangled, and impudently said
to be corrected by the author.--Johnson, Life of J. Philips.

PISTAREEN. The Spanish peseta Sevillana, or one-fifth of a dollar. A
silver coin, formerly common in the United States, of the value of twenty
cents. They have now become so much worn that they pass but for seventeen
cents.

TO PIT. A pit is the area in which cocks fight; hence, 'to pit one against
another,' to place them in the same pit, one against the other, for a
contest; to put or place as a match.--Richardson.

A gentleman came into our office, from Colton, and deliberately pitted
that town against the county for tall grass.--Ogdensburgh Sentinel.

PIT. (Dutch, pit, a kernel.) The kernel or nut of fruit; as, a cherry-pit.
Peculiar to New York.

You put an apple seed or a peach-pit into the ground, and it springs up
into the form of a miniature tree.--Prof. Bush on the Resurrection.

ITPAN. In the West Indies, a very long, narrow, flat-bottomed, trough-like
canoe, with thin and flat projecting ends.

PLAGUILY. Vexatiously; horribly. A low word.--Johnson.

p. 253

You look'd scornful, and snift at the dean;
But he durst not so much as once open his lips,
And the doctor was plaguily down in the hips.--Swift.

I am puzzled most plaguily to get words to tell you what I think.--Maj.
Downing's Letters, p. 3.

PLAGUY. In the United States used adverbially, in the same sense as
plaguily.

The circumstances of the case should make the committee less "avidus
glorlie," for all praise of them would look plaguy suspicious.--Lord Byron
to Lord Holland, Let. 107.

The Prince de Joinville is a plaguy handsome man, and as full of fun as a
kitten.--Sam Slick in England, ch. 22.

PLAGUY SIGHT. This is a very common expression in the colloquial language
of New England, and means, a great deal.

Squire, said Slick. I'd a plaguy sight sooner see Ascot than anything else
in England.--Sam Slick in England, ch. 19.

TO PLANK. To lay; to put; generally applied to money; as, 'He planked down
the cash.'

I've had to plank down handsome, and do the thing genteel, but Mr.
landlord found he had no fool to deal with, neither.--S. Slick in England.

Why, says he, shell out, and plank down a pile of dollars.--Ibid.

During the last war he planked up more gold and silver to lend the
government than Benton ever counted.--Crockett, Tour, p. 59.

PLANTER. In Newfoundland, a person engaged in the fishery.

PLANTER. A term applied to a piece of timber or the naked trunk of a tree,
one end of which is firmly planted in the bed of a river, while the other
rises near the surface of the water. This is the most dangerous among the
"snag and sawyer " family, to which vessels, navigating the Western
rivers, are exposed. See Snag and Sawyer.

PLATFORM. In some of the New England States an ecclesiastical
constitution, or a plan for the government of churches; as, the Cambridge
or Saybrook platform.--Webster. The same use of this word is made by
English divines.

Their minds and affections were universally bent even against all the
orders aud laws wherein the church is founded, conformable to the platform
of Geneva.--Hooker.

p. 254

A platform of church discipline, gathered out of the word of God, and
agreed upon by the elders and messengers of the churches assembled at the
synod in Cambridge in New England.--Title of book printed, London, 1653.

PLAY-ACTOR. A pleonastic expression for the English term player or actor.
It is used only in the United States.

PLEAD or PLED, for pleaded. It has been correctly remarked, that there is
no such word as pled in the English language. It is true that the
preterite and past part. of the verb to read is pronounced red; but there
is no analogy between the two verbs, except their accidental similarity of
sound. The former is the Anglo-Saxon verb rædan, and is conjugated
accordingly; whereas the latter is the old French plaider, and therefore
cannot admit what philologists call the "strong inflexion." This vulgar
mistake is often met with in our reports of legal proceedings and
elsewhere. But it is not of recent origin, nor is it exclusively American;
as is shown by the following example from Spenser, furnished by
Richardson:

With him ..... came
Many grave persons that against her pled.--Spenser, Fairy Queen.

An old offender was caught last night in a warehouse, with a dark lantern
and all the other implements of his profession, and next morning
innocently plead "somnambulism" when brought before the magistrate--having
no recollection of the doings of the night since he went to early in the
evening, and found himself in the watch-house in the morning.--New York
Paper.

PLENTY. Plentiful; in abundance.--Webster. Opinions differ as to this use
of the word. Johnson regards it as "barbarous;" while Webster thinks it
"too well authorized to be rejected." Dr. Johnson seems clearly in the
right, notwithstanding; the word being the old French abstract noun
plenté, which we are not entitled to turn into an adjective because it
happens to end in y.

To grass with thy calves
Where water is plenty.--Tusser's Husbandry.

If reasons were as plenty as blackberries, I would give no man a reason on
compulsion.--Shakspeare, Henry IV.

They were formed for those countries where shrubs are plenty and water
scarce.--Goldsmith.

When laborers are plenty, their wages will be low.--Franklin.

p. 255

PLUMPER. At an election, a full vote, to one candidate, not shared with
another.--Richardson. We use the word in the nine sense; for example, 'Let
the Whig voters turn out in a body, and give Harry Clay a plumper.'

PLUNDER. Personal luggage, baggage of travellers, goods, effects. A very
common word throughout the Southern and Western States. It is never heard
in this sense in New England.

When we got loaded up, I was afraid old Bosen was going to have more'n his
match to pull us, they'd put in so much plunder. Two trunks, band-boxes,
&c.--Maj. Jones's Courtship, p. 165.

Help yourself; stranger, added the landlord, while I tote your plunder
into the other room.--Hoffman, Winter in the West, Let. 33.
POHAGEN. A fish of the herring species. The Menhaden of Rhode Island.
Maine.

POKE. A bag. I have heard this old word used by some persons here in the
compound term cream-poke; that is, a small bag through which cream is
strained.--Pickering.

POKE. A lazy person; a dawdle. 'What a slow poke you be!' A woman's word.

POKE, or POKE-WEED. (Lat. phytolacca.) A common plant, known also by the
names of Garget, Cocum, Jalap, &c. It is a violent emetic.--Bigelow's
Plants of Boston.

POKE. In New England, a machine to prevent unruly beasts from leaping
fences, consisting of a yoke with a pole inserted, pointing forward.--
Webster.

TO POKE. To put a poke on; as, to poke an ox.--Webster.

TO POKE FUN. To joke; to make fun. To poke fun at, is to ridicule, make a
butt of one.

The widow admonished Nimrod, and said, "You had better not be pokin' your
fun about."--Margaret, p. 49.

Jeames, if you dont be quit poking fun at me, I'll break your mouth, as
sure as you sit there.--Neal's Charcoal Sketches.
POKE-BONNET. A long, straight bonnet, much worn by Quakers and Methodists.

POKE-LOKEN. An Indian word, used by hunters and lum-

p. 256

bermen in Maine, to denote a marshy place or stagnant pool, extending into
the land from a stream or lake.

POKER. A favorite game of cards among Southern gamblers.

POKER. (Dan. pokker, Welsh pwca, a hobgoblin.) Any frightful object,
especially in the dark; a bugbear; a word in common use in America.--
Webster.

POKERISH. Frightful; causing fear, especially to children. A childish or
colloquial word.-- Worcester.

A curious old convent [in Naples] with chapels above and below--a
pokierish looking place, fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils.--N. Y.
Literary World, Aug. 1847.

POLLYWOG, or POLLYWIG. A tadpole. Mr. Forby has the word puriwiggy, a
tadpole, of which pollywig is a corruption. He derives it from periwig,
from the resemblance the tadpole bears to that antiquated article of
finery, the wig with a long queue, as well as to a pot-ladle, by which
name it is also called.--Norfolk Glossary.

POMME BLANCHE. (Fr.) White apple. A native of the prairies and mountains,
oval-shaped and about three and a half inches in circumference. It is
encased in a thin fibrous tegument, which, when removed, exposes a white
pulpy substance, and in taste resembles a turnip.--Scenes in the Rocky
Mountains, p. 107.

POND. We give this name to collections of water in the interior country,
which are fed by springs, and from which issues a small stream. These
ponds are often a mile or two or even more in length, and the current
issuing from them is used to drive the wheels of mills and furnaces.--
Webster.

There were streams meandering along hills and valleys; little lakes or as
they were erroneously called in the language of the country, dotted the
surface.--Cooper, Satanstoe, Vol. I. p. 144.

TO PONY UP. A vulgar phrase, meaning to pay over money. Ex. 'Come, Mr.
B----, pony up that account;' that is, pay over the money. Grose gives a
phrase similar to it: 'Post the pony,' i. e. lay down the money.

It was my job to pay all the bills. "Salix, pony up at the bar, and lend
us a levy.'--J. C. Neal, Sketches.

POOR AS JOB'S TURKEY. A common simile.

p. 257


The professor is as poor as Job's turkey, if it wasn't for that powerful
salary the trustees give him.--Carlton, The New Purchase, Vol. II. p. 85.

POP. Papa. A term used in the country.

POPPED CORN. Parched Indian corn, so called from the noise it makes on
bursting open. The variety usually prepared in this way is of a dark
color, with a small grain.

PORGY, or PAUGIE. Pron. with the g hard. (Indian, scuppaug.) A fish of the
sparus family, common in the waters of New England and New York. Roger
Williams mentions it in his Key to the Indian Language (1643). It is
singular that one half the aboriginal name, scup, should be retained in
Rhode Island for this fish, and the other half; paug, changed into paugie,
or porgy, in New York. The entire Indian name, however, is still common in
many parts of New England.

PORTAGE. A carrying place over land between navigable waters, or along the
banks of rivers, round water-falls or rapids, &c.--Pickering. This word
has been adopted by geographers, and is universal throughout North
America.

POSITION. 'Defining one's position' is a political practice of modern
days, generally resorted to either by gentlemen who have no other good
chance or prospect of bringing themselves to the special notice of the
public, as a sort of advertisement that they are in the market, or by
other gentlemen who contemplate making a dodge from one side in politics
to the other. It is done either orally or in writing; by a speech in
Congress or at some public meeting; or by a long letter, published in some
newspaper, the editor of which is always glad of something to fill his
columns. The highest art in 'defining one's position' is to leave it more
indefinite than it was before, so that any future contingency may be taken
advantage of. [J. Inman.]

The Barnburners' Mass Meeting, to non-respond to the nominations of Cass
and Butler, will take place in tho Park at 5 this afternoon, and be
addressed by John Van Buren, B. F. Butler, Sedgwick, Field, Gen. Nye, &c.
&c. We regret that unavoidable absence at Philadelphia will deprive us of
the pleasure of hearing these gentlemen "define their position,"
especially Prince John, who has the reputation of being the most straight-

p. 258


forward, plain-spoken, flat-footed 'Burner in the country. It is a rare
treat to hear a man speak who actually means something, and isn't afraid
to say it. Let us hear what the Barnburner platform is; and when Gen. Cass
comes along (probably to-morrow or next day), the Hunkers will, have a
chance to set forth their notions. We shall endeavor to report both.--N.
Y. Tribune, June 6, 1848.

PORTAAL. (Dutch.) A portal, lobby. Used by people of Dutch descent, in New
Jersey and New York, for a, small passage or entry of a house, and
pronounced pit-áll. The principal entrance they call the gang; also Dutch.

PORTMANTLE. Portmanteau; a valise.

What do you say to a lad with a portmantle on his shoulders, like Ishmael
Small?--Mathews, Puffer Hopkins.

POST-NOTE. In commerce, a bank-note intended to be transmitted to a
distant place by mail, and made payable to order. In this it differs from
a common bank-note, which is plyable to bearer.--Webster.

Post-notes differ in other respects from bank-notes. The latter are
payable on demand; the former are often drawn on time, with or without
interest, sometimes six or twelve months after date. This species of
currency was resorted to by many banks during the great commercial
revulsions in 1836-7, and thereby contributed greatly to the expansion of
credits which proved so disastrous to the country.

TO GO TO POT. To be destroyed, wasted, or ruined.--Johnson. Webster.
Though much used, it is considered a low phrase both in England and
America.

The sheep went first to pot, the goats next, and after them the oxen, and
all little enough to keep life together.--L'Estrange.

John's ready money went into the lawyer's pockets; then John began to
borrow money upon the bank-stock; now and then a farm went to pot.--
Arbuthnot, J. Bull.

POTTY-BAKER. (Dutch, potte-bakker.) A potter. This Dutch word is still
common in New York. Potter's clay is here called potty-baker's clay.

POWER. A large quantity; a great number. In low language; as, 'a power of
good things.'--Johnson.

He, to work him the more mischief, sent over his brother Edward, with a

p. 259

power of Scots and Redshanks, into Ireland, where they got footing.--
Spenser on Ireland.

I think the Post Office Committees will do a power of good, if they can
stir up the old contracts and extras.--Crockeit, Tour, p. 118.

He made a power of money.--Ibid. p. 59.

POWERFUL. Great; very; exceedingly. A vulgar use of the word in some parts
of the country.

This piano was sort o' fiddle like--only bigger,--and with a powerful heap
of wire strings. It is called a forty piano, because it plays forty
tunes.--Carlton's New Purchase, Vol. II. p. 8.

Yes, Mr. Speaker, I'd a powerful sight sooner go into retiracy among the
red, wild aborigines of our wooden country, nor consent to that bill.--
Carlton, The New Purchase, Vol. I. p. 74.

Mrs. S. Hoarhound and sugar's amazin' good.
Mrs. B. Mighty good, mighty good.
Mrs. R. Powerful good. I take mightily to a sweat of sugar tea in
desperate bad colds.--Georgia Scenes, p. 193.

It may be said generally of husbands, as the old woman said of hers, who
bad abused her, to an old maid, who reproached her for being such a fool
as to marry him: "To be sure, he's not so good a husband as he should be,
but he's a powerful sight better than none."--N. Y. Sunday Dispatch.

POW-WOW. (Indian.) This is the name given by the early chroniclers to the
feasts, dances, and other public doings of the red men, preliminary to a
grand hunt, a council, a war expedition, or the like. It has been adopted,
in political talk, to signify any uproarious meeting for a political
purpose, at which there is more noise than deliberation, more clamor than
counsel. [J. Inman.]

A murder was recently committed upon a Sioux by two Chippewas. The body of
the murdered Indian was taken to the fort, where a most terrific pow-wow
was held over it by the friends of the deceased, 300 in number.-- Western
Newspaper.

PRAIRIE. (French.) An extensive tract of land, mostly level, destitute of
trees, and covered with tall, coarse grass. These prairies are numerous in
the United States west of the Alleghany Mountains, especially between the
Ohio, Mississippi, and the great lakes.--Webster.

PRAIRILLON. A small prairie.

Interspersed among the hills, are frequent openings and prairillons of
rich soil and luxuriant vegetation.--Scenes in the Rocky Mountains, p. 172.

p. 260

PRAIRIE-BITTERS. A beverage common among the hunters and mountaineers. It
is made with a pint of water and a quarter of a gill of buffalo-gall, and
is considered an excellent medicine.--Scenes in the Rocky Mountains, p.
133.

PRAIRIE-DOG. (Aretomys ludovicianus.) Called by the Indians Wistonwish. A
variety of the marmot. It has received the name of Prairie-dog from a
supposed similarity between its warning cry and the barking of a small
dog. They live in large communities; their villages, as they are termed by
the hunters, sometimes being many miles in extent. The entrance to each
burrow is at the summit of the mound of earth thrown up during the
progress of the excavation below. This marmot, like the rest of the
species, becomes torpid during the winter, and, to protect itself against
the rigor of the season, stops the mouth of its hole, and constructs a
cell at the bottom of it, where it remains without injury.--Encyclopedia
Americana. Also called Gopher.

The good people of Porter, Wisconsin, resolved to exterminate the gophers
in that locality, and determined to have a hunt, to see if they could not
annihilate them. Twenty men were chosen on a side, and the parly that was
beaten was to pay for a supper for the whole party. The result was that
they killed 3,196 gophers.--Wisconsin Paper.

PRAIRIE-HEN. The pinnated grouse of ornithologists. It is also called
Heath-hen and Grouse in some parts of the country.--Audubon's Ornithology.

PRAYERFUL. Using prayer; praying; devout.--Worcester.

PRAYERFULLY. Devoutly. Ex. 'We may be prayerfully disposed.' Used by some
of the clergy.--Webster. Pickering.

PRAYERLESS. Not praying or using prayer; indevout. This word, as also
prayerful and prayerfully, though modern, are now much used.-- Worcester.

Mr. Pickering says this word is used by Whitfield.

PRAYERFULNESS. The use of much prayer.--Webster.

PRAYERLESSNESS. Total or habitual neglect of prayer.--Webster.

PREDICATE. To predicate on or upon, is to found a proposi-

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tion, argument, etc. on some basis or data. This sense of the word, said
to be purely American, is not noticed by Dr. Webster or the English
lexicographers. "Its use," as Mr. Pickering observes, " is very common
with American writers, and in the debates of our legislative assemblies."

It ought surely to be predicated upon a full and impartial consideration
of the whole subject.--Letter of John Quincy Adams.

The great state papers of American liberty were all predicated on the
abuse of chartered, not of absolute rights.--Gibbs, Adminis. of Washington
and J. Adams, Vol. I. p. 3.

PREHAPS, for perhaps, is much used at the West in familiar language when
additional force is to be given to the word. It originated in a jocose
mispronunciation, which appears to be becoming a fixed corruption.

Prehaps Parson Hyme didn't put it into Pokerville for two mortal hours and
prehaps Pokerville didn't mizzle, wince, and finally flummix right beneath
him!--Field, Drama in Pokerville.

PRESENT. Put on the back of letters to persons residing in the place where
the letter is written. Peculiar to the United States. The Spanish
equivalent presente is also used in Central America.

PRESIDENCY. 1. The office of president. 'Washington was elected to the
presidency of the United States by a unanimous vote of the electors.'

2. The term during which a president holds his office. 'President John
Adams died during the presidency of his son.'--Webster.

PRESIDENTIAL. Pertaining to a president.--Webster. In this sense the word
is an Americanism. It is of course very common and indispensable with us,
and is sometimes used by English writers in treating of American affairs.

The friends of Washington had determined to support Mr. Adams as candidate
for the presidential chair.--Quarterly Rev., Vol. X. p. 497.

PRETTY CONSIDERABLE. Tolerable, pretty well; tolerably, pretty. A New
England vulgarism.

I went to the theatre in Boston, where the acting was pretty considerable,
considering.--Crockett, Tour, p. 87.

Dear Col. Crockett--I have heard of you a great deal lately, and read

p. 262

considerable of your writings; and I feel pretty considerable well
acquainted with you.--Maj. Downing, Letter to Crockett, Tour, p. 217.

There are some folks who think a good deal, and say but little, and they
are wise folks; and there are others again, who blurt out whatever comes
uppermost, and I guess they are pretty considerable superfine fools.--Sam
Slick.

PREVENTATIVE. A corruption sometimes met with for preventive both in
England and America.

A cry was raised for the establishment of a preventative armed police; but
the madness of such a proposal could not long escape observation.--Edinb.
Annual Reg., Vol. V. p. 99.

PRIME. Primely; in a first rate manner. This is one of the many English
adjectives which, in our vulgar language, are transformed into adverbs.

After a little practice with my gun, she came up to the eye prime, and I
determined to try her at the first shooting match.--Crockett, Tour, p. 175.

PRIMINARY. Predicament; difficulty. Used in the Southern States.--
Sherwood's Georgia. I am told that this word is also used by old people
living on Long Island. It is provincial in the North of England.

PRINTERY. Bakery, bindery, have long been in use amongst us, and in New
York even paintery and printery. In process of time a church may be called
a preachery.

PROFANITY. This word is in common use here, more particularly with our
clergy. It is not in the dictionaries, and I do not recollect ever meeting
with it in English authors. The Scottish writers employ it; but English
writers use the word profaneness.--Pickering. It appears, however, that
English authors are beginning to use it; see Worcester on the word.

PROFESSOR. One visibly or professedly religious.--Worcester. A vory odd
use of the word to those not accustomed to it.

PROG. Victuals; provisions of any kind. A low word.--Johnson. This word is
often heard in New York and New England in familiar language.

O nephew! your grief is but folly;
In town you may find better prog.--Swift, Miscellanies.

p. 263

Spouse tuckt up doth in pattens trudge it
With handkerchief of prog, like truth with budget;
And eat by turns plumcake, and judge it.--Congreve.

TO PROGRESS. To move forward; to pass.--Johnson. This is not a pure
Americanism, as some suppose, but an old English word which had been
suffered to become obsolete. It was revived here after the Revolution (see
Pickering), and has lately been taken into favor again in England.

The Penny Cyclopedia (art. Americanism) says, "The old verb prógrese,
which the Americans use very often and pronounce progréss, is now
beginning to be again adopted in its native country, though we think we
could do very well without it."

Let me wipe off this honorable dew,
That silverly doth progress on thy cheeks.--Shakspeare.

---- Although the popular blast
Hath reared thy name up to bestride a cloud,
Or progress in the chariot of the sun.--Ford, Broken Heart.

Such are the inconsistencies of a flatterer, progressing from his
butterfly state into the vermicular slime of a libeller.--London Quarterly
Review.

Her first teacher was but himself, at that time, a pupil; but she
progressed under his tuition.--Mary Howitt, People's Journal.

Thev progress in that style in proportion as their plans are treated with
contempt.--Washington's Writings.

After the war had progressed for some time.--Marshall's Washington.
PROPER. Very. Colloquial in England and the United States.

The day was gone afore I got out of the woods, and I got proper
frightened.--Sam Slick in England, ch. 15.

PROPERLY. Very much. Common in New England.

Father jest up with the flat of his hand, and gave me a wipe with it on
the side of my face, that knocked me over, and hurt me properly.--Sam
Slick in Eoyland, ch. 26.

PRO-SLAVERY. In favor of slavery. An expression much used by political
speakers and writers, although not yet inserted in the dictionaries.

We have devoted every inch we could spare to this debate; and though two-
thirds of what we publish was intended to favor slavery, we are confident
that the whole will signally promote the cause of universal

p. 264

freedom. At all eventts, we shall see the pro-slavery journals through the
Free States very carefully refraining from giving it publicity.--N. Y.
Tribune, April, 1848.

It takes a despot, a craven, and a slave, compounded together, to make a
pro-slavery legislator in a free State. The last legislature of Ohio had a
majority of just such creatures. Noses of was! stay pinched, just as the
slaveholder's thumb and finger left you. Dough-faces! wear the prints of
your master's knuckles, and the traces of their spittle. They are your
coats of arms, and they fit ye--your titles of nobility, and theyll stick
to ye. Snow water and soap won't wash them off, nor your hot tears either--
nor fire burn them out, nor paint hide them, nor plasters cover them. You
have worked hard for infamy, and you have got it.--Anti-Slavery Almanac.

PROTRACTED MEETING. A name given in New England to a religious meeting,
protracted or continued for several days, chiefly among the Presbyterians,
Cougregationalists, Methodists, and Baptists. Notice is sometimes given
that a protracted meeting will be held at a certain time and place, where
large numbers of people assemble.

PROUD. Glad; as, 'I should be proud to see you.'

PROX, or PROXY. The use of these words is confined to the States of
Connecticut and Rhode Island. Prox, in Rhode Island, means the ticket or
list of candidates at elections presented to the people for their votes.
By a law of the colony of Providence Plantations passed in the year 1647,
the General Assembly was appointed to be holden annually, "if wind and
weather hinder not, at which the general officers of the colony were to be
chosen." This clause made it convenient for many to remain at home,
particularly as they had the right to send their votes for the officers by
some other persons; hence the origin of these terms prox and proxy votes,
as applied to the present mode of voting for State officers in Rhode
Island.--Staples's Annals of Providence, p. 64.

Mr. Pickering observes that this word is also used in Connecticut, as
equivalent to election, or election-day. He quotes the following instances
from a Connecticut newspaper:
Republicans of Connecticut; previous to every proxies you have been
assaulted on every side.

On the approaching proxies we ask you to attend universally.

Dr. Webster, with whom New England, or rather Con-

p. 265

necticut, seems to have been a synonym for "all creation," says, the word
means, "in popular use, an election or day of voting for officers of
government."

PRY. A large lever employed to raise or move heavy substances. Used also
in some parts of England.--Worcester.

TO PRY. To move or raise by means of a large lever.--Worcester.

PUBLICIST. A writer on the laws of nature and nations; one who treats of
the rights of nations.-- Webster. It is seldom used by English writers. In
this country Kent, Duponceau, Gallatin, and others have employed it.

In this particular the two German courts seem to have as little consulted
the publicits of Germany, as their own true interests.--Burke.

There is no impartial publicist that will not acknowledge the indubitable
truth of these positions.--Gallatin, Peace with Mexico, p. 8.

At Copenhagen he rendered distinguished services, and laid the foundation
of that reputation as a publicist which has extended to both hemispheres.--
Mem. of the Hon. Henry Wheaton, Providence Journal.

PUBLISHMENT. A publishing of the banns of marriage, which is required by
law in New England. In popular usage this is a publishment, as, 'Mr. Doe
and Miss Roe's publishment took place to-day.'

Any persons desiring to be joined in marriage, shall have such their
intentions published .... or posted up by the clerk of each town and a
certificate of such publishment shall be produced a aforesaid previous to
their marriage.--Statutes of Massachusetts, 1786.

PUCKER. A fright; a state of perplexity or trouble; agitation. Provincial
in England.

TO PULL FOOT. To walk fast; to run.

I look'd up; it was another shower, by Gosh. I pulls foot for dear life.--
Sam Slick in England, ch. 2.

I thought I'd run round two or three streets. So I pulled foot, and hunted
and sweat till I got so tired I couldn't but just stand.--Maj. Downing's
May-day in New York.

TO PULL UP STAKES. To pack up one's furniture or baggage preparatory to a
removal; to remove.

If this stranger is to receive countenance, then I'll pull up stakes and
depart from Tinnecum for ever.--Knickerbocker Magazine.

PUMA. (Felis concolor et discolor.) This animal is also known

p. 266

under the names of Cougar, Panther, &c., and is the largest animal of the
cat kind found in America.--Encyc. Americana.

PUMPKIN. The common name for the pompion throughout the United States.

PUNCHEONS. A term which, in Georgia, means split logs, with their faces a
little smoothed with an axe or hatchet.

The Squire's dwelling consisted of but one room. The house was constructed
of logs, and the floor was of puncheons.--Georgia Scenes, p. 12.

PUNG. A rude sort of sleigh, or oblong box made of boards and placed on
runners, used for drawing loads on snow by horses.--Worcester.

These were sledges or pungs, coarsely framed of split saplings, and
surmounted with a large crockery-crate.--Margaret, p. 174.

PUNK. Rotten wood; touchwood; spunk. A word in common use in New England,
as well as in the other Northern States and Canada. Ash defines it "a kind
of fungus, often used for tinder."--Pickering.

PUPELO. A name for cider-brandy, formerly manufactured in New England to a
great extent.

Han't they got any of the religion at your house? No, marm, they drink
pupelo and rum.--Margaret, p. 52.

TO STAY PUT. To remain in order; not to be disturbed. A vulgar expression.

The levees and wharves of the First Municipality won't "stay put.' Last
evening that part of the levee opposite Custom House street, which had
caved in and was since filled, sunk suddenly ten feet.--N. O. Picayune.

PUT OFF. An excuse, an illusory pretext for delay.--Carr's Craven Dialect.

If a man tells them of the king's proceedings, then they have their shift,
and their put offs.--Latimer's Sermons.

The fox's put off is instructive towards the government of our lives,
provided his fooling be made our earnest.--L'Estrange.

TO PUT ON AIRS. To assume airs of importance.

You don't see no folks putting on airs in election time; every fellow is
then as good as another, and some a darned sight better.--N. O. Delta.

TO PUT OUT. To start; to set out.

Well, I put out for the Planter's as fast as I could, where you know I
found you at last.--Maj. Jones's Courtship, p. 63.

p. 267

TO PUT OUT. To offend.

There is no affectation in passion; for that putteth a man out of his
precept, and in a new case their custom leaveth him.--Bacon.

The Captain's wife was at the office yesterday, and seemed a little put
out about it.--Dombey and Son, ch. 23.



Q.
QUAHAUG. (Montauk Indian, quauhaug.) In New England, the popular name of a
species of clams, having a round and very hard shell.

TO QUALIFY. To swear to discharge the duties of an office; and hence to
make oath of any fact; as, 'I am ready to qualify to what I have
asserted!'

QUEER FISH. An odd or eccentric person is often called a queer fish, an
odd stick.

QUID, a corruption of cud; as, in vulgar language, a quid of tobacco. In
Kent (England), a cow is said to chew her quid; so that cud and quid are
the same.--Pegge's Anonymia.

QUILLING. A piece of reed, on which weavers wind the thread which forms
the woof of cloth, is called a quill; an old English word. In New England
a certain process of winding thread is called quilling.

The child, Margaret, sits in the door of her house, on a low stool, with a
small wheel, winding spools, in our vernacular quilling.--Margaret, p. 6.



R.
RACE. A strong or rapid current of water, or the channel or passage for
such current; as a mill-race.--Webster.

RADDLE. In New England, an instrument consisting of a wooden bar, with a
row of upright pegs set in it, which is employed by domestic weavers to
keep the warp of a proper width, and prevent it from becoming entangled,
when it is wound upon the beam of a loom.--Webster.

RAFT. A frame or float, made by laying pieces of timber

p. 268

across each other.--Johnson. In North America rafts are constructed of
immense size, and comprise timber, boards, staves, &c. They are floated
down from the interior to the tide waters, being propelled by the force of
the current, assisted by large oars and sails, to their place of
destination. The men employed on these rafts construct rude huts upon
them, in which they often dwell for several weeks before arriving at the
places where they are taken to pieces for shipping to foreign parts.

RAFT. This term is also given to a large collection of timber and fallen
trees, which, floating down the great rivers of the West, are arrested in
their downward course by flats or shal low places. Here they accumulate,
and sometimes block up the river for miles. The great raft on Red river
extended twenty miles, and required an immense outlay of money to remove
it in order to make the river navigable.

Figantic wrecks of the primitive forests, tossed about by the invisible
power of the current, as if they were straws, until, finding no rest, they
are thrown upon some projecting point of land [on the Mississippi and
other great Western rivers]. Here they lie rotting for miles, their dark
forms frequently shooting into the air like writhing serpents, presenting
one of the most desolate pictures to mind can conceive.--Thorpe, Backwoods.

RAFT. A large quantity. Used only in low language.

We have killed Calhoun and Biddle; but there is a raft of fellows to put
down yet.--Maj. Downing's Letters, p. 93.

We've shoals of shad, whole rafts of canvass-back ducks, and no end of
terrapins.--Burton, Waggeries.

Among its notices to correspondents, an exchange paper says: "A raft of
original articles are on the for next week." We hope none of them will
prove mere lumber.--N. Y. Tribune.

TO RAFT. To transport on a raft.--Webster.

RAFTING. The business of [constructing and] floating rafts.--Webster.

RAFTSMAN. A man who follows the business of rafting.

RAIL. A piece of timber, cleft, hewed, or sawed, inserted in upright posts
for fencing. The common rails among farmers are rough, being used as they
are split from the chestnut or other trees.--Webster.

p. 269

TO RAIL IT. To travel by rail-road.

From Petersburgh I railed it through the North Carolina pitch, tar,
turpentine, and lumher country, to the great American pitch, tar,
turpentine, and lumber depot--Wilmington. The prospect is, from the car
windows, continuously an immensity of pine, pine, nothing but pine trees,
broken here and there with openings of pine under-brush.--Letter in N. Y.
Tribune, May 22, 1848.

RAIL-CAR. A car for transporting passengers on rail-roads.

RAISE. To make a raise. A vulgar American phrase, meaning to make a haul,
to raise the wind.

The chances were altogether favorable for making a raise, without fear of
detection.--Simon Suggs, p. 48.

RAISING. In New England and the Northern States, the operation or work of
setting up the frame of a building.--Webster.

On such occasions the neighboring farmers are accustomed to assemble and
lend their assistance. In this why the framework of the largest house or
barn is set up in a few hours.
The spectacle of a raising, though so common-place an affair elsewhere, is
something worth seeing in the woods.--Mrs. Clavers's Forest Life.

TO RAISE. To cause to grow; to procure to he produced, bred, or
propagated; as to raise wheat, barley, hops, &c.; to raise horses, oxen,
or sheep.--Webster.

In England they use grow when speaking of the crops. Raise is applied in
the Southern States to the breeding of negroes. It is sometimes heard at
the North among the illiterate; as, 'I was raised in Connecticut,' meaning
brought up there. See more in Pickering's Vocabulary.

You know I was raised, as they say in Virginia, among the mountains of the
North.--Paulding, Letters from the South, Vol. I. p. 85.

TO RAISE A BEAD. This expression is used at the West, and means to bring
to a head, to make succeed. The figure is taken from brandy, rum, or other
liquors, which will not 'raise a bead,' unless of the proper strength.

The result was, if the convention had been then held, the party wouldn't
have been able to raise a bead.--Letter from Ohio, N. Y. Tribune, 1846.

TO RAISE ONE'S BRISTLES. To excite one's anger.

I cane to Congress in 1827, as honestly the friend of Gen. Jackson as

p. 270

any man in the world; but when I found that his whole object was to serve
party, and wreak his vengeance upon those who had voted against him, my
bristles began to get up.--Crockett, Tour, p. 136.

TO RAKE AND SCRAPE. To collect.

Where under the sun, says I to myself, did he rake and scrape together
such super-superior galls as these?--Sam Slick in England, ch. 23.

RANCHO. (Span.) A rude hut of posts, covered with branches or thatch,
where herdsmen or farm-laborers live or only lodge at night.

RANCHERO. (Span.) A person who lives in a rancho, and by extension to any
peasant or countryman. This word and the preceding, like the word
chaporral, have lately become familiar to us, in consequence of the
present unhappy war with Mexico.

RANCHERIA. The place, site, or house in the country where a number of
rancheros collect together. The collection of few or many huts or ranchos
into a small village.

These three words must necessarily have a place in our vocabularies, since
the acquisition of so many ranchos in our territory, and rancheros in our
population.

RANTANKEROUS. Contentious; a variation of cantankerous.

She had hetter not come a cavortin' 'bout me, with any of her rantakerous
carryings on.--Chron. of Pineville, p. 178.

RAPIDS. (Used in the plural.) The part of a river where the current moves
with more celerity than the common current. Rapids imply a considerable
descent of the earth, but not sufficient to occasion a fall of the water,
or what is called a cascade or cataract.--Webster.

RAPPEE. An inferior quality of snuff.

RAT. A contemptuous term used by printers, to denote a man who works under
price.

TO RAT. Among printers, to work under price. Among politicians, to desert
one's party and go over to the opposite one. The term is used both in
England and America. The London Athenæum, in a review of Campbell's Lives
of the Lord Chancellors, in speaking of Wedderburn, afterwards Lord
Loughborough, says:

He panegyrized the liberty of the press; sided with America; clamored

p. 271

for the rights of juries; acted the part of liberal and demagogue to
admiration; all the while having his eye on the Solicitor-Generalship--for
which, in the fulness of time, he ratted to Lord North in the most
shameless manner.--Dec. 18, 1847.

Great was the indignation when the result was known; and this must be
confessed to be one of the most flagrant cases of ratting recorded in our
party annals.--Campbell, Lord Chancellors.

RAVE. The upper side piece of the body of a cart.-- Webster.

RAVING DISTRACTED. Stark mad.

RAW. Not worked up, manufactured, or prepared for use; as, 'raw
materials.'--Worcester.

Mr. Webster presented a petition in reference to the duty proposed to be
laid on raw copper .... It will be seen that nearly all the pig or raw
copper is obtained from Chili.--N. Y. Com. Advertiser, July 16, 1846.

REAL. Really; truly; very; as, ' real nice.'

TO REALIZE. To bring home to one's own case or experience; to consider as
one's own; to feel in all its force.--Webster.

This allusion must have enhanced strength and beauty to the eye of a
nation extensively devoted to a pastoral life, and therefore realizing all
its fine scenes, and the tender emotions to which they gave birth.--Dwight.

This sense of the word is not in the English dictionaries, though Mr.
Pickering says it is used in Scotland.

TO RE-CHARTER. To charter again; to grant a second or another charter to.--
Webster.

TO RECKON. To think; to imagine; to believe; to conjecture; to conclude;
to guess. Used in some parts of the United States, as guess is in the
Northern. It is provincial in England in the same sense, and is noticed in
the glossaries of Pegge and Brockett. Mr. Hamilton, in his remarks on the
Yorkshire dialect, says: "'I reckon' comes out on every occasion, as
perhaps aliens would expect from this country of 'ready reckoners.'"--Nugæ
Literariæ, p. 317.

General, I guess we best say nothin' more about bribin', says I. "Well,"
says he, "Major, I reckon you're right.--Maj. Downing's Letters, p. 208.

I say! what do you guess about lending me your axe for a spell? Do you
reckon you can spare it?--Mrs. Clavers's Forest Life, Vol. I. p. 84.

I reckon you hardly ever was at a shooting-match, stranger, from the cut
of your coat.--Georgia Scenes, p. 198.

p. 272

RED DOG MONEY. A term applied, in the State of New York, to certain bank
notes which have on their back a large red stamp.

The late General Banking law of the State of New York, which was applied
to all new banks, as well as to those the charters of which were renewed,
obliged the parties or individuals associated to deposit securities with
the Comptroller, and receive from him blank notes of various
denominations, signed or hearing the certificate of the Comptroller or
officer authorized by him. These notes bore a red stamp on their backs.

So free a system of banking induced many persons, both individually and
collectively, to organize banks of issue; and, as a natural consequence, a
considerable portion of the circulating medium soon consisted of the notes
of the free banks, bearing the red stamp. The community, generally, did
not consider these notes as safe as those issued by the old banks, and
stigmatized them as red dogs, and the currency as red dog money. Since the
passage of the act, however, the charters of most of the banks in the
State having expired, they have been renewed under the "General Banking
Law;" and, of course, the odium which existed against the first banks no
longer exists. In Michigan, they apply the term blue pup money to bank
notes having a blue stamp on their backs.

REDEMPTIONER. One who redeems himself or purchases his release from debt
or obligation to the master of a ship by his services; or one whose
services are sold to pay the expenses of his passage to America.--Webster.

RED LANE. A vulgar name for the throat, chiefly used by tipplers.

I was ridin' in my shirt sleeves, and a thinkin' how slick a mint julep
would travel down red land, if I had it.--Sam slick in England, ch. 22.

RED-ROOT. A shrub found upon the prairies near the Rocky Mountains, highly
esteemed as a substitute for tea. It resembles the tea of commerce, and
affords an excellent beverage.--Scenes in the Rocky Mountains, p. 26.

REGENT. In the State of New York, the member of a cor-

p. 273

porate body which is invested with the superintendence of all the
colleges, academies, and schools in the State. This board consists of
twenty-one members, who are called "the regents of the University of the
State of New York." They are appointed and removable by the legislature.
They have power to grant acts of incorporation for colleges; to visit and
inspect all colleges, academies, and schools; and to make regulations for
governing the same.--Statutes of New York.

TO RE-INSURE. To insure the same property a second time by other
underwriters.--Webster.

It is common with underwriters or insurance companies, when they find they
have too large a sum insured on one ship, or in a particular district, to
re-insure a part elsewhere.
The insurer may cause the property insured to be re-insured by other
persons.--Walsh, French Com. Code.

TO RE-LOAN. To loan again; to lend what has been lent and repaid.--
Webster.

TO RE-INVESTIGATE. To investigate again.--Webster.

TO RE-LAND. To go on shore after having embarked.--Webster.

REMOVABILITY. The capacity of being removed from an office or station;
capacity of being displaced.--Webster.

RENCH. A vulgar pronunciation of the word rinse.

RENEWEDLY. Again; once more.--Webster.

This adverb is often heard from our pulpits.--Pickering.

TO RE-OPEN. To open again.--Webster. This word is much used. The theatre
re-opens for the season. The schools re-open after their vacations.

REORGANIZATION. The act of organizing anew; as, repeated organization of
the troops.--Webster.

REPETITIOUS. Repeating; containing repetition.--Webster. Mr. Pickering
notices this word, which he thinks is peculiar to the writer from whom the
following extract is taken:

The observation which you have quoted from the Abbé Raynal, which has been
written off in a succession not much less repetitious, or protracted, than
that in which school-boys of former times wrote.--Remarks on the Rev. of
Inchiquin's Letters, Boston, 1815.

p. 274

TO RE-SHIP. To ship again; to ship what has been conveyed by water or
imported.--Webster.

Much used in all our commercial cities.

RESOLVE. Legal or official determination; legislative act concerning a
private person or corporation, or concerning some private business. Public
acts of a legislature respect the State; and to give them validity, the
bills for such acts must pass through all the legislative forms. Resolves
are usually private acts, and are often passed with less formality.--
Webster.

TO RESULT. To decide or decree, as an ecclesiastical council.--Pickering.

According to Dr. Milner, the Council of Nice resulted, in opposition to
the views of Arius, that the Son was peculiarly of the Father, &c.--Bible
News, Rev. N. Worcester.

RESULT. The decision or determination of a council or deliberative
assembly; as, 'the result of an ecclesiastical council.' Peculiar to New
England.--Webster.

RETIRACY. Sufficiency; competency. It is said, in New England, of a person
who has retired from business with a fortune, that he has a retiracy; i.
e. a sufficient fortune to retire with.

TO RETIRE. To withdraw; to take away; to make to retire.--Johnson. This
transitive use of the verb, which had become obsolete, is now reviving in
this country. Of the many examples from good old writers given by Johnson,
we will quote only one from Shakspeare:

He, our hope, might have retired his power,
And driven into despair an enemy's hate.--Richard II.

With us it is used by military men of withdrawing troops.

General Rosa insisted on the blockade being removed before he retired his
troops from the Banda Oriental.--Newspaper.

And by merchants of paying their notes.

The French houses are retiring their notes due next mouth, in advance,
anticipating commercial difficulties.--Newspaper.

RETORTIVE. Containing retort.--Webster.

p. 275

TO RETROSPECT. To look back; to affect what is passed.--Webster.

Mr. Pickering has the following illustration:
To give a correct idea of the circumstances which have gradually produced
this conviction, it may be useful to retrospect to an early period.--
Letter from Alex. Hamilton to John Adams.

This word cannot be said to be much used. The writings of Gen. Hamilton
abound in peculiar expressions.

REVERENT. Strong; as, reverent whisky, i. e. not diluted.--Sherwood's
Georgia.

RICH. Luscious, i. e. entertaining; amusing in the highest degree.

Mr. Richardson is rich on rabbits; and divides them into four races.--
London Athenæum, Dec. 1847.

Thar we was settin' on our horses, rollin' with laughin' and liquor, and
thought the thing was rich [alluding to a dog-fight].--Porter's South-
western Tales, p. 57.

About as rich an instance of official idleness, self-conceit, and
incivility, as we have seen, fell under our notice yesterday.--N. Y. Com.
Adv.

The New York Tribune, in speaking of General Cass's book, "France; its
King, Court, and Government," says
Mark how smoothly he glosses over the despotion of Louis Philippe--how
adroitly he insinuates that all the agitation and plotting for his
overthrow were impelled by atheism, thirst of blood, and an appetite for
destroying and plundering. It would be rich indeed if the parasite should
vault to the heights of power just one year after the despot he served was
cast down to contempt and exile.--N. Y. Tribune, June 2, 1848.

TO RIDE. The use of the word ride, both as a verb and a noun, in the sense
of being conveyed in a carriage, has been regarded as an Americanism.
Nevertheless, it was formerly so used in England, as appears from the
following example:

He made him to ride in the chariot.--Gen. xlii. 43

English writers of the present day, however, consider it as correct to use
it only of conveyance on horseback, or some other motive power; but of
conveyance in a carriage, they use the verb to drive, as in the following
extract from Cowper:
Sometimes I get into a neighbor's chaise, but generally ride [i. e. on
horseback].

TO RIDE. To carry. In the city of New York this word is

p. 276

used by carmen as well as merchants, when speaking of carting or carrying
merchandise on a cart. Thus, 'to ride a box or bale of goods,' is to carry
it. I heard a witness in a court-room testify that he had "rode some hogs
from the wharf to the store," by which he meant that he carried a load of
dead hogs on his cart.

RIFLE. A whetstone for sharpening scythes.--Todd. Worcester. This old
English word is retained by the farmers of New England.

All our sports and recreations, if we use them well, must be to our body,
or mind, as the mower's whetstone, or rifle, is to his scythe, to sharpen
it when it grows dull.--Whately, Redemption of Time (1634), p. 11.
TO RIGHTS. Directly; soon. Peculiar to America.--Webster.

If folks will do what I tell 'em, things will go strait enough to rights.--
Maj. Downing's Letters, p. 5.

So to rights the express got back, and brought a letter.--Ibid. p. 129.

RIGHT AWAY, or RIGHT OFF. Directly; immediately.

RILE. See Roil.

RISING, or RISING OF. More than; upwards of; as, There were rising of a
thousand men killed at the battle of Buena Vista.'

RISKY. Dangerous; hazardous.

RIVER. Mr. Pickering observes that the Americans, in speaking of rivers,
commonly put the name before the word river, thus, Connecticut river,
Charles river, Merrimack river, Hudson river, Susquehanna river; whereas
the English would place the name after it, and say, the river Hudson, the
river Merrimack, &c. There are some exceptions, however, when speaking of
the largest rivers; for we usually say, the river Mississippi, the river
St. Lawrence.

RIVER DRIVER. A term used by lumbermen in Maine, for a man whose business
it is to conduct logs down rilnuing streams, to prevent them from lodging
upon shoals or remaining in eddies.

ROARER. One who roars; a noisy man.--Worcester.

Ben was an old Mississippi roarer--none of your half and half, but just

p. 277

as native to the element, as if he had been born in a broad horn.--Robb,
Squatter Life, p. 64.

ROBE. A dressed skin; only applied to that of the buffalo. A pack of
robes, is ten skins, tied in a pack, which is the manner in which they are
brought from the far West to market. For the skins of other wild animals,
we always use the term skin, as deer-skin, beaver-skin, muskrat-skin,
etc., but never buffalo-skin.

ROCK. A piece of money. A slang term peculiar to the South.

Spare my feelings, Squire, and don't ask me to tell any more. Here I am in
town without a rock in my pocket, without a skirt to my coat, or crown to
my hat.--Pickings from the New Orleans Picayune.

ROCK. A stone. In the Southern and Western States, stones of any size are
absurdly called rocks.

Brother S---- came home in a mighty bad way, with a cold and cough; so I
put a hot rock to his feet and gave him a bowl of catmint tea, which put
him in a mighty fine sweat, &c.--Georgia Scenes, p. 193.

Mr. M---- was almost dead with the consumption, and had to carry rocks in
his pocket to keep the wind from blowin' him away.--Maj. Jones's Travels.

TO ROCK. To throw stones at; to stone. This supremely ridiculous
expression is derived from the preceding.

They commenced rocking the Clay Club House in June, on more occasions than
one, and on one occasion, threw a rock in at the window, hitting Mr. Clem
on the shoulder; and afterwards, on the Whigs leaving the Club House, the
heads of Messrs. Clem and Brown were badly cut with rocks! A few nights
before the recent election, Mr. Brown was struck with a rock, as the Whig
procession was returning from the west end of town, the rock coming either
from Chester's tavern, or the Office of the Sentinel.--Jonesborough,
Tennessee, Whig.

TO ROIL. 1. To render turbid by stirring up the sediment; 2. To make
angry. Provincial in England and colloquial in the United States.--
Worcester. In both countries it is now commonly pronounced and written
rile.

John was a-dry, and soon cried out--
Goon git some beer we 'ool!
He'd so to wait, it made him riled,
The booths were all shock full.--J. Noakes and Mary Styles.

I won't say your country or my country, and then it won't rile nobody.--
Sam Slick in England.

I hope you won't be riled at what I say.--Maj. Jones's Courtship, p. 63.

p. 278

I tell you what, I was monstrous riled t'other day when I got a letter
from Crockett, calling me hard names and abusin' me.--Ibid. p. 90.

No doubt existed in the minds of Mr. Dobbs's fellow-boarders, that the
well of his good spirits had been riled.--Neat's Charcole Sketches.

ROILY, or RILY. 1. Turbid; 2. Excited to resentment; vexed.

The boys and gals were laughin' at my scrape and the pickle I was in, that
I gin to get riley--Robb, Squatter Life, p. 64.

ROKEAGE, or YOKEAGE. Indian corn parched, pulverized, and mixed with
sugar.

ROLLICKING. A peculiar gait of a horse.

Mounted by a rider that is as much a part of him as his hide, he [the
mustang pony] goes rollicking ahead.--Thorpe's Backwoods, p. 13.

ROLLING. Undulating; varied by small hills and valleys, as land; so used
in the Western States.--Worcester.

TO ROOM. To occupy a room; to lodge.--Worcester.

ROOSTER. The male of the domestic fowl; the cock.

As if the flourish of the quill were the crowing of a rooster.--Neal's
Charcoal Sketches.

A huge turkey gobbling in the road, a rooster crowing on the fence, and
ducks quacking in the ditches.--Margaret, p. 187.

TO ROPE IN. To take or sweep in collectively; an expression much used in
colloquial language at the West. It originated in a common practice of
drawing in hay with a rope. The hay is at first heaped in wind-rows. A
rope, with a horse attached to each end, is swept like a net around the
end of the row, which is thus brought together and dragged to any part of
the field.

HIGH ROPES. 'Upon the high ropes;' i. e. elated; in high spirits.--Grose,
Prov. Dict.

ROPING IN. Cheating. A very common expression in the South-western States.

ROSS. The rough scaly matter on the surface of the bark of certain trees.
A term much used in New England.--Webster.

ROUND. 'To come or get round one,' in popular language, is to gain
advantage over one by flattery or deception.--Webster.

p. 279

ROUSING. Very great; commonly applied to a fire.--Craven Glossary.

Haply, blest to my desire,
I may find a rousing fire.--Clare's Poems.

ROUND-RIMMERS. Hats with a round rim; hence, those who wear them. In the
city of New York, a name applied to a large class of dissipated young men,
by others called Bowery boys and Soap-locks.

All over the region of East Bowery is spread--holding it in close
subjection--the powerful class of round-rimmers; a fraternity of
gentlemen, who, in round crape-bound hats, metal-mounted blue coats,
tallow-smoothed locks, &c., carry dismay and terror wherever they move.--
C. Mathews, Puffer Hopkins, p. 261.

ROWDY. A riotous, turbulent fellow.

TO ROW UP. To punish with words; to rebuke. It is an essential Westernism,
and derived from the practice of making refractory slaves or servants row
up the heavy keelboats of early navigation on the Western rivers, against
the current, without being frequently relieved. It was thus regarded as a
punishment.

We should really like, of all things, to row up the majority of Congress
as it deserves in regard to the practice.--N. Y. Tribune, Dec. 10, 1845.

The most spicy part of the proceedings in the Senate was the rowing up
which Mr. Hannegan gave Mr. Ritchie of the Union newspaper.--N. Y.
Tribune, Jan. 30, 1846.

TO ROW UP SALT RIVER, is a common phrase, used generally to signify
political defeat. The distance to which a party is rowed up Salt river
depends entirely upon the magnitude of the majority against its
candidates. If the defeat is particularly overwhelming, the unsuccessful
party is rowed up to the very head waters of Salt river.

It is occasionally used as nearly synonymous with to row up, as in the
following example, but this application is rare:
Judge Clayton made a speech that fairly made the tumblers hop. He rowed
the Tories up and over Salt river.--Crockett, Tour Down East, p. 46.

To row up Salt river has its origin in the fact that there is a small
stream of that name in Kentucky, the passage of which is made difficult
and laborious as well by its tortuous course as by the abundance of
shallows und liars. The real

p. 280

application of the phrase is to the unhappy wight who has the task of
propelling the boat up the stream; but in political or slang usage it is
to those who are rowed up--the passengers, not the oarsman. [J. Inman.]

ROWEN. In New England, the second growth of grass in a season. We never
apply the word to a field, as in England, nor to the growth of corn after
harvest.--Webster.

RUGGED. Hardy; robust; healthy. Colloquial in the United States.--
Worcester.

RUINATIOUS. A vulgar substitute for ruinous.

The war was very ruinatious to our profession (said the barber).--
Margaret, p. 210.

RULLICHIES. (Dutch.) Chopped meat stuffed into small bags of tripe, which
are then cut into slices and fried. An old and favorite dish among the
descendants of the Dutch in New York.

RUM-BUD. A grog blossom; the popular name of a redness occasioned by the
detestable practice of excessive drinking. Rum-buds usually appear first
on the nose, and gradually extend over the face. This term seems to have
reference to the disease technically defined to be unsuppurative papule,
stationary, confluent, red, mottled with purple, chiefly affecting the
face, sometimes produced and always aggravated by the use of alcoholic
liquors, by exposure to heat, &c.--Rush.

RUN. A small stream or rivulet; a word common in the Southern and Western
States, though sometimes heard at the North.

There is no house in the main road between this and the run; and the run
is so high, from the freshes, that you will not be able to find it.--
Davis's Travels in the United States in 1797.

TO RUN. To press with jokes, sarcasm, or ridicule.--Webster.

RUN. Joke; ridicule. 'To get the run upon one,' is to make a butt of him;
turn him into ridicule.

He bade him not to be discouraged at this run upon him for though they had
got the laughter upon their side, yet mere wit and raillery could not hold
it out long against a work of so much learning.--Warburton on Pope.
TO RUN ONE'S FACE. To make use of one's credit. 'To run one's face for a
thing,' is to get it on tick.

p. 281

Any one who can run his face for a card of pens, a quire of paper, and a
pair of scissors, may set up for an editor; and by loud, incessant
bragging, may secure a considerable patronage.--N. Y. Tribune.

RUN OF STONES. A pair of mill-stones is called a run of stones when in
operation or placed in a mill. The Rochester flouring mills have ten or
twenty run of stones.

RUNGS. A very common name in New England for the rounds or steps of a
ladder. The braces or rounds of common chairs are also vulgarly called
rungs. This has generally been considered as a mere corruption of rounds;
and people of education use only this latter word.--Pickering's
Vocabulary. It is provincial in the north of England. In New York it is
applied to four upright staves fixed in a cart for supporting the load.

RUSTY DAB. (Gent's, platessa. Cuvier.) The popular name of the Rusty Flat-
fish, a fish found on the coast of Massachusetts and New York in deep
water.--Storer, Fishes of Mass.