Petyush's definitions

Jacky Tar

Jacky Tar / jack tar: n. 1 (late 18C+) a sailor.

They believe in rod, ... and Jacky Tar, the son of a gun, who was conceived of unholy boast, born of the fighting navy ... (James Joyce: Ulysses, PICADOR, 1997, p. 314).

by Petyush March 27, 2005

rum

adj (dated Br inf) peculiar; odd: He's a rum character (Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary (OALD).

Rum how he'd had a feeling it was coming, all the same, he thought, still staring into the blurred plain. (John le Carré: The Honurable Schoolboy, Coronet Books, 2000, p.55).

by Petyush March 27, 2005

smooth one's / sb's (ruffled) feathers

to make oneself (or somebody else) feel less irritated or offended

Lacon was no fool, and the Cousin's wrath just when everyone was trying to smooth their feathers was a thing to be avoided at any cost.
John le Carré: The Honourable Schoolboy.CORONET BOOKS, Hodder & Stoughton, 2000. p. 63.

by Petyush April 11, 2005

fogey

Fogey/fogy /fougi/ sl. (early 18C+, orig. Scot) old-fashioned, stuck-in-the mud.
Person with old fashioned ideas which he is unwilling to change: Come to the disco and stop being such an old fogey!

You think me an old fogeyand an old tory, his thoughtful voice said. I saw three generations since O’Connel’s time. I remember the famine. Do you know that the orange lodges agitated for repeal of the union twenty years before O’Connel did or before the prelates of your communion denounced him as a demagogue? You fenians forget some things. (James Joyce, Ulysses. Penguin Books,1992. p. 38)

by Petyush September 14, 2005

Whistle

n late 14C+the mouth, the throat (Cassel's Dictionary of Slang, 1988).

'Mama Stefano, gosh, super, must be boiling. Here, sport, wet your whistle,' he exclaimed, while he slopped down the brick steps with a glass of wine for her ... (John le Carré: The Honourable Schoolboy,2000,Coronet Books, p.42).

by Petyush March 27, 2005

rotto

adj.1920 (Anglo-Irish) 1 drunk. 2 rotten, e.g. rotto with money (cf. LOUSY adj.; STINKING adj.)

- Spooning with him last night on the pier. The father is rotto with money.
- Is she up the pole?
(James Joyce:Ulysses,PICADOR,1998, p.23)

by Petyush March 27, 2005

miching

n (obviously Irish school slang of the 1910s): staying away from school without permission, playing hookey, playing truant.Eg.: We often planned a miching for the whole day if we did not want to do our preparations for the classes.

With Leo Dillon and a boy named Mahony I planned a day's miching. (James Joyce: Dubliners, Penguin Books, 1998, p.20).

by Petyush March 27, 2005