Petyush's definitions

puff

Puff: sl. n. (early-mid-19C) wind, breath. 2 (1920s+) life, esp. As in my puff, on my puff. (SE pff, to discharge a puff of air).

You never saw the like of it in all your born puff.
James Joyce, Ulysses, PICADOR, 1998, p. 329.

by Petyush March 27, 2005

up the pole

phr. 1 (late 19C+) insane. 2 1920s +) pregnant (cf. UP THE SPOUT).

- Is she up the pole ?
- Better ask Seymour that. (James Joyce:Ulysses,PICADOR,1998, p.23)

by Petyush March 27, 2005

club/knock the stuffing out of sg

(infml, originally NY slang): make sb. feeble, weak or demoralized

“Talk quickly – those fellows are clubbing the stuffing out of Union Pacific.”
O’Henry: 100 Selected Stories, Wordsworth Classics, 199, p.74.

by Petyush March 29, 2005

weeds n. pl.

(1950s +) (US sl.) clothes

... and to see him in his round spectacles and his civil servant weeds, you would think it was he ... who deserved the tradename ’mole’.
John le Carré: The honourable schoolboy, Coronet Books, Hodder and Stuoghton, 2000, p.57).

by Petyush March 27, 2005

stew

v. to study hard. (See: Cassell's Dictionary of Slang).

- Going over next week to stew? You know that red Carlisle girl, Lily?
- Yes.(James Joyce:Ulysses,PICADOR,1998, p.23)

by Petyush March 27, 2005