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

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

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

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