Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. to travel at a steady pace.

1856		Nth Devon Jrnl 6 Nov. 6/4: [F]ast and furious as ever Tam o’Shanter’s mare pegged along, were the speakers at work; because no sooner was one down than another was up.
1867		Australasian (Melbourne) 2 Feb. 139/2: [M]e, the steady old codger of the trio, pegging along [...] on a stout pony.
1906		A. Adams ‘Rangering’ in Cattle Brands 🌐 We didn’t halt all night long on either trail, pegging along at a steady gait.

2. to persist.

1879		H.N. Eaton An Hour with the Amer. Hebrew xxxix 52: We have gradually worked and pegged along year by year [F&H].
1884		(con. c.1840) ‘Mark Twain’ Huckleberry Finn 274: I’ve pegged along ever since, dry as a powder-horn.
1902		Bulletin (Sydney) 13 Dec. 32/2: Four years ago me and my Frank was married. Took up 640 acres at Yallock Creek. Pegged along middlin’ well fer a time; then things got rotten.
1940		W.R. Burnett High Sierra in Four Novels (1984) 404: He had a farm and pegged along making a living.

1. (also peg off) to move off quickly.

1805		Saunders’s News-letter 30 Nov. 1/2: [I]n consequence a dlspute [...] occurred respecting the place of starting, for the shepherd had been accustomed to the turf, whereas the boot-closer wished to peg away upon the gravel .
1808		Jamieson Etym. Dict. Scot. Lang. n.p.: To Peg off, or away, to go off quickly.
1859, 1860		Hotten Dict. of Modern Sl. etc.
1864		B. Hemyng Eton School Days 83: Pilkington, peg away to Fellows Pond.
1864		Courier (Natchez, MS) 23 Aug. col. 3 in A.P. Hudson Humor of the Old Deep South (1936) n.p.: Lathered as piggy was, nigger on back, over the gravel frantically ‘pegging away,’ with the motley troop in hot pursuit.
1873		Sl. Dict.

2. (also peg, peg in) to do something (usu. work, but also e.g. eating) hard and energetically for a long period; often in form peg away at [the hammering in of tent pegs].

1809		B.H. Malkin (trans.) Adventures of Gil Blas (1822) II 161: Large pieces of bread and good substantial slices of roast meat, at which we began pegging with all possible pertinacity.
1829		Vidocq Memoirs (trans. W. McGinn) III 64: You peg away [...] as if you would crash your ivories (teeth;) one would think that you were tucking in at a regular spread.
1830		Bell’s Life in London 24 Oct. 2/5: ‘His Majesty’s Visit to the City’ [...] Ah, would I could admittance get / To see the motley group, / And mark the Monarch peg away / At fish and fowl and soup.
1836–7		Dickens Pickwick Papers (1999) 392: ‘Peg away, Bob,’ said Mr Allen to his companion, encouragingly.
1841		‘Jeremy Diddler’ Dublin Comic Songster 170: He drank up her spirits and wine, / And pegged away at her victuals.
1849		Paul Pry 26 Mar. 2/3: When does a washerwoman work and fight hard at the same time? When she’s pegging away.
1851		‘Greenhorn’ [G. Thompson] Bristol Bill 21/1: Inserting this [rod] in the key-hole, he began to ‘peg away’.
1854		‘Cuthbert Bede’ Adventures of Mr Verdant Green (1982) II 174: What’s the use of their making us peg away so at Latin and Greek, I can’t make out.
1856		Bell’s Life in Sydney 14 June 1/2: They again pegged away rapidly, but without precision.
1865		G.A. Sala My Diary in America I 212: Grant [...] must keep on ‘pegging away,’ and try again and again until he suceeds.
1871		B. Harte ‘Dow’s Flat’ in Poems 60: But Dow, in his well, kept a peggin’ in his usual ridikilous way.
1884		Ally Sloper’s Half Holiday 14 June 55/2: This is all A. Sloper can remember about Pegs [...] but if he thinks of it, he will peg away again in the morning.
1885		Bulletin (Sydney) 11 July 17/3: Pass to the Happy Regions, / Where none play any naughty pranks, / Or, through the juice of malt, err, / But all the time peg in at thanks / According to the Psalter!
1889		World (N.Y.) 9 Aug. 3/1: The champions didn’t start in as well as their opponents did, but they kept pegging away and won easily.
1891		Punch 28 Feb. 108: WOLMER should keep pegging away at this question till he gets common-sense answer.
1901		Boy’s Own Paper 1 June 545: We’ll peg away as hard as we can.
1910		Bulletin (Sydney) 1 Dec. 18/3: Well, Count Tolstoi might have done a lot to improve public affairs, by pegging away quietly in the ‘uppah suckles.’.
1915		‘Ian Hay’ First Hundred Thousand (1918) 155: Never was there a more complete vindication of the policy of pegging away.
1916		O.O. McIntyre New York Day By Day 10 Jan. [synd. col.] He’s been pegging away on the World year after year. Never gets a story in the paper.
1924		‘Digit’ Confessions of a Twentieth Century Hobo 109: I pointed out that we only had to keep pegging away eventually to find the party we wanted.
1929		Mail (Adelaide) 23 Mar. 6/4: He kept pegging away to jaw and body.
1938		D. Runyon ‘Situation Wanted’ in Runyon on Broadway (1954) 672: I peg away at the hole in the hill until the front of it caves in.
1948		G.H. Bean Yankee Auctioneer 41: He sits and sews and pegs away.

3. to fight, to punch.

1821		Belfast Commercial Chron. 26 Mar. 4/5: The men pegged away in fine style, toe to toe, and the match was won by Moyle, beating his antagonist, Eastwick.
1824		Morn. Chron. (London) 21 July 3/4: Lazarus and Reider, the Chelsea Snob, then took the gloves. Smouchee was all alive for action ; but the Snob was with him upon awl occasions, and pegged away to the last like a true ‘lad of wax’ .
1831		Bell’s Life in London 30 Jan. 3/5: There was a turn up, on Friday, on the Royal Exchange, between two oil mongers [...] They pegged away at each other for some time, but were at length separated.
1840		Bell’s Wkly Messenger 5 Jan. 7/1: Charge of Assault [...] The mother of the complainant was called to prove the assault. She said she ‘seed her darter screeching and hollering on her back in the court,’ and Mrs. Haliam, ‘pegging away’ her like a windmill.
1842		Whip & Satirist of NY & Brooklyn (NY) 26 Nov. n.p.: He found her [...] at the old business of pegging away at her man. Three times successively did she floor the man of her heart.
1850		Coventry Standard 5 July 3: He, while Eliza had hold of Selina by the hair of the head, and was pegging away at her as she lay upon the ground, came up and struck complainant several blows the face, besides administering some severe kicks upon her body.
1863		Sporting Life 11 Feb. 3/2: [S]ome of the most determined fighting ever seen ensued, both pegging away with a will, and fighting all over the ring, until both were down.

4. to shoot at.

1882		Sportsman (Melbourne) 12 Apr. 2.5: A shooting exhibition, in which a man pegged way with a pistol at a small cardboard target.
1968		T. Wolfe Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test (1969) 4: She pegs away, kheew, kheew, at the erupting marshmallow faces.

1. see sense 1 above.

2. see peg out v.