Green’s Dictionary of Slang

pulpit n.

the vagina.

1656		‘A Woman With Child That Desired a Son’ in Farmer Merry Songs and Ballads (1897) II 42: Quoth she, the Son is prov’d a Daughter. / But be content, if God doth blesse the Baby, She has a Pulpit where a Preacher may be.
1659		Declaration of the Maids [broadsheet] Upstart Preachers, who without our call, will be daring to thrust themselves into our Pulpits.
1663		Man in the Moon 5 May 16: [The] Anabaptist [...] forcibly, without her consent, entred her Pulpet.
1663		‘Bloody News from Chelmsford’ in Ebsworth Bagford Ballads II 739: Make me a Cuckold, reading Rogue! No pulpit serve but Susan’s.
1688–95		‘The Country Parson’s Folly’ in Chappell Roxburghe Ballads (1880) III 589: He pitch’d on a subject was hard by the rump, / And into her pulpit he straightways did jump, / Where all the long night he her cushion did thump.
1787		Harris’s List of Covent-Garden Ladies 100: Preachers of whom she is said to have lent her pulpit, in which they have shown themselves laborious men.

SE in slang uses

In compounds

pulpit-banger (n.) (also pulpit-cackler, -comedian, -cuffer, -drubber, -drummer, -hector, -plugger, -pounder, -puncher, -smiter, -stamper, -thumper) [his thumping of the Bible]

a ranting parson.

1661		Character of a Rigid Presbyter 38: He’s a saint of the new Translation [...] A pious Pulpit-Cuffer. A deadly spit-fire.
1675		Wycherley Country-Wife IV iii: They rail at a poor little kept player, and keep themselves some young, modest, pulpit comedian to be privy to their sins in their closets, not to tell ’em of them in their chapels.
1699		T. Brown in Works (1707) I 103: A pulpit-drubber by profession, who knows all the witches forms in the kingdom.
1705–07		N. Ward Hudibras Redivivus I:6 10: Thought I, for all your Pulpit-Drumming / Had you no Hose to hide your Bum in.
1706		Fifteen Comforts of Matrimony n.p.: So have I heard a Pulpit Hector rant / At Drunkenness, as zealous as a Saint, / Curse it to Hell, with trembling and with fear.
1709		N. Ward Compleat and Humorous Account of Remarkable Clubs (1756) 234: Then those who [...] are a little Deficient in the Pocket, begin to exclaim against the Pulpit Cacklers, for not exciting the Rum-cullies to more Charity.
1719		J. Blair in Rouse James Blair of Virginia (1971) 65: Corah comes next, / that sturdy Swain, / A bawling Pulpit hector, / A Preacher of Hugh Peters’ vein / That Sacred writ can twist & strain.
1780		‘Earl of Funsborough’ Covent Garden Jester 8: The present pulpit-thumper had not preached last year.
1848		Anti-Slavery Bugle (New Lisbon, OH) 14 Jan. 2/3: They are mere ‘pulpit drummers’ [...] preaching mere trash.
1853		Jeffersonian Republican (Stroudsberg, PA) 27 Jan. 1/5: If the Minister chance to be a pulpit-thumper, as so many do, you mioght be suddenly aroused by the fall of [...] the Bible upon your cranium.
1864		Dayton Dly Empire (OH) 30 Aug. 2/4: We have some little pulpit-bangers who declare that Abe Lincoln is ‘God’s annointed’.
1864		Independent (Oskaloosa, KS) 23 July 1/7: We laugh at the fool and also his folly; hence pulpit comedians ever obtain their reward.
1874		Morning Star (N.O.) 5 Apr. 2/3: From Maria Monk down to the latest pulpit-thumper, he will find them all on the make.
1876		Interior Jrnl (Stanford, KY) 4 Aug. 1/5: Stop puffing ignoramus pulpit stampers, bible-maulers and ranters, with neither pity [...] nor common sense.
1881		Stark Co. Democrat (Canton, OH) 25 Aug. 4/6: Methodist Bible bangers and puplit pounders.
1881		Western Mail (S. Glamorgan) 9 Apr. 4/9: The great splatter dash of a Dissenting pulpit drummer, Dr Parker.
1882		Nat. Police Gaz. (NY) 9 Dec. 7/3: The recent experiences of a rural divine [...] shed a juicy side light on the real piety of the average pulpit thumper and morality huckster.
1883		Nat. Republican (Wash. DC) 27 Sept. 4/6: The pulpit comedian has lost none of his originality in the saying of odd things.
1885		Bulletin (Sydney) 3 Jan. 4/1: This was text enough for the full-fed pulpit-pluggers of those days, and every church of the land rang with discourses on the wonderful manifestation of God’s displeasure against the iniquity of the stage.
1885		Bulletin (Sydney) 11 Apr. 12/3: How to get unlimited credit:– When you go to church, take a good three minutes’ smell at the lining of your hat. A sure card, too, is to give a short sob, when the pulpit-thumper asks, ‘What are we, O brethren, but poor, benighted wanderers who have lost our way in the gloomy desert of sin?’.
1885		Agnostic Journal 280: Pulpit-bangers or mercenary ministers, whose ‘preaching of the Gospel’ is wholly ineffective for moral good [etc.].
1886		E.R. McCall No-History versus No-War 120: This is termed superstition, but there is more sense in it than is displayed by a common civilized pulpit banger.
1889		Dead Bird (Sydney) 14 Sept. 5/1: When he had emptied his balloon another pulpit-puncher sang his song .
1890		Westmorland Gaz. 21 June 5/4: A pulpit drummer [...] composed a ‘Scotch sonnet’ [...] in honour of the occasion.
1890		Dead Bird (Sydney) 8 Feb. 4/1: P Gives us Pulpit Punchers, who preach words.
1890–1904		Farmer & Henley Sl. and Its Analogues V 319: pulpit-cuffer (drubber, drummer, smiter, thumper), subs. phr. (common). — A ranting parson.
1893		Ariz. Repub. (Phoenix, AZ) 7 Jan. 1/2: He did more real good than did many a pulpit-thumper.
1894		Truth (Sydney) 30 Sept. 1/8: Would he distribute his ‘honorarium’ among the poor [...] and continue pulpit-pounding for a living?
1899		Conservative (Nebraska City, NE) 26 Oct. 3/2: The aforesaid ex-pulpit pounder [...] had been once sentenced to be hung.
1903		A.H. Lewis Boss 313: I’ll have no pulpit-thumper doggin’ me!
1903		Intermountain Catholic (Salt Lake City) 26 Sept. 4/2: The political party that gathers this brood of pulpit bangers [...] deserves defeat.
1906		‘O. Henry’ ‘The Love-Philtre of Ikey Schoenstein’ in Four Million (1915) 122: I’ve engaged a pulpit-pounder to be ready at his house for us at 9.30.
1907		Blue-Grass Blade (Lexington, KY) 20 Oct. 3/5: This is the town that the pulpit-thumper had a railroad man arrested for doing washing on Sunday.
1913		Broad Ax (Salt Lake City) 20 Sept. 1/2: Mr Stewart’s managers had actually bought three pulpit ranters and bible pounders.
1919		New Ulm Rev. (MN) 5 Nov. 10/4: That eloquent and tear-producing pulpit-pounder and sob artist, Rev. [etc.].
1919		Sun (NY) 21 Sept. 64/3: The subtleties of religion are beyond him. he is a pulpit-thumper, a hoarse voiced exhorter.
1949		Dundee Courier 18 Jan. 3/5: [headline] Pulpit-Pounder at Five.
1958		(con. 1890s) S.H. Adams Tenderloin 35: I’m going to run it like I want to, and no goddam pulpit-pounder is goin’ to tell me how.
1967		W. Pearson Trust of Honor 90: He knew he had to talk to the man, but he didn’t appreciate having this rosy-cheeked pulpit banger telling him so.
1986		(con. 1917) P. O’Farrell Tell me, Sean O’Farrell 46: There was a pulpit-thumping missioner who stated that girls and boys walking out together were the curse of the parish.
2007		M. Sharp Great Awakening 24: The fire and brimstone, judgmental and threatening exhortations fed to you by the pulpit bangers within your particular flavor of fundamentalism.

pulpit-face (n.)

a pious look.

1672

J. Lacy Old Troop IV i: hold.: I have observ’d, indeed, they do three things together: they drink, then practice Pulpit-faces. tell.: To cheat the people with.