Green’s Dictionary of Slang

pinnace n.

[SE pinnace, a light vessel in attendance upon a larger one; the implication is that she is aged between the juvenile punk and older bawd or ‘madam’]

a prostitute.

[UK]P. Stubbes Anatomie of Abuses in Ebsworth Bagford Ballads (1878) I 516: A Pinnace may be riggde with silke, / And all may be but outward show.
[UK]Rowlands Crew of Kind Gossips 19: He hath the Pinnace rig’d with silken saile.
[UK]Jonson Bartholomew Fair II ii: She has been before me, punk, pinnace and bawd, any time these two and twenty years.
[UK]Middleton & Rowley Spanish Gypsy I v: Him I dogged [...] From his new pinnace, deep in contemplation / Of the sweet voyage he stole to-night.
[UK]Massinger Believe As You List IV i: A new riggd pinnace that put of from Corinth, and is arriud amonge vs tite, and yare nor comes shee to pay custome for her fraught but to impose a tax on such as dare presume to looke on her, wch smocke gamsters offer sooner then shee demandes it.
[UK] ‘Michaelmas Term’ in Ebsworth Bagford Ballads (1878) I 406: For when all the gallants are gone out o’ th’ town, / O then these fine Pinnaces lack their due landing.
[UK] ‘Seamans Frolick’ Pepys Ballads (1987) IV 213: [A] Captain did a small pinnace board [...] She did abide him many shot But under deck she prov’d too hot.
[UK]Holborn Drollery 84: Twas at the Age of twenty-four My wand’ring Pinnace launched out.
[UK]M. Pix Innocent Mistress II iii: I suppose you have vanity enough to think your well-rigged pinnace worth securing.
[Ire]C. Shadwell Fair Quaker of Deal V ii: Look you, Sir, the Wench I have taken is a plain Country Pinnace.
[UK] ‘Pray Remember Jack’ Jovial Songster 84: One day [...] I twigg’d a pinace fair, / Well rigg’d, a-bearing down.
[Scot]W. Scott Pirate II 295: A nice tight-going bit of a pinnace, that is a consort of this chase of the Captain’s.