purse n.
1. the scrotum.
![[UK]](/static/img/flags/uk.png "United Kingdom") | Wife of Bath’s Prologue line 446: Of whiche [i.e. her 5 husbands] I have pyked out the beste, / Bothe of here nether purs and of here cheste. | |
| ‘Call to the Guard’ in Dryden Miscellaneous Poems (1716) 104: With the Plague in the Purse, and the Pox in the Breeches. | |
 | Apollo’s feast: or, Wits entertainment 309: A Man having his Breeches torn [...] his Testicles hung out, which being espied by a young Lass, she asked what it was? who told her, it was his Purse. | |
| Narrative of Street-Robberies 27: They being Lovers of the Sport [...] civilly saluted the Player, wishing his --- and Purse might never fail him. | |
| Dialogue between a Married Lady and a Maid II: Underneath, hangs in a Bag, or Purse, two little Balls, pretty hard, [...] they call them Stones. | |
| New London Spy 44: An empty purse in one part frequenly procures a full one in another. | |
| Nunnery Amusements 5: His hairy purse hung with a grove below. | |
| Banquet of Wit 101: Sentiments and Toasts [...] May he never have an empty purses who spends freely on the ladies. | |
| ‘Toasts’ in Gentleman’s Private Songster in Spedding & Watt (eds) Bawdy Songbooks (2011) III 383: [as 1790]. | |
| Cythera’s Hymnal 43: I’ll boldly drain my balls. / Nor at night shall I curse my empty balls, / And my wife’s importunate calls. | |
| My Secret Life (1966) VIII 1550: My mind wandered to his prick and what Sarah called his purse. | |
![[US]](/static/img/flags/us.png "United States") | Town-Bull 27: ‘You shall be well paid for all the sweet sperm you have spent for me out of this lovely purse’. | |
| ‘The Street of a Thousand Arseholes’ in Bawdy Ballads XXXIX: ‘Come fly with me my purse of spunk,’ / He hollered prick in hand. | |
| Queens’ Vernacular. |
2. (also purch) the vagina [underpinned by the commercial potential of the vagina].
| Comedye Concernyng Three Lawes (1550) Act IV: infidelitas: At her purse or arse, tell me good fryre fuccage? hypocrifis: By the Messe at both . | |
| (trans.) Supposes II iii: He beareth well in mind to fill his own purse, but he little remembreth that his daughter’s purse shall be continually empty unless Maister Doctor fill it with double duck eggs. | |
| ‘A Merry Discourse between a Country Lass & a Young Taylor’ in Roxburghe Ballads (1880) III 605: Except you take your yard, / the depth of it to measure, / You’ll find the purse so deep, / you’ll hardly come to th’ treasure. | |
| Pasquil’s Nightcap (1877) 26: For what care I? [...] though another man doth vse my purse? If still my candle burne both faire and bright. | |
| Little French Lawyer V iii: With discretion, [...] put a good speed penny in my purse, That has bin empty twenty yeares. | |
| Game at Chess II i: Yet there’s no eminent trader deals in hole-sale But she and I have clapped a bargain up, Let in at watergate, for which I’ve racked My tenant’s purse-strings that they’ve twanged again. | |
| Wandring Whore II i: Trust to no pockets or purse, but that which is cut between her Legs. | |
| ‘Merry Discourse Between a Country Lass and a Young Taylor’ in Merry Songs and Ballads (1897) II 72: Nay, hold good Sir, said she, / go not before you stand. / Except you take you Yard, / the depth of it to measure, / You’l find the Purse so deep, / You’l hardly come to th’treasure. | |
| Amusements Serious and Comical in Works (1744) III 24: Go home, brother [...] and if money and my man be absent, let my wife pay you out of her privy-purse, as your good wife lately paid a bill at sight for me. | |
| Chevalier Montenack’s Letter 8: A young jade rund before me and boldly ... hold up her Coats and showd me her Purch, lin’d with red Crimson. | |
| Turnep Ground [broadside song] in Merry Songs and Ballads (1897) I 224: [When] gently down I L’ayd her, she Op’t a Purse as black as Coal, To hold my Coin . | |
| Teague-Root Display’d 10: It’s a broad Root with a hole perforated thro’ it, which will contract, or dilate itself on Occasion like the Mouth of a Purse. | |
| Covent Garden Jester 15: A fellow having his breeches torn between his legs, that something hung out. [...] A young lass, she asked him what it was? he told her it was his purse. Your purse, says she, if that be your purse, then I am sure my purse is cut. | |
| Better Late than Never 23: She is actually a married woman, whose husband is as rich as Croesus, and who knows [...] I may be able to dip in the same purse. She is confoundedly virtuous at present – but she has a damn’d deal of discernment. | |
![[Aus]](/static/img/flags/aus.png "Australia") | Satirist & Sporting Chron. (Sydney) 11 Mar. 2/4: He [...] has also expressed his determination of entering a nag for every Ladies’ Purse given at (The) Bush — whether Home or otherwise. | |
| Sl. and Its Analogues. | |
| Book of the Thousand Sacred Names n.p.: One filled her empty Purse with his bank-roll. | |
| Love me Sailor 10: ‘I bet she’ll have to open up her own little purse before we’ve been a week at sea.’ I said. ‘Don’t talk that way about her. She’s decent,’ Ern said. | |
| Jessica 🌐 Her delightfully smooth purse was divided by a delicate cleft that curved down between her thighs. |
SE in slang uses
In derivatives
(Aus.) well-off, ‘in funds’.
| (con. 1941) Gunner 297: This run must change soon and the man who was in at the turning would drag a few quid from those pursed-up tailies. |
In compounds
a sleight-of-hand confidence trickster (see purse-trick man below).
| Worcs. Chron. 4 July 3/1: ‘Bouncers’ were dispopsing of the wares [...] a greenish person bought for a shilling a purse which he fondly imagined contained a half-a-crown. The ‘bouncer’ however had ‘palmed’ that coin [...] and had desposited therein merely a worthless pin and a penny . | |
| Aberdeen Dly Exp. 22 June 2/4: The defendant [...] replied that he was neither a ‘bouncer,’ a cardsharoer nor thimblerigger [but] he had been [...] convicted [...] of ‘selling purses,’ popularly known as ‘bouncing’. | |
| Manchester Eve. News 10 Apr. 4/2: At the Old Bailey [...] Sharpe was described as ‘the king of purse bouncers,’ being an expert at the purse trick. | |
| Nottingham Eve. Post 1 Sept. 6/5: [He] came across some ingenious crooks in his time. Two of the cleverest, ‘Big Frank’ and ‘Sharpster,’ were ‘purse bouncers’. |
a pickpocket.
| DSUE (8th edn) 936/2: C.17. |
1. a swindler.
| Queen Anna’s New World of Words n.p.: Vuota-borse, a nicke-name giuen to Lawyers or Phisicians, a purce-emptier. |
2. a highwayman.
| (ref. to 18C) Pall Mall Gazette 3 June 4/1: Worthy of ranking with Turpin, Paul Clifford, and the other celebrated purse-emptiers . |
a prostitute.
| Sl. and Its Analogues. |
a pickpocket.
| Dover Exp. 28 Aug. 5/3: She felt somebody’s hand in her pocket and immediately the purse was gone [...] Her sister’s young man escorted the purse lifter down the Folkestone-road and handed him over to the police. | |
| Omaha Dly Bee (NE) 11 Oct. 19/6: This man [...] was a terror throught southern Pennsylvania as a purse-lifter. | |
| St Paul Globe (MN) 24 June 2/3: Mrs William P. Calton [...] while in an East Seventh street store, came in contact with a purse-lifter. | |
| Sun NY) 3 Apr. 3/1: [headline] Cincinnati Police Nab Four Alleged Famous Purse Lifters. |
swindling, robbery; also as adj.
| ‘Democritus to Reader’ Anatomy of Melancholy (1893) I 92: A purse-milking nation, a clamorous company, gowned vultures. |
a pickpocket.
| Sheffield Indep. 27 Mar. 2/8: [headline] A Sheffield Purse Snatcher at Lincoln Races. | |
| Sunderland Dly Echo 6 July 3/1: A Purse Snatcher [...] the prisoner then said he had tried to steal a lady’s purse, but that she was oo sharp for him. | |
| Exeter & Plymouth Gaz. 4 June 6/5: [headline] Purse Snatcher Sent to Prison. | |
| Record-Union (Sacramento, CA) 15 Jan.6/3: [headline] A Dog Purse-Snatcher. Pointer dogs can always be trained to steal [etc.]. | |
| Palestine Dly Herald (TX) 3 Nov. 3/3: Purse Snatcher [...] two ladies [...] were accosted by a negro ruffian who attempted to snatch a purse from one of them. | |
| Indian Advocate (Sacred JHeart, OK) 1 Aug. 277: The justice said the purse-snatcher was free. | |
| Day Book (Chicago) 7 Mar. 10/2: Mrs Anna Lynch [...] robbed by pursesnatcher $7. | |
| Wash. Herald (DC) 21 Feb. 5/4: Purse Snatcher Snatched [...] When he grabbed her purse she grabbed it back again. | |
| Chelmsford Chron. 6 Aug. 3/8: [headline] Alleged Purse Snatcher. | |
| ‘Merry Clouters’ in Fellow Countrymen (1937) 396: ‘Why, a decent girl can’t come over here at night,’ Andy said. ‘Not with the jiggs and the purse-snatchers like Three Star Hennessey around,’ Young Rocky said. | |
| Western Dly Press 28 Aug. 3/4: [headline] Purse Snatcher Gaoled. |
(UK/Aus.) a sleight of hand swindler who sells (typically for one shilling) purses supposedly containg one or more half-crowns, but which, on being opened reveal coppers, pins etc.; thus purse-trick.
| London Dly News 14 June 3/3: The veriest welsher or purse-trick man on the course might have ‘hustled them up’ with impunity. | |
| Dly Gaz. for Middlesborough 20 Aug. 3/2: The veriest dregs of the race-course-cheating rabble [...] the purse-trick man being no exception. | |
| Bucks Herald 11 Apr. 8/3: [The] purse-trick man [...] contrives to make it quite clear that he really has deposited three half-crowns in the purse [...] yet if anyone is foolish enough to buy it he will only discover coppers inside. | |
| Bulletin (Sydney) 17 Feb. 18/3: A purse-trick man struck a Western (N.S.W.) town at show time, and for the first two days raked in the cash, but on the third morning, when the sharper was trying to do his business on the hotel verandah, the crowd wouldn’t bite. | |
| Manchester Eve. News 10 Apr. 4/2: At the Old Bailey {...] Sharpe was described as ‘the king of purse bouncers,’ being an expert at the purse trick. | |
![[Scot]](/static/img/flags/sco.png "Scotland") | Aberdeen Jrnl 18 May 4/4: Talk of 9d. for 4d. was only like a purse-trick, where a man offered to sell half-a-crown for sixpence. | |
| Romany Life 245: The purse-fakir is another swindler who never lets you win [...] He is the fellow with the little penny dip purse who throws in half-crowns ... yes, throws them in the palm of his hand and clinks the pennies in the purse. [...] Perhaps one gets in the purse, but mostly it is pennies. Now you are supposed to hand over your half-crowns and buy the purse at your own risk. |
In phrases
(gay) to break wind.
| Fantabulosa. |