subs. (old cant).—A vagabond, or unfrocked priest; a HEDGE-PRIEST (q.v.): also PATRIARCK-CO, PATRICOVE, PATTERING-COVE and PATER-COVE. [Suggested derivations are: (1) PATER = father + COVE = a man; cf. PATRIARCK-CO; (2) PATTER (or PATTERING) = talk + COVE, i.e., a patterer or mutterer of paternosters = a priest.]—B. E. (c. 1696); GROSE (1785).
c. 1536. COPLAND, The Hye-way to the Spyttel-hous [FARMER, Musa Pedestris (1896), 1].
| Teare the PATRYNG COUE in the darkeman cace | |
| Docked the dell for a coper meke. |
1565. AWDELEY, The Fraternitye of Vacabondes [E.E.T.S. (1896), 6]. A PATRIARKE-CO doth make marriages … untill death depart … after this sort: when they come to a dead horse or any dead catell, then they shake hands, and so depart every one of them a severall way.
1567. HARMAN, A Caveat or Warening for Common Cursetors [E.E.T.S. (1896), 89]. There was a proude PATRICO and a nosegent, he tooke his Iockam in his famble, and a wappinge he went.
1610. ROWLANDS, Martin Mark-all, 40 [Hunterian Club’s Reprint, 1874], s.v.
1614. JONSON, Bartholomew Fair, ii. You are the PATRICO, are you? the patriarch of the cut-purses? Ibid. (1625), The Staple of News, iv. 1. Alm. A supercilious rogue! he looks as if He were the PATRICO. Mad. Or arch-priest of Canters.
1622. BEAUMONT and FLETCHER, Beggar’s Bush, ii. 1.
| What name or title e’er they bear, | |
| Jarkman, or PATRICO, Crank, or Clapper-dudgeon. |
c. 1725. Old Song [FARMER, Musa Pedestris (1896), 44], ‘Retoure My Dear Dell.’
| But alas! ’tis my fear that the false PATRI-COE | |
| Is reaping those transports are only my due. |
1749. Old Song [FARMER, Musa Pedestris (1896), 51], ‘The Oath of the Canting Crew.’
| No whip-jack, palliard, PATRICO; | |
| No jarkman, be he high or low. |
1749. R. GOADBY, The Life and Adventures of Bampfylde Moore Carew, ‘The Oath of the Canting Crew.’
| Cadge-gloak, curtal, or curmudgeon; | |
| no whip-jack, palliard, PATRICO … | |
| Nor any other will I suffer. |
1827. BULWER-LYTTON, Pelham, lxxx. My idea at the moment was to disguise myself in the dress of the PATER COVE and perform the double job.
1834. W. H. AINSWORTH, Rookwood, III. iv. This venerable personage was no other than the PATRICO … or hierophant of the canting crew.
1892. W. E. HENLEY and R. L. STEVENSON, Deacon Brodie, iii. 2. He’s a PATTER-COVE from Seven Dials.
