subs. (old).—1. A gull; and (2) (racing) a horse with action: cf. PEACOCK-HORSE = (undertakers’) a horse with a showy mane and tail. Hence PEACOCKY = showy; as verb = (1) to display (as a peacock its tail), to put on ‘war-paint,’ or ‘side’; and (2—Anglo-Indian) = to make a formal call (see quots. 1883 and 1893).
1580. SIDNEY, Arcadia, i. That love which in haughtie hearts proceeds of a desire onely to pleas, and as it were PEACOCK themselves.
1596. SHAKESPEARE, Hamlet, iii. 2.
| And now reigns here | |
| A very, very—PAJOCK. |
1598. FLORIO, A Worlde of Wordes, s.v. Zazzeare. To play the simple selfe-conceited gull, to go ietting or loytring vp and downe PEACOCKISING and courting of himself.
1869. Telegraph, 5 April. Speculators … were fairly disgusted with the flash PEACOCK, with his bumble foot and ‘threadleing’ action.
1872. TENNYSON, Gareth and Lynette. PEACOCKED up with Lancelot’s noticing.
1883. Graphic, 17 March, 286, 3. Another curious custom of Indian hospitality which extended to a late period—not longer than thirty years ago—was that of inviting visitors, or ‘callers,’ to take beer at eleven o’clock in the forenoon…. The quantity of bottled ale which a gentleman of the period out PEACOCKING, as it was called, could put inside him may be calculated when it is said that a visit never extended beyond ten minutes, and he had three hours in which to make the most of his time.
1884. HAWLEY SMART, From Post to Finish, xvi. Bushranger was pronounced PEACOCKY, a three-cornered brute, and was very generally disliked.
1893. LADY BURTON Life of Captain Sir Richard F. Burton, I. 136. Some, but very few, preferred ‘PEACOCKING,’ which meant robing in white-grass clothes and riding … to call upon ‘regimental ladies.’
1898. BINSTEAD, A Pink ’Un and a Pelican, 65. In PEACOCKED the little man with the long chain.
