adj.—1. See PELT, subs., sense 2.
2. (obscure).—Mean; paltry; contemptible.—B. E. (c. 1696).
1570. ASCHAM, The Scholemaster, 191. Packing up PELTING matters, such as in London commonly come to the hearing of the masters of Bridewell.
1578. T. NORTH, Plutarch, 458.
| Hybla being but a PELTING little town. | |
| Ibid., 69. | |
| My mind in PELTING prose shall never be exprest, | |
| But sung in verse heroical, for so I think it best. |
1581. J. LYLY, Alexander and Campaspe, v. 3 [DODSLEY, Old Plays (1825), ii. 143]. Good drink makes good blood; and shall PELTING words spill it?
1597. SHAKESPEARE, Richard II., ii. 1.
| This land of such dear souls, this dear, dear land, | |
| Dear for her reputation through the world, | |
| Is now leas’d out,—I die pronouncing it,— | |
| Like to a tenement, or PELTING farm. | |
| Ibid. (1605), King Lear, ii. 3. | |
| And with this horrible object, from low farms, | |
| Poor, PELTING villages, sheep-cotes, and mills. |
d. 1616. BEAUMONT and FLETCHER, The Bloody Brother, iii. 2. Your penny-pot poets are such PELTING thieves.
