subs. (colloquial).—A woman: also as adj. Hence, PETTICOAT-AFFAIR = a matter with a woman in it; PETTICOAT-GOVERNMENT = female home-rule; PETTICOAT-HOLD = a life interest in a wife’s estate (GROSE, 1785); PETTICOAT-MERCHANT = a whoremonger (see MOLROWER); PETTICOAT-PENSIONER (SQUIRE, or -KNIGHT, or SQUIRE OF THE PETTICOAT) = a male KEEP (q.v.); PETTICOAT-HUNTING = whoring; PETTICOAT-LED = infatuated of a woman; PETTICOAT-LOOSE (of women) = ‘always ready’; UP ONE’S PETTICOAT = unduly intimate, &c.—B. E. (c. 1696); GROSE (1785).
1607. DEKKER, Northward Hoe, v. 1. Where’s this wench to be found? here are all the moveable PETTICOATS of the house.
1662. Rump Songs, ii. 41, ‘A City Ballad.’
| The late PETTICOAT SQUIRE | |
| From his shop mounted higher. |
1690. DRYDEN, Amphitryon, i. 1.
| Merc. And Venus may know more than both of us, | |
| For ’tis some PETTICOAT-AFFAIR I guess. |
1690. J. WILSON, Belphegor, iv. 2. Thou shalt supply my place—all PETTICOATS are sisters in the dark.
c. 1707. Old Song, ‘The Irish Jigg’ [FARMER, Merry Songs and Ballads (1897), iv. 181].
| The Devil drew nearer and nearer in short | |
| I found it was one of the PETTICOAT sort … | |
| And then I went to her, resolving to try her. |
1717. PRIOR, Lucius [Epilogue].
| Fearless the PETTICOAT contemns his Frowns; | |
| The Hoop secures whatever it surrounds. |
1725. N. BAILEY, trans. The Colloquies of Erasmus, 186. What does this PETTICOAT-PREACHER do here? Get you in and mind your kitchen.
1749. SMOLLETT, Gil Blas [ROUTLEDGE], 356. This … made me suspect that he was tied to the string of some PETTICOAT in the hamlet.
1766. H. BROOKE, The Fool of Quality, I. 199. I am quite impatient to be instructed in the policies and constitution of this your PETTICOAT GOVERNMENT.
1830. BUCKSTONE, The Cab-Driver, i. Do you think the gentlemen are to have all the loaves and fishes? PETTICOATS must be provided for.
1834. W. H. AINSWORTH, Rookwood, II. 6. Disarmed—defied by a PETTICOAT.… What! afraid of a woman?
1849. C. KINGSLEY, Alton Locke, xxvii. Out came the very story which I had all along dreaded, about the expurgation of my poems, with the coarsest allusions to PETTICOAT INFLUENCE.
1897. B. MITFORD, A Romance of the Cape Frontier, I. i. There was a PETTICOAT in the case.
See SMOCK.
