or plumb, subs. (common).—1. £100,000; a fortune: see RHINO. Hence, a rich man.—GROSE (1785).
1709. ADDISON, The Tatler 29 Nov., No. 100. Several who were PLUMS, or very near it, became men of moderate fortunes.
1710. STEELE, The Tatler, 31 Oct., No. 244. An honest gentleman who sat next to me, and who was worth half a PLUMB, stared at him.
d. 1721. PRIOR, The Ladle, Moral.
| The Miser must make up his PLUMB, | |
| And dares not touch the hoarded sum. |
1766. COLMAN, The Clandestine Marriage, iii. My brother Heidelberg was a warm man, a very warm man; and died worth a PLUMB at least.
1821. P. EGAN, Life in London, II. v. Then your visit to Almack’s will be, at least, worth a PLUM to you.
1844. THACKERAY, Barry Lyndon, xiii. An English tallow-chandler’s heiress, with a PLUM to her fortune.
1890. BOLDREWOOD, The Squatter’s Dream, 104. Twenty years on the Warroo with the certainty of a PLUM and a baronetcy at the end.
1899. BESANT, The Orange Girl, 56. You the only son of Sir Peter Halliday … the heir to a PLUM—what do I say? Three or four PLUMS at the least.
2. (common).—A good thing; a tit-bit: also as adj. (q.v.).
1889. Academy, 2 Nov., 280. The reviewer who picks all the PLUMS out of a book … is regarded with … terror … by both authors and publishers.
1892. The Writer, 120 (Century]. Often, indeed, the foot-note contains the very PLUM of the page.
Adj. (old).—A general appreciative: good; desirable; exactly; quite; dextrously; thorough-going. Whence also PLUMB-CENTRE = exactly at the centre: as a plummet hangs.—GROSE (1785); VAUX (1819). Also PLUMMY.
1667. MILTON, Paradise Lost, ii. 933.
| He … meets | |
| A vast vacuity. All unawares, | |
| Fluttering his pennons vain, PLUMB down he drops. |
1748. RICHARDSON, Clarissa, iv. 262. Neither can an opposition, neither can a ministry be always wrong. To be a PLUMB man therefore with either is an infallible mark that the man must mean more and worse than he will own he does mean.
c. 1819. Old Song, ‘The Young Prig’ [FARMER, Musa Pedestris (1896), 82].
| Frisk the cly, and fork the rag, | |
| Draw the fogles PLUMMY. |
1830. J. BARRINGTON, Personal Sketches of His Own Times. The best way … to avoid danger is to meet it PLUMB.
1859. MAYNE REID, Osceola the Seminole, 415. We seed ’em both fire acrost the gleed—an’ sight PLUM-CENTRE at young Randolph.
1861. T. WINTHROP, Cecil Dreeme, vi. How refreshing to find such a place and such a person PLUMP in the middle of New York.
1867. London Herald, 23 March, 222, 1. Ain’t this ere PLUMMY.
1876. G. ELIOT, Daniel Deronda, xvi. The poets have made tragedies enough about signing oneself over to wickedness for the sake of getting something PLUMMY.
1883. H. S. EDWARDS, An Idyl of ‘Sinkin’ Mount’in, in The Century Magazine, xxxvi. 900. O Sal, Sal, my heart ar’ PLUM broke!
1888. San Francisco Weekly Examiner. I’m awful fond o’ po’try—jus’ PLUMB crazy ovah it.
1895. R. POCOCK, The Rules of the Game, II. x. But, doc, he ain’t PLUMB stove up? He ain’t going to die here in this goal?
Verb. (common).—To deceive: see GAMMON.
See BLUE PLUM.
