subs. (old).—1. A sword; a CHEESE-TOASTER (q.v.).—B. E. (c. 1696); GROSE (1785).
2. (venery).—The penis: see PRICK. Hence, TO BURN ONE’S POKER = to get a pox or clap, GROSE (1785); and POKER-BREAKER = a married woman.
3. (Oxford).—A BEDEL (q.v.) carrying a silver mace before the Vice-Chancellor; also the mace itself: also HOLY POKER. Frequently used as an oath.
1841. GEORGE JOHN DAIRE, The Rime of the New-Made Baccalere, iv.
| Around, around, all, all around, | |
| On seats with velvet lin’d, | |
| Sat Heads of Houses in a row, | |
| And Deans, and College Dons below, | |
| With a POKER or two behind. |
1853. REV. E. BRADLEY (‘Cuthbert Bede’), The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green, an Oxford Freshman, vii. A sort of young procession—the Vice-Chancellor and Yeoman-bedels. The silver maces carried by the latter gentlemen, made them by far the most showy part of the procession. Ibid. Tom is the bell that you hear at nine each night; the Vice has to see that he is in proper condition, and, as you have seen, goes out with his POKERS for that purpose.
1865. Cornhill Magazine, Feb., 225. The heads of houses and university officers attend [St. Mary’s] in their robes, and form a stately procession to and from the church. The Vice-Chancellor is escorted by his mace-bearers, familiarly called POKERS, to and from his residence.
1870. London Figaro, 8 Oct., 2, 2. The bedels of a University are very important personages, although derisive undergraduates familiarly term them HOLY POKERS.
4. (old).—A single-barrelled gun.
5. (fencing).—A rough fencer.
6. (old).—‘One that conveys coals (at Newcastle) in sacks, on Horseback.’—B. E. (c. 1696).
OTHER COLLOQUIAL USAGES:—FORE-POKERS (old) = ‘Aces and kings at cards’ (GROSE, 1785); OLD POKER = the devil: see SKIPPER; BY THE HOLY POKER (or IRON) = an oath: also, BY THE HOLY POKER AND TUMBLING TOM: cf. POKER, subs. 3; JEWS-POKER (q.v.), and add quot. 1899; TO CHANT THE POKER = to exaggerate, to swagger, ‘to put on SIDE’ (q.v.): Fr. se gonfler le jabot, and faire son lard.
c. 1797. WALPOLE, Letters, iv. 359. As if OLD POKER was coming to take them away.
1836. MARRYAT, Mr. Midshipman Easy, xxv. 185. ‘BY DE HOLY POKER, Massa Easy, but that terrible sort of gale, the other day, any how. I tink, one time, we all go to Davy Jone’s locker.’
1840. The Comic Almanack, ‘Tom the Devil,’ 214. A hotel’s the place for me! I’ve thried ’em all, from the Club-house at Kilkinny, to the Clarendon, and, BY THE HOLY POKER, never wish mysilf worse luck than such cantonments!
1886. R. L. STEVENSON, Kidnapped, 169. I swear UPON THE HOLY IRON I had neither art nor part.
1897. B. MITFORD, A Romance of the Cape Frontier, I. viii. I never saw anything to beat that, BY THE HOLY POKER I never did!
1899. R. WHITEING, No. 5 John Street, xxi. ‘Does the JEW’S POKER Saturdays,’ says Low Covey, ‘though it ’s a poor lay summer-time.’… A JEW’S POKER is a Christian person who attends to Jewish fires on the Sabbath day.
