or princk, verb. (old).—To dress for show; to adorn fantastically; to ‘put on airs’: see quot. c. 1696.—GROSE (1785). Hence PRINCUMS = high-sniffing niceties, and fads, scruples; MRS. PRINCUM PRANCUM (B. E. and GROSE) = ‘a nice, precise, formal madam’; PRINKER = a JETTER (q.v.).

1

  [?].  Lansdowne MS., 1033. To be PRINKT up, to be drest up fine or finical like children or vain women.

2

  1576.  GASCOIGNE, The Complaynt of Phylomene [CHALMERS, ii. 562].

          Or womans wil (perhappes)
Enflamde hir haughtie harte,
  To get more grace by crimes of cost,
And PRINAKE out hir parte.

3

  1615.  T. TOMKIS, Albumazar, ii. 5 (DODSLEY, Old Plays, 4th ed., 1875, xi., 363). Ron. Just Æsop’s crow, PRINK’D up in borrow’d feathers.

4

  1690.  D’URFEY, Collin’s Walk through London and Westminster, i.

        That my behaviour may not yoke,
With the nice PRINCUMS of that folk.

5

  c. 1696.  B. E., A New Dictionary of the Canting Crew, s.v. PRINKING … PRINKT-UP, set up on the Cupboards-head in their best Cloaths, or in State, Stiff-starched. Mistress PRINCUM-PRANCUM, such a one.

6

  1753.  JANE COLLIER, An Essay on the Art of Ingeniously Tormenting, ii. She was every day longer PRINKING in the glass than you was.

7

  1820.  SCOTT, The Monastery, xxiv. Ay, prune thy feathers, and PRINK thyself gay.

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