subs. (old).—Plunder: as verb. (or TO LIVE ON ONE’S PURCHASE) = (1) to live by swindling, thieving, or blackmailing. TO GET IN PURCHASE = to beget in bastardy. [O. Fr. purchacier = to procure.]

1

  1512–3.  DOUGLAS, Virgil, 303, 4.

        And first has slane the big Antiphates,…
Son to the bustuous nobyl Sarpedoun,
In PURCHES get ane Thebane wensche apoun.

2

  1590.  SPENSER, The Fairie Queene, I. iii. 16.

        Of nightly stelths, and pillage severall,
Which he had got abroad by PURCHAS criminall.

3

  1592.  GREENE, Disputation [Works, x. 207]. But looke he neuer so narrowly to it we haue his pursse, wherein some time there is fat PURCHASE, twentie or thirtie poundes.

4

  1597.  SHAKESPEARE, 1 Henry IV., ii. 1. 101. Gads. Give me thy hand: thou shalt have a share in our PURCHASE, as I am a true man. Cham. Nay, rather let me have it, as you are a false thief. Ibid. (1599), Henry V., iii. 2. They will steal anything and call it PURCHASE.

5

  1607.  W. S., The Puritaine, i. 4. The slave had about him but the poor PURCHASE of ten groats.

6

  1610.  JONSON, The Alchemist, iv. 4. Do you two pack up all the goods and PURCHASE.

7

  1613.  WEBSTER, The Devil’s Law-case, ii. 1.

          Ari.  Yes, tailors in France they grow to great
Abominable PURCHASE, and become great officers.
    Ibid. (1623), The Duchess of Malfi, iii. 1.
They do observe I grow to infinite PURCHASE, the left hand way.

8

  c. 1620.  FLETCHER and MASSINGER, The False One, iii. 2.

        I scorn to nourish it with such bloodly PURCHASE,
PURCHASE so foully got.

9

  1620.  FLETCHER, The Chances, i. 6. What have I got by this now? what’s the PURCHASE? (et passim).

10

  1633.  ROWLEY, A Match at Midnight, i. 1 [DODSLEY, Old Plays (REED), vii. 355].

        And stuft in close amongst the straw, a bag,
Of a hundred pound at least, all in round shillings,
Which I made my last night’s PURCHASE from a lawyer.

11

  17[?].  HERD, Ancient and Modern Scottish Songs, etc., (1776), ii. 234, ‘The Tod.’

        There dwells a Tod on yonder craig,
  And he’s a Tod of might—a;
He LIVES as well ON his PURCHASE,
  As ony laird or knight—a.

12

  1748.  SMOLLETT, Roderick Random, viii. This here PURCHASE, a gold snuffbox … which I untied out of the tail of a pretty lady’s smock.

13

  1821.  SCOTT, Kenilworth, ii. For even when a man hath got nobles of his own, he keeps out of the way of those whose exchequers lie in other men’s PURCHASE.

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