subs. (old).—1. A mistress: a KEEP (q.v.). Hence PUREST-PURE = ‘a Top mistress or Fine Woman’ (B. E., c. 1696).
1688. SHADWELL, The Squire of Alsatia, ii. [Wks. (1720), iv. 47]. But where’s your lady, captain, and the blowing, that is to be my natural, my convenient, my PURE?
2. (scavengers’).—See quot: also as verb.: hence PURE-FINDER.
1851. H. MAYHEW, London Labour and the London Poor, ii. 158. Dogs’-dung is called PURE, from its cleansing and purifying properties. Ibid. The name of ‘PURE-FINDERS,’ however, has been applied to the men engaged in collecting dogs’-dung from the public streets only, within the last 20 or 30 years.
Adj. (common).—Neat; unadulterated: see DRINKS. Whence PURE-ELEMENT = water: see ADAM’S ALE.
1772. BRIDGES, A Burlesque Translation of Homer, 61.
| And then we all must be content | |
| To guzzle down PURE ELEMENT. |
1789. GILBERT WHITE, The Natural History of Selborne, i. A fine limpid water, soft to the taste, and much commended by those who drink the PURE ELEMENT.
1840. R. H. BARHAM, The Ingoldsby Legends, ‘Patty Morgan the Milkmaid’s Story.’
| ‘The PURE ELEMENT | |
| Is for Man’s belly meant!’ | |
| And that Gin ’s but a Snare of Old Nick. |
2. (old and colloquial).—Used intensively: cf. PRIME, EXQUISITE, TIP-TOP, STUNNING = NO-END (q.v.); MIGHTY (q.v.); OUT-AND-OUT (q.v.), &c. Also as adv.
1362. LANGLAND, Piers Plowman, viii. 20. Godes pyne and hus passion · is PURE selde in my thouhte.
1371. CHAUCER, The Booke of the Dutchesse, 1251.
| I durst no more say thereto | |
| For PURE feare. |
1390. MANDEVILLE, Travels [HALLIWELL], 130. Natheless there is gode Londe in sum place; but it is PURE litille, as men seyn.
1393. GOWER, Confessio Amantis, iii. 38. It torneth me to PURE grame [= vexation].
1592. SHAKESPEARE, 1 Henry VI., ii. 4. Thy cheeks blush for PURE shame.
1601. JONSON, The Poetaster, ii. 1. PURELY jealous I would have her.
1700. CONGREVE, The Way of the World, ii. 5. When your laship pins it up with poetry, it fits so pleasant the next day as anything, and is so PURE and so crips.
1704. CIBBER, The Careless Husband, iii. 1. Mrs. E. Ha! she looks as if my master had quarrelled with her…. This is PURE.
1708–10. SWIFT, Polite Conversation, i. Col. I’m like all Fools; I love everything that’s good. Lady Smart. Well, and isn’t it PURE good? ’Tis better than a worse.
d. 1797. WALPOLE, Letters, II. 297. His countess … looks PURE awkward amongst so much good company.
1847. HALLIWELL, A Dictionary of Archaic and Provincial Words, etc., s.v. PURE. Mere; very. Still in use. A countryman shown Morland’s picture of pigs feeding, corrected the artist, by exclaiming, “They be PURE loike surelye, but whoever seed three pigs a-feeding without one o’ em having his foot in the trough?”
1884. W. E. HENLEY and R. L. STEVENSON, Deacon Brodie, I. iii. 3. O, such manners are PURE, PURE, PURE! They are, by the shade of Claude Duval.
1887. Lippincott’s Magazine, 397. I never struck a hole yet where there was more … what you call PURE cussedness than in that whited sepulchre of a divinity school.
THE PURE QUILL, phr. (common).—The best; the ‘real thing’: any person or thing of superlative quality. See A1 and O. K.
1888. Detroit Free Press, Aug. When religun is religun, an’ it’s THE PURE QUILL … there’s never one of us but kin take it in large doses.
