subs. (old).—1.  Sometimes complacently used of a woman suspected of loose morals (cf. CAT): but usually a playful endearment: e.g., ‘little PUSS,’ ‘saucy PUSS,’ ‘you PUSS, you.’

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  1583.  P. STUBBES, The Anatomie of Abuses [New Shaks. Soc.], 97. [T. L. KINGTON-OLIPHANT, The New English, i. 614. The word PUSSIE is now used of a woman.]

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  1621.  BURTON, The Anatomy of Melancholy, III. II. iii. 1. Pleasant names may be invented … PUSS … honey, love, dove.

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  1664.  COTTON, Scarronides, or, Virgil Travestie (1st ed.), 3.

        That cross-grain’d, peevish, scolding Quean,
That scratching cater-wawling PUSS.

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  1761.  COLMAN, The Jealous Wife, ii. 3. Gone! what a pox had I just run her down, and is the little PUSS stole away at last.

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  1772.  BRIDGES, A Burlesque Translation of Homer, 101.

        The Rainbow-goddess flies to Helen:
Most modern PUSS I ever knew.

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  1859.  G. ELIOT, Adam Bede, ix. The LITTLE PUSS seems already to have airs enough to make a husband as miserable as it’s a law of nature for a quiet man to be when he marries a beauty.

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  1885.  F. LOCKER-LAMPSON, Mabel’s Muff.

        My jealous PUSSY cut up rough
The day before I bought her muff
    With sable trimming.

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  2.  (sporting).—A hare, or rabbit.

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  1821.  SCOTT, Kenilworth, xxix. Thou shalt not give PUSS a hint to steal away—we must catch her in her form.

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  1886.  The Field, 27 Feb. Dusting her hare about half a dozen times up to the fence, where PUSS escaped.

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  3.  (venery).—The female pudendum: see MONOSYLLABLE: also PUSSY and PUSSY-CAT: Fr., chat; angora. Hence, TO FEED ONE’S PUSSY = to copulate.

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  1664.  COTTON, Scarronides, or, Virgil Travestie, 107.

          Æneas, here’s a Health to thee,
To PUSSE and to good Company.

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  4.  (local Woolwich: obsolete).—A cadet of the Royal Military Academy. [The uniform was a short jacket with a pointed tail: vide old pictures at the R.A. Institution, Woolwich.]

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