Jesse

To give a person jesse is to beat him, or to scold him violently. PARTICULAR JESSE is Jesse in an aggravated form. The phrase, as will be seen, is capable of variation; but “Jesse” is the “jus et norma loquendi.”

1835.  If you was to talk that way to a white man in my country, he’d give you first-class hell.—‘Col. Crockett’s Tour,’ p. 45 (Phila.).

1844.  

1845.  He turned on the woman and gave her jesse, in other words gave her as a mittimus “Go to —— woman.”—‘The Cincinnati Miscellany,’ i. 243.

1847.  [The devil] is afraid of me since I last gave him Zachy over upon Wind-whistle Island.—Dow, Jun., ‘Patent Sermons,’ i. 103.

1847.  Sol cooked the liver jest to the right pint, and we giv it Jessy.—T. B. Thorpe, ‘The Big Bear of Arkansas: Chunkey’s Fight,’ p. 133 (Phila.).

1847.  [To an editor.] Don’t forgit to gin the town below particular saltpetre.—Robb, ‘Streaks of Squatter Life,’ &c., p. 31 (Phila.).

1847.  You’ve slashed the hide off’er that fellar in the lower town, touched his raw, and rumpled his feathers—that’s the way to give him jessy.—Id., p. 33.

1847.  The afarr (affair) raised jessy in Nettle Bottom.—Id., p. 59.

1847.  Allen was giving him “particular jesse.”—Id., p. 81. (Italics in the original.)

1848.  

1850.  She tuk off her shoe, and the way a number ten go-to-meetin’ brogan commenced givin’ a hoss particular Moses, were a caution to hoss-flesh—but still it kept nose and nose.—H. C. Lewis (‘Madison Tensas’), ‘Odd Leaves,’ p. 52 (Phila.).

1851.  Give him Jesse, now, about the bull.—J. J. Hooper, ‘Widow Rugby’s Husband,’ &c., p. 75.

1851.  I’ll just give my nigger Jake perfect Israel when I git home, for lettin’ the lightnin’ kill them steers of mine last July.—‘Polly Peablossom’s Wedding,’ &c., p. 109.

1851.  My old fellow, I’ll give you particular thunder one time, and then, perhaps, you will stay out of here; I’ll not have everybody talking about you running after me like we were some kin.—M. L. Byrn, ‘An Arkansaw Doctor,’ p. 51.

1853.  The coons play particular Peter in the corn-fields.—Dow, Jun., ‘Patent Sermons,’ iii. 197.

1854.  Any body who gets up a row in our country … catches particular fits.—H. H. Riley, ‘Puddleford,’ p. 184 (N.Y.).

1855.  A subscriber requests us to give that mongrel legislature “Hark, from the tombs.”—Herald of Freedom, Lawrence, Kansas, Aug. 25.

1857.  ‘Then may the LORD help you, indeed!’ rejoined Hart solemnly, ‘for I heard Captain Blazes say this very morning, that for the future he ’d be particular death on all chaplains!’—Knick Mag., l. 587 (Dec.). (Italics in the original.)

1857.  It is represented that a great many people from Salt Lake have been met, and they all say the Mormons are going to give us Jessie.—St. Louis Republican, n.d. (Bartlett).

1860.  Show them … that you have the ability still to give them “Jesse.”—Richmond Enquirer, Nov. 2, p. 1/5.

1861.  The overseer charged the driver to give him particular hell.—Oregon Argus, Jan. 19.

1863.  Wherever we go [after vaccination] we are sure to catch jesse on our sore arm.—Rocky Mountain News, Denver, April 2.