See quotation *1837. The word is used as an adjective to signify small, mean, contemptible.
1819. Upon these, children canter, by paying a half-bit, here [in New Orleans] called a pécune. A bit is the Pennsylvanian eleven-pence, the New York shilling, and the New England nine-pence.—Henry C. Knight (‘Arthur Singleton’), ‘Letters from the South and West,’ p. 127 (Boston, 1824).
1833. He put his hand in his pocket, and gave her a pickalion.—J. K. Paulding, ‘The Banks of the Ohio,’ i. 218 (Lond.). (Italics in the original.)
1835. I bought for a piccaiune, the smallest currency of the country, the “load of grape.” (Note) Properly picaillon, but pronounced as in the text. Called in New England a “four pence half penny,” in New-York a “sixpence,” and in Philadelphia a “fip.”—Ingraham, ‘The South-West,’ i. 205.
*1837. The name Picayune is the Creole bastard Spanish for what we call a Fip, the Gothamites a sixpence, and the Bostonians a Fourpence halfpenny.—Phila. Public Ledger, Feb. 7.
1837. To those farmers who traded down the river, the price [of salt per bushel] could not exceed three picaillons.—Thomas Benton of Missouri, U.S. Senate, Feb. 21: Cong. Globe, p. 208.
1837. The hon. senator from Kentucky [Mr. Clay] by way of ridicule calls this a picayune bill.—Mr. Young of Illinois, the same, Dec. 22: id., p. 19, Appendix.
1841. ‘Our business has been dull lately, eh?’ ‘Have n’t made a single picaillon since the Belshazzur stove her bottom, Sir.’—Knick. Mag., xvii. 49 (Jan.).
1841. Some gentlemen affected to consider it a small concern, a picayune affair.—Mr. Underwood of Kentucky, House of Repr., Feb. 20: Cong. Globe, p. 341, Appendix.
1842. [The amendment had been characterized] as contemplating a picayune reform.—Mr. Hopkins of Va., the same, March 2: id., p. 275.
1842. He said he still had a picayune in his pocket—a small silver coin worth about threepence—and though it was the last he had, he must lay it out in drink, he could not live without it, and whether he had money or not, rum he wanted, and rum he would have.—J. S. Buckingham, ‘The Eastern and Western States of America,’ iii. 75.
1845. We will receive you with open arms, and try to fleece you out of every picayune you have in the world in less than twenty-four hours.—Bangor Mercury, n.d.
1846. “How much does the muskito-bar cost a yard?” “Two bits and a pic, or three bits.”—E. W. Farnham, ‘Life in Prairie Land,’ p. 291.
1850. I mounted Chaos, and started at a speed that beplastered the skeleton houses on each side of the way with mud, heaving a delectable morsel, as I passed the “doggery,” full in the mouth of a picayune demagogue.—H. C. Lewis (‘Madison Tensas’), ‘Odd Leaves,’ p. 91 (Phila.).
1850. The passun [parson] chirrupt and chuct to make his crittur gallop, but the animal didn’t mind him a pic.—Id., p. 51.
1852. From him she got many a stray picayune, which she laid out in nuts and candies, and distributed, with careless generosity, to all the children in the family.—Mrs. Stowe, ‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin,’ ch. xx. (N.E.D.)
1852. Most of them that plays [at the Virginia Springs] only puts down a picayune or so.—Knick. Mag., xl. 318 (Oct.).
1857. In this year the New York Picayune was published, at first at 3 cents, and later for 5 cents.
1857. There were so many picayunish fools around trying to carry out their own will, and they would neither go into heaven themselves nor allow any one else the privilege.—John Young at the Bowery, Salt Lake City, April 8: ‘Journal of Discourses,’ vi. 234.
1857. Our picayunary [ery] will vanish; it will all fail; for everything that we have in our hearts that is not right will be purged out; for our interest will be centred in the kingdom of God.—George A. Smith, the same, Sept. 13: id., v. 224.
1857. “I don’t want to buy no whisky fur less ’n a dollar and a half a gallon.” “Well, I du. I’d like it was a picayune a gallon, I would.”—Olmsted, ‘Journey through Texas,’ p. 85 (Lond.).
1861. [It] has caused us to grope like blind men in the dark, and scramble for the picayunes when we might as well have picked up the eagles.—George A. Smith at the Tabernacle, Salt Lake City, April 6: ‘Journal of Discourses,’ ix. 19.
1862. [Advertisers] are not the men to skulk from a picayune tax.—Mr. Justin S. Morrill of Vermont, House of Repr., March 12: Cong. Globe, p. 1196/3.
1862. The trade of Colorado is no picayune affair.—Rocky Mountain News, Denver, Dec. 25.
