Talk:purlicue

Only the most recent of the quotations support the definition given here. Every other points at purlicue being the piece of skin bridging the thumb and forefinger, and the definition in the Collins English Dictionnary is "the distance between one's forefinger and thumb when extended". Why is the featured definition the one with the least documented use? Not that I would question the cultural relevance of a book literally titled "Orally Pleasuring a Man" - Anonymous, 22 November 2022

One source mentions these alternative spellings of the 'sermon' sense: pirlicue, parlicue. Robert Morris Pierce mentions perlecue, perleque, perlikew, pirlicue, pirliecue, purleycue, parlicue, parlecue, parleycue, perliquey. - -sche (discuss) 02:36, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

RFV discussion: July 2015–February 2016

The following discussion has been moved from Wiktionary:Requests for verification (permalink).

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purlicue

The plural gets only one hit, seemingly meaning something to do with land. The hits for the singular are mostly mentions. Needs formatting (of the labels) if OK. - -sche (discuss) 19:24, 23 July 2015 (UTC)

These senses fail RFV (one has a single mention-y citation):

1. (Scotland, obsolete) a flourish at the end of a pen stroke
2. (Scotland) the end of a discourse
3. (Presbyterianism) a review of a previous sermon or speech

- -sche (discuss) 03:02, 2 February 2016 (UTC)

The EDD has this as pirlicue, defined as "a brief resume or recital given at the close of a series of addresses or sermon of the principal subjects and points treated", with the citations:

• 1886, Stevenson, Kidnapped:

  If you distaste the sermon, I doubt the pirlicue will please you as little.

• 1895, Samuel Rutherford Crockett, The Men of the Moss-hags: Being a History of Adventure, page 261:

  A pirlicue which pleased them but little, so that some rode off that they might not be known, and some dourly remained, but were impotent for evil.

I can also find:

• 1938, Patrick Reginald Chalmers, The Barrie inspiration, page 90:

  Much in the same way would a minister in Thrums, hard up for a pirlicue, never fail to find it in having 'one more whap, my freens, at the Painted Whure of Babylon.'

So I've moved that sense to pirlicue. - -sche (discuss) 02:49, 8 February 2016 (UTC)