pizzle

English

bull pizzle dog treat (sense 1.2)

heraldic wolves with pizzles (sense 1.1)

Alternative forms

• pizzel, pizzell, pisle

Etymology

From Dutch Low Saxon pesel or West Flemish pezel, diminutive of Middle Dutch pese (“a sinew, tendon, string, pizzle”), from Old Dutch *pisa (“sinew, string, fibre”), possibly ultimately related to vezel (“fiber”), from Proto-West Germanic *fas-il-, from Proto-Indo-European *pē̆s- (“to blow”) (see Old High German faso (“fiber”)); in which case this alternation *pes- / *fes- may indicate a repeated borrowing from a (non-Indo-European?) substrate language.

Cognate with Dutch pees, Middle Low German pese (“tendon, bowstring”), Dutch pees (“sinew, tendon”), German Low German Peserick, Pesel (“pizzle”), dialectal German Pisel (“penis”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈpɪzl̩/, enPR: pĭz'əl

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɪzəl

Noun

pizzle (plural pizzles)

1. The penis of an animal.
   • 1646, Sir Thomas Browne, Pseudodoxia Epidemica, V.19:

     Although, if in the lion the position of the pizzle be proper, and that the natural situation, it will be hard to make out their retrocopulation, or their coupling and pissing backward, according to the determination of Aristotle [...].

   1. in heraldry
   2. the dehydrated meat thereof, as a dog treat
2. A baton made from the penis of an ox, once used to beat men and animals.

Derived terms

• pizzle rot
• pizzled
• pizzling

Translations

penis of an animal

• Bulgarian: пенис на животно (penis na životno)
• Chinese:

  Cantonese: 鞭 (bin¹)

  Hokkien: 鞭 (zh-min-nan) (pian)

  Mandarin: 鞭 (zh) (biān)

• Galician: verga (gl) f, vergallo m
• German: Penis (de) m, Fiesel m, Ziemer m, Ochsenziemer (de) m, Rute (de) f, Tierpenis m, Bullenpenis m, Bullenziemer m, Pferdepenis m, Hengstpenis m, Hundepenis m
• Hungarian: bikacsök (hu) (that of a bull)
• Manggarai: laso
• Norwegian:

  Nynorsk: red (nn) n (esp. a horse)

• Welsh: dwsel m, gwialen f

baton made from the penis of an ox, once used to beat men and animals

• Chinese:

  Cantonese: 牛鞭 (ngau⁴ bin¹)

  Hokkien: 牛鞭 (gû-pian)

  Mandarin: 牛鞭 (zh) (niúbiān)

• French: nerf de bœuf (fr) m
• German: Ochsenziemer (de)
• Hungarian: bikacsök (hu)
• Serbo-Croatian:

  Roman: bikovka f, volujska žila f

Verb

pizzle (third-person singular simple present pizzles, present participle pizzling, simple past and past participle pizzled)

1. (rare, transitive) To beat (with a pizzle).
   • 1726, “Vincent Davis, for Murder”, in Select Trials at the Seſſions-House in the Old-Bailey, volume 2, pages 191-192:

     Next Morning I went into his Room, and took hold of his Pizzle.―He jump'd out of Bed, and ſnatch'd it from me, and ſwore, he valued his Pizzle as he valued his Life, and would as ſoon loſe an Inch of one as t'other, for he he kept it on Purpoſe to pizzle the Bitch his Wife.

   • 1860, State Gazette Appendix: Containing Debates in the House of Representatives of the Eighth Legislature of the State of Texas, volume 4, page 138:

     [A] preliminary caucus was held, "a sort of dodge on the sly", a closed door affair, at the Executive mansion, to "settle the hash" of those who might be tender-footed or disposed to bolt, and to pizzle them into arrangements.

   • 2016, Amar Mehta, Dispossession:

     Master Huber will come ahurtling from the gatehouse to pizzle us with his fat book.