† gillian Obs.
[a. F. Juliane, a. L. Jūliāna, f. Jūlius, a Roman gentile name.]
A girl, wench. (= gill n.4)
| 1618 [see flirt-gill]. 1625 Fletcher & Shirley Nt. Walker ii. iii, De'e bring your Gillians hither? nay, she's punish'd, you[r] conceal'd love's cas'd up? c 1685 Bagford Ball. (1878) App., Seeing this Al-a-mode wear of the Town, by Gillians is practis'd so common, It is high time that it now was laid down by every Honest Woman. |
b. gillian-flirt = gill-flirt. (Cf. flirt-gillian.)
| 1592 G. Harvey Pierce's Super. 146 Yet was she not such a roinish rannell, or such a dissolute gillian-flurtes as this wainscot-faced Tomboy. |
c. gillian-a-burnt-tail (see quot. and cf. gill-burnt-tail, gill n.4 5). gillian-spend-all: an unthrifty woman.
| 1573 Tusser Husb. xxiii. (1878) 64 Some Gillian spendal so often doth go For hogs meat and hens meat [etc.]. 1654 Gayton Pleas. Notes iv. xx. 268 An Ignis Fatuus, an exhalation, and Gillion a burnt taile, or Will with the wispe. |