▪ I. pirrie, pirry Now only dial.
(ˈpɪrɪ)
Forms: 5–6 pyry, pyrie, 5–7 pery, 6 pyrry, -ye, -ie, pirie, pierie, pierrie, perrye, -ie, 6–7 pirrie, pirry, perry: 9 north. and e. dial. perry; also north. parry, -ey.
[app. onomatopœic.
Cf. pirr n.1, also the later berry n.4, and its suggested relationship to birr. All these words are apparently natural oral expressions of the action of such a wind. Gael. piorradh (ˈpirraɣ), genitive piorraidh (ˈpirrai) ‘a squall or blast’ is app. a parallel formation; it appears to have no root in Celtic, and could scarcely have originated the Eng. word, of which the earliest examples belong to East Anglia, where it is still in native use.]
A blast of wind; a squall; a sudden storm of wind, ‘half a gale’. In mod. dial. use also, A sudden scudding rain.
| c 1420 Lydg. Assembly of Gods 126 With a sodeyn pyry, he lappyd hem in care. c 1440 Promp. Parv. 401/2 Pyry, or storme, nimbus. ? c 1500 Cov. Corp. Christi Plays 8/226 E! fryndis, ther cam a pyrie of wynd with a myst suddenly. 1531 Elyot Gov. i. xvii, Aferde of pirries or great stormes. 1559 W. Cuningham Cosmogr. Glasse Pref. 5 In sayling, thou shalt not..feare Peries and great windes. 1610 Holland Camden's Brit. (1637) 307 Hee..was with a contrary pirrie carried violently into Normandie. c 1630 Risdon Surv. Devon §315 (1810) 328 It suffered a kind of inundation..at a spring tide, driven by a very strong perry. 1865 W. White E. Eng. I. 92 ‘If we cu'd only hev a perry wind’, says the Captain... A perry wind is half a gale. |
b. fig. A ‘breeze’ or storm in the social or political atmosphere.
| 1536 St. Papers Hen. VIII, II. 312 He pratith, and is so proude,..that he can not fayll to perish himself in the pyry. 1565 Satir. Poems Reform. i. 178 Nor Hamilton cold have no hope to hold his seate, Nor yett Argile to abide the court; the pirrye was to greate. 1600 W. Watson Decacordon (1602) 126 There arose such a huffing perrie against me. |
▪ II. pirrie
obs. form of perry2 (beverage).