▪ I. pickthank, n. and a. arch. and dial.
(ˈpɪkθæŋk)
[f. the phrase to pick a thank or thanks: see pick v.1 8 b, and pick-.]
A. n. One who ‘picks a thank’, i.e. curries favour with another, esp. by informing against some one else; a flatterer, sycophant; a tale-bearer, tell-tale.
| 1500–20 Dunbar Poems xxii. 43 To be a pykthank I wald preif. 1551 Gray's N.-Y. Gift to Somerset 86 in Furniv. Ballads fr. MSS. I. 423 Refuse those pikethanckes that Imagyn lyes! 1565–73 Cooper Thesaurus, Delâtor,..a secrete accusour or complayner: a tell tale: a picke thanke. 1596 Shakes. 1 Hen. IV, iii. ii. 25. a 1641 Bp. R. Montagu Acts & Mon. (1642) 289 These speeches that pick-thank reported to Antipater, with exaggerations of his own to make them more odious. 1710 L. Milbourne Resist. Higher Powers 24 When other pick-thanks might be ready to inform against them. 1820 Scott Abbot vi, I had been called pickthank and tale-pyet. 1879 Sala Paris herself again (1880) I. xvii. 279 What a pickthank..that simple party of English people might have thought me. |
B. adj. (attrib. use of n.) Given to ‘picking thanks’; flattering, sycophantic; tale-bearing; basely officious.
| 1561 J. Awdelay Frat. Vacab. 14 This is a pickthanke knaue, that would make his Maister beleue that the Cowe is woode. 1600 Dekker Gentle Craft Wks. 1873 I. 15 He sets more discord in a noble house, By one daies broching of his pick-thanke tales, Than can be salved again in twentie yeares. 1692 R. L'Estrange Josephus, Antiq. xvi. xvi. (1733) 446 He..never fail'd of some pick-thank Story or other to carry away with him. 1850 L. Hunt Autobiog. xii. (1860) 200 An effeminate parader of phrases of endearment and pickthank adulation. |
Hence † ˈpickthankly a., of the character of a pickthank; † ˈpickthankness, the quality or character of being a pickthank.
| 1702 C. Mather Magn. Chr. iii. ii. xiii. (1852) 410 The Arch-Bishop, instead of being offended as the pick-thankly reporter hoped he would have been, fell a laughing heartily. 1672 Marvell Reh. Transp. i. 284 But for the pickthankness of some of the Clergy, who will alwayes presume to have the thanks and honour of it. |
▪ II. ˈpickthank, v. rare.
[f. prec. n.]
intr. To play the pickthank, curry favour with (a person); † trans. to obtain by sycophancy (obs.). Hence ˈpickthanking vbl. n. and ppl. a.
Sometimes app. misused for to pick faults, pick holes.
| 1621 Lady M. Wroth Urania 43 While he did credit pickthanking Counsellors. 1642 Rogers Naaman 308 Many there bee who..to flatter and pickethanke with their Masters..do great things. a 1734 North Exam. ii. iv. §95 (1740) 278 He did it to pick-thank an Opportunity of getting more Money. [1830 Examiner 132/2 The most fastidious and pick-thanking critic. 1863 Cowden Clarke Shaks. Char. v. 131 How constantly Shakespeare releases himself from the pick-thanking of his critics.] |