pi-jaw, n. slang (now arch.).
(ˈpaɪdʒɔː)
[f. pi a. (n.) + jaw n.1]
A pious lecture or exhortation, esp. one addressed to schoolboys or young persons by their teachers or parents. Hence ˈpi-jaw v. trans., to lecture or exhort; ˈpi-jawing vbl. n.
| 1891 R. G. K. Wrench Winchester Word-bk. 31 He pi-jawed me for thoking. 1912 G. W. E. Russell One Look Back ii. 25 It was his custom..to call us all together.., and give us what we called a ‘Pi-jaw’. 1913 Pearson's Mag. June 606/2 There is no suspicion of ‘pi-jaw’ about it. 1922 A. S. M. Hutchinson This Freedom iv. iv. 303 You..get me here to pijaw me about my duty to my pretty young wife. 1923 Blackw. Mag. Jan. 56/1 He..treated me to the Persian equivalent of a ‘pi-jaw’. 1925 M. I. Rogers in Inner Life (ser. 2) xiii. 257 Older children..are more interested in ideas and the way in which things happen. They dislike ‘pi-jaw’. 1930 J. Douglas Down Shoe Lane 210 It may be that they yawn over pompous pi-jawing and middle-aged platitudinarianism. 1937 G. Frankau More of Us xi. 121 The tortures of a miserable Upper Pi-jawed beyond the sacred hour of supper. 1945 G. B. Grundy 55 Yrs. at Oxf. 38 What a boy or young man loathes above all is pi-jaw. |