▪ I. ˈpelter, n.1 rare.
[Agent-noun belonging to pelting a.]
A paltry or peddling person.
| a 1577 Gascoigne Flowers Wks. (1587) 41 Yea let suche pelters prate, saint Needam be their speede, We neede no text to answer them but this, The Lord hath nede. 1577 T. Kendall Flowers of Epigr. 4 The veriest pelter pilde maie seme, to haue experience thus. [Cf. ‘pilde peltinge prestes’, pelting a. 1553.] 1922 Joyce Ulysses 130 That old pelters [sic], the editor said. |
▪ II. pelter, n.2
[f. pelt v.1 + -er1.]
1. a. One who pelts, esp. with missiles.
| 1828–32 Webster, Pelter, one that pelts. 1830 Gen. P. Thompson Exerc. (1842) I. 276 To ask why the pelters should not be put into the stocks. 1881 P. Robinson Under Punkah 186 The driver and guards..have no time to get down and catch the pelters, and therefore it is safe to pelt. |
b. humorously. A gun or pistol; also, a small ship carrying guns.
| 1827 Barrington Personal Sk. II. 10 Our family pistols, denominated pelters, were brass. 1890 Daily News 2 Dec. 5/3 The old ‘donkey frigates’ and ‘ten-gun pelters’ which were an old theme of jocularity in the service. |
c. A pelting shower. colloq.
| 1791 J. Byng Torrington Diaries (1935) II. 360 Tho' it rain'd all the way, so as to hurry me, yet it was not a pelter. 1816 Jane Austen Let. 9 July (1952) 459 We were obliged to turn back..but not soon enough to avoid a Pelter all the way home. 1842 Barham Ingol. Leg. Ser. ii. Dead Drummer, In vain sought for shelter From..‘a regular pelter’. 1901 G. Douglas House w. Green Shutters 145 The storm's at the burstin'!..we're in for a pelter. 1966 T. H. Raddall Hangman's Beach i. vi. 83 Boats' crews and carpenters..came out in the cold pelter to McNab's island. |
d. One who or that which ‘pelts’ or goes rapidly: in quot. 1901 a swift horse. colloq. Phr. in a pelter: in a hurry; at speed.
| c 1889 ‘F. Leslie’ Let. in W. T. Vincent Recoll. Fred Leslie (1894) II. xxiii. 97 Dear, dear! I have wasted time and ought to have been at work on our burlesque. Now I am determined to go in a pelter. 1901 Munsey's Mag. (U.S.) XXIV. 484/1 It ain't the first time the pelter's carried double. |
e. An old or slow horse. U.S. colloq.
This may belong to pelter n.1: see Dict. Amer.
| 1856 Knickerbocker XLVIII. 314 When his earthly tenement yields his soul no shelter, May it animate the corpse of an ancient pelter. 1896 Ade Artie i. 4 It's like hitchin' up a four-time winner 'longside of a pelter. 1902 H. F. Day Pine Tree Ballads 147 He'd..take a wheezy old pelter with a hopity gait and he'd make you believe..there were all kinds of pedigrees tied up in him. 1931 D. Runyon in Hearst's International Sept. 84/1 Mahogany..is..not such a bad old pelter. |
2. A rage, ‘temper’. dial.
| 1861 Barr Poems 9 (E.D.D.), I couldna speak a single word, I was in such a pelter. 1888 ‘R. Boldrewood’ Robbery under Arms iii. 19 Nobody ever seemed to be able to get into a pelter with Jim. |
3. Something exceptionally large. dial.
| c 1780 M. Lonsdale in S. Gilpin Popular Poetry of Cumberland (1875) 61 An' dall! but it's a pelter. 1892 E. J. Milliken 'Arry Ballads 70/1 Their ain't nothink the nobs is fair nuts on but wot these 'ere bellerers ban. Wy, they're down upon Sport, now, a pelter. Perposterous, ain't it, old man? |
▪ III. [pelter, n.3
‘a dealer in skins or hides’.
In Cent Dict., etc. without quot. The historical words are pelleter and peltier; in mod. use also pelterer. Groome Pelter in Household Ordinances (1790) 41 from Liber Niger of Edw. IV is a misreading of grome pulter of the MS.]
▪ IV. ˈpelter, v. Chiefly dial.
[Iterative of pelt v.: cf. patter.]
1. trans. To go on pelting or striking (also fig.); intr. to patter (as rain).
[In Eng. Dial. Dict. from Cumberl. to Notts.]
| 1715 M. Davies Athen. Brit. I. Pref. 2 Now Giles the Foot⁓man..pelters him with Sentences out of the Holy-Fathers and Scholastick Divinity. 1716 [see peloton 1]. 1828 Craven Gloss. (ed. 2), Pelter, to patter, or beat. 1939 Dylan Thomas Map of Love 12 Chimes cheat the prison spire, pelter In time like outlaw rains on that priest, water, Time for the swimmers' hands, music for silver lock And mouth. |
2. intr. To run with rapid steps; = pelt v.1 7.
| 1906 W. S. Maugham Bishop's Apron xix. 297 The strange spectacle of a comely young woman and an ecclesiastical dignitary..peltering towards the Achilles Statue as fast as they could go. 1923 Chambers's Jrnl. Apr. 240/2 Rawlins..peltered up on deck to recover his composure. |
Hence (in sense 1) ˈpeltering ppl. a.
| 1858 Lever Martins of Cro' M. xiv. 131 Now, rising to pace the room, or drawing nigh the window to curse the peltering rain without. 1927 Glasgow Herald 27 Aug. 8 The peltering rains (which were certainly general) made the grass so wet that the..cow ate far too much juice. |