▪ I. † puke, n.1 Obs.
Also 5–6 pewke, (5 pewyke), 6 puck(e, pook(e, peuk.
[Late ME. pewke, puke, a. MDu. puuc, puyck, name of the best sort of woollen cloth (1420 in Verdam); in mod.Du. puik the best, the most excellent, the choice of anything, also as adj. ‘excellent’; so LGer. pük (as in püke ware ware of superior quality, as cloth or linen), WFris. puwck, NFris. pük: ulterior origin unknown. Its use to designate a colour is found only in Eng. Not connected with F. puce.]
1. A superior kind of woollen cloth, of which gowns were made. Also attrib.
| 1466 Mann. & Househ. Exp. (Roxb.) 354 He axsethe for makenge of a longe gowne of pewke, ij.s. 1480 Wardr. Acc. Edw. IV (1830) 120, vj pair of hosen of puke. 1545 Lanc. Wills (Chetham Soc.) II. 63 A new gowne of ffrenche puke lyned withe saten. 1555 Richmond Wills (Surtees) 86 Item vj yards of black puck, xviijs. 1562 Ibid. 166 One gowne of fyne puke garded with veluett and furred with budge, xxvjs. viij{supd}. 1566 Wills & Inv. N.C. (Surtees) I. 257 In the Shopp. A sadd coller brod clothe iiij yerds xijs...a pooke viij yerds xliiijs. 1596 Shakes. 1 Hen. IV, ii. iv. 78 Wilt thou rob this Leatherne Ierkin, Christall button..Puke stocking, Caddice garter? 1612 Shelton Quix. i. i. (1620) 2 The rest and remnant thereof was spent on a Ierkin of fine Puke [orig. sayo de velarte]. |
2. A colour formerly used for woollen goods: as it was produced by galls and copperas, it must have been a bluish black or inky colour, but it is variously described: see quots. Also attrib.
Prob. originally the usual colour of the cloth (sense 1).
| 1530 Palsgr. 253/2 Pewke, a colour, pers. 1538 Elyot, Pullus,..russette, sometyme blacke, but rather puke color, betwene russet & black. c 1550 Disc. Common Weal Eng. (1893) 82 Sume strange coullor or die as french puke. 1577 Harrison England ii. vii. (1877) i. 172 His coat, gowne, and cloake of browne, blue, or puke. 1598 Florio, Pauonaccio cupo, a deepe darke purple or puke colour. 1607 Topsell Four-f. Beasts 92 The colour of this Camell is for the most part browne or puke. 1615 Markham Eng. Housew. ii. v. (1660) 124 To dye wool of a puke colour, take Galls..and boyle your wool or your Cloth therein..halfe an hour: then take them up, and put in your Coperas into the same Liquor, then put in your wool again. 1725 Bradley's Fam. Dict. s.v. Mixing colour, If..you would needs have your Cloth of three Colours, as of two dark and one light, or contrary; supposing Crimson, Yellow or Puke. |
▪ II. puke, n.2
(pjuːk)
[f. puke v. (But the connexion of sense 3 is doubtful.)]
1. a. An act of vomiting, a vomit.
| 1737 Bracken Farriery Impr. (1756) I. 80 This [Pill] generally begins its Operation with a Puke of yellow slimy Matter. 1748 Richardson Clarissa (1811) VII. lxi. 242 It gave him first a puke, then a fever. 1808 Med. Jrnl. XIX. 26 She..had two pukes, which might have been occasioned by increasing the squills to four grains. |
b. Matter thrown up from the stomach; vomit. coarse.
| 1961 in Webster. 1972 D. Lees Zodiac 109, I..choked back the puke that had rushed to my throat. 1975 New Society 4 Dec. 526/2 At the Black Raven, by Liverpool Street station,..there is a slight odour of puke and disinfectant. |
2. An emetic, a vomit.
| 1743 London & Country Brew. iii. (ed. 2) 226 Which Compound, one would think, more fit for a Puke, than a grateful, cordial, stomachic Bitter. 1775 A. Adams in Fam. Lett. (1876) 95 Yesterday Patty was seized, and took a puke. a 1849 H. Coleridge Poems (1850) II. 332 He never once alludes to purge or puke. |
3. U.S. a. slang. A disgusting person. b. vulgar. A nickname for a native of Missouri.
| 1835 A. A. Parker Trip to West & Texas 87 The inhabitants..of Michigan are called wolverines,..of Missouri, pukes. 1838 Haliburton Clockmaker Ser. ii. xix. 289 The suckers of Illinoy, the pukes of Missuri..and the corncrackers of Virginia. 1843 ‘R. Carlton’ New Purchase II. 47 This Protestant assembly was a gathering of delegates principally from the land of Hoosiers..[with] a small chance of Pukes from beyond the father of floods. 1847 Robb Squatter Life 152 Captain and all hands are a set of cowardly pukes. 1847 T. Ford Hist. Illinois (1854) ii. 68 The Illinoians..called the Missourians ‘Pukes’... The lower lead mines in Missouri had sent up to the Galena country whole hoards of uncouth ruffians, from which it was inferred that Missouri had taken a ‘Puke’. 1908 L. Houck Hist. Missouri III. xxiv. 36 ‘Hidalgos’ the first residents of upper Louisiana and Missouri were called, until in the mouths of the vulgar the name of ‘Pukes’ was made current. 1944 [see Missourian n. and a.]. |
4. Comb. puke-weed (U.S.), Lobelia inflata, employed as an emetic.
| 1853 in Dunglison Med. Lex. |
▪ III. puke, v.
(pjuːk)
[Known first as used by Shakes. 1600; but the derivative pukishness, which implies an adj. *pukish, and this a n. or (?) vb. puke, is found of date 1581. Origin unknown.
It has been suggested that it might represent an earlier *spuke (unrecorded), from the Indo-Eur. root spu-, speu- (whence OE. and OHG. spīwan, to spew, spit, L. spuĕre, etc.), which is app. also the origin of a mod.Flem. spukken, LG. spucken (whence mod.Ger. spucken) to spew, spit; but the late appearance of the English word and the absence of historical links make this a bare conjecture.]
1. intr. To eject food from the stomach; to vomit.
| 1600 Shakes. A.Y.L. ii. vii. 144 At first the Infant, Mewling, and puking in the Nurses armes. 1623 Webster Duchess of Malfi ii. i, Our duchess Is sick a-days, she pukes, her stomach seethes. 1691 Shadwell Scourers i. Wks. 1720 IV. 311 You puk'd at the sight of her. 1735 Pope Donne Sat. iv. 153 As one of Woodward's patients, sick, and sore, I puke, I nauseate,—yet he thrusts in more. 1812 W. Tennant Anster F. ii. li, Their bench'd and gaudy boats, Wherein some joking and some puking sit. 1822–34 Good's Study Med. (ed. 4) I. 486 A most debilitating sickness supervened, with excessive efforts to puke. |
2. trans. To eject by vomiting; to vomit.
| 1601 Holland Pliny II. 102 It helpeth them that puke vp choler. 1655 Culpepper Riverius ix. vii. 265 Pewking forth a thin waterish Humor by Salivation. 1689 G. Harvey Curing Dis. by Expect. iv. 19 They run no small risque of puiking their gross slimy Humours into their Lungs. 1799 M. Underwood Treat. Dis. Children (ed. 4) II. 243 After the child had puked-up a great quantity of meconium. 1841 Catlin N. Amer. Ind. II. liv. 182 She is bleeding from her mouth, she is puking up all her blood. |
3. To cause to vomit, to treat with an emetic.
| 1739 Huxham in Phil. Trans. XLI. 669, I then ordered him..Eight or Ten Grains of Turbith mineral, which scarce puked him. 1823 in Spirit Pub. Jrnls. 536 Inoculating for the chicken pox..and puking infant radicals. |
▪ IV. puke
obs. and dial. form of puck.