"pussy," adj. = weak; effeminate; cowardly; unmanly; soft or easy enough for women, but unbefitting a man.

[Jonathan Lighter]

If it's an error, it must be an old-time typo because I copied the cite from the book itself.  It would be an od typo to make, in any case, since the single letter "u" is replacing two letters "ri" in a perfectly familiar word.

JL

Jim Parish <jparish at SIUE.EDU> wrote:
---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
Sender: American Dialect Society
Poster: Jim Parish
Subject: Re: "pussy," adj. = weak; effeminate; cowardly; unmanly; soft or
easy enough for women, but unbefitting a man.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Jonathan Lighter wrote:
> 2. I have an incredibly early 1923 ex. from Jean Toomer's novel
> _Cane_, referring to a "pussy Sunday-school masqueradin' under a
> regular name," whose appearance in print at that date seems to be
> explicable only through a presumably naive association with
> "pussycat." Any other explanations plausible ? In other words, is
> there any reason *not* to consider this as representing current
> usage?

Is it possible that this is a typo (or a scan error, or whatever) for
"prissy"?

Jim Parish

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