[Ads-l] "pisskitchen" (n. and attrib.), not in OED

[Joel Berson]

1580s or 1590s?  Sir John Perrot called Queen Elizabeth "a base bastard pisskitchen woman".  In David Cressy, _Dangerous Talk_ (Oxford Univ. Press, 2010), p. 75.  No specific date given by Cressy, but his footnote cites three sources. Perrot died in 1592.

Cressy suggests a meaning: "a slovenly housekeeper or an incontinent skivvy".


The following two quotations from Google Books, the earliest I found.


1725.  "Is it possible that a piss-kitchen, that scarce knows how to make bone-lace, dares speak and censure the histories of knights-errant?"  Cervantes, _The History of the Valorous and Witty Knight-Errant Don Quixote ..._ (London: Knaplock et al., 1725), Vol. III, Book II, Chap. 6, p. 38.

1758.  "... by this time, he could take any manner of freedom, did not scruple to damn her for a squinting, block-faced, chattering piss-kitchen ; and immediately after drank despair to all old maids."  Smollett, _The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle ..._, 2nd ed., vol. 1 (London: Baldwin et al., 1758), p. 32.

Joel


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