pickpurse
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See also: pick-purse
English
[edit]Alternative forms
[edit]Etymology
[edit]From Middle English pikepurse, pykeporse, equivalent to pick + purse.
Noun
[edit]pickpurse (plural pickpurses)
- (obsolete) Someone who steals purses, or money from purses.
- 1548 January 18, Hugh Latimer, Sermon of the Plough[1], quoted in Sermons by Hugh Latimer, Cambridge University Press, published 1884, page 71:
- Down with Christ's cross, up with purgatory pickpurse, up with him, the popish purgatory, I mean.
- 1602, William Shakespeare, The Merry Wives of Windsor, act 1, scene 1:
- No, it is false, if it is a pickpurse.
Synonyms
[edit]References
[edit]- “pickpurse”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.