PEG 
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PEG 
PEERNAGUR', a town of Hindooftan, in Oude : fe- 
venteen miles north of Manickpour. 
PEERPAR', a town of Bengal: five miles north of 
Rajemal. 
PEERPUN'CHAL, mountains which form the fouth¬ 
em boundary of Cachemire. 
PEE'RWARTH, a town of Auftria: thirteen miles 
fouth of Ips. 
PEE'SKEN, a town of Pruffian Pomeralia: feventeen 
miles fouth-fouth-well of Marienburg. 
PEE'VISH, adj. [this word Junius fuppofes to be 
formed by corruption from perverfe; Skinner rather de¬ 
rives it from beeijh, as we fay wafpijh.'] Petulant; wafpifit; 
eafily olfended; irritable; irafcible; foon angry; per¬ 
verfe; morofe; querulous; full of expreffions of difcon- 
tent; hard to pleafe.—-Neither will it be fatire or peevi/h 
inveftive to affirm, that infidelity and vice are not much 
diminifhed. Swift. 
She is peevi/h, fallen, froward, 
Proud, diiobedient, ftubborn, lacking duty. Skahefp. 
Expreffing difcontent, or fretfulnefs.—Tliofe deferve to 
be doubly laughed at, that are peevi/h and angry for no¬ 
thing to no purpofe. Ef range. 
For what can breed more peevi/h incongruities. 
Than man to yield to female lamentations. Sidney. 
Silly ; childilh. Obfolete. — Never was any fo peevi/h to 
imagine the moon either capable of affection, or fhape of 
a miftrefs. Lily's Endym. 1591. 
How now ! a madman ? Why thou peevi/h fheep, 
What (hip of Epidamnum flays for me ? Shahefpeare. 
PEE'VISHLY, adv. Angrily; queruloufly ; morofely. 
—He was fo pecvijhty opinionative and proud, that he 
would neither a Ik nor hear the advice of any. Hayward. 
PEE'VISHNESS, f. Irafcibility; queruloufnefs; fret¬ 
fulnefs; perverfenefs.-—It will be an unpardonable as 
well as childifli peevijhnefs, if we undervalue the advan¬ 
tages of our knowledge, and negleft to improve it. 
Locke. 
You may find 
Nothing but acid left behind : 
From pafiion you may then be freed, 
When peevijhnefs and fpleen fucceed. Swift. 
PEG, f. [ptgghc, Teutonic; fuppofed by fome to be 
from the Greek irriytva, to fallen or join.] A piece of 
-wood driven into a hole, which does the office of an iron 
nail.— 1 The pegs and nails in a great building, though 
they are but little valued in themfelves, are abfolutely 
neceffary to keep the whole frame together. Addifon's 
Speftator. — A finer petticoat can neither make you 
richer, more virtuous or wife, than if it hung upon a peg. 
Swift. —The pins of an inftrument in which the firings 
are drained s 
You are well tuned now ; but I’ll let down 
The pegs that make this mufic. Shahefpeare's Othello. 
To PEG, v. a. To fallen with a peg.—Taking the 
(hoots of the pad fpring, and pegging them down in very 
rich earth, by that time twelvemonth they will be ready 
to remove. Evelyn's Kalendur. ^ 
I will rend an oak, 
And peg thee in his knotty entrails, till 
Thou’ll howl’d away twelve winters. Shahefpeare. 
To take a Peg lower. Todeprefs ; to fink. Evidently, 
in the following example, from relaxing the cords of mu- 
fical inllruments : but fee the next article.—Thofe only 
know how to want, that have learned to frame their mind 
to their eilate; like to a Ikilful mufician, that can let 
down his firings a peg lower , when the tune requires it. 
Bp. Hall, Of Contcntation. 
Remember how inarms and politicks 
We Hill have worlled all your holy tricks, 
Vol. XIX. No. 1317. 
Trepann’d your party with intrigue, 
And took your grandees down a peg . Iludibras. 
PEG-TAN'KARD, f. A vefiel marked fo as to regu¬ 
late the quantity of drink each perfon Ihould take at a 
draught.— Peg-tankards have in the in fide a row of eight 
pins one above another, at exacl diftances, from top to 
bottom ; the tankard holds two quarts, fo that there is a 
gill of ale, i. e. half a pint of Wincheller meafure, be¬ 
tween each pin. The firil perfon that drank was to 
empty the tankard to the firil peg; the fecond was to 
empty to the next, See. by which means the pins were 
fo many meafures to the compotators, making them all 
drink alike, or the fame quantity. Pegge's Anonypiiana. 
Our Saxon anceftors were remarkable for immoderate 
drinking ; and, when intoxicated with their favourite ale, 
were guilty of the moft outrageous violences. Dunftan 
endeavoured to check this vicious habit, but durft not 
totally obftrudl their much-loved intemperance : lie in¬ 
troduced, therefore, an ingenious cuftom of marking or 
pegging their cups at certain diftances, to prevent one 
man taking a greater draught than his companions, 
which, fora time, leflened the evil, though it proved in 
the end productive of much greater excefles than were 
before indulged in : prior to that regulation, fome of their 
parties ufed to avoid drinking to intoxication ; but, when 
they were obliged to drink to the pegs, they no longer 
had a choice, but were generally the fooner overcome ; 
for, refining upon Dunftan’s plan, each was obliged to 
drink precifely to a peg, whether he could fuftain a quan¬ 
tity of liquor equal to others or not: and to that end it 
became a rule, that, whether they exceeded or fell (hort of 
the preferibed bumper, they were alike compelled to 
drink again until they reached the next mark. In A bp. 
Anfelm’s canons, made in the Council at London in 
1102, priefts are enjoined not to go to drinking-bouts, 
nor to “drink to pegs.” The words are, Ut prejbyteri 
non eant ad potationes, nec ad pinnas bibant. (Wilkins, 
Vol. I. p. 382.) This (hows the antiquity of this inven¬ 
tion, which at lead was as old as the Conqueft. 
Some of thefe peg cups, or bowls, or tankards, are yet 
to be found in the cabinets of antiquaries 5 and we are 
to trace, from their ufe, fome common terms yet current 
among us. When a perfon is much elated, we fay he “ is 
in a merry pin," which no doubt originally meant, he 
had reached that mark which had deprived him of his 
ufual fedatenefs and fobriety : we talk of taking a man 
“ a peg lower,” when we imply we (hall check him in 
any forwardnefs, a faying which originated from a regu¬ 
lation that deprived all thofe of their turn of drinking, 
or of their peg, who had become troublefome in then- 
liquor : from the like rule of fociety came alfo the ex- 
preffion of “ he is a peg too low,” i.e. has been reftrained 
too far, when we fay that a perfon is not in equal fpirits 
with his company ; while we alfo remark of an individual 
that he is getting on “peg by peg,” or, in other words, 
he is taking greater freedoms than he ought to do, which 
formerly meant he was either drinking out of his turn, 
or, contrary to exp refs regulation, did not confine him- 
felf to his proper portion, or peg, but drank on to the 
next, thereby taking a double quantity. Brady's Clavis 
Calendaria. *• 
PEG'ANUM, f [from ntstywei, to congeal, or reprefs; 
a Greek name adopted by Linnaeus for this genus, on ac¬ 
count of its affinity to rue 5 (fee Ruta.) Tl-nycivov is the 
general name for rue in Diofcorides ; and this very plant 
which is the liarmel of the Arabians, and thence called 
harma/a by fome of the earlier modern botanifts, is the 
nvyavov a-ypios, or wild rue, of that old Greek writer.] In 
botany, a genus of the clafs dodecandria, order monogy- 
nia, natural order of multifiliquse, (rutaceas, Jnjf.) Ge¬ 
neric characters—Calyx : perianthium five leaved s leaf¬ 
lets linear, often toothed, erefl, the length of the co¬ 
rolla, acute, permanent. Corolla: petals five, oblong- 
ovate, from upright-fpreading. Stamina: filaments fif- 
6 E teen, 
