pizzle
verbEtymology
From Dutch Low Saxon pesel or West Flemish pezel, diminutive of Middle Dutch pese (“a sinew, tendon, string, pizzle”), from Old Dutch *pisa (“sinew, string, fibre”), possibly ultimately related to vezel (“fiber”), from Proto-West Germanic *fas-il-, from Proto-Indo-European *pē̆s- (“to blow”) (see Old High German faso (“fiber”)); in which case this alternation *pes- / *fes- may indicate a repeated borrowing from a (non-Indo-European?) substrate language. Cognate with Dutch pees, Middle Low German pese (“tendon, bowstring”), Dutch pees (“sinew, tendon”), German Low German Peserick, Pesel (“pizzle”), dialectal German Pisel (“penis”).
1
Rare To beat (with a pizzle).
- Next Morning I went into his Room, and took hold of his Pizzle.―He jump'd out of Bed, and ſnatch'd it from me, and ſwore, he valued his Pizzle as he valued his Life, and would as ſoon loſe an Inch of one as t'other, for he he kept it on Purpoſe to pizzle the Bitch his Wife.1726, “Vincent Davis, for Murder”, in Select Trials at the Seſſions-House in the Old-Bailey, volume 2, pages 191-192:
- [A] preliminary caucus was held, "a sort of dodge on the sly", a closed door affair, at the Executive mansion, to "settle the hash" of those who might be tender-footed or disposed to bolt, and to pizzle them into arrangements.1860, State Gazette Appendix: Containing Debates in the House of Representatives of the Eighth Legislature of the State of Texas, volume 4, page 138:
1 more example
- Master Huber will come ahurtling from the gatehouse to pizzle us with his fat book.2016, Amar Mehta, Dispossession: