pizzle
English
Alternative forms
Etymology
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.[1]
Cognate with Dutch pees, Middle Low German pese (“tendon, bowstring”), Dutch pees (“sinew, tendon”), German Low German Peserick, Pesel (“pizzle”), dialectal German Pisel (“penis”).
Pronunciation
Noun
pizzle (plural pizzles)
- The penis of an animal.
- 1646, Sir Thomas Browne, Pseudodoxia Epidemica, V.19:
- Although, if in the lion the position of the pizzle be proper, and that the natural situation, it will be hard to make out their retrocopulation, or their coupling and pissing backward, according to the determination of Aristotle [...].
- in heraldry
- the dehydrated meat thereof, as a dog treat
- A baton made from the penis of an ox, once used to beat men and animals.
Derived terms
Translations
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Verb
pizzle (third-person singular simple present pizzles, present participle pizzling, simple past and past participle pizzled)
- (rare, transitive) To beat (with a pizzle).
- 1726, “Vincent Davis, for Murder”, in Select Trials at the Seſſions-House in the Old-Bailey, volume 2, pages 191-192:
- 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.
- 1860, State Gazette Appendix: Containing Debates in the House of Representatives of the Eighth Legislature of the State of Texas, volume 4, page 138:
- [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.
- 2016, Amar Mehta, Dispossession:
- Master Huber will come ahurtling from the gatehouse to pizzle us with his fat book.
References
- ^ van der Sijs, Nicoline, editor (2010), “pees1”, in Etymologiebank, Meertens Institute
- English terms borrowed from Dutch Low Saxon
- English terms derived from Dutch Low Saxon
- English terms borrowed from West Flemish
- English terms derived from West Flemish
- English terms derived from Middle Dutch
- English terms derived from Old Dutch
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- English terms derived from Proto-Indo-European
- English terms derived from substrate languages
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- Rhymes:English/ɪzəl
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- en:Animal body parts
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