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pizzle

verb /ˈpɪzl̩/

  1. To beat (with a pizzle).

    rare, transitive

    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.

Where it comes from

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”).

Adapted from the Wiktionary entry pizzle (CC BY-SA 4.0).

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