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Piaster

A silver coin of Spain and various other countries. See Peso. The Spanish piaster (commonly called peso, or peso duro) is of about the value of the American dollar. The Italian piaster, or scudo, was worth from 80 to 100 cents. The Turkish and Egyptian piasters are now worth about four and a half cents.

Piation

The act of making atonement; expiation.

Piazza

An open square in a European town, especially an Italian town; hence (Arch.), an arcaded and roofed gallery; a portico. In the United States the word is popularly applied to a veranda.

Pibcorn

A wind instrument or pipe, with a horn at each end, -- used in Wales.

Pibroch

A Highland air, suited to the particular passion which the musician would either excite or assuage; generally applied to those airs that are played on the bagpipe before the Highlanders when they go out to battle.

Pic

A Turkish cloth measure, varying from 18 to 28 inches.

Pica

The genus that includes the magpies.

Picador

A horseman armed with a lance, who in a bullfight receives the first attack of the bull, and excites him by picking him without attempting to kill him.

Picamar

An oily liquid hydrocarbon extracted from the creosote of beechwood tar. It consists essentially of certain derivatives of pyrogallol.

Picard

One of a sect of Adamites in the fifteenth century; -- so called from one Picard of Flanders. See Adamite.

Picaresque

Applied to that class of literature in which the principal personage is the Spanish picaro, meaning a rascal, a knave, a rogue, an adventurer.

Picari/

An extensive division of birds which includes the woodpeckers, toucans, trogons, hornbills, kingfishers, motmots, rollers, and goatsuckers. By some writers it is made to include also the cuckoos, swifts, and humming birds.

Picarian

Of or pertaining to Picari/. One of the Picari/.

Picaroon

One who plunders; especially, a plunderer of wrecks; a pirate; a corsair; a marauder; a sharper.

Picayune

A small coin of the value of six and a quarter cents. See Fippenny bit.

Picayunish

Petty; paltry; mean; as, a picayunish business.

Piccadilly Piccadil

A high, stiff collar for the neck; also, a hem or band about the skirt of a garment, -- worn by men in the 17th century.

Piccage

Money paid at fairs for leave to break ground for booths.

Piccalilli

A pickle of various vegetables with pungent species, -- originally made in the East Indies.

Piccolo

A small, shrill flute, the pitch of which is an octave higher than the ordinary flute; an octave flute.

Pice

A small copper coin of the East Indies, worth less than a cent.

Picea

A genus of coniferous trees of the northen hemisphere, including the Norway spruce and the American black and white spruces. These trees have pendent cones, which do not readily fall to pieces, in this and other respects differing from the firs.

Picene

A hydrocarbon (C/H/) extracted from the pitchy residue of coal tar and petroleum as a bluish fluorescent crystalline substance.

Piceous

Of or pertaining to pitch; resembling pitch in color or quality; pitchy.

Pichey

A Brazilian armadillo (Dasypus minutus); the little armadillo.

Pichiciago

A small, burrowing, South American edentate (Chlamyphorus truncatus), allied to the armadillos. The shell is attached only along the back.

Pici

A division of birds including the woodpeckers and wrynecks.

Piciform

Of or pertaining to the Piciformes.

Piciformes

A group of birds including the woodpeckers, toucans, barbets, colies, kingfishes, hornbills, and some other related groups.

Picine

Of or pertaining to the woodpeckers (Pici), or to the Piciformes.

Pick

A sharp-pointed tool for picking; -- often used in composition; as, a toothpick; a picklock.

Pick off

to put out a baserunner who is off base by tagging him/her, especially by a quick throw from the pitcher or catcher.

Pick-me-up

A stimulant, restorative, or tonic; a bracer.

Pick-up Pickup

Act of picking up, as, in various games, the fielding or hitting of a ball just after it strikes the ground.

Pickaback

On the back or shoulders; as, to ride pickback.

Pickaninny

A small child; especially, a negro or mulatto infant. Now (2001) used primarily in the latter sense, and in that sense often considered derogatory.

Pickaxe Pickax

A pick with a point at one end, a transverse edge or blade at the other, and a handle inserted at the middle; a hammer with a flattened end for driving wedges and a pointed end for piercing as it strikes.

Pickedness

The state of being sharpened; pointedness.

Pickeer

To make a raid for booty; to maraud; also, to skirmish in advance of an army. See Picaroon.

Picker

One who, or that which, picks, in any sense, -- as, one who uses a pick; one who gathers; a thief; a pick; a pickax; as, a cotton picker.

Pickering

The sauger of the St.Lawrence River.

Picket

To fortify with pointed stakes.

Picking

Done or made as with a pointed tool; as, a picking sound.

Pickle

To preserve or season in pickle; to treat with some kind of pickle; as, to pickle herrings or cucumbers.

Picklock

An instrument for picking locks.

Pickmire

The pewit, or black-headed gull.

Pickoff

a play in which a base runner is picked off. See pick off.

Pickpocket

One who steals purses or other articles from pockets.

Pickpurse

One who steals purses, or money from purses.

Pickthank

One who strives to put another under obligation; an officious person; hence, a flatterer. Used also adjectively.

Picle

A small piece of land inclosed with a hedge; a close.

Picnic

To go on a picnic, or pleasure excursion; to eat in public fashion.

Picoid

Like or pertaining to the Pici.

Picoline

Any one of three isometric bases (C6H7N) related to pyridine, and obtained from bone oil, acrolein ammonia, and coal-tar naphtha, as colorless mobile liquids of strong odor; -- called also methyl pyridine.

Picot

One of many small loops, as of thread, forming an ornamental border, as on a ribbon.

Picotine Picotee

A variety of carnation having petals of a light color variously dotted and spotted at the edges.

Picra

The powder of aloes with canella, formerly officinal, employed as a cathartic.

Picric

Pertaining to, or designating, a strong organic acid (called picric acid), intensely bitter.

Picrite

A dark green igneous rock, consisting largely of chrysolite, with hornblende, augite, biotite, etc.

Picromel

A colorless viscous substance having a bitter-sweet taste.

Picrotoxin

A bitter white crystalline substance found in the cocculus indicus. It is a peculiar poisonous neurotic and intoxicant, and consists of a mixture of several neutral substances.

Picryl

The hypothetical radical of picric acid, analogous to phenyl.

Pictish

Of or pertaining to Picts; resembling the Picts.

Pictograph

A picture or hieroglyph representing and expressing an idea.

Pictorial

Of or pertaining to pictures; illustrated by pictures; forming pictures; representing with the clearness of a picture; as, a pictorial dictionary; a pictorial imagination.

Picts

A race of people of uncertain origin, who inhabited Scotland in early times.

Picturable

Capable of being pictured, or represented by a picture.

Picture

To draw or paint a resemblance of; to delineate; to represent; to form or present an ideal likeness of; to bring before the mind.

Pictured

Furnished with pictures; represented by a picture or pictures; as, a pictured scene.

Picturer

One who makes pictures; a painter.

Picturesque

Forming, or fitted to form, a good or pleasing picture; representing with the clearness or ideal beauty appropriate to a picture; expressing that peculiar kind of beauty which is agreeable in a picture, natural or artificial; graphic; vivid; as, a picturesque scene or attitude; picturesque language.

Picul

A commercial weight varying in different countries and for different commodities. In Borneo it is 135/ lbs.; in China and Sumatra, 133/ lbs.; in Japan, 133/ lbs.; but sometimes 130 lbs., etc. Called also, by the Chinese, tan.

Piculet

Any species of very small woodpeckers of the genus Picumnus and allied genera. Their tail feathers are not stiff and sharp at the tips, as in ordinary woodpeckers.

Picus

A genus of woodpeckers, including some of the common American and European species.

Piddle

To deal in trifles; to concern one's self with trivial matters rather than with those that are important.

Piddling

Trifling; trivial; frivolous; paltry; -- applied to persons and things.

Piddock

Any species of Pholas; a pholad. See Pholas.

Piebald

Having spots and patches of black and white, or other colors; mottled; pied.

Piece

To unite by a coalescence of parts; to fit together; to join.

Piecener

One who supplies rolls of wool to the slubbing machine in woolen mills.

Piecer

One who pieces; a patcher.

Piecework

Work done by the piece or job; work paid for at a rate based on the amount of work done, rather than on the time employed.

Pied

Variegated with spots of different colors; party-colored; spotted; piebald.

Piedmont

Noting the region of foothills near the base of a mountain chain.

Piedmontite

A manganesian kind of epidote, from Piedmont. See Epidote.

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