Chapter Psyche to Pumpkin of P by Brewer's Readers Handbook

Pugna Porcorum (i.e. “battle of the pigs”), a poem extending to several hundred lines, in which every word begins with the letter p. (See P, p. 793.)

Pulci (L.), poet of Florence (1432–1487), author of the heroï-comic poem called Morgantê Maggiorê, a mixture of the bizarre, the serious, and the comic, in ridicule of the romances of chivalry. This Don Juan class of poetry has since been called Bernesque, from Francesco Berni of Tuscany, who greatly excelled in it.

Pulci was sire of the half-serious rhyme,
Who sang when chivalry was more quixotic,
And revelled in the fancies of the time,
True knights, chaste dames, huge giants, kings despotic.

Byron: Don Fuan, iv. 6 (1820).

Puliano, leader of the Nasamoni. He was slain by Rinaldo.—Ariosto: Orlando Furioso (1516).

Pumblechook, uncle to Joe Ga rgery the blacksmith. He was a well-to-do corn-chandler, and drove his own chaisecart. A hard-breathing , middle-aged, slow man was uncle Pumblechook, with fishy eyes and sandy hair inquisitively on end. He called Pip, in his facetious way, “six-penorth of hapence;” but when Pip came into his fortune, Mr. Pumblechook was the most servile of the servile, and ended almost every sentence with, “May I, Mr. Pip?” i.e. have the honour of shaking hands with you again.—Dickens: Great Expectations (1860).

Pumpernickel (His Transparency), a nickname by which the Times satirized the minor German princes.

Some ninety men and ten drummers constitute their whole embattled host on the parade-ground before their palace; and their whole revenue is supplied by a percentage on the tax levied on strangers at the Pumpernickel kursaal.—Times, July 18, 1866.

Pumpkin (Sir Gilbert), a country gentleman plagued with a ward (Miss Kitty Sprightly) and a set of servants all stage mad. He entertains captain Charles Stanley and captain Harry Stukely at Strawberry Hall; Stanley, under cover of acting, makes love to Kitty (an heiress), elopes with her, and marries her.

Miss Bridget Pumpkin, sister of sir Gilbert of Strawberry Hall. A Mrs. Malaprop. She says, “The Greeks, the Romans, and the Irish are barbarian nations who had plays;” but sir Gilbert says, “they were all Jacobites.” She speaks of “taking a degree at our principal adversity;” asks “if the Muses are a family living at Oxford,” if so, she tells captain Stukely, she will be delighted to “see them at Strawberry Hall, with any other of his friends.” Miss Pumpkin hates “play-acting,” but does not object to love-making.—Jackman : All the World’s a Stage(1777).