Chapter Port Royal Society to Pot of P by Brewer's Phrase & Fable

Posse A whole posse of men. A large number; a crowd. (See next article.)

Posse Comitatus (Latin). Power of the county. The whole force of the county- that is, all the male members of a county over fifteen, who may be summoned by a sheriff to assist in preventing a riot, the rescue of prisoners, or other unlawful disorders. Clergymen, peers, and the infirm are exempt.

Posset properly means a drink taken before going to bed; it was milk curdled with wine.

“In his morning's draught ... his concerves or cates ... and when he goeth to bedde his posset smoaking hot.”- Man in the Moone (1609).

Post means placed. (Latin, positus.)
   Post. A piece of timber placed in the ground.
   A military post. A station where a man is placed, with instructions not to quit it without orders.
   An official post is where a man is placed in office.
   To post accounts is to place them under certain heads in methodical order. (Trench.)
   Post haste. Travelling by relays of horses, or where horses are placed on the road to expedite the journey.
   Post office. An office where letters are placed.
   Post paper. So called from its watermark, a post-horn, or a post-boy blowing his horn.

“The old original post [paper] with the stamp in the corner representing a post-boy riding for life, and twanging his horn.”- Mrs. Gaskell: Cranford, chap. v.

   Stiff as a post. That is, stiff [in the ground] like a gate-post.
   To run your head against a post. To go to work heedlessly and stupidly, or as if you had no eyes.

Post Factum (Latin). After the act has been committed.

Post Meridian (Latin). After noon.

“ `Twas post meridian half-past four,
By signal I from Nancy parted.”
Dibdin: Sea Songs.

Post-mortem (Latin). After death; as a post-mortem examination for the purpose of ascertaining the cause of death.

Post-mortem Degree (A). A degree after having failed at the poll.

“He had not even the merit of being a plodding man, and he finally took what used to be called a post- mortem degree.”- My Rectors, p. 63.

Post Obit An agreement to pay for a loan a larger sum of money, together with interest at death. (Latin post obitum, after the death of the person named in the bond.)

Poste Restante (French). To remain at the post till called for. In the British post-office letters so addressed are kept one month, and then returned to the writer.

Posted Well posted up in the subject. Thoroughly informed. The metaphor is from posting up accounts, where one can see everything at a glance.

Posteriori An argument a posteriori is one from effects to cause. Thus, to prove the existence of God a posteriori, we take the works of creation and show how they manifest power, wisdom, goodness, and so on; and then we claim the inference that the maker of these things is powerful, wise, and good. Robinson Crusoe found the footprints of a man on the sand, and inferred that there must be a man on the island besides himself. (See Priori .)

Posthumus (Leona'tus). Husband of Imogen. Under the erroneous persuasion of his wife's infidelity, he plots her death, but his plot miscarries. (Shakespeare: Cymbeline.)

Posting-Bills Before the Great Fire the space for foot-passengers in London was defended by rails and posts; the latter served for theatrical placards and general announcements, which were therefore called posters or posting-bills.