subs. (common).—The hand: see BUNCH OF FIVES and DADDLE. Hence FOREPAW = the hand; HIND-PAW = the foot; PAW-CASES = gloves; and as verb = to handle roughly or obscenely.—B. E. (c. 1696); DYCHE (1748); GROSE (1785).
1605. CHAPMAN, All Fools, ii.
| I made no more adoe, but layd these PAWES | |
| Close on his shoulders, tumbling him to earth. |
d. 1637. JONSON (attributed to) [FARMER, Merry Songs and Ballads (1897), iii. 13], ‘Cooke Laurell.’
| Then with his PAWE, that was a reacher, | |
| hee puld to a pye of a traitor’s numbles. |
1690. DRYDEN, Prologue to Don Sebastian.
| At least be civil to the wretch imploring, | |
| And lay your PAWS upon him, without roaring. |
1753. FOOTE, The Englishman in Paris, i. How do’st, old Buck, hey? Give’s thy PAW!
1836. M. SCOTT, The Cruise of the Midge, 137. He held out him’s large PAW.
1840. THACKERAY, The Paris Sketch Book, 107. The iron squeeze with which he shook my passive PAW.
1848. RUXTON, Life in the Far West, 164. Ho, Bill!… not gone under yet?… Give us your PAW.
1891. Sporting Life, 3 April. In less than a minute he held out his PAW, to the surprise of the company.
