subs. phr. (old).—A revolver.
THE PEPPER-BOXES (or CASTORS), subs. phr. (common).—Domes or cupolas: specifically the National Gallery in Trafalgar Square, but applied to any dome-shaped building: cf. BOILERS.
1855. THACKERAY, The Newcomes, xxii. Think of half a mile of pictures at the Louvre! Not but that there are a score under the old PEPPER-BOXES in Trafalgar Square as fine as the best here.
1887. W. P. FRITH, Autobiography, i. 56. What the students called the PEPPER-BOX, namely, the centre cupola of the new National Gallery in Trafalgar Square.
1901. Daily Telegraph, 2 Feb., 10, 5. Godalming’s PEPPERBOX is to be preserved. This is the local appellation by which the old market house and former town hall is known, and the title was bestowed on it because the shape of the structure, which stands in the middle of the main street, is more like that article of domestic use than anything else.
See PEPPER, verb. 3.
