subs. (old: now recognised or colloquial).—1. ‘Employment, Office, Station; also an advanced or advantageous piece of ground: a Pillar in the Way or Street.’—B. E. (c. 1696).
2. (venery).—An act of coition.
Verb. (university).—1. To reject: TO PLUCK (q.v.): also as subs. At Eton = to put down for bad work in ‘Collections’: the penalty is a holiday-pœna or a swishing.
1855. BRISTED, Five Years in an English University, 74. Should a man be POSTED twice in succession, he is generally recommended to try the air of some other college, or devote his energies to some other walk of life.
2. (common).—To publish: by exposing a list of nominations or defaulters: spec. (university) to publish a list of those in debt for College rations; and (3) to hold up to ridicule or contempt, as (see quot. 1882) a coward. Whence, TO POST UP (or BE WELL POSTED) = to keep one (or be) well informed.
1731. HEARNE, Diary, 13 April. The Royal Society sinks every day in its credit … by its new Statutes for election of foreigners and natives, by POSTING UP their names in the publick room for 10 weeks together, and perhaps at last with much difficulty electing them.
1860. Chambers’s Journal, XIII. 22. But there is no occasion for us to say, with the Americans, that a man is well ‘POSTED UP’ on a subject, while we can say that he is well informed on it.
1861. Blackwood, April, 429. We hear often enough in passable London Society of a man who is well POSTED UP on any special subject, or on the general topics of the day.
1861. H. KINGSLEY, Ravenshoe, lv. We are now POSTED UP well enough in the six weeks which preceded the arrival of the mysterious Archer.
1863. C. READE, Hard Cash, I. 191. He will say to himself, ‘She can—POST me, I think these people call it—this afternoon for not cashing her cheque, and she can turn me and my bank into the street to-morrow.’
1864. Spectator, 455. The reader is POSTED carefully in the latest news about uncial fragments and Biblical MSS.
1882. Harper’s Monthly, June. The fiery young midshipman POSTED him in the streets of Baltimore.
1884. W. C. RUSSELL, Jack’s Courtship, xviii. Where I could have kept myself POSTED in all the latest news about the Hawkes’ movements.
1885. Daily Telegraph, 13 Nov. Nor may the merest schoolboy be POSTED UP in the dates.
1789. G. PARKER, The Happy Pair [FARMER, Musa Pedestris (1896), 68]. With spunk let’s POST our neddies.
1854. MARTIN and AYTOUN, Bon Gualtier Ballads. ‘The Knyghte and the Taylzeour’s Daughter.’
| Therefore, once for all, my rum ’un, | |
| I expect you ’ll POST the tin. |
1885. Daily Telegraph, 7 Sept. He must to-day POST the final deposit.
1891. Licensed Victuallers’ Gazette, 3 April. ‘Done! POST the money.’
5. (nautical).—To raise to the rank of post-captain.
1818. AUSTEN, Persuasion, xxiii. Tell me … when I … was POSTED into the Laconia, if I had then written to you, would you have answered my letter?
1833. MARRYAT, Peter Simple, III. xvii. Whispers were afloat, which came to the ears of the Admiralty, and prevented him from being POSTED.
FROM PILLAR TO POST, phr. (old).—Hither and thither; with aimless effort or action. [Lit. from the same to the same—PILLAR = Lat. columna = POST].—B. E. (c. 1696); GROSE (1785).
fl. 1340. DAN MICHEL OF NORTHGATE, The Ayenbite of Inwyt [T. L. KINGTON-OLIPHANT, The New English, i. 30. A good man becomes a post in God’s temple; this explains our phrase, ‘FROM PILLAR TO POST’].
1509. BARCLAY, Eclogues [Percy Society], XXII., lvii. From POST UNTO PILLAR tosseth.
1531–47. COPLAND, The Hye-way to the Spyttel-hous [HAZLITT, Remains of the Early Popular Poetry of England, IV. 56].
| And auentreth, tyll them haue all lost, | |
| And turmoyleth alway FRO PYLER TO POST. |
1537–50. Vox Populi, Vox Dei [HAZLITT, Remains of the Early Popular Poetry of England, III. 274].
| That FROM PILLER VNTO POST | |
| The powr man he was tost. |
1582. STANYHURST, Æneis, iv. 296. FROM thee POAST TOE PILER with thoght his rackt wyt he tosseth.
1607. MARSTON, What You Will, iv. 1.
| Come you | |
| You prate yfaith Ile tosse you FROM POST TO PILLER. |
c. 1611. SHAKESPEARE and FLETCHER, The Two Noble Kinsmen, iii. 5.
| And, dainty duke, whose doughty dismal fame | |
| From Dis to Dædalus, FROM POST TO PILLAR, | |
| Is blown abroad. |
d. 1626. BRETON, Character of Elizabeth, 5. In the tyme of her sister Queene Marie’s raigne, how was she handled? tost FROM PILLAR TO POST, imprisoned, sought to be put to death.
1678. COTTON, Scarronides, or, Virgil Travestie, 62.
| Was packt, and wrackt, and lost, and tost, | |
| And bounc’d FROM PILLAR UNTO POST. |
1749. SMOLLETT, Gil Blas [ROUTLEDGE], 86. He threw his arms about the old man’s neck; and these two … began sending him backwards and forwards…. After they had tossed him about FROM PILLAR TO POST they suffered him to depart.
1767. RAY, Proverbs [BOHN], 175. To be tost FROM POST TO PILLORY.
1898. M. E. BRADDON, Rough Justice, 18. Hunted from PILLAR TO POST.
Other COLLOQUIALISMS are:—TO RUN (or KNOCK) THE HEAD AGAINST A POST = to go blindly; STIFF AS A POST = unyielding: as a gatepost in the ground; TO TALK (or PREACH) TO A POST = to talk to deaf ears: hence DEAF AS A POST = as deaf as may be; TO RIDE A POST = to copulate; TO GO TO THE POST = to visit a woman; TO TALK POST = to speak hastily; POST ALONE = solitary; TO KISS THE POST = (see KISS, and add quots. 1529 and 1548); TO HOLD UP A POST (or THE WALL) = to cling for support when drunk. See also BEDPOST; KNIGHT; NICK.
1400. Hymns to Virgin and Christ [E.E.T.S.], 61. [Here conscience is scornfully told] TO PRECHE TO THE POST.
d. 1529. SKELTON, Phyllyp Sparowe, 715.
| Troylus also hath lost | |
| On her moch loue and cost, | |
| And now must KYS THE POST. |
1548. BARCLAY, Eglogues (1570), ii. sig. B iiii.
| Yet from beginning absent if thou be, | |
| Eyther shalt thou lose thy meat and KISSE THE POST. |
1582. STANYHURST, Æneis, iv. 492.
| Her self left also, she deemed, | |
| POST ALOAN, and soaly from woonted coompanye singled. |
1599. SHAKESPEARE, Henry V, iii. 2. A’ never broke any man’s head but his own, and that was AGAINST A POST when he was drunk.
d. 1608. T. SACKVILLE, The Complaint of Henry Duke of Buckingham, st. 49. She chang’d her cheer, and left me POST ALONE.
1632. SHIRLEY, The Changes, i. 1. ’Twere no good manners to speak hastily to a gentlewoman, TO TALK POST (as they say) to his mistress.
