or puck-foist, subs. phr. (old).—A braggart. [NARES: equivalent to ‘vile fungus,’ ‘scum of the earth.’]

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  1601.  JONSON, The Poetaster, iv. 4. Tuc. Valiant? so is mine arse. Gods and fiends! … he dares not fight with a PUCK-FIST. Ibid. (1630), The New Inn, iii. 1. Fer. O they are pinching PUCKFISTS!

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  1607.  DEKKER, Northward Hoe, i. 2. Do you laugh, you unseasonable PUCKFIST?

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  1608.  MIDDLETON, Epigrams [HALLIWELL].

        Old father PUKFIST knits his arteries,
First strikes, then rails on Riot’s villanies.
    Ibid. (1657), More Dissemblers besides Women, iv. 3.
  And.  What pride
Of pamper’d blood has mounted up this PUCK-FOIST?

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  1610.  FLETCHER, The Custom of the Country, i. 2.

                But that this PUCKFIST,
This universal rutter.

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  1630.  TAYLOR (‘The Water Poet’), Workes [NARES].

        These PUCKFOYST cockbrain’d coxcombs, shallow pated,
Are things that by their Taylors are created.

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  1633.  FORD, Love’s Sacrifice, ii. 1. Sanazzar a goose, and Ariosto a PUCK-FIST, to me!

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