subs. (American).—1. A mental peculiarity: cf. TWIST, KINK, etc. Also a fit of temper: whence STREAKY, adj. = (1) irritable; short-tempered; (2) mean; (3) FLABBERGASTED (q.v.); and (4) variable. Also STREAKED.
1647. A. COWLEY, The Mistresse, ‘Wisdome.’
| Some STREAKS too of Div’nity ran, | |
| Partly of Monke, and partly Puritan. |
1848. J. R. LOWELL, The Biglow Papers, 1 S. ii.
| But wen it comes to bein’ killed,—I tell ye I felt STREAKED, | |
| The fust time ’t ever I found out wy baggonets wuz peaked. |
1855. HALIBURTON (‘Sam Slick’), Nature and Human Nature, 1 S. Daniel Webster was a great man, I tell you; he’d talk King William out of sight in half an hour. If he was in your house of Commons, he’d make some of your great folks look pretty STREAKED.
1856. WHITCHER, The Widow Bedott Papers, 121. Ye know almost every body has their queer STREAKS.
1856. H. B. STOWE, Dred, I. ix. Just act, now, as if you ’d got a STREAK of something in you such as a man ought for to have who is married to one of de very fusest families in old Virginny.
1888. EGGLESTON, The Graysons, xviii. Mrs. Button had been churning, and the butter ‘took a contrary STREAK,’ as she expressed it, and refused to come.
2. (common).—A run; a sequence of prosperities or adversities.
Verb. (common).—To decamp swiftly; to go with a rush: also TO MAKE STREAKS, TO STREAK OFF LIKE GREASED LIGHTNING, or TO GO LIKE A STREAK.
1604. HEYWOOD, If You Know Not Me [PEARSON, Works (1874) I. 292].
| Haue you beheld the like [a blazing star]? | |
| Look how it STREAKS! |
1768. A. ROSS, Helenore.
| O’er hill and dale with fury she did dreel: | |
| A’ roads to her were good and bad alike. | |
| Nane o’t she wyl’d, but forward on did STREEK. |
1834. C. A. DAVIS, Letters of Jack Downing, Major, 91. I STREAKED IT to Washington. It was nigh upon midnight when I got to the White House.
1841. E. G. PAIGE (‘Dow, Jr.’), Short Patent Sermons, lxxxvii. The way they all are STREAKING IT down the dark road to ruin is sorrowful to steam locomotives.
1843. B. R. HALL (‘Robert Carlton’) The New Purchase, I. 178. I was sartain it wasn’t no fox or wolf but a dog—and then, I dad! if I didn’t STREAK OFF that way like greased lightnin!
1843. W. T. PORTER, ed., The Big Bear of Arkansas, etc., 165. When I did get near, he’d stop and look, cock his ears, and give a snuff, as if he’d never seen a man afore, and then STREAK IT off as if I had been an Indian.
1845. W. G. SIMMS, The Wigwam and the Cabin, 85. ’Twas a satisfaction, to be sure, to have such a creature; and ’twas a pleasure to cross him, and STREAK IT away, at a brushing canter, of a bright morning, for a good five miles at a stretch.
1848. RUXTON, Life in the Far West, 79. What brings a duck a STREAKING IT down stream, if humans ain’t behind her? and who’s in these diggins but Indians?
1855. HALIBURTON (‘Sam Slick’), Nature and Human Nature, 59. As soon as I touched land, I STREAKED IT for home, as hard as I could lay legs to the ground.
1871. H. B. STOWE, Oldtown Fireside Stories, viii. They jest STREAKED IT out through the buttery-door!
1886. The Field, 25 Sept. Mayflower, first to take the breeze, went STREAKING away from Galatea.
