Plaguy. Peskily, Plaguily.
1830. I’m plagued most to death with these ere pesky sore eyes.—Mass. Spy, Oct. 13.
1830. We must contrive some way or other to keep these Jacksonians and Huntonites out of the Legislator another year, or we shall be ruin’d; for they make pesky bad work, trigging the wheels of Government.—Seba Smith (‘Major Downing’), ‘My Thirty Years Out of the Senate,’ p. 72 (1860).
1833. This nettled Mr. Van Buren peskily.—Id., p. 227.
1834. At last I came to a pesky great long crooked word, that I couldn’t make head nor tail to it.—Id., p. 28.
1834. Folks have been thinking a good while there was a pesky snarl of rats round the Post Office.—Major Jack D., Vermont Free Press, June 28.
1839. Here’s a going to be one of the peskiest battles that ever was fit.—Chemung (N.Y.) Democrat, April 17.
1839. “But you charge me for the feed.” “Pesky little, I tell ye.”—Havana (N.Y.) Republican, July 31.
1848. I gin that pound [of ratsbane] I bought the other day to a pesky mouse—and it made him dreadful sick—I am pretty sure another pound would kill him.—Durivage and Burnham, ‘Stray Subjects,’ p. 67.
a. 1848. I found it [looking for houses] a pesky sight worse job than I expected.—Seba Smith, ‘Jack Downing’s Letters,’ p. 36 (Bartlett).
1854. ‘How pesky sassy them ’turneys-at-la’ are,’ continued Mrs. Brown.—H. H. Riley, ‘Puddleford,’ p. 116 (N.Y.).
1854. It is a pesky bad business, said the Deacon.—Weekly Oregonian, Dec. 23.
1862. The pesky critter has been playin one of his cunnin tricks on me; but my name ain’t Jack Downing ef I don’t expose him.—Seba Smith, ‘Letters of Major Jack Downing,’ June 18.
1888. She [Eliza] said, “Now see what you’ve done. You keer more for that pesky, sassy old hound than you does for Miss Libbie.”—Mrs. Custer, ‘Tenting on the Plains,’ p. 207.
