pirlicue

pirlicue

English

Etymology

See purlicue.

Noun

pirlicue (plural pirlicues)

1. (Scotland) A summary, given at the end of a sermon or address, repeating its main points.
   • 1886, Stevenson, Kidnapped:

     If you distaste the sermon, I doubt the pirlicue will please you as little.

   • 1895, Samuel Rutherford Crockett, The Men of the Moss-hags: Being a History of Adventure, page 261:

     A pirlicue which pleased them but little, so that some rode off that they might not be known, and some dourly remained, but were impotent for evil.

   • 1938, Patrick Reginald Chalmers, The Barrie inspiration, page 90:

     Much in the same way would a minister in Thrums, hard up for a pirlicue, never fail to find it in having 'one more whap, my freens, at the Painted Whure of Babylon.'

Related terms

• purlicue