Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A vagabond who lies upon straw; a lecher; a lewd person.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun obsolete A born beggar; a vagabond.
  • noun obsolete A lecher; a lewd person.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun archaic a beggar or vagrant, especially a professional one

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Old French paillard, from paille ‘straw’.

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Examples

  • _And couch till a palliard docked my dell_ = (literally) 'And lie quiet while a beggar deflowered my girl', but here probably = while a beggar fornicates with my mistress.

    Musa Pedestris - Three Centuries of Canting Songs and Slang Rhymes [1536 - 1896] John S. Farmer

  • Next to the knight of Malta stood the whip-jack, habited in his sailor gear -- striped shirt and dirty canvas trousers; and adjoining him was the palliard, a loathsome tatterdemalion, his dress one heap of rags, and his discolored skin one mass of artificial leprosy and imposthumes.

    Rookwood William Harrison Ainsworth 1843

  • The limping palliard tore the bandages from his mock wounds, shouldered his crutch, and trudged hastily after them.

    Rookwood William Harrison Ainsworth 1843

  • He ran back a few yards to give himself an impetus, returned, and, placing his hands upon the shoulders of a stalwart vagabond near to him, threw a summerset upon the broad cap of a palliard, who was so jammed in the midst that he could not have stirred to avoid the shock; thence, without pausing, he vaulted forwards, and dropped lightly upon the ground in front of

    Rookwood William Harrison Ainsworth 1843

  • At the lunch where she met the Mauritius foreign minister, guests were offered a lavish menu of chicken palliard with roasted vegetables, Gruyere cheese on a bed of mixed greens, candied walnuts and crumbled soft cheese drizzled in raspberry vinaigrette.

    Home | Mail Online 2010

Comments

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  • "Palliards - those whose fathers were clapperdogeons, or beggars born, and who themselves follow the same trade. The female sort beg with a number of children, borrowing them, if they have not a sufficient number of their own, and making them cry by pinching, in order to excite charity; the males make artificial sores on different parts of their bodies, to move compassion."

    - Francis Grose, 'The Vulgar Tongue'.

    September 18, 2008

  • That's the name of one of my favorite bands!

    www.palliardmusic.com

    September 19, 2008