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▪ I. ˈpelting, vbl. n.
[f. pelt v.1 + -ing1.]
The action of pelt v.1; beating with missiles; persistent striking or beating.
1605Shakes. Lear iii. iv. 29 Poore naked wretches, where so ere you are That bide the pelting of this pittilesse storme. 1830Cunningham Brit. Paint. II. 120 To avoid the pelting of the storm of invective. 1840Dickens Barn. Rudge ii, The rude buffets of the wind and pelting of the rain.
▪ II. ˈpelting, a. arch.
[Known from c 1540, and very frequent to c 1688. Occasional in modern authors as a literary archaism. App. related to pelt n.3, and peltry n.2 A variant palting occurs 1579–80, and in mod. dialect: cf. also paltry.
Its form suggests that pelting is the pr. pple. of pelt v.3; the difficulty is that this vb. is very rare, is not found so early, and does not yield the required sense, unless it is held that pelting began with some such sense as ‘haggling or shuffling’, and passed through ‘peddling’, to that of ‘petty, trashy, contemptible’; a sequence not proved.]
Paltry, petty, contemptible; mean, insignificant, trumpery, inconsiderable; worthless.
1540R. Wisdome in Strype Eccl. Mem. I. App. cxv. 319 The putting away of pelting perdons and the roting out of famous idols. 1553Bale Vocacyou 43 They are but pilde peltinge prestes. 1556Olde Antichrist 133 So beggarly a suburbe, or so pelting a village. 1565J. Calfhill Aunsw. Treat. Crosse (1846) 10 Like a pelting pedlar, putting the best in your pack uppermost. 1573G. Harvey Letter-bk. (Camden) 12 Inforcid rather to bungle up a pelting histori then to write a set epistle. 1593Shakes. Rich. II, ii. i. 60 This Land of such deere soules..Is now Leas'd out..like to a Tenement or pelting Farme. 1603― Meas. for M. ii. ii. 112 Euery pelting petty Officer Would vse his heauen for Thunder. 1634Bp. Hall Contempl., N.T. iv. xxvii, To tender a trade of so invaluable a commodity to these pelting petty chapmen for thirty poor silverlings. 1685Gracian's Courtiers Orac. 186 Sometimes a little pelting fret costs a repentance, that lasts as long as life. 1820Shelley Philos. View Reform in Dowden Life II. 293 A set of pelting wretches, in whose employment there is nothing to exercise..the more majestic forces of the soul. 1873Trench Plutarch ii. (1874) 37 Greece was a province:..Her flourishing cities..had dwindled into pelting villages.
Hence † ˈpeltingly adv., in a mean or paltry manner.
c1592Babington Notes on Gen. xxi. 22 Wks. (1622) 73 It is not euer by and by well spared, that pinchingly and peltingly is spared. 1602Contention betw. Liberality & Prodigality ii. iv. in Hazl. Dodsley VIII. 350 For thy pains I will not grease thy fist Peltingly with two or three crowns.
▪ III. ˈpelting, ppl. a.
[f. pelt v.1 + -ing2.]
1. That pelts; chiefly of rain, hail, etc.: driving, beating, lashing. Also fig.
1710Philips Pastorals ii. 99 The pelting show'r Destroys the tender herb and budding flow'r. 1817Coleridge Sibyl. Leaves, to Rev. G. Coleridge, Chance-started friendships. A brief while Some have preserved me from life's pelting ills. 1851Helps Comp. Solit. x. (1874) 164 There is a pitiless, pelting rain this morning.
2. Violent, passionate, hot. Chiefly in pelting chafe. Obs. exc. dial.
1570Foxe A. & M. (ed. 2) 1645/1 margin, [Bp.] Boner in a pelting chafe. 1584Lyly Campaspe v. iii, Good drinke makes good bloud, and shall pelting words spill it? 1624Heywood Gunaik. 309 This young man..being (as our English phrase sayth) in a pelting chafe. 1684Bunyan Pilgr. ii. 66 When they were come to the Arbour they were very willing to sit down, for they were all in a pelting heat. |