1644 R. Symonds Diary (1859) 50 We took some prisoners, five or six killed on both sides in piquering.

1650 R. Stapleton tr. F. Strada De Bello Belgico vii. 76 The Prince of Orange..being entertained with some pickeering (for Alva was resolved not to venture a battaile).

a1661 T. Fuller Worthies (1662) Hants. 10 Our Coasts were much infested with French-Piracies..there was a Knight of Malta..who liv'd by pickeering, and undoing many English Merchants.

1678 E. Smith in 12th Rep. Royal Comm. Hist. MSS (1890) App. v. 51 The French Ambassador..said they were a fine company of men for picqueering and forrageing.

1704 R. Steele Lying Lover i. 4 Still running over..Mines, Countermines, Pickeering, Pioneers, Centinels, Patroles, and others.

1718 J. Ozell tr. J. Pitton de Tournefort Voy. Levant I. 111 Your Lordship has forbid pickeering from island to island for plunder.

1864 T. Carlyle Hist. Friedrich II of Prussia IV. xvii. vi. 579 All hitherto has been pickeering.

1894 Ld. Wolseley Life Marlborough II. lxx. 237 What our soldiers called ‘pickeering’..the practice common amongst the volunteers and other gentlemen who followed both head-quarters, of riding out in front to fire their pistols at one another.

1650 R. Heath Clarastella 10 Bodies when joyn'd engaged are, Piqueering's better sport by far.

1677 R. Gilpin Dæmonol. Sacra ii. i. 176 His particular Temptations to Sin, are but inconsiderable, less successful, picqueerings in comparison.

1690 T. Shadwell Amorous Bigotte ii. i. 15 I hate this pickeering; Let's lay aside our forlorn hopes, and let our bodies joyn.

1715 M. Davies Εἰκων Μικρο-βιβλικὴ Pref. 2 Salmon's Pickeerings with the Colledge of Physicians.

1737 L. Clarke Compl. Hist. Bible II. v. 139 At last, after all their piqueering, Jesus was pleased to ask them a Question.

1822 W. Scott Let. 28 Mar. in Heber Lett. (1950) ix. 299 All this and a subsequent bravado attempt to fix a quarrel on the Lord Advocate had given rise to much picquering which was enhanced by party animosity.

1862 T. Carlyle Hist. Friedrich II of Prussia III. xiii. ii. 438 Mere pickeerings and beatings about the bush.

1998 Irish Times (Nexis) 24 Oct. 28 Pickeering, if I may refresh your memory, is the act of making romantic overtures to a woman. It was, he says, much used in his own boyhood in Co Westmeath.

1651 J. Drew Northern Subscribers Plea Vindicated 58 We tell them againe, that we are not tentavi Dialectici, pickeering Logicians, neither do we dispute or contend about formalities.

1661 J. Ogilby Relation His Majestie's Entertainm. 18 Give Fire, Bounce, Bounce, Pickeering Villains trounce.

1689 T. Brown Wks. (1715) 36 Picqueering Parties first began the Fray.

1713 J. Smith tr. G. Chaucer in Poems upon Several Occasions 329 Thro' which the stern Grimalkin us'd to charge Pickeering Parties of the Vermin-Kind.

1735 P. Barclay Universal Traveller i. 184/1 Lapira fortify'd a rock, and from thence in pickeering parties, kidnap'd the stragglers as they could be found.