pilgarlic
Americannoun
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a person regarded with mild or pretended contempt or pity.
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Obsolete. a baldheaded man.
noun
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obsolete a bald head or a man with a bald head
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dialect a pitiable person
Other Word Forms
- pilgarlicky adjective
Etymology
Origin of pilgarlic
1520–30; earlier pyllyd garleke literally, peeled garlic, originally metaphor for a bald man, whose head is compared to a peeled garlic bulb. See pill 2, garlic
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
The light one shall be Peezletree and the dark one Pilgarlic.
From Project Gutenberg
The stately white swans turned their arching necks interrogatively toward the splashing, and the brown ducks, Peezletree and Pilgarlic, quacked and gobbled softly to each other among the lily-pads.
From Project Gutenberg
"Seen the ghost of a dead rebel, Pilgarlic?"
From Project Gutenberg
I have heard the cook tell Jane the housemaid that Mrs Pilgarlic was never satisfied; but it was some time before I knew whom she meant; and to this day I don’t know why she gave my aunt such a name.
From Project Gutenberg
Little Summers and I—poor Pilgarlic—were so entirely consumed with disgust, that we could find no words sufficiently powerful to express our feelings, and we simply stood glaring at each other in moody silence.
From Project Gutenberg
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
