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Pilate Voice

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A loud ranting voice. In the old mysteries all tyrants were made to speak in a rough ranting manner. Thus Bottom the Weaver, after a rant “to show his quality,” exclaims, “That’s ʹErclesʹ vein, a tyrant’s vein;” and Hamlet describes a ranting actor as “out-heroding Herod.”

“In Pilate voys he gan to cry,

And swor by armës, and by blood and bones.”


Chaucer: Canterbury Tales, 3126.

 

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Entry taken from Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, edited by the Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D. and revised in 1895.

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Pigeon-livered
Pigeon Pair
Pigg
Piggy-wiggy or Piggy-whidden
Pightel or Pightle
Pigmy
Piganey or Pigsnie
Pigwiggin
Pike’s Head (A)
Pikestaff
Pilate Voice
Pilate’s Wife
Pilatus (Mount)
Pilch
Pilcher
Pilgarlic or Pilld Garlic (A)
Pilgrim Fathers (The)
Pilgrimage
Pillar Saints
Pillar to Post
Pillars of Heaven (The)