English

Noun

pricklouse ‎(plural pricklice)

1. (pejorative, now archaic, historical) A tailor; a lousy person.
   • 1603, John Florio, translating Michel de Montaigne, Essayes, London: Edward Blount, OCLC 946730821, II.32:

     that woman […] by no threats or stripes would leave to call her husband pricke-lowse [transl. pouilleux], and being cast into a pond and duckt under water, lifted up her hands, and joyning her two thumbs-nailes in act to kill lice above her head, seemed to call him lousie still […].