play up Old Gooseberry

English

Verb

play up Old Gooseberry (third-person singular simple present plays up Old Gooseberry, present participle playing up Old Gooseberry, simple past and past participle played up Old Gooseberry)

1. Alternative form of play Old Gooseberry
   • 1819 March, Thomas Moore, Tom Crib's Memorial to Congress‎^[1], page 22:

     Sandy's the boy, if once to it they fall, / That will play up old gooseberry soon with them all.

References

• [Francis Grose] (1788) “Play up Old Gooseberry”, in A Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue, 2nd edition, London: […] S. Hooper, […], →OCLC.
• John S[tephen] Farmer; W[illiam] E[rnest] Henley, compilers (1893) “play up Old Gooseberry”, in Slang and Its Analogues Past and Present. […], volume III, [London: […] Harrison and Sons] […], →OCLC, page 183.
• Eric Partridge, The Routledge Dictionary of Historical Slang. Routledge, 1973. →ISBN.