poll parrot

Noun edit

poll parrot (plural poll parrots)

1. (dated) A tame parrot.
   • 2015, Richard M. Dorson, American Negro Folktales, page 121:

     Old Marster had a poll parrot, and this poll parrot would watch Jim and tell his Marster what Jim would do.

2. (archaic, slang) A talkative, gossiping woman.
   • 1902, Country Life, volume 11, page 636:

     It was on the tip of her tongue to call her a poll parrot (Mrs. Kingdom had said nothing but 'dear me' repeatedly and freezingly). She was a free-spoken woman as a rule, and it was terrible to have to sit still and waste all the good things she could have said to her […]

Verb edit

poll parrot (third-person singular simple present poll parrots, present participle poll parroting, simple past and past participle poll parroted)

1. (transitive, dated) To speak, repeat, or imitate something like a parrot.
2. (intransitive, dated) To chatter like a parrot.
   • 1864 May – 1865 November, Charles Dickens, chapter XII, in Our Mutual Friend. […], volume II, London: Chapman and Hall, […], published 1865, →OCLC:

     'What are you Poll Parroting at now? Ain't you got nothing to do but fold your arms and stand a Poll Parroting all night?'

References edit

• John Camden Hotten (1873) The Slang Dictionary