pucker (puker)

[ regular folding or wrinkling; a collection of irregularly converging ridges or wrinkles. Ruff, Anything collected into puckers or corrugations. Johnson. Held from rolling off the seat only by the steady hold of her mother in the puckers of her dre during the rest. W. M. Baker , New Timothy, p. 22. The cloth to be stitched, being placed close up to the cog-wheels on the opposite side of where the needle point rests, is dragged in puckers into the latter, by turning the winch handle. Spons ' Encyc . Manuf ., I. 471. 2. A state of flutter, agitation, or confusion. [Colloq.] Well to be sure, the whole parish was in a pucker: some thought the French had landed. Smollett, Peregrine Pickle (2d ed.), ii. I told William when we first mi ed her this morn in', and he was in such a pucker about her, I bet anything he was a mind to that the child had gone back to Mi Kilburn's. Howells , Annie Kilburn, xxix. puckerer (puk'ėr-ér), n . One who or that which puckers. [Origin obscure.] puckeridge (puk'ėr-ij), n. 1. The night-jar, Caprimulgus europæus . Mon tagu.-2. A fatal distemper of cattle. Gilbert White. [Prov. Eng. in both uses.]