an
to be presented to the Vice-Chancellor is read out, a proctor
walks once up and down, to give any person who can object to the
degree an opportunity of signifying his dissent, which is done by
plucking or pulling the proctor's gown. Hence another and more
common mode of stopping a degree, by refusing the testamur, or
certificate of proficiency, is also called plucking."--p. 203.

On the same word, the author in another place remarks as follows:
"As long back as my memory will carry me, down to the present day,
there has been scarcely a monosyllable in our language which
seemed to convey so stinging a reproach, or to let a man down in
the general estimation half as much, as this one word PLUCK."--p.
288.

PLUCKED. A cant term at the English universities, applied to those
who, for want of scholarship, are refused their testimonials for a
degree.--_Oxford Guide_.

Who had at length scrambled through the pales and discipline of
the Senate-House without being _plucked_, and miraculously
obtained the title of A.B.--_Gent. Mag._, 1795, p. 19.

O what a misery is it to be _plucked_! Not long since, an
undergraduate was driven mad by it, and committed suicide.--The
term itself is contemptible: it is associated with the meanest,
the most stupid and spiritless animals of creation. When we hear
of a man being _plucked_, we think he is necessarily a
goose.--_Collegian's Guide_, p. 288.

Poor Lentulus, twice _plucked_, some happy day
Just shuffles through, and dubs himself B.A.
_The College_, in _Blackwood's Mag._, May, 1849.

POKER. At Oxford, Eng., a cant name for a _bedel_.

If the visitor see an unusual "state" walking about, in shape of
an individual preceded by a quantity of _pokers_, or, which is the
same thing, men, that is bedels, carrying maces, jocularly called
_pokers_, he may be sure that that individual is the
Vice-Chancellor. _Oxford Guide_, 1847, p. xii.

POLE. At Princeton and Union Colleges, to study hard, e.g. to
_pole_ out the lesson. To _pole_ on a composition, to take pains
with it.

POLER. One who studies hard; a close student. As a boat is
impelled with _poles_, so is the student by _poling_, and it is
perhaps from this analogy that the word _poler_ is applied to a
diligent student.

POLING. Close application to study; diligent attention to the
specified pursuits of college.

A writer defines poling, "wasting the midnight oil in company with
a wine-bottle, box of cigars,