My new favorite websites are Shakespeare’s Words and Etymology On-line. “Pursy” did not appear in Etymology On-line, though Google provided some etymology, just on its own.
I started with Shakespeare’s Words and it said pursy is fat, pulled up – and other things in this territory. This word only appears twice in all of the canon – here and in Timon of Athens. That made me suspicious. Is this a too self-referential definition of a word? I mean if it basically means “fat,” then Shakespeare is being redundant here. “-in the fatness of these fat times?” I don’t know.
I want pursy to relate to PURSES – to convey some sense of fat money purses hanging from everyone – everyone controlled by their purses. The fatness of those kinds of times would be interesting to me. There’s something about the meaning of the sentence, too, that conveys a sense of corruption that pursy, the way I want it to be, would fit right into, likewise, for Timon of Athens, actually.
It also has a modern feeling. In these pursy times – when high end purses are a major market element. Or maybe all times are pursy.
I mean this word is not often used. It has a level of obscurity that would allow it some re-interpretation. There are plenty of words for fat…I want a word like what I think pursy should mean.
The Hamlet Project 