pi-jaw
UK/ˈpaɪdʒɔː/
pi-jaw noun: lecturing or patronizing talk, especially from an adult to a child.
Noun
pi-jaw (uncountable)
- Lecturing or patronizing talk, especially from an adult to a child.
- I'll admit for the moment that you aren't giving me pi-jaw.1924 April, Ford Madox Ford, chapter II, in Some Do Not … […] (Parade’s End; 1), 2nd edition, London: Duckworth and Company […], published June 1924, →OCLC, part 1, page 45
- Adrian thought it worth while to try out his new slang. ‘I say, you fellows, here's a rum go. Old Biffo was jolly odd this morning. He gave me a lot of pi-jaw about slacking and then invited me to tea. No rotting! He did really.’1991, Stephen Fry, chapter III, in The Liar, London: William Heinemann, →ISBN, page 26
Origin of pi-jaw
From pi (“pious, sanctimonious”) + jaw.
Questions about pi-jaw
- What does pi-jaw mean?
- Pi-jaw means lecturing or patronizing talk, especially from an adult to a child.
- What part of speech is pi-jaw?
- Pi-jaw is a noun.
- How do you pronounce pi-jaw?
- Pi-jaw is pronounced /ˈpaɪdʒɔː/ (UK).
Words near pi-jaw in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: pi-jaw (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-au-pi-jaw.ogg.
Cite this entry: “pi-jaw.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/pi-jaw. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.