It just dawned on me that this word is not from Latin word for skin, e.g. prepuce, but
from pulex (flea) , from French "pou, pl. poux = flea. Pooh! I should have thought of that
sooner!

in the better late than never catagory, a comment on puce

puce is defined (in art books, i don't have a handy dictionary to check out their defination) as the color of a flea's belly. (a full belly after a meal of blood!)
color books (like the Pantone Book of Colors, based on the Pantone system of inks and dyes) gives names to all their colors and point out most are atractive imaginative and interesting. --some are history, and included inspite of the imagery, Bladder green, liver and puce. Puce is actually a not unpretty color, somewhere between brown and purple, sort of the color of a fudgesickle (a chocolate ice bar) mixed with grape..darker than a cinnamon or russet, but in the same reddish/purple family.

Tells you something about that ticklish period - the first thing that came to mind when looking at the colour was, "Oh, look - just the same colour as a flea's belly! We'll call it puce." Everyone would know what colour you were talking about. "Buy these puce sheets and you won't see another flea!"

Joke on me I thought it was the color of an untanned prepuce.

"...The lady who dyes a chemical yellow
Or stains her grey hair puce
Or pinches her figger
Is painted with vigour (I know, I know)
With permanent walnut juice..."

--in "My Object All Sublime," sung by The Mikado in Act II

wofahulicodoc's excerpt from the Mikado inspired me to look up the whole song. The lines
about the punishment of the billiard sharp had a word in it that some of us may not know:
A finger stall, also called finger cot, is a covering for just the finger, when injured, or doing
something that might injure the finger. I have often seen cashiers using them when counting
currency.

...It's such a grotesque image as to be hilarious:

"The billiard sharp whom anyone catches,
His doom's extremely hard:
He's made to dwell in a dungeon cell
In a spot that's always barred.
And there he plays extravagant matches
In fitless finger-stalls,
On a cloth untrue
With a twisted cue
And elliptical billiard balls !"

Now, all you billiard sharps, what does "barred" mean in this context? I know it on the guitar, but this is a ball of another color.

And then there are oversized finger stalls.......
A surgeon while putting on his gloves, noticed that the patient, a lady, looked a bit
apprehensive, in spite of her premedication. So he told her that before he went to
medical school, he had a job making rubber gloves by dipping his hands into liquid
latex, then dipping them into a liquid which made the latex cure into goves, over
and over again, all day long.
The patient burst out laughing. The surgeon, surprised by her thinking his joke so
funny, asked her to explain. "I was picturing you making condoms!"

I bet fiberbabe knows finger cot's-- several different style thimbles for quilters are still called finger cots. often made from leather, the are like little leather caps to protect you fingers. but i have never heard them called finger stalls. ( i am not a G & S fan, so i don't know the word to any of their tunes)

Dear of troy: Old time sail makers had a piece of tough leather that covered the base of the
palm, and was used to push strong needles through a sail. My dictionary has a second word
"palm" meaning ventral surface of hand, and as fourth definition gives a piece of leather to
protect had in sail making.

i have seen leather palms-- the kind to protect the palm of the hand. My father in law (now deceased) collected old ship making tools as a hobby. he had hand awls and sewing kits for sails. he even had an old box of oakum, as well as several old chisel like tools for packing the oakum. all the tools had a one peice, seamless leather straps, so the sailors could keep them on their wrist, and not have them fall into the water.

he had many augers, beautifully made, for fitting mortises into wood. timbers on wooden ships are large, and the augers were too!

He never 'went to sea' but always like ships and the ocean, and when (age 40) he faced being drafted in WWII, he joined the coastguard--a served as an engineer. His Coast Guard service was the only time he was at sea. (after the war he worked for Dept of Parks-- and was the "parkie"--(local name for park employees) for Flushing Meadow Park, as chief engineer in the park, he was responsible for over all park during the 1963 world fair in NY.)

He's made to dwell in a dungeon cell
In a spot that's always barred.

this may be no more than referrence to his barred cell; or perhaps he has to play his extravagant matches against a superior foe with a spot (handicap) being barred (forbidden).

-joe pool

In a spot that's always barred.

this may be no more than referrence to his barred cell...

Coming late to this spot, I believe this refers to the early days of English billiards when you could initiate high breaks by directly pocketing the red off its own spot - and at some time in the development of the game (quite likely around the time that The Mikado was written) a new rule was instituted which barred this action. I once played on an ancient table complete with mahogany score board marked something like Orme & Co Spot-barred Billiards, but of course Joe's right about the allusion to barred windows as the pun.

~ Billy Hardball

Actually, ot, I hadn't heard either term until now! But I'll carry the knowledge with me always, if only thimbolically.