purlieus

Inside the Beltway humbly consults the Merriam Webster dictionary to reveal that “purlieus” — the plural form of the noun “purlieu” — means “hangout” or “stomping ground.”

“Way out here one gets that wicked city idea about New York & all those purlieus,” he writes to the dancer Nelson Barclift, from his cottage in Williamstown.

In more sensible purlieus, it might just be that pressure on Senate Republicans, who can see polling sliding against Trump and their party, pays off with actual progress.

Or a cumulative juggernaut that is operating outside the purlieus of human agency.

The pigs were driven into the purlieus of the forest, where boys beat the trees to supply them with acorns.