Notwithstanding the presence of some very rare words in our existing list, I do feel happier about adding a new word if I can find some evidence that it is, or has ever been, used.
In the case of
pearlet, usage examples seem pretty thin on the ground. The only example yielded by the full-text search feature in Project Gutenberg was in
Old French Romances, translated by William Morris. But it looks like he was using the word for a bump on the skin. In "The Tale of King Florus and the Fair Jehane",
pearlet is used twice:
When night was come Sir Robin went to bed with his wife, who received him much joyously as a good dame ought to her lord; so abode they in joy and in feast the more part of the night. On the morrow great was the feast, and the victual was dight and they ate. But when it was after dinner, Sir Raoul bore on hand Sir Robin, and said that he had won his land, whereas he had known his wife carnally, by the token, to wit, that she had a black spot on her right thigh and a pearlet hard by her jewel. “Thereof I wot not,” said Sir Robin, “for I have not looked on her so close.” “Well, then, I tell thee,” said Sir Raoul, “by the oath that thou hast given me that thou take heed thereof, and do me right.” “So will I, verily,” said Sir Robin.
When night was, Sir Robin played with his wife, and found and saw on her right thigh the black spot, and a pearlet hard by her fair jewel: and when he knew it he was sore grieving...
As Morris was aiming to give his translation a mediaeval feeling, he may have invented this usage of the word, so it's probably completely irrelevant, but I didn't want to pass up the excuse for quoting a steamy passage.
However, in Google Books, I was able to find some examples of
pearlet being used to mean a tiny pearl, including a figurative use in the following verse in an April 1840 article on "Arabian, Persian and Turkish Poetry" in
Dublin University Magazine: A Literary and Political Journal:
KAZIM! each pearlet thy poesy strews is
Cheap at a diadem's value or whose is?
Bankrupt of taste is the dunce who refuses
Verses like thine when their theme is Nourooz'iz!
(I didn't find anyone talking about casting pearlets before piglets, alas.)
So
pearlet qualifies, just.
