Slang

A characteristic language of a particular group (as among thieves); informal language consisting of words and expressions that are not considered appropriate for formal occasions; often vituperative or vulgar; abuse with coarse language; use slang or vulgar language; fool or hoax.

Dictionary of slang terms

• Alybbeg - a bedde.
• American Tweezers - an instrument used by an hotel-sneak which nips the wards end of a key, and enables him to open a door from the opposite side to that on which it has been locked.
• Andrew Millar - a ship of war.—Sea.
• Andrews’ (George) Dictionary of the Slang and Cant Languages, Ancient and Modern, 12mo.London, 1809.
• Anointed - i.e., eminent; used to express great rascality in any one; “an anointed scoundrel,” king among scoundrels.—Irish.
• Anointing - a good beating. A case for the application of salve.
• Antiscriptural - oaths, foul language. Anything unfit for ordinary society conversation.
• Any racket - a penny faggot.
• Apartments to Let - a term used in reference to one who has a somewhat empty head. As, “He’s got apartments to let.”
• Apostle’s Grove - the London district known as St. John’s Wood. Also called grove of the evangelist.
• Apple-Cart - the human structure, so far as the phrases with which it is connected are concerned. As “I’ll upset your apple-cart,” “down with his apple-cart.”
• Apple-pie Order - in exact or very nice order.
• Apples and pears - stairs.
• Area Sneak - a thief who commits depredations upon kitchens and cellars.
• Argol-bargol - to bandy words.—Scotch.
• Artful dodger - a lodger.
• Article - derisive term for a weak or insignificant specimen of humanity.
• Ash’s (John, LL.D.) New and Complete Dictionary of the English Language, 2 vols. 8vo.1775.
• Askew - a cuppe.
• Atomy - a diminutive or deformed person. From anatomy, or atom.
• Attack - to carve, or commence operations; “attack that beef, and oblige!”
• Attic Salt - wit, humour, pleasantry. Partly a reference to a suggestive portion of Grecian literature, and partly a sly hit at the well-known poverty of many writers.
• Attic - the head; “queer in the attic,” intoxicated or weak-minded. Sometimes attic is varied by “upper story.”
• Auctioneer - to “tip him the auctioneer,” is to knock a man down. Tom Sayers’s right hand was known to pugilistic fame as the auctioneer.
• Audit Ale - extra strong ale supposed to be drunk when the accounts are audited.—Camb. Univ.
• Auld-Reekie - an affectionate term for the old town of Edinburgh. Derived from its dingy appearance.
• Autem mortes - married women as chaste as a cowe.
• Autem - a churche.
• Avast - a sailor’s phrase for stop, shut up, go away,—apparently connected with the old Cant, bynge a waste; or from the Italian, basta, hold! enough.
• Ax - to ask. Sometimes pronounced arks.
• B Flats - bugs.—Compare f sharps.
• B. K. S. Military officers in mufti, when out on a spree, and not wishing their profession to be known, speak of their barracks as the b. k. s.
• Baby’s pap - a cap.
• Back Jump - a back window.—Prison term.
• Back Out - to retreat from a difficulty; reverse of go ahead. Metaphor borrowed from the stables.
• Back Slang It - to go out the back way. Equivalent to “Sling your hook out of the back-door,” i.e., get away quickly.
• Back - to support by means of money, on the turf or otherwise.—See lay.
• Back - “to get one’s back up,” to annoy or enrage. Probably from the action of a cat when preparing to give battle to an enemy.
• Backer - one who places his money on a particular man or animal; a supporter of one side in a contest. The great body of betting men is divided into bookmakers and backers.
• Backslums - the byeways and disreputable portions of a town.
• Bacon - the body, “to save one’s bacon,” to escape.
• Bad Egg - a scoundrel or rascal.
• Bad Lot - a term derived from auctioneering slang, and now generally used to describe a man or woman of indifferent morals.
• Bad Words - words not always bad of themselves but unpleasant to “ears polite,” from their vulgar associations.
• Bad - hard, difficult. Word in use among sporting men who say, “He will be bad to beat,” when they mean that the man or horse to whom they refer will about win.
• Bad - “to go to the bad,” to deteriorate in character, to be ruined. Virgil has an almost similar phrase, in pejus ruere, which means, by the way, to go to the worse.
• Badger - to tease, to annoy by “chaffing.” Suggestive of drawing a badger.
• Baffaty - calico. Term used in the drapery trade.
• Bag - to seize or steal, equivalent to “collar.”
• Bagman - a commercial traveller. This word is used more in reference to the old style of commercial travellers than to the present.
• Bailey’s (Nath.) Etymological English Dictionary, 2 vols. 8vo.1737.
• Baked - seasoned, “he’s only half-baked,” i.e., soft, inexperienced.
• Bald-Faced Stag - a term of derision applied to a person with a bald head. Also, still more coarsely, “bladder-of-lard.”
• Bale up - an Australian term equivalent to our “Shell out.” A demand for instantaneous payment.
• Ballast - money. A rich man is said to be well-ballasted. If not proud and over-bearing he is said to carry his ballast well.
• Balmy - sleep; “have a dose of the balmy.”
• Balmy - weak-minded or idiotic (not insane).
• Banded - hungry. From the habit hungry folks have of tying themselves tight round the middle.
• Bandy - or cripple, a sixpence, so called from this coin being generally bent or crooked; old term for flimsy or bad cloth, temp. Q. Elizabeth.
• Bang-up - first-rate, in the best possible style.
• Bang - to excel or surpass; banging, great or thumping.
• Bank - the total amount possessed by any one, “How’s the bank?” “Not very strong; about one and a buck.”
• Bank - to put in a place of safety. “Bank the rag,” i.e., secure the note. Also “to bank” is to go shares.
• Barber’s Cat - a half-starved sickly-looking person. Term used in connexion with an expression too coarse to print.
• Barker - a man employed to cry at the doors of “gaffs,” shows, and puffing shops, to entice people inside. Among touting photographers he is called a doorsman.
• Barking-Iron - or barker, a pistol. Term used by footpads and thieves generally.
• Barn Stormers - theatrical performers who travel the country and act in barns, selecting short and tragic pieces to suit the rustic taste.
• Barnet fair - hair.
• Barney - an unfair race of any kind: a sell or cross. Also a lark, jollification, or outing. The word barney is sometimes applied to a swindle unconnected with the sporting world.
• Bartlett’s Dictionary of Americanisms; a Glossary of Words and Phrases colloquially used in the United States, 8vo.New York, 1859.
• Baste - to beat, properly to pour gravy on roasting meat to keep it from burning, and add to its flavour. Also a sewing term.
• Bat - pace at walking or running. As, “He went off at a good bat.”
• Bat - to take an innings at cricket. To “carry out one’s bat” is to be last in, i.e., to be “not out.” A man’s individual score is said to be made “off his own bat.”
• Bat - “on his own bat,” on his own account. Evident modification of the cricket term, “off his own bat,” though not connected therewith.—See hook.
• Bats - a pair of bad boots.
• Battells - the weekly bills at Oxford. Probably originally wooden tallies, and so a diminutive of bâton.—University.
• Batter - wear and tear; “can’t stand the batter,” i.e., not equal to the task; “on the batter,” “on the streets,” “on the town,” or given up to roystering and debauchery.
• Battle of the Nile - a tile—vulgar term for a hat. “Cool his battle, Bill.”
• Batty-Fang - to beat; batty-fanging, a beating; also batter-fang. Used metaphorically as early as 1630.
• Batty - wages, perquisites. Derived from batta, an extra pay given to soldiers while serving in India.
• Baudye baskets bee women who goe with baskets and capcases on their armes, wherein they have laces, pinnes, nedles, whyte inkel, and round sylke gyrdels of all colours.
• Be-Blowed - a derisive instruction never carried into effect, as, “You be-blowed.” Used similarly to the old “Go to.” See blow me.
• Be-argered - drunk. (The word is divided here simply to convey the pronunciation.)
• Beach-Comber - a fellow who prowls about the sea-shore to plunder wrecks, and pick up waifs and strays of any kind.—Sea.
• Beaker-Hunter - or beak-hunter, a stealer of poultry.
• Beans - money; “a haddock of beans,” a purse of money; formerly, bean meant a guinea; French, biens, property.
• Bear-Leader - a tutor in a private family. In the old days of the “grand tour” the term was much more in use and of course more significant than it is now.
• Bear-up and Bearer-up .—See bonnet.
• Beat - or beat-hollow, to surpass or excel; also “beat into fits,” and “beat badly.”
• Beat - the allotted range traversed by a policeman on duty.
• Beat - “dead-beat,” wholly worn out, done up.
• Beater-Cases - boots. Nearly obsolete. Trotter cases is the term nowadays.
• Beaumont and Fletcher’s Comedy of The Beggar’s Bush, 4to, 1661.
• Beaver - old street term for a hat; goss is the modern word, beaver, except in the country, having fallen into disuse.
• Bebee - a lady.—Anglo-Indian.
• Beck [Beak, a magistrate], a constable.
• Bed-Fagot - a contemptuous term for a woman; generally applied to a prostitute.—See fagot.
• Beef-Headed - stupid, fat-headed, dull.
• Beeline - the straightest possible line of route to a given point. When a bee is well laden, it makes a straight flight for home. Originally an Americanism, but now general.
• Beery - intoxicated, or fuddled with beer.
• Beeswax - poor, soft cheese. Sometimes called “sweaty-toe cheese.”
• Beetle-Crusher - or squasher, a large flat foot. The expression was made popular by being once used by Leech.
• Beetle-Sticker - an entomologist.
• Beggars’ Velvet - downy particles which accumulate under furniture from the negligence of housemaids. Otherwise called sluts’-wool.
• Belcher - a blue bird’s-eye handkerchief.—See billy.
• Bell - a song. Tramps’ term. Simply diminutive of bellow.
• Bellows to Mend - a person out of breath; especially a pugilist is said to be “bellows to mend” when winded. With the P.R., the word has fallen into desuetude.
• Bellows - the lungs. Bellowser, a blow in the “wind,” or pit of the stomach, taking one’s breath away.
• Bellowsed - or lagged, transported.
• Belly-Timber - food, or “grub.”
• Belly-Vengeance - small sour beer, apt to cause gastralgia.
• Belly-chete - apron.
• Bemuse - to fuddle one’s self with drink, “bemusing himself with beer,” &c.
• Ben Cull - a friend, or “pal.” Expression used by thieves.
• Ben Joltram - brown bread and skimmed milk; a Norfolk term for a ploughboy’s breakfast.
• Ben flake - a steak.
• Ben - a benefit.—Theatrical.
• Bend - “that’s above my bend,” i.e., beyond my power, too expensive or too difficult for me to perform.
• Bender - the arm; “over the bender,” synonymous with “over the left.”—See over.
• Bene - good. Benar, better.
• Bene - good.—Ancient Cant; benar was the comparative.—See bone. Latin.
• Benedick - a married man. Shakspeare.
• Benjamin - coat. Formerly termed a joseph, in allusion, perhaps, to Joseph’s coat of many colours.—See upper-benjamin.
• Benjy - a waistcoat, diminutive of benjamin.
• Benship - very good.
• Beong - a shilling.—See saltee.—Lingua Franca.
• Bess-o’-Bedlam - a lunatic vagrant.—Norfolk.
• Better - more; “how far is it to town?” “Oh, better ’n a mile.”—Saxon and Old English, now a vulgarism.
• Betting Round - laying fairly and equally against nearly all the horses in a race so that no great risk can be run. Commonly called getting round. See book, and bookmaking.
• Betty - a skeleton key, or picklock.—Old Prison Cant.
• Bible-Carrier - a person who sells songs without singing them.—Seven Dials.
• Big House - or large house, the workhouse,—a phrase used by the very poor.
• Big-Bird - to get the, i.e., to be hissed, as actors occasionally are by the “gods.” Big-bird is simply a metaphor for goose.—Theat. Slang.
• Big-wig - a person in authority or office. Exchangeable with “great gun.”
• Big - “to look big,” to assume an inflated air or manner; “to talk big,” i.e., boastingly.
• Bilbo - a sword; abbrev. of “bilbao blade.” Spanish swords were anciently very celebrated, especially those of Toledo, Bilbao, &c.
• Bilk - a cheat, or a swindler. Formerly in general use, now confined to the streets, where it is common, and mostly used in reference to prostitutes. Gothic, bilaican.
• Bilk - to defraud, or obtain goods, &c., without paying for them; “to bilk the schoolmaster,” to get information or experience without paying for it.
• Billingsgate Pheasant - a red herring or bloater. This is also called a “two-eyed steak.”
• Billy Button - mutton.
• Billy-Cock - a soft felt hat of the Jim Crow or “wide-awake” description.
• Billy - a policeman’s staff. Also stolen metal of any kind. Billy-hunting is buying old metal. A Billy-fencer is a marine-store dealer.
• Billy - a silk pocket-handkerchief.—Scotch.—See wipe.
• Bingo - brandy.—Old Cant.
• Bingy - a term largely used in the butter trade to denote bad, ropy butter; nearly equivalent to vinnied.
• Birch-broom - a room.
• Bird-Cage - a four-wheeled cab.
• Bird-lime - time.
• Birk - a “crib,”—a house.
• Birthday Suit - the suit in which Adam and Eve first saw each other, and “were not ashamed.”
• Bishop - a warm drink composed of materials similar to those used in the manufacture of “flip” and “purl.”
• Bit-Faker - or turner out, a coiner of bad money.
• Bit-of-Stuff - overdressed man; a man with full confidence in his appearance and abilities; a young woman, who is also called a bit of muslin.
• Bitch - tea; “a bitch party,” a tea-drinking. Probably because undergraduates consider tea only fit for old women.—Oxford.
• Bitter - diminutive of bitter beer; “to do a bitter,” to drink beer.—Originally Oxford, but now general.
• Bivvy - or gatter, beer; “shant of bivvy,” a pot or quart of beer. In Suffolk the afternoon refreshment of reapers is called bever. It is also an old English term.
• Biz - contraction of the word business; a phrase much used in America in writing as well as in conversation.
• Black Diamonds - coals; talented persons of dingy or unpolished exterior; rough jewels.
• Black Maria - the sombre van in which prisoners are conveyed from the police court to prison.
• Black Monday - the Monday on which boys return to school after the holidays. Also a low term for the Monday on which an execution took place.
• Black Sheep - a “bad lot,” “mauvais sujet;” sometimes “scabby sheep;” also a workman who refuses to join in a strike.
• Black Strap - port wine; especially that which is thick and sweet.
• Black-a-vised - having a very dark complexion.
• Blackberry-Swagger - a person who hawks tapes, boot-laces, &c.
• Blackbirding - slave-catching. Term most applied nowadays to the Polynesian coolie traffic.
• Blackguard - a low or dirty fellow; a rough or a hulking fellow, capable of any meanness or cowardice.
• Blackguardiana; or, Dictionary of Rogues, Bawds, &c., 8vo, with portraits [by James Caulfield].1795.
• Blackwork - undertaking. The waiters met at public dinners are often employed during the day as mutes, etc. Omnibus and cab drivers regard blackwork as a dernier ressort.
• Bladder-of-Lard - a coarse, satirical nickname for a bald-headed person. From similarity of appearance.
• Blade - a man—in ancient times the term for a soldier; “knowing blade,” a wide-awake, sharp, or cunning man.
• Blast - to curse. Originally a Military expression.
• Blaze - to leave trace purposely of one’s way in a forest or unknown path by marking trees or other objects.
• Bleed - to victimize, or extract money from a person, to sponge on, to make suffer vindictively.
• Blest - a vow; “blest if I’ll do it,” i.e., I am determined not to do it; euphemism for curst.
• Blether - to bother, to annoy, to pester. “A blethering old nuisance” is a common expression for a garrulous old person.
• Bleting chete - a calfe or sheepe.
• Blew - or blow, to inform, or peach, to lose or spend money.
• Blewed - got rid of, disposed of, spent.
• Blind-Half-Hundred - the Fiftieth Regiment of Foot; so called through their great sufferings from ophthalmia when serving in Egypt.
• Blind-Hookey - a game at cards which has no recommendation beyond the rapidity with which money can be won and lost at it; called also wilful murder.
• Blind-Man’s-Holiday - night, darkness. Sometimes applied to the period “between the lights.”
• Blind - a pretence, or make-believe.
• Blink-Fencer - a person who sells spectacles.
• Blinker - a blackened eye.—Norwich. Also a hard blow in the eye. blinkers, spectacles.
• Bloater. —See mild.
• Block - the head. “To block a hat,” is to knock a man’s hat down over his eyes.—See bonnet. Also a street obstruction.
• Bloke - a man; “the bloke with the jasey,” the man with the wig, i.e., the Judge. Gipsy and Hindoo, loke. North, bloacher, any large animal.
• Blood-Red Fancy - a particular kind of handkerchief sometimes worn by pugilists and frequenters of prize fights.—See billy and colour.
• Blood-money - the money that used to be paid to any one who by information or evidence led to a conviction for a capital offence. Nowadays applied to all sums received by informers.
• Blood - a fast or high-mettled man. Nearly obsolete, but much used in George the Fourth’s time.
• Bloody Jemmy - an uncooked sheep’s head.—See sanguinary james. Also mountain pecker.
• Bloody - an expletive used, without reference to meaning, as an adjective and an adverb, simply for intensification.
• Blow Out - or tuck in, a feast. Sometimes the expression is, “blow out your bags.” A blow out is often called a tightener.
• Blow Up - to make a noise, or scold; formerly a cant expression used among thieves, now a recognised and respectable phrase. Blowing up, a jobation, a scolding.
• Blow a Cloud - to smoke a cigar or pipe—a phrase used two centuries ago. Most likely in use as long as tobacco here—an almost evident conclusion.
• Blow - to expose, or inform; “blow the gaff,” to inform against a person.
• Blower - a girl; a contemptuous name in opposition to jomer.—Gipsy.
• Blowsey - a word applied to a rough wench, or coarse woman.
• Bludger - a low thief, who does not hesitate to use violence, literally one who will use a bludgeon.
• Blue Billy - the handkerchief (blue ground with white spots) sometimes worn and used as a colour at prize-fights. Also, the refuse ammoniacal lime from gas factories.
• Blue Blanket - a rough overcoat made of coarse pilot cloth.
• Blue Butter - mercurial ointment used for the destruction of parasites.
• Blue Devils - the apparitions supposed to be seen by habitual drunkards. Form of del. trem.
• Blue Moon - an unlimited period. “Once in a blue moon.”
• Blue Ruin - gin.
• Blue - a policeman; otherwise blue bottle. From the colour of his uniform.
• Blue - confounded or surprised; “to look blue,” to look astonished, annoyed, or disappointed.
• Blue - or blew, to pawn or pledge. Actually to get rid of.
• Blued - or blewed, tipsy, or drunk. Now given way to slewed.
• Blues - a fit of despondency.—See blue devils.
• Blues - the police. Sometimes called the Royal Regiment of Foot-guards blue.
• Bluey - lead.—German, blei. Most likely, though, from the colour, as the term is of the very lowest slang.
• Bluff - an excuse; also the game at cards known as euchre in America.
• Bluff - to turn aside, stop, or excuse.
• Blurt Out - to speak from impulse, and without reflection, to let out suddenly.—Shakspeare.
• Board-of-Green-Cloth - a facetious synonym for a card or billiard table.
• Bob, my pal - a gal,—vulgar pronunciation of girl.
• Bob - a shilling. Formerly bobstick, which may have been the original. Bob-a-nob, a shilling a-head.
• Bobbery - a squabble, tumult.—Anglo-Indian.
• Bobbish - very well, clever, spruce. “How are you doing?” “Oh! pretty bobbish.”—Old.
• Bogus - an American term for anything pretending to be that which it is not—such as bogus degrees, bogus titles, &c.
• Boko - the nose. Originally pugilistic slang, but now general.
• Bolt - to run away, decamp, or abscond. Also to swallow without chewing. To eat greedily.
• Bolus - an apothecary. Origin evident.
• Bone-Picker - a footman.
• Bone - good, excellent. , the vagabonds’ hieroglyphic for bone, or good, chalked by them on houses and street corners as a hint to succeeding beggars.—French, bon.
• Bone - to steal or appropriate what does not belong to you. Boned, seized, apprehended.—Old.
• Bones - to rattle the bones, to play at dice: also called St. Hugh’s bones.
• Bones - “he made no bones of it,” he did not hesitate, i.e., undertook and finished the work without difficulty, “found no bones in the jelly.”—Ancient, vide Cotgrave.
• Boniface - landlord of a tavern or inn.
• Bonnet - to strike a man’s cap or hat over his eyes. Also to “bear-up” for another.
• Bonnets so blue - Irish stew.
• Booget - a travelling tinker’s baskete.
• Book of Vagabonds. See under Liber Vagatorum.
• Booked - caught, fixed, disposed of.—Term in Book-keeping.
• Bookmaker’s Pocket - a breast-pocket made inside the waistcoat, for notes of large amount.
• Books - a pack of cards. Term used by professional card-players.—See devil’s books.
• Boom - “to top one’s boom off,” to be off or start in a certain direction.—Sea.
• Boon-Companion - a comrade in a drinking bout. Boon evidently corruption of bon.
• Booze - drink. Ancient Cant, bowse. Booze, or suck-casa, a public-house.
• Boozing-Ken - a beer-shop, a low public-house.—Ancient.
• Boozy - intoxicated or fuddled.
• Borde - a shilling.
• Bos-Ken - a farmhouse. Ancient.—See ken.
• Bosh-Faker - a violin player. Term principally used by itinerants.
• Bosh - a fiddle. This is a Gipsy term, and so the exclamations “Bosh!” and “Fiddle-de-dee!” may have some remote connexion.
• Bosky - inebriated. Not much in use now.
• Boss-Eyed - said of a person with one eye, or rather with one eye injured, a person with an obliquity of vision. In this sense sometimes varied by the term “swivel-eyed.”
• Bostruchyzer - a small kind of comb for curling the whiskers.—Oxford University.
• Botany Bay - Worcester Coll. Oxon., so called from its remote situation.
• Bother - trouble or annoyance. Any one oppressed with business cares is said to be bothered. “Don’t bother,” is a common expression. Blother, an old word, signifying to chatter idly.
• Botheration! trouble, annoyance; “botheration to it!” “confound it!” or “deuce take it!”—an exclamation when irritated.
• Bottle of spruce - a deuce,—slang for twopence.
• Bottom - spirit placed in a glass before aërated water is poured in. As, “a soda and a bottom of brandy,” “soda and dark bottom,” is American for soda and brown brandy.
• Botts - the colic or bellyache.—Stable Slang. Burns uses it. See Death and Dr. Hornbook.
• Botty - conceited, swaggering.—Stable. An infant’s posteriors.—Nursery.
• Bounce - impudence, cheek. A showy swindler, a bully.
• Bounce - to boast, cheat, or bully.—Old Cant. Also to lie.
• Bounceable - prone to bouncing or boasting.
• Bouncer - a person who steals whilst bargaining with a tradesman, a swindler, or a lie of more than ordinary dimensions.
• Bounder - a four-wheeled cab. Because of its jumping motion over the stones. Also a University term for a trap, which generally has a very rough time of it on the country roads.
• Boung - a purse. [Friesic, pong; Wallachian, punga.] The oldest form of this word is in Ulphilas, puggs; it exists also in the Greek, πουγγὴ.
• Bowl Out - to put out of the game, to remove out of one’s way, to detect.—Originally a Cricketing term, but now general.
• Bowl the hoop - soup.
• Bowlas - round tarts made of sugar, apple, and bread, sold in the streets, especially at the East-end of London.
• Bowles - shoes.
• Bowse - drink.
• Bowsing ken - an alehouse.
• Box the Compass - to repeat the thirty-two points of the compass either in succession or irregularly. The method used at sea to teach boys the points of the mariner’s compass.—Sea.
• Box-Harry - a term with bagmen or commercial travellers, implying dinner and tea at one meal; also dining with “Duke Humphrey,” i.e., going without—which see.
• Boxiana; or, Sketches of Modern Pugilism, by Pierce Egan (an account of the prize-ring), 3 vols. 8vo.1820.
• Brace up - to pawn stolen goods.
• Bracelets - handcuffs.
• Brads - money. Properly a small kind of nails used by cobblers.—Compare horse nails.
• Brain-Pan - the skull, and brain-canister, the head. Both pugilistic and exchangeable terms.
• Bramble-Gelder - a derisive appellation for an agriculturist.—Suffolk.
• Bran-New - quite new. Properly Brent, brand or Fire new, i.e., fresh from the anvil, or fresh with the manufacturer’s brand upon it.
• Brandy Pawnee - brandy and water.—Anglo-Indian.
• Brandy Smash - one of the 365 American drinks, made of brandy and crushed ice.
• Brass-Knocker - broken victuals. Used by tramps and cadgers.
• Brass - money. “Tin” is also used, and so are most forms of metal.
• Brat - a child of either sex. Generally used in an offensive sense.
• Brazen-Faced - impudent, shameless. From brass. Such a person is sometimes said “to have rubbed his face with a brass candlestick.”
• Brazil - a hard red wood; “hard as Brazil,” a common expression. Quarles in his Emblems says—
• Bread-Bags - a nickname given in the army and navy to any one connected with the victualling department, as a purser or purveyor in the Commissariat.
• Break One’s Back - a figurative expression, implying bankruptcy, or the crippling of a person’s means.
• Break Shins - to borrow money. Probably from an older slang phrase, “kick,” to ask for drink-money.
• Break Up - the conclusion of a performance of any kind—originally a school term.
• Break the Ice - to make a commencement, to plunge in medias res.
• Break-Down - a noisy dance, almost violent enough to break the floor down; a jovial, social gathering, a “flare up;” in Ireland, a wedding—American so far as the dance is concerned.
• Breeched - or to have the bags off, to have plenty of money; “to be well breeched,” to be in good circumstances. Also among schoolboys to be well flogged.
• Breeches - “to wear the breeches,” said of a wife who usurps the husband’s prerogative. Equivalent to the remark that “the grey mare is the better horse.”
• Breeching - a flogging. Term in use among boys at several private schools.
• Breef - probably identical with brief, a shortened card used for cheating purposes; thus described in an old book of games of about 1720—
• Breeks - breeches.—Scotch, now common.
• Brian o’Linn - gin.
• Brief - a pawnbroker’s duplicate; a raffle card, or a ticket of any kind.
• Brim - a violent irascible woman, as inflammable and unpleasant as brimstone, from which the word is contracted.
• Brisket-Beater - a Roman Catholic.
• Broad and Shallow - an epithet applied to the so-called “Broad Church,” in contradistinction to the “High” and “Low” Churches. See high and dry.
• Broad-Brim - originally applied to a Quaker only, but now used in reference to all quiet, sedate, respectable old men.
• Broad-Cooper - a person employed by brewers to negotiate with publicans.
• Broad-Faking - playing at cards. Generally used to denote “work” of the three-card and kindred descriptions.
• Broad-Fencer - a “k’rect card” seller at races.
• Broads - cards. Broadsman, a card-sharper. See Broad-faking.
• Broadway Swell - a New York term for a great dandy, Broadway being the principal promenade in the “Empire City.”
• Brolly - an umbrella. Term used at both Oxford and Cambridge Universities.
• Brome’s (Rich.) Joviall Crew; or, The Merry Beggars. Presented in a Comedie at the Cockpit, in Drury Lane, in the Year (4to)1652.
• Brosier - a bankrupt.—Cheshire. Brosier-my-dame, school term, implying a clearing of the housekeeper’s larder of provisions, in revenge for stinginess.—Eton.
• Broth of a Boy - an Irish term for a jolly good fellow.
• Brother-Smut - a term of familiarity. “Ditto, brother smut,” tu quoque.
• Brown Bess - yes—the affirmative.
• Brown Joe - no—the negative.
• Brown Talk - conversation of an exceedingly proper character, Quakerish. Compare blue.
• Brown to - to understand, to comprehend.
• Brown-papermen - low gamblers.
• Brown - a halfpenny.—See blunt.
• Brown - “to do brown,” to do well or completely, “doing it brown,” prolonging the frolic, or exceeding sober bounds; “done brown,” taken in, deceived, or surprised.
• Brown’s (Rev. Hugh Stowell) Lecture on Manliness, 12mo.1857.
• Bruiser - a fighting man, a pugilist. Shakspeare uses the word bruising in a similar sense.
• Brum - a counterfeit coin. Nearly obsolete. Corruption of Brummagem, for meaning of which see Introductory Chapter.
• Brush - a fox’s tail, a house-painter. Also a scrimmage.
• Brush - or brush-off, to run away, or move on quickly.—Old Cant.
• Brydges’ (Sir Egerton) British Bibliographer, 4 vols. 8vo.1810-14.
• Bub - a teat, woman’s breast, plural bubbies; no doubt from bibe. See ante.
• Bub - drink of any kind.—See grub. Middleton, the dramatist, mentions bubber, a great drinker.
• Bubble-Company - a swindling association.
• Bubble - to over-reach, deceive, to tempt by means of false promises.—Old. (Acta Regia, ii. 248, 1726.)
• Buck - a gay or smart man; an unlicensed cabman; also a large marble used by schoolboys.
• Buckle-Beggar - a couple-beggar, which see.
• Buckle-to - to bend to one’s work, to begin at once, and with great energy—from buckling-to one’s armour before a combat, or fastening on a bundle.
• Buckled - to be married. Also to be taken in custody. Both uses of the word common and exchangeable among the London lower classes.
• Budge - to move, to “make tracks.”
• Bufe [Buffer, a man], a dogge.
• Buff - the bare skin; “stripped to the buff.”
• Buff - to swear to, or accuse; generally used in reference to a wrongful accusation, as, “Oh, buff it on to him.” Old word for boasting, 1582.
• Buffer - a navy term for a boatswain’s mate, one of whose duties it is—or was—to administer the “cat.”
• Buffer - a woman employed in a Sheffield warehouse to give the final polish to goods previously to their being plated.
• Buffle-Head - a stupid or obtuse person.—Miege. German, buffelhaupt, buffalo-headed. Occurs in Plautus’ Comedies made English, 1694.
• Buffs - the Third Regiment of Foot in the British army. From their facings.
• Buffy - intoxicated.
• Bug-Hunter - a low wretch who plunders drunken men.
• Bug-Walk - a coarse term for a bed.
• Buggy - a gig, or light chaise. Common term in America and in India, as well as in England.
• Build - applied in fashionable slang to the make or style of dress, &c. “It’s a tidy build, who made it?” A tailor is sometimes called a “trousers’ builder.”
• Bulger - large; synonymous with buster.
• Bulky - a constable.—North.
• Bull and cow - a row.
• Bull - a crown-piece, formerly bull’s eye. See work.
• Bulldogs - the runners who accompany the proctor in his perambulations, and give chase to runaways.—University.
• Bullock’s horn - in pawn.
• Bullyrag - to abuse or scold vehemently; to swindle one out of money by intimidation and sheer abuse.
• Bulwer’s (Sir Edward Lytton) Paul Clifford.v. d.
• Bulwer’s (Sir Edward Lytton) Pelham.v. d.
• Bum - the part on which we sit.—Shakspeare. bumbags, trousers; Gael. bun, a base or bottom; Welsh, bon, the lowest or worst part of anything.
• Bumble - a beadle. Adopted from Dickens’s character in Oliver Twist. This and “bumbledom” are now common.
• Bumble - to muffle. Bumble-footed, club-footed, or awkward in the gait.
• Bumbles - coverings for the eyes of horses that shy in harness.
• Bumbrusher - an usher at a school.
• Bumclink - in the Midland counties the inferior beer brewed for haymakers and harvest labourers. Derivation obvious.
• Bumptious - arrogant, self-sufficient. One on very good terms with himself is said to be bumptious.
• Bunch-of-Fives - the hand, or fist.
• Bundle - “to bundle a person off,” i.e., to pack him off, send him flying.
• Bung - the landlord of a public-house. Much in use among sporting men.
• Bunk - to decamp. “Bunk it!” i.e., be off.
• Bunker - beer.
• Bunkum - an American importation, denoting false sentiments in speaking, pretended enthusiasm, &c. The expression arose from a speech made by a North Carolina senator named Buncombe.
• Bunter - a prostitute, a street-walking female thief.
• Burerk - a lady, a showily-dressed woman.
• Burra - great; as burra saib, a great man; burra khanaii, a great dinner.—Anglo-Indian.
• Bury a Moll - to run away from a mistress.
• Bus - business (of which it is a contraction) or action on the stage, so written, but pronounced biz.—Theatrical. See biz.
• Bushy-park - a lark.
• Business - the action which accompanies dialogue. “His business was good.” Generally applied to byplay.—Theatrical.
• Busker - a man who sings or performs in a public-house; an itinerant.
• Bust - or burst, to tell tales, to split, to inform. Busting, informing against accomplices when in custody.
• Buster - an extra size; “what a buster,” i.e., what a large one; “in for a buster,” determined on an extensive frolic or spree. Scotch, bustuous; Icelandic, bostra.
• Bustle - money; “to draw the bustle.”
• Busy-Sack - a carpet-bag.
• Butcha - a Hindoo word in use among Englishmen for the young of any animal. In England we ask after the children; in India the health of the butchas is tenderly inquired for.
• Butler’s Hudibras - with Dr. Grey’s Annotations, 3 vols. 8vo.1819.
• Butter flap - a trap, a light cart.
• Butter-Fingered - apt to let things fall; greasy or slippery-fingered.
• Buttoner - a man who entices another to play.
• Buttons - a page,—from the rows of gilt buttons which adorn his jacket.
• Buz-man - an informer; from buz, to whisper, but more generally a thief.
• Buz - to pick pockets; buzzing or buz-faking, robbing.
• Buz - to share equally the last of a bottle of wine, when there is not enough for a full glass to each of the party.
• Buzzer - a pickpocket. Grose gives buz-cove and, as above mentioned, buz-gloak.
• By Jingo - an oath or exclamation having no particular meaning, and no positive etymology, though it is believed by some that jingo is derived from the Basque jenco, the devil.
• Byblow - an illegitimate child.
• Bynge a waste [Avast, get out of the way] go you hence.
• Ca-sa - a writ of capias ad satisfaciendam.—Legal slang.
• Cab - to stick together, to muck, or tumble up—Devonshire.
• Cabbage-Head - a soft-headed person.
• Cabbage - pieces of cloth said to be purloined by tailors. Any small profits in the way of material.
• Cabby - popular name for the driver of a cab. This title has almost supplanted the more ancient one of jarvey.
• Caboose - the galley or cook-house of a ship; a term used by tramps to indicate a kitchen.
• Cackle-Tub - a pulpit.
• Cackling chete - a coke [cock], or capon.
• Cackling-Cove - an actor. Also called a mummery-cove.—Theatrical.
• Cadge - to beg in an artful, wheedling manner.—North. In Scotland to cadge is to wander, to go astray. See under codger.
• Cadging - begging, generally with an eye to pilfering when an opportunity occurs. To be “on the cadge” is almost synonymous with “on the make.”
• Cag - to irritate, affront, anger. Schoolboy slang.
• Cage - a minor kind of prison. A country lock-up which contained no offices.
• Cain and Abel - a table.
• Cake - a “flat;” a soft or doughy person, a fool.
• Cakey-Pannum-Fencer - or pannum-fencer, a man who sells street pastry.
• Calaboose - a prison.—Sea slang, from the Spanish.
• Caleb Quotem - a parish clerk; a jack of all trades. From a character in The Wags of Windsor.
• California - or Californians, money. Term generally applied to gold only. Derivation very obvious.
• Call - a notice of rehearsal, or any other occasion requiring the company’s presence, posted up in a theatre. “We’re called for eleven to-morrow morning.”
• Cambridge. Gradus ad Cantabrigiam; or, a Dictionary of Terms, Academical and Colloquial, or Cant, which are used at the University, with Illustrations, 12mo.Camb., 1803.
• Camden-town - a brown,—vulgar term for a halfpenny.
• Cameronians - The, the Twenty-sixth Regiment of Foot in the British Army.
• Camister - a preacher, clergyman, or master.
• Canary - a sovereign. From the colour. Very old slang indeed.
• Canister-Cap - a hat.
• Canister - the head.—Pugilistic.
• Cannikin - a small can, similar to pannikin. “And let the Cannikin clink.”
• Cant of Togs - a gift of clothes.
• Cant - a blow or toss; “a cant over the kisser,” a blow on the mouth; “a cant over the buttock,” a throw or toss in wrestling.
• Cantab - a student at Cambridge.
• Canting: A Poem, interspersed with Tales and Additional Scraps, post 8vo.1814.
• Canvasseens - sailors’ canvas trousers.
• Cap - a false cover to a tossing coin. The term and the instrument are both nearly obsolete. See cover-down.
• Cap - to outdo or add to, as in capping jokes.
• Cap - “to set her cap.” A woman is said to set her cap at a man when she makes overt love to him.
• Cape Cod Turkey - salt fish.
• Caper-Merchant - a dancing-master. Sometimes a hop-merchant.
• Capers - dancing, frolicking; “to cut caper-sauce,” i.e., to dance upon nothing—be hanged. Old thieves’ talk.
• Caravan - a railway train, especially a train expressly chartered to convey people to a prize fight.
• Carboy - a general term in most parts of the world for a very large glass or earthenware bottle.
• Card - a character. “A queer card,” i.e., an odd fish.
• Cardwell’s Men - officers promoted in pursuance of the new system of non-purchase.
• Carew. Life and Adventures of Bamfylde Moore Carew, the King of the Beggars, with Canting Dictionary, portrait, 8vo.1791.
• Carney - soft hypocritical language. Also, to flatter, wheedle, or insinuate oneself.—Prov.
• Carnish - meat, from the Ital. carne, flesh; a Lingua Franca importation; carnish-ken, a thieves’ eating-house; “cove of the carnish-ken,” the keeper thereof.—North Country Cant.
• Caroon - five shillings. French, couronne; Gipsy, courna; Spanish, corona.
• Carpet-Knight - an habitué of drawing-rooms, a “ladies’ man.”
• Carrier-Pigeon - a swindler, one who formerly used to cheat lottery-office keepers. Now used among betting men to describe one who runs from place to place with “commissions.”
• Carrot. “Take a carrot!” a vulgar insulting phrase.
• Carrots - the coarse and satirical term for red hair. An epigram gives an illustration of the use of this term:—
• Carry-on - to joke a person to excess, to carry on a “spree” too far; “how we carried on, to be sure!” i.e., what fun we had. Nautical term—from carrying on sail.
• Cart-wheel - a five-shilling piece. Generally condensed to “wheel.”
• Carts - a pair of shoes. In Norfolk the carapace of a crab is called a crab cart; hence carts would be synonymous with crab shells, which see.
• Cascade - to vomit.
• Cask - fashionable slang for a brougham, or other private carriage. Not very general. “Pillbox” is the more usual term.
• Cassam - cheese—not caffan, which Egan, in his edition of Grose, has ridiculously inserted.—Ancient Cant. Latin, caseus. Gael. and Irish, caise.
• Cassan [Cassam], cheese.
• Cast up Accounts - to vomit.—Old.
• Casters [Castor, a hat], a cloake.
• Castle rag - a flag,—cant term for fourpence.
• Cat and Kitten Sneaking - stealing pint and quart pots and small pewter spirit measures from public-houses.
• Cat and mouse - a house.
• Cat-faced - a vulgar and very common expression of contempt in the North of England.
• Cat-lap - a contemptuous expression for weak drink. Anything a cat will drink is very innocuous.
• Cat - a lady’s muff; “to free a cat,” i.e., steal a muff.
• Cat - to vomit like a cat. Perhaps from cataract; but see shoot the cat.
• Cat —cat o’ nine tails, a whip with that number of lashes used to punish refractory sailors.—Sea. The “cat” is now a recognised term for the punishmental whip.
• Catamaran - a disagreeable old woman.—Thackeray.
• Cataract - once a black satin scarf arranged for the display of jewellery, much in vogue among “commercial gents.” Now quite out of date.
• Catch-penny - any temporary contrivance to obtain money from the public; penny shows, or cheap exhibitions. Also descriptions of murders which have never taken place.
• Catchbet - a bet made for the purpose of entrapping the unwary by means of a paltry subterfuge. See cherry colour.
• Catchy (similar formation to touchy), inclined to take an undue advantage.
• Caterwauling - applied derisively to inharmonious singing; also love-making, from the noise of cats similarly engaged.
• Cateth - “the vpright Cofe cateth to the Roge” [probably a shortening or misprint of Canteth].
• Catever - a queer, or singular affair; anything poor, or very bad. From the Lingua Franca, and Italian, cattivo, bad. Variously spelled by the lower orders.—See kertever.
• Catgut-Scraper - a fiddler.
• Cattle - a term of contempt applied to the mob, or to a lot of lazy, helpless servants.
• Cat’s-meat - a coarse term for the lungs—the “lights” or lungs of animals being usually sold to feed cats.
• Cat’s-water - “old Tom,” or gin.
• Caulk - to take a surreptitious nap; sleep generally, from the ordinary meaning of the term; stopping leaks, repairing damages, so as to come out as good as new.—Sea term.
• Caulker - a dram. The term “caulker” is usually applied to a stiff glass of grog—preferably brandy—finishing the potations of the evening. See whitewash.
• Caulker - a too marvellous story, a lie. Choker has the same sense.
• Caution - anything out of the common way. “He’s a caution,” is said of an obdurate or argumentative man. The phrase is also used in many ways in reference to places and things.
• Cave - or cave in, to submit, shut up.—American. Metaphor taken from the sinking of an abandoned mining shaft.
• Chaffer - the mouth; “moisten your chaffer,” i.e., take something to drink.
• Chal - old Romany term for a man; chie was the name for a woman.
• Chalk farm - the arm.
• Chalk out - or chalk down, to mark out a line of conduct or action; to make a rule or order. Phrase derived from the Workshop.
• Chance the Ducks - an expression signifying come what may. “I’ll do it, and chance the ducks.”
• Chap - a fellow, a boy; “a low chap,” a low fellow—abbreviation of chapman, a huckster. Used by Byron in his Critical Remarks.
• Chapel-of-ease. French, cabinet d’aisance, a house of office.
• Characterisms - or the Modern Age Displayed; being an Attempt to Expose the Pretended Virtues of Both Sexes, 12mo (part i., Ladies; part ii., Gentlemen), E. Owen.1750.
• Charing Cross - a horse.
• Chariot-buzzing - picking pockets in an omnibus.
• Charley Lancaster - a handkercher,—vulgar pronunciation of handkerchief.
• Charley Prescott - a waistcoat.
• Charley-pitcher - a low, cheating gambler.
• Charley - a watchman, a beadle. Almost obsolete now.
• Charlies - a woman’s breasts. Also called dairies and bubbies.
• Chats - lice, or body vermin. Prov., any small things of the same kind.
• Chatter-basket - common term for a prattling child amongst nurses.
• Chatter-box - an incessant talker or chatterer.
• Chattes - the gallowes.
• Chatty - a filthy person, one whose clothes are not free from vermin; chatty doss, a lousy bed. A chatty dosser or a crummy dosser is a filthy tramp or houseless wanderer.
• Chaunt - to sing the contents of any paper in the streets. Cant, as applied to vulgar language, may have been derived from chaunt.
• Chaunt - “to chaunt the play,” to explain the tricks and manœuvres of thieves.
• Chaw over - to repeat one’s words with a view to ridicule.
• Chaw - to chew; chaw up, to get the better of one, finish him up; chawed up, utterly done for.
• Cheap - “doing it on the cheap,” living economically, or keeping up a showy appearance with very little means.
• Cheek by Jowl - side by side—said often of persons in such close confabulation that their faces almost touch.
• Cheek - impudence, assurance; cheeky, saucy or forward.
• Cheek - share or portion; “where’s my cheek?” where is my allowance? “All to his own cheek,” all to himself.
• Cheek - to irritate by impudence, to accuse.
• Cheese - or cheese it (evidently a corruption of cease), leave off, or have done; “cheese your barrikin,” hold your noise. Term very common.
• Cheesecutter - a prominent and aquiline nose. Also a large square peak to a cap. Caps fitted with square peaks are called cheesecutter caps.
• Cheesy - fine or showy. The opposite of “dusty.”
• Cherry ripe - a pipe.
• Cherry-bums - or cherubims, a nickname given to the 11th Hussars, from their crimson trousers.
• Cherry-merry - a present of money. Cherry-merry-bamboo, a beating.—Anglo-Indian.
• Chete [see what has been previously said about this word.]
• Chevy chase - the face.
• Chi-ike - a hail; a good loud word of hearty praise; term used by the costermongers, who assist the sale of each other’s goods by a little friendly, although noisy, commendation.
• Chi-ike - to hail in a rough though friendly manner; to support by means of vociferation.
• Chicken-hearted - cowardly, fearful. With about the amount of pluck a chicken in a fright might be supposed to possess.
• Chicken - a term applied to anything young, small, or insignificant; chicken stakes, small paltry stakes; “she’s no chicken,” said of an old maid.
• Children’s Shoes (to make), to be made nought of.—See shoes.
• Chill - to warm, as beer. This at first seems like reversing the order of things, but it is only a contraction of “take the chill off.”
• Chimney-Sweep - the aperient mixture commonly called a black draught.
• Chin-chin - a salutation, a compliment.—Anglo-Chinese.
• Chin-wag - officious impertinence.
• Chink - or chinkers, money.—Ancient. Derivation obvious.
• Chip of the Old Block - a child which physically or morally resembles its father. Brother chip, one of the same trade or profession. Originally brother carpenter, now general.
• Chips - money; also a nickname for a carpenter.—Sea.
• Chirp - to give information, to “peach.”
• Chisel - to cheat, to take a slice off anything. Hence the old conundrum: “Why is a carpenter like a swindler?—Because he chisels a deal.”
• Chit - a letter; corruption of a Hindoo word.—Anglo-Indian.
• Chivalry - coition. Probably a corruption from the Lingua Franca. Perhaps from chevaulcher.
• Chive-Fencer - a street hawker of cutlery.
• Chive - a knife; also used as a verb, to knife. In all these cases the word is pronounced as though written chiv or chivvy.
• Chivey - to chase round, or hunt about. Apparently from chevy-chase.—See above.
• Choakee - or chokey, the black hole.—Military Anglo-Indian. Chokey is also very vulgar slang for prison.
• Chock-Full - full till the scale comes down with a shock. Originally choke-full, and used in reference to theatres and places of amusement.
• Choke Off - to get rid of. Bulldogs can only be made to loose their hold by choking them. Suggestively to get rid of a man by saying something to him which “sticks in his gizzard.”
• Choker - or wind-stopper, a garotter.
• Chonkeys - a kind of mincemeat, baked in a crust, and sold in the streets.
• Choops - a corruption of choopraho, keep silence.—Anglo-Indian.
• Chootah - small, insignificant.—Anglo-Indian.
• Chop - to exchange, to “swop.” To chop and change, to be as variable as the wind.
• Chops - properly chaps, the mouth, or cheeks; “down in the chops,” or “down in the mouth,” i.e., sad or melancholy.
• Chout - an entertainment.—East-end of London.
• Chovey - a shop.—Costermonger.
• Chow-Chow - a mixture, food of any kind. Also chit-chat and gossip.—Anglo-Chinese.
• Chowdar - a fool.—Anglo-Chinese.
• Christening - erasing the name of the maker, the number, or any other mark, from a stolen watch, and inserting a fictitious one in its place.
• Chubby - round-faced, plump. Probably from the same derivative as chub, which means literally a fish with a big head.
• Chuck a Jolly - to bear up or bonnet, as when a costermonger praises the inferior article his mate or partner is trying to sell. See Chi-ike.
• Chuck a Stall - to attract a person’s attention while a confederate picks his pockets, or otherwise robs him.
• Chuck up - to surrender, give in—from the custom of throwing up the sponge at a prize-fight in token of yielding. This is very often corrupted into “jack up.”
• Chuck - a schoolboy’s treat.—Westminster School. Provision for an entertainment. Hard chuck is sea biscuit.
• Chuck - bread or meat; in fact, anything to eat. Also a particular kind of beefsteak.
• Chuck - to throw or pitch.
• Chucks! Schoolboy’s signal on the master’s approach.
• Chuff it - i.e., be off, or take it away, in answer to a street seller who is importuning you to purchase. Halliwell mentions chuff as a “term of reproach,” surly, &c.
• Chull - make haste. An abbreviation of the Hindostanee chullo, signifying “go along.” Chull is very commonly used to accelerate the motions of a servant, driver, or palanquin-bearer.
• Chum - an intimate acquaintance. A recognised term, but in such frequent use with slangists that it almost demands a place here. Stated to be from the Anglo-Saxon, cuma, a guest.
• Chum - to occupy a joint lodging with another person. Latin, cum.
• Chummy - a chimney-sweep—probably connected with chimney; also a low-crowned felt hat. Sometimes, but rarely, a sweep is called a clergyman—from his colour.
• Chump (or chunk) of wood , no good.
• Chump - the head or face. Also one end of a loin of mutton. A half-idiotic or daft person is said to be off his chump.
• Chunk - a thick or dumpy piece of any substance, as a chunk of bread or meat.—Kentish.
• Church a yack (or watch), to take the works of a watch from its original case, and put them into another one, to avoid detection.—See christen.
• Cinder - any liquor used in connexion with soda-water, as to “take a soda with a cinder in it.” The cinder may be sherry, brandy, or any other liquor.
• Circumbendibus - a roundabout way, a long-winded story.
• Clack-box - a garrulous person, so called from the rattle formerly used by vagrants to make a rattling noise and attract attention.—Norfolk.
• Claggum - boiled treacle in a hardened state, hardbake.—See cliggy.
• Clam, or clem - to starve.—North.
• Clap-trap - high-sounding nonsense. An ancient theatrical term for a “trap to catch a clap by way of applause from the spectators at a play.”—Bailey’s Dictionary.
• Clap - to place; “do you think you can clap your hand on him?” i.e., find him out. Clap is also a well-known form of a contagious disease.
• Clapper - the tongue. Said of an over-talkative person, to be hung in the middle and to sound with both ends.
• Claret - blood.—Pugilistic. Otherwise Badminton—which see.
• Clashy - a low fellow, a labourer.—Anglo-Indian.
• Clawhammer coat - an American term for a tail-coat used in evening costume. Also known as a steel-pen coat.
• Clean - quite, or entirely; “clean gone,” entirely out of sight, or away.—Old, see Cotgrave and Shakspeare. Clean contrary, quite different, opposite.
• Click - to snatch, to pull away something that belongs to another.
• Clift - to steal.
• Cliggy - or clidgy, sticky.—Anglo-Saxon, clæg, clay.—See claggum.
• Clinch (to get the), to be locked up in jail.
• Cling-rig - stealing tankards from public-houses, &c.
• Clipper - a fine fast-sailing vessel. Applied also as a term of encomium to a handsome woman.
• Clipping - excellent, very good. Clipper, anything showy or first-rate.
• Clock - a watch. Watches are also distinguished by the terms “red clock,” a gold watch, and “white clock,” a silver watch. Generally modified into “red’un” and “white’un.”
• Clock - “to know what’s o’clock,” to be “up, down, fly and awake,” to know everything about everything—a definition of knowingness in general.—See time o’ day.
• Clod-hopper - a country clown.
• Cloud - to be under a, to be in difficulties, disgrace or disrepute; in fact, to be in shady circumstances.
• Clout - an intentional heavy blow.
• Clump - to strike, to beat.—Prov.
• Cly-faker - a pickpocket.
• Cly [a pocket], to take, receive, or have.
• Coach-wheel - or tusheroon, a crown-piece, or five shillings.
• Cobbing - a punishment inflicted by sailors and soldiers among themselves. See Grose and Captain Marryat’s novels. A hand-saw is the general instrument of punishment.
• Cock and bull story - a long, rambling anecdote.—See Peroration to Tristram Shandy.
• Cock one’s toes - to die. Otherwise “turn-up one’s toes.”
• Cock-a-wax - an amplification of the simple term cock, sometimes “Lad of wax,” originally applied to a cobbler, but now general.
• Cock-and-hen-club - a free and easy gathering, or “sing-song,” where females are admitted as well as males.
• Cock-and-pinch - the old-fashioned beaver hat, affected by “swells” and “sporting gents” forty years ago—cocked back and front, and pinched up at the sides.
• Cock-eye - a term of opprobrium often applied to one that squints.
• Cock-robin shop - a small printing-office, where cheap and nasty work is done and low wages are paid.
• Cock - “to cock your eye,” to shut or wink one eye, to make “sheep’s-eyes.”
• Cockalorum - or cockylorum, amplification of cock or cocky.
• Cocksure - certain.
• Cocky - pert, saucy.
• Cod - to hoax, to take a “rise” out of one. Used as a noun, a fool.
• Cofe [cove], a person.
• Coffee-Shop - a watercloset, or house of office.
• Cog - to cheat at dice.—Shakspeare. Also, to agree with, as one cog-wheel does with another, to crib from another’s book, as schoolboys often do. This is called “cogging over.”
• Cogged - loaded like false dice. Any one who has been hocussed or cheated is sometimes said to have been cogged.
• Coin - “to post the coin”—sometimes “post the coal”—a sporting phrase meaning to make a deposit of money for a match of any kind.
• Cold blood - a house licensed for the sale of beer “not to be drunk on the premises.”
• Cold coffee - an Oxford synonym for a “sell,” which see.
• Cold coffee - misfortune; sometimes varied to cold gruel. An unpleasant return for a proffered kindness is sometimes called cold coffee.—Sea.
• Cold cook - an undertaker. Cold cook’s shop, an undertaker’s.
• Cold meat - a corpse. Cold-meat box, a coffin.
• Colfabias - a Latinized Irish phrase signifying the closet of decency, applied as a slang term to a place of resort in Trinity College, Dublin.
• Collar and elbow - a term for a peculiar style of wrestling—the Cornwall and Devon style.
• Collar - to seize, to lay hold of. Thieves’ slang, i.e., to steal.
• Collogue - to conspire, talk mysteriously together in low tones, plot mischief. Connected with “colloquy” or “colleague.” Maybe mixture of both.
• Colly-wobbles - the stomach-ache, a person’s bowels,—supposed by many to be the seat of feeling and nutrition.—Devonshire.
• Colt - a murderous weapon, formed by slinging a small shot to the end of a rather stiff piece of rope. It is the original of the misnamed “life-preserver.”
• Colt - a person who sits as juryman for the first time. In Cork an operative baker who does not belong to the union.
• Colt - a professional cricketer during his first season. From the best colts in the annual match are selected new county players.
• Colt’s tooth - elderly persons of juvenile tastes are said to have a colt’s tooth, i.e., a desire to shed their teeth once more, to see life over again.
• Comb-cut - mortified, disgraced, “down on one’s luck.”—See cut.
• Come down - to pay down.
• Commemoration - the end of Lent term at Oxford, when honorary degrees are conferred and certain prizes given, and when men have friends “up.”
• Commission - a shirt.—Ancient Cant. Italian, camicia.
• Commission [mish], a shirt.
• Commister - a chaplain or clergyman.—Originally Old Cant.
• Common sewer - a drain,—vulgar equivalent for a drink.
• Competition wallah - one who entered the Indian Civil Service by passing a competitive examination.—Anglo-Indian.
• Compo - a sailor’s term for his monthly advance of wages.
• Comprador - a purveyor, an agent.—Originally Spanish, now Anglo-Chinese.
• Conjee - a kind of gruel made of rice.—Anglo-Indian.
• Connaught Rangers - the Eighty-eighth Regiment of Foot in the British Army.
• Conshun’s price - fair terms, without extortion. Probably conscience price.—Anglo-Chinese.
• Constable - “to overrun the constable,” to exceed one’s income, or get deep in debt. The origin of this phrase is unknown, but its use is very general.
• Constitutional - a walk, or other exercise taken for the benefit of the health.
• Consumah - a butler.—Anglo-Indian.
• Continuations - coverings for the legs, whether trousers or breeches. A word belonging to the same squeamish, affected family as unmentionables, inexpressibles, &c.
• Convey - to steal; “convey, the wise it call.”
• Conveyancer - a pickpocket. Shakspeare uses the cant expression conveyer, a thief. The same term is also French slang.
• Conybeare’s (Dean) Essay on Church Parties, reprinted from the Edinburgh Review, No. CC., October, 1853, 12mo.1858.
• Cooey - the Australian bush-call, now not unfrequently heard in the streets of London.
• Cook one’s goose - to kill or ruin a person.—North.
• Cook - in artistic circles, to dodge up a picture. Artists say that a picture will not cook when it is excellent and unconventional, and beyond specious imitation.
• Cool - to look.
• Cooler - a glass of porter as a wind up, after drinking spirits and water. This form of drinking is sometimes called “putting the beggar on the gentleman.”
• Coolie - a soldier, in allusion to the Hindoo coolies, or day labourers.
• Cooper - to forge, or imitate in writing; “cooper a monniker,” to forge a signature.
• Cooper - “stout half-and-half,” i.e., half stout and half porter. Derived from the coopers at breweries being allowed so much stout and so much porter a day, which they take mixed.
• Cooter - “a sovereign.”—See Couter. Gipsy, cuta.
• Cop - beware, take care. A contraction of Coprador.—Anglo-Indian.
• Coper - properly horse-couper, a Scotch horse-dealer,—used to denote a dishonest one. Coping, like jockeying, is suggestive of all kinds of trickery.
• Copper - a halfpenny. Coppers, mixed pence.
• Copper - a policeman, i.e., one who cops, which see.
• Coppernose - a nose which is supposed to show a partiality on its owner’s part for strong drink. Synonymous with “jolly nose.” Grog-blossoms are the jewels often set in a jolly nose.
• Copus - a Cambridge drink, consisting of ale combined with spices, and varied by spirits, wines, &c. Corruption of hippocras.
• Corcoron (Peter.) The Fancy, a Poem, 12mo.182-.
• Corduroy roads - an American term for the rough roads made by simply laying logs along a clearing.
• Cork - a broken man, a bankrupt. Probably intended to refer to his lightness, as being without “ballast.”
• Cork - “to draw a cork,” to give a bloody nose.—Pugilistic.
• Corkage - money charged when persons at an hotel provide their own wine—sixpence being charged for each “cork” drawn.
• Corked - said of wine which tastes of cork, from being badly decanted, or which has lost flavour from various other obvious causes.
• Corker - “that’s a corker,” i.e., that settles the question, or closes the discussion.
• Corks - a butler. Derivation very obvious.
• Corks - money; “how are you off for corks?” a sailors’ term of a very expressive kind, denoting the means of “keeping afloat.”
• Corn in Egypt - a popular expression which means a plentiful supply of materials for a dinner, &c., or a good supply of money. Its origin is of course Biblical.
• Corned - drunk or intoxicated. Possibly from soaking or pickling oneself like corned beef.
• Cornered - hemmed in a corner, placed in a position from which there is no escape.
• Corpse - to stick fast in the dialogue; to confuse, or put out the actors by making a mistake.—Theatrical.
• Cosh - a neddy, a life-preserver; any short, loaded bludgeon.
• Cossack - a policeman.
• Costard - the head. A very old word, generally used in connexion with “cracked.”
• Coster - the short and slang rendering of “costermonger,” or “costardmonger,” who was originally an apple-seller. Costering, i.e., costermongering, acting as a costermonger would.
• Cotton Lord - a Manchester manufacturer.
• Cottonopolis - Manchester. A term much in use among the reporters of the sporting press engaged in that locality.
• Cotton’s (Charles) Genuine Poetical Works, 12mo.1771.
• Council-of-ten - the toes of a man who turns his feet inward.
• Counter-jumper - a shopman, a draper’s assistant.
• Counterfet cranke - these that do counterfet the Cranke be yong knaves and yonge harlots, that deeply dissemble the falling sickness.
• Country-captain - a spatch-cocked fowl, sprinkled with curry-powder. A favourite breakfast dish with the captains of country-ships.—Indian.
• Country-ship - a ship belonging to the East Indies, and trading from port to port in that country.
• Couple-beggar - a degraded person, who officiated as a clergyman in performing marriages in the Fleet Prison.
• Couter - a sovereign. Half-a-couter, half-a-sovereign. From the Danubian-gipsy word cuta, a gold coin.
• Covent Garden - a farden,—Cockney pronunciation of farthing.
• Cow and calf - to laugh.
• Cow-cow - to be very angry, to scold or reprimand violently.—Anglo-Chinese.
• Cow-hocked - clumsy about the ankles; with large or awkward feet.
• Cows and kisses - mistress or missus—referring to the ladies.
• Cow’s grease - butter.
• Coxy-loxy - good-tempered, drunk.—Norfolk.
• Crab - a disagreeable old person. Name of a wild and sour fruit.
• Crab - to offend, or insult; to expose or defeat a robbery, to inform against. Crab, in the sense of “to offend,” is Old English.
• Crab - “to catch a crab,” to fall backwards by missing a stroke in rowing. From the crab-like or sprawling appearance of the man when in the bottom of the boat.
• Crabs - in dicing, a pair of aces.
• Crabshells - or trotter-cases, shoes.—See carts.
• Crack a bottle - to drink. Shakspeare uses crush in the same slang sense.
• Crack up - to boast or praise.—Ancient English.
• Crack - dry firewood.—Modern Gipsy.
• Crack - first-rate, excellent; “a crack hand,” an adept; a “crack article,” a good one. “A crack regiment,” a fashionable one.—Old.
• Crack - to break into a house; “crack a crib,” to commit burglary.
• Crack - “in a crack (of the finger and thumb),” in a moment.
• Cracked up - penniless or ruined.
• Cracking a crust - rubbing along in the world. Cracking a tidy crust, means doing very well. This is a very common expression among the lower orders.
• Cracksman - a burglar, i.e., the man who cracks.
• Cram - to lie or deceive, implying to fill up or cram a person with false stories; to impart or acquire learning quickly, to “grind” or prepare for an examination.
• Crammer - a lie.
• Crammer - one skilled in rapidly preparing others for an examination. One in the habit of telling lies.
• Cranke [cranky, foolish], falling evil [or wasting sickness].
• Crap - to ease oneself by evacuation.
• Crapping case - or ken, the water-closet. Generally called crapping-castle.
• Crashing chetes - teeth.
• Craw thumper - a Roman Catholic. Compare brisket-beater.
• Crawly mawly - in an ailing, weakly, or sickly state.
• Cream of the valley - gin; as opposed to or distinguished from “mountain dew,” whisky.
• Crib biter - an inveterate grumbler; properly said of a horse which has this habit, a sign of its bad digestion.
• Crib - a literal translation of a classic author.—University.
• Crib - house, public or otherwise; lodgings, apartments; a situation. Very general in the latter sense.
• Crib - to steal or purloin; to appropriate small things.
• Cribbage-faced - marked with the small-pox, full of holes like a cribbage-board. Otherwise crumpet-face.
• Crikey - profane exclamation of astonishment; “Oh, crikey, you don’t say so!” corruption of “O Christ!” Sometimes varied by “O crimes!”
• Cripple - a bent sixpence.
• Cripple - an awkward or clumsy person. Also one of dull wits.
• Croak - to die—from the gurgling sound a person makes when the breath of life is departing.
• Croaker - a beggar.
• Croaker - a dying person beyond hope; a corpse. The latter is generally called a “stiff’un.”
• Croaker - one who takes a desponding view of everything, a misanthrope; an alarmist. From the croaking of a raven.—Ben Jonson.
• Croaks - last dying speeches, and murderers’ confessions.
• Crocus - or croakus, a quack or travelling doctor; crocus-chovey, a chemist’s shop.
• Crone - a termagant or malicious old woman. Crony, an intimate friend.
• Crooky - to hang on to, to lead, to walk arm-in-arm; to court or pay addresses to a girl.
• Crop up - to turn up in the course of conversation. “It cropped up while we were speaking.”
• Cropped - hanged. Sometimes topped. “May I be topped.”
• Cropper - a heavy fall, a decided failure. Term originally used in the hunting-field, but now general, and not at all confined to physical matters.
• Cropper - “to go a cropper,” or “to come a cropper,” i.e., to fail badly.
• Cross cove and molisher - a man and woman who live by thieving.
• Cross-buttock - an unexpected fling down or repulse; from a peculiar throw practised by wrestlers.
• Cross-crib - a house frequented by thieves.
• Crossed - prohibited from taking food from the buttery.—University.
• Crow - or cock-crow, to exult over another’s abasement, as a fighting-cock does over his vanquished adversary.
• Crow - “I have a crow to pick with you,” i.e., an explanation to demand, a disagreeable matter to settle. Sometimes the article picked is supposed to be a bone.
• Crow - “a regular crow,” a success, a stroke of luck,—equivalent to a fluke.
• Crowsfeet - wrinkles which gather in the corners of the eyes of old or dissipated people.
• Crug - food. Christ’s Hospital boys apply it only to bread.
• Crumbs - “to pick up one’s crumbs,” to begin to have an appetite after an illness; to improve in health, circumstances, &c., after a loss thereof.
• Crummy-doss - a lousy or filthy bed.
• Crummy - fat, plump.—North. In London street slang, lousy.
• Crumpet-face - a face pitted with small-pox marks.
• Crunch - to crush. Perhaps from the sound of teeth grinding against each other.
• Crush - to run or decamp rapidly. Crush down sides, run to a place of safety, or the appointed rendezvous.—North Country Cant.
• Crusher - a policeman.
• Crushing - excellent, first-rate.
• Crusty - ill-tempered, petulant, morose.—Old, said to be a corruption of the Anglo-Norman coruseux.
• Cub - a mannerless uncouth lout.—See unlicked.
• Cubitopolis - an appellation, originally given by Londoners to the Warwick and Eccleston Square districts. From the name of the builders.
• Cue - properly the last word spoken by one actor, it being the cue for the other to reply. “Very often an actor knows nothing of a piece beyond his own lines and the cues.”
• Cuffen - a manne. [A cuif in Northumberland and Scotland signifies a lout or awkward fellow.]
• Cull - a man or boy.—Old Cant. Rum cull, the manager of a theatre.
• Cullet - broken glass. French, cueillette, a gathering or collection.
• Culling - or culing, stealing from the carriages at racecourses.
• Cully gorger - a companion, a brother actor.—Theatrical. See gorger.
• Culver-headed - weak and stupid.
• Cummer - a gossip or acquaintance.
• Cumshaw - a present or bribe.—Anglo-Chinese.
• Cupboard-headed - an expressive designation of one whose head is both wooden and hollow.—Norfolk.
• Cupboard-love - affection arising from interested motives.
• Curios - a corruption of “curiosities;” any articles of vertu brought from abroad. Used by naval and military travellers and others.
• Currants and plums - thrums,—slang for threepence.
• Curse - anything worthless. Corruption of the Old English word kerse, a small sour wild cherry; French, cerise; German, kirsch. Vision of Piers Ploughman:—
• Curtail - to cut off. Originally a Cant word—vide Hudibras, and Bacchus and Venus, 1737. Evidently derived from the French court tailler.
• Cushion-smiter - polite rendering of tub-thumper, a clergyman, a preacher.
• Cushion - to hide or conceal.
• Cushmawaunee - never mind. Sailors and soldiers who have been in India frequently say—
• Customhouse-officer - an aperient pill.
• Cut-throat - a butcher, a cattle-slaughterer; a ruffian.
• Cut - tipsy.—Old.
• Cut - to compete in business; “a cutting trade,” one conducted on competitive principles, where the profits are very closely shaved.
• Cute - sharp, cunning. Abbreviation of acute.
• Cutter - a ruffian, a cut-purse. Of Robin Hood it was said—
• Cutting-shop - a place where cheap rough goods are sold.
• Cutty-pipe - a short clay pipe. Scotch, cutty, short.
• Cutty-sark - a short chemise.—Scotch. A scantily-draped lady is so called by Burns.
• D.T. - a popular abbreviation of delirium tremens; sometimes written and pronounced del. trem. D.T. also often represents the Daily Telegraph.
• Da-erb - bread.
• Dab tros - a bad sort.
• Dab - or dabster, an expert person. Most probably derived from the Latin adeptus.
• Dab - street term for small flat fish of any kind.—Old.
• Dabheno - a bad one, sometimes a bad market. See doogheno.
• Daddle - the hand; “tip us your daddle,” i.e., shake hands.
• Daddy - a stage manager.—Theatrical. Also the person who gives away the bride at a wedding.
• Daddy - the old man in charge—generally an aged pauper—at casual wards. Most people will remember “kind old daddy.”
• Dags - feat or performance; “I’ll do your dags,” i.e., I will do something that you cannot do. Corruption of darings.
• Dairies - a woman’s breasts, which are also called charlies.
• Daisy roots - a pair of boots.
• Daisy-cutter - a horse that trots or gallops without lifting its feet much from the ground.
• Damage - in the sense of recompense; “what’s the damage?” i.e., what is to pay? or actually, what is the damage to my pocket?
• Damper - a shop till; to draw a damper, i.e., rob a till. A till is more modernly called a “lob,” and stealing from tills is known as “lob-sneaking.”
• Dan Tucker - butter.
• Dance upon nothing - to be hanged.
• Dancer, or dancing-master - a thief who prowls about the roofs of houses, and effects an entrance by attic windows, &c. Called also a “garreter.”
• Dander - passion or temper; “to get one’s dander up,” to rouse his passion.—Old, but now much used in America.
• Dandy - a boatman.—Anglo-Indian.
• Dandy - a small glass of whisky.—Irish. “Dimidium cyathi vero apud Metropolitanos Hibernicos dicitur dandy.”—Father Tom and the Pope, in Blackwood’s Magazine for May 1838.
• Dandypratt - a funny little fellow, a mannikin; originally a half-farthing of the time of Henry VII.
• Danna - human ordure; danna drag, a nightman’s or dustman’s cart; hence dunna-ken, which see.
• Darbies - handcuffs.—Old Cant.—See johnny darbies. Sir Walter Scott mentions these, in the sense of fetters, in his Peveril of the Peak—
• Darble - the devil. French, diable.
• Darkemans - the night.
• Darky - twilight; also a negro. Darkmans, the night.
• Darn - vulgar corruption of damn.—American.
• Dash - an ejaculation, as “dash my wig!” “dash my buttons!” A relic of the attempts made, when cursing was fashionable, to be in the mode without using “bad words.”
• Dash - fire, vigour, manliness. Literary and artistic work is often said to be full of dash.
• Dash - to jot down suddenly. “Things I have dashed off at a moment’s notice.”
• Dashing - showy, fast.
• Daub - in low language, an artist. Also a badly painted picture.
• David’s sow - “as drunk as david’s sow,” i.e., beastly drunk. See origin of the phrase in Grose’s Dictionary.
• Dawdle - to loiter, or fritter away time.
• Dawk - the post.—Anglo-Indian.
• Dead-against - decidedly opposed to.
• Dead-alive - stupid, dull.
• Dead-amiss - said of a horse that from illness is utterly unable to run for a prize.
• Dead-beat - utterly exhausted, utterly “done up.”
• Dead-horse - “to draw the dead-horse;” dead-horse work—working for wages already paid; also any thankless or unassisted service.
• Dead-lock - a permanent standstill, an inextricable entanglement.
• Dead-lurk - entering a dwelling-house during divine service.
• Dead-men - the term for wine bottles after they are emptied of their contents.—Old.—See marines.
• Dead-set - a pointed and persistent attack on a person.
• Dead’un - a horse which will not run or will not try in a race, and against which money may be betted with safety.—See safe un.
• Deaner - a shilling. From denier.
• Death - “to dress to death,” i.e., to the very extreme of fashion, perhaps so as to be killing.
• Deb - or dab, a bed; “I’m off to the deb,” I’m going to bed.
• Deck - a pack of cards. Used by Shakspeare, 3 K. Hen. VI., v. 1. Probably because of decking or arranging the table for a game at cards. General in the United States.
• Decker’s (Thomas) Gull’s Hornbook, 4to.1609.
• Decker’s (Thomas) O per se O, or a new Cryer of Lanthorne and Candle-light, an Addition of the Bellman’s Second Night’s Walke, 4to, black letter.1612.
• Decker’s (Thomas) The Bellman of London; bringing to light the most notorious villanies that are now practised in the Kingdom; 4to, black letter.London, 1608.
• Decker’s (Thomas) Villanies discovered by Lanthorne and Candle-light, and the Helpe of a new Cryer called O per se O, 4to.1616.
• Dee - a pocket-book; term used by tramps.—Gipsy. Dee (properly D), a detective policeman. “The dees are about, so look out.”
• Delicate - a false subscription-book carried by a lurker.
• Dell - a yonge wench.
• Delo nammow - an old woman.
• Delog - gold.
• Demirep (or demirip), a courtezan. Contraction of demi-reputation, which is, in turn, a contraction for demi-monde reputation.
• Derrick - an apparatus for raising sunken ships, &c. The term is curiously derived from a hangman of that name frequently mentioned in Old Plays, as in the Bellman of London, 1616.
• Deuce - the devil.—Old. Stated by Junius and others to be from Deus or Zeus.
• Deuce - twopence; deuce at cards or dice, one with two pips or spots.
• Devil dodger - a clergyman; also a person who goes sometimes to church and sometimes to meeting.
• Devil-may-care - reckless, rash.
• Devil-scolder - a clergyman.
• Devil - a printer’s youngest apprentice, an errand-boy in a printing-office.
• Devil’s bed-posts - the four of clubs. Otherwise Old Gentleman’s bed-posts.
• Devil’s books - a pack of playing-cards; a phrase of Presbyterian origin.—See four kings.
• Devil’s delight - a noise or row of any description. Generally used thus:—“They kicked up the devil’s delight.”
• Devil’s dung - the fetid drug assafœtida.
• Devil’s livery - black and yellow. From the mourning and quarantine uses of the colours.
• Devil’s teeth - or devil’s bones, dice.
• Devotional habits - horses weak in the knees, and apt to stumble and fall, are said to have these.—Stable.
• Dew-beaters - feet; “hold out your dew-beaters till I take off the darbies.”—Peveril of the Peak. Forby says the word is used in Norfolk for heavy shoes to resist wet.
• Dew-drink - a morning draught, such as is served out to labourers in harvest time before commencing work.
• Dewse a vyle - the countrey.
• Dewskitch - a good thrashing, perhaps from catching one’s due.
• Dick - a riding whip; gold-headed dick, one so ornamented.
• Dickey Sam - a native of Liverpool.
• Dickey - a donkey.—Norfolk.
• Dickey - bad, sorry, or foolish; food or lodging is pronounced dickey when of a poor description; “very dickey”, very inferior; “it’s all dickey with him,” i.e., all over with him.
• Dicking; “look! the bulky is dicking,” i.e., the constable has his eye on you.—North Country Cant.
• Dictionary of all the Cant and Flash Languages, 12mo.London, 1797.
• Dictionary of all the Cant and Flash Languages, both Ancient and Modern, 18mo.Bailey, 1790.
• Dictionary of the Canting Crew (Ancient and Modern), of Gypsies, Beggars, Thieves, &c., 12mo.n. d. 700.]
• Dictionnaire des Halle, 12mo.Bruxelles, 1696.
• Diddle - old cant word for geneva, or gin.
• Didoes - pranks or capers; “to cut up didoes,” to make pranks.
• Dig - a hard blow. Generally in pugilistic circles applied to a straight “left-hander,” delivered under the guard on the “mark.”
• Diggers - spurs; also the spades on cards.
• Dilly-dally - to trifle.
• Dilly - originally a coach, from diligence. Now a night-cart.
• Dimber-damber - very pretty; a clever rogue who excels his fellows; chief of a gang. Old Cant in the latter sense.
• Dimber - neat or pretty.—Worcestershire, but old cant.
• Dimmock - money; “how are you off for dimmock?” diminutive of dime, a small foreign silver coin, in the United States 10 cents.
• Dinarly - money; “nantee dinarly,” I have no money, corrupted from the Lingua Franca, “niente dinaro,” not a penny. Turkish, dinari; Spanish, dinero; Latin, denarius.
• Dine out - to go without dinner. “I dined out to-day,” would express the same among the very lower classes that “dining with Duke Humphrey” expresses among the middle and upper.
• Ding-dong - a song.
• Ding - to strike; to throw away, or get rid of anything; to pass to a confederate by throwing. Old, used in old plays.
• Dingy - a small boat. Generally the smallest boat carried by a ship. The g in this is pronounced hard.
• Dipped - mortgaged.
• Dirt - to eat, an expression derived from the East, nearly the same as “to eat humble (Umble) pie,” to put up with a mortification or insult.
• Disguised - intoxicated. A very old term is that of “disguised in drink.”
• Dithers - nervous or cold shiverings; “it gave me the dithers.”
• Dittoes - a suit of, coat, waistcoat, and trousers of the same material.—Tailor’s term.
• Ditty-bag - the bag or huswife in which sailors keep needles, thread, buttons, &c., for mending their clothes.
• Diver - a pickpocket. Also applied to fingers, no doubt from a similar reason. To dive is to pick pockets.
• Do the high - to walk up and down High Street on Sunday evenings, especially just after Church.—Oxford University.
• Dobie - an Indian washerman; and though women wash clothes in this country, Anglo-Indians speak of a washerwoman as a dobie.
• Dock - to deflower.
• Doddy - a term applied in Norfolk to any person of low stature. Sometimes hodmandod and “hoddy-doddy, all head and no body.” Dodman in the same dialect denotes a garden snail.
• Dodger - a dram. In Kent, a dodger signifies a nightcap; which name is often given to the last dram at night.
• Dodger - a tricky person, or one who, to use the popular phrase, “knows too much.” Also one who knows all phases of London life, and profits by such knowledge.
• Dog Latin - barbarous Latin, such as was formerly used by lawyers in their pleadings. Now applied to medical Latin.
• Dog gone - a form of mild swearing used by boys.
• Dog in a blanket - a kind of pudding, made of preserved fruit spread on thin dough, and then rolled up and boiled. This pudding is also called “rolly-polly” and “stocking.”
• Dog in the manger - a scurvy, ill-conditioned, selfish fellow. From the fable of that title.
• Dog stealer - a dog dealer. There is sometimes less difference between the two trades than between “d” and “st.”
• Dogberry - a foolish constable.—Shakspeare.
• Doggery - nonsense, transparent attempts to cheat.
• Dogs - to go to the, to be commercially or socially ruined. Originally a stable term applied to old or worthless horses, sold to feed hounds.
• Dog’s body - a kind of pease pudding.—Sea.
• Dog’s ears - the curled corners of the leaves of books, which have been carelessly treated. The use of this term is so common that it is hardly to be considered slang.
• Dog’s nose - gin and beer, so called from the mixture being cold, like a dog’s nose.
• Doing time - working out a sentence in prison. “He’s done time,” is a slang phrase used in reference to a man who is known to have been in gaol.
• Doldrums - difficulties, low spirits, dumps.—Sea.
• Dollop - a lump or portion.—Norfolk. Anglo-Saxon, dale, dole.
• Dollop - to dole up, to give up a share.—Ibid.
• Dollymop - a tawdrily-dressed maid-servant, a semi-professional street-walker.
• Dominie - a parson, or master at a grammar school.
• Dominoes - the teeth.
• Dona and feeles - a woman and children. Italian or Lingua Franca, donne e figlie. The word dona is usually pronounced doner.
• Done up - an equivalent expression to “dead beat.”
• Done! the expression used when a bet is accepted. To be done, is to be considerably worsted.—See also do.
• Doog - good.
• Doogheno - literally “good-one,” but implying generally a good market, a good man, &c.
• Dookin - fortune-telling. Gipsy, dukkerin.
• Dose - three months’ imprisonment with hard labour.
• Dossing-ken - a lodging-house.
• Dot and go one - a lame or limping man.
• Double lines - ship casualties. So called at Lloyd’s from the manner of entering in books kept for the purpose.
• Double up - to pair off, or “chum” with another man; to beat severely, so as to leave the sufferer “all of a heap.”
• Double - “to tip (or give) the double,” to run away from any person; to double back, turn short round upon one’s pursuers, and so escape, as a hare does.—Sporting.
• Doughy - a sufficiently obvious nickname for a baker.
• Dove-tart - a pigeon pie. A snake tart is an eel pie.
• Dowd - a woman’s nightcap.—Devonshire: also an American term; possibly from dowdy, a slatternly woman.
• Dowlas - a linendraper. Dowlas is a sort of towelling.
• Down the road - stylish, showy, after the fashion.
• Down to the ground - an American rendering of the word entirely; as, “that suits me down to the ground.”
• Downer - a sixpence; apparently the Gipsy word, tawno, “little one,” in course of metamorphosis into the more usual “tanner.”
• Downs - Tothill Fields’ Prison.
• Dowry - a lot, a great deal; “dowry of parny,” lot of rain or water.—See parny. Probably from the Gipsy.
• Dowsers - men who profess to tell fortunes, and who, by the use of the divining rod, pretend to be able to discover treasure-trove.—Cornish.
• Doxes - harlots.
• Drab - a vulgar or low woman.—Shakspeare.
• Drab - poison.—Romany.
• Draft on Aldgate Pump - an old mercantile phrase for a fictitious banknote or fraudulent bill.
• Drag - a cart of any kind, term generally used to denote any particularly well-appointed turnout, drawn by a pair or four horses, especially at race meetings.
• Drag - a street, or road; back-drag, back street.
• Drag - feminine attire worn by men. A recent notorious impersonation case led to the publication of the word in that sense.
• Drag - or three moon, three months in prison.
• Drag - the, a favourite pursuit with fast-hunting sets; as, the drag can be trailed over very stiff country.
• Dragging time - the evening of a country fair day, when the young fellows begin pulling the wenches about.
• Draggletail - a dirty, dissipated woman; a prostitute of the lowest class.
• Drain - a drink; “to do a drain,” to take a friendly drink—“do a wet;” sometimes called a “common sewer.”
• Draw off - to throw back the body to give impetus to a blow; “he drew off, and delivered on the left drum.”—Pugilistic. A sailor would say, “he hauled off and slipped in.”
• Drawers - formerly the ancient cant name for very long stockings.
• Drawers - hosen.
• Drawing teeth - wrenching off knockers.—Medical Student slang.
• Drawlatch - a loiterer.
• Dripping - a cook.
• Driz-fencer - a person who sells lace.
• Drop - to quit, go off, or turn aside; “drop the main Toby,” go off the main road.
• Drop - “to drop a man,” to knock him down; “to drop into a person,” to give him a thrashing. See slip and walk. “To drop on a man,” to accuse or rebuke him suddenly.
• Drum - a house, a lodging, a street; hazard-drum, a gambling-house; flash-drum, a house of ill-fame.
• Drum - as applied to the road, is doubtless from the Wallachian gipsy word “drumri,” derived from the Greek, δρόμος.
• Drum - old slang for a ball or rout; afterwards called a hop.
• Drum - the ear.—Pugilistic. An example of slang synecdoche.
• Drummer - a robber who first makes his victims insensible by drugs or violence, and then plunders them.
• Drumsticks - legs; drumstick cases, trousers. The leg of a fowl is generally called a drumstick.
• Dry land - you understand.
• Dryasdust - an antiquary. From Scott.
• Dub - to pay or give; “dub up,” pay up.
• Dubash - a general agent.—Anglo-Indian.
• Dubber - the mouth or tongue; “mum your dubber,” hold your tongue.
• Dubsman - or screw, a turnkey.—Old Cant.
• Ducange Anglicus. —The Vulgar Tongue: comprising Two Glossaries of Slang, Cant, and Flash Words and Phrases used in London at the present day, 12mo.1857.
• Ducats - money.—Theatrical Slang.
• Duck - a bundle of bits of the “stickings” of beef sold for food to the London poor.—See faggot.
• Ducket - a ticket of any kind. Generally applied to pawnbroker’s duplicates and raffle cards. Probably from docket.
• Ducks - trousers. Sea term. The expression most in use on land is “white ducks,” i.e., white pantaloons or trousers.
• Dudeen - or dudheen, a short tobacco-pipe. Common term in Ireland and the Irish quarters of London.
• Dudes [or duds], clothes.
• Duds - clothes, or personal property. Gaelic, dud; Ancient Cant; also Dutch.
• Duff - pudding; vulgar pronunciation of dough.—Sea.
• Duff - to cheat, to sell spurious goods, often under pretence of their being stolen or smuggled.
• Duffing - false, counterfeit, worthless.
• Duffy - a term for a ghost or spirit among the West Indian negroes. In all probability the davy jones of sailors, and a contraction thereof originally.
• Duke of York - walk, or talk, according to context.
• Duke - gin, a term amongst livery servants.
• Dukey - or dookey, a penny gaff, which see.
• Dumbfound - to perplex, to beat soundly till not able to speak. Originally a cant word. Johnson cites the Spectator for the earliest use. Scotch, dumbfounder.
• Dummacker - a knowing or acute person.
• Dummy - a deaf-and-dumb person; a clumsy, awkward fellow; any one unusually thick-witted.
• Dummy - in three-handed whist the person who holds two hands plays dummy.
• Dump fencer - a man who sells buttons.
• Dumpish - sullen or gloomy.
• Dumpy - short and stout.
• Dun - to solicit payment.—Old Cant, from the French donnez, give; or from Joe Din, or Dun, a famous bailiff; or simply a corruption of din, from the Anglo-Saxon dunan, to clamour.
• Duncombe’s Flash Dictionary of the Cant Words, Queer Sayings, and Crack Terms now in use in Flash Cribb Society, 32mo, coloured print.1820.
• Dunderhead - a blockhead.
• Dundreary - an empty swell.
• Dung - an operative who works for an employer who does not give full or “society” wages.
• Dungaree - low, common, coarse, vulgar.—Anglo-Indian. Dungaree is the name of a disreputable suburb of Bombay, and also of a coarse blue cloth worn by sailors.
• Dunkhorned - sneaking, shabby. Dunkhorn in Norfolk is the short, blunt horn of a beast, and the adjective is applied to a cuckold who has not spirit to resist his disgrace.
• Dunnage - baggage, clothes. Also, a sea term for wood or loose faggots laid at the bottom of ships, upon which is placed the cargo.
• Dunnyken - originally Dannaken, a watercloset.—From danna and ken, which see.
• Dunop - a pound.
• Dunop - a pound. Varied by “Dick,” back slang for “quid.”
• Dunton’s Ladies’ Dictionary, 8vo.London, 1694.
• Durrynacking - offering lace or any other article as an introduction to fortune-telling; generally practised by women.
• Dust-hole - Sidney Sussex College at Cambridge.—Univ. Slang.
• Dust - a disturbance, or noise, “to raise a dust,” to make a row.
• Dust - to beat; “dust one’s jacket,” i.e., give him a beating.
• Dustoorie - commission, douceur, bribe.—Anglo-Indian.
• Dutch concert - where each performer plays a different tune. Sometimes called a Dutch medley when vocal efforts only are used.
• Dutch courage - false courage, generally excited by drink—pot-valour.
• Dutch feast - where the host gets drunk before his guest.
• Dutch - or Double Dutch, gibberish, or any foreign tongue. “To talk Double Dutch backwards on a Sunday” is a humorous locution for extraordinary linguistic facility.
• E-fink - a knife.
• Earl of Cork - the ace of diamonds.—Hibernicism.
• Earwig - a clergyman, also one who prompts another maliciously and privately.
• Earwigging - a private conversation; a rebuke in private; an attempt to defame another unfairly, and without chance of appeal; a wigging is more public.
• Ease - to rob; “easing a bloke,” robbing a man.
• East and south - the mouth.
• Eat a fig - to “crack a crib,” to break into a house, or commit a burglary.
• Edgabac - cabbage.
• Edgenaro - an orange.
• Efter - a thief who frequents theatres.
• Egan. Grose’s Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue, with the addition of numerous Slang Phrases, edited by Pierce Egan, 8vo.1823.
• Egan’s (Pierce) Life in London, 2 vols. thick 8vo, with coloured plates by Geo. Cruikshank, representing high and low life.18—.
• Egg-flip - or egg-hot, a drink made after the manner of purl and bishop, with beer, eggs, and spirits made hot and sweetened.
• Egyptian hall - a ball.
• Ekame - a “make,” or swindle.
• Ekom - a “moke,” or donkey.
• Elbow grease - labour, or industry. Anything that is rusty, or in household work dirty or dingy, is said to require elbow grease.
• Elbow - “to shake one’s elbow,” to play with dice; “to crook one’s elbow,” to drink.
• Elephant’s trunk - drunk.
• Elevated - intoxicated. Elevation is the name of a drug-mixture much used in the fen-counties for keeping up the spirits and preventing ague. It consists mainly of opium.
• Elrig - a girl.
• Elwyn’s (Alfred L.) Glossary of supposed Americanisms—Vulgar and Slang Words used in the United States, small 8vo.1859.
• Emag - game, “I know your little emag.”
• Enemy - time, a clock, the ruthless enemy and tell-tale of idleness and of mankind generally; “what says the enemy?” i.e., how goes the time?
• Enif - fine.
• Enin gen - nine shillings.
• Enin yanneps - ninepence.
• Epsom races - a pair of braces.
• Erif - fire.
• Erth gen - three shillings.
• Erth sith-noms - three months,—a term of imprisonment unfortunately very familiar to the lower orders. Generally known as a “drag.”
• Erth yanneps - threepence.
• Erth-pu - three-up, a street game, played with three halfpence.
• Erth - three.
• Es-roch - a horse.
• Essex lion - a calf. A calf is probably the only lively animal to be seen in a journey through Essex.
• Essex stile - a ditch. A jocular allusion to the peculiarities of the “low county.”
• Esuch - a house.
• Evaporate - to go, or run away.
• Everton toffee - coffee.
• Evif-gen - a crown, or five shillings.
• Evif-yanneps - fivepence.
• Evlenet sith-noms - twelve months. Generally known as a “stretch.”
• Evlenet-gen - twelve shillings.
• Exes - expenses. “Just enough to clear our exes.”
• Exis gen - six shillings.
• Exis sith-noms - six months.
• Exis yanneps - sixpence.
• Exis-evif-gen - six times five shillings, i.e., 30s. All moneys may be reckoned in this manner, either with yanneps or gens. It is, however, rarely or never done.
• Extensive - frequently applied in a slang sense to a person’s appearance or talk; “rather extensive that!” intimating that the person alluded to is showing off, or “cutting it fat.”
• Extracted - placed on the list of “elegant extracts.”—Camb. Univ.
• Eye teeth - supposed evidences of sharpness. A man is said to have, or have not, cut his eye teeth, according to possession or want of shrewdness.
• Eye water - gin. Term principally used by printers.
• F sharps - fleas. Compare B flats.
• Face entry - the entrée to a theatre. From the face being known, as distinguished from free-list entry.
• Facer - a blow on the face. In Ireland, a dram.
• Facer - a tumbler of whisky-punch. Possibly from the suffusion of blood to the face caused by it.
• Fad - a hobby, a favourite pursuit.
• Fadge - a farthing.
• Fadge - a flat loaf.—North.
• Fadge - to suit or fit; “it wont fadge,” it will not do. Used by Shakspeare, but now heard only in the streets.
• Fadger - a glazier’s frame. Otherwise called a “frail,” perhaps in reference to the fragile nature of its contents.
• Fag - a schoolboy who performs a servant’s offices to a superior schoolmate. From fag, to become weary or tired out. Low German, fakk, wearied.
• Fag - to beat.
• Faggot briefs - bundles of worthless papers tied up with red tape, carried by unemployed barristers in the back rows of the courts to simulate briefs.
• Fake - in the sporting world, means to hocus or poison. Fake is also a mixture supposed to be used for purposes of “making safe.”
• Fakement Charley - the owner’s private mark. Faker, is one who makes or fakes anything. To “fake a cly,” is to pick a pocket.
• Fal-lals - trumpery ornaments, gewgaws. Forby suggests as a derivation the Latin phaleræ, horse trappings.
• Fambles - handes.
• Fambles - or famms, the hands.—Ancient Cant. German, fangen.
• Fambling chete - a ring on one’s hand.
• Family men - or people, thieves, or burglars.
• Fan - a waistcoat.—Houndsditch term.
• Fancy bloak - a fancy or sporting man.
• Fanning - a beating. Fanning is also stealing; cross-fanning is stealing with the arms crossed so as to distract attention, as in stealing breast-pins, &c.
• Fanqui - a European, literally foreign devil.—Anglo-Chinese.
• Fantail - a dustman’s or coalheaver’s hat. So called from the shape.
• Fast - embarrassed, wanting money, tied up. Sometimes synonymous with “hard up.”—Yorkshire.
• Father - or fence, a buyer of stolen property.
• Fawney - a finger ring. Irish, fainee, a ring.
• Feed - a meal, generally a dinner. Originally stable slang, now pretty general.
• Feele - a daughter, or child.—Corrupted French.
• Fellow-commoner - uncomplimentary epithet used at Cambridge for an empty bottle.
• Felt - a hat.—Old term, in use in the sixteenth century.
• Fen-nightingales - toads and frogs, from their continued croaking at night.
• Fence - a purchaser or receiver of stolen goods; also, the shop or warehouse of a fencer.—Old Cant.
• Feringee - a European—that is, a Frank.—Anglo-Indian.
• Fi-fa - a writ of Fieri-Facias.—Legal.
• Fi-fi - Thackeray’s term for Paul de Kock’s novels, and similar modern French literature.
• Fi-heath - a thief.
• Fib - to beat or strike.—Old Cant.
• Fib - to lie, to romance.
• Fibbing - a series of blows delivered quickly, and at a short distance.—Pugilistic.
• Fid-fad - a game similar to chequers, or drafts, played in the West of England.
• Fiddle-face - a person with a wizened countenance.
• Fiddle-faddle - twaddle, or trifling discourse.—Old Cant.
• Fiddle-sticks! an exclamation signifying nonsense. Sometimes “Fiddle-de-dee.”
• Fiddle - a sharper, “a street mugger.” In America, a swindle or an imposture.
• Fiddle - “to play second fiddle,” to act subordinately, or follow the lead of another. From the orchestral practice.
• Fiddler - a sixpence. Fiddler’s money is small money; generally from the old custom of each couple at a dance paying the fiddler sixpence.
• Fiddler - or fadge, a farthing.
• Fiddles - transverse pieces of wood used on shipboard to protect the dishes at table during stormy weather. Swing tables obviate the use of fiddles.
• Field of wheat - a street.
• Fieri-facias. A red-faced man is often jocularly said to have been served with a writ of fieri-facias.
• Fig-leaf - a small apron worn by ladies.
• Figaro - a barber; from Le Nozze di Figaro.
• Figure - “to cut a good or bad figure,” to make good or indifferent appearance; “what’s the figure?” how much is to pay? Figure-head, a person’s face.—Sea term.
• Fillet of veal - the treadwheel in the house of correction.
• Fillibrush - to flatter, praise ironically.
• Fimble-famble - a lame, prevaricating excuse.—Scandinavian.
• Fin - a hand; “come, tip us your fin,” viz., let us shake hands.—Sea.
• Finder - one who finds bacon and meat at the market before they are lost, i.e., steals them.
• Finger and thumb - rum.
• Finnuf - a five-pound note. Double finnuf, a ten-pound note.—German, funf, five.
• Fire-eater - a quarrelsome man, a braggadocio or turbulent person who is always ready to fight.
• Firkytoodle - to cuddle or fondle.
• First flight - the first lot to finish in a foot or horse race, in a fox hunt, &c.
• Fish - a person; “a queer fish,” “a loose fish.” Term never used except in doubtful cases, as those quoted.
• Fishfag - originally a Billingsgate fishwife; now any scolding, vixenish, foul-mouthed woman.
• Fishy - doubtful, unsound, rotten; used to denote a suspicion of a “screw6 being loose,” or “something rotten in the state of Denmark,” in referring to any proposed speculation.
• Five fingers - the five of trumps, at the game of Five-cards, or Don.
• Fives - “bunch of fives,” the fist.
• Fix - a predicament, or dilemma; “an awful fix,” a terrible position; “to fix one’s flint for him,” i.e., to “settle his hash,” to “put a spoke in his wheel.”
• Fixings - an Americanism, equivalent to our word “trimmings,” which see.
• Fiz - champagne; any sparkling wine.
• Fizzing - first-rate, very good, excellent; synonymous with “stunning.”
• Flabbergast - or Flabberghast, to astonish, or strike with wonder; literally, to strike aghast.—Old.
• Flag of distress - any overt sign of poverty; the end of a person’s shirt when it protrudes through his trousers.
• Flag unfurled - a man of the world.
• Flag - a groat, or 4d.—Ancient Cant.
• Flag - an apron. People who wear their aprons when not at work, are called “flag-flashers.”
• Flagg - a groat.
• Flam - nonsense, blarney, a lie, humbug. “A regular flam,” a tale devoid of truth.
• Flame - a sweetheart.
• Flap - lead used for the coverings of roofs.
• Flapper - or flipper, the hand.
• Flare up - a jovial social gathering, a “breakdown,” a “row.”
• Flash it - show it—said when any bargain is offered.
• Flash o’ lightning - the gold band on an officer’s cap.—Sea. Also in street slang, a glass of gin.
• Flat-feet - the battalion companies in the Foot Guards.
• Flat - a fool, a silly or “soft” person; the opposite of “sharp.” The terms appear to be shortenings for “sharp-witted” and “flat-witted.” Or, maybe, from musical notes.
• Flatch kennurd - half drunk.
• Flatch-yenork - half-a-crown. See preceding remarks.
• Flatch - half, or a halfpenny.
• Flatch - halfpenny.
• Flatchyannep - a halfpenny.
• Flatty-ken - a public-house the landlord of which is ignorant of the practices of the thieves and tramps who frequent it.
• Flatty - a rustic, or uninitiated person.
• Flay the fox - to vomit. Now replaced by the more popular “shoot the cat.”
• Flea and louse - a house.
• Flemish account. —Old. Still used by sailors for a tangled and unsatisfactory account or reckoning.
• Flesh and blood - brandy and port in equal quantities.
• Flick - or old flick, a comical old chap or fellow. Term of endearment among low people.
• Flies - trickery, nonsense. “There are no flies about me, sir.” Softening of lies.
• Flim-flamn - idle story.—Beaumont and Fletcher.
• Flimp - to hustle, or rob.
• Flint - an operative who works for a “society” master, i.e., for full wages.
• Flip - corruption of fillip, a light blow. Also a hot drink. See flannel.
• Flipper - the hand; “give us your flipper,” give me your hand.—Sea. Metaphor taken from the flipper or paddle of a turtle.
• Floater - a small suet dumpling put into soup.—Whitechapel.
• Floating academy - the hulks.
• Floor - to knock down.—Pugilistic.
• Floored - when a picture is hung on the lowest row at the Exhibition of the Royal Academy, it is, in artistic slang, said to be floored, in contradistinction to “skyed,” which see.
• Floorer - a blow sufficiently strong to knock a man down, or bring him to the floor. Often used in reference to sudden and unpleasant news.
• Flop - to plump; “to go flop down,” to fall suddenly, with violence and noise.
• Flounder and dab (two kinds of flat fish), a cab.
• Flowery - lodging, or house entertainment; “square the omee for the flowery,” pay the master for the lodging.—Lingua Franca.
• Flue-faker - a chimney-sweep.
• Fluff it - a term of disapprobation, implying “take it away, I don’t want it.”
• Fluff - railway ticket clerks’ slang for short change given by them. The profits thus accruing are called “fluffings,” and the practice is known as “fluffing.”
• Fluke - at billiards, playing for one thing and getting another. Hence, generally what one gets accidentally, as an unexpected advantage, “more by luck than judgment.”
• Flummery - flattery, gammon, genteel nonsense. In American ships a peculiar kind of light sweet pudding.
• Flummux - to perplex or hinder.
• Flunkey - a footman or other man-servant.
• Flunkeyism - blind worship of rank, birth, or riches, or of all three; toadyism.
• Flush - a term in cribbage, signifying a hand of cards composed entirely of one suit.
• Flush - the opposite of “hard up,” in possession of money, not poverty-stricken.—Shakspeare.
• Fly my kite - a light.
• Fly the kite - or raise the wind, to obtain money on bills, whether good or bad, probably in allusion to tossing paper about as children do kites.
• Fly the kite - to evacuate from a window,—term used in padding-kens, or low lodging-houses.
• Fly - knowing, wide-awake, fully understanding another’s meaning.
• Fly - to be on the, to be out for a day’s drink or pleasure.
• Fly - to lift, toss, or raise; “fly the mags,” i.e., toss up the halfpence; “to fly a window,” i.e., to lift one for the purpose of stealing.
• Flying mare - a throw in wrestling.
• Flying mess - “to be in flying mess” is a soldier’s phrase for being hungry and having to mess where he can.
• Flymy - knowing, cunning, roguish.—Seven Dials and Low Life.
• Fobbed - old slang for robbed. From fob, the ancient breeches-pocket for the watch.
• Fogger - a farm servant who feeds cattle. Probably a corruption of fodderer.
• Fogger - old word for a huckster.
• Foggy - tipsy.
• Fogus - tobacco.—Ancient Cant. Fogo, old word for stench.
• Follow-me-lads - curls hanging over a lady’s shoulder.
• Foont - a sovereign, or 20s. Probably a corruption of vingt.
• Footing - “to pay footing.” See shoe.
• Forty foot - a derisive appellation for a very short person.
• Forty guts - vulgar term for a fat man.
• Forty winks - a short sleep or nap.
• Forty-twa - the common place of retirement on a well-known French plan at Edinburgh, so called from its accommodating that number of persons at once.
• Fou - rather more than slightly intoxicated.—Scotch.
• Foul - to jostle or bore unfairly in a race. See bore. To touch any foreign substance during a race—particularly a boat-race—is to foul it.
• Four kings - history of the, an old name for a pack of playing cards. See Sir Thomas Urquhart’s Translation of Rabelais. In Argot, livre des quatre rois.
• Four-and-nine - or four-and-ninepenny goss, a cheap hat, so called from 4s. 9d., the price at which a once noted advertising hat-maker sold his hats—
• Four-eyes - a man or woman who habitually wears spectacles.
• Fourth estate - the complete body of journalists of all descriptions. This term is much in use among “liners.”
• Fox - to cheat or rob.—Eton College. In London to watch closely and narrowly.
• Foxed - a term used by print and book collectors to denote the brown spotted appearance produced by damp on paper.
• Foxing - when one actor criticises another’s performance.—Theatrical. Also in street slang foxing means watching slyly.
• Foxy - rank, tainted, from the odour of the animal.—Lincolnshire.
• Foxy - said also of a red-haired person.
• Fox’s Sleep - or foxing, a purposely assumed indifference to what is going on. A fox, as well as a weasel, is said to sleep with one eye open.
• Frapping - a beating. French, frapper.
• Frater - a beggar wyth a false paper.
• Free fight - a fight conducted on the Irishman’s principle—“Sure, wherever you see a head, hit it.” The term is, however, American, so the practice may be considered fairly general.
• French cream - brandy.
• French gout - a certain disease, which is also known as “ladies’ fever.”
• French leave - to take, to leave or depart slyly, without saying anything; or obtaining permission.
• Fresh - said of a person slightly intoxicated.
• Freshe water mariners - these kind of caterpillers counterfet great losses on the sea:—their shippes were drowned in the playne of Salisbury.
• Friday-face - a gloomy-looking man. Most likely from Friday being a day of meagre fare among Catholics and High Church Protestants.
• Frisk a cly - to empty a pocket.
• Frisk - to search; frisked, searched by a constable or other officer.
• Frog and toad - the main road.
• Frog - a policeman. Because, by a popular delusion, he is supposed to pounce suddenly on delinquents.
• Frontispiece - the face.
• Frow - a girl, or wife. German, frau; Dutch, vrouw.
• Frummagemmed - annihilated, strangled, garrotted, or spoilt.—Old Cant.
• Frump - a slatternly woman, a gossip.—Ancient. In modern slang it is the feminine of fogey, and means a prim old lady, who is generally termed “a regular old frump.”
• Frump - to mock or insult.—Beaumont and Fletcher.
• Fuggies - hot rolls.—School.
• Full feather - good condition, high spirits. Also any one gaily dressed is said to be in full feather.
• Full fig - full costume, male or female uniform or evening dress.
• Full of beans - arrogant, purseproud. A person whom sudden prosperity has made offensive and conceited, is said to be too “full of beans.” Originally stable slang.
• Fullams - false dice, which always turn up high.—Shakspeare.
• Funk - to smoke out, or terrify.
• Funk - trepidation, nervousness, cowardice. To funk, to be afraid or nervous.
• Funny - a rowing boat with both ends pointed and out of the water.
• Fye-buck - a sixpence.—Nearly obsolete.
• Fylche - to robbe: Fylch-man, a robber.
• Gab - gabber or gabble, talk; “gift of the gab,” loquacity, or natural talent for speech-making.—Anglo-Norman; gab is also found in the Danish and Old Norse.
• Gaby - a simpleton, a country bumpkin. Probably from gape.
• Gad - a trapesing slatternly woman.—Gipsy. Anglo-Saxon, gædeling.
• Gadding the hoof - going without shoes. Gadding, roaming about, although used in an old translation of the Bible, is now only heard amongst the lower orders.
• Gaff - a penny play-house, in which talking is not permitted on the stage. See penny gaff.
• Gaffer - a master, or employer; term used by “navvies,” and general in Lancashire and North of England. Early English for an old man. See “blow the gaff.”
• Gag - a lie; “a gag he told to the beak.”—Thieves’ Cant.
• Gag - to hoax, “take a rise” out of one; to “cod.”
• Gage - a quart pot.
• Gage - a small quantity of anything; as “a gage of tobacco,” meaning a pipeful; “a gage of gin,” a glassful. Gage was, in the last century, a chamber utensil.
• Galeny - old cant term for a fowl of any kind; now a respectable word in the West of England, signifying a Guinea fowl.—Vide Grose. Latin, gallina.
• Gallanty show - an exhibition in which black figures are shown on a white sheet to accompanying dialogue. Generally given at night by “Punch and Judy” men.
• Gallimaufry - a kind of stew, made up of scraps of various kinds. Sea term, and probably meaning the galley scraps.
• Gallipot - an apothecary.
• Gallivant - to wait upon the ladies.—Old.
• Gallows bird - an incorrigible thief; often applied to denote a ruffian-like appearance.
• Gallows - or gallus, very, or exceedingly—an unpleasant exclamation; “gallows poor,” very poor. Term originally applied to anything bad enough to deserve hanging.
• Gallowses - in the North of England a pair of braces.
• Gally-yarn - a sailor’s term for a hoaxing story. He expresses disbelief by saying only “g. y.”
• Galoot. —See geeloot.
• Galore - abundance. Irish, go leor, in plenty.
• Gamb - a leg. Still used as an heraldic term, as well as by thieves, who probably get it from the Lingua Franca. Italian, gamba; French, jambe, a leg.
• Game leg - a lame or wounded leg.
• Gameness - pluck, endurance, courage generally.
• Gammon - deceit, humbug, a false and ridiculous story. Anglo-Saxon, gamen, game, sport.
• Gammy-vial (Ville), a town where the police will not let persons hawk.
• Gan - a mouth.
• Gander Month - the period when the monthly nurse is in the ascendant, and the husband has to shift for himself. Probably from the open choice he has during that period.
• Ganger - the person who superintends the work of a gang, or a number of navigators.
• Gar - euphuistic rendering of the title of the Deity; “be gar, you don’t say so!”—Franco-English.
• Garden gate - a magistrate.
• Garden - among tradesmen signifies Covent Garden Market; among theatrical performers, Covent Garden Theatre.
• Gargle - medical-student slang for drinkables.
• Garnish - footing money.—Yorkshire.
• Garreter - a thief who crawls over the tops of houses, and enters garret-windows.7 Called also a “dancer,” or “dancing-master,” from the light and airy nature of his occupation.
• Garrotting - a mode of cheating practised amongst card-sharpers, by concealing certain cards at the back of the neck.
• Gassy - or gaseous, liable to “flare up” at any offence.
• Gate - the, Billingsgate. Sometimes Newgate, according to the occupation and condition of the speaker. In the same way Paternoster Row is by publishers known as “the Row.”
• Gate - to order an undergrad not to pass beyond the college gate. As a rule, the gate begins after hall, but in extreme cases the offender is gated for the whole day.—University.
• Gatter - beer; “shant of gatter,” a pot of beer. A curious slang street melody, known in Seven Dials as Bet the Coaley’s Daughter, thus mentions the word in a favourite verse:—
• Gaudy - the annual dinner of the Fellows of a College, in memory of founders and benefactors. From gaudeamus.—Oxford University.
• Gawfs - cheap red-skinned apples, a favourite fruit with costermongers, who rub them well with a piece of cloth, and find ready purchasers.
• Gawky - a lanky, or awkward person; a fool. Saxon, geak; Scotch, gowk.
• Gay tyke boy - a dog-fancier.
• Gee - to agree with, or be congenial to a person.
• Geeloot - or galoot, a recruit, or awkward soldier. A clumsy person, also a term of contempt in America.
• Gen-net - or net gen, ten shillings.
• Gen - a shilling. See back-slang article.
• Gen - twelvepence, or one shilling. Formerly imagined to be an abbreviation of argent, cant term for silver.
• Generalize - a shilling, almost invariably shortened to gen.
• Genitraf - a farthing.
• Genol - long.
• Gent - a contraction of “gentleman,”—in more senses than one. A dressy, showy, foppish man, with a little mind, who vulgarizes the prevailing fashion.
• Gent - silver. From the French, argent.
• Gentleman of three ins -—that is, in debt, in danger, and in poverty.
• Gentleman’s Magazine - 8vo.n. d.
• Gentleman’s Magazine - vol. xcii., p. 520.
• Gentry cofe - a noble or gentle man.
• Gentry cofes ken - a noble or gentle man’s house.
• Gentry mort - a noble or gentle woman.
• German Duck - a sheep’s-head stewed with onions; a favourite dish among the German sugar-bakers in the East-end of London.
• German Ducks - bugs.—Yorkshire.
• German flutes - a pair of boots.
• Gerry - excrement.
• Get up - a person’s appearance or general arrangements. Probably derived from the decorations of a play.
• Ghost - “the ghost doesn’t walk,” a theatrical term which implies that there is no money about, and that there will be no “treasury.”
• Gib-face - a heavy, ugly face; gib is properly the lower lip of a horse; “to hang one’s gib,” to pout the lower lip, to be angry or sullen.
• Gibus - an opera hat. From the inventor of the crush hat.
• Giffle-gaffle - or gibble-gabble, nonsense. See chaff. Icelandic, gafla.
• Gig - a farthing. Formerly grig.
• Gig - fun, frolic, a spree. Old French, gigue, a jig, a romp.
• Gill - or jill, a homely woman; “Jack and Gill,” &c.
• Gills - overlarge shirt collars.
• Gilt - money. German, geld; Dutch, gelt.
• Gimcrack - a bijou, a slim piece of mechanism. Old slang for “a spruce wench.”—New Bailey. Any things which are gaudy and easily breakable, are known now as gimcracks.
• Gin-spinner - a distiller, or rectifier of gin.
• Ginger hackled - having flaxen, light yellow hair. Term originally7 used to describe a certain colour or colours in game-cocks.—See hackle.
• Ginger - a showy, fast horse—as if he had been figged with ginger under his tail; a red-haired man. Term commonly used in depreciation of a person’s appearance.
• Gingerly - to do anything with great care.—Cotgrave.
• Gingham - an umbrella. Term very common in London.
• Gingumbob - a bauble.
• Girl and boy - a saveloy,—a penny sausage.
• Give in - to admit oneself defeated, to “throw up the sponge,” or “strike one’s flag.”
• Gladstone - cheap claret. Gladstone reduced the duty on French wines.
• Glasyers - eyes.
• Glaze - glass; generally applied to windows. To “star the glaze” is to break a window.
• Glib - a tongue; “slacken your glib,” i.e., “loosen your tongue.”
• Glim lurk - a begging paper, giving a circumstantial account of a dreadful fire—which never happened.
• Glim - a light, a lamp; “dowse the glim,” put out the candle. Sea and Old Cant. Glims, spectacles. Gaelic, glinn, light. German (provincial), glimm, a spark.
• Gloak - a man. Term much used in old thieves’ cant.
• Glorious sinner - a dinner.
• Glossaries of County Dialects.v. d.
• Glum - sulky, stem; “to look glum,” to appear annoyed or disconcerted.
• Glump - to sulk.
• Glumpish - of a stubborn, sulky temper.
• Glymmar - fyer.
• Go along - a fool, a cully, one of the most contemptuous terms in a thieves’ vocabulary.
• Go due north - to become bankrupt, to go to Whitecross Street.—Nearly obsolete.
• Go it - a term of encouragement, implying, “keep it up!” Sometimes amplified to “go it, ye cripples;” said to have been a facetious rendering of the last line of Virgil’s Eclogues—
• Go over - in clerical slang, signifies to join the Church of Rome.
• Go the whole pile - to put all one’s bank on a solitary chance. An Americanism which had its origin in the piles of gold dust used as circulating medium by gambling miners.
• Gob - the mouth, as in pugilistic slang “a spank on the gob, drawing the gravy.” Also mucus, or saliva. Sometimes used for gab, talk—
• Gob or gobbet, a portion. Generally applied to meat by schoolboys.
• Gods - the quadrats used by printers in throwing on the imposing stone, similar to the movement in casting dice.—Printers’ term.
• Gol-mol - noise, commotion.—Anglo-Indian.
• Gold-mine - any profitable investment, from a fried-fish shop to a remunerative speculation involving millions.
• Goldbacked uns - body lice. Sometimes called greybacked uns.
• Goldfinches - sovereigns. Similar to Canaries.
• Golgotha - a hat, “place of a skull.” Hence the “Don’s gallery,” at St. Mary’s, Cambridge, and that part of the theatre at Oxford where the heads of houses sit.
• Golopshus - splendid, delicious, luscious.—Norwich.
• Goose; “Paddy’s goose,” i.e., the White Swan, a celebrated public-house in Ratcliff Highway.
• Goose - a tailor’s pressing iron. Originally a slang term, but now in most dictionaries.
• Goose - to ruin, or spoil; to hiss a play.—Theatrical. To be “sound on the goose” is in America to be orthodox in one’s political creed.
• Goose - “to cook his goose,” to kill him; the same as “to give him his gruel,” or “settle his hash.”
• Goose - “to get the goose,” “to be goosed,” signifies to be hissed while on the stage. The big-bird, the terror of actors. See big bird.—Theatrical.
• Gooseberry pudding (vulgo pudden), a woman.
• Gooseberry - to “play up old gooseberry” with any one, to defeat or silence a person in a quick or summary manner.
• Goosecap - a simpleton, a booby, or noodle.—Devonshire.
• Gooser - a settler, or finishing blow.
• Gorge - to eat in a ravenous manner. “Rotten gorgers” are those hungry lads who hang about Covent Garden Market, and devour the discarded fruit.
• Gorger - a swell, a well-dressed, or gorgeous man—probably derived from the latter adjective. Sometimes used to denote an employer, or principal, as the manager of a theatre.
• Gormed - a Norfolk corruption of a profane oath. So used by Mr. Peggotty in David Copperfield.
• Gospel Shop - an irreverent term for a church or chapel of any denomination. Mostly in use among sailors.
• Gospel grinder - a City missionary, or tract-distributor.
• Goss - a hat—from the gossamer silk of which modern hats are made.
• Goth - an uncultivated person. One who is ignorant of the ways of society.
• Gourock ham - a salt herring. Gourock, on the Clyde, about twenty-five miles from Glasgow, was formerly a great fishing village.—Scotch.
• Government sign-post - the gallows. This is necessarily almost obsolete.
• Governor - a father, a master or superior person, an elder; “which way, guv’ner, to Cheapside?”
• Gowler - a dog.—North Country Cant. Query, growler.
• Gownsman - a student at one of the universities, as distinguished from a townsman.
• Grab - to clutch, or seize; grabbed, caught, apprehended.
• Graft - work; “where are you grafting?” i.e., where do you work? “What graft are you at?” what are you doing? Perhaps derived from gardening phraseology; or a variation of craft.
• Grannam - corne.
• Granny - a knot which will not hold, from its being wrongly and clumsily tied.—Sea.
• Granny - to know, or recognise; “do ye granny the bloke?” do you know the man?
• Grappling irons - fingers.—Sea.
• Grass-comber - a country fellow, a haymaker.
• Grass - to knock down. Also to throw in a wrestling-match. “He grassed his man with a heavy righthander,” or “He brought his man to grass by means of a swinging hipe.”
• Grasshopper - a waiter at a tea-garden.
• Gravel-rash - a scratched face,—telling its tale of a drunken fall. A person subject to this is called a gravel-grinder.
• Gravel - to confound, to bother; “I’m gravelled,” i.e., perplexed or confused.—Old. Also, to prostrate, to beat to the ground.
• Gravesend sweetmeats - shrimps. Gravesend twins are solid particles of sewage.
• Gray-coat parson - a lay impropriator, or lessee of great tithes.
• Grease spot - a minute remnant, humorously the only distinguishable remains of an antagonist after a terrific contest.
• Greasing - bribing. Sometimes called “greasing the palm” of a man’s hand.
• Grecian bend - modern milliner slang for an exaggerated bustle, the effect of which is generally assisted by unnaturally high-heeled boots.
• Greek kalends - an expression signifying an indefinite period; never. Term used in making promises never intended to be carried out. The Greeks had no kalends.
• Greek - a wide-awake fellow, a sharper.
• Green-horn - a fresh, simple, or uninitiated person.
• Green - ignorant, not wide-awake, inexperienced.—Shakspeare. “Do you see any green in my eye?” ironical question in a dispute.
• Greenlander - an inexperienced person, a spoon. Sometimes an Irishman.
• Greenwich goose - a pensioner of the Naval Hospital.
• Griddler - a person who sings in the streets without a printed copy of the words.—Seven Dials.
• Gridiron and dough boys - the flag of the United States, in allusion to the stars and stripes.—Sea.
• Grief - “to come to grief,” to meet with an accident, to be ruined.
• Griffin - in India, a newly-arrived cadet; general for an inexperienced youngster.
• Grind - to work up for an examination, to cram by oneself, or with a private tutor.
• Grinder - a tooth.
• Grinder - private tutor, a coach.—University.
• Grindoff - a miller. From The Miller and his Men.
• Gripes - the stomach-ache. See tripes.
• Grizzle - to fret or cry continuously.
• Grog blossoms - pimples on the face, caused by hard drinking. Of such a person it is often said, “He bears his blushing honours thick upon him.”
• Grog-fight - a drinking party.—Military.
• Grose’s (Francis, generally styled Captain) Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue, 8vo.178-.
• Grove of the Evangelist - a facetious name for St. John’s Wood.
• Growler - a four-wheeled cab. It is generally supposed that drivers of these vehicles take a less favourable view of life than do their Hansom brethren.
• Grub and bub - victuals and drink of any kind,—grub signifying food, and bub, drink.
• Grubbing ken - or spinikin, a workhouse; a cook-shop.
• Grubby - musty, or old-fashioned.—Devonshire.
• Grunting chete - a pygge.
• Guardevine - a cellaret.—Scotch.
• Guinea pigs - habitual directors of public companies; special jurymen; and engineer officers doing civil duty at the War Office, and paid a guinea per diem.
• Gull - to cheat, to deceive; also one easily cheated. From the easy manner in which the bird of that name is deceived.
• Gully rakers - cattle thieves in Australia, the cattle being stolen out of almost inaccessible valleys, there termed gullies.
• Gullyfluff - the waste—coagulated dust, crumbs, and hair—which accumulates imperceptibly in the pockets of schoolboys.
• Gulpin - a weak, credulous fellow, who will gulp down anything.
• Gummy - thick, fat—generally applied to a woman’s ankles, or to a man whose flabby person betokens him a drunkard.
• Gumption - or rumgumption, comprehension, capacity. From gaum, to comprehend; “I canna gauge it, and I canna gaum it,” as a Yorkshire exciseman said of a hedgehog.
• Gun - a magsman or street thief. Diminutive of gonnuf or gunnof. A gun’s practice is known as gunoving.
• Gup - gossip.—Anglo-Indian.
• Gurrawaun - a coachman, a native Indian corruption of the English word coachman. For another curious corruption of a similar kind, see simpkin.—Anglo-Indian.
• Gut scraper - a fiddler.
• Gutter blood - a low or vulgar man.—Scotch.
• Gutter lane - the throat. Probably from guttur.
• Guttle - see guzzle.
• Guy - a fright, a dowdy, an ill-dressed person. Derived from the effigy of Guy Fawkes carried about by boys on Nov. 5. “Hollo, boys, another guy!”
• Guy - to get away. Same as hedge in street phraseology, which see.
• Guzzle - to eat or drink to excess; to eat loudly, hastily, and clumsily.
• Gyb - a writing.
• Gyger [jigger], a dore.
• Hackle - pluck; “to show hackle,” to be willing to fight. Hackles are the long feathers on the back of a cock’s neck, which he erects when angry,—hence the metaphor.
• Hackslaver - to stammer in one’s speech, like a dunce at his lesson.
• Haddock - a purse.—See beans.
• Half Jack. See jacks.
• Half-a-bean - half-a-sovereign.
• Half-a-bull - two shillings and sixpence.
• Half-a-couter - half-a-sovereign.
• Half-a-hog - sixpence; sometimes termed half-a-grunter.
• Half-a-stretch - six months in prison.
• Half-a-tusheroon - half-a-crown.
• Half-baked - soft, doughy, half-witted, silly. Half-rocked has a similar meaning.
• Half-foolish - ridiculous; means often wholly foolish.
• Half-mourning - to have a black eye from a blow. As distinguished from “whole-mourning,” two black eyes.
• Half-seas-over - reeling drunk.—Sea. Used by Swift.
• Hall - the, Leadenhall Market, among folk who get their livings there, in the same way as “The Garden” refers to Covent Garden.
• Halliwell’s Archaic Dictionary, 2 vols. 8vo.1855.
• Hall’s (B.H.) Collection of College Words and Customs, 12mo. Cambridge (U.S.), 1856.
• Hand-me-downs - second-hand clothes. See reach-me-downs.
• Hand-saw - or chive fencer, a man who sells razors and knives in the streets.
• Hander - a second, or assistant. At some schools blows on the hand administered with a cane are so called.
• Handle - a nose; the title appended to a person’s name; also a term in boxing, “to handle one’s fists,” to use them against an adversary.
• Handling - a method of concealing certain cards in the palm of the hand, or in fashionable long wristbands; one of the many modes of cheating practised by sharpers.
• Handseller - or cheap jack, a street or open-air seller, a man who carries goods to his customers, instead of waiting for his customers to visit him.
• Hang out - to reside,—in allusion to the ancient custom of hanging out signs.
• Hang up - to rob with violence, to garrotte. Most likely from throttling associations in connexion with the practice of garrotting.
• Hangman’s wages - thirteenpence halfpenny.—Old. 17th century.
• Hannah - “that’s the man as married hannah,” a Salopian phrase to express a matter begun or ended satisfactorily. Meaning actually, “that’s the thing.”
• Happy-go-lucky - careless, indifferent as to the favours or reverses of fortune.
• Haramzadeh - a very general Indian term of contempt, signifying base-born.—Anglo-Indian.
• Hard mouthed un - any one difficult to deal with, a sharp bargainer, an obstinate person. Derivation obvious.
• Hard-up - in distress, poverty-stricken.—Sea.
• Hardy - a stone.—North.
• Harebrained - reckless, unthinking.
• Harlequin Jack Shepherd, with a Night Scene in Grotesque Characters, 8vo.(About 1736.)
• Harrison’s (William) Description of the Island of Britain (prefixed to Holinshed’s Chronicle), 2 vols. folio.1577.
• Harry Bluff - snuff.
• Harry - or old harry, (i.e., Old Hairy?) the Devil; “to play old harry with one,” i.e., ruin or annoy him.
• Harum-scarum - wild, dissipated, reckless; four horses driven in a line. This is also called suicide. See tandem, randem, unicorn, &c.
• Hatchet - “to sling the hatchet,” to skulk.—Sea.
• Hatchet - “to throw the hatchet,” to tell lies. Same as “to draw the long bow.”
• Hawbuck - a vulgar, ignorant, country fellow, but one remove from the clodpole.
• Hay bag - a woman.
• Haymarket Hectors - bullies who, in the interest of prostitutes, affect the neighbourhood of Leicester Square and the Haymarket.
• Haze - to confuse and annoy a subordinate by contradictory, unnecessary, and perplexing orders.
• Hazlitt’s (William) Table Talk, 12mo, (vol. ii. contains a chapter on Familiar Style, with a notice on Slang terms.)
• Hazy - intoxicated, also dull and stupid.
• Ha’porth o’ coppers - Habeas Corpus.—Legal slang.
• Ha’porth o’ liveliness - the music at a low concert, or theatre. Also a dilatory person.
• Head or tail - “I can’t make head or tail of it,” i.e., cannot make it out. Originally a gambling phrase.
• Head-beetler - the bully of the workshop, who lords it over his fellow-workmen by reason of superior strength, skill in fighting, &c. Sometimes applied to the foreman.
• Head-rails - the teeth.—Sea.
• Head-serag - a master, overseer, or other important personage; from serang, a boatswain.—Bengalee, and Sea.
• Head’s (Richard) English Rogue, described in the Life of Meriton Latroon, a Witty Extravagant, 4 vols. 12mo.Frans. Kirkman, 1671-80.
• Heap - “a heap of people,” a crowd; “struck all of a heap,” suddenly astonished.
• Hearing chetes - eares.
• Heat - a bout, or turn, in horse or foot racing. By means of heats the field is gradually reduced.
• Heavy dragoons - bugs, in contradistinction from fleas, which are “light infantry.”—Oxford University.
• Heavy wet - malt liquor—because the more a man drinks of it, the heavier and more stupid he becomes.
• Hedge-popping - shooting small birds about the hedges, as boys do; unsportsmanlike kind of shooting.
• Hedge - to get away from any dangerous spot. “We saw the slop coming, and hedged at once.”
• Heigh-ho! a cant term for stolen yarn, from the expression used to apprize the dishonest shopkeeper that the speaker had stolen yarn to sell.—Norwich Cant.
• Hell and Tommy - utter destruction.
• Hell upon earth - or the most pleasant and delectable History of Whittington’s Colledge, otherwise vulgarly called Newgate, 12mo.1703.
• Hell - a fashionable gambling-house. Small places of this kind are called “silver hells.” Reason obvious.
• Helter-skelter - anyhow, without regard to order or precedence.
• Hempen cravat - the hangman’s noose.
• Hen and Chickens - large and small pewter pots.
• Hen-pecked - said of one whose wife “wears the breeches.” From the action of the hen in paired cage-birds.
• Henley’s (John, better known as Orator Henley) Various Sermons and Orations.1719-53.
• Herring-pond - the sea; “to be sent across the herring-pond,” to be transported.
• Higgledy-piggledy - confusedly, all together,—as pigs lie.
• High Church - term used in contradistinction from “Low Church.”
• High-flier - anything above the common order. Apt students, fast9 coaches, and special trains are sufficient instances of the extreme openness of the qualification.
• High-fly - “on the high-fly,” on the genteel or letter-bearing begging system.
• High-flyer - a genteel beggar or swindler. A begging-letter impostor.
• High-flyer - a large swing, in frames, at fairs and races. The first fast coaches were called high-flyers on account of their desperate speed.
• High-lows - laced boots reaching a trifle higher than ankle-jacks.
• High-strikes - corruption of Hysterics.
• Hipped - bored, offended, crossed, low-spirited, &c. This may have been originally hypped, and have had some connexion with hypochondriacal affections.
• Hitched - an Americanism for married. From the word hitch, used in America in the sense of to harness.
• Hittite - a facetious sporting term for a prize-fighter. Derived from the Bible.
• Hivite - a student of St. Begh’s College, Cumberland, which is pronounced and generally written St. Bee’s. Literally, Hive-ite.
• Hoax - to deceive, or ridicule,—Grose says this was originally a University cant word. Corruption of hocus, to cheat.
• Hob Collingwood - according to Brockett, a north country term for the four of hearts, considered an unlucky card.
• Hobbadehoy - a youth who has ceased to regard himself as a boy, and is not yet regarded as a man.
• Hobble - trouble of any kind. A man is said to be in a hobble when he has offended the proprieties in any way, “from pitch and toss to manslaughter.”
• Hock-dockies - shoes.
• Hocks - the feet and ankles; curby hocks, round or clumsy feet and ankles. Term originating with horsey men.
• Hod of mortar - a pot of porter.
• Hog - a shilling.—Old Cant.
• Hoga - do. “That wont hoga,” i.e., that wont do, is one of the very commonest of the Anglo-Indian slang phrases.
• Hogmagundy - the process by which the population is increased.
• Hogmany night - New Year’s Eve, when presents are solicited by the young folk.—Scotch.
• Hogo - a tremendous stench. From haut goût. Now often pronounced fogo.
• Hoisting - shoplifting.
• Hold hard - an exclamation made when a sudden stoppage is desired. Originally an expression used in riding or driving, now general.
• Hollow - “to beat hollow,” to excel.
• Holy Joe - a sea-term for a parson.
• Holy Land - a very old term for the Seven Dials,—where St. Giles’s Greek is spoken.
• Homo - a man. Lingua Franca; but see omee, the more usual Cockney pronunciation.
• Hondey - a Manchester name for an omnibus, and the abbreviation of hondeybush, the original Lancashire pronunciation of the word.
• Honey blobs - a Scotch term for large ripe, yellow gooseberries.
• Honour bright - an asseveration which means literally, “by my honour, which is bright and unsullied.” It is often still further curtailed to “honour!” only.
• Hook - to steal or rob. See the following.
• Hookey walker! ejaculation of incredulity, usually shortened to walker!—which see.
• Hop merchant - a dancing master.
• Hop - a dance.—Fashionable slang.
• Hopping Giles - a cripple. St. Ægidius or Giles, himself similarly afflicted, was the patron saint of lazars and cripples. The ancient lazar houses were dedicated to him.
• Hoppo - custom-house officer, or custom-house. Almost anything connected with custom-house business.—Anglo-Chinese.
• Hornswoggle - nonsense, humbug. Believed to be of American origin.
• Horrors - the low spirits, or “blue devils,” which follow intoxication. Incipient del. trem.
• Horse nails - money.—Compare brads.
• Horse - contraction of Horsemonger-Lane Gaol, also a slang term for a five-pound note.
• Horse - to flog. From the old wooden horse or flogging-stool.
• Horsebreaker. See pretty horsebreaker.
• Horsey - like a groom or jockey. Applied also to persons who affect the turf in dress or conversation.
• Horse’s nightcap - a halter; “to die in a horse’s nightcap,” to be hanged.
• Hot coppers - the feverish sensations experienced in the morning by those who have been drunk over-night.
• Hot tiger - an Oxford mixture of hot-spiced ale and sherry.
• Hounslow Heath - teeth.
• House of Commons - a humorous term for the closet of decency.
• Household Words - No. 183, September 24.
• Housewarming - the first friendly gathering in a new or freshly-occupied house.
• How-came-you-so? intoxicated.
• How’s your poor feet? an idiotic street cry with no meaning, much in vogue a few years back.
• Hoxter - an inside pocket.—Old English, oxter. Probably the low slang word huxter, money, is derived from this. Oxter is, among the Irish, an armpit.
• Hubble bubble - the Indian pipe termed a hookah is thus designated, from the noise it makes when being smoked.
• Huey - a town or village.—Tramps’ term.
• Huff - to vex, to offend; a poor temper. Huffy, easily offended. Huffed, annoyed, offended. Some folk are tersely and truly described as easily huffed.
• Hugger-mugger - underhand, sneaking. Also, “in a state of hugger-mugger” means to be muddled.
• Hulk - to hang about in hopes of an invitation. See mooch.
• Hulky - extra-sized.—Shropshire. From this and from hulk we probably get our adjective hulking, as applied to the great lazy ruffians who infest low neighbourhoods.
• Hum and haw - to hesitate, or raise objections.—Old English.
• Hum-box - a pulpit. This is a very old term.
• Humming - strong as applied to drink. Extra strong ale is often characterized as “humming October.” Maybe from its effect on heads not quite so strong.
• Hump up - “to have one’s hump up,” to be cross or ill-tempered—like a cat with its back set up. See back and monkey.
• Hump - low spirits. A costermonger who was annoyed or distressed about anything would describe himself as having “the hump.”
• Hump - to botch, or spoil.
• Humpty-dumpty - short and thick; all of a heap; all together, like an egg.
• Hunch - to shove, or jostle.
• Hunks - a miserly fellow, a curmudgeon.
• Hunky - an American term which means good, jolly, &c. As, “a hunky boy,” a good jovial fellow; and “everything went off hunky.”
• Hunter pitching - the game of cockshies—three throws a penny.—See cockshy.
• Hurkaru - a messenger.—Anglo-Indian.
• Husbands’ tea - very weak tea. See water bewitched.
• Hush-money - a sum given to quash a prosecution or stay evidence. Money given to any one for the purpose of quieting him.
• Hush-shop - or crib, a shop where beer and spirits are sold “on the quiet”—no licence being paid.
• Huxter - money. Term much in use among costermongers and low sharpers. Probably from oxter or hoxter.
• Hy-yaw! an interjectional exclamation of astonishment.—Anglo-Chinese.
• Hyps - or hypo, the blue devils. From hypochondriasis.—Swift.
• I desire - a fire.
• I suppose - the nose.
• Ikey - a Jew “fence.” Corruption of Isaac, a common Hebrew name.
• In for it - in trouble or difficulty of any kind. As, “You’re in for it, I wouldn’t stand in your shoes for a trifle.”
• In - “to be in with a person,” to be even with, or up to him; also, to be on intimate terms, or in partnership, with him.
• Infantry - nursery term for children; light infantry, fleas.
• Inside lining - dinner, &c.
• Interesting - “to be in an interesting situation,” applied to females when enceinte.
• Into - “hold my hat, Jim, I’ll be into him,” i.e., I will fight him. In this sense equivalent to pitch into, or slip into.
• Invite - an invitation—a corruption used by stuck-up people of mushroom origin. Often used, also, by people who know better, from their desire for slang of any kind.
• Ipsal dixal - Cockney corruption of ipse dixit—said of one’s simple uncorroborated assertion.
• Irish apricots - potatoes.
• Irons in the fire - a man is said to have too many irons in the fire when he turns his attention to too many occupations or enterprises at once.
• Isabeller (vulgar pronunciation of isabella), an umbrella.
• Isle of France - a dance.
• Isthmus of Suez - the covered bridge at St. John’s College, Cambridge, which connects the college with its grounds on the other side of the river.—See crackle.
• Ivories - teeth; “a box of ivories,” a set of teeth, the mouth; “wash your ivories,” i.e., “drink.” The word is also used to denote dice.
• I’m afloat - a boat. This is also used for coat. See ante.
• Jabber - to talk, or chatter. A cant word in Swift’s time. Probably from gibber.
• Jack Ketch - the public hangman.—See ketch.
• Jack Nasty-face - a sailor.—Sea. Nasty-face is a term applied often in London streets to an ugly or unpleasant-looking person.
• Jack Randall (a noted pugilist), a candle.
• Jack Sprat - a diminutive boy or man.
• Jack Tar - a sailor.
• Jack-a-dandy - brandy.
• Jack-in-the-box - a small but powerful kind of screw, used by burglars to break open safes.
• Jack - the knave of trumps, at the game of all-fours.
• Jacked-up - ruined, done for. To jack-up is to leave off doing anything suddenly. See chuck-up.
• Jacket - the skin of a potato which has not been pared before cooking. In Ireland potatoes are generally served “with their jackets on.”
• Jacketing - a thrashing. Similar term to leathering, cowhiding, &c.
• Jackey - gin. Seven Dials originally. Nearly general now.
• Jacob - a ladder. Grose says, from Jacob’s dream.—Old Cant.
• Jacob’s ladder - a longitudinal flaw in the leg of a ballet-girl’s tights.
• Jagger - a gentleman. German, Jager, a sportsman.
• Jail-bird - a prisoner, one who has been in jail.
• James - a sovereign, or twenty shillings. From Jacobus, the James II. guinea.
• Jannock - sociable, fair dealing.—Norfolk. Generally now jonnick, which see.
• Japan - to ordain. Having evident reference to the black clothes which follow ordination.—University.
• Jark - a “safe-conduct” pass.—Oxford. Old cant for a seal.
• Jarke - a seale.
• Jarkeman - one who makes writings and sets seales for [counterfeit] licences and passports.
• Jaw-breaker - a hard or excessively long word. Also, in pugilistic sense, a hard blow on the side of the face.
• Jaw-twister - a hard or many-syllabled word. Elaboration of preceding.
• Jaw - speech, or talk; “hold your jaw,” don’t speak any more; “what are you jawing about?” i.e., what are you making a noise about?
• Jaw - to talk without cessation, to scold vehemently.
• Jawbone - credit.
• Jazey - a wig. A corruption of jersey, the name for flax prepared in a peculiar manner, of which common wigs were formerly made; “the cove with the jazey,” i.e., the judge.
• Jeames (a generic for “flunkeys”), the Morning Post newspaper—the organ of Belgravia and the “Haristocracy.”
• Jehu - old slang term for a coachman, or one fond of driving.—Biblical.
• Jeminy O! a vulgar expression of surprise.
• Jemmy Jessamy - a dandy.
• Jemmy ducks - the man whose business it is to look after the poultry on board a ship.—Sea.
• Jemmy-John - a jar for holding liquor; probably a corruption of demi-gallon, by means of demi-john.
• Jemmy - a sheep’s-head.—See sanguinary James.
• Jemmy - a short crowbar, which generally takes to pieces, for the convenience of housebreakers.
• Jenny Linder - a winder,—vulgar pronunciation of window.
• Jeremiad - a lament; derived, of course, from the Book of Lamentations, written by the Prophet Jeremiah.
• Jeremy Diddler - an adept at raising the wind, i.e., at borrowing, especially at borrowing with no intention of repaying. See the farce of Raising the Wind.
• Jerry Sneak - a hen-pecked husband,—a character in the Mayor of Garret. Also, a stealer of watches.
• Jerry shop - a beer-house. Contraction of “Tom and Jerry.”
• Jerry-go-nimble - the diarrhœa. Derivation apparent.
• Jerry - a chamber utensil; abbreviation of jeroboam.—Swift.
• Jerry - to jibe or chaff cruelly. Development of jeer.
• Jerusalem pony - a donkey.
• Jessie - “to give a person jessie,” to beat him soundly. See gas.
• Jew fencer - a Jew street salesman.
• Jib - a first-year man.—Dublin University.
• Jib - or jibber, a horse that starts or shrinks. Shakspeare uses it in the sense of a worn-out horse.
• Jibb - the tongue.—Gipsy and Hindoo. (Tramps’ term.) Thence extended to mean language.
• Jiffy - “in a jiffy,” in a moment.
• Jigger-dubber - a term applied to a gaoler or turnkey.
• Jigger - a secret still for the manufacture of illicit spirits.
• Jigger - “I’m jiggered if you will,” a common form of mild swearing. See snigger.
• Jiggot o’ mutton - a leg of mutton. From Fr. gigot.
• Jilt - a crowbar or house-breaking implement.
• Jingo - “by jingo,” a common form of oath, said to be a corruption of St. Gingoulph. Vide Halliwell.
• Jo - Scotticism for a man or lover. As “John Anderson, my jo, John.”
• Job - a sudden blow, as “a job in the eye.” Also used as a verb, “I’ll job this here knife in your ribs.”
• Jobation - a chiding, a reprimand, a trial of the hearer’s patience.
• Jobbery - the arrangement of jobs, or unfair business proceedings.
• Job’s comfort - reproof instead of consolation.
• Job’s comforter - one who brings news of additional misfortunes. Both these words are of Biblical origin.
• Job’s turkey - “as poor as Job’s turkey,” as thin and as badly fed as that ill-conditioned and imaginary bird.
• Jocteleg - a shut-up knife. Corruption of Jacques de Liège, a famous cutler.
• Joe Savage - a cabbage.
• Jog-trot - a slow but regular trot, or pace.
• Jogul - to play up, at cards or other game. Spanish, jugar.
• John Blunt - a straightforward, honest, outspoken man.
• John Thomas - a generic for “flunkeys,”—more especially footmen with large calves and fine bushy whiskers.
• Johnny Darbies - a nickname for policemen, an evident corruption of the French gensdarmes. Also, a term applied to handcuffs.—See darbies.
• Johnny Raw - a newly-enlisted soldier.
• Johnny - half-a-glass of whisky.—Irish.
• Johnson’s (Dr. Samuel) Dictionary (the earlier editions).v. d.
• Jolly - a Royal Marine.—See horse marine.
• Jomer - a sweetheart, or favourite girl. See blower.
• Jonnick - right, correct, proper. Said of a person or thing.
• Jonson’s (Ben.) Bartholomew Fair, ii. 6.
• Jonson’s (Ben.) Masque of the Gipsies Metamorphosed, 4to.16—.
• Jordan - a chamberpot. To throw the contents of a chamberpot over any one is to christen him.
• Jorum - a capacious vessel from which food is eaten, as broth or stew.
• Joskin - a countryman.
• Jossop - the syrup or juice in a fruit pie or pudding. Also, sauce or gravy.—School.
• Jug - a prison of any kind. Contraction of “stone jug.”
• Jump-up-behind - to endorse an accommodation-bill.
• Jump - to seize, or rob; to “jump a man,” to pounce upon him, and either rob or maltreat him; “to jump a house,” to rob it.
• Jumped-up - conceited, arrogant, setting full value on oneself.
• Juniper - gin. Derivation obvious.
• Junk - salt beef.—See old horse.
• Kanitseeno - a stinking one. Kanits is a stink.
• Karibat - food, literally rice and curry; the staple dish of both natives and Europeans in India.—Anglo-Indian.
• Kelter - coin, money. Probably from gelt.
• Ken - a house.
• Ken - a house.—Ancient cant. khan, Gipsy and Oriental.
• Kennedy - a poker; to “give Kennedy” is to strike or kill with a poker. A St. Giles’s term, so given from a man of that name being killed by a poker.
• Kennurd - drunk.
• Kent rag - or clout, a cotton handkerchief.
• Kent’s (E.) Modern Flash Dictionary, containing all the Cant words, Slang Terms, and Flash Phrases now in Vogue, 18mo, coloured frontispiece.1825.
• Kervorten - a Cockneyism for quartern or quarter-pint measure. “Kervorten and three houts,” a quartern of liquor and glasses, each holding a third of the quantity.
• Ketch - or Jack Ketch, the popular name for a public hangman; derived from a person of that name who officiated in the reign of Charles II.—See Macaulay’s History of England.
• Kettle of fish - a mess or muddle of any kind. As, “Here’s a pretty kettle of fish!”
• Kew (or more properly keeu), a week.
• Kews - skew, or skeeu, weeks.
• Key of the street - an imaginary instrument said to be possessed by any one locked out of doors.
• Kick over the traces - to be over-extravagant. Any one who has come to grief by fast living is said to have kicked over the traces.
• Kick up - a noise or disturbance.
• Kick up - “to kick up a row,” to create a tumult.
• Kick - a moment; “I’ll be there in a kick,” i.e., in a moment.
• Kick - a pocket; Gaelic, cuach, a bowl, a nest; Scotch, quaigh.
• Kick - a sixpence; “two and a kick,” two shillings and sixpence.
• Kickeraboo - dead. A West Indian negro’s phrase. See kick the bucket, of which phrase it is a corruption.
• Kickseys - or kicksies, trousers.
• Kickshaws - trifles; made, or French dishes—not English or substantial. Anything of a fancy description now. Corruption of the French quelques choses.
• Kicksy - troublesome, disagreeable. German, keck, bold.
• Kid-on - to entice or incite a person to the perpetration of an act.
• Kid - an infant, or child. From the German kind; or possibly from the name for the young of a goat. Also, a shallow dish in which sailors receive their portions of food.
• Kid - to joke, to quiz, to hoax anybody. “No kid, now?” is a question often asked by a man who thinks he is being hoaxed.
• Kidden - or kidken, a low lodging-house for boys.
• Kiddier - a pork-butcher.
• Kiddily - fashionably or showily; “kiddily togg’d,” showily dressed.
• Kiddy - a man, or boy. Formerly a low thief.
• Kiddyish - frolicsome, jovial.
• Kidsman - one who trains boys to thieve and pick pockets successfully.
• Killing - bewitching, fascinating. The term is akin to the phrase “dressing to death.”
• Kilt - an Irishism for badly beaten, but by no means equivalent with killed.
• Kimmer - a gossip, an acquaintance, same as cummer.—Scotch.
• Kinchin cove - a man who robs children; a little man.—Ancient Cant.
• Kinchin - a child.—Old Cant. From the German diminutive, kindchen, a baby.
• Kincob - uniform, fine clothes, richly embroidered dresses. Really, cloth of gold or silver.—Anglo-Indian.
• King’s pictures (now, of course, queen’s pictures), money.
• Kirb - a brick.
• Kisky - drunk, fuddled.
• Kiss-curl - a small curl twisted on the temple. See bowcatcher.
• Kiss-me-quick - the name given to the very small bonnets which have of late years become fashionable.
• Kisser - the mouth.—Pugilistic term.
• Kissing-crust - the soft crust which marks where one loaf has been broken from another.
• Kit - a person’s baggage. Also, a collection of anything, “the whole kit of ’em,” the entire lot. Anglo-Saxon, kyth.—North.
• Kite -—see fly the kite.
• Kitmegur - an under-butler, a footman.—Anglo-Indian.
• Kitna - how much?—Anglo-Indian.
• Knacker - an old horse; a horse-slaughterer. Originally Gloucestershire, but now general.
• Knap - to receive, to take. Generally applied to the receipt of punishments; “oh, my! wont he just knap it when he gets home!”
• Knap - to steal.—Prison Cant.
• Knapping-jigger - a turnpike gate; “to dub at the knapping-jigger,” to pay money at the turnpike.
• Knark - a hard-hearted or savage person. The word is now usually spelt nark, and is applied to the lowest class of informers.
• Knife it - “cut it,” cease, stop, don’t proceed.
• Knife-board - the seat running along the roof of an omnibus.
• Knife - “to knife a person,” to stab; an un-English custom, but a very common expression.
• Knight - a common and ironical prefix to a man’s calling—thus, “knight of the whip,” a coachman; “knight of the thimble,” a tailor.
• Knobstick - a non-society workman. One who takes work under price.
• Knock about the bub - to hand or pass about the drink. Bub is a very old cant term for drink.
• Knock off - to give over, or abandon. A saying used by workmen in reference to dinner or other meal times, for upwards of two centuries.
• Knock-down - or knock-me-down, strong ale.
• Knock-in - the game of loo.
• Knock-it-down - to show, in the “free and easy” style, approval of a song or toast, by hammering with pot or glass on the table.
• Knock-under - to submit.
• Knock-’em-downs - the game of skittles.
• Knocker-face - an ugly face, i.e., like an old-fashioned door-knocker.
• Knocker - “up to the knocker,” means finely or showily dressed, in the height of fashion; proficient, equal to the task.
• Knocking-in - coming into college after time. A habit of knocking-in late generally leads to some unpleasantness.—Oxford University.
• Knowledge-box - the head.—Pugilistic.
• Knuckle to - or knuckle under, to yield or submit.
• Knuckle-duster - a large, heavy, or over-gaudy ring; a ring which attracts attention from its size.
• Knuckle - to fight with fists, to pommel.
• Knuller - old term for a chimney-sweep, who solicited jobs by ringing a bell. From the Saxon, cnyllan, to knell, or sound a bell. See querier.
• Kool - to look.
• Kootee - a house.—Anglo-Indian.
• Kotoo - to bow down before, to cringe, to flatter. From a Chinese ceremony.
• Kubber - news.—Anglo-Indian.
• Kudos - praise; kudized, praised. Greek, κύδος.—University.
• Kye - eighteenpence.
• Kynchen co [or cove], a young boye trained up like a “Kynching Morte.” [From the German diminutive, Kindschen.]
• Kynching morte - is a little gyrle, carried at their mother’s backe in a slate, or sheete, who brings them up sauagely.
• Kypsey - a basket. A term generally used by gipsies.
• Lac - one hundred thousand.—Anglo-Indian.
• Laced - strengthened with ardent spirits. Tea or coffee in which brandy is poured is said to be laced.
• Ladies’ mile - that part of Hyde Park where the feminine beauty, rank, and fashion most do congregate during the airing hours of the London season.
• Lag of dudes - a bucke [or basket] of clothes.
• Lag - a returned transport, or ticket-of-leave convict.
• Lag - to void urine.—Ancient Cant. In modern slang to transport, as regards bearing witness, and not in reference to the action of judge or jury.
• Lag - water.
• Lage - to washe.
• Lagged - imprisoned, apprehended, or transported for a crime. From the Old Norse, lagda, “laid,”—laid by the leg.
• Lagger - a sailor. Also, one who gives evidence; an informer.
• Lagging gage - a chamber-pot.—Ancient Cant.
• Lambasting - a beating. Perhaps lumb-basting, from the lumbar-regions.
• Lame duck - a stockjobber who speculates beyond his capital, and cannot pay his losses. Upon retiring from the Exchange he is said to “waddle out of the Alley.”
• Lamming - a beating.—Old English, lam; used by Beaumont and Fletcher. Not as Sir Walter Scott supposed, from one Dr. Lamb, but from the Old Norse, lam, the hand; also, Gaelic.
• Lammy - a blanket.
• Land-lubber - sea term for “a landsman.” See loafer.
• Land-shark - a sailor’s definition of a lawyer.
• Lane - a familiar term for Drury Lane Theatre, just as Covent Garden Theatre is constantly spoken of as “the Garden.”
• Lap. Lap the gutter, to get beastly and helplessly drunk. Lap means to drink. Lap the gatter, to drink up the beer; a “rare lapper,” a hard drinker.
• Lap - butter mylke, or whey.
• Lap - liquor, drink. Lap is the term invariably used in the ballet girls’ dressing-room for gin.
• Lap - one circuit of a pedestrian enclosure. In running a race of any distance one man is said to lap another when he is one entire circuit in front.
• Lark - to sport boisterously, to show a disposition for “going on the spree.”
• Larrence - an imaginary being, supposed by the Scottish peasantry to have power over indolent persons. Hence laziness is often called larrence.
• Larrup - to beat or thrash.
• Larruping - a good beating or hiding.—Irish.
• Lashins - large quantities; as, “lashins of whisky.” An Irishism in common use.
• Latchpan - the lower lip—properly a dripping-pan; “to hang one’s latchpan,” to pout, be sulky.—Norfolk.
• Lath and plaster - a master.
• Lawt - tall.
• Lay down the knife and fork - to die. Compare pegging-out, hopping the twig, and similar flippancies.
• Lay - a pursuit or practice, a dodge. Term in this sense much used by thieves.
• Lay - in wagering, to bet against a man or animal. Betters are divided in racing slang into layers and takers; they are otherwise known as bookmakers and backers.
• Lay - some, a piece. “Tip me a lay of pannum,” i.e., give me a slice of bread.—North.
• Lay - to watch; “on the lay,” on the look-out.—Shakspeare.
• Lean and fat - a hat.
• Lean and lurch - a church.
• Leary bloke - a clever or artful person.
• Leary - flash, knowing, artful, sly.
• Leaving shop - or dolly shop, an unlicensed house where goods are taken into pawn at exorbitant rates of interest.
• Leer - empty.—Oxfordshire. Pure German, as is nearly so the next word.
• Leer - print, newspaper. German, lehren, to instruct; hence Old English, lere, “spelt in the leer.” See spell.—Old Cant.
• Leg bail - the bail or security given by absence. To give leg bail is to run away.
• Leg of mutton fist - a large, muscular or bony hand.
• Leg-and-leg - the state of a game when each player has won a leg. In Ireland a leg is termed a horse, leg-and-leg being there termed “horse-and-horse.”
• Leg-of-mutton - humorous street term for a sheep’s trotter, or foot.
• Leg - or blackleg, a disreputable sporting character and racecourse habitué; that is, one who is disreputable among sporting men.
• Length - forty-two lines of a dramatic composition.—Theatrical.
• Length - six months’ imprisonment. See stretch.
• Ler-ac-am - mackerel.
• Let drive - to strike at, or attack with vigour.
• Let in - to cheat or victimize. “He let me in heavily.”
• Let on - to give an intimation of having some knowledge of a subject. Ramsay employs the phrase in the Gentle Shepherd. Common in Scotland.
• Let the cat out - or let the cat out of the bag, a common phrase, which implies that a secret is to be or has been let out.
• Letty - a bed. Italian, letto.—Lingua Franca.
• Levy - a shilling.—Liverpool. Among labourers a levy is a sum obtained before it is due, something to keep a man going till Saturday-night comes, or his task is finished.
• Lexicon Balatronicum; a Dictionary of Buckish Slang, University Wit, and Pickpocket Eloquence, by a Member of the Whip Club, assisted by Hell-fire Dick, 8vo.1811.
• Liberty - ground let in parts of Yorkshire for shooting purposes.
• Lick - a blow; licking, a beating; “to put in big licks,” a curious and common phrase, meaning that great exertions are being made.—Dryden; North.
• Lickspittle - a coarse but singularly expressive term for a parasite, who puts up with indignities for the sake of advantages.
• Life in St. George’s Fields; or, The Rambles and Adventures of Disconsolate William, Esq., and his Surrey Friend, Flash Dick, with Songs and a flash dictionary, 8vo.1821.
• Lifer - a convict who is sentenced to imprisonment for life.
• Lig - a lie, a falsehood.—Lancashire. In old ballads the word “lie” is often spelt “lig.” In old Saxon, lig is to lie, but to lie as in a bed.
• Light Bob - a light infantry soldier.—Military.
• Light Feeder - a silver spoon.
• Lightmans - the day.
• Lightning - gin; “flash o’ lightning,” a glass of gin.
• Lights - a worthless piece of meat; applied metaphorically to a fool, a soft or stupid person.
• Lights - the eyes. Also, the lungs; animals’ lungs are always so called.
• Lil - a book, generally a pocket-book.—Gipsy.
• Lily Benjamin - a great white coat. See Benjamin.
• Limb of the law - a lawyer, or clerk articled to that profession.
• Limb - a troublesome or precocious child.
• Line - a hoax, a fool-trap; as, “to get him in a line,” i.e., to get some sport out of him.
• Line - calling, trade, profession; “what line are you in?” “the building line.”
• Linendraper - paper.
• Liner - a casual reporter, paid by the line. Diminutive of “penny-a-liner.”
• Lingo - talk, or language. Slang is termed lingo amongst the lower orders. Italian, lingua.—Lingua Franca.
• Lion-hunter - one who hunts up, and has a devout veneration for, small celebrities. Mrs. Leo Hunter, in Pickwick, is a splendid specimen of this unpleasant creature.
• Lionesses - ladies visiting an Oxford man, especially at “Commemoration,” which is the chief time for receiving feminine visitors at the University.
• Lionize - to make much of any visitor with small or moderate claims to distinction; to conduct a stranger round the principal objects of attraction in a place; to act as cicerone.
• Lip - talk, bounce, impudence; “come, none o’ yer lip!”
• Lip - to sing; “lip us a chant,” sing a song.
• Liquor - or liquor up, to drink drams.—Americanism. In liquor, tipsy, or drunk.
• Little go - the old term for the examination now called smalls.
• Little snakes-man - a little thief, who is generally passed through a small aperture to open a door and let in the rest of the gang.
• Live eels - fields.
• Live-stock - vermin of the insect kind, especially of that more than usually unpleasant kind found on tramps, 1&c.
• Liverpool Irishman - any man born in Liverpool of Irish parents. See Irish Cockney.
• Liverpudlian - a native of Liverpool.
• Load of hay - a day.
• Loaver - money. See lour.—Lingua Franca.
• Lob-sneaking - stealing money from tills; occasionally stealing tills and all.
• Lob - a till, or money-drawer.
• Lobb - the head.—Pugilistic.
• Loblolly boy - a derisive term for a surgeon’s mate in the navy.
• Loblolly - gruel.—Old: used by Markham as a sea-term for grit gruel, or hasty pudding.
• Lobs! schoolboys’ signal on the master’s approach. Also, an assistant watcher, an under gamekeeper.
• Lobs - words, talk.—Gipsy.
• Lobscouse - a dish made of potatoes, meat, and biscuits, boiled together.
• Lobster-box - a barrack, or military station.
• Lobster - a soldier. A policeman, from the colour of his coat, is styled an unboiled, or raw lobster.
• Loggerheads - “to come to loggerheads,” to come to blows.
• Logie - theatrical jewellery, made mostly of tin.
• Loll - to lie about lazily. “He would loll upon the handle of the door,” said of an incorrigibly lazy fellow.
• Lolly - the head. See lobb.—Pugilistic.
• London ordinary - the beach at Brighton, where the “eight-hours-at-the-sea-side” excursionists dine in the open-air.
• Long acre - a baker.
• Long-bow. See draw the long bow.
• Long-ghost - a tall, thin, awkward person. Sometimes called “lamp-post.”
• Long-headed - far-seeing, clever, calculating.
• Long-hundred - a Billingsgate expression for 120 fresh herrings, or other small fish, the long-hundred being six score.
• Long-odds - the odds which denote that the man or animal laid against has, or is supposed to have, little or no chance.
• Long-shore butcher - a coast-guardsman.—Sea. All people who get their livings by the side of the Thames below bridge are called long-shore folk.
• Long-tailed-one - a bank-note or “flimsy” for a large amount.
• Long-tails - among shooters, are pheasants; among coursers and dog-fanciers they are greyhounds.
• Longs-and-shorts - cards made for cheating.
• Longs - the latrine at Brasenose, so called because built by Lady Long.—Oxford University.
• Loony - a silly fellow, a natural. Corruption of looney tick (lunatic). Sometimes corrupted to looby.
• Loose-box - a stable in which a horse is not tethered, but remains loose.
• Loose. See on the loose.
• Loot - swag or plunder; also used as a verb. The word came much into vogue during the latest Chinese campaign.
• Lop-sided - uneven, one side larger than the other. See Jacob Faithful.
• Lope - this old form of leap is often heard in the streets. To lope is also to steal. German, laufen.
• Lord John Russell - a bustle.
• Lord Lovel - a shovel.
• Lord-mayor’s-fool - an imaginary personage who likes everything that is good, and plenty of it.
• Lord - a humpbacked man. See my lord.
• Lothario - a “gay” deceiver; generally a heartless, brainless villain.
• Loud - flashy, showy, as applied to dress or manner. See bags.
• Lour - or lowr, money; “gammy lowr,” bad money. From the Wallachian Gipsy word, lowe, coined money. Possibly connected with the French, louer, to hire.—Ancient Cant and Gipsy.
• Louse-trap - a small-tooth comb.—Old Cant. See catch-’em-alive.
• Loveage - tap droppings, a mixture of stale spirits, sweetened and sold to habitual dram-drinkers, principally females. Called also “alls.”
• Low-water - but little money in pocket, when the finances are at a low ebb.
• Lowing chete - a cowe.
• Lowre - money. [From the Wallachian Gipsy word lowe, coined money. See M. Cogalniceano’s Essai sur les Cigains de la Moldo-Valachie.]
• Lubbares -—“sturdy Lubbares,” country bumpkins, or men of a low degree.
• Lubber - a clown, or fool.—Ancient Cant, lubbare. Among seamen an awkward fellow, a landsman.
• Luck - “down on one’s luck,” wanting money, or in difficulty.
• Lucky - “to cut one’s lucky,” to go away quickly. See strike.
• Lug chovey - a pawnbroker’s shop.
• Lug - to pull, or slake thirst.—Old.
• Lug - “my togs are in lug,” i.e., in pawn.
• Luke - nothing.—North Country Cant.
• Lully prigger - a rogue who steals wet clothes hung on lines to dry.
• Lully - a shirt.
• Lumber - to pawn or pledge. Probably from Lombard.
• Lumbered - pawned; sometimes imprisoned.
• Lummy - jolly, first-rate.
• Lump of coke - a bloke—vulgar term for a man.
• Lump of lead - the head.
• Lump the lighter - to be transported.
• Lump work - work contracted for, or taken by the lump.
• Lump - anything exceptionally large, “as a lump of a man,” “a great lump of a fellow,” &c.
• Lump - the workhouse; also called the Pan.
• Lumper - a contractor. On the river more especially a person who contracts to deliver a ship laden with timber.
• Lumper - a low thief who haunts wharves and docks, and robs vessels, also a person who sells old goods as new.
• Lumpy - intoxicated. Also used to signify enceinte.
• Lunan - a girl.—Gipsy.
• Lurk - a sham, swindle, or representation of feigned distress. An imposition of any kind is a lurk.
• Lurker - an impostor who travels the country with false certificates of fires, shipwrecks, &c. Also, termed a silver beggar, which see.
• Lush-crib - a public-house.
• Lush - to drink, or get drunk.
• Lushington - a drunkard, or one who continually soaks himself with lush. Some years since there was a Lushington Club in Bow Street, Covent Garden.
• Lushy - intoxicated. Johnson says, “opposite to pale,” so red with drink. He must, however, have been wrong, as the foregoing derivation shows.
• Lyb-beg - a bed.
• Lycke [lick], to beate.
• Lylo - come hither.—Anglo-Chinese.
• Lynch-law - summary punishment. From an American judge famous for hanging first and trying afterwards.
• Lyp - to lie down.
• Lypken - a house to lye in.
• L’Estrange’s (Sir Roger) Works (principally translations).v.d.
• M.P. - member of the police, one of the slang titles of the Force.
• M.T. - railway slang used by porters and pointsmen for empties, or empty carriages. See Moll Thomson’s mark.
• Mab - a cab, or hackney-coach.
• Macaroni - a pony.
• Mace - to sponge, swindle, or beg, in a polite way: “give it him (a shopkeeper) on the mace,” i.e., obtain goods on credit and never pay for them; also termed “striking the mace.”
• Mace - to welsh, to obtain money without any expectation of being able to pay or intention of paying.
• Maceman - or macer, a welcher, magsman, or general swindler; a “street-mugger.”
• Mag - literary and printers’ slang for magazine.
• Mag - to talk; hence magpie. To mag in thieves’ slang is to talk well and persuasively.
• Maginn (Dr.) wrote Slang songs in Blackwood’s Magazine.1827.
• Mahcheen - a merchant. Chinese pronunciation of the English word.—Anglo-Chinese.
• Mahogany flat - a bug.
• Maids adorning - the morning.
• Maidstone jailer - a tailor.
• Mail - to post a letter; “this screeve is mailed by a sure hand.”
• Main-toby - the highway, or the main road. See toby.
• Make tracks - an Americanism synonymous with skedaddle; to make oneself scarce.
• Make-up - personal appearance.—Theatrical.
• Make - any one is said to be “on the make” who asks too high a price for his goods, or endeavours in any way to overreach.
• Make - to steal, a successful theft or swindle. A man on the look-out for swindling opportunities is said to be “on the make.”
• Make [mag], a halfpenny.
• Makings - materials. A man is often said to have the makings of a good politician (or whatever he may aspire to be) in him, if they were but properly applied.
• Malley - a gardener.—Anglo-Indian.
• Man a-hanging - a man in difficulties. See hanging.
• Man in the moon - the gentleman who is supposed to find the “pieces” to pay election expenditure and electors’ expenses, so long as the latter vote his way. See election inquiries.
• Man-handle - to use a person roughly, as to take him prisoner, turn him out of a room, or give him a beating.
• Manablins - broken victuals.
• Mandozy - a term of endearment among East-end Jews; probably from the valiant fighter named Mendoza.
• Mang - to talk.—Scotch.
• Marbles - furniture, movables; “money and marbles,” cash and personal effects.
• Marchioness - a little, dirty, old-fashioned maid-of-all-work; a title now in regular use, but derived from the remarkable character in the Old Curiosity Shop.
• Margeri prater - a hen.
• Market-horse - a horse simply kept in the betting-lists for the purpose of being betted against.
• Marplot - an officious bungler, who spoils everything he interferes with.
• Marriage lines - a marriage certificate.—Provincial.
• Marrow - a mate, a fellow-workman, a pitman who works in a “shift” with another.—Northumberland and Durham.
• Marrowskying. See Medical Greek.
• Marry - a very old term of asseveration, originally (in Popish times) a mode of swearing by the Virgin Mary; q.d., by Mary.
• Marygold - one million sterling. See plum.
• Maskee - never mind, no consequence.—Anglo-Chinese.
• Master of the Mint - a gardener.
• Master of the Rolls - a baker.
• Mate - the term a coster or low person applies to a friend, partner, or companion; “me and my mate did so and so,” is a common phrase with a low Londoner. Originally a sea term.
• Matey - a labourer in one of Her Majesty’s dockyards. Common elaboration of the word mate.
• Maudlin - Magdalen College, Oxford. This is the old English pronunciation of the word.
• Mauley - a fist, that with which one strikes as with a mall.—Pugilistic.
• Mauley - a signature, from mauley, a fist; “put your fist to it,” is sometimes said by a tradesman when desiring a fellow-trader to put his signature to a bill or note.
• Maw - the mouth; “hold your maw,” cease talking.
• Mawworm - a hypocrite of the most unpleasant kind. From Bickerstaff’s play of The Hypocrite. Originally a mawworm was a worm in the stomach, the thread worm.
• Max - gin; max upon tick, gin obtained upon credit.
• Mayhew’s (Henry) Great World of London, 8vo.1857.
• Mayhew’s (Henry) London Labour and the London Poor, 4 vols.1851-61.
• Mazarine - the platform beneath the stage in large theatres. Probably corruption of Italian, mezzanino.
• Mealy-mouthed - soft-spoken, plausible, deceitful. A specious liar is said to be mealy-mouthed.
• Measley - mean, miserable-looking, “seedy;” “what a measley-looking man!” i.e., what a wretched, unhappy fellow.
• Meisensang - a missionary, Chinese pronunciation of the English word.—Anglo-Chinese.
• Menagerie - the orchestra of a theatre.—Theatrical.
• Menavelings - odd money remaining after the daily accounts are made up at a railway booking-office,—usually divided among the clerks. See overs and shorts.
• Merkin - a term usually applied to a woman’s privities. Originally false hair for those parts.
• Mesopotamia - a name given to Eaton Square and neighbourhood when first built. This part was also called Cubitopolis.—Fashionable slang.
• Mess - to interfere unduly. Costermongers refer to police supervision as messing. Among sailors, a dead man is said to have lost the number of his mess.
• Metallician - a racing bookmaker. Bookmakers use metallic books and pencils.
• Middleton (Thomas) and Decker’s (Thomas) Roaring Girl; or Moll Cut Purse, 4to.1611.
• Middy - abbreviation of midshipman.—Naval.
• Midge net - a lady’s veil.
• Mike - an Irish hodman, or general labourer.
• Milky ones - white linen rags.
• Mill - a fight, or set to. Ancient Cant, myll, to rob. Probably from the special opportunities afforded to pickpockets when the ring was a “national institution.”
• Mill - the old Insolvent Debtors’ Court. “To go through the mill” was equivalent to being “whitewashed.”
• Mill - the tread-mill.
• Mill - to fight or beat.
• Miller. This word is frequently called out when a person relates a stale joke. See Joe.
• Milling - to steale [by sending a child in at a window].
• Milvader - to beat.
• Mince pies - the eyes.
• Mish - a shirt, or chemise. From commission, the ancient cant for a shirt, afterwards shortened to k’mish or smish, and then to mish. French, chemise; Italian, camicia.
• Mitey - a cheesemonger.
• Mitten. “To get the mitten” is, in Canadian slang, to be jilted.
• Mittens - the boxing gloves.
• Mizzle - to run away, or decamp; to disappear as in a mist. From mizzle, a drizzling rain; a Scotch mist.
• Mizzler - or rum-mizzler, a person who is clever at effecting an escape, or getting out of a difficulty.
• Mob - a thief’s immediate companions, as,—“our own mob;” mobsman, a dressy swindler or pickpocket.
• Mob - to hustle, crowd round, and annoy, necessarily the action of a large party against a smaller one, or an individual. Mobbing is generally a concomitant of street robbery.
• Mobility - the populace; or, according to Burke, the “great unwashed.” Johnson calls it a cant term, although Swift notices it as a proper expression.
• Mockered - holey, marked unpleasantly. A ragged handkerchief and a blotched or pitted face are both said to be mockered.
• Modern Flash Dictionary - 48mo.1825.
• Modest quencher - a glass of spirits and water. Dick Swiveller was fond of a modest quencher.
• Moey - the mouth.—Gipsy and Hindoo. Shakspeare has moe, to make mouths.
• Moffling chete - a napkin.
• Mofussilite - an inhabitant of an up-country district.—Anglo-Indian.
• Moll Thomson’s mark - that is, M. T.—empty; as, “Take away this bottle, it has Moll Thomson’s mark on it.” See m. t.
• Moll-tooler - a female pickpocket.
• Moll - a girl; nickname for Mary.—Old Cant.
• Mollisher - a low girl or woman; generally a female cohabiting with a man who gets his living by thieving.
• Mollsack - a reticule, or market basket.
• Mollycoddle - an effeminate man; one who “coddles” amongst the women, or does their work.
• Molrowing - “out on the spree,” in company with so-called “gay women.” In allusion to the amatory serenadings of the London cats. Another form of this is, “out on the tiles.”
• Moncrieff’s Tom and Jerry, or Life in London, a Farce in Three Acts, 12mo.1820.
• Mondayish - or Mondayfied, disinclined for work. “St. Monday” is a great institution among artizans and small tradesmen.
• Monk - a term of contempt; probably an abbreviation of monkey.
• Monkery - the country, or rural districts. Originally an old word for a quiet or monastic life.—Hall.
• Monkey with a long tail - a mortgage.—Legal.
• Monkey-board - the place or step attached to an omnibus, on which the conductor stands.
• Monkey-boat - a peculiar, long, narrow, canal boat.
• Monkey - 500l.--Sporting Slang.
• Monkey - the instrument which drives a rocket.—Army.
• Monkey - the vessel in which a mess receives its full allowance of grog.—Sea.
• Monkey’s allowance - to get blows instead of alms, more kicks than halfpence.
• Monniker - a person’s name or signature.
• Month of Sundays - an indefinite period, a long time.
• Mooney - intoxicated, a name for a silly fellow.
• Mooning - loitering, wandering about in a purposeless manner.
• Moonlight - or moonshine, smuggled spirits. From the night-work of smugglers.
• Moonshee - a learned man, professor, or teacher.—Anglo-Indian.
• Moonshine - palaver, deception, humbug.
• Mop up - to drink, or empty a glass.—Old Sea term.
• Mop - an habitual drunkard. Also a period of intoxication. “To be on2 the mop” is to be on the drink from day to day—to be perpetually “stale drunk.”
• Mopusses - money; “mopusses ran taper,” money ran short.
• More-ish. When there is scarcely enough of an eatable or drinkable, it is said to taste more-ish; as, “This wine is very good, but it has a slight more-ish flavour.”
• Morris - to decamp, be off. Probably from the ancient moresco, of morris-dance. See Shakspeare.
• Mortar-board - a square college cap.
• Mortes [mots], harlots.
• Mortgage-deed - a pawnbroker’s duplicate.
• Mot - a girl of indifferent character. Formerly, Mort. Dutch, mott-kast, a harlotry. Mot-cart, see loose-box.
• Mother and daughter - water.
• Mottob - bottom.
• Mouchey - a Jew.
• Mouldy-grubs - travelling showmen, mountebanks who perform in the open air without tent or covering. Doing this is called mouldy-grubbing.
• Mouldy - grey-headed. Servants wearing hair-powder are usually termed mouldy-pates by street boys.
• Mount - a saddle-horse. According to quality, “a good mount,” or “a bad mount.”
• Mount - in theatrical parlance, to prepare for production on the stage. “The piece was excellently mounted.”
• Mountain-dew - whisky, advertised as from the Highlands.
• Mountain-pecker - a sheep’s head. See jemmy.
• Mounter - a false swearer. Derived from the borrowed clothes men used to mount, or dress in, when going to swear for a consideration.
• Mourning - “a full suit of mourning,” two black eyes; half-mourning, one black eye.
• Mouse - a black eye. By a façon de parler, any one with “a mouse” is supposed to have been to Blackwall.
• Mouth-almighty - a noisy, talkative person.
• Mouthpiece - a lawyer, or counsel. Thieves and their associates always speak of a counsel as a mouthpiece.
• Move - a “dodge,” or cunning trick; “up to a move or two,” acquainted with tricks. Probably derived from the game of chess.
• Mrs. Grundy - the representative of the censorious world, “What will Mrs. Grundy say?” Originally a character in the comedy of Speed the Plough.
• Mrs. Jones - the house of office, a water-closet.
• Much of a muchness - alike, very much the same thing.
• Muck-out - to clean out; often applied to one utterly ruining an adversary in gambling.
• Muck-snipe - one who has been “mucked out,” or beggared, at gambling. See muck.
• Mucker - to go a, to go to grief, to ruin one’s prospects.—Oxford Univ.
• Mud-crusher - a word of contempt, used by the cavalry in reference to the infantry.
• Mud-student - a farming pupil. The name given to the students at the Agricultural College, Cirencester.
• Mudfog - “The British Association for the Advancement of Science.” Term first used by Charles Dickens in Bentley’s Miscellany, about 1836.
• Muff - a silly or weak-minded person, a duffer; muff has been defined to be “a soft thing that holds a lady’s hand without squeezing it.”
• Muffin baker - a Quaker (slang term for excrement).
• Muffin-cap - a cap similar to that worn by a charity-boy.
• Muffin-face - a white, soft, delicate, or whiskerless face.
• Muffin-worry - an old lady’s tea party.
• Mufti - the civilian dress of a naval or military officer when off duty.—Anglo-Indian. From an Eastern word signifying a clergyman or priest.
• Mug-up - to paint one’s face, or dress specially with a view to impersonation.—Theatrical. To “cram” for an examination.—Army.
• Mug - the mouth, or face.—Old.
• Mug - to strike in the face, or fight. Also, to rob or swindle. Gaelic, muig, to suffocate, oppress; Irish, mugaim, to kill, destroy.
• Mug - “to mug oneself,” to get tipsy.
• Mugging - a thrashing,—synonymous with “slogging,” both terms of the “ring,” and frequently used by fighting men.
• Muggy - drunk. Also, as applied to weather, stifling, oppressive.
• Mull - “to make a mull of it,” to spoil anything, or make a fool of oneself.
• Mulligrubs. Vide mollygrubs.
• Multee kertever - very bad. Italian, molto cattivo. Generally used with the affix of bloke when referring to a man. Phrase much used by circus riders.
• Mum - “to keep mum,” to hold one’s peace. Hence “mum’s the word,”—a phrase which implies to all hearers that the matter to which it refers must remain secret.
• Mummer - a performer at a travelling theatre.—Ancient. Rustic performers at Christmas in the West of England.
• Mump - to beg. In Lincolnshire, Boxing-day is known as mumping day.
• Mumper - a beggar. A collector of holiday tribute.
• Mumps - the miserables. To feel mumpish is to be heavy, dull, and stupid.
• Mungarly - bread, food. Mung is an old word for mixed food, but mungarly is doubtless derived from the Lingua Franca, mangiar, to eat. See the following.
• Munging - or mounging, whining, begging, muttering.—North.
• Muns - the mouth. German, mund.—Old Cant.
• Mur - rum. A “nettock o’ mur” is a quartern of rum.
• Murerk - the mistress of the house. See burerk.
• Murphy - a potato. Probably from the Irish national liking for potatoes, murphy being a surname common amongst the Irish. Murphies (edible) are sometimes called donovans.
• Murphy - “in the arms of Murphy,” i.e., fast asleep. Corruption of Morpheus.
• Mush (or mushroom) faker , an itinerant mender of umbrellas.
• Mush - an umbrella. Contraction of mushroom.
• Mushroom - a hat, shaped like the fungus from which it takes its name, often worn by demure ladies.
• Muslin - a woman or girl; “he picked up a bit of muslin.”
• Mutton chops - a sheep’s-head. A man who has dined off sheep’s-head dignifies his meal by calling it mutton chops (chaps).
• Mutton-fist - an uncomplimentary title for any one having a large and muscular, bony, or coarse hand.
• Muzzle - the mouth.
• Muzzle - to fight or thrash; to throttle or garrotte.
• Muzzler - a blow in the mouth; a dram of spirits.
• Muzzy - intoxicated.
• My aunt - Aunt Jones, or Mrs. Jones, the closet of decency, or house of office.
• My lord - a nickname given to a hunchback.
• My tulip - a term of endearment used by the lower orders to persons and animals; “‘Kim up, my tulip,’ as the coster said to his donkey when thrashing him with an ash stick.”
• Myll - to robbe.
• Mynt - gold.
• N. C. - “enough said,” being the initials of nuf ced. A certain theatrical manager spells, it is said, in this style.
• Nab the rust - to take offence.
• Nab - to catch, to seize; “nab the rust,” to take offence.—Ancient, fourteenth century. See nap.
• Nab [nob], a heade.
• Nabchet - a hat or cap.
• Nabob - an Eastern prince, a retired Indian official,—hence a slang term for a capitalist. From Nawaub.
• Nabs - self; my nabs, myself; his nabs, himself.—North Country Cant.
• Nag - to persistently talk in a scolding manner, after the manner of Mrs. Caudle. Nagging is supposed to be persistent, persevering, passionless scolding.
• Nair - rain.
• Nam esclop - a policeman. See esclop.
• Nam - a man.
• Nammow - a woman; delo nammow, an old woman.
• Nammus - or namous, to be off, to get away; “let’s nammus, somebody’s coming.” See vamos.
• Nanny-shop - a disreputable house.
• Nantee palaver - no conversation, i.e., hold your tongue. Very often in this sense also shortened to nantee only. Originally Lingua Franca, but now general.
• Nantee - not any, or “I have none.” Nantee also means “shut up!” or “leave off!” Italian, niente, nothing. See dinarly.—Lingua Franca.
• Nap nix - a person who works at his trade, and occasionally goes on the stage to act minor parts without receiving any pay. The derivation is obvious. See nap and nix, i.e., nichts.
• Nap one’s bib - to cry, shed tears, or carry one’s point.
• Nap the regulars - to divide the booty.
• Nap the teaze - to be privately whipped in prison.
• Nap - or nab, to take, steal, or receive; “you’ll nap it,” i.e., you will catch a beating.—North; also Old Cant.
• Nap - or napper, a hat. From “nab,” a hat, cap, or head.—Old Cant.
• Nap - to break, or rap with a hammer. See knap.—North.
• Nark - a person in the pay of the police; a common informer; one who gets his living by laying traps for publicans, &c. Sometimes called a “nose.”
• Nark - to watch, or look after; “nark the titter,” watch the girl.
• Narp - a shirt.—Scotch.
• Narrow - mean, sordid.—Scotch. In common slang, dull of comprehension, as distinguished from wide awake.
• Nase - dronken.
• Nasty - ill-tempered, cross-grained. “He was very nasty,” i.e., he was ill-humoured.
• Nation - or tarnation, very, or exceedingly. Corruption of damnation.
• Natty - pretty, neat, tidy.—Old.
• Natural - an idiot, a simpleton. Sometimes half-natural.
• Navigator Scot - baked potatoes all hot.
• Navigators - taturs,—vulgar pronunciation of potatoes.
• Near - mean and stingy.
• Neardy - a person in authority over another; master, parent, or foreman.—North.
• Neck and crop - entirely, completely; “he chuck’d him neck and crop out of window.”
• Neck and neck. Horses run neck and neck in a race when they are so perfectly equal that one cannot be said to be before the other.
• Neck beef - a synonym for coarseness. “As coarse as neck ends of beef.”
• Neck or nothing - desperate. Originally a steeplechase phrase.
• Neck - to swallow. Neck-oil, drink of any kind.
• Neckinger - a cravat. See muckenger.
• Ned Stokes - the four of spades.—North Hants. See Gentleman’s Magazine for 1791, p. 141.
• Ned - a guinea. Half-ned, half-a-guinea.
• Neddy - a considerable quantity, as “a neddy of fruit,” “a neddy of fish,” &c.—Irish slang.
• Neddy - a donkey. On Sunday, when a costermonger, if at all well to do, takes his family out for an airing in his “shallow,” the donkey is called “Eddard.”
• Neddy - a life preserver. Possibly contraction of Kennedy, the name of the first man, it is said in St. Giles’s, who had his head broken by a poker.
• Needful - money, cash; the “one thing needful” for the accomplishment of most pet designs.
• Needle and thread - bread.
• Needle - to annoy. To “cop the needle” is to become vexed or annoyed.
• Needy mizzler - a shabby person; a tramp who runs away without paying for his lodging.
• Neel - lean.
• Neergs - greens.
• Net enin gen - nineteen shillings.
• Net evif gen - fifteen shillings.
• Net exis gen - sixteen shillings.
• Net gen - ten shillings, or half a sovereign.
• Net nevis gen - seventeen shillings.
• Net rith gen - thirteen shillings.
• Net theg gen - eighteen shillings.
• Net yanneps - tenpence.
• Nevele gen - eleven shillings.
• Nevele yanneps - elevenpence.
• Never fear - beer.
• Nevis gen - seven shillings.
• Nevis stretch - seven years’ penal servitude.
• Nevis yanneps - sevenpence.
• New Dictionary of all the Cant and Flash Languages used by every class of offenders, from a Lully Prigger to a High Tober Gloak, small 8vo, pp. 62.179-.
• Nib-cove - a gentleman. Nibsomest cribs, best or gentlemen’s houses.—Beggar’s Cant.
• Nib-like - gentlemanly.
• Nibble - to take, or steal. Nibbler, a petty thief.
• Nibs - self. His nibs, means any one who may be referred to. As, “I told his nibs,” or “stag his nibs.” “Your nibs,” yourself.
• Nick-nack - a trifle.—Originally Cant.
• Nick - or Old Nick, the devil.—Scandinavian, Knickar, one of the names of Odin, as the destroying or evil principle.
• Nick - to hit the mark; “he’s nicked it,” i.e., won his point. Also to steal. To be “out on the nick,” is to be out thieving. Sometimes described as being “on the pinch.”
• Niggling - trifling, or idling; taking short steps in walking.—North.
• Night and day - the play.
• Night-hunter - a poacher.—North. Also a London prostitute. Sometimes in the latter capacity varied to night-hawk.
• Nightcap - a glass of “warm with” taken the last thing at night.
• Nil - half; half profits, &c.
• Nilly-willy - i.e., nill ye, will ye, whether you will or no; a familiar version of the Latin, nolens volens. Generally written now, willy-nilly.
• Nincompoop - a fool, a hen-pecked husband, a “Jerry Sneak.”—Corruption of non compos mentis.
• Nine Shillings - cool audacity; most probably derived from the French, nonchalance.
• Nine corns - a pipeful of tobacco.
• Nines - “dressed up to the nines,” in a showy or recherché manner. Up to the nines, up to the dodges and “wrinkles” of life.
• Ning-nang - horse-coupers’ term for a worthless thoroughbred.
• Ninnyhammer - a foolish, ignorant person. Generally shortened to ninny. Ninny is also short for nincompoop.
• Nip - to steal, to take up quickly. See nap and nib.
• Nipcheese - a purser.—Old Sea Slang.
• Nipper - a sharp lad. Originally a superior grade among cut-purses.
• Nix my dolly - once a very popular slang song, beginning—
• Nix! the signal word of schoolboys and workpeople to each other that the master, or other person in authority, is approaching.
• Nix - nothing. German, nichts. See mungarly.
• Niz-priz - a writ of nisi-prius.—Legal.
• Nizzie - a fool, a coxcomb.—Old Cant, vide Triumph of Wit.
• No odds - no matter, of no consequence.—Latimer’s Sermon before Edward VI.
• No-fly - artful, designing. Term much used among printers, who shorten it to “n.f.”
• Nob. When the knave of trumps is held at the game of cribbage, the holder counts “one for his nob.”
• Nob - a person of high position, a “swell,” a nobleman,—of which word it may be an abbreviation, or of nobilis. See snob.
• Nobba saltee - ninepence. Lingua Franca, nove soldi.
• Nobba - nine. Italian, nove; Spanish, nova,—the b and v being interchangeable, as in sabe and savvey. Slang introduced by the “organ-grinders” from Italy.
• Nobbing cheat - the gallows.—Old Cant.
• Nobbing - collecting money; “what nobbings?” i.e., how much have3 you got or collected from the crowd? This term is much used by “buskers.”
• Nobble - to cheat, to overreach; to discover. In the racing world, to “nobble” a horse, is to “get at,” and lame or poison him.
• Nobbler - a blow on the nob, a finishing stroke; “that’s a nobbler for him,” i.e., a settler.—Pugilistic.
• Nobby - or nobbish, fine or showy; nobbily, showily. See snob for derivation.
• Noli-me-tangere - the Scotch fiddle, or other contagious disease.
• Non-com - a non-commissioned officer in the army.
• Noom - the moon.
• Nooning - an interval for rest and refreshment, taken at midday by travellers in hot countries.
• Norfolk-Howards - bugs; a person named Ephraim Bug some few years back advertised, that for the future he would call himself by the more aristocratic appellation of Norfolk Howard.
• North country compliment - to give or offer anything that is not wanted by either giver or receiver is to pass a north country compliment.
• Nos-rap - a parson.
• Nose and chin - a winn,—ancient cant for a penny.
• Nose in the manger - to put one’s, to sit down to eat. To “put on the nose-bag” is to eat hurriedly, or to eat while continuing at work.
• Nose out of joint - to put one’s; to supplant, supersede, or mortify a person by excelling him.
• Nose ’em - or fogus, tobacco. Nose ’em is but a contraction of the rhyming slang, which see.
• Nose-bag - a visitor at a watering-place, or house of refreshment, who carries his own victuals. Term applied by waiters.
• Nose-ender - a straight blow delivered full on the nasal promontory.
• Nose - a thief who turns informer; a paid spy; generally called a policeman’s nose; “on the nose,” on the look-out.
• Nose - to give information to the police, to turn approver.
• Nose - “to pay through the nose,” to pay an extravagant price.
• Nosegent - a nunne.
• Noser my knacker - tobacco.
• Noser - a hard blow, leading to a bloody or contused nose.—Pugilistic.
• Notes and Queries. The invaluable Index to this most useful periodical may be consulted with advantage by the seeker after etymologies of Slang and Cant words.
• Notional - imaginative, full of ideas. Used in America to express a wife’s imaginations with regard to her husband’s doings.
• Nouse - comprehension, perception.—Old, apparently from the Greek, νοῦς. Gaelic and Irish, nos, knowledge, perception.
• Nowhere - horses not placed in a race—that are neither first, second, nor third—are said to be nowhere, especially when this lack of position happens to favourites.
• Number of his mess - when a man dies in the army or navy, he is said to “lose the number of his mess.”
• Nut-cut - roguish, mischievous. A good-natured term of reproach.—Anglo-Indian.
• Nux - the “plant,” or object in view. “Stoll up to the nux?” “Do you fully comprehend what is wanted?”—North Country Cant.
• O. P. Publishers’ reply to an inquiry for a book or paper that is out of print.
• Oaf - a lumbering, awkward fellow.
• Oak - the outer door of college rooms; to “sport one’s oak,” to be “not at home” to visitors. See sport.—University.
• Oar - “to put in an oar,” to interfere.
• Oat-stealer - an ostler.
• Oat - an atom. Probable corruption of iota, or perhaps from the small size of an oat. “I never got an oat of it,” I never received the smallest portion.
• Oats and barley - Charley.
• Oats and chaff - a footpath.
• Obfuscated - intoxicated.
• Obliquitous - oblivious of distinction between right and wrong.—American.
• Obstropolous - Cockney corruption of obstreperous.
• Occabot - tobacco; “tib fo occabot,” bit of tobacco.
• Ochre - money, generally applied to gold, for a very obvious reason.
• Odd man - a man who trains in company with a boat’s crew, so that in the event of any one falling ill the seat will be fairly occupied.
• Off and on - vacillating; “an off and on kind of a chap,” one who is always undecided.
• Off at the head - crazy.—Oxfordshire.
• Off one’s feed. To be unable to eat is to be off one’s feed. Originally stable slang.
• Off the horn - a term used in reference to very hard steak, which is fancifully said to be off the horn.
• Offish - distant, not familiar. Corruption of stand-offish.
• Ogging ot tekram - going to market.
• Ogle - to look, or reconnoitre.
• Ogles - eyes.—Old Cant. French, œil.
• Oil of palms - or palm oil, money.
• Ointment - medical student slang for butter.
• Old Lady in Threadneedle Street - the Bank of England.
• Old gentleman - the devil. Also a card almost imperceptibly longer than the rest of the pack, used by sharpers for the purpose of cheating.
• Old gooseberry (see gooseberry), Old Harry (Old Hairy), Old Scratch, all synonyms for the devil.
• Old gown - smuggled tea.
• Old horse - salt junk, or beef.—Sea.
• Old hoss - a term of endearment, originally an Americanism, but now in common use here among friends.
• Old man - in American merchant ships, the master. The phrase is becoming common in English ships.
• Old salt - a thorough sailor.
• Oliver - the moon; “oliver don’t widdle,” i.e., the moon does not shine. Nearly obsolete.
• Ollapod - a country apothecary. From George Coleman’s comedy of The Poor Gentleman.
• Omnium gatherum - an indiscriminate collection of articles; a numerous and by no means select assemblage.
• On doog - no good.
• On the fly - getting one’s living by thieving or other illegitimate means; the phrase is applied to men the same as “on the loose” is to women. On the fly also means on the drink.
• On the nose - on the watch or look-out. See nose.
• On the shelf - transported. With old maids it has another and very different meaning.
• On the tiles - out all night “on the spree,” or carousing,—in allusion to the London cats on their amatory excursions. See caterwauling.
• One in ten - a parson. In allusion to the tithing system.
• Onion - a watch-seal.
• Open the ball - to commence anything.
• Oracle - “to work the oracle,” to plan, manœuvre, to succeed by a wily stratagem.
• Orate - an Americanism, which means, to speak in public, or make an oration.
• Organ-grinder - an itinerant who is supposed to “grind” music out of a barrel-organ.
• Originator - an inventor of plans for the formation of joint-stock companies. The originator submits his schemes to the promoter, who accepts or rejects them.
• Orinoko (pronounced orinoker), a poker.
• Otter - eightpence. Italian, otto, eight.—Lingua Franca.
• Ottomy - a thin man, a skeleton, a dwarf. Vulgar pronunciation of anatomy. Shakspeare has atomy.
• Out and out - prime, excellent, of the first quality; beyond measure. Out-and-outer, one who is of an out-and-out description, “up” to anything.
• Out of collar - out of place,—in allusion to servants. When in place, the term is in collar. Most likely from “head in the collar,” said of horses when hard at work.
• Out on the loose - “on the spree,” in search of adventures. See on the loose.
• Out - in round games, where several play, and there can be but one loser, the winners in succession stand out, while the others play off.
• Outcry - an auction.—Anglo-Indian.
• Outing - a day’s holiday. The Oxford and Cambridge boatrace, the Derby, and other events of a like character, are each said to be simply excuses to the Cockneys for a day’s outing.
• Over the stile - sent for trial.
• Overs - the odd money remaining after the daily accounts are made up at a banking-house,—usually divided amongst the clerks. See menavelings and shorts.
• Owned - a slang expression used by the ultra-Evangelicals when a popular preacher makes many converts. The converts themselves are called his “seals.”
• Pac - a cap.
• Packets - hoaxing lies. Sometimes used as an exclamation of incredulity.—North.
• Pad the hoof - to walk; “padding the hoof, on the high toby,” tramping or walking on the high road.
• Pad - the highway; also a tramp or itinerant musician.
• Pad - “to stand pad,” to beg with a small piece of paper pinned on the breast, inscribed, “I am starving.”
• Padding-ken - or crib, tramps’ and boys’ lodging-house.
• Paddle - to go or run away.—American.
• Paddy Quick - thick, or a stick.
• Paddy - Pat, or Paddy Whack, an Irishman. A nickname of Patrick.
• Paddy’s goose - the sign of the White Swan, a noted flash public-house in the east of London, supposed to be Paddy’s idea of a goose.
• Paddy’s land - “ould Ireland.”
• Padre - a clergyman. From the Portuguese.
• Pal - a partner, acquaintance, friend, an accomplice. Gipsy, a brother.
• Palampo - a quilt or bed-cover. Probably from Palanpore, a town in India, renowned for its manufacture of chintz counterpanes.—Anglo-Indian.
• Pallyard - a borne beggar [who counterfeits sickness, or incurable sores. They are mostly Welshmen, Harman says.]
• Palm oil - or palm soap, money; also, a bribe.
• Palm - to impose upon. “You can’t palm that off upon me,” is said when an intending purchaser is suspicious of the quality of the article offered.
• Pam - the knave of clubs at the game of loo; or, in street phraseology, while the “Judicious Bottleholder” was alive, Lord Palmerston.
• Pannikin - a small pan.
• Pannum-bound - said of a pauper or prisoner when his food is stopped. Pannum-struck, very hungry, starving.
• Pannum - food, bread.—Lingua Franca, pannen; Latin, panis; Ancient Cant, yannam.
• Panny - a house—public or otherwise; “flash panny,” a public-house used by thieves; panny-men, housebreakers. Panny, in thieves’ cant, also signifies a burglary.
• Pantalettes - the drawers worn in America by little girls.
• Pants - American term for trousers. Here used to represent the long drawers worn underneath.
• Panupetaston - a loose overcoat with wide sleeves, now out of fashion.—Oxford University.
• Paper-Worker - a wandering vendor of street literature; one who sells ballads, dying speeches, and confessions, sometimes termed a “running stationer.”
• Parachute - a parasol.
• Paradise - French slang for the gallery of a theatre, “up amongst the gods,” which see.
• Param - mylke.
• Parish lantern - the moon.
• Parish prig - or parish bull, a parson.—Thieves’ cant.
• Parker’s (Geo.) Life’s Painter of Variegated Characters, with a Dictionary of Cant Language and Flash Songs, to which is added a Dissertation on Freemasonry, portrait, 8vo.1789.
• Parney - rain; “dowry of parney,” a quantity of rain. Anglo-Indian slang from the Hindoo, pani, water; Gipsy, pane. Old Indian officers always call brandy-and-water “brandy pawnee.”
• Parson - a signpost. Common term in the north, where they say that the parson points, but does not lead. This is given, as the lawyers say, “without prejudice.”
• Parson’s nose - the hind part of a goose—a savoury mouthful. Sometimes called the Pope’s nose.
• Parter - a free, liberal person. Sometimes called a “good parter.” Any one who looks twice at his money, or who doesn’t pay it at all, is called a “bad parter.”
• Pash - to strike; now corrupted to bash, which see.—Shakspeare.
• Paste-horn - the nose. Shoemakers nickname any shopmate with a large nose “old paste-horn,” from the shape of the horn in which they keep their paste.
• Paste - to beat, to thrash vigorously.
• Pasteboard - a visiting card; “to pasteboard a person,” to drop a card at an absent person’s house.
• Pasty - a bookbinder.
• Patent coats - the first coat, with the pockets inside the skirt, were so termed.
• Patrico - a priest.
• Patricos kinchen - a pygge. [A satirical hit at the church, patrico meaning a parson or priest, and kinchen his little boy or girl.]
• Patter-crib - a flash house.
• Patter - to talk. Patter flash, to speak the language of thieves, talk cant.
• Patteran - a gipsy trail, made by throwing down a handful of grass occasionally, especially where they have turned off from the main road.
• Pattern - a common vulgar phrase for “patent.”
• Paul Pry - an inquisitive person. From the well-known comedy.
• Paw - the hand. Paw-cases, gloves. Boots are in some parts of Ireland called “gloves for the feet.”
• Pay - to deliver. “Pay that letter to Mr. So-and-so” is a very common direction to a Chinese servant.—Anglo-Chinese.
• Peacock horse - amongst undertakers, is one with a showy tail and mane, which holds its head up well. Peacocky refers to an objectionable high action among racehorses.
• Peaking - remnants of cloth. Term amongst drapers and cloth warehousemen.
• Peaky - sickly, delicate.
• Pec - a term used by the Eton boys for money, an abbreviation, of course, of the Latin pecunia.
• Peck-alley - the throat.
• Peck - food; “peck and boose,” meat and drink.—Lincolnshire. Ancient Cant, pek, meat.
• Peck - to eat voraciously. A hearty eater is generally called “a rare pecker.” Originally peck was to eat delicately, “but we have changed all that now.”
• Pecker - “keep your pecker up,” i.e., don’t get down in the mouth,—literally, keep your beak or head well up, “never say die!”
• Peckham - a facetious usage of the name of this district, implying a dinner; “all holiday at Peckham,” i.e., nothing to eat.
• Peckish - hungry. Old Cant, peckidge, meat.
• Peel - to strip, or disrobe.—Sporting.
• Peepers - eyes; “painted peepers,” eyes bruised or blackened from a blow.—Pugilistic.
• Peery - suspicious, or inquisitive.
• Peg - brandy and soda-water. A peg by which to pull oneself up again. Also, a shilling.—Scotch.
• Peg - to drink frequently; generally used in reference to devotees of “S. and B.”
• Peggers - people who constantly stimulate themselves by means of brandy and soda-water.
• Pegge’s (Samuel) Anecdotes of the English Language, chiefly regarding the Local Dialect of London and Environs, 8vo.1803-41.
• Pegtops - the loose trousers in fashion some years back, small at the ankle and swelling upwards, in imitation of the Zouave costume.
• Pen and ink - a stink.
• Penang-lawyer - a long cane, sometimes carried by a footman. Penang-lawyers are also bludgeons which are carried by all classes in Singapore.
• Penny dreadfuls - an expressive term for those penny publications which depend more upon sensationalism than upon merit, artistic or literary, for success.
• Penny starver - a penny roll. See buster.
• Pensioner - a man of the most degraded condition who lives off the miserable earnings of a prostitute. There is an unmentionable prefix to the word Pensioner. See Ponce.
• Pen’orth - value for money; as, “I’ll have my pen’orth,”—given irrespective of the actual amount.
• Pepper - to thrash, or strike.—Pugilistic, but used by Shakspeare.—Eastern Counties.
• Perch - or roost, a resting-place; “I’m off to perch,” i.e., I am going to bed.
• Perform - to carry out a design, generally a dishonest one. To “perform on a flat” is to cozen a fool.
• Perkin - beer. Dandy or affected shortening of the widely-known firm, Barclay and Perkins.
• Perpendicular - a lunch taken standing-up at a tavern bar. It is usual to call it lunch, often as the perpendicular may take the place of dinner.
• Persuaders - spurs.
• Peter Funk - an American term for a spurious auction or “knock-out.”
• Peter Grievous - a miserable, melancholy fellow; a croaker.
• Peter - a bundle, or valise. Also, a cash-box.
• Peter - a partridge.—Poacher’s term.
• Peter - to run short, or give out.—American.
• Petticoat - a woman.
• Philander - to ramble on incoherently; to write discursively and weakly.
• Philip - a policeman. The word is loudly given as a signal that the police are approaching.
• Philiper - a thief’s accomplice, one who stands by and looks out for the police while the others commit a robbery, and who calls out “Philip!” when any one approaches.
• Phillip’s New World of Words, folio.1696.
• Physog - or phiz, the face. Swift uses the latter word. Corruption of physiognomy.
• Picaroon - a pirate or buccaneer originally; now an ordinary thief.
• Piccadilly weepers - long carefully combed-out whiskers of the Dundreary fashion.
• Pick-me-up - a revivifying drink taken after a debauch; a tonic.
• Pick - “to pick oneself up,” to recover after a beating or illness, sometimes varied to “pick up one’s crumbs;” “to pick a man up,” “to do,” or cheat him.
• Pickaninny - a young child is thus styled by the West Indian negroes. The word is now completely naturalized among sailors and water-side people in England.
• Pickers - the hands.—Shakspeare.
• Pickles! gammon; also a jeering and insulting exclamation.
• Picture of the Fancy - 12mo.18—.
• Pig and Tinder-box - the vulgar rendering of the well-known tavern sign, “Elephant and Castle.”
• Pig-headed - obstinate.
• Pig - a mass of metal,—so called from its being poured in a fluid state from a sow, which see.—Workman’s term.
• Pig - a policeman; an informer. The word is now almost exclusively applied by London thieves to a plain-clothes man, or a “nose.”
• Pig - a pressman in a printing office. See donkey.
• Pig - or sow’s baby, a sixpence.
• Pig - to live in a crowded, filthy manner. The lower orders of Irish are said to pig together. A suggestive, if not elegant, expression.
• Pigeon-English - the English spoken by the natives of Canton and other parts of China.
• Pigeon-flying - or bluey cracking, breaking into empty houses and stealing lead.
• Pigeon - business, simply the Chinese pronunciation of the English word.—Anglo-Chinese.
• Pigeon’s milk - an imaginary fluid for which boys and simpletons are frequently sent on the 1st of April.
• Pig’s eye - the ace of diamonds in cards.
• Pig’s whisper - a low or inaudible whisper; also a short space of time, synonymous with “cockstride,” i.e., cock’s tread.
• Pike - to run, to be off with speed.
• Pill-box - a doctor’s carriage.
• Pill - a doctor.—Military. Pill-driver, a peddling apothecary.
• Pill - to blackball a man at a club. Sometimes a man who is blackballed is described as having received too much medicine.
• Pinch - to steal or cheat; also, to catch, or apprehend.
• Pinchbeck - inferior, deteriorated. Anything pretending to more than its proper value is said to be pinchbeck.
• Pink - the acme of perfection. The scarlet garb worn in the hunting-field.
• Pink - to stab, or pierce. In the days of rapier-wearing a professed duellist was said to be “a regular pinker and driller.”
• Pinnel - or pennel,—corruption of penal servitude. As, “four-year pinnel.”
• Pinnurt pots - turnip tops.
• Pins - legs.
• Pipe - to follow or dog a person; to watch, to notice.
• Pipe - to shed tears, or bewail; “pipe one’s eye.”—Sea term.
• Piper - a broken-winded hack horse.
• Piper - a person employed by an omnibus proprietor to act as a spy on the conductor.
• Pipkin - the stomach,—properly, an earthen round-bottomed pot—Norwich.
• Pips - the marks, no matter of what suit, on playing cards. The ace is often called “single pip.”
• Pit - a breast-pocket.
• Pitch and fill - Bill,—vulgar shortening for William.
• Pitch into - to fight; “pitch into him, Bill,” i.e., give him a thrashing.
• Pitch the fork - to tell a pitiful tale.
• Pitch the nob - prick the garter, which see.
• Pitch - to go to bed for less than the ordinary period. Journeymen bakers, and others whose work is disjointed, call any short interval of sleep a pitch. Probably from the action.
• Place - first, second, or third position in a race. Sometimes a place is called a “situation” or a “shop.”
• Plant - a hidden store of money or variables. To “spring a plant” is to unearth another person’s hoard.
• Plant - to mark a person out for plunder or robbery; to conceal or hide money, &c.—Old Cant. In the sense of conceal, there is a similar word in Argot, planquer.
• Plates of meat - the feet.
• Platform - a standpoint in an argument, a statement of political or general opinion. “Home rule’s my platform!” Originally American, but now general.
• Play - to strike for higher wages, to be out of work.—North.
• Plebs - a term used to stigmatize a tradesman’s son at Westminster School. Latin, plebs, the vulgar.
• Plough the deep - to go to sleep.
• Ploughed - drunk.
• Pluck - courage, valour, stoutness. See following.
• Pluck - the heart, liver, and lungs of an animal,—all that is plucked away in connexion with the windpipe, from the chest of a sheep or hog.
• Plucked un - a stout or brave fellow; “he’s a rare plucked un,” i.e., he dares face anything.
• Plum-cash - prime cost.—Anglo-Chinese.
• Plum - £100,000, usually applied to the dowry of a rich heiress, to a legacy, or to a sum made in business or by a lucky speculation.
• Plummy - round, sleek, jolly, or fat; excellent, very good, first-rate.
• Plumper - a single vote at an election, not a “split ticket.”
• Plunder - a common word in the horse trade to express profit. Also an5 American term for baggage, luggage. In Lower Canada the French packmen call luggage “butin.”
• Plunger - a heavy cavalry-man.—Military slang.
• Plutocracy - the wealthy classes. The Manchester merchants are often termed a millocracy, and words of a similar character are mobocracy and moneyocracy.
• Pocket-pistol - a dram-flask.
• Pocket - to put up with. A man who does not resent an affront is said to pocket it.
• Podgy - drunk; dumpy, short, and fat.
• Pogram - a Dissenter, a fanatic, formalist, or humbug. So called from a well-known enthusiast of this name.
• Poke. “Come, none of your poking fun at me,” i.e., you must not laugh at me.
• Poke - a bag, or sack; “to buy a pig in a poke,” to purchase anything without seeing it. Poke was originally a pocket. Shakspeare says—
• Poker. “By the holy poker and the tumbling Tom!” an Irish oath.
• Pokers - or silver pokers, the Bedels of the Vice-Chancellor, who carry silver maces, and accompany him through the streets. They are also officers of his court.—University.
• Poky - confined or cramped; “that corner is poky and narrow.” Housewives describe a small uncomfortable room as “a poky hole.” Saxon, poke, a sack.
• Policeman - a fly—more especially the kind known as “blue bottle.” Also, among the dangerous classes, a man who is unworthy of confidence, a sneak or mean fellow.
• Polish off - to finish off anything quickly—a dinner, for instance; also to finish off an adversary.—Pugilistic.
• Poll parrot - a talkative, gossiping woman. A term much used about Ratcliff Highway.
• Poll - at Cambridge, the “ordinary degree” candidates for the B.A. Examination, who do not aspire to the “Honours” list. From the Greek, οἱ πόλλοι, “the many.”
• Poll - or polling, one thief robbing another of part of the booty. In use in ancient times, vide Hall’s Union, 1548.
• Poll - to beat or distance, as in a race; to utterly vanquish in competition. Term much used by printers.
• Pompadours - the Fifty-sixth Regiment of Foot in the British army.
• Ponce - a degraded man who lives upon a woman’s prostitution. Low-class East-end thieves even will “draw the line” at ponces, and object to their presence in the boozing-kens.
• Pond - or herring-pond, the sea; so called by those who were sent across it at the national expense.
• Ponge - or pongelow, beer, half-and-half; the term is also used as a verb, as in the Cockney phrase, “let’s pongelow, shall we?”
• Pony - twenty-five pounds.—Sporting.
• Poona - a sovereign. Corruption of “pound;” or from the Lingua Franca.
• Pop the question - to make an offer of marriage.
• Pope o’ Rome - home.
• Pope’s nose - the extremity of the rump of a roast fowl, sometimes devilled as a dainty for epicures. Also known as “the parson’s nose.”
• Pope’s-eye - a peculiar little part in a leg of mutton, much esteemed by lovers of that joint.
• Poppelars - porrage.
• Pops - pocket-pistols.
• Portrait - a sovereign. Modification of “Queen’s picture.”
• Posa - a treasurer. A corruption of “purser,” the name given to the treasurer in the large Anglo-Chinese mercantile establishments.—Anglo-Chinese.
• Posh - a halfpenny, or trifling coin. Also a generic term for money.
• Post-horn - the nose. See paste-horn.
• Post-mortem - at Cambridge, the second examination which men who have been “plucked” have to undergo.—University.
• Post - to pay down; “post the pony” signifies to place the stakes played for on the table.
• Posted up - well acquainted with the subject in question, “up to the mark,”—metaphor drawn from the counting-house.
• Pot-boiler - a picture hurriedly painted for the purpose of “keeping the pot boiling.”—Artistic slang.
• Pot-faker - a hawker of crockery and general earthenware.
• Pot-hat - a low-crowned hat, as distinguished from the soft wideawake and the stove-pipe.
• Pot-valiant - courageous through application to the bottle. Possessed of Dutch courage.
• Pot - a sixpence, i.e., the price of a pot or quart of half-and-half. A half-crown, in medical student slang, is a five-pot piece.
• Potato-trap - the mouth.—Originally a Hibernicism.
• Potted - or potted out, cabined, confined, figurative of crammed into a garden-pot. Also applied to burial,—a horticultural allusion.
• Potter’s (H. T., of Clay, Worcestershire) New Dictionary of all the Cant and Flash Languages, both ancient and modern, 8vo, pp. 62.1790.
• Poulter. The Discoveries of John Poulter, alias Baxter, 8vo, 48 pages.(1770?)
• Pow-wow - a conference. Originally an Indian term.
• Power - a large quantity; “a power of money.”—Irish at first, but now general.
• Prad - a horse. Prad-napping was horse-stealing. Both these terms are old cant.
• Prancer - a horse.—Ancient Cant. In modern slang an officer of cavalry.
• Prat - a buttocke. [This word has its equivalent in modern slang.]
• Praties - potatoes.—Irish.
• Pratling chete - a toung.
• Prauncer - a horse.
• Precious - used, in a slang sense, like very or exceeding; “a precious little of that,” i.e., a very little indeed; a precious humbug, rascal, &c., i.e., an eminent one.
• Prig - a conceited, stuck-up, over-knowing person; one who appropriates or adopts a manner or costume not suited to him.
• Priggish - conceited.
• Primed - said of a person in that state of incipient intoxication that if he took more drink it would become evident. Also, crammed for an examination.
• Prison-breaker - The, or the Adventures of John Sheppard, a Farce, 8vo.London, 1725.
• Pro - a professional.—Theatrical.
• Pro - the proproctor, or second in command in the proctorial police. The two proctors generally appoint a certain number of proproctors each.—Oxford University.
• Proctorized - to be, to be stopped by the Proctor, and told to call on him.—University.
• Prog - meat, food, &c. Johnson calls it “a low word.” He was fond of “prog,” however.
• Proof - the best ale at Magdalen College, Oxford.
• Prop-nailer - a man who “sneaks,” or rather snatches, pins from gentlemen’s scarves.
• Prop - a blow. As, “a prop on the nose,”—more street slang than pugilistic.
• Prop - a scarf pin.
• Proper - very, exceedingly, sometimes used ironically; “you are a proper nice fellow,” meaning a great scamp. A “proper man” generally means a perfect man, as far as can be known.
• Props - crutches.
• Props - stage properties.—Theatrical.
• Pros - a water-closet. Abbreviated form of πρὸς τινα τόπον. Some say, πρὸς τον τόπον.—Oxford University.
• Prygges - dronken tinkers, or beastly people.
• Psalm-smiter - a “Ranter,” one who sings at a conventicle. See brisket-beater.
• Pub - or public, a public-house; “what pub do you use?” i.e., which inn or public-house do you frequent?
• Public patterers - swell mobsmen who pretend to be Dissenting preachers, and harangue in the open air to attract a crowd for their confederates to rob.
• Pucker - poor or bad temper, difficulty, déshabillé. Pucker up, to get in a bad temper.
• Puckering - talking privately.
• Puckerow - to seize, to take hold of. From the Hindostanee, puckerna.—Anglo-Indian.
• Pudding-snammer - one who robs a cook-shop.
• Puff - to blow up, or swell with praise; declared by a writer in the Weekly Register, as far back as 1732, to be illegitimate.
• Pug - a fighting man’s idea of the contracted word to be produced from pugilist.
• Pull - an advantage, or hold upon another; “I’ve the pull over (or of) you,” i.e., you are in my power—perhaps an oblique allusion to the judicial sense. See the following.
• Pull - to drink; “come, take a pull at it,” i.e., drink up.
• Pull - to prevent a horse from winning, that is, so far as the rider’s action is concerned.
• Pullet - a young girl. Filly is an exchangeable term.
• Pummel - to thrash,—from pommel.
• Pump - to extract information by roundabout questioning.
• Punch - or the London Charivari.
• Pundit - a person who assumes to be very grave and learned.—Anglo-Indian.
• Punkah - a fan, usually a fan of very large size, worked with a string, and used to ventilate rooms.—Anglo-Indian.
• Punter - a small professional backer of horses.
• Pup and ringer - i.e., the “Dog and Bell,” the sign of a flash public-house.
• Purdah - a curtain.—Anglo-Indian.
• Pure finders - street-collectors of dogs’ dung.—Humorous.
• Purl - a mixture of hot ale and sugar, with wormwood infused in it, a favourite morning drink to produce an appetite; sometimes with gin and spice added:—
• Purl - to spill; purled is a hunting and steeplechasing term synonymous with “foaled,” or “spilt” (thrown); “he’ll get purled at the rails.”
• Purler - a heavy fall from a horse in the hunting or steeplechasing field.
• Push - a crowd.—Old Cant.
• Push - a robbery or swindle. “I’m in this push,” the notice given by one magsman to another that he means to “stand in.”
• Put that in your pipe and smoke it - said of a blow or repartee, and equivalent to take that and think over it, or digest it, or let it be a warning to you.
• Put the pot on - to put too much money upon one horse.—Sporting.
• Put up - to suggest, to incite, “he put me up to it;” he prompted me to do it. Put up, to stop at an hotel or a tavern for entertainment.
• Put upon - cheated, victimized, oppressed.
• Put - a game at cards, once fashionable, but now played among thieves and costermongers only.
• Put - an obsolete slang term representing the modern “bloke” or “cove.” It was generally applied to elderly persons.
• Puttun - regiment.—Anglo-Indian.
• Pygostole - the least irreverent of names for the peculiar M. B. coats worn by Tractarian curates:—
• Pyjands - a kind of drawers or loose pantaloons.—Anglo-Indian.
• Quacking chete - a drake or duck.
• Quad. See quod.
• Quaker - a lump of excrement.
• Quality - gentry, the upper classes.
• Quaromes - a body.
• Quartereen - a farthing.—Gibraltar term. Italian, quattrino.
• Quarterly Review - vol. x. p. 528.
• Quaver - a musician.
• Quean - a strumpet. In Scotland, a lower-class woman. Saxon, cwean, a barren old cow.
• Queen Bess - the Queen of Clubs,—perhaps because that queen, history says, was of a swarthy complexion.—North Hants. See Gentleman’s Magazine for 1791, p. 141.
• Queen’s tobacco-pipe - the kiln in which all contraband tobacco seized by the Custom-house officers is burned.
• Queer-bit-makers - coiners.
• Queer-soft - bad notes.
• Queer-street - “in queer street,” in difficulty or in want.
• Queer - “to queer a flat,” to puzzle or confound a “gull,” or silly fellow.
• Querier - a chimney-sweep who calls from house to house soliciting employment,—formerly termed knuller, which see.
• Qui-hi - an English resident at Calcutta.—Anglo-Indian.
• Quick sticks - in a hurry, rapidly; “to cut quick sticks,” to start off hurriedly, or without more ado. See cut one’s stick.
• Quid-nunc - an inquisitive person, always seeking for news. The words translated simply signify, “What now?”
• Quid - or thick un, a sovereign; “half a quid,” half a sovereign;6 quids, money generally; “quid for a quod,” one good turn for another. The word is used by old French writers:—
• Quier cuffin - the justice of peace.
• Quier [queer], badde. [See ante.]
• Quiet - “on the quiet,” clandestinely, so as to avoid observation, “under the rose.”
• Quill-driver - a scrivener, a clerk,—satirical phrase similar to “steel bar driver,” a tailor.
• Quiller - a parasite, a person who sucks neatly through a quill. See suck up.
• Quilt - to thrash, or beat.
• Quisby - bankrupt, poverty-stricken. Amplification of queer.
• Quisi - roguish, low, obscene.—Anglo-Chinese.
• Quiz - a prying person, an odd fellow. Originally Oxford slang, but now general, and lately admitted into some dictionaries. See queer cuffen.
• Quiz - to pry, or joke; to hoax.
• Quizzical - jocose, humorous.
• Quizzing-glass - an eyeglass. This was applied to the old single eyeglass, which was not stuck in the eye, as now, but was held in the hand.
• Quodger - a contraction, or corruption rather, of the Latin law phrase, quo jure? by what law?—Legal.
• Quyer crampringes - boltes or fetters.
• Quyer kyn - a pryson house.
• Rabbit - when a person gets the worst of a bargain, he is said “to have bought the rabbit.” From an old story about a man selling a cat to a foreigner for a rabbit.
• Racket - a dodge, manœuvre, exhibition; a disturbance.
• Rackety - wild or noisy.
• Racks - the bones of a dead horse. Term used by horse-slaughterers.
• Raclan - a married woman. Originally Gipsy, but now a term with English tramps.
• Rafe - or ralph, a pawnbroker’s duplicate.—Norwich.
• Raff - a dirty, dissipated fellow; raffish, looking like a raff.
• Rag and Famish - the Army and Navy Club. From Ensign rag and Captain famish, imaginary characters, out of whom Leech some years back obtained much amusement.
• Rag-shop - a bank.
• Rag-splawger - a rich man.
• Rag - a bank-note.
• Rag - to divide or share; “let’s rag it,” or “go rags,” i.e., share it equally between us.—Norwich.
• Ragamuffin - an ill-clad vagabond, a tatterdemalion.
• Rain napper - an umbrella.
• Raise the wind - to obtain credit, or money,—generally by pawning or selling property, but not unusually by borrowing. Sometimes varied to whistle up the breeze.
• Raker - to go a, is, in racing parlance, to put more money than usual on a certain horse. “Going a raker” often leads to “coming a cropper.”
• Ramp - to hustle, to rob with violence, to levy blackmail in a ferocious manner; to extort by means of threats. Ramping is generally done in gangs.
• Rampage - to be on the, on the drink, on the loose. Dickens, in Great Expectations, refers to Mrs. Jo as being on the rampage when she is worse tempered than usual.
• Ramshackle - queer, rickety, knocked about, as standing corn is after a high wind. Corrupted from ram-shatter, or possibly from ransack.
• Ran-tan - “on the ran-tan,” drunk.
• Randall (Jack), a Few Selections from his Scrap-book; to which are added Poems on the late Fight for the Championship, 12mo.1822.
• Randals-man. See billy.
• Randan - a boat impelled by three rowers, the midship man sculling, and the bowman and strokesman rowing with oars.
• Random - three horses driven in line. See tandem, sudden death, harum-scarum.
• Randy - rampant, violent, warm.—North. randy-beggar, a gipsy tinker.
• Rank - to cheat. Modification of ramp.
• Rantipoll - a noisy rude girl, a madcap.
• Rap - to utter rapidly and vehemently; “he rapped out a volley of oaths.”
• Rape - a pear.
• Rapping - enormous; “a rapping big lie.”
• Rapscallion - a low tattered wretch—not worth a rap.
• Raree-show - a collection of curiosities.
• Rat - to smell a, to suspect something, to guess that there is something amiss.
• Rather! a ridiculous street exclamation synonymous with yes; “Do you like fried chickens?” “rather!” “Are you going out of town?” “rather!” Very often pronounced “rayther!”
• Rattening - the punishment inflicted on non-unionists by Sheffield grinders, through the instrumentality of “Mary Ann.” See Parliamentary Inquiry Report on the subject.
• Rattlecap - an unsteady, volatile person. Generally applied to girls.
• Rattler - a cab, coach, or cart.—Old Cant.
• Rattletrap - the mouth. Anything shaky and mean, but pretentious and vulgar, is said to belong to the rattletrap order of things.
• Rattling - jolly, pleasant, well-appointed. “A rattling good spread” means an excellent repast, while a true friend is said to be a “rattling good fellow.”
• Raw - uninitiated; a novice.—Old. Frequently Johnny Raw.
• Re-raw - “on the re-raw,” tipsy or drunk.
• Read and write - to fight.
• Reader - a pocket-book; “Touch him for his reader,” i.e., rob him of his pocket-book.
• Ready-reckoners - the Highland regiments of the British army.
• Ready - or ready gilt (maybe gelt), money. Used by Arbuthnot—“Lord Strut was not very flush in ready.”
• Red herring - a soldier. The terms are exchangeable, the fish being often called a “soldier.”
• Red lane - the throat.
• Red liner - an officer of the Mendicity Society.
• Red rag - the tongue.
• Red shanke - a drake or ducke.
• Red un - a gold watch.
• Redge - gold.
• Redtape - official routine. A term which was much in vogue during the Crimean campaign, so famous for War Office blunderings.
• Reeb - beer. “Top o’ reeb,” a pot of beer.
• Regulars - a thief’s fair share of plunder.
• Reliever - a coat worn in turn by any party of poor devils whose wardrobes are in pawn.
• Relieving Officer - a significant term for a father.—University.
• Renage - to revoke, a word used in Ireland at the game of five-card.
• Rench - vulgar pronunciation of rinse. “(W)rench your mouth out,” said a fashionable dentist one day.
• Resurrection pie - once a school but now a common phrase, used in reference to a pie supposed to be made of the scraps and leavings that have appeared before.
• Ret - an abbreviation of the word reiteration, used to denote the forme which, in a printing-office, backs or perfects paper already printed on one side.
• Rev-lis - silver.
• Rhino - ready money.—Old.
• Rhinoceral - rich, wealthy, abounding in rhino. At first sound it would seem as though it meant a man abounding in rhinoceroses.
• Rib - a wife. Derivation, of course, Biblical.
• Ribbon - gin, or other spirits. Modification of white satin.
• Ribbons - the reins. “To handle the ribbons,” to drive.
• Ribroast - to beat till the ribs are sore.—Old; but still in use:—
• Rich - spicy; also used in the sense of “too much of a good thing;” “a rich idea,” one too absurd or unreasonable to be adopted.
• Richard - a dictionary. See dick.
• Ride - “to ride the high horse,” or “ride roughshod over one,” to be overbearing or oppressive; “to ride the black donkey,” to be in an ill humour.
• Rider - a supplementary clause in a document.
• Riff-raff - low, vulgar rabble.
• Rigged - “well rigged,” well dressed.—Old Slang, in use in 1736. See Bailey’s Dictionary.—Sea.
• Right as ninepence - or nice as ninepence (possible corruption of nine-pins), quite right, exactly right, comfortable. See ninepence.
• Rights - “to have one to rights,” to be even with him, to serve him out properly. “To rights” is also an ejaculation signifying satisfaction of the highest order.
• Rigmarole - a prolix story.
• Rile - to offend, to render very cross, irritated, or vexed. Properly, to render liquor turbid.
• Ring - a generic term given to horse-racing and pugilism,—the latter was sometimes termed the prize-ring. From the rings used for betting and fighting in, respectively.
• Ring - formerly “to go through the ring,” to take advantage of the Insolvency Act, or be “whitewashed.” Now obsolete.
• Rip - a rake, “an old rip,” an old libertine, or a debauchee. Corruption of reprobate.
• Rip - to go at a rare pace. This is an American term, and often means to burst up. “Let her rip, I’m insured.”
• Ripper - a first-rate man or article.—Provincial.
• Ripping - excellent, very good. Equivalent to “stunning.”
• Rise, or raise, a Barney - to collect a mob; term used by patterers and “schwassle-box” (Punch and Judy) men.
• Rise - “to take a rise out of a person.” A metaphor from fly-fishing, the silly fish rising to be caught by an artificial fly; to mortify, outwit, or cheat him, by superior cunning.
• River Lea - tea.
• Roaf-gen - four shillings.
• Roaf-yanneps - fourpence.
• Roaring trade - a very successful business.—Shopkeepers’ Slang.
• Robin redbreast - the ancient Bow Street runner. So called from the colour of his waistcoat.
• Rock-a-low - an overcoat. Corruption of the French, roquelaure.
• Rocked - “he’s only half-rocked,” i.e., half-witted. See half-rocked.
• Rof-efil - for life—sentence of punishment.
• Roger - a goose.
• Rogue and villain - a shillin,—common pronunciation of shilling.
• Roll me in the dirt - a shirt.
• Roll of snow - a piece of linen, or bundle of underclothing.
• Romany - a gipsy, or the gipsy language; the speech of the Roma or Zincali.—Spanish Gipsy. “Can you patter romany?” i.e., can you talk “black,” or gipsy lingo?
• Rome bouse [rum booze], wyne. [A name probably applied by canters coming on it for the first time, and tasting it suddenly.]
• Rome mort - the Queene [Elizabeth].
• Rome vyle [Rum-ville], London.
• Rome - goode [now curious, noted, or remarkable in any way. Rum is the modern orthography].
• Rook - a cheat, or tricky gambler; the opposite of “pigeon.”
• Rook - a clergyman, not only from his black attire, but also, perhaps, from the old nursery favourite, the History of Cock Robin.
• Rook - to cheat, to play “rook” to another’s “pigeon.”
• Rooky - rascally, rakish, scampish.
• Roost - synonymous with perch, which see.
• Rooter - anything good, or of a prime quality; “that is a rooter,” i.e., a first-rate one of the sort.
• Roper - Mistress, “to marry Mrs. Roper” is to enlist in the Royal Marines.
• Ropes - the ways of London lower life. “To know the ropes,” is to be conversant with the minutiæ of metropolitan dodges, as regards both the streets and the sporting world.
• Rory o’More - the floor. Also used to signify a whore.
• Rosin-the-bow - a fiddler. From a famous old song of that name.
• Rosin - beer or other drink given to musicians at a dancing party.
• Rot-gut - bad, small beer. See bumclink. In America, cheap whisky.
• Rot - nonsense, anything bad, disagreeable, or useless.
• Rough-it - to put up with chance entertainment, to take pot-luck and what accommodation “turns up,” without sighing for better.
• Rough - bad; “rough fish,” bad or stinking fish.—Billingsgate.
• Roughs - coarse, or vulgar men. By many thought to be ruff, corruption of ruffian.
• Rouleau - a packet of sovereigns.—Gaming.
• Round robin - a petition, or paper of remonstrance, with the signatures written in a circle,—to prevent the first signer, or ringleader, from being discovered.
• Round the houses - trousies,—vulgar pronunciation of trousers.
• Round un - an unblushingly given and well-proportioned lie. Sometimes known as a “whacker.”
• Round (in the language of the street), the beat or usual walk of a costermonger to sell his stock. A term used by street folk generally.
• Round - “round dealing,” honest trading; “round sum,” a large sum. Synonymous also, in a slang sense, with square, which see.
• Roundem - a button.
• Row - “the Row,” i.e., Paternoster Row. The notorious Holywell Street is now called by its denizens “Bookseller’s Row.”
• Rowdy-dow - low, vulgar “not the cheese,” or thing.
• Rowdy - money. In America, a ruffian, a brawler, a “rough.” Rowdyism is the state of being of New York roughs and loafers.
• Rub - a quarrel or impediment; “there’s the rub,” i.e., that is the difficulty.—Shakspeare and L’Estrange.
• Rubbed out - dead,—a melancholy expression, of late frequently used in fashionable novels. Rubbed out is synonymous with wiped out, which see.
• Rubber - a term at whist, &c., the best of three games.
• Ruck - the undistinguished crowd; “to come in with the ruck,” to arrive at the winning-post among the thick of the unplaced horses.—Racing term.
• Ruction - an Irish row. A faction fight.
• Ruff peck - baken [short bread, common in old times at farm-houses].
• Ruffmans - the wood or bushes.
• Ruggy - fusty, frowsy.
• Rule the roast - to be at the head of affairs, to be “cock of the walk.”
• Rule. “To run the rule over,” is, among thieves, to try all a person’s pockets quietly, as done by themselves, or to search any one thoroughly, as at the police-station.
• Rum cull - the manager of a theatre, generally the master of a travelling troop.
• Rum-mizzler - Seven Dials cant for a person who is clever at making his escape, or getting out of a difficulty.
• Rum-slim - or rum sling, rum punch.
• Rumbler - a four-wheeled cab. Not so common as bounder. See growler.
• Rumbowling - anything inferior or adulterated.—Sea.
• Rumbumptious - haughty, pugilistic.
• Rumbustious - or rumbustical, pompous, haughty, boisterous, careless of the comfort of others.
• Rumgumption - or gumption, knowledge, capacity, capability,—hence, rumgumptious, knowing, wide-awake, forward, positive, pert, blunt.
• Rump - to turn the back upon any one. A still more decided “cut direct” than the “cold shoulder.”
• Rumpus - a noise, disturbance, a “row.”
• Rumy - a good woman or girl.—Gipsy Cant. In the Continental Gipsy, romi, a woman, a wife, is the feminine of ro, a man.
• Run (good or bad), the success or duration of a piece’s performance.—Theatrical.
• Run - to comprehend, &c.; “I don’t run to it,” i.e., I can’t do it, I don’t understand; also not money enough, as, “I should like to, but it wont run to it.”
• Running patterer - a street seller who runs or moves briskly along, calling aloud his wares.
• Rush - “doing it on the rush,” running away, or making off.
• Rust - “to nab the rust,” to take offence. Rusty, cross, ill-tempered, morose; not able to go through life like a person of easy and “polished” manners.
• Rustication - the sending of an offender from the University for one term or more, thus hindering his qualifying for a degree.
• Rusty guts - a blunt, rough, old fellow. Corruption of rusticus.
• Rutat - or rattat, a “tatur,” or potato.
• Rye. Gipsy term for a young man. In the same parlance “rawnie” is a young woman.
• Sad dog - a merry fellow, a joker, a “gay” or “fast” man.
• Saddle - an additional charge made by the manager to a performer upon his benefit night.—Theatrical.
• Safe - trusty, worthy of confidence. A safe card is a man who knows “what’s o’clock.” A safe man among betters is one who is sure to fulfil his engagements.
• Sails - nickname for the sail-maker on board ship.
• Sal - a salary.—Theatrical.
• Salaam - a compliment or salutation.—Anglo-Indian.
• Salamander - a street acrobat and juggler who eats fire.
• Salmon and trout - the mouth.
• Salomon - an alter or masse.
• Salt junk - navy salt beef. See old horse.
• Salt-box - the condemned cell in Newgate.
• Salt - a sailor.
• Saltee - a penny. Pence, &c., are thus reckoned:—
• Salve - praise, flattery, chaff.
• Sam - i.e., Dicky-Sam, a native of Liverpool.
• Sammy - a stupid fellow.
• Sampan - a small boat.—Anglo-Chinese.
• Samshoo - a fiery, noxious spirit, distilled from rice. Spirits generally.—Anglo-Chinese.
• Sanguinary James - a raw sheep’s-head. See bloody Jemmy.
• Sank work - tailors’ phrase for soldiers’ clothes. Perhaps from the Norman sanc, blood,—in allusion either to the soldier’s calling, or the colour of his coat.
• Sap - or sapscull, a poor green simpleton, with no heart for work.
• Sappy - soft, foolish, namby-pamby, milk-and-watery. “It’s such a sappy book.”
• Saucebox - a pert young person. In low life it also signifies the mouth.
• Saveloy - a sausage of bread and chopped beef smoked, a minor kind of polony, which see.
• Saw your timber - “be off!” equivalent to “cut your stick.” Occasionally varied, with mock refinement, to “amputate your mahogany.” See cut.
• Saw - a term at whist. A saw is established when two partners alternately trump a suit, played to each other for the express purpose.
• Sawbones - a surgeon.
• Sawney - a simpleton; a gaping, awkward lout.
• Sawney - bacon. Sawney Hunter, one who steals bacon.
• Sawney - or sandy, a Scotchman. Corruption of Alexander.
• Scab-raiser - a drummer in the army, so called from one of the duties formerly pertaining to that office, viz., inflicting corporal punishment on the soldiers.—Military.
• Scab - a worthless person.—Old. Shakspeare uses “scald” in a similar sense.
• Scabby neck - a native of Denmark.—Sea.
• Scabby-sheep - epithet applied by the vulgar to a person who has been in questionable society, or under unholy influence, and become tainted. Also a mean disreputable fellow.
• Scaly - shabby, or mean. Perhaps anything which betokens the presence of the “Old Serpent,” or it may be a variation of “fishy.”
• Scamander - to wander about without a settled purpose;—possibly in allusion to the winding course of the Homeric river of that name.
• Scammered - drunk.
• Scandal-water - tea; from old maids’ tea-parties being generally a focus for scandal.
• Scaramouch - properly a tumbler, or saltimbanco. Also a disreputable fellow.
• Scarce - to make oneself; to be off; to decamp.
• Scarlet fever - the desire felt by young ladies to flirt with officers in preference to civilians.
• Scarlet-town - Reading, in Berkshire. As the name of this place is pronounced Redding, scarlet-town is probably a rude pun upon it.
• Schism-shop - a Dissenters’ meeting-house.—University.
• Schofel - bad money. See shoful.
• School - a knot of men or boys; generally a body of idlers or street gamblers. Also, two or more “patterers” working together in the streets.
• Schroff - a banker, treasurer, or confidential clerk.—Anglo-Indian.
• Schwassle box - the street arrangement for Punch and Judy. See swatchel-cove.
• Sconce - the head; judgment, sense.—Dutch.
• Scorf - to eat voraciously.
• Scot - a quantity of anything, a lot, a share.—Anglo-Saxon, sceat, pronounced shot.
• Scot - temper, or passion,—from the irascible temperament of the Scotch; “Oh! what a scot he was in,” i.e., what temper he showed.
• Scotch Peg - a leg.
• Scotch coffee - biscuits toasted and boiled in water. A gross calumny on the much-enduring Scotians; a supposed joke on their parsimony.—Sea.
• Scotches - the legs; also synonymous with notches.
• Scout - a college valet, or waiter.—Oxford. See gyp.
• Scrag - the neck.—Old Cant. Scotch, craig. Still used by butchers. Hence, scrag, to hang by the neck, and scragging, an execution,—also Old Cant.
• Scran-bag - a soldier’s haversack.—Military Slang.
• Scrap - to fight. Also used as a substantive. Prize-fighters are often known as scrappers.
• Scrape - a difficulty; scrape, low wit for a shave.
• Scratch - “no great scratch,” of little worth.
• Screed - an illogical or badly-written article or paper upon any subject.
• Screeve - a letter, a begging petition.
• Screeve - to write, or devise; “to screeve a fakement,” to concoct, or write, a begging letter, or other impostor’s document. From the Dutch, schryven; German, schreiben, to write.
• Screw - a key—skeleton, or otherwise.
• Screw - a mean or stingy person.
• Screw - a small packet of tobacco. A “twist” of the “weed.”
• Screw - a turnkey.
• Screw - an unsound or broken-down horse, that requires both whip and spur to get him along. So called from the screw-like manner in which his ribs generally show through the skin.
• Screw - salary, or wages.
• Screw - “to put on the screw,” to limit one’s credit, to be more exact and precise; “to put under the screw;” to compel, to coerce, to influence by strong pressure.
• Screwed - intoxicated or drunk.
• Scrimmage - or scrummage, a disturbance or row.—Ancient. Probably a corruption of skirmish.
• Scrimshaw. Anything made by sailors for themselves in their leisure hours at sea is termed scrimshaw-work.
• Scrouge - to crowd or squeeze.—Wiltshire.
• Scruff - the back part of the neck seized by the adversary in an encounter. “I seized him by the scruff of the neck, and chucked him out.” Originally scurf.
• Scrumptious - nice, particular, beautiful.
• Scufter - a policeman.—North Country.
• Scurf - a mean fellow. Literally a scurvy fellow.
• Sea-connie - the steersman of an Indian ship. By the insurance laws he must be either a pyah Portuguese, a European, or a Manilla man,—Lascars not being allowed to be helmsmen.
• Sea-cook - “son of a sea-cook,” an opprobrious phrase used on board ship, differing from “son of a gun,” which is generally used admiringly or approvingly.
• Seals - a religious slang term for converts. Also a Mormon term for wives. See owned.
• See it out - to stay out late or early, and see the gas put out. Also to complete an undertaking.
• See the king. See elephant.
• See-otches - shoes.
• Sell - a deception, or disappointment; also a lying joke.
• Sensation - a quartern of gin.
• Serve out - to punish, or be revenged on any one.
• Set-to - a sparring match, a fight; “a dead set” is a determined opposition in argument, or in movement.
• Setter - a person employed by the vendor at an auction to run the bidding up; to bid against bona-fide bidders. Also the man who takes the box at hazard, and “sets a go.”
• Setter - sevenpence. Italian, sette. See saltee.—Lingua Franca.
• Settle - to kill, ruin, or effectually quiet a person.
• Settled - transported, or sent to penal servitude for life; sometimes spoken of as winded-settled.
• Seven-pennorth - transportation for seven years.
• Seven-sided animal - a one-eyed man, as he has an inside, outside, left side, right side, foreside, backside, and blind side.
• Seven-up - the game of all-fours, when played for seven chalks—that is, when seven points or chalks have to be made to win the game.
• Sewed-up - done up, used up, intoxicated. Dutch, seeuwt, sick.
• Sewn-up - quite worn-out, or “dead beat.”
• Sey - yes. Pronounced see.
• Shack-per-swaw - every one for himself,—a phrase in use amongst the lower orders at the East-end of London, derived apparently from the French, chacun pour soi.
• Shack - a “chevalier d’industrie.” A scamp, a blackguard.—Nottingham.
• Shackly - loose, rickety.—Devonshire.
• Shake the elbow - to, a roundabout expression for dice-playing. To “crook the elbow” is an Americanism for “to drink.”
• Shake-down - an improvised bed.
• Shake-lurk - a false paper carried by an impostor, giving an account of a “dreadful shipwreck.”
• Shake - a disreputable man or woman.—North. In London a shake is a prostitute.
• Shaker - a shirt.
• Shakes - a bad bargain is said to be “no great shakes;” “pretty fair shakes” is anything good or favourable.—Byron. In America, a fair shake is a fair trade or a good bargain.
• Shakes - “in a brace of shakes,” i.e., in an instant.
• Shaky - said of a person of questionable health, integrity, or solvency; at the Universities, of one not likely to pass his examination.
• Shaler - a girl. Corrupt form of Gaelic, caille, a young woman.
• Shalley-gonahey - a smock-frock.—Cornish.
• Shallow-cove - a begging rascal, who goes about the country half naked, with the most limited amount of rags upon his person, wearing neither shoes, stockings, nor hat.
• Shallow-mot - a ragged woman,—the frequent companion of the shallow-cove.
• Shallow - a weak-minded country justice of the peace.—Shakspeare.
• Shallow - the peculiar barrow used by costermongers.
• Shallows - “to go on the shallows,” to go half naked.
• Sham Abraham - to feign sickness. See Abraham.
• Sham - contraction of champagne. In general use among the lower class of sporting men. Sometimes extended to shammy.
• Shandrydan - an old-fashioned or rickety conveyance of the “shay” order.
• Shandy-gaff - ale and gingerbeer. Origin unknown, but use very common.
• Shanks - legs.
• Shanks’s mare - “to ride shank’s mare,” to go on foot.
• Shant - a pot or quart; “shant of bivvy,” a quart of beer.
• Shanty - a song. A term in use among sailors. From chanter.
• Shapes - “to cut up” or “show shapes,” to exhibit pranks, or flightiness.
• Shark - a sharper, a swindler. Bow Street term in 1785, now in most dictionaries.—Friesic and Danish, schurk. See land-shark.
• Sharp (Jeremy), The Life of an English Rogue, 12mo.1740.
• Sharp - or sharper, a cunning cheat, a rogue,—the opposite of flat.
• Sharp’s-alley blood-worms - beef sausages and black puddings. Sharp’s Alley was, until City improvements caused it to be destroyed, a noted slaughtering-place near Smithfield.
• Shave - a narrow escape. At Cambridge, “just shaving through,” or “making a shave,” is just escaping a “pluck” by coming out at the bottom of the list.
• Shaver - a sharp fellow; there are young and old shavers.—Sea.
• Shebeen - an unlicensed place where spirituous liquors are illegally sold. A word almost peculiar to Ireland.
• Sheen - bad money.—Scotch.
• Sheeny - a Jew. This word is used by both Jew and Gentile at the East-end of London, and is not considered objectionable on either side.
• Sheep’s eyes - loving looks, “to make sheep’s eyes at a person,” to cast amorous glances towards one on the sly.
• Shelf - “on the shelf,” not yet disposed of; young ladies are said to be so situated when they cannot meet with husbands. “On the shelf” also means pawned, or laid by in trust.
• Shell out - to pay or count out money. Also a game played on a billiard table, a variation of pool.
• Shepherd - to look after carefully, to place under police surveillance.
• Sherwood’s Gazetteer of Georgia, U.S., 8vo.
• Shickery - shabby, bad. From shaky, shakery.
• Shickster-crabs - ladies’ shoes.—Tramps’ term.
• Shickster - a lady. See shakester.
• Shif - fish.
• Shigs - money, silver.—East London.
• Shilly-shally - to trifle or fritter away time; to be irresolute. Corruption of “Shall I, shall I?”
• Shin-plaster - a bank-note. Originally an Americanism.
• Shin - an Americanism for walking. “I’m tired of shinning around.”
• Shindy - a row, or noise. A shindy generally means a regular mêlée.
• Shine - a row, or disturbance.
• Shine - “to take the shine out of a person,” to surpass or excel him.
• Shiners - sovereigns, or money.
• Shiney rag - “to win the shiney rag,” to be ruined,—said in gambling, when any one continues betting after “luck has set in against him.”
• Shins. “To break one’s shins,” figurative expression meaning to borrow money.
• Ship in full sail - a pot of ale.
• Shirty - ill-tempered, or cross. When one person makes another in an ill-humour he is said to have “got his shirt out.”
• Shockhead - a head of long, unkempt, and rough hair.
• Shoes, children’s, to make - to suffer oneself to be made sport of, or depreciated. Commonly used in Norfolk.—Cf. Mrs. Behn’s comedy, The Roundheads.
• Shoful pullet - a “gay” or unsteady woman, especially a young woman.
• Shoful-pitcher - a passer of bad money. Shoful-pitching, passing bad money. “Snide-pitcher” and “Snide-pitching” are terms exchangeable with the preceding.
• Sholl - to bonnet one, or crush a person’s hat over his eyes.—North.
• Shool - Jews’ term for their synagogue.
• Shool - to saunter idly, to become a vagabond, to beg rather than work.—Smollett’s Roderick Random, vol. i., p. 262.
• Shoot the cat - to vomit. From a story of a man being sick in the back yard, and suffocating a cat and all her kittens.
• Shoot the moon - to remove furniture from a house in the night without paying the landlord.
• Shop-walker - a person employed to walk up and down a shop, to hand seats to customers, and see that they are properly served. Contracted also to walker.
• Shop. In racing slang, to secure first, second, or third position in a race, is to get a shop. This is also known as a place, and as a situation. See place.
• Shop - a house. “How are they all at your shop?” is a common question among small tradesmen.
• Shop - the House of Commons. The only instance we have met with of the use of this word in literature occurs in Mr. Trollope’s Framley Parsonage:—
• Shopping - purchasing at shops. Termed by Todd a slang word, but used by Cowper and Byron.
• Shoppy - to be full of nothing but one’s own calling or profession; “to talk shop,” to converse of nothing but professional subjects.
• Short commons - short allowance of food. See commons.
• Short - hard-up; a polite term for impecuniosity used in clubs and among military men.
• Shot in the locker - money in pocket, resource of any kind in store.—Navy.
• Shot - “I wish I may be shot, if,” &c., a common form of mild swearing.
• Shoulder - when a servant embezzles his master’s money, he is said to shoulder his employer.
• Shove in the mouth - a glass of spirits, which is taken off quickly and at once.
• Shove-halfpenny - a gambling pot-house pastime, played on a table. A very old game, originally called push-penny.
• Shrimp - a diminutive person.—Chaucer.
• Shtumer - a horse against which money may be laid without risk. See safe un.
• Shunt - to avoid, to turn aside from. From the railway term.
• Shy. “To fight shy of a person,” to avoid his society either from dislike, fear, or other reason. Shy has also the sense of flighty, unsteady, untrustworthy.
• Shy - a throw. See the following:—
• Shy - to stop suddenly, or turn off, as a horse does when frightened.
• Shyster - a duffer, a vagabond. Variation of “shicer.”
• Si quis - a candidate for “orders.” From the notification commencing si quis—if any one.
• Sices - or sizes, a throw of sixes at dice.
• Sick as a horse - a popular simile,—curious, because a horse never vomits.
• Sickener - a dose too much of anything. Too much of even a good thing will make a man sick.
• Side-boards - or stick-ups, shirt collars. Name applied some years ago, before the present style of collars came into fashion.
• Side - an affirmative expression in the cant language of the northern towns. “Do you stoll the gammy?” (Do you understand cant?) “Side, cove” (yes, mate).
• Sift - to embezzle small coins, those which might pass through a sieve—as threepennies and fourpennies—and which are, therefore, not likely to be missed.
• Sim - one of a Methodistical turn in religion; a Low Churchman; originally a follower of the late Rev. Charles Simeon.—Cambridge.
• Simon - a sixpenny-piece.
• Simon - or simple simon, a credulous, gullible person. A character in a song, but now common.
• Simpkin - or simkin, champagne.—Anglo-Indian. Derived from the manner in which native servants pronounce champagne.
• Simpson - water used in the dilution of milk. Term in use among cow-keepers. From this the parish pump has been called Mrs. Simpson.
• Sing out - to call aloud.—Sea.
• Sing small - to lessen one’s boasting, and turn arrogance into humility.
• Sing-song - a harmonic meeting at a pot-house, a free-and-easy.
• Sinkers - bad money,—affording a man but little assistance in “keeping afloat.”
• Sinks - a throw of fives at dice. French, cinq.
• Sir Harry - a close stool.
• Sir Walter Scott - a pot,—generally of beer.
• Sirretch - cherries. Very often sirretches.
• Sit under - a term employed in Dissenters’ meeting-houses, to denote attendance on the ministry of any particular preacher.
• Sit upon - to overcome or rebuke, to express contempt for a man in a marked manner. Also, to chaff or “roast” a man consumedly.
• Sit-upons - trousers. See inexpressibles.
• Sivvy - “’pon my sivvy,” i.e., upon my soul or honour. Corruption of “asseveration,” like davy, which is an abridgment of “affidavit.”
• Six-water grog - a sea-term for the weakest grog possible—six portions of water to one of rum—hardly enough spirit to “swear by.”
• Sixty - “to go along like sixty,” i.e., at a good rate, briskly.
• Sizings. See size.
• Skid - a sovereign. Fashionable slang. Occasionally skiv.
• Skied. Artists say that a picture is skied when it is hung on the upper line at the Exhibition of the Royal Academy. See floored.
• Skied - or skyed, thrown upwards, as “coppers” in tossing.
• Skilligolee - prison gruel. Also sailors’ soup of many ingredients. The term is occasionally used in London workhouses.
• Skilly - abbreviation of skilligolee.
• Skimmery - St. Mary Hall, Oxford.—University.
• Skin - a purse. This term is mostly in use among thieves.
• Skin - to abate, or lower the value of anything; “thin-skinned,” sensitive, touchy, liable to be “raw” on certain subjects.
• Skinner - a term among bookmakers. “May we have a skinner,” i.e., may we skin the lamb, which see.
• Skipper-birds - or keyhole-whistlers, persons who sleep in barns or outhouses from necessity or in preference to sleeping in lodging-houses.
• Skipper-it - to sleep in the open air, or in a rough way.
• Skipper - a barn.—Ancient Cant. From the Welsh, ysgubor, pronounced scybor, or scibor, the proper word in that language for a barn.
• Skipper - the master of a vessel. Germ., schiffer, from schiff, a ship; sometimes used as synonymous with “governor.”
• Skit - a joke, a squib. Term generally used in reference to any pungent or pointed political allusion.
• Skrouge - to push or squeeze.—North.
• Skull-thatcher - a straw-bonnet-maker,—sometimes called “a bonnet-builder.”
• Skunk - a mean or paltry fellow, one whose name stinks.
• Sky-blue - London milk much diluted with water, or from which the cream has been too closely skimmed.
• Sky-lark. See under lark.
• Sky-parlour - the garret.
• Sky-wannocking - unsteady frolicking.—Norfolk.
• Skypper - a barne.
• Slab - thick, as gruel, porridge, &c.
• Slack - “to hold on the slack,” to skulk; a slack rope not requiring to be held.—Sea.
• Slam - a term at the game of whist. When two partners gain the whole thirteen tricks, they win a slam, which is considered equal to a rubber.
• Slam - to talk fluently. “He’s the bloke to slam.” From a term in use among birdsingers at the East-end, by which they denote a certain style of note in chaffinches.
• Slammock - a slattern or awkward person.—West, and Norfolk.
• Slang-whanger - a long-winded speaker.—Parliamentary.
• Slang - a travelling show.
• Slang - a watch-chain. Super and slang, a watch and chain.
• Slang - to cheat, to abuse in foul language.
• Slang - “out on the slang,” i.e., to travel with a hawker’s licence.
• Slangy - flashy, vulgar; loud in dress, manner, and conversation.
• Slantingdicular - oblique, awry,—as opposed to perpendicular. Originally an Americanism, now a part of the vocabulary of London “high life below stairs.”
• Slaoc - coals.
• Slap-bang-shops - originally low eating-houses where the ready-money was paid down with a slap-bang.—Grose. A slap-bang-shop is now a very pretentious eating-house.
• Slap-bang - suddenly, violently. From the strike of a ball being felt before the report reaches the ear,—the slap first, the bang afterwards.
• Slap-dash - immediately, or quickly; at a great rate.
• Slap-up - first-rate, excellent, very good.
• Slap - exactly, precisely; “slap in the wind’s eye,” i.e., exactly to windward.
• Slap - paint for the face, rouge.
• Slasher - a powerful roysterer, a game and clever pugilist.
• Slashers - the Twenty-eighth Regiment of Foot in the British army.
• Slate - a sheete or shetes.
• Slate - to knock the hat over one’s eyes, to bonnet.—North.
• Slate - to pelt with abuse, to beat, to “lick;” or, in the language of the reviewers, to “cut up.” Also, among bettors, to lay heavily against a particular man or animal in a race.
• Slate - “he has a slate loose,” i.e., he is slightly crazy.
• Slavey - a maid-servant.
• Slawmineyeux - a Dutchman. Probably a corruption of the Dutch, ja, mynheer; or German, ja, mein Herr.—Sea.
• Sleepless-hats - those of a napless character, better known as wide-awakes.
• Slender - a simple country gentleman.—Shakspeare.
• Slick - an Americanism, very prevalent in England since the publication of Judge Haliburton’s facetious stories, which means rapidly, effectually, utterly.
• Slick - smooth, unctuous; abbreviation of sleek.
• Sling your hook - a polite invitation to move-on. “Sling your Daniel” has the same meaning. The pronouns may be altered to suit the context.
• Sling - a drink peculiar to Americans, generally composed of gin, soda-water, ice, and slices of lemon. At some houses in London gin-slings may be obtained.
• Sling - to pass from one person to another. To blow the nose with the naked fingers.
• Slip - or let slip; “to slip into a man,” to give him a sound beating, “to let slip at a cove,” to rush violently upon him, and assault with vigour.
• Slips - the sides of the gallery in a theatre are generally so called.
• Slogdollager - an Americanism, meaning the same as our stockdollager, which see.
• Slogging - a good beating.
• Slop - a policeman. At first back slang, but now modified for general use.
• Slop - a policeman. See esclop.
• Slops - any weak, wet, and warm mixture. Hard drinkers regard all effeminate beverages as slops.
• Slops - chests or packages of tea; “he shook a slum of slops,” i.e., stole a chest of tea. Also ready-made clothes—the substantive of slop.
• Slops - liquid house-refuse.
• Slopshop - a tailor’s shop where inferior work is done, and where cheap goods are sold.
• Slour - to lock, or fasten.—Prison Cant.
• Sloured - buttoned up; sloured hoxter, an inside pocket buttoned up.
• Slowcoach - a lumbering, dull person; one slow of comprehension.
• Slowed - to be locked up (in prison).
• Slubberdegullion - a paltry, dirty, sorry wretch.
• Sluicery - a gin-shop or public-house.
• Sluicing one’s bolt - drinking.
• Slum the gorger - to cheat on the sly, to be an eye-servant. Slum in this sense is old cant.
• Slum - a chest, or package. See slops.
• Slum - a letter.—Prison Cant.
• Slum - an insinuation, a discreditable innuendo.
• Slum - gammon, “up to slum,” wide awake, knowing.
• Slum - or back slum, a dark retreat, a low neighbourhood; as Westminster and East-end slums, favourite haunts for thieves.
• Slum - to hide, to pass to a confederate.
• Slum - to saunter about, with a suspicion, perhaps, of immoral pursuits.—Cambridge University Slang.
• Slumgullion - any cheap, nasty, washy beverage. An Americanism best known in the Pacific States.
• Slumming - passing bad money.
• Slush - the grease obtained from boiling the salt pork eaten by seamen, and generally the cook’s perquisite.
• Slushy - a ship’s cook.
• Sluter - butter.—North.
• Smack smooth - even, level with the surface, quickly.
• Small hours - the early hours after midnight.
• Small potatoes - a term of contempt. “He’s very small potatoes,” he’s a nobody. Yet no one thinks of calling an important personage “large potatoes.”
• Small-beer; “he doesn’t think small-beer of himself,” i.e., he has a great opinion of his own importance. Small coals is also used in the same sense.
• Smalls - a University term for the first general examination of the student. It is used at Cambridge, but properly belongs to Oxford. The Cambridge term is “little go.”
• Smash-man-Geordie - a pitman’s oath.—Durham and Northumberland. See Geordie.
• Smash - to become bankrupt, or worthless; “to go all to smash,” to break, “go to the dogs,” or fall in pieces.
• Smash - to pass counterfeit money.
• Smasher - one who passes bad coin, or forged notes.
• Smashfeeder - a Britannia-metal spoon,—the best imitation shillings are made from this metal.
• Smeller - the nose; “a blow on the smeller” is often to be found in pugilistic records. Otherwise a nose-ender.
• Smelling chete - a garden or orchard.
• Smelling chete - a nose.
• Smish - a shirt, or chemise.
• Smith (Capt. Alexander), The Thieves’ Grammar, 12mo, p. 28.17—.
• Smithers - or smithereens; “all to smithereens,” all to smash, smither is a Lincolnshire word for a fragment.
• Smith’s (Capt.) Thieves’ Dictionary, 12mo.1724.
• Smock-face - a white delicate face,—a face without whiskers.
• Smoke - to detect, or penetrate an artifice. Originally used by London detectives, probably on account of their clouded intellects.
• Smudge - to smear, obliterate, daub. Corruption of smutch.
• Smug - extremely neat, after the fashion, in order.
• Smug - sleek, comfortable. Term often applied to a seemingly pious humbug, more of the Chadband than the Stiggins.
• Smug - smuggling.—Anglo-Chinese.
• Smuggings - snatchings, or purloinings,—shouted out by boys, when snatching the tops, or small play property, of other lads, and then running off at full speed.
• Smut - a copper boiler. Also, the “blacks” from a furnace.
• Smutty - obscene,—vulgar as applied to conversation. Variation of dirty.
• Snack - a share or division of plunder. To “go snacks,” to divide equally. Also, a light repast.—Old Cant and Gipsy term.
• Snack - to quiz or chaff with regard to a particular weakness or recent transaction. As a substantive in this sense snack means an innuendo.
• Snaffle - conversation on professional or private subjects which the rest of the company cannot appreciate. In East Anglia, to snaffle is to talk foolishly.
• Snaffled - arrested, “pulled up,”—so termed from a kind of horse’s bit called a snaffle.
• Snaggle teeth - those that are uneven, and unpleasant looking.—West.
• Snaggling - angling after geese with a hook and line, the bait being a worm or snail. The goose swallows the bait, and is quietly landed and bagged. See Seymour’s Sketches.
• Snaggy - cross, crotchety, malicious.
• Snake in the grass - a looking-glass.
• Snam - to snatch, or rob from the person. Mostly used to describe that kind of theft which consists in picking up anything lying about, and making off with it rapidly.
• Snapps - spirits. Dutch, schnapps. The word, as originally pronounced, is used by East-end Jews to describe any kind of spirits, and the Gentiles get as near as they can.
• Sneaksman - a shoplifter; a petty, cowardly thief.
• Sneerg - greens.
• Sneeze-lurker - a thief who throws snuff in a person’s face, and then robs him.
• Sneezer - a snuff-box; a pocket-handkerchief.
• Snell-fencer - a street salesman of needles. Snells are needles.
• Snick-ersnee - a knife.—Sea. Thackeray uses the term in his humorous ballad of Little Billee.
• Snicker - a drinking-cup. A horn-snicker, a drinking-horn.
• Snid - a sixpence.—Scotch.
• Snide - bad, spurious, contemptible. As, “a snide fellow,” “snide coin,” &c. Also used as a substantive, as, “He’s a snide,” though this seems but a contraction of snide ’un.
• Snigger - to laugh in a covert manner. Also a mild form of swearing,—“I’m sniggered if you will.” Another form of this latter is jiggered.
• Sniggering - laughing to oneself.—East.
• Snip - a tailor,—apparently from snipes, a pair of scissors, or from the snipping sound made by scissors in cutting up anything.
• Snipe - a long bill or account; also a term for attorneys,—a race with a remarkable propensity for long bills.
• Snipes - “a pair of snipes,” a pair of scissors. They are occasionally made in the form of a snipe.
• Snitch - to give information to the police, to turn approver. Snitching is synonymous in thieves’ slang with “nosing” and “peaching.”
• Snitchers - persons who turn Queen’s evidence, or who tell tales. In Scotland, snitchers signify handcuffs.
• Snob-Stick - a workman who refuses to join in strikes, or trade-unions. Amplification of knob-stick.
• Snobbish - stuck up, proud, make-believe.
• Snooze-case - a pillow-slip.
• Snooze - or snoodge (vulgar pronunciation), to sleep or doze.
• Snorter - a blow on the nose. A hurry is sometimes called a “reg’lar snorter.”
• Snot - a small bream, a slimy kind of flat fish.—Norwich.
• Snotter - or wipe-hauler, a pickpocket whose chief fancy is for gentlemen’s pocket-handkerchiefs.—North.
• Snow-gatherer - or snow-dropper, a rogue who steals linen from hedges and drying-grounds.
• Snow - wet linen, or linen hung out to dry.—Old Cant.
• Snowden’s Magistrate’s Assistant, and Constable’s Guide, thick small 8vo. 1852.
• Snowt fayre [said of a woman who has a pretty face or is comely].
• Snuff - “up to snuff,” knowing and sharp; “to take snuff,” to be offended. Shakspeare uses snuff in the sense of anger, or passion.
• Snuffy - tipsy, drunk.
• Snuggle - to lie closely and cosily.
• Snyder - a tailor. German, schneider.
• Soaker - an habitual drunkard.
• Soap - flattery. See soft soap.
• Sober-water - a jocular allusion to the uses of soda-water.
• Sock into him - i.e., give him a good drubbing; “give him sock,” i.e., thrash him well.
• Sock - credit. As, “He gets his goods on sock, while I pay ready.”
• Sockdolager. See stockdollager.
• Sodom - a nickname for Wadham, due to the similarity of the sounds.—Oxford University.
• Soft-horn - a simpleton; literally a donkey, whose ears, the substitutes of horns, are soft.
• Soft-sawder - flattery easily laid on or received. Probably introduced by Sam Slick.
• Soft-soap - or soft-sawder, flattery, ironical praise.
• Soft-tack - bread.—Sea.
• Soft-tommy - loaf-bread, in contradistinction to hard biscuit.
• Soft - foolish, inexperienced. A term for bank-notes.
• Soiled doves - the “Midnight Meeting” term for prostitutes and “gay” ladies generally.
• Sold up - or out, broken down, bankrupt.
• Sold - “sold again! and got the money,” gulled, deceived. Vide sell.
• Soldier - a red herring. Common term in seaport towns, where exchange is made, a soldier being called by the fishy title.
• Something damp - a dram, a drink.
• Sonkey - a clumsy, awkward fellow.
• Soor - an abusive term. Hindostanee, a pig.—Anglo-Indian.
• Soot-bag - a reticule.
• Sop - a soft or foolish man. Abbreviation of milksop.
• Sorrowful tale - three months in jail.
• Sort - used in a slang sense thus—“That’s your sort,” as a term of approbation. “Pitch it into him, that’s your sort,” i.e., that is the proper kind of plan to adopt.
• Sound - to pump, or draw information from a person in an artful manner.
• Sou’-wester - a hat with a projection behind. Much worn at sea in “dirty” weather. A hat similar to that of a dustman or coalheaver, which is called a “fantail.”
• Sow - the receptacle into which the liquid iron is poured in a gun-foundry. The melted metal poured from it is termed pig.
• Sow’s baby - a pig; sixpence.
• Spanish - money. Probably a relic of buccaneering days.
• Spank - a smack, or hard slap.
• Spank - to move along quickly; hence a fast horse or vessel is said to be “a spanker to go.”
• Spanking - large, fine, or strong; e.g., a spanking pace, a spanking breeze, a spanking fellow.
• Sparks - diamonds. Term much in use among the lower orders, and generally applied to stones in rings and pins.
• Specklebellies - Dissenters. A term used in Worcester and the North, though the etymology seems unknown in either place.
• Specks - damaged oranges.—Costermonger’s term.
• Speel - to run away, make off; “speel the drum,” to go off with stolen property.—North.
• Spell - a turn of work, an interval of time. “Take a spell at the capstern.”—Sea. “He took a long spell at that tankard.” “After a long spell.”
• Spell - contracted from spellken. “Precious rum squeeze at the spell,” i.e., a good evening’s work at the theatre, might be the remark of a successful pickpocket.
• Spell - to advertise, to put into print. “Spelt in the leer,” i.e., advertised in the newspaper.
• Spell - “to spell for a thing,” to hanker after it, to desire possession.
• Spellken - or speelken, a playhouse. German, spielen. See ken.—Don Juan.
• Spick and span - applied to anything that is quite new and fresh.—Hudibras.
• Spierized - to have your hair cut and shampooed, from the shop of Spiers in High Street.—Oxford University.
• Spiff - a well-dressed man, a “swell.”
• Spiffed - slightly intoxicated.—Scotch Slang.
• Spifflicate - to confound, silence, annihilate, or stifle. A corruption of the last word, or of “suffocate.”
• Spiffs - the per-centages allowed by drapers to their young men when they effect a sale of old-fashioned or undesirable stock.
• Spiffy - spruce, well-dressed, tout à la mode.
• Spike Park - the Queen’s Bench Prison. See Burdon’s Hotel.
• Spill - to throw from a horse or chaise. See purl.
• Spin - to reject from an examination.—Army.
• Spindleshanks - a nickname for any one who has thin legs.
• Spiniken - St. Giles’s Workhouse. “Lump,” Marylebone Workhouse. “Pan,” St. Pancras. “Pan” and “Lump” are now terms applied to all workhouses by tramps and costers.
• Spinning-house - the place in Cambridge where street-walkers are locked up, if found out after a certain time at night.
• Spitfire - a passionate person.
• Splash - complexion powder used by ladies to whiten their necks and faces. The finest rice flour, termed in France poudre de riz, is generally employed. See slap.
• Splendiferous - sumptuous, first-rate. Splendacious sometimes used with similar meanings.
• Splice the main brace - to take a drink.—Sea.
• Splice - to marry; “and the two shall become one flesh.”—Sea. Also, a wife.
• Split asunder - a costermonger.
• Split up - long in the legs. Among athletes, a man with good length of limb is said to be “well split up.”
• Splodger - a lout, an awkward countryman.
• Spoffy - a bustling busybody is said to be spoffy.
• Spoon - synonymous with spooney. A spoon has been defined to be “a thing that touches a lady’s lips without kissing them.”
• Spooney - a weak-minded and foolish person, effeminate or fond; “to be spooney on a girl,” to be foolishly attached to one.
• Spoons - the condition of two persons who spoon on each other, who are deeply in love. “I see, it’s a case of spoons with them,” is a common phrase when lovers are mentioned.
• Sport - an American term for a gambler or turfite—more akin to our sporting man than to our sportsman.
• Sporting door - the outer door of chambers, also called the oak. See under sport.—University.
• Sportsman’s Dictionary - 4to.17—.
• Spot - to mark, to recognise. Originally an Americanism, but now general. “I spotted him (or it) at once.”
• Spotted - to be known or marked by the police.
• Spout - to preach, or make speeches; spouter, a preacher or lecturer.
• Spout - “up the spout,” at the pawnbroker’s; spouting, pawning. See pop for origin.
• Sprat - sixpence.
• Spread - a lady’s shawl, an entertainment, a display of good things.
• Spread - butter. Term with workmen and schoolboys. See scrape.
• Spree - a boisterous piece of merriment; “going on the spree,” starting out with intent to have a frolic. French, esprit. In the Dutch language, spreeuw is a jester.
• Sprint race - a short-distance race, ran at the topmost speed throughout. Sprint is in the North synonymous with spurt, and hence the name.
• Sprung - inebriated sufficiently to become boisterous.
• Spry - active, strong, manly. Much used in America, but originally English.
• Spuddy - a seller of bad potatoes. In lower life, a spud is a raw potato; and roasted spuds are those cooked in the cinders with their skins on.
• Spun - when a man has failed in his examination at Woolwich, he is said to be spun; as at the Universities he is said to be “plucked” or “ploughed.”
• Spunge - a mean, paltry fellow, sometimes called a spunger.
• Spunge - to live at another’s expense in a mean and paltry manner.
• Spunk-fencer - a lucifer-match seller.
• Spunk - spirit, fire, courage, mettle, good humour.
• Spurt. —Old. See spirt.
• Squabby - flat, short and thick. From squab, a sofa.
• Square cove - an honest man, as distinguished from “cross cove.”
• Square moll - an honest woman, one who does not “batter.”
• Square rigged - well dressed.—Sea.
• Square up - to settle, to pay a debt.
• Square - “to be square with a man,” to be even with him, or to be revenged; “to square up to a man,” to offer to fight him. Shakspeare uses square in the sense of to quarrel.
• Squarum - a cobbler’s lapstone.
• Squash - to crush; “to go squash,” to collapse.
• Squeak on a person - to inform against, to peach.
• Squeal - to inform, to peach. A North country variation of squeak; squealer, an informer, also an illegitimate baby.
• Squeeze - silk; also, by a very significant figure, a thief’s term for the neck.
• Squibs - paint-brushes.
• Squiffy - slightly inebriated.
• Squinny-eyed - said of one given to squinting.—Shakspeare.
• Squirt - a doctor, or chemist.
• Squish - common term among University men for marmalade.
• St. Martin’s lace - imitation gold lace; stage tinsel.
• St. Martin’s-le-Grand - the hand.
• Stab-rag - a regimental tailor.—Military Slang.
• Stab - “Stab yourself and pass the dagger,” help yourself and pass the bottle.—Theatrical Slang.
• Stab - “on the stab,” i.e., paid by regular weekly wages on the “establishment,” of which word stab is an abridgment.—Printer’s term.
• Stag - a shilling.
• Stag - to see, discover, or watch,—like a stag at gaze; “stag the push,” look at the crowd. Also, to dun, or demand payment; to beg.
• Stage-whisper - one loud enough to be heard. From the stage “asides.”
• Stagger - one who looks out, or watches.
• Stagger - to surprise. “He quite staggered me with the information.”
• Staggering-bob - an animal to whom the knife only just anticipates death from natural disease or accident,—said of meat on that account unfit for human food. Also a newly-born calf.
• Stall off - to blind, excuse, hide, to screen a robbery during the perpetration of it by an accomplice.
• Stall your mug - go away; spoken sharply by any one who wishes to get rid of a troublesome or inconvenient person.
• Stall-off - to put off by means of a device, to misdirect purposely.
• Stall - to lodge, or put up at a public-house. Also, to act a part.—Theatrical.
• Stallsman - sometimes stall, an accomplice.
• Stampers - shoes.
• Stampers - shoes.—Ancient Cant.
• Stampes - legges.
• Stand in - to make one of a party in a bet or other speculation; to take a side in a dispute.
• Standing patterers - men who take a stand on the kerb of a public thoroughfare, and deliver prepared speeches to effect a sale of any articles they have to vend. See patterer.
• Standing - the position at a street corner, or on the kerb of a market street, regularly occupied by a costermonger, or street seller.
• Stangey - a tailor, a person under petticoat government,—derived from the custom of “riding the stang,” mentioned in Hudibras:—
• Stanley’s Remedy, or the Way how to Reform Wandring Beggars, Thieves, &c., wherein is shewed that Sodomes Sin of Idleness is the Poverty and the Misery of this Kingdome, 4to.1646.
• Star it - to perform as the centre of attraction, with inferior subordinates to set off one’s abilities.—Theatrical.
• Star - a common abbreviation of the name of the well-known Star and Garter Inn at Richmond. Clever people, who delight in altering names, call this hostelry the “Gar and Starter.”
• Starchy - stuck-up, high-notioned, showily dressed, stiff and unbending in demeanour.
• Stark-naked - originally strip-me-naked, vide Randall’s Diary, 1820, raw gin.
• Start - a proceeding of any kind; “a rum start,” an odd circumstance; “to get the start of a person,” to anticipate or overreach him.
• Start - “the start,” London,—the great starting-point for beggars and tramps. This is a term also used by many of superior station to those mentioned.
• Stash - to cease doing anything, to refrain, be quiet, leave off; “stash it, there, you sir!” i.e., be quiet, sir; to give over a lewd or intemperate course of life is to stash it.
• Stauling ken - a house that will receyue stollen wares.
• Stawlinge kens - tippling-houses.
• Stay - to exhibit powers of endurance at walking, running, rowing, &c.
• Steam-engine - potato-pie at Manchester is so termed.
• Steam-packet - a jacket.
• Steel-bar drivers - or flingers, journeymen tailors.
• Steel - the House of Correction in London, formerly named the Bastile, but since shortened to steel. See bastile.
• Stems - the legs.
• Step it - to run away, or make off.
• Stepper - the treadmill; the “everlasting staircase.”
• Stick-up - to keep any one waiting at an appointed place or time. To leave a friend or acquaintance to pay the whole or an undue share of a tavern bill.
• Stick-ups - or gills, shirt collars.
• Stick - a derogatory expression for a person; “a rum, or odd, stick,” a curious man. More generally a “poor stick.”—Provincial.
• Sticker - one not likely to be easily shaken off, a stayer.
• Stickings - coarse, bruised, or damaged meat sold to sausage-makers and penny pie-shops.
• Sticks - furniture, or household chattels; “pick up your sticks and cut!” summary advice to a person to take himself and furniture away.
• Sticky - wax.
• Stiff un - a corpse. Term used by undertakers.
• Stiff-fencer - a street-seller of writing paper.
• Stiff - paper, a bill of acceptance, &c.; “how did you get it, stiff or hard?” i.e., did he pay you cash or give a bill? “To do a bit of stiff,” to accept a bill. See kite.
• Stilton - “that’s the stilton,” or “it’s not the stilton,” i.e., that is1 quite the thing, or that is not quite the thing;—affected rendering of “that is not the cheese,” which see.
• Stingo - strong liquor.—Yorkshire.
• Stink - a disagreeable exposure. “To stir up a stink” is to make a disclosure which is generally unpleasant in its effect.
• Stipe - a stipendiary magistrate.—Provincial.
• Stir - a prison, a lock-up; “in stir,” in gaol. Anglo-Saxon, styr, correction, punishment.
• Stock. “To stock cards” is to arrange cards in a certain manner for cheating purposes.
• Stockdollager - a heavy blow, a “finisher.” Italian, stoccado, a fencing term. Also (in a general sense), a disastrous event.—Americanism.
• Stodge - to surfeit, gorge, or clog with food. Stodge is in some places bread and milk.
• Stoll - to understand.—North Country Cant.
• Stomach - to bear with, to be partial to. Mostly used in a negative character,—as, “I can’t stomach that.”
• Stone-jug - a prison.
• Stook - a pocket-handkerchief. A stook-hauler, or “buzzer,” is a thief who takes pocket-handkerchiefs.
• Stop thief - beef.
• Stot - a young bullock. In Northumberland the term stot means to rebound.
• Stotor - a heavy blow, a settler.—Old Cant.
• Stow faking! leave off there, be quiet! faking means anything that may be going on.
• Stow you [stow it], hold your peace.
• Stow - to leave off, or have done; “stow it, the gorger’s leary.” Leave off, the person is looking. See stash, with which it is synonymous.—Ancient Cant.
• Stow - to put away, to hide. A hungry man is said to stow his food rapidly. He is also said to hide it.
• Straight - an American phrase peculiar to dram-drinkers; similar to our word neat, which see.
• Strap - a barber. From Roderick Random.
• Streak - to decamp, run away.—Saxon. In America the phrase is “to make streaks,” or “make tracks.”
• Streaky - irritated, ill-tempered. Said of a short-tempered man who has his good and bad times in streak.
• Stretch, a walk.—University.
• Stretch - abbreviation of “stretch one’s neck,” to hang, to be executed as a malefactor. As, “The night before Larry was stretched.”
• Stretcher-fencer - one who sells braces.
• Stretcher - a contrivance with handles, used by the police to carry off persons who are violent or drunk.
• Stretcher - a falsehood; one that requires a stretch of imagination or comprehension.
• Stretching match - an execution. Often called a “hanging match.”
• Strike a jigger - to pick a lock, or break open a door.
• Strike - to steale.
• Strills - cheating lies.—North Country Cant.
• String - to hoax, to “get in a line.”
• Strommel - straw.—Ancient Cant. Halliwell says that in Norfolk strummel is a name for hair.
• Strommell - strawe.
• Strong - “to come it strong.” See come.
• Stuck - moneyless. See stick.
• Stuff - money.
• Stuff - to make false but plausible statements, to praise ironically, to make game of a person,—literally, to stuff or cram him with gammon or falsehood.
• Stump up - to give one’s share, to pay the reckoning, to bring forth the money reluctantly.
• Stump - to go on foot.
• Stumped - bowled out, done for, bankrupt, poverty-stricken. From the cricketing term.
• Stumps - legs, or feet.
• Stumpy - money.
• Stun - to astonish.
• Stunner - a first-rate person or article.
• Stunners - feelings of great astonishment; “it put the stunners on me,” i.e., it confounded me.
• Sub - a subaltern officer in the army.
• Sub - all.—Anglo-Indian.
• Sub - to draw money in advance; a term in use among workmen generally, and those with casual employment in particular. Most likely from subsidize.
• Sublime rascal - a lawyer.
• Suck up - “to suck up to a person,” to insinuate oneself into his good graces.
• Suck-casa - a public-house.—Lingua Franca.
• Suck - a parasite, a flatterer of the “nobs.”—University.
• Suck - to pump, or draw information from a person.
• Sufferer - a tailor; the loser at any game.
• Sugar and honey - money.
• Sugar-candy - brandy.
• Sugar - money.
• Suicide - four horses driven in a line. See harum-scarum.
• Sulky - a one-horse chaise, having only room for one person. Used nowadays only in trotting matches.
• Sumsy - an action of assumpsit.—Legal Slang.
• Sun in the eyes - too much drink. A person who is tipsy is said to have the sun in his eyes. He is also said to have been “standing too long in the sun.”
• Supe - or super, abbreviation of supernumerary.—Theatrical.
• Super - a watch; super-screwing, stealing watches.
• Surf - an actor who frequently pursues another calling.—Theatrical. Surf, or serf, is also a term much in use among the lower orders to denote a crawling or sycophantic wretch.
• Suspicion - a scarcely perceptible flavour; as, “There was just a suspicion of oil in the mixture.” French, soupçon.
• Swab - an epaulet.—Sea.
• Swack-up - a falsehood.
• Swadder - or pedler [a man who hawks goods].
• Swaddler - see souper.
• Swagsman - one who carries the booty after a burglary.
• Swank - to boast or “gas” unduly.
• Swankey - cheap or small beer. Any weak fermented beverage.
• Swap - to exchange. Grose says it is Irish cant, but the term is now included in most dictionaries as an allowed vulgarism.
• Swarry - a boiled leg of mutton and trimmings. Sam Weller’s adventure with the Bath footmen originated the term. See trimmings.
• Sweat - to extract money from a person, to “bleed.” Also, to squander riches.—Bulwer.
• Sweat - to violently shake up a lot of guineas or sovereigns in a leathern bag for the purpose of benefiting by the perspiration.
• Sweater - common term for a “cutting” or “grinding” employer,—one who sweats his workpeople. A cheap tailor, who pays starvation wages.
• Sweep - a contemptuous term for a low or shabby man.
• Sweet - loving or fond; “how sweet he was upon the moll,” i.e., what marked attention he paid the girl.
• Sweetener - a person who runs up the prices of articles at an auction. See jollying, bonnet, &c.
• Swell hung in chains - said of a showy man in the habit of wearing much jewellery.
• Swell street - the West-end of London.
• Swift’s coarser pieces abound in vulgarities and Slang expressions.
• Swig - a hearty drink.
• Swig - to drink. Saxon, swigan.
• Swill - to drink inordinately. Swill, hog-wash. From which the verb has possibly been derived.—Norfolk.
• Swing. To have one’s swing is to have a full turn at anything.
• Swing - to be hanged; “if you don’t do what’s right, I’ll swing for you,” i.e., take your life,—a common threat in low neighbourhoods.
• Swingeing - large, huge, powerful. As a swingeing blow, swingeing damages, &c.
• Swipe - at cricket, to hit hard with a full swing of the bat. Most probably a condensation of “wipe swingeing” or “swinging wipe.”
• Swipes - sour or small beer. Swipe, to drink.—Sea.
• Swipey (from swipes), intoxicated.
• Swish - to flog, derived perhaps from the sound. Maybe, a corruption of switch.
• Swished - or switched, married.
• Swivel-eye - a squinting eye.
• Swizzle - small beer, drink.
• Swot - mathematics; also, a mathematician; as a verb, to work hard for an examination, to be diligent in one’s studies.—Army.
• Syce - a groom.—Anglo-Indian.
• T - “to suit to a T,” to fit to a nicety.—Old. Perhaps from the T-square of carpenters, by which the accuracy of work is tested.
• Tabby party - a party consisting entirely of women, a tea and tattle gathering. In America, a gathering of men only is called a “stag party.”
• Tabooed - forbidden. This word, now very common, is derived from a custom of the South-Sea islanders, first noticed in Cook’s Voyages.
• Tach - a hat.
• Tack - a taste foreign to what was intended; a barrel may get a tack upon it, either permanently mouldy, sour, or otherwise.
• Tacked - tied down. When a man has another vanquished, or for certain reasons bound to his service, he is said to have “got him tacked.”
• Tackle - clothes.—Sea. Also to encounter a person in argument.
• Taf - fat. A taf eno is a fat man or woman, literally A fat one.
• Taffy (corruption of David), a Welshman. Compare Sawney (from1 Alexander), a Scotchman; Paddy (from Patrick), an Irishman; and Johnny (from John Bull), an Englishman.
• Tag-rag-and-bobtail - a mixed crowd of low people, the lower orders generally.
• Tail-block - a watch.—Sea.
• Tail-buzzer - a thief who picks coat-pockets.
• Take a fright - night.
• Take beef - to run away.
• Talk shop - to intrude oneself or one’s private business too freely into conversation. Any one who does this is said to be shoppy.
• Talking - a stable term, of a milder kind, applied to those horses which are addicted to roaring. See the latter expression.
• Tally - five dozen bunches of turnips.—Costermongers’ term.
• Tally - “to live tally,” to live in a state of unmarried impropriety; tally-wife, a woman who cohabits with a man to whom she is not married.
• Tan - an order to pull.—Anglo-Indian.
• Tan - to beat or thrash; “I’ll tan your hide,” i.e., I’ll give you a good beating.
• Tanner - a sixpence. Perhaps Gipsy, tawno, little, or Latin, tener, slender.
• Tanny - or teeny, little. Gipsy, tawno, little.
• Tantrems - pranks, capers, frolicking; from the Tarantula dance. See account of the involuntary frenzy and motions caused by the bite of the tarantula in Italy.—Penny Cyclopædia.
• Tantrums - ill-tempers. “He’s in his tantrums this morning,” is often said of a peevish, querulous man. They are not peculiar to the one sex, however.
• Taoc-tisaw - a waistcoat.
• Tape - gin,—term with female servants. Also, a military term used in barracks when no spirits are allowed. See ribbon.
• Taper - to give over gradually, to run short.
• Tar-out - to punish, to serve out.
• Taradiddle - a falsehood.
• Tarpaulin - a sailor.
• Tat-box - a dice-box.
• Tater - “s’elp my tater,” an evasion of a profane oath, sometimes varied by “s’elp my greens.”
• Tatler - a watch; “nimming a tatler,” stealing a watch.
• Tats - dice.
• Tats - old rags; milky tats, white rags.
• Tatterdemalion - a ragged fellow.
• Tatting - gathering old rags.
• Tattoo - a pony.—Anglo-Indian.
• Te-he - to titter, “Upon this I te-he’d.”—Madame d’Arblay. As an interjection it is as old as Chaucer. See Miller’s Tale:—
• Tea-fight - an evening party, alias a “muffin-worry.”
• Tea-spoon - five thousand pounds. See spoons.
• Teagueland - Ireland. From the national character of the name Teague.
• Teaich-gir - right, otherwise tadger.
• Teddy Hall - St. Edmund Hall.—Oxford University.
• Teeth-drawing - wrenching off knockers. Medical students’ term.
• Teeth - “he has cut his eye teeth,” i.e., is old and ’cute enough.
• Teetotally - amplification of totally.
• Tell on - to tell about, to talk of, to inform against. (This is formed by a simple misuse of the preposition.)
• Tench - the Penitentiary, of which it is a contraction. See steel.
• Tenip - a pint.
• Tenpence to the shilling - a vulgar phrase denoting a deficiency in intellect.
• Testamur - the slip of paper on which the examiners testify (testari) to the fact that the candidate has satisfied their requirements.—University.
• Teviss - a shilling. Costermongers’ and tramps’ term.
• Thatch - the human hair. “He’s well thatched,” is said of a man with a good head of hair.
• The Tavern - New Inn Hall.—Oxford University.
• The high pad - the highway.
• The ruffian cly thee - the devil take thee.
• Theg (or teaich) gen, eight shillings.
• Theg (or teaitch) yanneps, eightpence.
• Thick un - a sovereign; originally a crown piece, or five shillings.
• Thick; “to lay it on thick,” to flatter unduly, to surfeit with praise or adulation.
• Thick - intimate, familiar. The Scotch use the word “chief” in this sense, as, “the two are very chief now.”
• Thimble-twisters - thieves who rob persons of their watches.
• Thimble - or yack, a watch.—Prison Cant.
• Thin-skinned - over-nice, petulant, apt to get a “raw.” See that term.
• Thingumy - thingumbob, expressions used for the name of a thing which cannot be recollected at the instant.
• Thomas (I.), My Thought Book, 8vo.1825.
• Three sheets in the wind - unsteady from drink.—Sea.
• Three-cornered scraper - a cocked hat.—Sea.
• Three-quarters of a peck - the neck,—in writing, among experts, expressed by the simple “¾,” as it is pronounced.
• Thrummer - a threepenny bit.
• Thrums - threepence. Also, in Coventry, remnants and waste pieces of silk.
• Thrups - threepence. See the preceding, which is more general.
• Thud - the dull, dead sound made by the fall of a heavy body, or the striking of a bullet against any soft, fleshy substance.
• Thumper - a magnificently constructed lie, a lie about which there is no stint of imaginative power.
• Thumping - large, fine, or strong.
• Thunderbomb - an imaginary ship of vast size. See Merry Dun of Dover.
• Thunderer - the Times newspaper, sometimes termed “the Thunderer of Printing House Square,” from the locality where it is printed.
• Thundering - large, extra-sized.
• Tib - a bit, or piece.
• Tibbing out - going out of bounds.—Charterhouse.
• Tibby - the head. Street slang, with no known etymology. To drop on one’s tibby is to frighten or startle any one, to take one unawares.
• Ticker - a watch. Formerly cant, now street slang.
• Tickle - to puzzle; “a reg’lar tickler” is a poser.
• Tiddlywink - slim, puny; sometimes tillywink.
• Tidy - tolerably, or pretty well; “How did you get on to-day?”—“Oh, tidy.”—Saxon.
• Tiff - a pet, a fit of ill humour.
• Tiffin - a breakfast, déjeûner à la fourchette.—Anglo-Indian Slang.
• Tiffy - easily offended, apt to be annoyed.
• Tiger - a parasite; also a term for a ferocious woman; a boy employed to wait on gentlemen—one who waits on ladies is a page.
• Tiger - a superlative yell. “Three cheers, and the last in tigers.”—American. To “fight the tiger” is also American, and refers to gambling with professionals—dangerous pastime.
• Tightener - a dinner, or hearty meal. See Spitalfields’ breakfast.
• Tike- - or buffer-lurking, dog-stealing.
• Tile - a hat, a covering for the head.
• Timber merchant - or spunk fencer, a lucifer-match seller.
• Timber-toes - a wooden-legged man. Also at the East-end one who wears clogs, i.e., wooden soled boots.
• Tin - money,—generally applied to silver.
• Tinge - the per-centage allowed by drapers and clothiers to their assistants upon the sale of old-fashioned articles. See spiffs.
• Tip the double - to “bolt,” or run away from any one.
• Tip-top - first-rate, of the best kind.
• Tip-topper - a “swell,” or dressy man, a “Gorger.”
• Tip - a douceur; “that’s the tip,” i.e., that’s the proper thing to do. “To miss one’s tip,” to fail in a scheme.—Old Cant.
• Tipper - a kind of ale brewed at Brighton. Mrs. Gamp preferred the “Brighton tipper.”
• Tit for tat - an equivalent.
• Tit - a favourite name for a horse.
• Titivate - to put in order, or dress up. Originally tidy-vate.
• Titley - drink, generally applied to intoxicating beverages.
• Titter - a girl; “nark the titter,” i.e., look at the girl.—Tramp’s term.
• Tizzy - a sixpence. Corruption of tester.
• To bowse - to drinke.
• To cant - to speake.
• To cly the gerke - to be whipped.
• To couch a hogshead - to lie down and slepe.
• To cut bene whyddes - to speake or give good words.
• To cut benle - to speak gentle.
• To cutte quyer whyddes - to giue euil words or euil language.
• To cutte - to say.
• To dup ye gyger [jigger], to open the dore.
• To fylche - to robbe.
• To heue a bough - to robbe or rifle a boweth [booth].
• To maunde - to aske or require.
• To mill a ken - to robbe a house.
• To nyp a boung - [nip, to steal], to cut a purse.
• To skower the crampringes - to weare boltes or fetters.
• To stall - to make or ordain.
• To the ruffian - to the Devil.
• To towre - to see.
• To-rights - excellent, very well, or good.—Low London slang.
• Toad-in-the-hole - a kind of pudding, consisting of small pieces of meat immersed in batter, and baked. Also, a term applied to perambulating advertising mediums. See sandwich.
• Toasting-fork - a regulation sword, indicative of the general uselessness of that weapon.
• Toddle - to walk as a child.
• Toe - to kick. “I’ll toe your backside.” Common in London.
• Toff - a dandy, a swell of rank. Corruption probably of tuft. See toft.
• Toffer - a well-dressed “gay” woman. One who deals with toffs.
• Tofficky - dressy, showy.
• Toft - a showy individual, a swell, a person who, in a Yorkshireman’s vocabulary, would be termed “uppish.” See tuft.
• Tog - a coat. Latin, toga.—Ancient Cant.
• Tog - to dress, or equip with an outfit; “togged out to the nines,” dressed in the first style.
• Togemans [tog], cloake.
• Toggery - clothes, harness, domestic paraphernalia of any kind.
• Togman - a coate.
• Togs - clothes; “Sunday togs,” best clothes. One of the oldest cant words—in use in the time of Henry VIII. See cant.
• Toke - dry bread. Sometimes used to denote a lump of anything.
• Toko for yam - a Roland for an Oliver. Possibly from a system of barter carried on between sailors and aborigines.
• Tol-lol - or tol-lollish, tolerable, or tolerably.
• Tol - lot, stock, or share.
• Toll-shop - a Yorkshire correspondent gives this word as denoting in that county a prison, and also the following verse of a song, popular at fairs in the East Riding:—
• Tom Crib’s Memorial to Congress, with a Preface, Notes, and Appendix by one of the Fancy [Tom Moore, the Poet], 12mo.1819.
• Tom Toppers - a waterman, from a popular song, entitled, Overboard he vent.
• Tom Tug - a mug (a fool).
• Tom Tug - a waterman. From the small stage-play. Also rhyming slang for a flat, or rather a “mug.”
• Tom and Jerry shop - a low drinking shop. Probably some allusion to Pierce Egan’s famous characters in his Life in London. Generally contracted to Jerry shop.
• Tom-fool’s colours - scarlet and yellow, the ancient motley. Occasionally, as a rhyme of quality suitable to the subject,
• Tom-tom - a street instrument, a kind of small drum beaten with the2 fingers, somewhat like the ancient tabor; a performer on this instrument. “Hark! ’tis the Indian drum.”
• Tomboy - a hoyden, a rude romping girl.
• Tombstone - a pawn-ticket—“In memory of” whatever has been pawned,—a well-known slang expression with those Londoners who are in the habit of following “my uncle.”
• Tomfoolery - nonsense; trashy, mild, and innocuous literature.
• Tommy Tripe - to pipe; that is, to observe. “Tommy Tripe his plates of meat.”
• Tommy o’Rann - scran,—vulgar term for food.
• Tommy-master - one who pays his workmen in goods, or gives them tickets upon tradesmen, with whom he shares the profit.
• Tommy-shop - a shop where wages are paid to mechanics or others, who are expected to “take out” a portion of the money in goods. Also, a baker’s shop.
• Tommy - See dickey.
• Tongue - “to tongue a person,” i.e., to talk him down. Tongued, talkative.
• Tony Lumpkin - a young, clownish country fellow. From She Stoops to Conquer.
• Tonygle [coition].
• Tool - a very little boy employed by burglars to enter at small apertures, and open doors for the larger thieves outside.
• Tool - as “a poor tool,” a bad hand at anything.
• Tool - to drive a coach, or any other vehicle. To “handle the ribbons” in fine style.
• Tooler - a pickpocket. Moll-tooler, a female pickpocket.
• Tootsies - feet, those of ladies and children in particular. In married life it is said the husband uses this expression for the first six months; after that he terms them “hoofs.”
• Top Jint (vulgar pronunciation of joint), a pint—of beer.
• Top up - a finishing drink. “He drank two bottles of claret and one of port, which he topped up with half a bottle of brandy.”
• Top-heavy - drunk.
• Top-yob - a potboy.
• Top - the signal among tailors and sempstresses for snuffing the candle; one cries top, and all the others follow; he who last pronounces the word has to snuff the candle.
• Topped - hanged, or executed.
• Topper - anything or person above the ordinary; a blow on the head. “Give him a topper and chance it,” “Let him have a topper for luck.”
• Tormentors - the large iron flesh-forks used by cooks at sea.
• Torpids - the second-class race-boats at Oxford, answering to the Cambridge “sloggers.”
• Torrac - a carrot. “Ekat a torrac.”
• Toshers - men who steal copper from ships’ bottoms in the Thames.
• Toss - a measure of sprats.—Billingsgate.
• Tot-up - to add together,—as columns of figures, £ s. d. From total-up, through the vulgarism tottle.
• Tot - a small glass; a “tot o’ whisky” is the smallest quantity sold.
• Touchy - peevish, irritable. Johnson terms it a low word.
• Tout - to look out, or watch.
• Touter - a looker out, one who waits at railway stations and steamboat piers, and touts for customers; a hotel runner. Term in general use.
• Touzle - to romp with or rumple.—Scotch.
• Tow-pows - grenadiers. From the bearskins, most likely, unless it was originally tall-pows, the grenadiers being the tallest men in the company.
• Towel - to beat or whip. In old English phraseology a cudgel was termed an oaken towel—whence, perhaps, the verb.
• Towelling - a rubbing down with an oaken towel, a beating.
• Town-lout - a derogatory title at Rugby School for those pupils who reside with their parents in the town, in contradistinction from those who live in the boarding-houses.
• Tracks - “to make tracks,” to run away. See streak.
• Translator - a man who deals in old shoes or clothes, and refits them for cheap wear. These people generally live in or about Dudley Street, Seven Dials.
• Translators - second-hand boots mended and polished, and sold at a low price.
• Trap - a “fast” term for a carriage of any kind. Traps, goods and chattels of any kind, but especially luggage and personal effects; in Australia, “swag.”
• Traveller - name given by one tramp to another. “A traveller at her Majesty’s expense,” i.e., a transported felon, a convict.
• Triangles - a slang term for delirium tremens, during a fit of which everything appears out of the square.
• Tripes - the bowels.
• Trollies - or trolly-carts, term given by costermongers to a species of narrow carts, which can either be drawn by a donkey or driven by hand.
• Trolling - sauntering or idling, hence troll and trollocks, an idle slut, a “moll,” which see.
• Trollop - a slatternly woman, a prostitute.
• Trork - a quart.
• Trot out - to draw out or exploit, to show off the abilities of a companion; sometimes to roast for the amusement and with the assistance of an assembled company.
• Trotter cases - shoes.
• Trotter - a tailor’s man who goes round for orders.—University.
• Trotters - feet. Sheep’s trotters, boiled sheep’s feet, a favourite street delicacy.
• Truck - a hat—from the cap on the extremity of a mast.—Sea.
• Truck - to exchange or barter.
• Trucks - trousers.
• Trull - corruption of “troll” or “trollop,” a dirty, slatternly woman, a prostitute of the lowest class.
• Trump - a good fellow; “a regular trump,” a jolly or good-natured person—in allusion to a trump card; “trumps may turn up,” i.e., fortune may yet favour me.
• Trunks - short trousers worn above hose or tights.—Theatrical.
• Try it on - to make attempt, generally applied to an effort at imposition. An extortionate charge or a begging-letter is frequently described as “a regular try-on.”
• Tryning - hanging.
• Tub-thumping - preaching or speech-making, from the old Puritan fashion of “holding forth” from a tub, or beer barrel, as a mark of their contempt for decorated pulpits.
• Tub - the morning bath. To tub has now become a regular verb, so far as colloquialism is concerned, though no one uses a tub as the word was originally understood.
• Tubs - nickname for a butterman.
• Tuck - a schoolboy’s term for fruit, pastry, &c. Tuck in, or tuck out, a good meal.
• Tuft-hunter - a hanger on to persons of quality or wealth—one who seeks the society of wealthy people. Originally University slang, but now general.
• Tufts - at the University, noblemen, who pay high fees and are distinguished by golden tufts, or tassels, in their caps.
• Tumble to pieces - to be safely delivered, as in childbirth.
• Tune the old cow died of - an epithet for any ill-played or discordant piece of music. Originally the name of an old ballad, referred to by dramatists of Shakspeare’s time.
• Turf - horse-racing, and betting thereon; “on the turf,” one who occupies himself with race-horse business; said also of a street-walker, or nymph of the pavé.
• Turn up - a street fight; a sudden leaving, or making off. An unexpected slice of luck. Among sporting men bookmakers are said to have a turn up when an unbacked horse wins.
• Turn up - to appear unexpectedly. Also to happen; “Let’s wait, and see what will turn up.”
• Turn up - to make sick. People are said to be turned up by sea-sickness, or when they are made ill by excessive smoking or drinking.
• Turn-out - personal show or appearance; a man with a showy carriage and horses is said to have a good turn-out.
• Turn-over - an apprentice who finishes with a second master the indentures he commenced with another, who has died or become bankrupt.
• Turned over - remanded by the magistrate or judge for want of evidence.
• Turned up - to be stopped and searched by the police. To be discharged from a police-court or sessions-house; to be acquitted.
• Turnip - an old-fashioned watch, so called from its general appearance, if of silver. Also called “a frying-pan.” Old-fashioned gold watches are called “warming-pans.”
• Turnpike sailors - beggars who go about dressed as sailors. A sarcastic reference to the scene of their chief voyages.
• Turtle doves - a pair of gloves.
• Tusheroon - a crown piece, five shillings. Otherwise a bull or cartwheel.
• Tussle - a row, struggle, fight, or argument.
• Tussle - to struggle, or argue.
• Twelver - a shilling.
• Twice-laid - a dish made out of cold fish and potatoes.—Sea. Compare bubble and squeak, and resurrection pie.
• Twig - style. Prime twig, in good order and high spirits.
• Twig - to comprehend, as, “Do you twig?” Also, “Hop the twig,” to decamp.
• Twist - brandy and gin mixed.
• Twist - capacity for eating, appetite; “He’s got a capital twist.”
• Twitchety - nervous, fidgety.
• Twitter - “all in a twitter,” in a fright or fidgety state.
• Two to one - the pawnbroker’s sign of three balls. So called because it is supposed by calculating humourists to be two to one against the redemption of a pledged article.
• Two-eyed-steak - a red-herring or bloater. Otherwise “Billingsgate pheasant.”
• Two-foot rule - a fool.
• Two-handed game - a game or proposal in which the chances are fairly even; as, “I’ll punch your head;” “Ah, that’s a two-handed game—you’ll get no good at that.”
• Two-handed - expert at fisticuffs. Ambidextrous generally.
• Twopenny-halfpenny - paltry, insignificant. A twopenny-halfpenny fellow, a not uncommon expression of contempt.
• Twopenny - the head; “tuck in your twopenny,” bend down your head.
• Tyb of the butery - a goose.
• Tyburn tippet - in the old hanging days, Jack Ketch’s rope.
• Tye - or tie, a neckerchief. Proper hosiers’ term now, but slang thirty years ago, and as early as 1718.
• Tyke - a Yorkshireman. Term used by themselves, as well as by Southerners, in reference to them.
• Typo - a printer.
• U.P. - United Presbyterian Church of Scotland.
• Ugly - wicked, malicious, resentful.—American.
• Unbleached American - Yankee term, since the war, for coloured natives of the United States.
• Uncle - the pawnbroker. See my uncle.
• Under a cloud - in difficulties. An evident reference to shady circumstances.
• Under the rose. See rose.
• Understandings - the feet or boots. Men who wear exceptionally large or thick boots, are said to possess good understandings.
• Unfortunate - a modern euphuism for a prostitute, derived from Thomas Hood’s beautiful poem of The Bridge of Sighs:—
• Unparliamentary - or unscriptural, language, words unfit for use in ordinary conversation.
• Unutterables - or unwhisperables, trousers. See inexpressibles.
• Upper Benjamin - or Benjy, a great coat; originally “Joseph,” but, because of the preponderance of tailors named Benjamin, altered in deference to them.
• Upper storey - or upper loft, a person’s head; “his upper storey is unfurnished,” i.e., he does not know very much. “Wrong in his upper storey,” crazy. See chump.
• Uppish - proud, arrogant.
• Used up - broken-hearted, bankrupt, fatigued, vanquished.
• Vakeel - a barrister.—Anglo-Indian.
• Vamos - vamous, or vamoosh, to go, or be off. Spanish, vamos, “Let us go!” Probably namus, or namous, the costermonger’s word, was from this.
• Vamps - old, or refooted stockings. From vamp, to piece.
• Vardo - to look; “vardo the carsey,” look at the house. Vardo formerly was old cant for a waggon. This is by low Cockneys generally pronounced vardy.
• Vardy - verdict, vulgarly used as opinion, thus, “My vardy on the matter is the same as yourn.”
• Varmint. “You young varmint, you!” you bad, or naughty boy. Corruption of vermin.
• Varnisher - an utterer of false sovereigns. Generally “snide-pitcher.”
• Vaux’s (Count de, a swindler and pickpocket) Life, written by himself, 2 vols., 12mo, to which is added a Canting Dictionary.1819.
• Velvet - the tongue; especially the tongue of a magsman. Also, men who have succeeded in their speculations, especially on the turf, are said to stand on velvet.
• Vet - colloquial term for veterinarian.
• Vic - the Victoria Theatre, London. Also the street abbreviation of the Christian name of her Majesty the Queen.
• Ville - or vile, a town or village—pronounced phial, or vial.—French.
• Vinnied - mildewed, or sour.—Devonshire.
• Voker - to talk; “can you voker Romany?” can you speak the canting language?—Latin, vocare; Spanish, vocear.
• Vowel. “To vowel a debt” is to acknowledge with an I O U.
• Vulpecide - one who shoots or traps foxes, or destroys them in any way other than that of hunting. A foxhunter regards a vulpecide as rather worse than an ordinary murderer.
• Wabble - or wobble, to move from side to side, to roll about. Johnson terms it “a low, barbarous word.”
• Walk your chalks - be off, or run away,—spoken sharply by any one who wishes to get rid of a troublesome person. See chalks.
• Walk-over - a re-election without opposition.—Parliamentary, but derived from the turf, where a horse which has no rivals walks over the course. See dead heat.
• Walker - a letter-carrier or postman. From an old song, called, “Walker, the twopenny postman.”
• Walking morte - womene [who pass for widows].
• Wallabee-track - Colonial slang for the tramp. When a man in Australia is “on the road” looking for employment, he is said to be on the wallabee-track.
• Wallflower - a person who goes to a ball and looks on without dancing, either from choice or through not being able to obtain a partner. From the position.
• Wallflowers - left-off and “regenerated” clothes exposed for sale on the bunks and shop-boards of Seven Dials. See reach-me-downs.
• Walloping - a beating or thrashing; sometimes used in an adjective sense, as big, or very large.
• Wapping - or whopping, of a large size, great.
• Wapping [coition].
• War-paint - evening dress. When people go out in full costume they are often said to have their war-paint on. Also, military “full-fig.”
• Warm - rich, or well off.
• Warming-pan - a large old-fashioned gold watch. A person placed in an office to hold it for another. See w.p.
• Wash - “It wont wash,” i.e., will not stand investigation, will not “bear the rub,” is not genuine, can’t be believed.
• Waster - a useless, clumsy, or ill-made person.
• Watch and seals - a sheep’s head and pluck.
• Watchmaker - a pickpocket or stealer of watches. Often called “a watchmaker in a crowd.”
• Water gunner - a marine artilleryman.
• Water the dragon - or water one’s nag, a hint for retiring.
• Water-dogs - Norfolk dumplings.
• Waterman - a blue silk handkerchief. The friends of the Oxford and Cambridge boats’ crews always wear these—light blue for Cambridge, and a darker shade for Oxford.
• Wattles - ears.
• Wax - a rage. “Let’s get him in a wax.” Waxy, cross, ill-tempered.
• Wayz-goose - a printers’ annual dinner, the funds for which are collected by stewards regularly appointed by “the chapel.”
• Weather-headed - so written by Sir Walter Scott in his Peveril of the Peak, but it is more probably wether-headed, as applied to a person having a “sheepish” look.
• Wedge-feeder - a silver spoon.
• Wedge - a Jew. This may look strange, but it is exact back slang.
• Wedge - silver.—Old Cant.
• Weed - a cigar; the weed, tobacco generally.
• Weed - a hatband.
• Wejee - a chimney-pot. Often applied to any clever invention, as, “That’s a regular wejee.”
• Well - to pocket, to save money. Any one of fair income and miserly habits is said to “well it.”
• Welt - to thrash with a strap or stick. Probably meaning to raise wheals.
• Wet Quaker - a man who pretends to be religious, and is a dram-drinker on the sly.
• Wet un - a diseased cow, unfit for human food, but nevertheless sold to make into sausages. Compare staggering-bob.
• Wet - a drink, a drain.
• Whack - a share or lot. “Give me my whack,” give me my share.—Scotch, sweg, or swack.
• Whack - or whacking, a blow, or a thrashing.
• Whack - to beat.
• Whacker - a lie of unusual dimensions, sometimes called a “round un.”
• Whacking - large, fine, or strong.
• Whacks - to go whacks, to divide equally; to enter into partnership.
• Whale - “very like a whale,” said of anything that is very improbable. A speech of Polonius’s in Hamlet.
• What d’yecall’em - a similar expression to “thingumy.”
• Wherret - or worrit, to scold, trouble, or annoy.—Old English.
• Whid - a word. Sometimes, a fib, a falsehood, a word too much.—Modern Slang, from the ancient cant.
• Whiddle - to enter into a parley, or hesitate with many words, &c.; to inform, or discover. See wheedle.
• Whim-wham - an alliterative term, synonymous with fiddle-faddle, riff-raff, &c., denoting nonsense, rubbish, &c.
• Whip the cat - when an operative works at a private house by the day. Term used amongst tailors and carpenters.
• Whipjack - a sham shipwrecked sailor, called also a turnpike-sailor.
• Whipper-snapper - a waspish, diminutive person.
• Whisper - to borrow money—generally small sums—as, “He whispered me for a tanner.”
• Whisperer - a constant borrower.
• Whistling-Billy - or puffing-Billy, a locomotive engine.
• Whistling-shop - a place in which spirits are sold without a licence.
• White horses - the foam on the crests of waves, seen before or after a storm.
• White lie - a harmless lie, one told to reconcile people at variance. “Mistress is not at home, sir,” is a white lie often told by servants.
• White prop - a diamond pin.—East London.
• White satin - gin,—term amongst women. See satin.
• White serjeant - a man’s superior officer in the person of his better half.
• White tape - gin,—term used principally by female servants. See ribbon.
• White un - a silver watch.
• White wine - the fashionable term for gin.
• White-livered - or liver-faced, cowardly, much afraid, very mean.
• Whitechapel fortune - a clean gown and a pair of pattens.
• Whitechapel - anything mean or paltry. Potting one’s opponent at billiards is often known as “Whitechapel play.”
• Whitechapel - in tossing, when “two out of three wins.” See sudden death.
• Whitechapel or Westminster brougham, a costermonger’s donkey-barrow.
• Whitewash - a glass of sherry as a finale, after drinking port and claret.
• Whitewash - to rehabilitate. A person who took the benefit of the Insolvent Act was said to have been whitewashed. Now said of a person who compromises with his creditors.
• Whittle - to nose or peach.—Old Cant. To cut and hack as with a pocket-knife.—American.
• Whop-straw - cant name for a countryman; Johnny Whop-straw, in allusion to threshing.
• Whop - to beat, or hide. Corruption of whip; sometimes spelt wap.
• Whopper - a big one, a lie. A lie not easily swallowed.
• Whyddes - wordes.
• Widdle - to shine. See oliver.
• Wide-awake - a broad-brimmed felt or stuff hat,—so called because it never had a nap, and never wants one.
• Wido - wide awake, no fool.
• Wife - a fetter fixed to one leg.—Prison.
• Wiffle-woffles - in the dumps, sorrow, stomach-ache.
• Wig - move off, go away.—North Country Cant.
• Wigging - a rebuke before comrades. If the head of a firm calls a clerk into the parlour, and rebukes him, it is an earwigging; if done before the other clerks, it is a wigging.
• Wild Irishman - the train between Euston and Holyhead, in connection with the Kingstown mail-boats.
• Wild oats - youthful pranks. A fast young man is said to be “sowing his wild oats.”
• Wild - a village.—Tramps’ term. See vile.
• William - a bill. The derivation is obvious.
• Willow - a cricket-bat. From the material of which it is made. The great batsman, W. G. Grace, is often called “champion of the willow.”
• Wilson (Professor), contributed various Slang pieces to Blackwood’s Magazine; including a Review of Bee’s Dictionary.
• Wind - “to raise the wind,” to procure money; “to slip one’s wind,” a coarse expression, meaning to die. See raise.
• Windows - the eyes, or “peepers.”
• Winey - intoxicated.
• Winged - hurt, but not dangerously, by a bullet. Originally to be shot in the arm or shoulder. To slightly wound birds is to wing them.
• Winkin - “he went off like winkin,” i.e., very quickly. From wink, to shut the eye quickly.
• Winks - periwinkles.
• Winn - a penny—Ancient Cant. See introductory chapter.
• Wipe-out - to kill or utterly destroy. This is an Americanism, but is in pretty general use here.
• Wipe - a blow. Frequently sibilated to swipe, a cricket-term.
• Wipe - a pocket-handkerchief.—Old Cant.
• Wire-pullers - powerful political partisans, who do their work from “behind the scenes.”
• With and without - words by themselves, supposed to denote the existence or non-existence of sugar in grog. Generally “warm with” and “cold without.”
• Witherspoon’s (Dr., of America,) Essays on Americanisms, Perversions of Language in the United States, Cant phrases, &c., 8vo, in the 4th vol. of his works.
• Wobble-shop - a shop where beer is sold without a licence.
• Wobbler - a foot soldier, a term of contempt used by cavalrymen.
• Wobbly - rickety, unsteady, ill-fitting.
• Wolf - to eat greedily.
• Wooden surtout - a coffin, generally spoken of as a wooden surtout with nails for buttons.
• Wool-gathering - said of any person’s wits when they are wandering, or in a reverie.
• Wool-hole - the workhouse.
• Wool - courage, pluck; “you are not half-wooled,” term of reproach from one thief to another.
• Woolbird - a lamb; “wing of a woolbird,” a shoulder of lamb.
• Woolly - a blanket.
• Woolly - out of temper.
• Wor-rab - a barrow.
• Worm. See pump.
• Worm - a policeman.
• Worming - removing the beard of an oyster or mussel.
• Wrinkle - an idea, or a fancy; an additional piece of knowledge.
• Wylo - be off.—Anglo-Chinese.
• Yack - a watch; to “church a yack,” to take it out of its case to avoid detection, otherwise to “christen a yack.”
• Yad - a day; yads, days.
• Yadnarb - brandy.
• Yaffle - to eat.—Old English.
• Yahoo - a person of coarse or degraded habits. Derived from the use of the word by Swift.
• Yannam - bread.
• Yannep-flatch - three halfpence,—all the halfpence and pennies continue in the same sequence, as for instance, owt-yannep-flatch, twopence-halfpenny.
• Yannep - a penny.
• Yap pu - pay up.
• Yard of clay - a long, old-fashioned tobacco pipe; also called a churchwarden.
• Yarmouth capon - a bloater, or red herring.
• Yarmouth mittens - bruised hands.—Sea.
• Yarn - a long story, or tale; “a tough yarn,” a tale hard to be believed; “spin a yarn,” to tell a tale.—Sea.
• Yay-nay - “a poor yay-nay” fellow, one who has no conversational power, and can only answer yea or nay to a question.
• Yeknod - or jerk-nod, a donkey.
• Yellow-Jack - the yellow fever prevalent in the West Indies.
• Yellow-belly - a native of the fens of Lincolnshire, or the Isle of Ely—in allusion to the frogs and yellow-bellied eels caught there.
• Yellow-boy - a sovereign, or any gold coin.
• Yellow-gloak - a jealous man.
• Yellow-man - a yellow silk handkerchief.
• Yellows - a term of reproach applied to Bluecoat and other charity school boys.
• Yenork - a crown piece, or five shillings.
• Yenork - a crown.
• Yid - or yit, a Jew. Yidden, the Jewish people. The Jews use these terms very frequently.
• Yob - a boy.
• Yokuff - a chest, or large box.
• Yorkshire compliment - a gift of something useless to the giver. Sometimes called a North-country compliment.
• Yorkshire estates; “I will do it when I come into my Yorkshire estates,”—meaning if I ever have the money or the means.
• Yorkshire reckoning - a reckoning in which every one pays his own share.
• Your nibs - yourself. See nibs.
• Yoxter - a convict returned from transportation before his time.
• Zeb - best.
• Ziff - a juvenile thief.

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