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1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue

by Francis Grose · English · Gutenberg #5402 · 497,003 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue

Author: Francis Grose


        
Release date: April 1, 2004 [eBook #5402]
                Most recently updated: December 28, 2020

Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 1811 DICTIONARY OF THE VULGAR TONGUE ***




Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Charles Franks and the
Online Distributed Proofreading Team











1811 DICTIONARY OF THE VULGAR TONGUE.

              A
          DICTIONARY
             OF
BUCKISH SLANG, UNIVERSITY WIT,
            AND
     PICKPOCKET ELOQUENCE.


UNABRIDGED FROM THE ORIGINAL 1811 EDITION WITH A FOREWORD BY
ROBERT CROMIE

COMPILED ORIGINALLY BY CAPTAIN GROSE.

AND NOW CONSIDERABLY ALTERED AND ENLARGED, WITH THE MODERN
CHANGES AND IMPROVEMENTS, BY A MEMBER OF THE WHIP CLUB.

ASSISTED BY HELL-FIRE DICK, AND JAMES GORDON,
ESQRS. OF CAMBRIDGE; AND WILLIAM SOAMES, ESQ. OF
THE HON. SOCIETY OF NEWMAN'S HOTEL.





PREFACE.

The merit of Captain Grose's Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue has
been long and universally acknowledged. But its circulation was
confined almost exclusively to the lower orders of society: he
was not aware, at the time of its compilation, that our young men
of fashion would at no very distant period be as distinguished
for the vulgarity of their jargon as the inhabitants of Newgate;
and he therefore conceived it superfluous to incorporate with his
work the few examples of fashionable slang that might occur to
his observation.

But our Jehus of rank have a phraseology not less peculiar to
themselves, than the disciples of Barrington: for the uninitiated
to understand their modes of expression, is as impossible as for
a Buxton to construe the Greek Testament. To sport an Upper
Benjamin, and to swear with a good grace, are qualifications
easily attainable by their cockney imitators; but without the aid
of our additional definitions, neither the cits of Fish-street,
nor the boors of Brentford would be able to attain the language
of whippism. We trust, therefore, that the whole tribe of
second-rate Bang Ups, will feel grateful for our endeavour to render
this part of the work as complete as possible. By an occasional
reference to our pages, they may be initiated into all the
peculiarities of language by which the man of spirit is
distinguished from the man of worth. They may now talk bawdy
before their papas, without the fear of detection, and abuse
their less spirited companions, who prefer a good dinner at home
to a glorious UP-SHOT in the highway, without the hazard of a
cudgelling.

But we claim not merely the praise of gratifying curiosity, or
affording assistance to the ambitious; we are very sure that the
moral influence of the Lexicon Balatronicum will be more certain
and extensive than that of any methodist sermon that has ever
been delivered within the bills of mortality. We need not descant
on the dangerous impressions that are made on the female mind, by
the remarks that fall incidentally from the lips of the brothers
or servants of a family; and we have before observed, that
improper topics can with our assistance be discussed, even before
the ladies, without raising a blush on the cheek of modesty. It
is impossible that a female should understand the meaning of
TWIDDLE DIDDLES, or rise from table at the mention of BUCKINGER'S
BOOT. Besides, Pope assures us, that "VICE TO BE HATED NEEDS BUT
TO BE SEEN;" in this volume it cannot be denied, that she is seen
very plainly; and a love of virtue is, therefore, the necessary
result of perusing it.

The propriety of introducing the UNIVERSITY SLANG will be readily
admitted; it is not less curious than that of the College in the
Old
Bailey, and is less generally understood. When the number and
accuracy of our additions are compared with the price of the
volume, we have no doubt that its editors will meet with the
encouragement that is due to learning, modesty, and virtue.




DICTIONARY OF THE VULGAR TONGUE.




ABBESS, or LADY ABBESS, A bawd, the mistress of a
  brothel.

ABEL-WACKETS. Blows given on the palm of the hand
  with a twisted handkerchief, instead of a ferula; a jocular
  punishment among seamen, who sometimes play at cards
  for wackets, the loser suffering as many strokes as he has
  lost games.

ABIGAIL. A lady's waiting-maid.

ABRAM. Naked. CANT.

ABRAM COVE. A cant word among thieves, signifying a
  naked or poor man; also a lusty, strong rogue.

ABRAM MEN. Pretended mad men.

TO SHAM ABRAM. To pretend sickness.

ACADEMY, or PUSHING SCHOOL. A brothel. The Floating
  Academy; the lighters on board of which those persons
  are confined, who by a late regulation are condemned to
  hard labour, instead of transportation.--Campbell's
  Academy; the same, from a gentleman of that name, who had
  the contract for victualling the hulks or lighters.

ACE OF SPADES. A widow.

ACCOUNTS. To cast up one's accounts; to vomit.

ACORN. You will ride a horse foaled by an acorn, i.e. the
  gallows, called also the Wooden and Three-legged Mare.
  You will be hanged.--See THREE-LEGGED MARE.

ACT OF PARLIAMENT. A military term for small beer, five
  pints of which, by an act of parliament, a landlord was
  formerly obliged to give to each soldier gratis.

ACTEON. A cuckold, from the horns planted on the head
  of Acteon by Diana.

ACTIVE CITIZEN. A louse.

ADAM'S ALE. Water.

ADAM TILER. A pickpocket's associate, who receives the
  stolen goods, and runs off with them. CANT.

ADDLE PATE. An inconsiderate foolish fellow.

ADDLE PLOT. A spoil-sport, a mar-all.

ADMIRAL OF THE BLUE, who carries his flag on the main-mast.
  A landlord or publican wearing a blue apron, as
  was formerly the custom among gentlemen of that vocation.

ADMIRAL OF THE NARROW SEAS. One who from drunkenness
  vomits into the lap of the person sitting opposite to
  him. SEA PHRASE.

ADRIFT. Loose, turned adrift, discharged. SEA PHRASE.

AEGROTAT, (CAMBRIDGE), A certificate from the apothecary
  that you are INDISPOSED, (i. e.) to go to chapel. He
  sports an Aegrotat, he is sick, and unable to attend Chapel.
  or Hall. It does not follow, however, but that he can STRUM
  A PIECE, or sport a pair of oars.

AFFIDAVIT MEN. Knights of the post, or false witnesses,
  said to attend Westminster Hall, and other courts of
  justice, ready to swear any thing for hire.

AFTER-CLAP. A demand after the first given in has been
  discharged; a charge for pretended omissions; in short,
  any thing disagreeable happening after all consequences of
  the cause have been thought at an end.

AGAINST THE GRAIN. Unwilling. It went much against
  the grain with him, i.e. it was much against his
  inclination, or against his pluck.

AGOG, ALL-A-GOG. Anxious, eager, impatient: from the
  Italian AGOGARE, to desire eagerly.

AGROUND. Stuck fast, stopped, at a loss, ruined; like a
  boat or vessel aground.

AIR AND EXERCISE. He has had air and exercise, i.e. he
  has been whipped at the cart's tail; or, as it is generally,
  though more vulgarly, expressed, at the cart's a-se.

ALDERMAN. A roasted turkey garnished with sausages;
  the latter are supposed to represent the gold chain worn
  by those magistrates.

ALDGATE. A draught on the pump at Aldgate; a bad bill
  of exchange, drawn on persons who have no effects of the
  drawer.

ALE DRAPER. An alehouse keeper.

ALE POST. A may-pole.

ALL-A-MORT. Struck dumb, confounded. What, sweet
  one, all-a-mort? SHAKESPEARE.

ALL HOLIDAY. It is all holiday at Peckham, or it is all holiday
  with him; a saying signifying that it is all over
  with the business or person spoken of or alluded to.

ALL HOLLOW. He was beat all hollow, i.e. he had no
  chance of conquering: it was all hollow, or a hollow thing,
  it was a decided thing from the beginning. See HOLLOW.

ALL NATIONS. A composition of all the different spirits
  sold in a dram-shop, collected  in a vessel into which
  the drainings of the bottles and quartern pots are emptied.

ALLS. The five alls is a country sign, representing five human
  figures, each having a motto under him. The first
  is a king in his regalia; his motto, I govern all: the second,
  a bishop in pontificals; motto, I pray for all: third,
  a lawyer in his gown; motto, I plead for all: fourth: a
  soldier in his regimentals, fully accoutred; motto, I
  fight for all: fifth, a poor countryman with his scythe
  and rake; motto, I pay for all.

ALTAMEL. A verbal or lump account, without particulars,
  such as is commonly produced at bawdy-houses,
  spunging-houses, &c. Vide DUTCH RECKONING.

ALTITUDES. The man is in his altitudes, i.e. he is drunk.

AMBASSADOR. A trick to duck some ignorant fellow or
  landsman, frequently played on board ships in the warm
  latitudes. It is thus managed: A large tub is filled with
  water, and two stools placed on each side of it. Over
  the whole is thrown a tarpaulin, or old sail: this is
  kept tight by two persons, who are to represent the king
  and queen of a foreign country, and are seated on the
  stools. The person intended to be ducked plays the Ambassador,
  and after repeating a ridiculous speech dictated
  to him, is led in great form up to the throne, and seated
  between the king and queen, who rising suddenly as soon
  as he is seated, he falls backwards into the tub of water.

AMBASSADOR OF MOROCCO. A Shoemaker. (See Mrs.
  Clarke's Examination.)

AMBIDEXTER. A lawyer who takes fees from both plaintiff
  and defendant, or that goes snacks with both parties
  in gaming.

AMEN CURLER. A parish clerk.

AMEN. He said Yes and Amen to every thing; he agreed to
  every thing.

AMINADAB. A jeering name for a Quaker.

AMES ACE. Within ames ace; nearly, very near.

TO AMUSE. To fling dust or snuff in the eyes of the person
  intended to be robbed; also to invent some plausible tale,
  to delude shop-keepers and others, thereby to put them
  off their guard. CANT.

AMUSERS. Rogues who carried snuff or dust in their pockets,
  which they threw into the eyes of any person they
  intended to rob; and running away, their accomplices
  (pretending to assist and pity the half-blinded person)
  took that opportunity of plundering him.

ANABAPTIST. A pickpocket caught in the fact, and punished
  with the discipline of the pump or horse-pond.

ANCHOR. Bring your a-se to an anchor, i.e. sit down. To let
  go an anchor to the windward of the law; to keep within
  the letter of the law. SEA WIT.

ANGLERS. Pilferers, or petty thieves, who, with a stick
  having a hook at the end, steal goods out of shop-windows,
  grates, &c.; also those who draw in or entice unwary persons
  to prick at the belt, or such like devices.

ANGLING FOR FARTHINGS. Begging out of a prison window
  with a cap, or box, let down at the end of a long
  string.

ANKLE. A girl who is got with child, is said to have sprained
  her ankle.

ANODYNE NECKLACE. A halter.

ANTHONY or TANTONY PIG. The favourite or smallest pig
  in the litter.--To follow like a tantony pig, i.e. St.
  Anthony's pig; to follow close at one's heels. St. Anthony
  the hermit was a swineherd, and is always represented
  with a swine's bell and a pig. Some derive this saying
  from a privilege enjoyed by the friars of certain convents
  in England and France (sons of St. Anthony), whose swine
  were permitted to feed in the streets. These swine would
  follow any one having greens or other provisions, till they
  obtained some of them; and it was in those days considered
  an act of charity and religion to feed them.

TO KNOCK ANTHONY. Said of an in-kneed person, or one
  whose knees knock together; to cuff Jonas. See JONAS.

APE LEADER. An old maid; their punishment after
  death, for neglecting increase and multiply, will be, it is
  said, leading apes in hell.

APOSTLES. To manoeuvre the apostles, i.e. rob Peter to
  pay Paul; that is, to borrow money of one man to pay
  another.

APOSTLES. (CAMBRIDGE.) Men who are plucked, refused
  their degree.

APOTHECARY. To talk like an apothecary; to use hard or
  gallipot words: from the assumed gravity and affectation
  of knowledge generally put on by the gentlemen of this
  profession, who are commonly as superficial in their
  learning as they are pedantic in their language.

APOTHECARY'S BILL. A long bill.

APOTHECARY'S, or LAW LATIN. Barbarous Latin, vulgarly
  called Dog Latin, in Ireland Bog Latin.

APPLE CART. Down with his apple-cart; knock or throw
  him down.

APPLE DUMPLIN SHOP. A woman's bosom.

APPLE-PYE BED. A bed made apple-pye fashion, like what
  is called a turnover apple-pye, where the sheets are so
  doubled as to prevent any one from getting at his length
  between them: a common trick played by frolicsome
  country lasses on their sweethearts, male relations, or
  visitors.

APRIL FOOL. Any one imposed on, or sent on a bootless
  errand, on the first of April; which day it is the custom
  among the lower people, children, and servants, by dropping
  empty papers carefully doubled up, sending persons
  on absurd messages, and such like contrivances, to impose
  on every one they can, and then to salute them with
  the title of April Fool. This is also practised in
  Scotland under the title of Hunting the Gowke.

APRON STRING HOLD. An estate held by a man during
  his wife's life.

AQUA PUMPAGINIS. Pump water. APOTHECARIES LATIN.

ARBOR VITAE. A man's penis.

ARCH DUKE. A comical or eccentric fellow.

ARCH ROGUE, DIMBER DAMBER UPRIGHT MAN. The
  chief of a gang of thieves or gypsies.

ARCH DELL, or ARCH DOXY, signifies the same in rank
  among the female canters or gypsies.

ARD. Hot. CANT.

ARMOUR. In his armour, pot valiant: to fight in armour;
  to make use of Mrs. Philips's ware. See C--D--M.

ARK. A boat or wherry. Let us take an ark and winns, let
  us take a sculler. CANT.

ARK RUFFIANS. Rogues who, in conjunction with watermen,
  robbed, and sometimes murdered, on the water, by
  picking a quarrel with the passengers in a boat, boarding
  it, plundering, stripping, and throwing them overboard, &c.
  A species of badger. CANT.

ARRAH NOW. An unmeaning expletive, frequently used by
  the vulgar Irish.

ARS MUSICA. A bum fiddle.

ARSE. To hang an arse; to hang back, to be afraid to
  advance. He would lend his a-e and sh-te through his ribs;
  a saying of any one who lends his money inconsiderately.
  He would lose his a-e if it was loose; said of a careless
  person. A-e about; turn round.

ARSY YARSEY. To fall arsy varsey, i.e. head over heels.

ARTHUR, KING ARTHUR, A game used at sea, when near
  the line, or in a hot latitude. It is performed thus: A man
  who is to represent king Arthur, ridiculously dressed,
  having a large wig made out of oakum, or some old swabs, is
  seated on the side, or over a large vessel of water. Every
  person in his turn is to be ceremoniously introduced to
  him, and to pour a bucket of water over him, crying,
  hail, king Arthur! if during this ceremony the person
  introduced laughs or smiles (to which his majesty endeavours
  to excite him, by all sorts of ridiculous gesticulations), he
  changes place with, and then becomes, king Arthur, till
  relieved by some brother tar, who has as little command
  over his muscles as himself.

ARTICLES. Breeches; coat, waistcoat, and articles.

ARTICLE. A wench. A prime article. A handsome girl.
  She's a prime article (WHIP SLANG), she's a devilish good
  piece, a hell of a GOER.

ASK, or AX MY A-E. A common reply to any question;
  still deemed wit at sea, and formerly at court, under the
  denomination of selling bargains. See BARGAIN.

ASSIG. An assignation.

ATHANASIAN WENCH, or QUICUNQUE VULT. A forward
  girl, ready to oblige every man that shall ask her.

AUNT. Mine aunt; a bawd or procuress: a title of eminence
  for the senior dells, who serve for instructresses, midwives,
  &c. for the dells. CANT. See DELLS.

AVOIR DU POIS LAY. Stealing brass weights off the counters
  of shops. CANT.

AUTEM. A church.

AUTEM BAWLER. A parson. CANT.

AUTEM CACKLERS, AUTEM PRICKEARS. Dissenters of every
  denomination. CANT.

AUTEM CACKLETUB. A conventicle or meeting-house for
  dissenters. CANT.

AUTEM DIPPERS. Anabaptists. CANT.

AUTEM DIVERS. Pickpockets who practice in churches;
  also churchwardens and overseers of the poor. CANT.

AUTEM GOGLERS. Pretended French prophets. CANT.

AUTEM MORT. A married woman; also a female beggar
  with several children hired or borrowed to excite charity.
  CANT.

AUTEM QUAVERS. Quakers.

AUTEM QUAVER TUB. A Quakers' meeting-house. CANT.

AWAKE. Acquainted with, knowing the business. Stow the
  books, the culls are awake; hide the cards, the fellows
  know what we intended to do.

BABES IN THE WOOD. Criminals in the stocks, or pillory.

BABBLE. Confused, unintelligible talk, such as was used at
  the building the tower of Babel.

BACK BITER. One who slanders another behind his back,
  i.e. in his absence. His bosom friends are become his back
  biters, said of a lousy man.

BACKED. Dead. He wishes to have the senior, or old
  square-toes, backed; he longs to have his father on six
  men's shoulders; that is, carrying to the grave.

BACK UP. His back is up, i.e. he is offended or angry; an
  expression or idea taken from a cat; that animal, when
  angry, always raising its back. An allusion also sometimes
  used to jeer a crooked man; as, So, Sir, I see somebody
  has offended you, for your back is up.

BACON. He has saved his bacon; he has escaped. He has a
  good voice to beg bacon; a saying in ridicule of a bad voice.

BACON-FACED. Full-faced.

BACON FED. Fat, greasy.

BACK GAMMON PLAYER. A sodomite.

BACK DOOR (USHER, or GENTLEMAN OF THE). The same.

BAD BARGAIN. One of his majesty's bad bargains; a
  worthless soldier, a malingeror. See MALINGEROR.

BADGE. A term used for one burned in the hand. He has got
  his badge, and piked; he was burned in the hand, and is
  at liberty. Cant.

BADGE-COVES. Parish Pensioners. Cant.

BADGERS. A crew of desperate villains who robbed near
  rivers, into which they threw the bodies of those they
  murdered. Cant.

BAG. He gave them the bag, i.e. left them.

BAG OF NAILS. He squints like a bag of nails; i. e.
  his eyes are directed as many ways as the points of a bag
  of nails. The old BAG OF NAILS at Pimlico; originally
  the BACCHANALS.

BAGGAGE. Heavy baggage; women and children. Also a
  familiar epithet for a woman; as, cunning baggage,
  wanton baggage, &c.

BAKERS DOZEN. Fourteen; that number of rolls being allowed
  to the purchasers of a dozen.

BAKER-KNEE'D. One whose knees knock together in
  walking, as if kneading dough.

BALDERDASH. Adulterated wine.

BALLOCKS. The testicles of a man or beast; also a vulgar
  nick name for a parson. His brains are in his ballocks,
  a cant saying to designate a fool.

BALUM RANCUM. A hop or dance, where the women are
  all prostitutes. N. B. The company dance in their
  birthday suits.

BALSAM. Money.

BAM. A jocular imposition, the same as a humbug. See
  HUMBUG.

TO BAM. To impose on any one by a falsity; also to
  jeer or make fun of any one.

TO BAMBOOZLE. To make a fool of any one, to humbug or
  impose on him.

BANAGHAN. He beats Banaghan; an Irish saying of one
  who tells wonderful stories. Perhaps Banaghan was a
  minstrel famous for dealing in the marvellous.

BANDBOX. Mine a-se on a bandbox; an answer to the
  offer of any thing inadequate to the purpose for which
  it is proffered, like offering a bandbox for a seat.

BANBURY STORY OF A COCK AND A BULL. A roundabout,
  nonsensical story.

BANDOG. A bailiff or his follower; also a very fierce
  mastiff: likewise, a bandbox. CANT.

BANG UP. (WHIP.) Quite the thing, hellish fine. Well
  done. Compleat. Dashing. In a handsome stile.
  A bang up cove; a dashing fellow who spends his money
  freely. To bang up prime: to bring your horses up in a
  dashing or fine style: as the swell's rattler and prads are
  bang up prime; the gentleman sports an elegant carriage
  and fine horses.

TO BANG. To beat.

BANGING. Great; a fine banging boy.

BANG STRAW. A nick name for a thresher, but applied
  to all the servants of a farmer.

BANKRUPT CART. A one-horse chaise, said to be so
  called by a Lord Chief Justice, from their being so
  frequently used on Sunday jaunts by extravagant
  shop-keepers and tradesmen.

BANKS'S HORSE. A horse famous for playing tricks, the
  property of one Banks. It is mentioned in Sir Walter
  Raleigh's Hist. of the World, p. 178; also by Sir
  Kenelm Digby and Ben Jonson.

BANTLING. A young child.

BANYAN DAY. A sea term for those days on which no
  meat is allowed to the sailors: the term is borrowed
  from the Banyans in the East Indies, a cast that eat
  nothing that had life.

BAPTIZED, OR CHRISTENED. Rum, brandy, or any other
  spirits, that have been lowered with water.

BARBER'S CHAIR. She is as common as a barber's chair, in
  which a whole parish sit to be trimmed; said of a prostitute.

BARBER'S SIGN. A standing pole and two wash balls.

BARGAIN. To sell a bargain; a species of wit, much in
  vogue about the latter end of the reign of Queen Anne,
  and frequently alluded to by Dean Swift, who says the
  maids of honour often amused themselves with it. It
  consisted in the seller naming his or her hinder parts, in
  answer to the question, What? which the buyer was
  artfully led to ask. As a specimen, take the following
  instance: A lady would come into a room full of company,
  apparently in a fright, crying out, It is white, and follows
  me! On any of the company asking, What? she sold
  him the bargain, by saying, Mine a-e.

BARGEES. (CAMBRIDGE.) Barge-men on the river.

BARKER. The shopman of a bow-wow shop, or dealer in
  second hand clothes, particularly about Monmouth-Street,
  who walks before his master's door, and deafens every
  passenger with his cries of--Clothes, coats, or gowns--what
  d'ye want, gemmen?--what d'ye buy? See BOW-WOW SHOP.

BARKSHIRE. A member or candidate for Barkshire, said of
  one troubled with a cough, vulgarly styled barking.

BARKING IRONS. Pistols, from their explosion resembling
  the bow-wow or barking of a dog. IRISH.

BARN. A parson's barn; never so full but there is still room,
  for more. Bit by a barn mouse, tipsey, probably from an
  allusion to barley.

BARNABY. An old dance to a quick movement. See Cotton,
  in his Virgil Travesti; where, speaking of Eolus he has
  these lines,

      Bounce cry the port-holes, out they fly,
      And make the world dance Barnaby.

BARNACLE. A good job, or snack easily got: also shellfish
  growing at the bottoms of ships; a bird of the goose
  kind; an instrument like a pair of pincers, to fix on the
  noses of vicious horses whilst shoeing; a nick name for
  spectacles, and also for the gratuity given to grooms by the
  buyers and sellers of horses.

BARREL FEVER. He died of the barrel fever; he killed
  himself by drinking.

BARROW MAN. A man under sentence of transportation;
  alluding to the convicts at Woolwich, who are principally
  employed in wheeling barrows full of brick or dirt.

BARTHOLOMEW BABY. A person dressed up in a tawdry
  manner, like the dolls or babies sold at Bartholomew fair.

BASKET. An exclamation frequently made use of in cock-pits,
  at cock-fightings, where persons refusing or unable
  to pay their losings, are adjudged by that respectable
  assembly to be put into a basket suspended over the pit, there
  to remain during that day's diversion: on the least demur
  to pay a bet, Basket is vociferated in terrorem. He grins
  like a basket of chips: a saying of one who is on the broad
  grin.

BASKET-MAKING. The good old trade of basket-making;
  copulation, or making feet for children's stockings.

BASTARD. The child of an unmarried woman.

BASTARDLY GULLION. A bastard's bastard.

TO BASTE. To beat. I'll give him his bastings, I'll beat
  him heartily.

BASTING. A beating.

BASTONADING. Beating any one with a stick; from baton,
  a stick, formerly spelt baston.

BAT. A low whore: so called from moving out like bats in
  the dusk of the evening.

BATCH. We had a pretty batch of it last night; we had a
  hearty dose of liquor. Batch originally means the whole
  quantity of bread baked at one time in an oven.

BATTNER. An ox: beef being apt to batten or fatten those
  that eat it. The cove has hushed the battner; i.e. has
  killed the ox.

BATCHELOR'S FARE. Bread and cheese and kisses.

BATCHELOR'S SON. A bastard.

BATTLE-ROYAL. A battle or bout at cudgels or fisty-cuffs,
  wherein more than two persons are engaged: perhaps from
  its resemblance, in that particular, to more serious
  engagements fought to settle royal disputes.

BAWBEE. A halfpenny. Scotch.

BAWBELS, or BAWBLES. Trinkets; a man's testicles.

BAWD. A female procuress.

BAWDY BASKET. The twenty-third rank of canters, who
  carry pins, tape, ballads, and obscene books to sell, but live
  mostly by stealing. Cant.

BAWDY-HOUSE BOTTLE. A very small bottle; short measure
  being among the many means used by the keepers of those
  houses, to gain what they call an honest livelihood: indeed
  this is one of the least reprehensible; the less they give a
  man of their infernal beverages for his money, the kinder
  they behave to him.

BAY FEVER. A term of ridicule applied to convicts, who
  sham illness, to avoid being sent to Botany Bay.

BAYARD OF TEN TOES. To ride bayard of ten toes, is to
  walk on foot. Bayard was a horse famous in old romances,

BEAK. A justice of-peace, or magistrate. Also a judge or
  chairman who presides in court. I clapp'd my peepers
  full of tears, and so the old beak set me free; I began to
  weep, and the judge set me free.

BEAN. A guinea. Half bean; half a guinea.

BEAR. One who contracts to deliver a certain quantity of
  sum of stock in the public funds, on a future day, and at
  stated price; or, in other words, sells what he has not got,
  like the huntsman in the fable, who sold the bear's skin
  before the bear was killed. As the bear sells the stock he
  is not possessed of, so the bull purchases what he has not
  money to pay for; but in case of any alteration in the price
  agreed on, either party pays or receives the difference.
  Exchange Alley.

BEAR-GARDEN JAW or DISCOURSE. Rude, vulgar language,
  such as was used at the bear-gardens.

BEAR LEADER. A travelling tutor.

BEARD SPLITTER. A man much given to wenching.

BEARINGS. I'll bring him to his bearings; I'll bring him to
  reason. Sea term.

BEAST. To drink like a beast, i.e. only when thirsty.

BEAST WITH TWO BACKS. A man and woman in the act of
  copulation. Shakespeare in Othello.

BEATER CASES. Boots. Cant.

BEAU-NASTY. A slovenly fop; one finely dressed, but dirty.

BEAU TRAP. A loose stone in a pavement, under which
  water lodges, and on being trod upon, squirts it up, to the
  great damage of white stockings; also a sharper neatly
  dressed, lying in wait for raw country squires, or ignorant
  fops.

BECALMED. A piece of sea wit, sported in hot weather. I
  am becalmed, the sail sticks to the mast; that is, my shirt
  sticks to my back. His prad is becalmed; his horse knocked up.

BECK. A beadle. See HERMANBECK.

BED. Put to bed with a mattock, and tucked up with a
  spade; said of one that is dead and buried. You will go up
  a ladder to bed, i.e. you will be hanged. In many country
  places, persons hanged are made to mount up a ladder,
  which is afterwards turned round or taken away, whence the
  term, "Turned off."

BEDFORDSHIRE. I am for Bedfordshire, i.e. for going to bed.

BEDIZENED. Dressed out, over-dressed, or awkwardly ornamented.

BED-MAKER. Women employed at Cambridge to attend
  on the Students, sweep his room, &c. They will put their
  hands to any thing, and are generally blest with a pretty
  family of daughters: who unmake the beds, as fast as they
  are made by their mothers.

BEEF. To cry beef; to give the alarm. They have cried beef
  on us. Cant.--To be in a man's beef; to wound him with
  a sword. To be in a woman's beef; to have carnal
  knowledge of her. Say you bought your beef of me, a jocular
  request from a butcher to a fat man, implying that he
  credits the butcher who serves him.

BEEF EATER. A yeoman of the guards, instituted by Henry
  VII. Their office was to stand near the bouffet, or
  cupboard, thence called Bouffetiers, since corrupted to Beef
  Eaters. Others suppose they obtained this name from the
  size of their persons, and the easiness of their duty, as
  having scarce more to do than to eat the king's beef.

BEETLE-BROWED. One having thick projecting eyebrows.

BEETLE-HEADED. Dull, stupid.

BEGGAR MAKER. A publican, or ale-house keeper.

BEGGAR'S BULLETS. Stones. The beggar's bullets began
  to fly, i.e. they began to throw stones.

BEILBY'S BALL. He will dance at Beilby's ball, where the
  sheriff pays the music; he will be hanged. Who Mr.
  Beilby was, or why that ceremony was so called, remains
  with the quadrature of the circle, the discovery of the
  philosopher's stone, and divers other desiderata yet
  undiscovered.

BELCH. All sorts of beer; that liquor being apt to cause
  eructation.

BELCHER. A red silk handkerchief, intermixed with yellow
  and a little black. The kiddey flashes his belcher; the
  young fellow wears a silk handkerchief round his neck.

BELL, BOOK, AND CANDLE. They cursed him with bell,
  book, and candle; an allusion to the popish form of
  excommunicating and anathematizing persons who had
  offended the church.

TO BEAR THE BELL. To excel or surpass all competitors, to
  be the principal in a body or society; an allusion to the
  fore horse or leader of a team, whose harness is commonly
  ornamented with a bell or bells. Some suppose it a term
  borrowed from an ancient tournament, where the victorious
  knights bore away the BELLE or FAIR LADY. Others derive
  it from a horse-race, or other rural contentions, where bells
  were frequently given as prizes.

BELLOWS. The lungs.

BELLOWER. The town crier.

BELLOWSER. Transportation for life: i.e. as long.

BELLY. His eye was bigger than his belly; a saying of a
  person at a table, who takes more on his plate than he
  can eat.

BELLYFULL. A hearty beating, sufficient to make a man
  yield or give out. A woman with child is also said to
  have got her belly full.

BELLY CHEAT. An apron.

BELLY PLEA. The plea of pregnancy, generally adduced by
  female felons capitally convicted, which they take care to
  provide for, previous to their trials; every gaol having, as
  the Beggar's Opera informs us, one or more child getters,
  who qualify the ladies for that expedient to procure a respite.

BELLY TIMBER. Food of all sorts.

BELL SWAGGER. A noisy bullying fellow.

BELLWETHER. The chief or leader of a mob; an idea
  taken from a flock of sheep, where the wether has a bell
  about his neck.

BENE. Good--BENAR. Better. Cant.

BENE BOWSE. Good beer, or other strong liquor. Cant.

BENE COVE. A good fellow. Cant.

BENE DARKMANS. Goodnight. Cant.

BENE FEARERS. Counterfeiters of bills. Cant.

BENE FEAKERS OF GYBES. Counterfeiters of passes. Cant.

BENESHIPLY. Worshipfully. Cant.

BEN. A fool. Cant.

BENISH. Foolish.

BENISON. The beggar's benison: May your ***** and
  purse never fail you.

BERMUDAS. A cant name for certain places in London,
  privileged against arrests, like the Mint in Southwark,
  Ben. Jonson. These privileges are abolished.

BESS, or BETTY. A small instrument used by house-breakers
  to force open doors. Bring bess and glym; bring the
  instrument to force the door, and the dark lantern. Small
  flasks, like those for Florence wine, are also called betties.

BESS. See BROWN BESS.

BEST. To the best in Christendom: i.e. the best **** in
  Christendom; a health formerly much in vogue.

BET. A wager.--TO BET. To lay a wager.

BETTY MARTIN. That's my eye, Betty Martin; an answer
  to any one that attempts to impose or humbug.

BETWATTLED. Surprised, confounded, out of one's senses;
  also bewrayed.

BEVER. An afternoon's luncheon; also a fine hat; beaver's
  fur making the best hats,

BEVERAGE. Garnish money, or money for drink, demanded
  of any one having a new suit of clothes.

BIBLE. A boatswain's great axe. Sea term.

BIBLE OATH. Supposed by the vulgar to be more binding
  than an oath taken on the Testament only, as being the
  bigger book, and generally containing both the Old and New
  Testament.

BIDDY, or CHICK-A-BIDDY. A chicken, and figuratively
  a young wench.

BIDET, commonly pronounced BIDDY. A kind of tub, contrived
  for ladies to wash themselves, for which purpose they
  bestride it like a French poney, or post-horse, called in
  French bidets.

BIENLY. Excellently. She wheedled so bienly; she coaxed
  or flattered so cleverly. French.

BILL AT SIGHT. To pay a bill at sight; to be ready at all
  times for the venereal act.

BILBOA. A sword. Bilboa in Spain was once famous for
  well-tempered blades: these are quoted by Falstaff, where
  he describes the manner in which he lay in the buck-basket.
  Bilboes, the stock; prison. Cant.

TO BILK. To cheat. Let us bilk the rattling cove; let us
  cheat the hackney coachman of his fare. Cant. Bilking a
  coachman, a box-keeper, and a poor whore, were formerly,
  among men of the town, thought gallant actions.

BILL OF SALE. A widow's weeds. See HOUSE TO LET.

BILLINGSGATE LANGUAGE. Foul language, or abuse. Billingsgate is
  the market where the fishwomen assemble to
  purchase fish; and where, in their dealings and disputes,
  they are somewhat apt to leave decency and good manners
  a little on the left hand.

BING. To go. Cant. Bing avast; get you gone. Binged
  avast in a darkmans; stole away in the night. Bing we to
  Rumeville: shall we go to London?

BINGO. Brandy or other spirituous liquor. Cant.

BINGO BOY. A dram drinker. Cant.

BINGO MORT. A female dram drinker. Cant.

BINNACLE WORD. A fine or affected word, which sailors
  jeeringly offer to chalk up on the binnacle.

BIRD AND BABY. The sign of the eagle and child.

BIRD-WITTED. Inconsiderate, thoughtless, easily imposed
  on.

BIRDS OF A FEATHER. Rogues of the same gang.

BIRTH-DAY SUIT. He was in his birth-day suit, that is,
  stark naked.

BISHOP. A mixture of wine and water, into which is put a
  roasted orange. Also one of the largest of Mrs. Philips's
  purses, used to contain the others.

BISHOPED, or TO BISHOP. A term used among horse-dealers, for
  burning the mark into a horse's tooth, after he has
  lost it by age; by bishoping, a horse is made to appear
  younger than he is. It is a common saying of milk that is
  burnt too, that the bishop has set his foot in it. Formerly,
  when a bishop passed through a village, all the inhabitants
  ran out of their houses to solicit his blessing, even leaving
  their milk, &c. on the fire, to take its chance: which, went
  burnt to, was said to be bishoped.

TO BISHOP the balls, a term used among printers, to water
  them.

BIT. Money. He grappled the cull's bit; he seized the
  man's money. A bit is also the smallest coin in Jamaica,
  equal to about sixpence sterling.

BITCH. A she dog, or doggess; the most offensive appellation
  that can be given to an English woman, even more
  provoking than that of whore, as may he gathered from the
  regular Billinsgate or St. Giles's answer--"I may be a
  whore, but can't be a bitch."

TO BITCH. To yield, or give up an attempt through fear.
  To stand bitch; to make tea, or do the honours of the
  tea-table, performing a female part: bitch there standing for
  woman, species for genius.

BITCH BOOBY. A country wench. Military term.

BITE. A cheat; also a woman's privities. The cull wapt
  the mort's bite; the fellow enjoyed the wench heartily.
  Cant.

TO BITE. To over-reach, or impose; also to steal.--Cant.--Biting
  was once esteemed a kind of wit, similar to the
  humbug. An instance of it is given in the Spectator: A
  man under sentence of death having sold his body to a surgeon
  rather below the market price, on receiving the money, cried, A
  bite! I am to be hanged in chains.--To bite
  the roger; to steal a portmanteau. To bite the wiper, to
  steal a handkerchief. To bite on the bridle; to be pinched
  or reduced to difficulties. Hark ye, friend, whether do
  they bite in the collar or the cod-piece? Water wit to
  anglers.

BITER. A wench whose **** is ready to bite her a-se; a
  lascivious, rampant wench.

BLAB. A tell-tale, or one incapable of keeping a secret

BLACK AND WHITE. In writing. I have it in black and
  white; I have written evidence.

BLACK ART. The art of picking a lock. Cant.

BLACK A-SE. A copper or kettle. The pot calls the kettle
  black a-se. Cant.

BLACK BOOK. He is down in the black book, i.e. has a
  stain in his character. A black book is keep in most regiments,
  wherein the names of all persons sentenced to punishment
  are recorded.

BLACK BOX. A lawyer. Cant.

BLACK EYE. We gave the bottle a black eye, i.e. drank it
  almost up. He cannot say black is the white of my eye;
  he cannot point out a blot in my character.

BLACK FLY. The greatest drawback on the farmer is the
  black fly, i.e. the parson who takes tithe of the harvest.

BLACK GUARD. A shabby, mean fellow; a term said to be
  derived from a number of dirty, tattered roguish boys, who
  attended at the Horse Guards, and Parade in St. James's
  Park, to black the boots and shoes of the soldiers, or to do
  any other dirty offices. These, from their constant attendance
  about the time of guard mounting, were nick-named
  the black-guards.

BLACK JACK. A nick name given to the Recorder by the
  Thieves.

BLACK JACK. A jug to drink out of, made of jacked leather.

BLACK JOKE. A popular tune to a song, having for the
  burden, "Her black joke and belly so white:" figuratively
  the black joke signifies the monosyllable. See MONOSYLLABLE.

BLACK INDIES. Newcastle upon Tyne, whose rich coal
  mines prove an Indies to the proprietors.

BLACKLEGS. A gambler or sharper on the turf or in the cockpit:
  so called, perhaps, from their appearing generally in
  boots; or else from game-cocks whose legs are always black.

BLACK MONDAY. The first Monday after the school-boys
  holidays, or breaking up, when they are to go to school,
  and produce or repeat the tasks set them.

BLACK PSALM. To sing the black psalm; to cry: a saying
  used to children.

BLACK SPICE RACKET. To rob chimney sweepers of
  their soot, bag and soot.

BLACK SPY. The Devil.

BLACK STRAP. Bene Carlo wine; also port. A task of
  labour imposed on soldiers at Gibraltar, as a punishment
  for small offences.

BLANK. To look blank; to appear disappointed or confounded.

BLANKET HORNPIPE. The amorous congress.

BLARNEY. He has licked the blarney stone; he deals in the
  wonderful, or tips us the traveller. The blarney stone is a
  triangular stone on the very top of an ancient castle of that
  name in the county of Cork in Ireland, extremely difficult
  of access; so that to have ascended to it, was considered
  as a proof of perseverance, courage, and agility, whereof
  many are supposed to claim the honour, who never atchieved
  the adventure: and to tip the blarney, is figuratively
  used telling a marvellous story, or falsity; and also
  sometimes to express flattery. Irish.

A BLASTED FELLOW or BRIMSTONE. An abandoned
  rogue or prostitute. Cant.

To BLAST. To curse.

BLATER. A calf. Cant.

BLEACHED MORT. A fair-complexioned wench.

BLEATERS. Those cheated by Jack in a box. CANT.--See
  JACK IN A BOX.

BLEATING CHEAT. A sheep. Cant.

BLEATING RIG. Sheep stealing. Cant.

BLEEDERS. Spurs. He clapped his bleeders to his prad;
  be put spurs to his horse.

BLEEDING CULLY. One who parts easily with his money,
  or bleeds freely.

BLEEDING NEW. A metaphor borrowed from fish, which
  will not bleed when stale.

BLESSING. A small quantity over and above the measure,
  usually given by hucksters dealing in peas, beans, and
  other vegetables.

BLIND. A feint, pretence, or shift.

BLIND CHEEKS. The breech. Buss blind cheeks; kiss
  mine a-se.

BLIND EXCUSE. A poor or insufficient excuse. A blind ale-house,
  lane, or alley; an obscure, or little known or frequented
  ale-house, lane, or alley.

BLIND HARPERS. Beggars counterfeiting blindness, playing
  on fiddles, &c.

BLINDMAN'S BUFF. A play used by children, where one
  being blinded by a handkerchief bound over his eyes,
  attempts to seize any one of the company, who all endeavour
  to avoid him; the person caught, must be blinded in
  his stead.

BLIND CUPID. The backside.

BLINDMAN'S HOLIDAY. Night, darkness.

BLOCK HOUSES. Prisons, houses of correction, &c.

BLOCKED AT BOTH ENDS. Finished. The game is blocked
  at both ends; the game is ended.

BLOOD. A riotous disorderly fellow.

BLOOD FOR BLOOD. A term used by tradesmen for bartering
  the different commodities in which they deal. Thus a
  hatter furnishing a hosier with a hat, and taking payment
  in stockings, is said to deal blood for blood.

BLOOD MONEY. The reward given by the legislature on the
  conviction of highwaymen, burglars, &c.

BLOODY BACK. A jeering appellation for a soldier, alluding
  to his scarlet coat.

BLOODY. A favourite word used by the thieves in swearing,
  as bloody eyes, bloody rascal.

BLOSS or BLOWEN. The pretended wife of a bully, or
  shoplifter. Cant.

TO BLOT THE SKRIP AND JAR IT. To stand engaged or
  bound for any one. Cant.

BLOW. He has bit the blow, i.e. he has stolen the goods.
  Cant.

BLOWEN. A mistress or whore of a gentleman of the
  scamp. The blowen kidded the swell into a snoozing
  ken, and shook him of his dummee and thimble; the
  girl inveigled the gentleman into a brothel and robbed him
  of his pocket book and watch.

BLOWER. A pipe. How the swell funks his blower and
  lushes red tape; what a smoke the gentleman makes
  with his pipe, and drinks brandy.

TO BLOW THE GROUNSILS. To lie with a woman on the
  floor. Cant.

TO BLOW THE GAB. To confess, or impeach a confederate.
  Cant.

BLOW-UP. A discovery, or the confusion occasioned by one.

A BLOWSE, or BLOWSABELLA. A woman whose hair is
  dishevelled, and hanging about her face; a slattern.

BLUBBER. The mouth.--I have stopped the cull's blubber;
  I have stopped the fellow's mouth, meant either by gagging
  or murdering him.

TO BLUBBER. To cry.

TO SPORT BLUBBER. Said of a large coarse woman, who
  exposes her bosom.

BLUBBER CHEEKS. Large flaccid cheeks, hanging like
  the fat or blubber of a whale.

BLUE, To look blue; to be confounded, terrified, or disappointed.
  Blue as a razor; perhaps, blue as azure.

BLUE BOAR. A venereal bubo.

BLUE DEVILS. Low spirits.

BLUE FLAG. He has hoisted the blue flag; he has commenced
  publican, or taken a public house, an allusion to
  the blue aprons worn by publicans. See ADMIRAL OF
  THE BLUE.

BLUE PIGEONS. Thieves who steal lead off houses and
  churches. Cant. To fly a blue pigeon; to steal lead
  off houses or churches.

BLUE PLUMB. A bullet.--Surfeited with a blue plumb;
  wounded with a bullet. A sortment of George R--'s
  blue plumbs; a volley of ball, shot from soldiers' firelocks.

BLUE SKIN. A person begotten on a black woman by a
  white man. One of the blue squadron; any one having
  a cross of the black breed, or, as it is termed, a lick of
  the tar brush.

BLUE TAPE, or SKY BLUE. Gin.

BLUE RUIN. Gin. Blue ribband; gin.

BLUFF. Fierce, surly. He looked as bluff as bull beef.

BLUFFER. An inn-keeper. Cant.

BLUNDERBUSS. A short gun, with a wide bore, for carrying
  slugs; also a stupid, blundering fellow.

BLUNT. Money. Cant.

TO BLUSTER. To talk big, to hector or bully.

BOARDING SCHOOL. Bridewell, Newgate, or any other
  prison, or house of correction.

BOB. A shoplifter's assistant, or one that receives and carries
  off stolen goods. All is bob; all is safe. Cant.

BOB. A shilling.

BOBBED. Cheated, tricked, disappointed.

BOBBISH. Smart, clever, spruce.

BOB STAY. A rope which holds the bowsprit to the stem or
  cutwater. Figuratively, the frenum of a man's yard.

BOB TAIL. A lewd woman, or one that plays with her tail;
  also an impotent man, or an eunuch. Tag, rag, and bobtail;
  a mob of all sorts of low people. To shift one's bob;
  to move off, or go away. To bear a bob; to join in chorus
  with any singers. Also a term used by the sellers of game,
  for a partridge.

BODY SNATCHERS. Bum bailiffs.

BODY OF DIVINITY BOUND IN BLACK CALF. A parson.

BOG LANDER. An Irishman; Ireland being famous for its
  large bogs, which furnish the chief fuel in many parts
  of that kingdom.

BOG TROTTER. The same.

BOG HOUSE. The necessary house. To go to bog; to go to
  stool.

BOG LATIN. Barbarous Latin. Irish.--See DOG LATIN,
  and APOTHECARIES LATIN.

BOGY. Ask bogy, i.e. ask mine a-se. Sea wit.

BOH. Said to be the name of a Danish general, who so terrified
  his opponent Foh, that he caused him to bewray
  himself. Whence, when we smell a stink, it is custom
  to exclaim, Foh! i.e. I smell general Foh. He cannot say
  Boh to a goose; i.e. he is a cowardly or sheepish fellow.
  There is a story related of the celebrated Ben Jonson, who
  always dressed very plain; that being introduced to the
  presence of a nobleman, the peer, struck by his homely
  appearance and awkward manner, exclaimed, as if in doubt,
  "you Ben Johnson! why you look as if you could not say
  Boh to a goose!" "Boh!" replied the wit.

BOLD. Bold as a miller's shirt, which every day takes a
  rogue by the collar.

BOLT. A blunt arrow.

BOLT UPRIGHT. As erect, or straight up, as an arrow
  set on its end.

TO BOLT. To run suddenly out of one's house, or hiding
  place, through fear; a term borrowed from a rabbit-warren,
  where the rabbits are made to bolt, by sending
  ferrets into their burrows: we set the house on fire, and
  made him bolt. To bolt, also means to swallow meat
  without chewing: the farmer's servants in Kent are
  famous for bolting large quantities of pickled pork.

BONES. Dice.

BONE BOX. The mouth. Shut your bone box; shut your
  mouth.

BONE PICKER. A footman.

BONED. Seized, apprehended, taken up by a constable. CANT.

BOLUS. A nick name for an apothecary.

BONESETTER. A hard-trotting horse.

BOOBY, or DOG BOOBY. An awkward lout, clodhopper, or
  country fellow. See CLODHOPPER and LOUT. A bitch
  booby; a country wench.

BOOBY HUTCH. A one-horse chaise, noddy, buggy, or
  leathern bottle.

BOOKS. Cards to play with. To plant the books; to place
  the cards in the pack in an unfair manner.

BOOK-KEEPER. One who never returns borrowed books.
  Out of one's books; out of one's fevor. Out of his books;
  out of debt.

BOOT CATCHER. The servant at an inn whose business
  it is to clean the boots of the guest.

BOOTS. The youngest officer in a regimental mess, whose
  duty it is to skink, that is, to stir the fire, snuff the
  candles, and ring the bell. See SKINK.--To ride in any one's
  old boots; to marry or keep his cast-off mistress.

BOOTY. To play booty; cheating play, where the player
  purposely avoids winning.

BO-PEEP. One who sometimes hides himself, and sometimes
  appears publicly abroad, is said to-play at bo-peep.
  Also one who lies perdue, or on the watch.

BORACHIO. A skin for holding wine, commonly a goat's;
  also a nick name for a drunkard.

BORDE. A shilling. A half borde; a sixpence.

BORDELLO. A bawdy house.

BORE. A tedious, troublesome man or woman, one who
  bores the ears of his hearers with an uninteresting tale;
  a term much in fashion about the years 1780 and 1781.

BORN UNDER A THREEPENNY HALFPENNY PLANET, NEVER TO BE WORTH A GROAT.
  Said of any person remarkably unsuccessful in his attempts or
  profession.

BOTCH. A nick name for a taylor.

BOTHERED or BOTH-EARED. Talked to at both ears by different
  persons at the same time, confounded, confused. IRISH
  PHRASE.

BOTHERAMS. A convivial society.

BOTTLE-HEADED. Void of wit.

BOTTOM. A polite term for the posteriors. Also, in the
  sporting sense, strength and spirits to support fatigue; as
  a bottomed horse. Among bruisers it is used to express
  a hardy fellow, who will bear a good beating.

BOTTOMLESS PIT. The monosyllable.

BOUGHS. Wide in the boughs; with large hips and posteriors.

BOUGHS. He is up in the boughs; he is in a passion.

TO BOUNCE. To brag or hector; also to tell an improbable
  story. To bully a man out of any thing. The kiddey
  bounced the swell of the blowen; the lad bullied the
  gentleman out of the girl.

BOUNCER. A large man or woman; also a great lie.

BOUNCING CHEAT. A bottle; from the explosion in
  drawing the cork. CANT.

BOUNG. A purse. CANT.

BOUNG NIPPER. A cut purse. CANT.--Formerly purses
  were worn at the girdle, from whence they were cut.

BOOSE, or BOUSE. Drink.

BOOSEY. Drunk.

BOWSING KEN. An ale-house or gin-shop.

BOWSPRIT. The nose, from its being the most projecting
  part of the human face, as the bowsprit is of a ship.

BOW-WOW. The childish name for a dog; also a jeering
  appellation for a man born at Boston in America.

BOW-WOW MUTTON. Dog's flesh.

BOW-WOW SHOP. A salesman's shop in Monmouth-street;
  so called because the servant barks, and the master bites.
  See BARKER.

BOWYER. One that draws a long bow, a dealer in the marvellous,
  a teller of improbable stories, a liar: perhaps from
  the wonderful shots frequently boasted of by archers.

TO BOX THE COMPASS. To say or repeat the mariner's
  compass, not only backwards or forwards, but also to
  be able to answer any and all questions respecting its
  divisions. SEA TERM.

TO BOX THE JESUIT, AND GET COCK ROACHES. A sea
  term for masturbation; a crime, it is said, much practised
  by the reverend fathers of that society.

BRACE. The Brace tavern; a room in the S.E. corner of the
  King's Bench, where, for the convenience of prisoners
  residing thereabouts, beer purchased at the tap-house was
  retailed at a halfpenny per pot advance. It was kept by
  two brothers of the name of Partridge, and thence called
  the Brace.

BRACKET-FACED. Ugly, hard-featured.

BRAGGET. Mead and ale sweetened with honey.

BRAGGADOCIA. vain-glorious fellow, a boaster.

BRAINS. If you had as much brains as guts, what a clever
  fellow you would be! a saying to a stupid fat fellow. To
  have some guts in his brains; to know something.

BRAN-FACED. Freckled. He was christened by a baker,
  he carries the bran in his face.

BRANDY-FACED. Red-faced, as if from drinking brandy.

BRANDY. Brandy is Latin for a goose; a memento to
  prevent the animal from rising in the stomach by a
  glass of the good creature.

BRAT. A child or infant.

BRAY. A vicar of Bray; one who frequently changes his
  principles, always siding with the strongest party: an
  allusion to a vicar of Bray, in Berkshire, commemorated
  in a well-known ballad for the pliability of his conscience.

BRAZEN-FACED. Bold-faced, shameless, impudent.

BREAD AND BUTTER FASHION. One slice upon the
  other. John and his maid were caught lying bread and
  butter fashion.--To quarrel with one's bread and butter;
  to act contrary to one's interest. To know on which
  side one's bread is buttered; to know one's interest, or
  what is best for one. It is no bread and butter of mine;
  I have no business with it; or rather, I won't intermeddle,
  because I shall get nothing by it.

BREAK-TEETH WORDS. Hard words, difficult to pronounce.

BREAKING SHINS. Borrowing money; perhaps from the
  figurative operation being, like the real one, extremely
  disagreeable to the patient.

BREAD. Employment. Out of bread; out of employment.
  In bad bread; in a disagreeable scrape, or situation.

BREAD BASKET. The stomach; a term used by boxers.
  I took him a punch in his bread basket; i.e. I gave him
  a blow in the stomach.

BREAST FLEET. He or she belongs to the breast fleet; i.e. is
  a Roman catholic; an appellation derived from their custom
  of beating their breasts in the confession of their sins.

BREECHED. Money in the pocket: the swell is well
  breeched, let's draw him; the gentleman has plenty of
  money in his pocket, let us rob him.

BREECHES. To wear the breeches; a woman who governs
  her husband is said to wear the breeches.

BREECHES BIBLE. An edition of the Bible printed in
  1598, wherein it is said that Adam and Eve sewed figleaves
  together, and made themselves breeches.

BREEZE. To raise a breeze; to kick up a dust or breed a
  disturbance.

BRIDGE. To make a bridge of any one's nose; to push the
  bottle past him, so as to deprive him of his turn of filling
  his glass; to pass one over. Also to play booty, or
  purposely to avoid winning.

BRIM. (Abbreviation of Brimstone.) An abandoned woman;
  perhaps originally only a passionate or irascible
  woman, compared to brimstone for its inflammability.

BRISKET BEATER. A Roman catholic. SEE BREAST
  FLEET, and CRAW THUMPER.

BRISTOL MILK. A Spanish wine called sherry, much
  drunk at that place, particularly in the morning.

BRISTOL MAN. The son of an Irish thief and a Welch
  whore.

BRITISH CHAMPAIGNE. Porter.

BROGANIER. One who has a strong Irish pronunciation or
  accent.

BROGUE. A particular kind of shoe without a heel,
  worn in Ireland, and figuratively used to signify the
  Irish accent.

BROTHER OF THE BLADE. A soldier
          BUSKIN. A player.
          BUNG. A brewer
          QUILL. An author.
          STRING. A fiddler.
          WHIP. A coachman.

BROTHER STARLING. One who lies with the same woman,
  that is, builds in the same nest.

BROUGHTONIAN. A boxer: a disciple of Broughton,
  who was a beef-eater, and once the best boxer of his day.

BROWN BESS. A soldier's firelock. To hug brown Bess; to
  carry a firelock, or serve as a private soldier.

BROWN GEORGE. An ammunition loaf, A wig without
  powder; similar to the undress wig worn by his majesty.

BROWN MADAM, or MISS BROWN. The monosyllable.

BROWN STUDY. Said of one absent, in a reverie, or
  thoughtful.

BRUISER. A boxer; one skilled in the art of boxing  also
  an inferior workman among chasers.

BREWES, or BROWES. The fat scum from the pot in
  which salted beef is boiled.

TO BRUSH. To run away. Let us buy a brush and lope;
  let us go away or off. To have a brush with a woman; to
  lie with her. To have a brush with a man; to fight with
  him. The cove cracked the peter and bought a brush;
  the fellow broke open the trunk, and then ran away.

BRUSHER. A bumper, a full glass. See BUMPER.

BUB. Strong beer.

BUBBER. A drinking bowl; also a great drinker; a
  thief that steals plate from public houses. CANT.

THE BUBBLE. The party cheated, perhaps from his
  being like an air bubble, filled with words, which are
  only wind, instead of real property.

TO BUBBLE. To cheat.

TO BAR THE BUBBLE. To except against the general
  rule, that he who lays the odds must always be adjudged
  the loser: this is restricted to betts laid for liquor.

BUBBLY JOCK. A turkey cock. SCOTCH.

BUBBLE AND SQUEAK. Beef and cabbage fried together.
  It is so called from its bubbling up and squeaking whilst
  over the fire.

BUBE. The venereal disease.

BUCK. A blind horse; also a gay debauchee.

TO RUN A BUCK. To poll a bad vote at an election.--IRISH
  TERM.

BUCK BAIL. Bail given by a sharper for one of the gang.

A BUCK OF THE FIRST HEAD. One who in debauchery
  surpasses the rest of his companions, a blood or choice
  spirit. There are in London divers lodges or societies of
  Bucks, formed in imitation of the Free Masons: one was
  held at the Rose, in Monkwell-street, about the year
  1705. The president is styled the Grand Buck. A buck
  sometimes signifies a cuckold.

BUCK'S FACE. A cuckold.

BUCK FITCH. A lecherous old fellow.

BUCKEEN. A bully. IRISH.

BUCKET. To kick the bucket; to die.

BUCKINGER'S BOOT. The monosyllable. Matthew
  Buckinger was born without hands and legs; notwithstanding
  which he drew coats of arms very neatly, and
  could write the Lord's Prayer within the compass of a
  shilling; he was married to a tall handsome woman,
  and traversed the country, shewing himself for money.

BUCKLES. Fetters.

BUDGE, or SNEAKING BUDGE. One that slips into houses
  in the dark, to steal cloaks or other clothes. Also
  lambs' fur formerly used for doctors' robes, whence they
  were called budge doctors. Standing budge; a thief's
  scout or spy.

TO BUDGE. To move, or quit one's station. Don't budge
  from hence; i.e. don't move from hence, stay here.

BUDGET. A wallet. To open the budget; a term used
  to signify the notification of the taxes required by the
  minister for the expences of the ensuing year; as To-morrow
  the minister will go to the house, and open the
  budget.

BUFE. A dog. Bufe's nob; a dog's head. CANT.

BUFE NABBER. A dog stealer. CANT.

BUFF. All in buff; stript to the skin, stark naked.

BUFF. To stand buff; to stand the brunt. To swear as a
  witness. He buffed it home; and I was served; he
  swore hard against me, and I was found guilty.

BUFFER. One that steals and kills horses and dogs for
  their skins; also an inn-keeper: in Ireland it signifies a
  boxer.

BUFFER. A man who takes an oath: generally applied to
  Jew bail.

BUFFLE-HEADED. Confused, stupid.

BUG. A nick name given by the Irish to Englishmen;
  bugs having, as it is said, been introduced into Ireland by
  the English.

TO BUG. A cant word among journeymen hatters, signifying
  the exchanging some of the dearest materials of
  which a hat is made for others of less value. Hats are
  composed of the furs and wool of divers animals among
  which is a small portion of beavers' fur. Bugging, is
  stealing the beaver, and substituting in lieu thereof an equal
  weight of some cheaper ingredient.--Bailiffs who take
  money to postpone or refrain the serving of a writ, are
  said to bug the writ.

BUG-HUNTER. An upholsterer.

BUGABOE. A scare-babe, or bully-beggar.

BUGAROCH. Comely, handsome. IRISH.

BUGGY. A one-horse chaise.

BUGGER. A blackguard, a rascal, a term of reproach. Mill
  the bloody bugger; beat the damned rascal.

BULK AND FILE. Two pickpockets; the bulk jostles the
  party to be robbed, and the file does the business.

BULKER. One who lodges all night on a bulk or projection
  before old-fashioned shop windows.

BULL. An Exchange Alley term for one who buys stock
  on speculation for time, i.e. agrees with the seller, called
  a Bear, to take a certain sum of stock at a future day, at a
  stated price: if at that day stock fetches more than the
  price agreed on, he receives the difference; if it falls or is
  cheaper, he either pays it, or becomes a lame duck, and
  waddles out of the Alley. See LAME DUCK and BEAR.

BULL. A blunder; from one Obadiah Bull, a blundering
  lawyer of London, who lived in the reign of Henery VII.
  by a bull is now always meant a blunder made by an Irishman.
  A bull was also the name of false hair formerly
  much worn by women. To look like bull beef, or as bluff
  as bull beef; to look fierce or surly. Town bull, a great
  whore-master.

BULL. A crown piece. A half bull; half a crown.

BULL BEGGAR, or BULLY BEGGAR. An imaginary
  being with which children are threatened by servants
  and nurses, like raw head and bloody bones.

BULL CALF. A great hulkey or clumsy fellow. See
  HULKEY.

BULL CHIN. A fat chubby child.

BULL DOGS. Pistols.

BULL HANKERS. Persons who over-drive bulls, or
  frequent bull baits.

BULL'S EYE. A crown-piece.

BULL'S FEATHER. A horn: he wears the bull's feather; he
  is a cuckold.

TO BULLOCK. To hector, bounce, or bully.

BULLY. A cowardly fellow, who gives himself airs of
  great bravery. A bully huff cap; a hector. See HECTOR.

BULLY BACK. A bully to a bawdy-house; one who is
  kept in pay, to oblige the frequenters of the house to submit
  to the impositions of the mother abbess, or bawd; and
  who also sometimes pretends to be the husband of one of
  the ladies, and under that pretence extorts money from
  greenhorns, or ignorant young men, whom he finds with her.
  See GREENHORN.

BULLY COCK. One who foments quarrels in order to rob
  the persons quarrelling.

BULLY RUFFIANS. Highwaymen who attack passengers
  with paths and imprecations.

BULLY TRAP. A brave man with a mild or effeminate
  appearance, by whom bullies are frequently taken in.

BUM. the breech, or backside.

TO BUM. To arrest a debtor. The gill bummed the
  swell for a thimble; the tradesman arrested the
  gentleman for a watch.

BUM TRAP. A sheriff's officer who arrests debtors.
  Ware hawke! the bum traps are fly to our panney; keep a
  good look out, the bailiffs know where our house is
  situated.

BUM BAILIFF. A sheriff's officer, who arrests debtors; so
  called perhaps from following his prey, and being at their
  bums, or, as the vulgar phrase is, hard at their a-ses.
  Blackstone says, it is a corruption of bound bailiff, from
  their being obliged to give bond for their good behaviour.

BUM BRUSHER. A schoolmaster.

BUM BOAT. A boat attending ships to retail greens,
  drams, &c. commonly rowed by a woman; a kind of
  floating chandler's shop,

BUM FODDER. Soft paper for the necessary house or
  torchecul.

BUMFIDDLE. The backside, the breech. See ARS MUSICA.

BUMBO. Brandy, water, and sugar; also the negro name for
  the private parts of a woman.

BUMKIN. A raw country fellow.

BUMMED. Arrested.

BUMPER. A full glass; in all likelihood from its convexity
  or bump at the top: some derive it from a full glass
  formerly drunk to the health of the pope--AU BON PERE.

BUMPING. A ceremony performed on boys perambulating
  the bounds of the parish on Whit-monday, when they
  have their posteriors bumped against the stones marking
  the boundaries, in order to fix them in their memory.

BUN. A common name for a rabbit, also for the monosyllable.
  To touch bun for luck; a practice observed among
  sailors going on a cruize.

BUNDLING. A man and woman sleeping in the same bed, he
  with his small clothes, and she with her petticoats on; an
  expedient practised in America on a scarcity of beds, where,
  on such an occasion, husbands and parents frequently
  permitted travellers to bundle with their wives and daughters.
  This custom is now abolished. See Duke of Rochefoucalt's
  Travels in America,

BUNG UPWARDS. Said of a person lying on his face.

BUNG YOUR EYE. Drink a dram; strictly speaking, to
  drink till one's eye is bunged up or closed.

BUNT. An apron.

BUNTER. A low dirty prostitute, half whore and half beggar.

BUNTLINGS. Petticoats. CANT.

BURN CRUST. A jocular name for a baker.

BURN THE KEN. Strollers living in an alehouse without paying
  their quarters, are said to burn the ken. CANT.

BURNING SHAME. A lighted candle stuck into the parts of a
  woman, certainly not intended by nature for a candlestick.

BURNER. A clap. The blowen tipped the swell a burner;
  the girl gave the gentleman a clap.

BURNER. He is no burner of navigable rivers; i.e. he is no
  conjuror, or man of extraordinary abilities; or rather,
  he is, but a simple fellow. See THAMES.

BURNT. Poxed or clapped. He was sent out a sacrifice, and
  came home a burnt offering; a saying of seamen who have
  caught the venereal disease abroad. He has burnt his
  fingers; he has suffered by meddling.

BURR. A hanger on, or dependant; an allusion to the field
  burrs, which are not easily got rid of. Also the Northumbrian
  pronunciation: the people of that country, but
  chiefly about Newcastle and Morpeth, are said to have a
  burr in their throats, particularly called the Newcastle
  burr.

BUSHEL BUBBY. A full breasted woman.

BUSK. A piece of whalebone or ivory, formerly worn by
  women, to stiffen the forepart of their stays: hence the
  toast--Both ends of the busk.

BUSS BEGGAR. An old superannuated fumbler, whom none
  but beggars will suffer to kiss them.

BUS-NAPPER. A constable. CANT.

BUS-NAPPER'S KENCHIN. A watchman. CANT.

BUSY. As busy is the devil in a high wind; as busy as a hen
  with one chick.

BUTCHER'S DOG. To be like a butcher's dog, i.e. lie by the
  beef without touching it; a simile often applicable to
  married men.

BUTCHER'S HORSE. That must have been a butcher's
  horse, by his carrying a calf so well; a vulgar joke on an
  awkward rider.

BUTT. A dependant, poor relation, or simpleton, on whom
  all kinds of practical jokes are played off; and who serves
  as a butt for all the shafts of wit and ridicule.

BUTTER BOX. A Dutchman, from the great quantity of
  butter eaten by the people of that country.

BUTTERED BUN. One lying with a woman that has just lain
  with another man, is said to have a buttered bun.

BUTTER AND EGGS TROT.  A kind of short jogg trot, such
  as is used by women going to market, with butter and
  eggs.--he looks as if butter would not melt in her mouth,
  yet I warrant you cheese would not choak her; a saying
  of a demure looking woman, of suspected character. Don't
  make butter dear; a gird at the patient angler.

BUTTOCK. A whore. CANT.

BUTTOCK BROKER. A bawd, or match-maker. CANT.

BUTTOCK BALL. The amorous congress. CANT.

BUTTOCK AND FILE. A common whore and a pick-pocket.
  Cant.

BUTTOCK AND TWANG, or DOWN BUTTOCK AND SHAM
  FILE. A common whore, but no pickpocket.

BUTTOCK AND TONGUE. A scolding wife.

BUTTOCKING SHOP. A brothel.

BUTTON. A bad shilling, among coiners. His a-se makes
  buttons; he is ready to bewray himself through fear. CANT.

BUZMAN. A pickpocket. CANT.

BUZZARD. A simple fellow. A blind buzzard: a
  pur-blind man or woman.

BYE BLOW. A bastard.

CABBAGE. Cloth, stuff, or silk purloined by laylors from
  their employers, which they deposit in a place called
  HELL, or their EYE: from the first, when taxed, with their
  knavery, they equivocally swear, that if they have taken
  any, they wish they may find it in HELL; or, alluding to the
  second, protest, that what they have over and above is
  not more than they could put in their EYE.--When the scrotum
  is relaxed or whiffled, it is said they will not cabbage.

CAB. A brothel. Mother: how  many tails have you in
  your cab? how many girls have you in your bawdy house?

CACAFEOGO. A sh-te-fire, a furious braggadocio or bully
  huff.

CACKLE. To blab, or discover secrets. The cull is leaky,
  and cackles; the rogue tells all. CANT. See LEAKY.

CACKLER. A hen.

CACKLER'S KEN. A hen roost. CANT.

CACKLING CHEATS. Fowls. CANT.

CACKLING FARTS. Eggs. CANT.

CADDEE. A helper. An under-strapper.

CADGE. To beg. Cadge the swells; beg of the gentlemen.

CAFFAN. Cheese. CANT.

CAGG. To cagg; a military term used by the private soldiers,
  signifying a solemn vow or resolution not to get
  drunk for a certain time; or, as the term is, till their cagg
  is out: which vow is commonly observed with the strictest
  exactness. Ex. I have cagg'd myself for six months.
  Excuse me this time, and I will cagg myself for
  a year. This term is also used in the same sense among
  the common people of Scotland, where it is performed
  with divers ceremonies.

CAG. To be cagged. To be sulky or out of humour. The
  cove carries the cag; the man is vexed or sullen.

CAG MAGG. Bits and scraps of provisions. Bad meat.

CAGG MAGGS. Old Lincolnshire geese, which having been
  plucked ten or twelve years, are sent up to London to
  feast the cockneys.

CAKE, or CAKEY. A foolish fellow.

CALF-SKIN FIDDLE. A drum. To smack calf's skin; to
  kiss the book in taking an oath. It is held by the St.
  Giles's casuists, that by kissing one's thumb instead of
  smacking calf's skin, the guilt of taking a false oath is
  avoided.

CALVES. His calves are gone to grass; a saying of a man
  with slender legs without calves. Veal will be cheap,
  calves fall; said of a man whose calves fall away.

CALVES HEAD CLUB. A club instituted by the Independents
  and Presbyterians, to commemorate the decapitation
  of King Charles I. Their chief fare was calves heads; and
  they drank their wine and ale out of calves skulls.

CALIBOGUS. Rum and spruce beer, American beverage.

CALLE. A cloak or gown. CANT.

CAMBRIDGE FORTUNE. A wind-mill and a water-mill,
  used to signify a woman without any but personal endowments.

CAMBRIDGE OAK. A willow.

CAMBRADE. A chamber fellow; a Spanish military term.
  Soldiers were in that country divided into chambers, five
  men making a chamber, whence it was generally used to
  signify companion.

CAMESA. A shirt or shift. CANT. SPANISH.

CAMP CANDLESTICK. A bottle, or soldier's bayonet.

CAMPBELL'S ACADEMY. The hulks or lighters, on
  board of which felons are condemned to hard labour.
  Mr. Campbell was the first director of them. See
  ACADEMY and FLOATING ACADEMY.

CANARY BIRD. A jail bird, a person used to be kept in
  a cage; also, in the canting sense, guineas.

CANDLESTICKS. Bad, small, or untunable bells. Hark!
  how the candlesticks rattle.

CANDY. Drunk. IRISH.

CANE. To lay Cane upon Abel; to beat any one with a
  cane or stick.

CANK. Dumb.

CANNISTER. The head. To mill his cannister; to break
  his head.

CANNIKIN. A small can: also, in the canting sense,
  the plague.

CANT. An hypocrite, a double-tongue palavering fellow.
  See PALAVER.

CANT. To cant; to toss or throw: as, Cant a slug into
  your bread room; drink a dram. SEA WIT.

CANTICLE. A parish clerk.

CANTING. Preaching with a whining, affected tone, perhaps
  a corruption of chaunting; some derive it from Andrew
  Cant, a famous Scotch preacher, who used that whining
  manner of expression. Also a kind of gibberish used by
  thieves and gypsies, called likewise pedlar's French, the
  slang, &c. &c.

CANTERS, or THE CANTING CREW. Thieves, beggars, and
  gypsies, or any others using the canting lingo. See LINGO.

CANTERBURY STORY. A long roundabout tale.

TO CAP. To take one's oath. I will cap downright; I will
  swear home. CANT.

TO CAP. To take off one's hat or cap. To cap the quadrangle;
  a lesson of humility, or rather servility, taught
  undergraduates at the university, where they are obliged to
  cross the area of the college cap in hand, in reverence to
  the fellows who sometimes walk there. The same ceremony
  is observed on coming on the quarter deck of ships of
  war, although no officer should be on it.

TO CAP. To support another's assertion or tale. To assist
  a man in cheating. The file kidded the joskin with sham
  books, and his pall capped; the deep one cheated the
  countryman with false cards, and his confederate assisted
  in the fraud.

CAP ACQUAINTANCE. Persons slightly acquainted, or only
  so far as mutually to salute with the hat on meeting. A
  woman who endeavours to attract the notice of any particular
  man, is said to set her cap at him.

CAPER MERCHANT. A dancing master, or hop merchant;
  marchand des capriolles. FRENCH TERM.--To cut papers; to
  leap or jump in dancing. See HOP MERCHANT.

CAPPING VERSES. Repeating Latin Verses in turn, beginning
  with the letter with which the last speaker left off.

CAPON. A castrated cock, also an eunuch.

CAPRICORNIFIED. Cuckolded, hornified.

CAPSIZE. To overturn or reverse. He took his broth till
  he capsized; he drank till he fell out of his chair. SEA
  TERM.

CAPTAIN. Led captain; an humble dependant in a great
  family, who for a precarious subsistence, and distant hopes
  of preferment, suffers every kind of indignity, and is the
  butt of every species of joke or ill-humour. The small
  provision made for officers of the army and navy in time of
  peace, obliges many in both services to occupy this wretched
  station. The idea of the appellation is taken from a led horse,
  many of which for magnificence appear in the retinues
  of great personages on solemn occasions, such as processions,
  &c.

CAPTAIN COPPERTHORNE'S CREW. All officers; a saying
  of a company where everyone strives to rule.

CAPTAIN LIEUTENANT. Meat between veal and beef, the
  flesh of an old calf; a military simile, drawn from the
  officer of that denomination, who has only the pay of a
  lieutenant, with the rank of captain; and so is not entirely
  one or the other, but between both.

CAPTAIN PODD. A celebrated master of a puppet-shew, in
  Ben Johnson's time, whose name became a common one
  to signify any of that fraternity.

CAPTAIN QUEERNABS. A shabby ill-dressed fellow.

CAPTAIN SHARP. A cheating bully, or one in a set of
  gamblers, whose office is to bully any pigeon, who, suspecting
  roguery, refuses to pay what he has lost. CANT.

CAPTAIN TOM. The leader of a mob; also the mob itself.

CARAVAN. A large sum of money; also, a person cheated
  of such sum. CANT.

CARBUNCLE FACE. A red face, full of pimples.

CARDINAL. A cloak in fashion about the year 1760.

To CAROUSE. To drink freely or deep: from the German
  word expressing ALL OUT.

CARRIERS. A set of rogues who are employed to look out
  and watch upon the roads, at inns, &c. in order to carry
  information to their respective gangs, of a booty in
  prospect.

CARRIERS. Pigeons which carry expresses.

CARRION HUNTER. An undertaker; called also a cold
  cook, and death hunter. See COLD COOK and DEATH
  HUNTER.

CARROTS. Red hair.

CARROTTY-PATED. Ginger-hackled, red-haired. See
  GINGER-HACKLED.

CARRY WITCHET. A sort of conundrum, puzzlewit, or
  riddle.

CART. To put the cart before the horse; to mention the
  last part of a story first. To be flogged at the cart's a-se or
  tail; persons guilty of petty larceny are frequently
  sentenced to be tied to the tail of a cart, and whipped by the
  common executioner, for a certain distance: the degree
  of severity in the execution is left to the discretion of the
  executioner, who, it is said, has cats of nine tails of all
  prices.

CARTING. The punishment formerly inflicted on bawds,
  who were placed in a tumbrel or cart, and led through
  a town, that their persons might be known.

CARVEL'S RING. The private parts of a woman. Ham
  Carvel, a jealous old doctor, being in bed with his wife,
  dreamed that the Devil gave him a ring, which, so long as
  he had it on his finger, would prevent his being made a
  cuckold: waking he found he had got his finger the Lord
  knows where. See Rabelais, and Prior's versification of
  the story.

TO CASCADE. To vomit.

CASE. A house; perhaps from the Italian CASA. In the canting
  lingo it meant store or ware house, as well as a dwelling
  house. Tout that case; mark or observe that house.
  It is all bob, now let's dub the gig of the case; now the
  coast is clear, let us break open the door of the house.

CASE VROW. A prostitute attached to a particular bawdy
  house.

CASH, or CAFFAN. Cheese; CANT. See CAFFAN.

CASTER. A cloak. CANT.

CASTOR. A hat. To prig a castor; to steal a hat.

CASTING UP ONE'S ACCOUNTS. Vomiting.

CAT. A common prostitute. An old cat; a cross old woman.

CAT-HEADS. A Woman's breasts. SEA PHRASE.

TO CAT, or SHOOT THE CAT. To vomit from drunkenness.

CAT AND BAGPIPEAN SOCIETY. A society which met at
  their office in the great western road: in their summons,
  published in the daily papers, it was added, that the kittens
  might come with the old cats without being scratched.

CAT CALL. A kind of whistle, chiefly used at theatres, to
  interrupt the actors, and damn a new piece. It derives
  its name from one of its sounds, which greatly resembles
  the modulation of an intriguing boar cat.

CAT HARPING FASHION. Drinking cross-ways, and not, as
  usual, over the left thumb. SEA TERM.

CAT IN PAN. To turn cat in pan, to change sides or
  parties; supposed originally to have been to turn CATE or CAKE
  in pan.

CAT'S FOOT. To live under the cat's foot; to be under the
  dominion of a wife hen-pecked. To live like dog and cat;
  spoken of married persons who live unhappily together.
  As many lives as a cat; cats, according to vulgar
  naturalists, have nine lives, that is one less than a woman.
  No more chance than a cat in hell without claws; said of
  one who enters into a dispute or quarrel with one greatly
  above his match.

CAT LAP. Tea, called also scandal broth. See SCANDAL
  BROTH.

CAT MATCH. When a rook or cully is engaged amongst
  bad bowlers.

CAT OF NINE TAILS. A scourge composed of nine strings
  of whip-cord, each string having nine knots.

CAT'S PAW. To be made a cat's paw of; to be made a tool
  or instrument to accomplish the purpose of another: an
  allusion to the story of a monkey, who made use of a cat's
  paw to scratch a roasted chesnut out of the fire.

CAT'S SLEEP. Counterfeit sleep: cats often counterfeiting
  sleep, to decoy their prey near them, and then suddenly
  spring on them.

CAT STICKS. Thin legs, compared to sticks with which
  boys play at cat. See TRAPSTICKS.

CAT WHIPPING, or WHIPPING THE CAT. A trick often
  practised on ignorant country fellows, vain of their strength,
  by laying a wager with them that they may be pulled
  through a pond by a cat. The bet being made, a rope is
  fixed round the waist of the party to be catted, and the
  end thrown across the pond, to which the cat is also
  fastened by a packthread, and three or four sturdy fellows
  are appointed to lead and whip the cat; these on a signal
  given, seize the end of the cord, and pretending to whip
  the cat, haul the astonished booby through the water.--To
  whip the cat, is also a term among tailors for working
  jobs at private houses, as practised in the country.

CATAMARAN. An old scraggy woman; from a kind of float
  made of spars and yards lashed together, for saving
  ship-wrecked persons.

CATCH CLUB. A member of the patch club; a bum bailiff.

CATCH FART. A footboy; so called from such servants
  commonly following close behind their master or mistress.

CATCH PENNY. Any temporary contrivance to raise a
  contribution on the public.

CATCH POLE. A bum bailiff, or sheriff's officer.

CATCHING HARVEST. A dangerous time for a robbery,
  when many persons are on the road, on account of a
  horse-race, fair, or some other public meeting.

CATER COUSINS. Good friends. He and I are not cater
  cousins, i.e. we are not even cousins in the fourth degree,
  or four times removed; that is, we have not the least
  friendly connexion.

CATERPILLAR. A nick name for a soldier. In the year
  1745, a soldier quartered at a house near Derby, was desired
  by his landlord to call upon him, whenever he came
  that way; for, added he, soldiers are the pillars of the
  nation. The rebellion being finished, it happened the same
  regiment was quartered in Derbyshire, when the soldier
  resolved to accept of his landlord's invitation, and
  accordingly obtained leave to go to him: but, on his arrival,
  he was greatly surprised to find a very cold reception;
  whereupon expostulating with his landlord, he reminded him of
  his invitation, and the circumstance of his having said,
  soldiers were the pillars of the nation. If I did, answered the
  host, I meant CATERpiliars.

CATERWAULING. Going out in the night in search of
  intrigues, like a cat in the gutters.

CATHEDRAL. Old-fashioned. An old cathedral-bedstead,
  chair, &c.

CATTLE. Sad cattle: whores or gypsies. Black cattle,
  bugs. CANT.

CAVAULTING SCHOOL. A Bawdy-house.

CAUDGE-PAWED. Left-handed.

CAULIFLOWER. A large white wig, such as is commonly
  worn by the dignified clergy, and was formerly by physicians.
  Also the private parts of a woman; the reason for
  which appellation is given in the following story: A
  woman, who was giving evidence in a cause wherein it was
  necessary to express those parts, made use of the term
  cauliflower; for which the judge on the bench, a peevish
  old fellow, reproved her, saying she might as well call it
  artichoke. Not so, my lord, replied she; for an artichoke
  has a bottom, but a **** and a cauliflower have none.

CAUTIONS. The four cautions: I. Beware of a woman
  before.--II. Beware of a horse behind.--III. Beware of a cart
  side-ways.--IV. Beware of a priest every way.

CAW-HANDED, or CAW-PAWED. Awkward, not dextrous,
  ready, or nimble.

CAXON. An old weather-beaten wig.

CENT PER CENT. An usurer.

CHAFED. Well beaten; from CHAUFFE, warmed.

CHALKERS. Men of wit, in Ireland, who in the night amuse
  themselves with cutting inoffensive passengers across the
  face with a knife. They are somewhat like those facetious
  gentlemen some time ago known in England by the title
  of Sweaters and Mohocks.

CHALKING. The amusement above described.

CHAP. A fellow; An odd chap; A strange fellow.

CHAPERON. The cicisbeo, or gentleman usher to a lady;
  from the French.

CHAPT. Dry or thirsty.

CHARACTERED, or LETTERED. Burnt in the hand. They
  have palmed the character upon him; they have burned
  him in the hand, CANT.--See LETTERED.

CHARM. A picklock. CANT.

CHARREN. The smoke of Charren.--His eyes water from
  the smoke of Charren; a man of that place coming out
  of his house weeping, because his wife had beat him, told
  his neighbours the smoke had made his eyes water.

CHATTER BOX. One whose tongue runs twelve score to the
  dozen, a chattering man or woman.

CHATTER BROTH. Tea. See CAT LAP and SCANDAL BROTH.

CHATTS. Lice: perhaps an abbreviation of chattels, lice
  being the chief live stock of chattels of beggars, gypsies,
  and the rest of the canting crew. CANT.--Also, according
  to the canting academy, the gallows.

CHATES. The gallows. CANT.

CHAUNTER CULLS. Grub-street writers, who compose
  songs, carrols, &c. for ballad-singers. CANT.

CHAUNT. A song.

TO CHAUNT. To sing. To publish an account in the newspapers.
  The kiddey was chaunted for a toby; his examination
  concerning a highway robbery was published in
  the papers.

CHAW BACON. A countryman. A stupid fellow.

CHEAPSIDE. He came at it by way of Cheapside; he gave
  little or nothing for it, he bought it cheap.

CHEATS. Sham sleeves to put over a dirty shift or shirt.
  See SHAMS.

CHEEK BY JOWL. Side by side, hand to fist.

CHEEKS. Ask cheeks near cunnyborough; the repartee of a
  St. Gilse's fair one, who bids you ask her backside, anglice
  her a-se. A like answer is current in France: any one
  asking the road or distance to Macon, a city near Lyons,
  would be answered by a French lady of easy virtue,
  'Mettez votre nez dans mon cul, & vous serrez dans les
  Fauxbourgs.'

CHEESE-TOASTER. A sword.

CHEESE IT; Be silent, be quiet, don't do it. Cheese it, the
  coves are fly; be silent, the people understand our discourse.

CHEESER. A strong smelling fart.

CHELSEA. A village near London, famous for the military
  hospital. To get Chelsea; to obtain the benefit of that
  hospital. Dead Chelsea, by G-d! an exclamation uttered by
  a grenadier at Fontenoy, on having his leg carried away by
  a cannon-ball.

CHEST OF TOOLS. A shoe-black's brush and wig, &c. Irish.

CHERRY-COLOURED CAT. A black cat, there being black
  cherries as well as red.

CHERUBIMS. Peevish children, because cherubims and seraphims
  continually do cry.

CHESHIRE CAT. He grins like a Cheshire cat; said of anyone
  who shews his teeth and gums in laughing.

CHICK-A-BIDDY. A chicken, so called to and by little children.

CHICKEN-BREASTED. Said of a woman with scarce any breasts.

CHICKEN BUTCHER. A poulterer.

CHICKEN-HAMMED. Persons whose legs and thighs are bent
  or archward outwards.

CHICKEN-HEARTED. Fearful, cowardly.

CHICKEN NABOB. One returned from the East Indies with but
  a moderate fortune of fifty or sixty thousand pounds, a
  diminutive nabob: a term borrowed from the chicken turtle.

CHILD. To eat a child; to partake of a treat given to the
  parish officers, in part of commutation for a bastard child
  the common price was formerly ten pounds and a greasy
  chin. See GREASY CHIN.

CHIMNEY CHOPS. An abusive appellation for a negro.

CHINK. Money.

CHIP. A child. A chip of the old block; a child who either
  in person or sentiments resembles its father or mother.

CHIP. A brother chip; a person of the same trade or calling.

CHIPS, A nick name for a carpenter.

CHIRPING MERRY. Exhilarated with liquor. Chirping glass,
  a cheerful glass, that makes the company chirp like birds
  in spring.

CHIT. An infant or baby.

CHITTERLINS. The bowels. There is a rumpus among my
  bowels, i.e. I have the colic. The frill of a shirt.

CHITTY-FACED. Baby-faced; said of one who has a childish
  look.

CHIVE, or CHIFF. A knife, file: or saw. To chive the
  darbies; to file off the irons or fetters. To chive the bouhgs
  of the frows; to cut off women's pockets.

CHIVEY. I gave him a good chivey; I gave him, a hearty
Scolding.

CHIVING LAY. Cutting the braces of coaches behind, on
  which the coachman quitting the box, an accomplice robs
  the boot; also, formerly, cutting the back of the coach to
  steal the fine large wigs then worn.

CHOAK. Choak away, the churchyard's near; a jocular saying
  to a person taken with a violent fit of coughing, or who
  has swallowed any thing, as it is called the wrong way;
  Choak, chicken, more are hatching: a like consolation.

CHOAK PEAR. Figuratively, an unanswerable objection: also
  a machine formerly used in Holland by robbers; it was of
  iron, shaped like a pear; this they forced into the mouths
  of persons from whom they intended to extort money; and
  on turning a key, certain interior springs thrust forth a
  number of points, in all directions, which so enlarged it,
  that it could not be taken out of the mouth: and the iron,
  being case-hardened, could not be filed: the only methods
  of getting rid of it, were either by cutting the mouth, or
  advertizing a reward for the key, These pears were also
  called pears of agony.

CHOAKING PYE, or COLD PYE, A punishment inflicted
  on any person sleeping in company: it consists in wrapping
  up cotton in a case or tube of paper, setting it on
  fire, and directing the smoke up the nostrils of the sleeper.
  See HOWELL'S COTGRAVE.

CHOCOLATE. To give chocolate without sugar; to reprove.
  MILITARY TERM.

CHOICE SPIRIT. A thoughtless, laughing, singing, drunken fellow.

CHOP. A blow. Boxing term.

TO CHOP AND CHANGE. To exchange backwards and forwards.
  To chop, in the canting sense, means making
  dispatch, or hurrying over any business: ex. The AUTEM
  BAWLER will soon quit the HUMS, for he CHOPS UP the WHINERS;
  the parson will soon quit the pulpit, for he hurries over
  the prayers. See AUTEM BAWLER, HUMS, and WHINERS,

CHOP CHURCHES. Simoniacal dealers in livings, or other
  ecclesiastical preferments.

CHOPPING, LUSTY. A chopping boy or girl; a lusty
  child.

CHOPS. The mouth. I gave him a wherrit, or a souse,
  across the chops; I gave him a blow over the mouth,
  See WHERRIT.

CHOP-STICK. A fork.

CHOUDER. A sea-dish, composed of fresh fish, salt pork,
  herbs, and sea-biscuits, laid in different layers, and stewed
  together.

TO CHOUSE. To cheat or trick: he choused me out of it.
  Chouse is also the term for a game like chuck-farthing.

CHRIST-CROSS ROW. The alphabet in a horn-book: called
  Christ-cross Row, from having, as an Irishman observed,
  Christ's cross PREFIXED before and AFTER the twenty-four
  letters.

CHRISTENING. Erasing the name of the true maker from
  a stolen watch, and engraving a fictitious one in its place.

CHRISTIAN PONEY. A chairman.

CHRISTIAN. A tradesman who has faith, i.e. will give credit.

CHRISTMAS COMPLIMENTS. A cough, kibed heels, and a snotty nose.

CHUB. He is a young chub, or a mere chub; i.e. a foolish
  fellow, easily imposed on: an illusion to a fish of that
  name, easily taken.

CHUBBY. Round-faced, plump.

CHUCK. My chuck; a term of endearment.

CHUCK FARTHING. A parish clerk.

CHUCKLE-HEADED. Stupid, thick-headed.

CHUFFY. Round-faced, chubby.

CHUM. A chamber-fellow, particularly at the universities
  and in prison.

CHUMMAGE. Money paid by the richer sort of prisoners
  in the Fleet and King's Bench, to the poorer, for their
  share of a room. When prisons are very full, which is
  too often the case, particularly on the eve of an insolvent
  act, two or three persons are obliged to sleep in a room. A
  prisoner who can pay for being alone, chuses two poor
  chums, who for a stipulated price, called chummage,
  give up their share of the room, and sleep on the stairs,
  or, as the term is, ruff it.

CHUNK. Among printers, a journeyman who refuses to
  work for legal wages; the same as the flint among taylors.
  See FLINT.

CHURCH WARDEN. A Sussex name for a shag, or cormorant, probably
  from its voracity.

CHURCH WORK. Said of any work that advances slowly.

CHURCHYARD COUGH. A cough that is likely to terminate
  in death.

CHURK. The udder.

CHURL. Originally, a labourer or husbandman: figuratively
  a rude, surly, boorish fellow. To put a churl upon a gentleman;
  to drink malt liquor immediately after having drunk wine.

CINDER GARBLER. A servant maid, from her business of
  sifting the ashes from the cinders. CUSTOM-HOUSE WIT.

CIRCUMBENDIBUS. A roundabout way, or story. He
  took such a circumbendibus; he took such a circuit.

CIT. A citizen of London.

CITY COLLEGE. Newgate.

CIVILITY MONEY. A reward claimed by bailiffs for executing
  their office with civility.

CIVIL RECEPTION. A house of civil reception; a bawdy-house,
  or nanny-house. See NANNY-HOUSE.

CLACK. A tongue, chiefly applied to women; a simile drawn
  from the clack of a water-mill.

CLACK-LOFT. A pulpit, so called by orator Henley.

CLAMMED. Starved.

CLAN. A family's tribe or brotherhood; a word much used
  in Scotland. The head of the clan; the chief: an allusion
  to a story of a Scotchman, who, when a very large
  louse crept down his arm, put him back again, saying he
  was the head of the clan, and that, if injured, all the rest
  would resent it.

CLANK. A silver tankard. CANT.

CLANK NAPPER. A silver tankard stealer. See RUM BUBBER.

CLANKER. A great lie.

CLAP. A venereal taint. He went out by Had'em, and came
  round by Clapham home; i.e. he went out a wenching,
  and got a clap.

CLAP ON THE SHOULDER. An arrest for debt; whence a
  bum bailiff is called a shoulder-clapper.

CLAPPER. The tongue of a bell, and figuratively of a man
  or woman.

CLAPPER CLAW. To scold, to abuse, or claw off with the
  tongue.

CLAPPERDOGEON. A beggar born. CANT.

CLARET. French red wine; figuratively, blood. I tapped
  his claret; I broke his head, and made the blood run.
  Claret-faced; red-faced.

CLAWED OFF. Severely beaten or whipped; also smartly
  poxed or clapped.

CLEAR. Very drunk. The cull is clear, let's bite him; the
  fellow is very drunk, let's cheat him. CANT.

CLEAVER. One that will cleave; used of a forward or
  wanton woman.

CLEAN. Expert; clever. Amongst the knuckling coves he
  is reckoned very clean; he is considered very expert as
  a pickpocket.

CLERKED. Soothed, funned, imposed on. The cull will
  not be clerked; i.e. the fellow will not be imposed on by
  fair words.

CLEYMES. Artificial sores, made by beggars to excite
  charity.

CLICK. A blow. A click in the muns; a blow or knock
  in the face. CANT.

TO CLICK. To snatch. To click a nab; to snatch a hat.
  CANT.

CLICKER. A salesman's servant; also, one who proportions
  out the different shares of the booty among thieves.

CLICKET. Copulation of foxes; and thence used, in a
  canting sense, for that of men and women: as, The cull
  and the mort are at clicket in the dyke; the man and
  woman are copulating in the ditch.

CLIMB. To climb the three trees with a ladder; to ascend
  the gallows.

CLINCH. A pun or quibble. To clinch, or to clinch the
  nail; to confirm an improbable story by another: as, A
  man swore he drove a tenpenny nail through the moon;
  a bystander said it was true, for he was on the other side
  and clinched it.

CLINK. A place in the Borough of Southwark, formerly
  privileged from arrests; and inhabited by lawless vagabonds
  of every denomination, called, from the place of
  their residence, clinkers. Also a gaol, from the clinking
  of the prisoners' chains or fetters: he is gone to clink.

CLINKERS. A kind of small Dutch bricks; also irons worn
  by prisoners; a crafty fellow.

TO CLIP. To hug or embrace: to clip and cling. To clip
  the coin; to diminish the current coin. To clip the king's
  English; to be unable to speak plain through drunkenness.

CLOAK TWITCHERS. Rogues who lurk about the entrances
  into dark alleys, and bye-lanes, to snatch cloaks from the
  shoulders of passengers.

CLOD HOPPER. A country farmer, or ploughman.

CLOD PATE. A dull, heavy booby.

CLOD POLE. The same.

CLOSE. As close as God's curse to a whore's a-se: close as
  shirt and shitten a-se.

CLOSE-FISTED. Covetous or stingy.

CLOSH. A general name given by the mobility to Dutch
  seamen, being a corruption of CLAUS, the abbreviation of
  Nicholas, a name very common among the men of that
  nation.

CLOTH MARKET. He is just come from the cloth market,
  i.e. from between the sheets, he is just risen from bed.

CLOUD. Tobacco. Under a cloud; in adversity.

CLOVEN, CLEAVE, or CLEFT. A term used for a woman
  who passes for a maid, but is not one.

CLOVEN FOOT. To spy the cloven foot in any business; to
  discover some roguery or something bad in it: a saying
  that alludes to a piece of vulgar superstition, which is,
  that, let the Devil transform himself into what shape he
  will, he cannot hide his cloven foot

TO CHUCK. To shew a propensity for a man. The mors
  chucks; the wench wants to be doing.

CLOUT. A blow. I'll give you a clout on your jolly nob;
  I'll give you a blow on your head. It also means a
  handkerchief. CANT. Any pocket handkerchief except
  a silk one.

CLOUTED SHOON. Shoes tipped with iron.

CLOUTING LAY. Picking pockets of handkerchiefs.

CLOVER. To be, or live, in clover; to live luxuriously.
  Clover is the most desirable food for cattle.

CLOWES. Rogues.

CLOY. To steal. To cloy the clout; to steal the handkerchief.
  To cloy the lour; to steal money. CANT.

CLOVES. Thieves, robbers, &c.

CLUB. A meeting or association, where each man is to spend
  an equal and stated sum, called his club.

CLUB LAW. Argumentum bacculinum, in which an oaken
  stick is a better plea than an act of parliament.

CLUMP. A lump. Clumpish; lumpish, stupid.

CLUNCH. An awkward clownish fellow.

TO CLUTCH THE FIST. To clench or shut the hand. Clutch
  fisted; covetous, stingy. See CLOSE-FISTED.

CLUTCHES. Hands, gripe, power.

CLUTTER. A stir, noise, or racket: what a confounded
  clutter here is!

CLY. Money; also a pocket. He has filed the cly; he
  has picked a pocket. CANT.

CLY THE JERK: To be whipped. CANT.

CLYSTER PIPE. A nick name for an apothecary.

COACH WHEEL. A half crown piece is a fore coach wheel,
  and a crown piece a hind coach wheel; the fore wheels of
  a coach being less than the hind ones.

TO COAX. To fondle, or wheedle. To coax a pair of stockings;
  to pull down the part soiled into the shoes, so as to
  give a dirty pair of stockings the appearance of clean ones.
  Coaxing is also used, instead of darning, to hide the holes
  about the ancles.

COB. A Spanish dollar.

COB, or COBBING. A punishment used by the seamen for
  petty offences, or irregularities, among themselves: it
  consists in bastonadoing the offender on the posteriors with
  a cobbing stick, or pipe staff; the number usually inflicted
  is a dozen. At the first stroke the executioner repeats
  the word WATCH, on which all persons present are to take
  off their hats, on pain of like punishment: the last stroke
  is always given as hard as possible, and is called THE PURSE.
  Ashore, among soldiers, where this punishment is sometimes
  adopted, WATCH and THE PURSE are not included in the
  number, but given over and above, or, in the vulgar phrase,
  free gratis for nothing. This piece of discipline is also
  inflicted in Ireland, by the school-boys, on persons coming
  into the school without taking off their hats; it is there
  called school butter.

COBBLE. A kind of boat.

TO COBBLE. To mend, or patch; likewise to do a thing in
  a bungling manner.

COBBLE COLTER. A turkey.

COBBLER. A mender of shoes, an improver of the understandings of
  his customers; a translator.

COBBLERS PUNCH. Treacle, vinegar, gin, and water.

COCK, or CHIEF COCK OF THE WALK. The leading man
  in any society or body; the best boxer in a village or
  district.

COCK ALE. A provocative drink.

COCK ALLEY or COCK LANE. The private parts of a woman.

COCK AND A BULL STORY. A roundabout story, without
  head or tail, i.e. beginning or ending.

COCK OF THE COMPANY. A weak man, who from the desire of being the
  head of the company associates with low
  people, and pays all the reckoning.

COCK-A-WHOOP. Elevated, in high-spirits, transported with joy.

COCK BAWD. A male keeper of a bawdy-house.

COCK HOIST. A cross buttock.

COCKISH. Wanton, forward. A cockish wench; a forward
  coming girl.

COCKLES. To cry cockles; to be hanged: perhaps from the
  noise made whilst strangling. CANT.--This will rejoice
  the cockles of one's heart; a saying in praise of wine, ale,
  or spirituous liquors.

COCK PIMP. The supposed husband of a bawd.

COCK ROBIN. A soft, easy fellow.

COCK-SURE. Certain: a metaphor borrowed front the cock
  of a firelock, as being much more certain to fire than the
  match.

COCK YOUR EYE. Shut one eye: thus translated into apothecaries
  Latin.--Gallus tuus ego.

COCKER. One fond of the diversion of cock-fighting.

COCKNEY: A nick name given to the citizens of London,
  or persons born within the sound of Bow bell, derived
  from the following story: A citizen of London, being in
  the country, and hearing a horse neigh, exclaimed,
  Lord! how that horse laughs! A by-stander telling him
  that noise was called NEIGHING, the next morning, when
  the cock crowed, the citizen to shew he had not forgot
  what was told him, cried out, Do you hear how the COCK
  NEIGHS? The king of the cockneys is mentioned among
  the regulations for the sports and shows formerly held in
  the Middle Temple on Childermas Day, where he had
  his officers, a marshal, constable, butler, &c. See DUGDALE'S
  ORIGINES JURIDICIALES, p. 247.--Ray says, the interpretation of
  the word Cockney, is, a young person coaxed or conquered, made
  wanton; or a nestle cock, delicately bred and brought up, so
  as, when arrived a man's estate, to be unable to bear the least
  hardship. Whatever may be the origin of this appellation, we
  learn from the following verses, attributed to Hugh Bigot, Earl
  of Norfolk, that it was in use, in the time of king Henry II.

  Was I in my castle at Bungay,
  Fast by the river Waveney,
  I would not care for the king of Cockney;

  i.e. the king of London.

COCKSHUT TIME. The evening, when fowls go to roost.

COD. A cod of money: a good sum of money.

CODDERS. Persons employed by the gardeners to gather
  peas.

CODGER. An old codger: an old fellow.

COD PIECE. The fore flap of a man's breeches. Do they
  bite, master? where, in the cod piece or collar?--a jocular
  attack on a patient angler by watermen, &c.

CODS. The scrotum. Also a nick name for a curate: a rude
  fellow meeting a curate, mistook him for the rector, and
  accosted him with the vulgar appellation of Bol--ks the
  rector, No, Sir, answered he; only Cods the curate, at
  your service.

COD'S HEAD. A stupid fellow.

COFFEE HOUSE. A necessary house. To make a coffee-house
  of a woman's ****; to go in and out and spend
  nothing.

COG. The money, or whatsoever the sweeteners drop to
  draw in a bubble.

COG. A tooth. A queer cog; a rotten tooth. How  the
  cull flashes his queer cogs; how the fool shews his rotten
  teeth.

TO COG. To cheat with dice; also to coax or wheedle, To
  cog a die; to conceal or secure a die. To cog a dinner;
  to wheedle one out of a dinner.

COGUE. A dram of any spirituous liquor.

COKER. A lie.

COKES. The fool in the play of Bartholomew Fair: perhaps
  a contraction of the word COXCOMB.

COLCANNON. Potatoes and cabbage pounded together in a
  mortar, and then stewed with butter: an Irish dish.

COLD. You will catch cold at that; a vulgar threat or
  advice to desist from an attempt. He caught cold by
  lying in bed barefoot; a saying of any one extremely tender
  or careful of himself.

COLD BURNING. A punishment inflicted by private soldiers
  on their comrades for trifling offences, or breach of their
  mess laws; it is administered in the following manner:
  The prisoner is set against the wall, with the arm which is
  to be burned tied as high above his head as possible. The
  executioner then ascends a stool, and having a bottle of
  cold water, pours it slowly down the sleeve of the delinquent,
  patting him, and leading the water gently down his
  body, till it runs out at his breeches knees: this is repeated
  to the other arm, if he is sentenced to be burned in both.

COLD COOK. An undertaker of funerals, or carrion hunter.
  See CARRION HUNTER.

COLD IRON. A sword, or any other weapon for cutting or
  stabbing. I gave him two inches of cold iron into his beef.

COLD MEAT. A dead wife is the beat cold meat in a man's
  house.

COLD PIG. To give cold pig is a punishment inflicted on
  sluggards who lie too long in bed: it consists in pulling off
  all the bed clothes from them, and throwing cold water
  upon them.

COLD PUDDING. This is said to settle one's love.

COLE. Money. Post the cole: pay down the money.

COLIANDER, or CORIANDER SEEDS. Money.

COLLAR DAY. Execution day.

COLLEGE. Newgate or any other prison. New College:
  the Royal Exchange. King's College: the King's Bench
  prison. He has been educated at the steel, and took his
  last degree at college; he has received his education at
  the house of correction, and was hanged at Newgate.

COLLEGE COVE. The College cove has numbered him, and if he
  is knocked down he'll be twisted; the turnkey of Newgate
  has told the judge how many times the prisoner has been
  tried before and therefore if he is found guilty, he certainly
  will be hanged. It is said to be the custom of the Old Bailey
  for one of the turnkeys of Newgate to give information to
  the judge how many times an old offender has been tried,
  by holding up as many fingers as the number of times the
  prisoner has been before arraigned at that bar.

COLLEGIATES. Prisoners of the one, and shopkeepers of
  the other of those places.

COLLECTOR. A highwayman.

TO COLLOGUE. To wheedle or coax.

COOK RUFFIAN, who roasted the devil in his feathers. A
  bad cook.

COOL CRAPE. A shroud.

COOLER. A woman.

COOLER. The backside. Kiss my cooler. Kiss my a-se.
  It is principally used to signify a woman's posteriors.

COOL LADY. A female follower of the camp, who sells
  brandy.

COOL NANTS. Brandy.

COOL TANKARD. Wine and water, with lemon, sugar, and
  burrage.

COLQUARRON. A man's neck. His colquarron is just about
  to be twisted; he is just going to be hanged. CANT.

COLT. One who lets horses to highwaymen; also a boy newly
  initiated into roguery; a grand or petty juryman on his
  first assize. CANT.

COLTAGE. A fine or beverage paid by colts on their first
  entering into their offices.

COLT BOWL. Laid short of the jack by a colt bowler, i.e.
  a person raw or unexperienced in the art of bowling.

COLT'S TOOTH. An old fellow who marries or keeps a young
  girl, is said to have a colt's tooth in his head.

COLT VEAL. Coarse red veal, more like the flesh of a colt
  than that of a calf.

COMB. To comb one's head; to clapperclaw, or scold any
  one: a woman who lectures her husband, is said to comb
  his head. She combed his head with a joint stool; she
  threw a stool at him.

COME. To come; to lend. Has he come it; has he lent it?
  To come over any one; to cheat or over reach him.
  Coming wench; a forward wench, also a breeding woman.

COMING! SO IS CHRISTMAS. Said of a person who has long
  been called, and at length answers, Coming!

COMFORTABLE IMPORTANCE. A wife.

COMMISSION. A shirt. CANT.

COMMODE. A woman's head dress.

COMMODITY. A woman's commodity; the private parts of
  a modest woman, and the public parts of a prostitute.

COMMONS. The house of commons; the necessary house.

COMPANY. To see company; to enter into a course of prostitution.

COMPLIMENT. See CHRISTMAS.

COMUS'S COURT. A social meeting formerly held at the
  Half Moon tavern Cheapside.

CONFECT. Counterfeited.

CONGER. To conger; the agreement of a set or knot of
  booksellers of London, that whosoever of them shall buy
  a good copy, the rest shall take off such a particular number,
  in quires, at a stated price; also booksellers joining to
  buy either a considerable or dangerous copy.

CONGO. Will you lap your congo with me? will you drink
  tea with me?

CONNY WABBLE. Eggs and brandy beat up together. IRISH.

CONSCIENCE KEEPER. A superior, who by his influence
  makes his dependants act as he pleases.

CONTENT. The cull's content; the man is past complaining:
  a saying of a person murdered for resisting the robbers. CANT.

CONTENT. A thick liquor, in imitation of chocolate, made
  of milk and gingerbread.

CONTRA DANCE. A dance where the dancers of the different
  sexes stand opposite each other, instead of side by side, as
  in the minuet, rigadoon, louvre, &c. and now corruptly called a
  country dance.

CONUNDRUMS. Enigmatical conceits.

CONVENIENT. A mistress. CANT.

CONVENIENCY. A necessary. A leathern conveniency, a coach.

COOPED UP. Imprisoned, confined like a fowl in a coop.

COQUET. A jilt.

CORINTH. A bawdy-house. CANT.

CORINTHIANS: Frequenters of brothels. Also an impudent,
  brazen-faced fellow, perhaps from the Corinthian
  brass.

CORK-BRAINED. Light-headed, foolish.

CORNED. Drunk.

CORNISH HUG. A particular lock in wrestling, peculiar to
  the people of that county.

CORNY-FACED. A very red pimpled face.

CORPORAL. To mount a corporal and four; to be guilty
  of onanism: the thumb is the corporal, the four fingers
  the privates.

CORPORATION. A large belly. He has a glorious corporation;
  he has a very prominent belly.

CORPORATION. The magistrates, &c. of a corporate
  town. Corpus sine ratione. Freemen of a corporation's
  work; neither strong nor handsome.

COSSET. A foundling. Cosset colt or lamb; a colt or
  lamb brought up by hand.

COSTARD. The head. I'll smite your costard; I'll give
  you a knock on the head.

COSTARD MONGER. A dealer in fruit, particularly apples.

COT, or QUOT. A man who meddles with women's household
  business, particularly in the kitchen. The punishment
  commonly inflicted on a quot, is pinning a greasy
  dishclout to the skirts of his coat.

COVE. A man, a fellow, a rogue. The cove was bit; the
  rogue was outwitted. The cove has bit the cole; the
  rogue has got the money. CANT.

COVENT, or CONVENT GARDEN, vulgarly called COMMON
  GARDEN. Anciently, the garden belonging to a
  dissolved monastery; now famous for being the chief
  market in London for fruit, flowers, and herbs. The
  theatres are situated near it. In its environs are
  many brothels, and not long ago, the lodgings of the
  second order of ladies of easy virtue were either there, or
  in the purlieus of Drury Lane.

COVENT GARDEN ABBESS. A bawd.

COVENT GARDEN AGUE. The venereal disease. He broke
  his shins against Covent Garden rails; he caught the
  venereal disorder.

COVENT GARDEN NUN. A prostitute.

COVENTRY. To send one to Coventry; a punishment inflicted
  by officers of the army on such of their brethren
  as are testy, or have been guilty of improper behaviour,
  not worthy the cognizance of a court martial. The person
  sent to Coventry is considered as absent; no one must
  speak to or answer any question he asks, except relative
  to duty, under penalty of being also sent to the same place.
  On a proper submission, the penitent is recalled, and
  welcomed by the mess, as just returned from a journey to
  Coventry.

COVEY. A collection of whores. What a fine covey here
  is, if the Devil would but throw his net!

TO COUCH A HOGSHEAD. To lie down to sleep. CANT.

COUNTERFEIT CRANK. A general cheat, assuming all sorts
  of characters; one counterfeiting the falling sickness.

COUNTRY HARRY. A waggoner. CANT.

COUNTRY PUT. An ignorant country fellow.

COUNTY WORK. Said of any work that advances slowly.

COURT CARD. A gay fluttering coxcomb.

COURT HOLY WATER, COURT PROMISES. Fair speeches and promises,
  without performance.

COURT OF ASSISTANTS. A court often applied to by young
  women who marry old men.

COW. To sleep like a cow, with a **** at one's a-se; said
  of a married man; married men being supposed to sleep
  with their backs towards their wives, according to the
  following proclamation:

      All you that in your beds do lie,
      Turn to your wives, and occupy:
      And when that you have done your best,
      Turn a-se to a-se, and take your rest.

COW JUICE. Milk.

COW'S BABY. A calf.

COW'S COURANT. Gallop and sh---e.

COW-HANDED. Awkward.

COW-HEARTED. Fearful.

COW ITCH. The product of a sort of bean, which excites an
  insufferable itching, used chiefly for playing tricks.

COW'S SPOUSE. A bull.

COW'S THUMB. Done to a cow's thumb; done exactly.

COXCOMB. Anciently, a fool. Fools, in great families,
  wore a cap with bells, on the top of which was a piece of
  red cloth, in the shape of a cock's comb. At present,
  coxcomb signifies a fop, or vain self-conceited fellow.

CRAB. To catch a crab; to fall backwards by missing one's
  stroke in rowing.

CRAB LANTHORN. A peevish fellow.

CRAB LOUSE. A species of louse peculiar to the human body;
  the male is denominated a cock, the female a hen.

CRAB SHELLS. Shoes. IRISH.

CRABS. A losing throw to the main at hazard.

CRABBED. Sour, ill-tempered, difficult.

CRACK. A whore.

TO CRACK. To boast or brag; also to break. I cracked his
  napper; I broke his head.

THE CRACK, or ALL THE CRACK. The fashionable theme,
  the go. The Crack Lay, of late is used, in the cant
  language, to signify the art and mystery of house-breaking.

CRACKER. Crust, sea biscuit, or ammunition loaf; also the
  backside. Farting crackers; breeches.

CRACKISH. Whorish.

CRACKING TOOLS. Implements of house-breaking, such as
  a crow, a center bit, false keys, &c.

CRACKMANS. Hedges. The cull thought to have loped by
  breaking through the crackmans, but we fetched him back
  by a nope on the costard, which stopped his jaw; the man
  thought to have escaped by breaking through the hedge,
  but we brought him back by a great blow on the head,
  which laid him speechless.

CRACKSMAN. A house-breaker. The kiddy is a clever
  cracksman; the young fellow is a very expert house-breaker.

CRAG. The neck.

CRAMP RINGS. Bolts, shackles, or fetters. CANT.

CRAMP WORDS. Sentence of death passed on a criminal by
  a judge. He has just undergone the cramp word; sentence
  has just been passed on him. CANT.

CRANK. Gin and water; also, brisk, pert.

CRANK. The falling sickness. CANT.

TO CRASH. To kill. Crash that cull; kill that fellow. CANT.

CRASHING CHEATS. Teeth.

CRAW THUMPERS. Roman catholics, so called from their
  beating their breasts in the confession of their sins. See
  BRISKET BEATER, and BREAST FLEET.

CREAM-POT LOVE. Such as young fellows pretend to
  dairymaids, to get cream and other good things from them.

TO CREEME. To slip or slide any thing into the hands of
  another. CANT.

CREEPERS. Gentlemen's companions, lice.

CREW. A knot or gang; also a boat or ship's company. The
  canting crew are thus divided into twenty-three orders,
  which see under the different words:

  MEN.

  1 Rufflers
  2 Upright Men
  3 Hookers or Anglers
  4 Rogues
  5 Wild Rogues
  6 Priggers of Prancers
  7 Palliardes
  8 Fraters
  9 Jarkmen, or Patricoes
  10 Fresh Water Mariners, or Whip Jackets
  11 Drummerers
  12 Drunken Tinkers
  13 Swadders, or Pedlars
  14 Abrams.

  WOMEN.

  1 Demanders for Glimmer or Fire
  2 Bawdy Baskets
  3 Morts
  4 Autem Morts
  5 Walking Morts
  6 Doxies
  7 Delles
  8 Kinching Morts
  9 Kinching Coes

CRIB. A house. To crack a crib: to break open a house.

TO CRIB. To purloin, or appropriate to one's own use,
  part of any thing intrusted to one's care.

TO FIGHT A CRIB. To make a sham fight. BEAR GARDEN
  TERM.

CRIBBAGE-FACED. Marked with the small pox, the pits
  bearing a kind of resemblance to the holes in a
  cribbage-board.

CRIBBEYS, or CRIBBY ISLANDS. Blind alleys, courts, or
  bye-ways; perhaps from the houses built there being cribbed
  out of the common way or passage; and islands, from
  the similarity of sound to the Caribbee Islands.

CRIM. CON. MONEY. Damages directed by a jury to be
  paid by a convicted adulterer to the injured husband, for
  criminal conversation with his wife.

CRIMP. A broker or factor, as a coal crimp, who disposes
  of the cargoes of the Newcastle coal ships; also persons
  employed to trapan or kidnap recruits for the East Indian
  and African companies. To crimp, or play crimp; to
  play foul or booty: also a cruel manner of cutting up fish
  alive, practised by the London fishmongers, in order to
  make it eat firm; cod, and other crimped fish, being a
  favourite dish among voluptuaries and epicures.

CRINKUM CRANKUM. A woman's commodity. See SPECTATOR.

CRINKUMS. The foul or venereal disease.

CRIPPLE. Sixpence; that piece being commonly much bent
  and distorted.

CRISPIN. A shoemaker: from a romance, wherein a prince
  of that name is said to have exercised the art and mystery
  of a shoemaker, thence called the gentle craft: or rather
  from the saints Crispinus and Crispianus, who according
  to the legend, were brethren born at Rome, from whence
  they travelled to Soissons in France, about the year 303,
  to propagate the Christian religion; but, because they
  would not be chargeable to others for their maintenance,
  they exercised the trade of shoemakers: the governor of
  the town discovering them to be Christians, ordered them
  to be beheaded, about the year 303; from which time they
  have been the tutelar saints of the shoemakers.

CRISPIN'S HOLIDAY. Every Monday throughout the year,
  but most particularly the 25th of October, being the
  anniversary of Crispinus and Crispianus.

CRISPIN'S LANCE. An awl.

CROAKER. One who is always foretelling some accident
  or misfortune: an allusion to the croaking of a raven,
  supposed ominous.

CROAKUMSHIRE. Northumberland, from the particular
  croaking the pronunciation of the people of that
  county, especially about Newcastle and Morpeth, where
  they are said to be born with a burr in their throats, which
  prevents their pronouncing the letter r.

CROAKERS. Forestallers, called also Kidders and Tranters.

CROCODILE'S TEARS. The tears of a hypocrite. Crocodiles
  are fabulously reported to shed tears over their prey before
  they devour it.

CROCUS, or CROCUS METALLORUM. A nick name for a
  surgeon of the army and navy.

CROKER. A groat, or four pence.

CRONE. An old ewe whose teeth are worn out; figuratively,
  a toothless old beldam.

CRONY. An intimate companion, a comrade; also a confederate
  in a robbery.

CROOK. Sixpence.

CROOK BACK. Sixpence; for the reason of this name, see
  CRIPPLE.

CROOK YOUR ELBOW. To crook one's elbow, and wish it
  may never come straight, if the fact then affirmed is not
  true--according to the casuists of Bow-street and St.
  Giles's, adds great weight and efficacy to an oath.

CROOK SHANKS. A nickname for a man with bandy legs.
  He buys his boots in Crooked Lane, and his stockings
  in Bandy-legged Walk; his legs grew in the night, therefore
  could not see to grow straight; jeering sayings of men
  with crooked legs.

CROP. A nick name for a presbyterian: from their cropping
  their hair, which they trimmed close to a bowl-dish,
  placed as a guide on their heads; whence they were likewise
  called roundheads. See ROUNDHEADS.

CROP. To be knocked down for a crop; to be condemned
  to be hanged. Cropped, hanged.

CROPPING DRUMS. Drummers of the foot guards, or Chelsea
  hospital, who find out weddings, and beat a point of
  war to serenade the new married couple, and thereby
  obtain money.

CROPPEN. The tail. The croppen of the rotan; the tail
  of the cart. Croppen ken: the necessary-house. CANT.

CROPSICK. Sickness in the stomach, arising from drunkenness.

CROSS. To come home by weeping cross; to repent at the
  conclusion.

CROSS DISHONEST. A cross cove; any person who lives by
  stealing or in a dishonest manner.

CROSS BITE. One who combines with a sharper to draw in
  a friend; also, to counteract or disappoint. CANT.--This
  is peculiarly used to signify entrapping a man so as to obtain
  CRIM. COM. money, in which the wife, real or supposed,
  conspires with the husband.

CROSS BUTTOCK. A particular lock or fall in the Broughtonian
  art, which, as Mr. Fielding observes, conveyed more
  pleasant sensations to the spectators than the patient.

CROSS PATCH. A peevish boy or girl, or rather an unsocial
  ill-tempered man or woman.

TO CROW. To brag, boast, or triumph. To crow over any
  one; to keep him in subjection: an image drawn from a
  cock, who crows over a vanquished enemy. To pluck a
  crow; to reprove any one for a fault committed, to settle a
  dispute. To strut like a crow in a gutter; to walk proudly,
  or with an air of consequence.

CROWD. A fiddle: probably from CROOTH, the Welch name
  for that instrument.

CROWDERO. A fiddler.

CROWDY. Oatmeal and water, or milk; a mess much eaten
  in the north.

CROW FAIR. A visitation of the clergy. See REVIEW OF
  THE BLACK CUIRASSIERS.

CROWN OFFICE. The head. I fired into her keel upwards;
  my eyes and limbs Jack, the crown office was full; I s--k-d
  a woman with her a-e upwards, she was so drunk, that her
  head lay on the ground.

CRUISERS. Beggars, or highway spies, who traverse the
  road, to give intelligence of a booty; also rogues ready to
  snap up any booty that may offer, like privateers or pirates
  on a cruise.

CRUMMY. Fat, fleshy. A fine crummy dame; a fat woman.
  He has picked up his crumbs finely of late; he has
  grown very fat, or rich, of late.

CRUMP. One who helps solicitors to affidavit men, or false
  witnesses.--'I wish you had, Mrs. Crump;' a Gloucestershire
  saying, in answer to a wish for any thing; implying,
  you must not expect any assistance from the speaker. It
  is said to have originated from the following incident:
  One Mrs. Crump, the wife of a substantial farmer, dining
  with the old Lady Coventry, who was extremely deaf, said
  to one of the footmen, waiting at table, 'I wish I had a
  draught of small beer,' her modesty not permitting her to
  desire so fine a gentleman to bring it: the fellow, conscious
  that his mistress could not hear either the request or
  answer, replied, without moving, 'I wish you had, Mrs.
  Crump.' These wishes being again repeated by both parties,
  Mrs. Crump got up from the table to fetch it herself;
  and being asked by my lady where she was going, related
  what had passed. The story being told abroad, the expression
  became proverbial.

CRUMP-BACKED. Hump-backed.

CRUSTY BEAU. One that uses paint and cosmetics, to obtain
  a fine complexion.

CRUSTY FELLOW. A surly fellow.

CUB. An unlicked cub; an unformed, ill-educated young
  man, a young nobleman or gentleman on his travels: an
  allusion to the story of the bear, said to bring its cub into
  form by licking. Also, a new gamester.

CUCKOLD. The husband of an incontinent wife: cuckolds,
  however, are Christians, as we learn by the following story:
  An old woman hearing a man call his dog Cuckold, reproved
  him sharply, saying, 'Sirrah, are not you ashamed
  to call a dog by a Christian's name?' To cuckold the
  parson; to bed with one's wife before she has been churched.

CUCUMBERS. Taylors, who are jocularly said to subsist,
  during the summer, chiefly on cucumbers.

CUFF. An old cuff; an old man. To cuff Jonas; said of one
  who is knock-kneed, or who beats his sides to keep himself
  warm in frosty weather; called also Beating the
  booby.

CUFFIN. A man.

CULL. A man, honest or otherwise. A bob cull; a good-natured,
  quiet fellow. CANT.

CULLABILITY. A disposition liable to be cheated, an
  unsuspecting nature, open to imposition.

CULLY. A fog or fool: also, a dupe to women: from the
  Italian word coglione, a blockhead.

CULP. A kick or blow: from the words mea culpa, being
  that part of the popish liturgy at which the people beat their
  breasts; or, as the vulgar term is, thump their craws.

CUNDUM. The dried gut of a sheep, worn by men in the
  act of coition, to prevent venereal infection; said to have
  been invented by one colonel Cundum. These machines
  were long prepared and sold by a matron of the name of
  Philips, at the Green Canister, in Half-moon-street, in the
  Strand. That good lady having acquired a fortune, retired
  from business; but learning that the town was not well
  served by her successors, she, out of a patriotic zeal for the
  public welfare, returned to her occupation; of which she
  gave notice by divers hand-bills, in circulation in the year
  1776. Also a false scabbard over a sword, and the oil-skin
  case for holding the colours of a regiment.

CUNNINGHAM. A punning appellation for a simple fellow.

CUNNING MAN. A cheat, who pretends by his skill in
  astrology to assist persons in recovering stolen goods: and
  also to tell them their fortunes, and when, how often,
  and to whom they shall be married; likewise answers all
  lawful questions, both by sea and land. This profession
  is frequently occupied by ladies.

CUNNING SHAVER. A sharp fellow, one that trims close,
  i.e. cheats ingeniously.

CUNNY-THUMBED. To double one's fist with the thumb inwards,
  like a woman.

C**T. The chonnos of the Greek, and the cunnus of the Latin
  dictionaries; a nasty name for a nasty thing: un con Miege.

CUP OF THE CREATURE. A cup of good liquor.

CUP-SHOT. Drunk.

CUPBOARD LOVE. Pretended love to the cook, or any other
  person, for the sake of a meal. My guts cry cupboard;
  i.e. I am hungry

CUPID, BLIND CUPID. A jeering name for an ugly blind
  man: Cupid, the god of love, being frequently painted
  blind. See BLIND CUPID.

CUR. A cut or curtailed dog. According to the forest laws,
  a man who had no right to the privilege of the chase, was
  obliged to cut or law his dog: among other modes of
  disabling him from disturbing the game, one was by depriving
  him of his tail: a dog so cut was called a cut or
  curtailed dog, and by contraction a cur. A cur is figuratively
  used to signify a surly fellow.

CURBING LAW. The act of hooking goods out of windows:
  the curber is the thief, the curb the hook. CANT.

CURE A-SE. A dyachilon plaister, applied to the parts galled
  by riding.

CURLE. Clippings of money, which curls up in the operation. CANT.

CURMUDGEON. A covetous old fellow, derived, according
  to some, from the French term coeur mechant.

CURRY. To curry favour; to obtain the favour of a person
  be coaxing or servility. To curry any one's hide; to beat
  him.

CURSE OF SCOTLAND. The nine of diamonds; diamonds, it
  is said, imply royalty, being ornaments to the imperial
  crown; and every ninth king of Scotland has been observed
  for many ages, to be a tyrant and a curse to that country.
  Others say it is from its similarity to the arms of Argyle;
  the Duke of Argyle having been very instrumental in
  bringing about the union, which, by some Scotch patriots,
  has been considered as detrimental to their country.

CURSE OF GOD. A cockade.

CURSITORS. Broken petty-fogging attornies, or Newgate
  solicitors. CANT.

CURTAILS. Thieves who cut off pieces of stuff hanging out
  of shop windows, the tails of women's gowns, &c.; also,
  thieves wearing short jackets.

CURTAIN LECTURE. A woman who scolds her husband
  when in bed, is said to read him a curtain lecture.

CURTEZAN. A prostitute.

CUSHION. He has deserved the cushion; a saying of one
  whose wife is brought to bed of a boy: implying, that
  having done his business effectually, he may now indulge or
  repose himself.

CUSHION THUMPER, or DUSTER. A parson; many of whom
  in the fury of their eloquence, heartily belabour their
 cushions.

CUSTARD CAP. The cap worn by the sword-bearer of the
  city of London, made hollow at the top like a custard.

CUSTOM-HOUSE GOODS. The stock in trade of a prostitute,
  because fairly entered.

CUT. Drunk. A little cut over the head; slightly
  intoxicated. To cut; to leave a person or company. To cut
  up well; to die rich.

TO CUT. (Cambridge.) To renounce acquaintance with any
  one is to CUT him. There are several species of the CUT.
  Such as the cut direct, the cut indirect, the cut sublime,
  the cut infernal, &c. The cut direct, is to start across the
  street, at the approach of the obnoxious person in order to
  avoid him. The cut indirect, is to look another way, and
  pass without appearing to observe him. The cut sublime,
  is to admire the top of King's College Chapel, or the beauty
  of the passing clouds, till he is out of sight. The cut
  infernal, is to analyze the arrangement of your shoe-strings,
  for the same purpose.

TO CUT BENE. To speak gently. To cut bene whiddes;
  to give good words. To cut queer whiddes; to give foul
  language. To cut a bosh, or a flash; to make a figure.
  CANT.

TO CUTTY-EYE. To look out of the corners of one's eyes,
  to leer, to look askance. The cull cutty-eyed at us; the
  fellow looked suspicious at us.

DAB. An adept; a dab at any feat or exercise. Dab,
  quoth Dawkins, when he hit his wife on the a-se with a
  pound of butter.

DACE. Two pence. Tip me a dace; lend me two pence.
  CANT.

DADDLES. Hands. Tip us your daddle; give me your hand.
  CANT.

DADDY. Father. Old daddy; a familiar address to an old
  man. To beat daddy mammy; the first rudiments of
  drum beating, being the elements of the roll.

DAGGERS. They are at daggers drawing; i.e. at enmity,
  ready to fight.

DAIRY. A woman's breasts, particularly one that gives
  suck. She sported her dairy; she pulled out her breast.

DAISY CUTTER. A jockey term for a horse that does not
  lift up his legs sufficiently, or goes too near the ground,
  and is therefore apt to stumble.

DAISY KICKERS. Ostlers at great inns.

DAM. A small Indian coin, mentioned in the Gentoo code
  of laws: hence etymologists may, if they please, derive
  the common expression, I do not care a dam, i.e. I do
  not care half a farthing for it.

DAMBER. A rascal. See DIMBER.

DAMME BOY. A roaring, mad, blustering fellow, a scourer
  of the streets, or kicker up of a breeze.

DAMNED SOUL. A clerk in a counting house, whose sole
  business it is to clear or swear off merchandise at the
  custom-house; and who, it is said, guards against the crime
  of perjury, by taking a previous oath, never to swear truly
  on those occasions.

DAMPER. A luncheon, or snap before dinner: so called
  from its damping, or allaying, the appetite; eating and
  drinking, being, as the proverb wisely observes, apt to take
  away the appetite.

DANCE UPON NOTHING. To be hanged.

DANCERS. Stairs.

DANDY. That's the dandy; i.e. the ton, the clever thing;
  an expression of similar import to "That's the barber."
  See BARBER.

DANDY GREY RUSSET. A dirty brown. His coat's dandy
  grey russet, the colour of the Devil's nutting bag.

DANDY PRAT. An insignificant or trifling fellow.

To DANGLE. To follow a woman without asking the question.
  Also, to be hanged: I shall see you dangle in the
  sheriff's picture frame; I shall see you hanging on the
  gallows.

DANGLER. One who follows women in general, without
  any particular attachment

DAPPER FELLOW. A smart, well-made, little man.

DARBIES. Fetters. CANT.

DARBY. Ready money. CANT.

DARK CULLY. A married man that keeps a mistress, whom
  he visits only at night, for fear of discovery.

DARKEE. A dark lanthorn used by housebreakers. Stow
  the darkee, and bolt, the cove of the crib is fly; hide the
  dark lanthorn, and run away, the master of the house
  knows that we are here.

DARKMANS. The night. CANT.

DARKMAN'S BUDGE. One that slides into a house in the
  dark of the evening, and hides himself, in order to let some
  of the gang in at night to rob it.

DART. A straight-armed blow in boxing.

DASH. A tavern drawer. To cut a dash: to make a figure.

DAVID JONES. The devil, the spirit of the sea: called
  Necken in the north countries, such as Norway, Denmark,
  and Sweden.

DAVID JONES'S LOCKER. The sea.

DAVID'S SOW. As drunk as David's sow; a common
  saying, which took its rise from the following circumstance:
  One David Lloyd, a Welchman, who kept an alehouse at
  Hereford, had a living sow with six legs, which was greatly
  resorted to by the curious; he had also a wife much
  addicted to drunkenness, for which he used sometimes
  to give her due correction. One day David's wife having
  taken a cup too much, and being fearful of the
  consequences, turned out the sow, and lay down to sleep herself
  sober in the stye. A company coming in to see the sow,
  David ushered them into the stye, exclaiming, there is a
  sow for you! did any of you ever see such another? all
  the while supposing the sow had really been there; to
  which some of the company, seeing the state the woman
  was in, replied, it was the drunkenest sow they had ever
  beheld; whence the woman was ever after called David's
  sow.

DAVY. I'll take my davy of it; vulgar abbreviation of affidavit.

TO DAWB. To bribe. The cull was scragged because he
  could not dawb; the rogue was hanged because he could
  not bribe. All bedawbed with lace; all over lace.

DAY LIGHTS. Eyes. To darken his day lights, or sow up
  his sees; to close up a man's eyes in boxing.

DEAD CARGO. A term used by thieves, when they are
  disappointed in the value of their booty.

DEAD HORSE. To work for the dead horse; to work for
  wages already paid.

DEAD-LOUSE. Vulgar pronunciation of the Dedalus ship of
  war.

DEAD MEN. A cant word among journeymen bakers, for
  loaves falsely charged to their masters' customers; also
  empty bottles.

DEADLY NEVERGREEN, that bears fruit all the year round.
  The gallows, or three-legged mare. See THREE-LEGGED
  MARE.

DEAR JOYS. Irishmen: from their frequently making use
  of that expression.

DEATH HUNTER. An undertaker, one who furnishes the
  necessary articles for funerals. See CARRION HUNTER.

DEATH'S HEAD UPON A MOP-STICK. A poor miserable,
  emaciated fellow; one quite an otomy. See OTOMY.--He
  looked as pleasant as the pains of death.

DEEP-ONE. A thorough-paced rogue, a sly designing
  fellow: in opposition to a shallow or foolish one.

DEFT FELLOW. A neat little man.

DEGEN, or DAGEN. A sword. Nim the degen; steal the
  sword. Dagen is Dutch for a sword. CANT.

DELLS. Young buxom wenches, ripe and prone to venery,
  but who have not lost their virginity, which the UPRIGHT
  MAN claims by virtue of his prerogative; after which they
  become free for any of the fraternity. Also a common
  strumpet. CANT.

DEMURE. As demure as an old whore at a christening.

DEMY-REP. An abbreviation of demy-reputation; a woman
  of doubtful character.

DERBY. To come down with the derbies; to pay the money.

DERRICK. The name of the finisher of the law, or hangman
  about the year 1608.--'For he rides his circuit with
  the Devil, and Derrick must be his host, and Tiburne
  the inne at which he will lighte.' Vide Bellman of
  London, in  art. PRIGGIN LAW.--'At the gallows,
  where I leave them, as to the haven at which they must
  all cast anchor, if Derrick's cables do but hold.' Ibid.

DEVIL. A printer's errand-boy. Also a small thread in
  the king's ropes and cables, whereby they may be
  distinguished from all others. The Devil himself; a small
  streak of blue thread in the king's sails. The Devil may
  dance in his pocket; i.e. he has no money: the cross on
  our ancient coins being jocularly supposed to prevent him
  from visiting that place, for fear, as it is said, of breaking
  his shins against it. To hold a candle to the Devil; to
  be civil to any one out of fear: in allusion to the story of
  the old woman, who set a wax taper before the image of
  St. Michael, and another before the Devil, whom that
  saint is commonly represented as trampling under his feet:
  being reproved for paying such honour to Satan, she answered,
  as it was uncertain which place she should go
  to, heaven or hell, she chose to secure a friend in both
  places. That will be when the Devil is blind, and he has
  not got sore eyes yet; said of any thing unlikely to happen.
  It rains whilst the sun shines, the Devil is beating
  his wife with a shoulder of mutton: this phenomenon is
  also said to denote that cuckolds are going to heaven; on
  being informed of this, a loving wife cried out with great
  vehemence, 'Run, husband, run!'

  The Devil was sick, the Devil a monk would be;
  The Devil was well, the Devil a monk was he.

  a proverb signifying that we are apt to forget promises
  made in time of distress. To pull the Devil by the tail,
  to be reduced to one's shifts. The Devil go with you and
  sixpence, and then you will have both money and company.

DEVIL. The gizzard of a turkey or fowl, scored, peppered,
  salted and broiled: it derives its appellation from being hot
  in the mouth.

DEVIL'S BOOKS. Cards.

DEVIL CATCHER, or DEVIL DRIVER. A parson. See
  SNUB DEVIL.

DEVIL'S DAUGHTER. It is said of one who has a termagant
  for his wife, that he has married the Devil's daughter, and
  lives with the old folks.

DEVIL'S DAUGHTER'S PORTION:

  Deal, Dover, and Harwich,
  The Devil gave with his daughter in marriage;
  And, by a codicil to his will,
  He added Helvoet and the Brill;

  a saying occasioned by the shameful impositions practised
  by the inhabitants of those places, on sailors and travellers.

DEVIL DRAWER. A miserable painter.

DEVIL'S DUNG. Assafoetida.

DEVIL'S GUTS. A surveyor's chain: so called by farmers,
  who do not like their land should be measured by their
  landlords.

DEVILISH. Very: an epithet which in the English vulgar
  language is made to agree with every quality or thing;
  as, devilish bad, devilish good; devilish sick, devilish well;
  devilish sweet, devilish sour; devilish hot, devilish cold,
  &c. &c.

DEUSEA VILLE. The country. Cant.

DEUSEA VILLE STAMPERS. Country carriers. Cant.

DEW BEATERS. Feet. Cant.

DEWS WINS, or DEUX WINS. Two-pence. Cant.

DEWITTED. Torn to pieces by a mob, as that great statesman
  John de Wit was in Holland, anno 1672.

DIAL PLATE. The face. To alter his dial plate; to
  disfigure his face.

DICE. The names of false dice:
  A bale of bard cinque deuces
  A bale of flat cinque deuces
  A bale of flat sice aces
  A bale of bard cater traes
  A bale of flat cater traes
  A bale of fulhams
  A bale of light graniers
  A bale of langrets contrary to the ventage
  A bale of gordes, with as many highmen as lowmen,
   for passage
  A bale of demies
  A bale of long dice for even and odd
  A bale of bristles
  A bale of direct contraries.

DICK. That happened in the reign of queen Dick, i. e.
  never: said of any absurd old story. I am as queer as
  Dick's hatband; that is, out of spirits, or don't know what
  ails me.

DICKY. A woman's under-petticoat. It's all Dicky with
  him; i.e. it's all over with him.

DICKED IN THE NOB. Silly. Crazed.

DICKEY. A sham shirt.

DICKEY. An ass. Roll your dickey; drive your ass. Also
  a seat for servants to sit behind a carriage, when their
  master drives.

TO DIDDLE. To cheat. To defraud. The cull diddled
  me out of my dearee; the fellow robbed me of my sweetheart.
  See Jeremy Diddler In Raising The Wind.

DIDDEYS. A woman's breasts or bubbies.

DIDDLE. Gin.

DIGGERS. Spurs. Cant.

DILBERRIES. Small pieces of excrement adhering to the
  hairs near the fundament.

DILBERRY MAKER. The fundament.

DILDO. [From the Italian DILETTO, q. d. a woman's delight;
  or from our word DALLY, q. d. a thing to play withal.]
  Penis-succedaneus, called in Lombardy Passo Tempo. Bailey.

DILIGENT. Double diligent, like the Devil's apothecary;
  said of one affectedly diligent.

DILLY. (An abbreviation of the word DILIGENCE.) A public
  voiture or stage, commonly a post chaise, carrying
  three persons; the name is taken from the public stage
  vehicles in France and Flanders. The dillies first began
  to run in England about the year 1779.

DIMBER. Pretty. A dimber cove; a pretty fellow. Dimber
  mort; a pretty wench. CANT.

DIMBER DAMBER. A top man, or prince, among the canting
  crew: also the chief rogue of the gang, or the completest
  cheat. CANT.

DING. To knock down. To ding it in one's ears; to
  reproach or tell one something one is not desirous of hearing.
  Also to throw away or hide: thus a highwayman who
  throws away or hides any thing with which he robbed, to
  prevent being known or detected, is, in the canting lingo,
  styled a Dinger.

DING BOY. A rogue, a hector, a bully, or sharper. CANT.

DING DONG. Helter skelter, in a hasty disorderly manner.

DINGEY CHRISTIAN. A mulatto; or any one who has, as the
  West-Indian term is, a lick of the tar-brush, that is, some
  negro blood in him.

DINING ROOM POST. A mode of stealing in houses that
  let lodgings, by rogues pretending to be postmen, who
  send up sham letters to the lodgers, and, whilst waiting
  in the entry for the postage, go into the first room they see
  open, and rob it.

DIP. To dip for a wig. Formerly, in Middle Row, Holborn,
  wigs of different sorts were, it is said, put into a
  close-stool box, into which, for three-pence, any one
  might dip, or thrust in his hand, and take out the first
  wig he laid hold of; if he was dissatisfied with his prize,
  he might, on paying three halfpence, return it and dip
  again.

THE DIP. A cook's shop, under Furnival's Inn, where many
  attornies clerks, and other inferior limbs of the law, take
  out the wrinkles from their bellies. DIP is also a punning
  name for a tallow-chandler.

DIPPERS. Anabaptists.

DIPT. Pawned or mortgaged.

DIRTY PUZZLE. A nasty slut.

DISGUISED. Drunk.

DISGRUNTLED. Offended, disobliged.

DISHED UP. He is completely dished up; he is totally ruined.
  To throw a thing in one's dish; to reproach or twit one with
  any particular matter.

DISHCLOUT. A dirty, greasy woman. He has made a napkin
  of his dishclout; a saying of one who has married his
  cook maid. To pin a dishclout to a man's tail; a punishment
  often threatened by the female servants in a kitchen,
  to a man who pries too minutely into the secrets of that
  place.

DISMAL DITTY. The psalm sung by the felons at the gallows,
  just before they are turned off.

DISPATCHES. A mittimus, or justice of the peace's warrant,
  for the commitment of a rogue.

DITTO. A suit of ditto; coat, waistcoat, and breeches, all
  of one colour.

DISPATCHERS. Loaded or false dice.

DISTRACTED DIVISION. Husband and wife fighting.

DIVE. To dive; to pick a pocket. To dive for a dinner;
  to go down into a cellar to dinner. A dive, is a thief who
  stands ready to receive goods thrown out to him by a little
  boy put in at a window. Cant.

DIVER. A pickpocket; also one who lives in a cellar.

DIVIDE. To divide the house with one's wife; to give her
  the outside, and to keep all the inside to one's self, i.e. to
  turn her into the street.

DO. To do any one; to rob and cheat him. I have done
  him; I have robbed him. Also to overcome in a boxing
  match: witness those laconic lines written on the field of
  battle, by Humphreys to his patron.--'Sir, I have done
  the Jew.'

TO DO OVER. Carries the same meaning, but is not so briefly
  expressed: the former having received the polish of the
  present times.

DOASH. A cloak. Cant.

DOBIN RIG. Stealing ribbands from haberdashers early in
  the morning or late at night; generally practised by women
  in the disguise of maid servants.

TO DOCK. To lie with a woman. The cull docked the dell
  all the darkmans; the fellow laid with the wench all night.
  Docked smack smooth; one who has suffered an amputation
  of his penis from a venereal complaint. He must
  go into dock; a sea phrase, signifying that the person spoken
  of must undergo a salivation. Docking is also a punishment
  inflicted by sailors on the prostitutes who have
  infected them with the venereal disease; it consists in cutting
  off all their clothes, petticoats, shift and all, close to
  their stays, and then turning them into the street.

DOCTOR. Milk and water, with a little rum, and some nutmeg;
  also the name of a composition used by distillers,
  to make spirits appear stronger than they really are, or,
  in their phrase, better proof.

DOCTORS. Loaded dice, that will run but two or three
  chances. They put the doctors upon him; they cheated
  him with loaded dice.

DODSEY. A woman: perhaps a corruption of Doxey. CANT.

DOG BUFFERS. Dog stealers, who kill those dogs not
  advertised for, sell their skins, and feed the remaining dogs
  with their flesh.

DOG IN A DOUBLET. A daring, resolute fellow. In
  Germany and Flanders the boldest dogs used to hunt the boar,
  having a kind of buff doublet buttoned on their bodies,
  Rubens has represented several so equipped, so has Sneyders.

DOG. An old dog at it; expert or accustomed to any thing.
  Dog in a manger; one who would prevent another from
  enjoying what he himself does not want: an allusion to
  the well-known fable. The dogs have not dined; a
  common saying to any one whose shirt hangs out behind. To
  dog, or dodge; to follow at a distance. To blush like a
  blue dog, i.e. not at all. To walk the black dog on any
  one; a punishment inflicted in the night on a fresh prisoner,
  by his comrades, in case of his refusal to pay the usual
  footing or garnish.

DOG LATIN. Barbarous Latin, such as was formerly used
  by the lawyers in their pleadings.

DOG'S PORTION. A lick and a smell. He comes in for only
  a dog's portion; a saying of one who is a distant admirer
  or dangler after women. See DANGLER.

DOG'S RIG. To copulate till you are tired, and then turn
  tail to it.

DOG'S SOUP. Rain water.

DOG VANE. A cockade. SEA TERM.

DOGGED. Surly.

DOGGESS, DOG'S WIFE or LADY, PUPPY'S MAMMA.
  Jocular ways of calling a woman a bitch.

DOLL. Bartholomew doll; a tawdry, over-drest woman,
  like one of the children's dolls at Bartholomew fair. To
  mill doll; to beat hemp at Bridewell, or any other house
  of correction.

DOLLY. A Yorkshire dolly; a contrivance for washing, by
  means of a kind of wheel fixed in a tub, which being turned
  about, agitates and cleanses the linen put into it, with
  soap and water.

DOMINE DO LITTLE. An impotent old fellow.

DOMINEER. To reprove or command in an insolent or
  haughty manner. Don't think as how you shall domineer
  here.

DOMMERER. A beggar pretending that his tongue has been
  cutout by the Algerines, or cruel and blood-thirsty Turks,
  or else that he yas born deaf and dumb. Cant.

DONE, or DONE OVER. Robbed: also, convicted or hanged.
  Cant.--See DO.

DONE UP. Ruined by gaming and extravagances. Modern
  Term.

DONKEY, DONKEY DICK. A he, or jack ass: called donkey,
  perhaps, from the Spanish or don-like gravity of
  that animal, intitled also the king of Spain's trumpeter.

DOODLE. A silly fellow, or noodle: see NOODLE. Also a
  child's penis. Doodle doo, or Cock a doodle doo; a
  childish appellation for a cock, in imitation of its note
  when crowing.

DOODLE SACK. A bagpipe. Dutch.--Also the private parts
  of a woman.

DOPEY. A beggar's trull.

DOT AND GO ONE. To waddle: generally applied to persons
  who have one leg shorter than the other, and who, as the
  sea phrase is, go upon an uneven keel. Also a jeering
  appellation for an inferior writing-master, or teacher of
  arithmetic.

DOUBLE. To tip any one the double; to run away in his or
  her debt.

DOUBLE JUGG. A man's backside. Cotton's Virgil.

DOVE-TAIL. A species of regular answer, which fits into
  the subject, like the contrivance whence it takes its name:
  Ex. Who owns this? The dovetail is, Not you by your
  asking.

DOUGLAS. Roby Douglas, with one eye and a stinking
  breath; the breech. Sea wit.

DOWDY. A coarse, vulgar-looking woman.

DOWN HILLS. Dice that run low.

DOWN. Aware of a thing. Knowing it. There is NO DOWN.
  A cant phrase used by house-breakers to signify that the
  persons belonging to any house are not on their guard,
  or that they are fast asleep, and have not heard any noise
  to alarm them.

TO DOWSE. To take down: as, Dowse the pendant. Dowse
  your dog vane; take the cockade out of your hat. Dowse
  the glim; put out the candle.

DOWSE ON THE CHOPS. A blow in the face.

DOWSER. Vulgar pronunciation of DOUCEUR.

DOXIES. She beggars, wenches, whores.

DRAB. A nasty, sluttish whore.

DRAG. To go on the drag; to follow a cart or waggon, in
  order to rob it. CANT.

DRAG LAY. Waiting in the streets to rob carts or waggons.

DRAGGLETAIL or DAGGLETAIL. One whose garments are
  bespattered with dag or dew: generally applied to the
  female sex, to signify a slattern.

DRAGOONING IT. A man who occupies two branches of
  one profession, is said to dragoon it; because, like the
  soldier of that denomination, he serves in a double capacity.
  Such is a physician who furnishes the medicines, and
  compounds his own prescriptions.

DRAIN. Gin: so called from the diuretic qualities imputed
  to that liquor.

DRAM. A glass or small measure of any spirituous liquors,
  which, being originally sold by apothecaries, were estimated
  by drams, ounces, &c. Dog's dram; to spit in
  his mouth, and clap his back.

DRAM-A-TICK. A dram served upon credit.

DRAPER. An ale draper; an alehouse keeper.

DRAUGHT, or BILL, ON THE PUMP AT ALDGATE. A bad
  or false bill of exchange. See ALDGATE.

DRAW LATCHES. Robbers of houses whose doors are
  only fastened with latches. CANT.

TO DRAW. To take any thing from a pocket. To draw a
  swell of a clout. To pick a gentleman's pocket of a
  handkerchief. To draw the long bow; to tell lies.

DRAWERS. Stockings. CANT.

DRAWING THE KING'S PICTURE. Coining. CANT.

TO DRESS. To beat. I'll dress his hide neatly; I'll beat him
  soundly.

DRIBBLE. A method of pouring out, as it were, the dice
  from the box, gently, by which an old practitioner is
  enabled to cog one of them with his fore-finger.

DRIPPER. A gleet.

DROMEDARY. A heavy, bungling thief or rogue. A purple
  dromedary; a bungler in the art and mystery of thieving.
  CANT.

DROMMERARS. See DOMMERER.

DROP. The new drop; a contrivance for executing felons at
  Newgate, by means of a platform, which drops from
  under them: this is also called the last drop. See LEAF.
  See MORNING DROP.

DROP A COG. To let fall, with design, a piece of gold or
  silver, in order to draw in and cheat the person who sees
  it picked up; the piece so dropped is called a dropt cog.

DROP IN THE EYE. Almost drunk.

DROPPING MEMBER. A man's yard with a gonorrhoea.

DROP COVES. Persons who practice the fraud of dropping
  a ring or other article, and picking it up before the
  person intended to be defrauded, they pretend that the
  thing is very valuable to induce their gull to lend them
  money, or to purchase the article. See FAWNY RIG,
  and MONEY DROPPERS.

TO DROP DOWN. To be dispirited. This expression is
  used by thieves to signify that their companion did not
  die game, as the kiddy dropped down when he went to
  be twisted; the young fellow was very low spirited when
  he walked out to be hanged.

TO DRUB. To beat any one with a stick, or rope's end:
  perhaps a contraction of DRY RUB. It is also used to signify
  a good beating with any instrument.

DRUMMER. A jockey term for a horse that throws about
  his fore legs irregularly: the idea is taken from a kettle
  drummer, who in beating makes many flourishes with
  his drumsticks.

DRUNK. Drunk as a wheel-barrow. Drunk as David's
  sow. See DAVID'S SOW.

DRURY LANE AGUE. The venereal disorder.

DRURY LANE VESTAL. A woman of the town, or prostitute;
  Drury-lane and its environs were formerly the residence
  of many of those ladies.

DRY BOB. A smart repartee: also copulation without
  emission; in law Latin, siccus robertulus.

DRY BOOTS. A sly humorous fellow.

DUB. A picklock, or master-key. CANT.

DUB LAY. Robbing houses by picking the locks.

DUB THE JIGGER. Open the door. CANT.

DUB O' TH' HICK. A lick on the head.

DUBBER. A picker of locks. CANT.

DUCE. Two-pence.

DUCK. A lame duck; an Exchange-alley phrase for a
  stock-jobber, who either cannot or will not pay his losses,
  or, differences, in which case he is said to WADDLE OUT OF
  THE ALLEY, as he cannot appear there again till his debts
  are settled and paid; should he attempt it, he would be
  hustled out by the fraternity.

DUCKS AND DRAKES. To make ducks and drakes: a
  school-boy's amusement, practised with pieces of tile,
  oyster-shells, or flattish stones, which being skimmed
  along the surface of a pond, or still river, rebound many
  times. To make ducks and drakes of one's money; to
  throw it idly away.

DUCK F-CK-R. The man who has the care of the poultry
  on board a ship of war.

DUCK LEGS. Short legs.

DUDDERS, or WHISPERING DUDDERS. Cheats who travel
  the country, pretending to sell smuggled goods: they
  accost their intended dupes in a whisper. The goods
  they have for sale are old shop-keepers, or damaged;
  purchased by them of large manufactories. See DUFFER.

DUDDERING RAKE. A thundering rake, a buck of the
  first head, one extremely lewd.

DUDGEON. Anger.

DUDS. Clothes.

DUFFERS. Cheats who ply in different parts of the town,
  particularly about Water-lane, opposite St. Clement's
  church, in the Strand, and pretend to deal in smuggled
  goods, stopping all country people, or such as they think
  they can impose on; which they frequently do, by selling
  them Spital-fields goods at double their current price.

DUGS. A woman's breasts,

DUKE, or RUM DUKE. A queer unaccountable fellow.

DUKE OF LIMBS. A tall, awkward, ill-made fellow.

DUKE HUMPHREY. To dine with Duke Humphrey; to
  fast. In old St. Paul's church was an aisle called Duke
  Humphrey's walk (from a tomb vulgarly called his, but
  in reality belonging to John of Gaunt), and persons who
  walked there, while others were at dinner, were said to
  dine with Duke Humphrey.

DULL SWIFT. A stupid, sluggish fellow, one long going on
  an errand.

DUMB ARM. A lame arm.

DUMB-FOUNDED. Silenced, also soundly beaten.

DUMB GLUTTON. A woman's privities.

DUMB WATCH. A venereal bubo in the groin.

DUMMEE. A pocket book. A dummee hunter. A pick-pocket,
  who lurks about to steal pocket books out of
  gentlemen's pockets. Frisk the dummee of the screens; take
  all the bank notes out of the pocket book, ding the dummee,
  and bolt, they sing out beef. Throw away the pocket
  book, and run off, as they call out "stop thief."

DUMPLIN. A short thick man or woman. Norfolk dumplin;
  a jeering appellation of a Norfolk man, dumplins being
  a favourite kind of food in that county.

DUMPS. Down in the dumps; low-spirited, melancholy:
  jocularly said to be derived from Dumpos, a king of Egypt,
  who died of melancholy. Dumps are also small pieces of
  lead, cast by schoolboys in the shape of money.

DUN. An importunate creditor. Dunny, in the provincial
  dialect of several counties, signifies DEAF; to dun, then,
  perhaps may mean to deafen with importunate demands:
  some derive it from the word DONNEZ, which signifies GIVE.
  But the true original meaning of the word, owes its birth
  to one Joe Dun, a famous bailiff of the town of Lincoln, so
  extremely active, and so dexterous in his business, that it
  became a proverb, when a man refused to pay, Why do not
  you DUN him? that is, Why do not you set Dun to attest
  him? Hence it became a cant word, and is now as old as
  since the days of Henry VII. Dun was also the general
  name for the hangman, before that of Jack Ketch.

      And presently a halter got,
      Made of the best strong hempen teer,
      And ere a cat could lick her ear,
      Had tied it up with as much art,
      As DUN himself could do for's heart.

      Cotton's Virgil Trav. book iv.

DUNAKER. A stealer of cows and calves.

DUNEGAN. A privy. A water closet.

DUNGHILL. A coward: a cockpit phrase, all but gamecocks
  being styled dunghills. To die dunghill; to repent, or shew
  any signs of contrition at the gallows. Moving dunghill;
  a dirty, filthy man or woman. Dung, an abbreviation of
  dunghill, also means a journeyman taylor who submits to
  the law for regulating journeymen taylors' wages, therefore
  deemed by the flints a coward. See FLINTS.

DUNNOCK. A cow. CUNT.

TO DUP. To open a door: a contraction of DO OPE or OPEN.
  See DUB.

DURHAM MAN. Knocker kneed, he grinds mustard with
  his knees: Durham is famous for its mustard.

DUST. Money. Down with your dust; deposit the money.
  To raise or kick up a dust; to make a disturbance or riot:
  see BREEZE. Dust it away; drink about.

DUSTMAN. A dead man: your father is a dustman.

DUTCH COMFORT. Thank God it is no worse.

DUTCH CONCERT. Where every one plays or signs a
  different tune.

DUTCH FEAST. Where the entertainer gets drunk before
  his guest.

DUTCH RECKONING, or ALLE-MAL. A verbal or lump
  account, without particulars, as brought at spungiug or
  bawdy houses.

DUTCHESS. A woman enjoyed with her pattens on, or by a
  man-in boots, is said to be made a dutchess.

DIE HARD, or GAME. To die hard, is to shew no signs of
  fear or contrition at the gallows; not to whiddle or squeak.
  This advice is frequently given to felons going to suffer the
  law, by their old comrades, anxious for the honour of the
  gang.

EARNEST. A deposit in part of payment, to bind a bargain.

EARTH BATH. A Grave.

EASY. Make the cull easy or quiet; gag or kill him. As
  easy as pissing the bed.

EASY VIRTUE. A lady of easy virtue: an impure or prostitute.

EAT. To eat like a beggar man, and wag his under jaw; a
  jocular reproach to a proud man. To eat one's words; to
  retract what one has said.

TO EDGE. To excite, stimulate, or provoke; or as it is
  vulgarly called, to egg a man on. Fall back, fall edge; i.e.
  let what will happen. Some derive to egg on, from the
  Latin word, AGE, AGE.

EIGHT EYES. I will knock out two of your eight eyes; a
  common Billingsgate threat from one fish nymph to
  another: every woman, according to the naturalists of that
  society, having eight eyes; viz. two seeing eyes, two
  bub-eyes, a bell-eye, two pope's eyes, and a ***-eye. He has
  fallen down and trod upon his eye; said of one who has a
  black eye.

ELBOW GREASE. Labour. Elbow grease will make an oak
  table shine.

ELBOW ROOM. Sufficient space to act in. Out at elbows;
  said of an estate that is mortgaged.

ELBOW SHAKER. A gamester, one who rattles Saint Hugh's
  bones, i.e. the dice.

ELLENBOROUGH LODGE. The King's Bench Prison. Lord
  Ellenborough's teeth; the chevaux de frize round the top
  of the wall of that prison.

ELF. A fairy or hobgoblin, a little man or woman.

EMPEROR. Drunk as an emperor, i.e. ten times as drunk as
  a lord.

ENGLISH BURGUNDY. Porter.

ENSIGN BEARER. A drunken man, who looks red in the
  face, or hoists his colours in his drink.

EQUIPT. Rich; also, having new clothes. Well equipt;
  full of money, or well dressed. The cull equipped  me
  with a brace of meggs; the gentleman furnished me with.
  a couple of guineas.

ESSEX LION. A calf; Essex being famous for calves, and
  chiefly supplying the London markets.

ESSEX STILE. A ditch; a great part of Essex is low marshy
  ground, in which there are more ditches than Stiles.

ETERNITY Box. A coffin.

EVES. Hen roosts.

EVE'S CUSTOM-HOUSE, where Adam made his first entry.
  The monosyllable.

EVES DROPPER. One that lurks about to rob hen-roosts;
  also a listener at doors and windows, to hear private
  conversation.

EVIL. A halter. Cant, Also a wife.

EWE. A white ewe; a beautiful woman. An old ewe, drest
  lamb fashion; an old woman, drest like a young girl.

EXECUTION DAY. Washing day.

EXPENDED. Killed: alluding  to the gunner's accounts,
  wherein the articles consumed are charged under the title
  of expended. Sea phrase.

EYE. It's all my eye and Betty Martin. It's all nonsense, all
  mere stuff.

EYE-SORE. A disagreeable object. It will be an eye-sore as
  long as she lives, said by a limn whose wife was cut for a
  fistula in ano.

FACE-MAKING. Begetting children. To face it out; to
  persist in a falsity. No face but his own: a saying of one
  who has no money in his pocket or no court cards in his
  hand.

FACER. A bumper, a glass filled so full as to leave no room
  for the lip. Also a violent blow on the face.

FADGE. It won't fadge; it won't do. A farthing.

TO FAG. To beat. Fag the bloss; beat the wench; Cant.
  A fag also means a boy of an inferior form or class, who
  acts as a servant to one of a superior, who is said to fag him,
  he is my fag; whence, perhaps, fagged out, for jaded or tired.
  To stand a good fag; not to be soon tired.

FAGGER. A little boy put in at a window to rob the house.

FAGGOT. A man hired at a muster to appear as a soldier.
  To faggot in the canting sense, means to bind: an allusion
  to the faggots made up by the woodmen, which are
  all bound. Faggot the culls; bind the men.

FAITHFUL. One of the faithful; a taylor who gives long
  credit. His faith has made him unwhole; i.e. trusting
  too much, broke him.

FAIR. A set of subterraneous rooms in the Fleet Prison.

FAKEMENT. A counterfeit signature. A forgery. Tell
  the macers to mind their fakements; desire the swindlers
  to be careful not to forge another person's signature.

FALLALLS. Ornaments, chiefly women's, such as ribands,
  necklaces, &c.

FALLEN AWAY FROM A HORSE LOAD TO A CART LOAD.
  A saying on one grown fat.

FAMILY MAN. A thief or receiver of stolen goods.

FAM LAY. Going into a goldsmith's shop, under pretence
  of buying a wedding ring, and palming one or two, by
  daubing the hand with some viscous matter.

FAMS, or FAMBLES. Hands. Famble cheats; rings or
  gloves. CANT.

TO FAMGRASP. To shake bands: figuratively, to agree
  or make up a difference. Famgrasp the cove; shake hands
  with the fellow. CANT.

FAMILY OF LOVE. Lewd women; also, a religious sect.

FANCY MAN. A man kept by a lady for secret services.

TO FAN. To beat any one. I fanned him sweetly; I beat
  him heartily.

FANTASTICALLY DRESSED, with more rags than ribands.

FART. He has let a brewer's fart, grains and all; said of
  one who has bewrayed his breeches.

      Piss and fart.
      Sound at heart.
      Mingere cum bumbis,
      Res saluberrima est lumbis.

  I dare not trust my a-se with a fart: said by a person troubled
  with a looseness.

FART CATCHER. A valet or footman from his walking
  behind his master or mistress.

FARTING CRACKERS. Breeches.

FARTLEBERRIES. Excrement hanging about the anus.

FASTNER. A warrant.

FASTNESSES. Bogs.

FAT. The last landed, inned, or stowed, of any sort of
  merchandise: so called by the water-side porters, carmen, &c.
  All the fat is in the fire; that is, it is all over with us: a
  saying used in case of any miscarriage or disappointment
  in an undertaking; an allusion to overturning the
  frying pan into the fire. Fat, among printers, means void
  spaces.

AS FAT AS A HEN IN THE FOREHEAD. A saying of a meagre person.

FAT CULL. A rich fellow.

FAT HEADED. Stupid.

FAULKNER. A tumbler, juggler, or shewer of tricks; perhaps
  because they lure the people, as a faulconer does his
  hawks. CANT.

FAYTORS, or FATORS. Fortune tellers.

FAWNEY RIG. A common fraud, thus practised: A fellow
  drops a brass ring, double gilt, which he picks up before
  the party meant to be cheated, and to whom he disposes
  of it for less than its supposed, and ten times more than
  its real, value. See MONEY DROPPER.

FAWNEY. A ring.

FEAGUE. To feague a horse; to put ginger up a horse's
  fundament, and formerly, as it is said, a live eel, to make
  him lively and carry his tail well; it is said, a forfeit is
  incurred by any horse-dealer's servant, who shall shew a
  horse without first feaguing him. Feague is used,
  figuratively, for encouraging or spiriting one up.

FEAK. The fundament.

To FEATHER ONE'S NEST. To enrich one's self.

FEATHER-BED LANE. A rough or stony lane.

FEE, FAW, FUM. Nonsensical words, supposed in childish
  story-books to be spoken by giants. I am not to be frighted
  by fee, faw, fum; I am not to be scared by nonsense.

FEEDER. A spoon. To nab the feeder; to steal a spoon.

FEET. To make feet for children's stockings; to beget
  children. An officer of feet; a jocular title for an officer
  of infantry.

FEINT. A sham attack on one part, when a real one is meant
  at another.

FELLOW COMMONER. An empty bottle: so called at the
  university of Cambridge, where fellow commoners are
  not in general considered as over full of learning. At
  Oxford an empty bottle is called a gentleman commoner
  for the same reason. They pay at Cambridge 250 l. a year
  for the privilege of wearing a gold or silver tassel to their
  caps. The younger branches of the nobility have the
  privilege of wearing a hat, and from thence are denominated HAT
  FELLOW COMMONERS.

FEN. A bawd, or common prostitute. CANT.

TO FENCE. To pawn or sell to a receiver of stolen goods.
  The kiddey fenced his thimble for three quids; the young
  fellow pawned his watch for three guineas. To fence
  invariably means to pawn or sell goods to a receiver.

FENCING KEN. The magazine, or warehouse, where
  stolen goods are secreted.

FERME. A hole. CANT.

FERMERDY BEGGARS. All those who have not the sham
  sores or clymes.

FERRARA. Andrea Ferrara; the name of a famous sword-cutler:
  most of the Highland broad-swords are marked
  with his name; whence an Andrea Ferrara has become
  the common name for the glaymore or Highland
  broad-sword. See CLAYMORE.

FERRET. A tradesman who sells goods to young unthrift
  heirs, at excessive rates, and then continually duns them
  for the debt. To ferret; to search out or expel any one
  from his hiding-place, as a ferret drives out rabbits; also
  to cheat. Ferret-eyed; red-eyed: ferrets have red eyes.

FETCH. A trick, wheedle, or invention to deceive.

FEUTERER. A dog-keeper: from the French vautrier, or
  vaultrier, one that leads a lime hound for the chase.

TO FIB. To beat. Fib the cove's quarron in the rumpad
  for the lour in his bung; beat the fellow in the highway
  for the money in his purse. CANT.--A fib is also a tiny lie.

FICE, or FOYSE. A small windy escape backwards, more
  obvious to the nose than ears; frequently by old ladies
  charged on their lap-dogs. See FIZZLE.

FID OF TOBACCO. A quid, from the small pieces of tow
  with which the vent or touch hole of a cannon is stopped.
  SEA TERM.

FIDDLE FADDLE. Trifling discourse, nonsense. A mere
  fiddle faddle fellow; a trifier.

FIDDLESTICK'S END. Nothing; the end of the ancient
  fiddlesticks ending in a point; hence metaphorically used
  to express a thing terminating in nothing.

FIDGETS. He has got the fidgets; said of one that cannot
  sit long in a place.

FIDLAM BEN. General thieves; called also St. Peter's sons,
  having every finger a fish-hook. CANT.

FIDDLERS MONEY. All sixpences: sixpence being the
  usual sum paid by each couple, for music at country
  wakes and hops. Fiddler's fare; meat, drink, and money.
  Fiddler's pay; thanks and wine.

FIELD LANE DUCK. A baked sheep's head.

FIERI FACIAS. A red-faced man is said to have been served
  with a writ of fieri facias.

FIGDEAN. To kill.

FIGGER. A little boy put in at a window to hand out
  goods to the diver. See DIVER.

FIGGING LAW. The art of picking pockets. CANT.

FIGURE DANCER. One who alters figures on bank notes,
  converting tens to hundreds.

FILCH, or FILEL. A beggar's staff, with an iron hook at
  the end, to pluck clothes from an hedge, or any thing out
  of a casement. Filcher; the same as angler. Filching
  cove; a man thief. Filching mort; a woman thief.

FILE, FILE CLOY, or BUNGNIPPER. A pick pocket. To
  file; to rob or cheat. The file, or bungnipper, goes
  generally in company with two assistants, the adam tiler, and
  another called the bulk or bulker, Whose business it is to
  jostle the person they intend to rob, and push him against
  the wall, while the file picks his pocket, and gives'the booty
  to the adam tiler, who scours off with it.  CANT.

FIN. An arm. A one finned fellow; a man who has lost
  an arm. SEA PHRASE.

FINE. Fine as five pence. Fine as a cow-t--d stuck with
  primroses.

FINE. A man imprisoned for any offence. A fine of eighty-four
  months; a transportation for seven years.

FINGER IN EYE. To put finger in eye; to weep: commonly
  applied to women. The more you cry the less
  you'll p-ss; a consolatory speech used by sailors to their
  doxies. It is as great a pity to see a woman cry, as to
  see a goose walk barefoot; another of the same kind.

FINGER POST. A parson: so called, because he points out
  a way to others which he never goes himself. Like the
  finger post, he points out a way he has never been, and
  probably will never go, i.e. the way to heaven.

FINISH. The finish; a small coffee-house in Coven Garden,
  market, opposite Russel-street, open very early in the
  morning, and therefore resorted to by debauchees shut out
  of every other house: it is also called Carpenter's coffee-house.

FIRING A GUN. Introducing a story by head and shoulders.
  A man wanting to tell a particular story, said to the
  company, Hark! did you not hear a gun?--but now we are
  talking of a gun, I will tell you the story of one.

TO FIRE A SLUG. To drink a dram.

FIRE PRIGGERS. Villains who rob at fires under pretence
  of assisting in removing the goods.

FIRE SHIP. A wench who has the venereal disease.

FIRE SHOVEL. He or she when young, was fed with a fire
  shovel; a saying of persons with wide mouths.

FISH. A seaman. A scaly fish; a rough, blunt tar. To
  have other fish to fry; to have other matters to mind,
  something else to do.

FIT. Suitable. It won't fit; It will not suit or do.

FIVE SHILLINGS. The sign of five shillings, i.e. the crown.
  Fifteen shillings; the sign of the three crowns.

FIZZLE. An escape backward,

FLABAGASTED. Confounded.

FLABBY. Relaxed, flaccid, not firm or solid.

FLAG. A groat. CANT.--The flag of defiance, or bloody flag
  is out; signifying the man is drunk, and alluding to the
  redness of his face. SEA PHRASE.

FLAM. A lie, or sham story: also a single stroke on a drum.
  To flam; to hum, to amuse, to deceive. Flim flams; idle
  stories.

FLAP DRAGON. A clap, or pox.

To FLARE. To blaze, shine or glare.

FLASH. Knowing. Understanding another's meaning. The
  swell was flash, so I could not draw his fogle. The
  gentleman saw  what I was about, and therefore I could not
  pick his pocket of his silk handkerchief. To patter flash,
  to speak the slang language. See PATTER.

FLASH PANNEYS. Houses to which thieves and prostitutes
  resort.

  Next for his favourite MOT (Girl) the KIDDEY (Youth) looks
     about,
  And if she's in a FLASH PANNEY (Brothel) he swears he'll have
     her out;
  So he FENCES (Pawns) all his TOGS (Cloathes) to buy her DUDS,
     (Wearing Apparel) and then
  He FRISKS (Robs) his master's LOB (Till) to take her from the
     bawdy KEN (House).

          FLASH SONG.

FLASH. A periwig. Rum flash; a fine long wig. Queer
  flash; a miserable weather-beaten caxon.

To FLASH. To shew ostentatiously. To flash one's ivory;
  to laugh and shew one's teeth. Don't flash your ivory, but
  shut your potatoe trap, and keep your guts warm; the
  Devil loves hot tripes.

To FLASH THE HASH. To vomit. CANT.

FLASH KEN. A house that harbours thieves.

FLASH LINGO. The canting or slang language.

FLASH MAN. A bully to a bawdy house. A whore's bully.

FLAT. A bubble, gull, or silly fellow.

FLAT COCK. A female.

FLAWD. Drunk.

FLAYBOTTOMIST. A bum-brusher, or schoolmaster.

To FLAY, or FLEA, THE FOX. To vomit.

FLEA BITE. A trifling injury. To send any one away with
  a flea in his ear; to give any one a hearty scolding.

To FLEECE. To rob, cheat, or plunder.

FLEMISH ACCOUNT. A losing, or bad account.

FLESH BROKER. A match-maker, a bawd.

FLICKER. A drinking glass. CANT.

FLICKERING. Grinning or laughing in a man's face.

FLICKING. Cutting. Flick me some panam and caffan;
  cut me some bread and cheese. Flick the peter; cut off
  the cloak-bag, or portmanteau.

To FLING. To trick or cheat. He flung me fairly out of it:
  he cheated me out of it.

FLINTS. Journeymen taylors, who on a late occasion refused
  to work for the wages settled by law. Those who submitted,
  were by the mutineers styled dungs, i.e. dunghills.

FLIP. Small beer, brandy, and sugar: this mixture, with
  the addition of a lemon, was by sailors, formerly called Sir
  Cloudsly, in memory of Sir Cloudsly Shovel, who used
  frequently to regale himself with it.

FLOATING ACADEMY. See CAMPBELL'S ACADEMY.

FLOATING HELL. The hulks.

TO FLOG. To whip.

FLOGGER. A horsewhip. CANT.

FLOGGING CULLY. A debilitated lecher, commonly an old
  one.

FLOGGING COVE. The beadle, or whipper, in Bridewell.

FLOGGING STAKE. The whipping-post.

TO FLOOR. To knock down. Floor the pig; knock down
  the officer.

FLOURISH. To take a flourish; to enjoy a woman in a hasty
  manner, to take a flyer. See FLYER.

TO FLOUT. To jeer, to ridicule.

FLUMMERY. Oatmeal and water boiled to a jelly; also
  compliments, neither of which are over-nourishing.

FLUSH IN THE POCKET. Full of money. The cull is
  flush in the fob. The fellow is full of money.

FLUSTERED. Drunk.

FLUTE. The recorder of a corporation; a recorder was an
  antient musical instrument.

TO FLUX. To cheat, cozen, or over-reach; also to salivate.
  To flux a wig; to put it up in curl, and bake it.

FLY. Knowing. Acquainted with another's meaning or
  proceeding. The rattling cove is fly; the coachman
  knows what we are about.

FLY. A waggon. CANT.

FLY-BY-NIGHT. You old fly-by-night; an ancient term of
  reproach to an old woman, signifying that she was a witch,
  and alluding to the nocturnal excursions attributed to
  witches, who were supposed to fly abroad to their
  meetings, mounted on brooms.

FLY SLICERS. Life-guard men, from their sitting on
  horseback, under an arch, where they are frequently observed
  to drive away flies with their swords.

FLYER. To take a flyer; to enjoy a woman with her
  clothes on, or without going to bed.

FLYERS. Shoes.

FLY-FLAPPED. Whipt in the stocks, or at the cart's tail.

FLYING CAMPS. Beggars plying in a body at funerals.

FLYING GIGGERS. Turnpike gates.

FLYING HOUSE. A lock in wrestling, by which he who
  uses it throws his adversary over his head.

FLYING PASTY. Sirreverence wrapped in paper and
  thrown over a neighbour's wall.

FLYING PORTERS. Cheats who obtain money by pretending
  to persons who have been lately robbed, that they
  may come from a place or party where, and from whom,
  they may receive information respecting the goods stolen
  from them, and demand payment as porters.

FLYING STATIONERS. Ballad-singers and hawkers of penny
  histories.

FLYMSEY. A bank note.

FOB. A cheat, trick, or contrivance, I will not be fobbed off
  so; I will not be thus deceived with false pretences. The
  fob is also a small breeches pocket for holding a watch.

FOG. Smoke. CANT.

FOGEY. Old Fogey. A nickname for an invalid soldier:
  derived from the French word fougeux, fierce or fiery.

FOGLE. A silk handkerchief,

FOGRAM. An old fogram; a fusty old fellow.

FOGUS. Tobacco. Tip me a gage of fogus; give me a
  pipe of tobacco. CANT.

FOOL. A fool at the end of a stick; a fool at one end, and
  a maggot at the other; gibes on an angler.

FOOL FINDER. A bailiff.

FOOLISH. An expression among impures, signifying the
  cully who pays, in opposition to a flash man. Is he
  foolish or flash?

FOOT PADS, or LOW PADS. Rogues who rob on foot.

FOOT WABBLER. A contemptuous appellation for a foot
  soldier, commonly used by the cavalry.

FOOTMAN'S MAWND. An artificial sore made with unslaked
  lime, soap, and the rust of old iron, on the back
  of a beggar's hand, as if hurt by the bite or kick of a horse.

FOOTY DESPICABLE. A footy fellow, a despicable fellow;
  from the French foutue.

FOREFOOT, or PAW. Give us your fore foot; give us your hand.

FOREMAN OF THE JURY. One who engrosses all the talk
  to himself, or speaks for the rest of the company.

FORK. A pickpocket. Let us fork him; let us pick his
  pocket.--'The newest and most dexterous way, which is,
  to thrust the fingers strait, stiff, open, and very quick,
  into the pocket, and so closing them, hook what can
  be held between them.' N.B. This was taken from a
  book written many years ago: doubtless the art of picking
  pockets, like all others, must have been much improved
  since that time.

FORLORN HOPE. A gamester's last stake.

FORTUNE HUNTERS. Indigent men, seeking to enrich
  themselves by marrying a woman of fortune.

FORTUNE TELLER, or CUNNING MAN. A judge, who tells
  every prisoner his fortune, lot or doom. To go before the
  fortune teller, lambskin men, or conjuror; to be tried at
  an assize. See LAMBSKIN MEN.

FOUL. To foul a plate with a man, to take a dinner with him.

FOUL-MOUTHED. Abusive.

FOUNDLING. A child dropped in the streets, and found, and
  educated at the parish expence.

FOUSIL. The name of a public house, where the
  Eccentrics assemble in May's Buildings, St. Martin's Lane.

Fox. A sharp, cunning fellow. Also an old term for a
  sword, probably a rusty one, or else from its being dyed red
  with blood; some say this name alluded to certain swords
  of remarkable good temper, or metal, marked with the
  figure of a fox, probably the sign, or rebus, of the maker.

FOX'S PAW. The vulgar pronunciation of the French
  words faux pas. He made a confounded fox's paw.

FOXED. Intoxicated.

FOXEY. Rank. Stinking.

FOXING A BOOT. Mending the foot by capping it.

FOYST. A pickpocket, cheat, or rogue. See WOTTON'S GANG.

TO FOYST. To pick a pocket.

FOYSTED IN. Words or passages surreptitiously interpolated
  or inserted into a book or writing.

FRATERS. Vagabonds who beg with sham patents, or briefs,
  for hospitals, fires, inundations, &c.

FREE. Free of fumblers hall; a saying of one who cannot
  get his wife with child.

FREE AND EASY JOHNS. A society which meet at the Hole
  in the Wall, Fleet-street, to tipple porter, and sing bawdry.

FREE BOOTERS. Lawless robbers and plunderers: originally
  soldiers who served without pay, for the privilege of
  plundering the enemy.

FREEHOLDER. He whose wife accompanies him to the alehouse.

FREEMAN'S QUAY. Free of expence. To lush at Freeman's
  Quay; to drink at another's cost.

FREEZE. A thin, small, hard cider, much used by vintners
  and coopers in parting their wines, to lower the price of
  them, and to advance their gain. A freezing vintner; a
  vintner who balderdashes his wine.

FRENCH CREAM. Brandy; so called by the old tabbies
  and dowagers when drank in their tea.

FRENCH DISEASE. The venereal disease, said to have been
  imported from France. French gout; the same. He suffered
  by a blow over the snout with a French faggot-stick;
  i.e. he lost his nose by the pox.

FRENCH LEAVE. To take French leave; to go off without
  taking leave of the company: a saying frequently applied
  to persons who have run away from their creditors.

FRENCHIFIED. Infected with the venereal disease. The
  mort is Frenchified: the wench is infected.

FRESH MILK. Cambridge new comers to the university.

FRESHMAN. One just entered a member of the university.

FRIBBLE. An effeminate fop; a name borrowed from a
  celebrated character of that kind, in the farce of Miss in her
  Teens, written by Mr. Garrick.

FRIDAY-FACE. A dismal countenance. Before, and even
  long after the Reformation, Friday was a day of abstinence,
  or jour maigre. Immediately after the restoration of king
  Charles II. a proclamation was issued, prohibiting all
  publicans from dressing any suppers on a Friday.

TO FRIG. Figuratively used for trifling.

FRIG PIG. A trifling, fiddle-faddle fellow.

FRIGATE. A well-rigged frigate; a well-dressed wench.

FRISK. To dance the Paddington frisk; to be hanged.

TO FRISK. Used by thieves to signify searching a person
whom they have robbed. Blast his eyes! frisk him.

FROE, or VROE, A woman, wife, or mistress. Brush to your
  froe, or bloss, and wheedle for crop; run to your mistress,
  and sooth and coax her out of some money. DUTCH.

FROGLANDER. A Dutchman.

FROSTY FACE. One pitted with the small pox.

FROG'S WINE. Gin.

FRUITFUL VINE. A woman's private parts, i.e. that has
  FLOWERS every month, and bears fruit in nine months.

FRUMMAGEMMED. Choaked, strangled, suffocated, or
  hanged. CANT.

FUBSEY. Plump. A fubsey wench; a plump, healthy
  wench.

FUDDLE. Drunk. This is rum fuddle; this is excellent
  tipple, or drink. Fuddle; drunk. Fuddle cap; a drunkard.

FUDGE. Nonsense.

FULHAMS. Loaded dice are called high and lowmen, or
  high and low fulhams, by Ben Jonson and other writers of
  his time; either because they were made at Fulham, or from
  that place being the resort of sharpers.

FULL OF EMPTINESS. Jocular term for empty.

FULL MARCH. The Scotch greys are in full march by the
  crown office; the lice are crawling down his head.

FUMBLER. An old or impotent man. To fumble, also
  means to go awkwardly about any work, or manual
  operation.

FUN. A cheat, or trick. Do you think to fun me out of
  it? Do you think to cheat me?--Also the breech, perhaps
  from being the abbreviation of fundament. I'll kick your
  fun. CANT.

TO FUNK. To use an unfair motion of the hand in plumping
  at taw. SCHOOLBOY'S TERM.

FUNK. To smoke; figuratively, to smoke or stink through
  fear. I was in a cursed funk. To funk the cobler; a
  schoolboy's trick, performed with assafoettida and cotton,
  which are stuffed into a pipe: the cotton being lighted, and the
  bowl of the pipe covered with a coarse handkerchief, the
  smoke is blown out at the small end, through the crannies
  of a cobler's stall.

FURMEN. Aldermen.

FURMITY, or FROMENTY. Wheat boiled up to a jelly. To
  simper like a furmity kettle: to smile, or look merry about
  the gills.

FUSS. A confusion, a hurry, an unnecessary to do about
  trifles.

FUSSOCK. A lazy fat woman. An old fussock; a frowsy
  old woman.

FUSTIAN. Bombast language. Red fustian; port wine.

FUSTY LUGGS. A beastly, sluttish woman.

TO FUZZ. To shuffle cards minutely: also, to change the
  pack.

GAB, or GOB. The mouth. Gift of the gab; a facility
  of speech, nimble tongued eloquence. To blow the gab;
  to confess, or peach.

GAB, or GOB, STRING. A bridle.

GABBY. A foolish fellow.

GAD-SO. An exclamation said to be derived from the
  Italian word cazzo.

GAFF. A fair. The drop coves maced the joskins at the
  gaff; the ring-droppers cheated the countryman at the fair.

TO GAFF. To game by tossing up halfpence.

GAG. An instrument used chiefly by housebreakers and
  thieves, for propping open the mouth of a person robbed,
  thereby to prevent his calling out for assistance.

GAGE. A quart pot, or a pint; also a pipe. CANT.

GAGE, or FOGUS. A pipe of tobacco.

GAGGERS. High and Low. Cheats, who by sham
  pretences, and wonderful stories of their sufferings, impose on
  the credulity of well meaning people. See RUM GAGGER.

GALIMAUFREY. A hodgepodge made up of the remnants
  and scraps of the larder.

GALL. His gall is not yet broken; a saying used in prisons
  of a man just brought in, who appears dejected.

GALLEY. Building the galley; a game formerly used at
  sea, in order to put a trick upon a landsman, or fresh-water
  sailor. It being agreed to play at that game, one
  sailor personates the builder, and another the merchant or
  contractor: the builder first begins by laying the keel,
  which consists of a number of men laid all along on their
  backs, one after another, that is, head to foot; he next
  puts in the ribs or knees, by making a number of men sit
  feet to feet, at right angles to, and on each side of, the
  keel: he now fixing on the person intended to be the object
  of the joke, observes he is a fierce-looking fellow,
  and fit for the lion; he accordingly places him at the head,
  his arms being held or locked in by the two persons next
  to him, representing the ribs. After several other
  dispositions, the builder delivers over the galley to the
  contractor as complete: but he, among other faults and
  objections, observes the lion is not gilt, on which the builder
  or one of his assistants, runs to the head, and dipping a
  mop in the excrement, thrusts it into the face of the lion.

GALLEY FOIST. A city barge, used formerly on the lord
  mayor's day, when he was sworn in at Westminster.

GALLIED. Hurried, vexed, over-fatigued, perhaps like a
  galley slave.

GALLIGASKINS. Breeches.

GALLIPOT. A nick namefor an apothecary,

GALLORE, or GOLORE. Plenty.

GALLOPER. A blood horse. A hunter. The toby gill clapped his
  bleeders to his galloper and tipped the straps the
  double. The highwayman spurred his horse and got
  away from the officers.

GALLOWS BIRD. A grief, or pickpocket; also one that
  associates with them.

GAMES. Thin, ill-shapped legs: a corruption of the French
  word jambes. Fancy gambs; sore or swelled legs.

GAMBADOES. Leathern cases of stiff leather, used in
  Devonshire instead of boots; they are fastened to the saddle,
  and admit the leg, shoe and all: the name was at first
  jocularly given.

GAMBLER. A sharper, of tricking, gamester.

GAME. Any mode of robbing. The toby is now a queer
  game; to rob on the highway is now a bad mode of
  acting. This observation is frequently made by thieves;
  the roads being now so well guarded by the horse patrole;
  and gentlemen travel with little cash in their pockets.

GAME. Bubbles or pigeons drawn in to be cheated. Also,
  at bawdy-houses, lewd women. Mother have you any
  game; mother, have you any girls? To die game; to
  suffer at the gallows without shewing any signs of fear or
  repentance. Game pullet; a young whore, or forward
  girl in the way of becoming one.

GAMON. To humbug. To deceive, To tell lies. What
  rum gamon the old file pitched to the flat; how finely the
  knowing old fellow humbugged the fool.

GAMON AND PATTER. Common place talk of any
  profession; as the gamon and patter of a horse-dealer, sailor,
  &c.

GAN. The mouth or lips. Cant.

GANDER MONTH. That month in which a man's wife-lies
  in: wherefore, during that time, husbands plead a sort of
  indulgence in matters of gallantry.

GANG. A company of men, a body of sailors, a knot of
  thieves, pickpockets, &c. A gang of sheep trotters; the
  four feet of a sheep.

GAOLER'S COACH. A hurdle: traitors being usually
  conveyed from the gaol, to the place of execution, on a
  hurdle or sledge.

GAP STOPPER. A whoremaster.

GAPESEED. Sights; any thing to feed the eye. I am come
  abroad for a little gapeseed.

GARNISH. An entrance fee demanded by the old prisoners
  of one just committed to gaol.

GARRET, or UPPER STORY. The head. His garret, or
  upper story, is empty, or unfurnished; i.e. he has no
  brains, he is a fool.

GARRET ELECTION. A ludicrous ceremony, practised every
  new parliament: it consists of a mock election of two
  members to represent the borough of Garret (a few
  straggling cottages near Wandsworth in Surry); the
  qualification of a voter is, having enjoyed a woman in the open
  air within that district: the candidates are commonly fellows
  of low humour, who dress themselves up in a ridiculous
  manner. As this brings a prodigious concourse of
  people to Wandsworth, the publicans of that place jointly
  contribute to the expence, which is sometimes considerable.

GAWKEY. A tall, thin, awkward young man or woman.

GAYING INSTRUMENT. The penis.

GAZEBO. An elevated observatory or summer-house.

GEE. It won't gee; it won't hit or do, it does not suit or
  fit.

GELDING. An eunuch.

GELT. Money, GERMAN.--Also, castrated.

GENTLE CRAFT. The art of shoemaking. One of the gentle
  craft: a shoemaker: so called because once practised
  by St. Crispin.

GENTLEMAN COMMONER. An empty bottle; an university
  joke, gentlemen commoners not being deemed over full
  of learning.

GENTLEMAN'S COMPANION. A louse.

GENTLEMAN'S MASTER. A highway robber, because he
  makes a gentleman obey his commands, i.e. stand and deliver.

GENTLEMAN OF THREE INS. In debt, in gaol, and in danger
  of remaining there for life: or, in gaol, indicted, and
  in danger of being hanged in chains.

GENTLEMAN OF THREE OUTS. That is, without money,
  without wit, and without manners: some add another
  out, i.e. without credit.

GENTRY COVE. A gentleman. CANT.

GENTRY COVE KEN. A gentleman's house.   CANT.

GENTRY MORT. A gentlewoman.

GEORGE. Yellow George; a guinea. Brown George: an
  ammunition loaf.

GERMAN DUCK. Haifa sheep's head boiled with onions.

GET. One of his get; one of his offspring, or begetting.

GIB CAT. A northern name for a he cat, there commonly
  called Gilbert. As melancholy as a gib cat; as melancholy
  as a he cat who has been caterwauling, whence they
  always return scratched, hungry, and out of spirits.
  Aristotle says, Omne animal post coitum est triste; to which an
  anonymous author has given the following exception,
  preter gallum gallinaceum, et sucerdotem gratis fornicantem.

GIBBERISH. The cant language of thieves and gypsies,
  called Pedlars' French, and St. Giles's Greek: see ST.
  GILES'S GREEK. Also the mystic language of Geber,
  used by chymists. Gibberish likewise means a sort of
  disguised language, formed by inserting any consonant
  between each syllable of an English word; in which case it
  is called the gibberish of the letter inserted: if F, it is the
  F gibberish; if G, the G gibberish; as in the sentence
  How do you do? Howg dog youg dog.

GIBBE. A horse that shrinks from the collar and will not
  draw.

GIBLETS. To join giblets; said of a man and woman who
  cohabit as husband and wife, without being married;
  also to copulate.

GIBSON, or SIR JOHN GIBBON, A two-legged stool, used to
  support the body of a coach whilst finishing.

GIFTS. Small white specks under the finger nails, said to
  portend gifts or presents. A stingy man is said to be
  as full of gifts as a brazen horse of his farts.

GIFT OF THE GAB. A facility of speech.

GIGG. A nose. Snitchel his gigg; fillip his nose. Grunter's
  gigg; a hog's snout. Gigg is also a high one-horse
  chaise, and a woman's privities. To gigg a Smithfield
  hank; to hamstring an over-drove ox, vulgarly called a
  mad bullock.

GIGGER. A latch, or door. Dub the gigger; open the
  door. Gigger dubber; the turnkey of a jaol.

To GIGGLE. To suppress a laugh. Gigglers; wanton women.

GILES'S or ST. GILES'S BREED. Fat, ragged, and saucy;
  Newton and Dyot streets, the grand head-quarters-of most
  of the thieves and pickpockets about London, are in St. Giles's
  Giles's parish. St. Giles's Greek; the cant language,
  called also Slang, Pedlars' French, and Flash.

GILFLURT. A proud minks, a vain capricious woman,

GILL. The abbreviation of Gillian, figuratively used for
  woman. Every jack has his gill; i.e. every jack has his
  gillian, or female mate.

GILLS. The cheeks. To look rosy about the gills; to have
  a fresh complexion. To look merry about the gills: to
  appear cheerful.

GILLY GAUPUS. A Scotch term for a tall awkward
  fellow.

GILT, or RUM DUBBER. A thief who picks locks, so called
  from the gilt or picklock key: many of them are so
  expert, that, from the lock of a church door to that of
  the smallest cabinet, they will find means to open it;
  these go into reputable public houses, where, pretending
  business, they contrive to get into private rooms, up
  stairs, where they open any bureaus or trunks they happen
  to find there.

GIMBLET-EYED. Squinting, either in man or woman.

GIMCRACK, or JIMCRACK. A spruce wench; a gimcrack
  also means a person who has a turn for mechanical
  contrivances.

GIN SPINNER. A distiller.

GINGAMBOBS. Toys, bawbles; also a man's privities. See
  THINGAMBOBS.

GINGER-PATED, or GINGER-HACKLED. Red haired: a
  term borrowed from the cockpit, where red cocks are
  called gingers,

GINGERBREAD. A cake made of treacle, flour, and grated
  ginger; also money. He has the gingerbread; he is
  rich.

GINGERBREAD WORK. Gilding and carving: these terms
  are particularly applied by seamen on board Newcastle
  colliers, to the decorations of the sterns and quarters of
  West-Indiamen, which they have the greatest joy in defacing.

GINGERLY. Softly, gently, tenderly. To go gingerly to
  work: to attempt a thing gently, or cautiously.

GINNY. An instrument to lift up a great, in order to steal
  what is in the window. CANT.

GIP from gups a WOLF. A servant at college.

GIRDS. Quips, taunts, severe or biting reflections.

GIZZARD. To grumble in the gizzard; to be secretly
  displeased.

GLASS EYES. A nick name for one wearing spectacles.

GLAYMORE. A Highland broad-sword; from the Erse
 GLAY, or GLAIVE, a sword; and MORE, great.

GLAZE. A window.

GLAZIER. One who breaks windows and shew-glasses, to
  steal goods exposed for sale. Glaziers; eyes. CANT.--Is
  your father a glazier; a question asked of a lad or young
  man, who stands between the speaker and the candle, or
  fire. If it is answered in the negative, the rejoinder
  is--I wish he was, that he might make a window through
  your body, to enable us to see the fire or light.

GLIB. Smooth, slippery. Glib tongued; talkative.

GLIM. A candle, or dark lantern, used in housebreaking;
  also fire. To glim; to burn in the hand. CANT.

GLIMFENDERS. Andirons. CANT.

GLIMFLASHY. Angry, or in a passion. CANT.

GLIM JACK. A link-boy. CANT.

GLIMMER. Fire. CANT.

GLIMMERERS. Persons begging with sham licences,
  pretending losses by fire.

GLIMMS. Eyes.

GLIMSTICK. A candlestick. CANT.

GLOBE. Pewter. CANT.

GLOVES. To give any one a pair of gloves; to make them
  a present or bribe. To win a pair of gloves; to kiss a man
  whilst he sleeps: for this a pair of gloves is due to any lady
  who will thus earn them.

GLUEPOT. A parson: from joining men and women together
  in matrimony.

GLUM. Sullen.

GLUTTON. A term used by bruisers to signify a man who
  will bear a great deal of beating.

GNARLER. A little dog that by his barking alarms the
  family when any person is breaking into the house.

GO, THE. The dash. The mode. He is quite the go, he
  is quite varment, he is prime, he is bang up, are
  synonimous expressions.

GLYBE. A writing. CANT.

GO BETWEEN. A pimp or bawd.

GO BY THE GROUND. A little short person, man or woman.

GO SHOP. The Queen's Head in Duke's court, Bow street,
  Covent Garden; frequented by the under players: where
  gin and water was sold in three-halfpenny bowls, called
  Goes; the gin was called Arrack. The go, the fashion;
  as, large hats are all the go.

GOADS. Those who wheedle in chapmen for horse-dealers.

GOAT. A lascivious person. Goats jigg; making the beast
  with two backs, copulation.

GOB. The mouth; also a bit or morsel: whence gobbets.
  Gift of the gob; wide-mouthed, or one who speaks fluently,
  or sings well.

GOB STRING. A bridle.

GOBBLER. A turkey cock.

GODFATHER. He who pays the reckoning, or answers for
  the rest of the company: as, Will you stand godfather, and
  we will take care of the brat; i.e. repay you another
  time. Jurymen are also called godfathers, because they
  name the crime the prisoner before them has been guilty
  of, whether felony, petit larceny, &c.

GOG. All-a-gog; impatient, anxious, or desirous of a thing.

GOG AND MAGOG. Two giants, whose effigies stand on
  each side of the clock in Guildhall, London; of whom
  there is a tradition, that, when they hear the clock strike
  one, on the first of April, they will walk down from their
  places.

GOGGLES. Eyes: see OGLES. Goggle eyes; large prominent eyes. To
  goggle; to stare.

GOING UPON THE DUB. Going out to break open, or pick
  the locks of, houses.

GOLD DROPPERS. Sharpers who drop a piece of gold,
  which they pick up in the presence of some unexperienced
  person, for whom the trap is laid, this they pretend to
  have found, and, as he saw them pick it up, they invite
  him to a public house to partake of it: when there, two
  or three of their comrades drop in, as if by accident, and
  propose cards, or some other game, when they seldom fail
  of stripping their prey.

GOLD FINDER. One whose employment is to empty necessary
  houses; called also a tom-turd-man, and night-man:
  the latter, from that business being always performed in
  the night.

GOLDFINCH. One who has commonly a purse full of gold.
  Goldfinches; guineas.

GOLGOTHA OR THE PLACE OF SCULLS. Part of the Theatre
  at Oxford, where the heads of houses sit; those
  gentlemen being by the wits of the university called sculls.

GOLLUMPUS. A large, clumsy fellow.

GOLOSHES, i.e. Goliah's shoes. Large leathern clogs, worn
  by invalids over their ordinary shoes.

GOOD MAN. A word of various imports, according to the
  place where it is spoken: in the city it means a rich man;
  at Hockley in the Hole, or St. Giles's, an expert boxer;
  at a bagnio in Covent Garden, a vigorous fornicator; at
  an alehouse or tavern, one who loves his pot or bottle;
  and sometimes, though but rarely, a virtuous man

GOOD WOMAN. A nondescript, represented on a famous
  sign in St. Giles's, in the form of a common woman, but
  without a head.

GOODYER'S PIG. Like Goodyer's pig; never well but when
  in mischief.

GOOSE. A taylor's goose; a smoothing iron used to press
  down the seams, for which purpose it must be heated:
  hence it is a jocular saying, that a taylor, be he ever so
  poor, is always sure to have a goose at his fire. He cannot
  say boh to a goose; a saying of a bashful or sheepish
  fellow.

GOOSE RIDING. A goose, whose neck is greased, being suspended
  by the legs to a cord tied to two trees or high posts,
  a number of men on horseback, riding full speed, attempt
  to pull off the head: which if they effect, the goose is
  their prize. This has been practised in Derbyshire within
  the memory of persons now living.

GOOSEBERRY. He played up old gooseberry among them;
  said of a person who, by force or threats, suddenly puts an
  end to a riot or disturbance.

GOOSEBERRY-EYED. One with dull grey eyes, like boiled
  gooseberries.

GOOSEBERRY WIG. A large frizzled wig: perhaps from a
  supposed likeness to a gooseberry bush.

GOOSECAP. A silly fellow or woman.

GORGER. A gentleman. A well dressed man. Mung
  kiddey. Mung the gorger; beg child beg, of the gentleman.

GOSPEL SHOP. A church.

GOREE. Money, chiefly gold: perhaps from the traffic
  carried on at that place, which is chiefly for gold dust.
  CANT.

GORMAGON. A monster with six eyes, three mouths, four
  arms, eight legs, live on one side and three on the other,
  three arses, two tarses, and a *** upon its back; a man on
  horseback, with a woman behind him.

GOTCH-GUTTED. Pot bellied: a gotch in Norfolk signifying
  a pitcher, or large round jug.

TO GOUGE. To squeeze out a man's eye with the thumb:
  a cruel practice used by the Bostonians in America.

To GRABBLE. To seize. To grabble the bit; to seize any
  one's money. CANT.


GRAFTED. Cuckolded, i.e. having horns grafted on his
  head.

To GRAB. To seize a man. The pigs grabbed the kiddey
  for a crack: the officers, seized the youth for a burglary.

GRANNAM. Corn.

GRANNUM'S GOLD. Hoarded money: supposed to have
  belonged to the grandmother of the possessor.

GRANNY. An abbreviation of grandmother; also the name
  of an idiot, famous for licking, her eye, who died Nov. 14,
  1719. Go teach your granny to suck eggs; said to such
  as would instruct any one in a matter he knows better than
  themselves.

GRAPPLE THE RAILS. A cant name used in Ireland for
  whiskey.

GRAPPLING IRONS. Handcuffs.

GRAVE DIGGER. Like a grave digger; up to the a-se in
  business, and don't know which way to turn.

GRAVY-EYED. Blear-eyed, one whose eyes have a running
  humour.

TO GREASE. To bribe. To grease a man in the fist; to
  bribe him. To grease a fat sow in the a-se; to give to a
  rich man. Greasy chin; a treat given to parish officers in
  part of commutation for a bastard: called also, Eating a
  child.

GREAT INTIMATE. As great as shirt and shitten a-se.

GREAT JOSEPH. A surtout. CANT.

GREEDY GUTS. A covetous or voracious person.

GREEK. St. Giles's Greek; the slang lingo, cant, or gibberish.

GREEN. Doctor Green; i.e. grass: a physician, or rather
  medicine, found very successful in curing most disorders
  to which horses are liable. My horse is not well, I shall
  send him to Doctor Green.

GREEN. Young, inexperienced, unacquainted; ignorant. How
  green the cull was not to stag how the old file planted the
  books. How ignorant the booby was not to perceive
  how the old sharper placed the cards in such a manner
  as to insure the game.

GREEN BAG. An attorney: those gentlemen carry their
  clients' deeds in a green bag; and, it is said, when they
  have no deeds to carry, frequently fill them with an old
  pair of breeches, or any other trumpery, to give themselves
  the appearance of business.

GREEN GOWN. To give a girl a green gown; to tumble her
  on the grass.

GREEN SICKNESS. The disease of maids occasioned by celibacy.

GREENHEAD. An inexperienced young man.

GREENHORN. A novice on the town, an undebauched young
  fellow, just initiated into the society of bucks and bloods.

GREENWICH BARBERS. Retailers of sand from the pits at
  and about Greenwich, in Kent: perhaps they are styled
  barbers, from their constant shaving the sandbanks.

GREENWICH GOOSE. A pensioner of Greenwich Hospital.

GREGORIAN TREE. The gallows: so named from Gregory
  Brandon, a famous finisher of the law; to whom Sir William
  Segar, garter king of arms (being imposed on by
  Brooke, a herald), granted a coat of arms.

GREY BEARD. Earthen jugs formerly used in public house
  for drawing ale: they had the figure of a man with a large
  beard stamped on them; whence probably they took
  the name: see BEN JONSON'S PLAYS, BARTHOLOMEW FAIR,
  &c. &c. Dutch earthen jugs, used for smuggling gin on
  the coasts of Essex and Suffolk, are at this time called
  grey beards.

GREY MARE. The grey mare is the better horse; said of
  a woman who governs her husband.

GREY PARSON. A farmer who rents the tithes of the rector
  or vicar.

GRIG. A farthing. A merry grig; a fellow as merry as a
  grig: an allusion to the apparent liveliness of a grig, or
  young eel.

GRIM. Old Mr. Grim; death.

GRIMALKIN. A cat: mawkin signifies a hare in Scotland.

GRIN. To grin in a glass case; to be anatomized for murder:
  the skeletons of many criminals are preserved in glass
  cases, at Surgeons' hall.

GRINAGOG, THE CAT'S UNCLE. A foolish grinning fellow,
  one who grins without reason.

GRINDERS. Teeth. Gooseberry grinder; the breech. Ask
  bogey, the gooseberry grinder; ask mine a-se.

TO GRIND. To have carnal knowledge of a woman.

GROATS. To save his groats; to come off handsomely: at
  the universities, nine groats are deposited in the hands of an
  academic officer, by every person standing for a degree;
  which if the depositor obtains with honour, the groat

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