1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue

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.