A Dictionary of Slang, Cant, and Vulgar Words

SIZINGS, see SIZE.

SKATES LURK, a begging impostor dressed as a sailor.

SKID, a sovereign. Fashionable slang.

SKIE, to throw upwards, to toss “coppers.” —See ODD MAN.

SKILLY, broth served on board the hulks to convicts. —Linc.

SKILLIGOLEE, prison gruel, also sailors’ soup of many ingredients.

SKIN, a purse.

SKIN, to abate, or lower the value of anything; “thin SKINNED,” sensitive, touchy.

SKIN-FLINT, an old popular simile for a “close-fisted,” stingy person.

SKIPPER, the master of a vessel. Dutch, SCHIFFER, from schiff a ship; sometimes used synonymous with “Governor.”

SKIPPER, a barn. —Ancient cant.

SKIPPER IT, to sleep in the open air, or in a rough way.

SKIPPER-BIRDS, or KEYHOLE WHISTLERS, persons who sleep in barns or outhouses in preference to lodging-houses.

SKIT, a joke, a squib.

SKITTLES, a game similar to Ten Pins, which, when interdicted by the Government was altered to Nine Pins, or SKITTLES. They are set up in an alley and are thrown at (not bowled) with a round piece of hard wood, shaped like a small flat cheese. The costers consider themselves the best players in London.

SKROUGE, to push or squeeze. —North.

SKULL-THATCHERS, straw bonnet makers, – sometimes called “bonnet-BUILDERS.”

SKY, a disagreeable person, an enemy. —Westminster School.

SKY-BLUE, London milk much diluted with water, or from which the cream has been too closely skimmed.

“Hence, Suffolk dairy wives run mad for cream,And leave their milk with nothing but the name;Its name derision and reproach pursue,And strangers tell of three times skimmed – SKY-BLUE.”Bloomfield’s Farmer’s Boy.

Sky-blue formerly meant gin.

SKY-LARK. —See LARK.

SKY PARLOUR, the garret.

SKY SCRAPER, a tall man; “are you cold up there, old SKY SCRAPER?” Properly a sea term; the light sails which some adventurous skippers set above the royals in calm latitudes are termed SKY-SCRAPERS and MOON-RAKERS.

SKY WANNOCKING, unsteady, frolicking. —Norfolk.

SLAMMOCK, a slattern or awkward person. —West; and Norf.

SLANG, low, vulgar, unwritten, or unauthorised language. Gipsey, SLANG, the secret language of the Gipseys, synonymous with GIBBERISH, another Gipsey word. This word is only to be found in the Dictionaries of Webster and Ogilvie. It was, perhaps, first recorded by Grose, in his Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue, 1785. Slang, since it has been adopted as an English word, generally implies vulgar language not known or recognised as CANT; and latterly, when applied to speech, has superseded the word FLASH.

SLANG, counterfeit or short weights and measures. A SLANG quart is a pint and a half. Slang measures are lent out at 2d. per day. The term is used principally by costermongers.

SLANG, to cheat, to abuse in foul language.

SLANG, a travelling show.

SLANG, a watch chain.

SLANGY, flashy, vulgar; loud in dress, manner, and conversation.

SLANTINGDICULAR, oblique, awry, – as opposed to PERPENDICULAR.

SLAP, paint for the face, rouge.

SLAP, exactly, precisely; “SLAP in the wind’s eye,” i. e., exactly to windward.

SLAP-UP, first-rate, excellent, very good.

SLAP-BANG, suddenly, violently.

SLAP-BANG SHOPS, low eating houses, where you have to pay down the ready money with a SLAP-BANG. —Grose.

SLAP-DASH, immediately, or quickly.

SLASH, a pocket in an overcoat.

SLASHER, a powerful roisterer, a pugilist; “the TIPTON SLASHER.”

SLATE, to pelt with abuse, to beat, to “LICK;” or, in the language of the reviewers, to “cut up.”

SLATE, “he has a SLATE loose,” i. e., he is slightly crazy.

SLAVEY, a maid servant.

SLEWED, drunk, or intoxicated. —Sea term. When a vessel changes the tack she, as it were, staggers, the sails flap, she gradually heels over, and the wind catching the waiting canvas, she glides off at another angle. The course pursued by an intoxicated, or SLEWED man, is supposed to be analogous to that of the ship.

SLICK, an Americanism, very prevalent in England since the publication of Judge Haliburton’s facetious stories. As an adjective, SLICK means rapidly, effectually, utterly; as a verb, it has the force of “to despatch rapidly,” turn off, get done with a thing.

SLICK A DEE, a pocket book.

SLING, to pass from one person to another.

SLIP, “to give the SLIP,” to run away, or elude pursuit. Shakespere has “you gave me the counterfeit,” in Romeo and Juliet. Giving the slip, however, is a Sea phrase, and refers to fastening an anchor and chain cable to a floating buoy, or water cask, until such a time arrives that is convenient to return and take them on board. In fastening the cable, the home end is slipped through the hawse pipe. Weighing anchor is a noisy task, so that giving it the SLIP infers to leave it in quietness.

SLIP, or LET SLIP; “to SLIP into a man,” to give him a sound beating; “to LET SLIP at a cove,” to rush violently upon him, and assault with vigour.

SLOG, or SLOGGER (its original form), to beat, baste, or wallop. German, SCHLAGEN; or, perhaps a vulgar corruption of SLAUGHTER. The pretended Greek derivation from σλογω, which Punch puts in the mouth of the schoolboy, in his impression of 4th May, 1859, is of course only intended to mystify grandmamma, there being no such word in the language.

SLOGGERS, i. e., SLOW-GOERS, the second division of race-boats at Cambridge. At Oxford they are called TORPIDS. —Univ.

SLOGGING, a good beating.

SLOP, cheap, or ready made, as applied to clothing, is generally supposed to be a modern appropriation; but it was used in this sense in 1691, by Maydman, in his Naval Speculations; and by Chaucer two centuries before that. Slops properly signify sailors’ working clothes.

SLOP, a policeman. Probably at first back slang, but now general.

SLOPE, to decamp, to run, or rather slip away. Originally from LOPE, to make off; the s probably became affixed as a portion of the preceding word, as in the case of “let’s lope,” let us run. —Americanism.

SLOPS, chests or packages of tea; “he shook a slum of SLOPS,” i. e., stole a chest of tea.

SLOUR, to lock, or fasten.

SLOUR’D, buttoned up; SLOUR’D HOXTER, an inside pocket buttoned up.

SLOWED, to be locked up – in prison.

SLUICERY, a gin shop or public house.

SLUM, a letter.

SLUM, a chest, or package. —See SLOPS.

SLUM, gammon; “up to SLUM,” wide awake, knowing,

“And this, without more SLUM, began,Over a flowing Pot-house can,To settle, without botheration,The rigs of this here tip-top nation.” Jack Randall’s Diary, 1820.

SLUM THE GORGER, to cheat on the sly, to be an eye servant. Slum in this sense is old cant.

SLUMMING, passing bad money.

SLUMS, or BACK SLUMS, dark retreats, low neighbourhoods; “the Westminster SLUMS,” favourite haunts for thieves.

SLUSHY, a ship’s cook.

SMACK SMOOTH, even, level with the surface, quickly.

SMALL BEER, “he does’t think SMALL BEER of himself,” i. e., he has a great opinion of his own importance. Small coals is also used in the same sense.

SMASH, to become bankrupt, or worthless; “to go all to SMASH;” to break, or “go to the dogs.”

SMASH, to pass counterfeit money.

SMASHER, one who passes bad coin.

SMASHFEEDER, a Britannia metal spoon, – the best imitation shillings are made from this metal.

SMELLER, a blow on the nose, or a NOSER.

SMIGGINS, soup served to convicts on board the hulks.

SMISH, a shirt, or chemise. Corruption of the Span. – See MISH.

SMITHERS, or SMITHEREENS, “all to SMITHEREENS,” all to smash. Smither, is a Lincolnshire word for a fragment.

SMOKE, to detect, or penetrate an artifice.

SMUDGE, to smear, obliterate, daub. Corruption of SMUTCH. —Times, 10th August, 1859.

SMUG, extremely neat, after the fashion, in order.

SMUG, to snatch another’s property and run.

SMUGGINGS, snatchings, or purloinings, – shouted out by boys, when snatching the tops, or small play property, of other lads, and then running off at full speed.

“Tops are in; spin ’em agin.

Tops are out; SMUGGING about.”

SMUT, a copper boiler. Also, the “blacks” from a furnace.

SMUTTY, obscene, – vulgar as applied to conversation.

SNACK, booty, or share. Also, a light repast. —Old cant and Gipsey term.

SNAFFLED, arrested, “pulled up,” – so termed from a kind of horse’s bit, called a SNAFFLE. In East Anglia, to SNAFFLE is to talk foolishly.

SNAGGLE TEETH, uneven, and unpleasant looking dental operators. —West. Snags (Americanism), ends of sunken drift-wood sticking out of the water, on which river steamers are often wrecked.

SNAGGLING, angling after geese with a hook and line, the bait being a worm or snail. The goose swallows the bait, and is quietly landed and bagged.

SNAGGY, cross, crotchetty, malicious.

SNAM, to snatch, or rob from the person.

SNAPPS, share, portion; any articles or circumstances out of which money may be made; “looking out for SNAPPS,” waiting for windfalls, or odd jobs. —Old. Scotch, CHITS, – term also used for “coppers,” or halfpence.

SNEAKSMAN, a shoplifter; a petty, cowardly thief.

SNEEZER, a snuff box; a pocket-handkerchief.

SNEEZE LURKER, a thief who throws snuff in a person’s face and then robs him.

SNID, a sixpence. —Scotch.

SNIGGER, “I’m SNIGGERED if you will,” a mild form of swearing. Another form of this is JIGGERED.

SNIGGERING, laughing to oneself. —East.

SNIP, a tailor.

SNIPE, a long bill; also a term for attorneys, – a race remarkable for their propensity to long bills.

SNIPES, “a pair of SNIPES,” a pair of scissors. They are occasionally made in the form of that bird.

SNITCHERS, persons who turn queen’s evidence, or who tell tales. In Scotland, SNITCHERS signify handcuffs.

SNOB, a low, vulgar, or affected person. Supposed to be from the nickname usually applied to a Crispin, or a maker of shoes; but believed by a writer in Notes and Queries to be a contraction of the Latin, SINE OBOLO. A more probable derivation, however, has just been forwarded by an ingenious correspondent. He supposes that NOBS, i. e., Nobiles, was appended in lists to the names of persons of gentle birth, whilst those who had not that distinction were marked down as S. NOB., i. e., sine nobilitate, without marks of gentility, – thus reversing its meaning. Another “word-twister” remarks that, as at college sons of nobleman wrote after their names in the admission lists, fil nob., son of a lord, and hence all young noblemen were called NOBS, and what they did NOBBY, so those who imitated them would be called quasi-nobs, “like a nob,” which by a process of contraction would be shortened to si-nob, and then SNOB, one who pretends to be what he is not, and apes his betters. The short and expressive terms which many think fitly represent the three great estates of the realm, NOB, SNOB, and MOB, were all originally slang words. The last has safely passed through the vulgar ordeal of the streets, and found respectable quarters in the standard dictionaries.

SNOBBISH, stuck up, proud, make believe.

SNOB-STICK, a workman who refuses to join in strikes, or trade unions. Query, properly KNOB-STICK.

SNOOKS, an imaginary personage often brought forward as the answer to an idle question, or as the perpetrator of a senseless joke.

SNOOZE, or SNOODGE (vulgar pronunciation), to sleep or doze.

SNOT, a term of reproach applied to persons by the vulgar when vexed or annoyed. In a Westminster school vocabulary for boys, published in the last century, the term is curiously applied. Its proper meaning is the glandular mucus discharged through the nose.

SNOTTER, or WIPE-HAULER, a pickpocket who commits great depredations upon gentlemen’s pocket-handkerchiefs. —North.

SNOTTINGER, a coarse word for a pocket-handkerchief. The German schnupftuch is, however, nearly as plain. A handkerchief was also anciently called a MUCKINGER, or MUCKENDER.

SNOTS, small bream, a slimy kind of flat fish. —Norwich.

SNOW, wet linen.

SNOW GATHERERS, or SNOW-DROPPERS, rogues who steal linen from hedges and drying grounds.

SNUFF, “up to SNUFF,” knowing and sharp; “to take SNUFF,” to be offended. Shakespere uses SNUFF in the sense of anger, or passion. Snuffy, tipsy.

SNYDER, a tailor. German, SCHNEIDER.

SOAP, flattery. —See SOFT SOAP.

SOFT, foolish, inexperienced. An old term for bank notes.

SOFT-SOAP, or SOFT-SAWDER, flattery, ironical praise.

SOFT TACK, bread. —Sea.

SOLD, “SOLD again! and the money taken,” gulled, deceived. —Vide SELL.

SOLD UP, or OUT, broken down, bankrupt.

SOLDIER, a red herring.

SON OF A GUN, a contemptuous title for a man. In the army it is sometimes applied to an artilleryman.

SOOT BAG, a reticule.

SOP, a soft or foolish man. Abbreviation of MILKSOP.

SOPH (abbreviation of SOPHISTER), a title peculiar to the University of Cambridge. Undergraduates are junior SOPHS before passing their “Little Go,” or first University examination, —senior SOPHS after that.

SOUND, to pump, or draw information from a person in an artful manner.

SOW, the receptacle into which the liquid iron is poured in a gun-foundry. The melted metal poured from it is termed PIG. —Workmen’s terms.

SOW’S BABY, a pig; sixpence.

SPANK, a smack, or hard slap.

SPANK, to move along quickly; hence a fast horse or vessel is said to be “a SPANKER to go.”

SPANKING, large, fine, or strong; e. g., a SPANKING pace, a SPANKING breeze, a SPANKING fellow.

SPECKS, damaged oranges.

SPEEL, to run away, make off; “SPEEL the drum,” to go off with stolen property. —North.

SPELL, “to SPELL for a thing,” hanker after it, intimate a desire to possess it.

SPELLKEN, or SPEELKEN, a playhouse. German, SPIELEN. —See KEN. —Don Juan.

SPICK AND SPAN, applied to anything that is quite new and fresh. —Hudibras.

SPIFFED, slightly intoxicated. —Scotch slang.

SPIFFS, the percentage allowed by drapers to their young men when they effect a sale of old-fashioned or undesirable stock.

SPIFFY, spruce, well-dressed, tout à la mode.

SPIFLICATE, to confound, silence, or thrash.

SPILT, thrown from a horse or chaise. —See PURL.

SPIN, to reject from an examination. —Army.

SPIN-EM-ROUNDS, a street game consisting of a piece of brass, wood, or iron, balanced on a pin, and turned quickly around on a board, when the point, arrow shaped, stops at a number and decides the bet one way or the other. The contrivance very much resembles a sea compass, and was formerly the gambling accompaniment of London piemen. The apparatus then was erected on the tin lids of their pie cans, and the bets were ostensibly for pies, but more frequently for “coppers,” when no policeman frowned upon the scene, and when two or three apprentices or porters happened to meet.

SPINIKEN, a workhouse.

SPIRT, or SPURT, “to put on a SPIRT,” to make an increased exertion for a brief space, to attain one’s end; a nervous effort.

SPITFIRE, a passionate person.

SPLENDIFEROUS, sumptuous, first-rate.

SPLICE, to marry; “and the two shall become one flesh.” —Sea.

SPLICE THE MAIN BRACE, to take a drink. —Sea.

SPLIT, to inform against one’s companions, to tell tales. “To SPLIT with a person,” to cease acquaintanceship, to quarrel.

SPLODGER, a lout, an awkward countryman.

SPOFFY, a bustling busy-body is said to be SPOFFY.

SPONGE, “to throw up the SPONGE,” to submit, give over the struggle, – from the practice of throwing up the SPONGE used to cleanse the combatants’ faces, at a prize fight, as a signal that the “mill” is concluded.

SPOON, synonymous with SPOONEY. A SPOON has been defined to be “a thing that touches a lady’s lips without kissing them.”

SPOONEY, a weak-minded and foolish person, effeminate or fond; “to be SPOONEY on a girl,” to be foolishly attached to one.

SPOONS, “when I was SPOONS with you,” i. e., when young, and in our courting days before marriage. —Charles Mathews, in the farce of Everybody’s Friend.

SPORT, to exhibit, to wear, &c., – a word which is made to do duty in a variety of senses, especially at the University. See the Gradus ad Cantabrigiam. “To SPORT a new tile;” “to SPORT an Ægrotat” (i. e., a permission from the “Dons” to abstain from lectures, &c., on account of illness); “to SPORT ONE’S OAK,” to shut the outer door and exclude the public, – especially duns, and boring acquaintances. Common also in the Inns of Court. —See Notes and Queries, 2nd series, vol. viii., p. 492, and Gentleman’s Magazine, December, 1794.

SPORTING DOOR, the outer door of chambers, also called the OAK. —See under SPORT. —University.

SPOTTED, to be known or marked by the police.

SPOUT, “up the SPOUT,” at the pawnbroker’s; SPOUTING, pawning. —See POP for origin.

SPOUT, to preach, or make speeches; SPOUTER, a preacher or lecturer.

SPRAT, sixpence.

SPREAD, butter.

SPREAD, a lady’s shawl. Spread, at the East end of London, a feast, or a TIGHTENER; at the West end a fashionable reunion, an entertainment, display of good things.

SPREE, a boisterous piece of merriment; “going on the SPREE,” starting out with intent to have a frolic. French, ESPRIT. In the Dutch language, SPREEUW is a jester.

SPRINGER-UP, a tailor who sells low-priced ready made clothing, and gives starvation wages to the poor men and women who “make up” for him. The clothes are said to be SPRUNG-UP, or “blown together.”

SPRY, active, strong, manly. —Americanism.

SPUDDY, a seller of bad potatoes. In Scotland, a SPUD is a raw potato; and roasted SPUDS are those cooked in the cinders with their jackets on.

SPUNGING-HOUSE, the sheriff’s officer’s house, where prisoners, when arrested for debt, are sometimes taken. As extortionate charges are made there for accommodation, the name is far from inappropriate.

SPUNK, spirit, fire, courage, mettle.

“In that snug room, where any man of SPUNKWould find it a hard matter to get drunk.” Peter Pindar, i., 245.

Common in America. For derivation see the following.

SPUNKS, lucifer matches. —Herefordshire; Scotland. Spunk, says Urry, in his MS. notes to Ray, “is the excrescency of some tree, of which they make a sort of tinder to light their pipes with.”

SPUNK-FENCER, a lucifer match seller.

SQUABBY, flat, short and thick.

SQUARE, honest; “on the SQUARE,” i. e., fair and strictly honest; “to turn SQUARE,” to reform, and get one’s living in an honest manner, – the opposite of CROSS.

SQUARE, “to be SQUARE with a man,” to be even with him, or to be revenged; “to SQUARE up to a man,” to offer to fight him. Shakespere uses SQUARE in the sense of to quarrel.

SQUARE COVE, an honest man.

SQUARE MOLL, an honest woman.

SQUARE RIGGED, well dressed. —Sea.

SQUARING HIS NIBS, giving a policeman money.

SQUEEZE, silk.

SQUIB, a temporary jeu d’esprit, which, like the firework of that denomination, sparkles, bounces, stinks, and vanishes. —Grose.

SQUINNY-EYED, squinting. —Shakespere.

SQUIRT, a doctor, or chemist.

STAFF NAKED, gin.

STAG, a shilling.

STAG, a term applied during the railway mania to a speculator without capital, who took “scrip” in “Diddlesex Junction,” and other lines, ejus et sui generis, got the shares up to a premium, and then sold out. Punch represented the house of Hudson, “the Railway King,” at Albert Gate, with a STAG on it, in allusion to this term.

STAG, to demand money, to “cadge.”

STAG, to see, discover, or watch, – like a STAG at gaze; “STAG the push,” look at the crowd. Also, to dun, or demand payment.

STAGGER, one who looks out, or watches.

STAGGERING BOB, an animal to whom the knife only just anticipates death from natural disease or accident, – said of meat on that account unfit for human food.

STALE, to evacuate urine. —Stable term.

STALL, to lodge, or put up at a public house. Also, to act a part. —Theatrical.

STALL, or STALL OFF, a dodge, a blind, or an excuse. Stall is ancient cant.

STALL OFF, to blind, excuse, hide, to screen a robbery during the perpetration of it by an accomplice.

STALL YOUR MUG, go away; spoken sharply by any one who wishes to get rid of a troublesome or inconvenient person.

STALLSMAN, an accomplice.

STAMPERS, shoes. —Ancient cant.

STAND, “to STAND treat,” to pay for a friend’s entertainment; to bear expense; to put up with treatment, good or ill; “this house STOOD me in £1,000,” i. e., cost that sum; “to STAND PAD,” to beg on the curb with a small piece of paper pinned on the breast, inscribed “I’m starving.”

STANDING, the position at a street corner, or on the curb of a market street, regularly occupied by a costermonger, or street seller.

STANDING PATTERERS, men who take a stand on the curb of a public thoroughfare, and deliver prepared speeches to effect a sale of any articles they have to vend. —See PATTERER.

STANGEY, a tailor; a person under petticoat government, – derived from the custom of “riding the STANG,” mentioned in Hudibras: —

“It is a custom used of courseWhere the grey mare is the better horse.”

STARK-NAKED (originally STRIP-ME-NAKED, vide Randall’s Diary, 1820), raw gin. —Bulwer’s Paul Clifford.

STARCHY, stuck-up, high-notioned, showily dressed, disdainful, cross.

STAR IT, to perform as the centre of attraction, with inferior subordinates to set off one’s abilities. —Theatrical.

STAR THE GLAZE, to break the window or show glass of a jeweller or other tradesman, and take any valuable articles, and run away. Sometimes the glass is cut with a diamond, and a strip of leather fastened to the piece of glass cut out to keep it from falling in and making a noise. Another plan is to cut the sash.

START, “THE START,” London, – the great starting point for beggars and tramps.

START, a proceeding of any kind; “a rum START,” an odd circumstance; “to get the START of a person,” to anticipate him, overreach him.

STASH, to cease doing anything, to refrain, be quiet, leave off; “STASH IT, there, you sir!” i. e., be quiet, sir; to give over a lewd or intemperate course of life is termed STASHING IT.

STEEL, the house of correction in London, formerly named the Bastile, but since shortened to STEEL.

STEEL BAR DRIVERS, or FLINGERS, journeymen tailors.

STEMS, the legs.

STEP IT, to run away, or make off.

STICK, a derogatory expression for a person; “a rum” or “odd STICK,” a curious man. More generally a “poor STICK.” —Provincial.

STICK, “cut your STICK,” be off, or go away; either simply equivalent to a recommendation to prepare a walking staff in readiness for a journey – in allusion to the Eastern custom of cutting a stick before setting out – or from the ancient mode of reckoning by notches or tallies on a stick. In Cornwall the peasantry tally sheaves of corn by cuts in a stick, reckoning by the score. Cut your stick in this sense may mean to make your mark and pass on – and so realise the meaning of the phrase “IN THE NICK (or notch) OF TIME.” Sir J. Emerson Tennent, in Notes and Queries (December, 1859), considers the phrase equivalent to “cutting the connection,” and suggests a possible origin in the prophets breaking the staves of “Beauty” and “Bands,” —vide Zech., xi., 10, 14.