A Dictionary of Slang, Cant, and Vulgar Words

Particular as lawyers generally are about the meaning of words, they have not prevented an unauthorised phraseology from arising, which we may term Legal Slang. So forcibly did this truth impress a late writer, that he wrote in a popular journal, “You may hear Slang every day in term from barristers in their robes, at every mess-table, at every bar-mess, at every college commons, and in every club dining-room.” Swift, in his Art of Polite Conversation (p. 15), published a century and a half ago, states that VARDI was the Slang in his time for “verdict.” A few of the most common and well-known terms used out of doors, with reference to legal matters, are COOK, to hash or make up a balance-sheet; DIPPED, mortgaged; DUN, to solicit payment; FULLIED, to be “fully committed for trial;” LAND-SHARK, a sailor’s definition of a lawyer; LIMB OF THE LAW, a milder term for the same “professional;” MONKEY WITH A LONG TAIL, a mortgage – phrase used in the well-known case for libel, Smith v. Jones; MOUTHPIECE, the coster’s term for his counsel; “to go through the RING,” to take advantage of the Insolvency Act; SMASH, to become bankrupt; SNIPE, an attorney with a long bill; and WHITEWASHED, said of any debtor who has taken the benefit of the Insolvent Act. Lawyers, from their connection with the police courts, and transactions with persons in every grade of society, have ample opportunities for acquiring street Slang, which in cross-questioning and wrangling they frequently avail themselves of.

It has been said there exists a Literary Slang, or “the Slang of Criticism– dramatic, artistic, and scientific. Such words as ‘æsthetic,’ ‘transcendental,’ the ‘harmonies,’ the ‘unities,’ a ‘myth:’ such phrases as ‘an exquisite morceau on the big drum,’ a ‘scholarlike rendering of John the Baptist’s great toe,’ ‘keeping harmony,’ ‘middle distance,’ ‘ærial perspective,’ ‘delicate handling,’ ‘nervous chiaroscuro,’ and the like.” More than one literary journal that I could name are fond of employing such terms in their art criticisms, but it is questionable, after all, whether they are not allowable as the generous inflections and bendings of a bountiful language, for the purpose of expressing fresh phases of thought, and ideas not yet provided with representative words.52 The well-known and ever-acceptable Punch, with his fresh and choice little pictorial bits by Leech, often employs a Slang term to give point to a joke, or humour to a line of satire. A short time since (4th May, 1859) he gave an original etymology of the school-boy-ism SLOG. Slog, said the classical and studious Punch, is derived from the Greek word SLOGO, to baste, to wallop, to slaughter. And it was not long ago that he amused his readers with two columns on Slang and Sanscrit: —

“The allegory which pervades the conversation of all Eastern nations,” remarked the philosophical Punch, “is the foundation of Western Slang; and the increased number of students of the Oriental languages, especially since Sanscrit and Arabic have been made subjects for the Indian Civil Service Examinations, may have contributed to supply the English language with a large portion of its new dialect. While, however, the spirit of allegory comes from the East, there is so great a difference between the brevity of Western expression and the more cumbrous diction of the Oriental, that the origin of a phrase becomes difficult to trace. Thus, for instance, whilst the Turkish merchant might address his friend somewhat as follows – ‘That which seems good to my father is to his servant as the perfumed breath of the west wind in the calm night of the Arabian summer;’ the Western negociator observes more briefly, ‘ALL SERENE!’”

But the vulgar term, BRICK, Punch remarks in illustration,

“must be allowed to be an exception, its Greek derivation being universally admitted, corresponding so exactly as it does in its rectangular form and compactness to the perfection of manhood, according to the views of Plato and Simonides; but any deviation from the simple expression, in which locality is indicated, – as, for instance, ‘a genuine Bath,’ – decidedly breathes the Oriental spirit.”

It is singular that what Punch says, unwittingly and in humour, respecting the Slang expression, BOSH, should be quite true. Bosh, remarks Punch, after speaking of it as belonging to the stock of words pilfered from the Turks, “is one whose innate force and beauty the slangographer is reluctantly compelled to admit. It is the only word which seems a proper appellation for a great deal which we are obliged to hear and to read every day of our life.” Bosh, nonsense or stupidity, is derived from the Gipsey and the Persian. The universality of Slang, I may here remark, is proved by its continual use in the pages of Punch. Whoever thinks, unless belonging to a past generation, of asking a friend to explain the stray vulgar words employed by the London Charivari?

The Athenæum, the most learned and censor-like of all the “weeklies,” often indulges in a Slang word, when force of expression or a little humour is desired, or when the writer wishes to say something which is better said in Slang, or so-called vulgar speech, than in the authorised language of Dr. Johnson or Lindley Murray. It was but the other day that a writer in its pages employed an old and favourite word, used always when we were highly pleased with any article at school, – STUNNING. Bartlett, the compiler of the Dictionary of Americanisms, continually cites the Athenæum as using Slang and vulgar expressions; – but the magazine the American refers to is not the excellent literary journal which is so esteemed at the present day, it was a smaller, and now defunct “weekly.” Many other highly respectable journals often use Slang words and phrases. The Times (or, in Slang, the THUNDERER) frequently employs unauthorised terms; and, following a “leader”53 of the purest and most eloquent English composition, may sometimes be seen another “article”53 on a totally different subject, containing, perhaps, a score or more of exceedingly questionable words. Among the words and phrases which may be included under the head of Literary Slang are, – BALAAM, matter kept constantly in type about monstrous productions of nature, to fill up spaces in newspapers; BALAAM BOX, the term given in Blackwood to the depository for rejected articles; and SLATE, to pelt with abuse, or CUT UP in a review. The Slang names given to newspapers are curious; – thus, the Morning Advertiser is known as the TAP-TUB, the TIZER, and the GIN AND GOSPEL GAZETTE. The Morning Post has obtained the suggestive soubriquet of JEAMES; whilst the Morning Herald has long been caricatured as MRS. HARRIS, and the Standard as MRS. GAMP.54

The Stage, of course, has its Slang – “both before and behind the curtain,” as a journalist remarks. The stage manager is familiarly termed DADDY; and an actor by profession, or a “professional,” is called a PRO. A man who is occasionally hired at a trifling remuneration to come upon the stage as one of a crowd, or when a number of actors are wanted to give effect, is named a SUP, – an abbreviation of “supernumerary.” A SURF is a third-rate actor who frequently pursues another calling; and the band, or orchestra between the pit and the stage, is generally spoken of as the MENAGERY. A BEN is a benefit; and SAL is the Slang abbreviation of “salary.” Should no wages be forthcoming on the Saturday night, it is said that the GHOST DOESN’T WALK. The travelling or provincial theatricals, who perform in any large room that can be rented in a country village, are called BARN STORMERS. A LENGTH is forty-two lines of any dramatic composition; and a RUN is the good or bad success of a performance. A SADDLE is the additional charge made by a manager to an actor or actress upon their benefit night. To MUG UP is to paint one’s face, or arrange the person to represent a particular character; to CORPSE, or to STICK, is to balk, or put the other actors out in their parts by forgetting yours. A performance is spoken of as either a GOOSER or a SCREAMER, should it be a failure or a great success; – if the latter, it is not infrequently termed a HIT. To STAR IT is to perform as the centre of attraction, with none but subordinates and indifferent actors in the same performance. The expressive term CLAP-TRAP, high-sounding nonsense, is nothing but an ancient theatrical term, and signified a TRAP to catch a CLAP by way of applause. “Up amongst the GODS,” refers to being among the spectators in the gallery, – termed in French Slang PARADIS.

There exists, too, in the great territory of vulgar speech what may not inappropriately be termed Civic Slang. It consists of mercantile and Stock Exchange terms, and the Slang of good living and wealth. A turkey hung with sausages is facetiously styled AN ALDERMAN IN CHAINS; and a half-crown, perhaps from its rotundity, is often termed an ALDERMAN. A BEAR is a speculator on the Exchange; and a BULL, although of another order, follows a like profession. There is something very humorous and applicable in the slang term LAME DUCK, a defaulter in stock-jobbing speculations. The allusion to his “waddling out of the Alley,” as they say, is excellent. Breaking shins, in City slang, is borrowing money; a rotten or unsound scheme is spoken of as FISHY; “RIGGING the market” means playing tricks with it; and STAG was a common term during the railway mania for a speculator without capital, a seller of “scrip” in “Diddlesex Junction” and other equally safe lines. In Lombard-street a MONKEY is £500, a PLUM £100,000, and a MARYGOLD is one million sterling. But before I proceed further in a sketch of the different kinds of Slang, I cannot do better than to speak here of the extraordinary number of Cant and Slang terms in use to represent money, – from farthings to bank notes the value of fortunes. Her Majesty’s coin, collectively or in the piece, is insulted, by no less than one hundred and thirty distinct Slang words, from the humble BROWN (a halfpenny) to FLIMSIES, or LONG-TAILED ONES (bank notes).

“Money,” it has been well remarked, “the bare, simple word itself, has a sonorous, significant ring in its sound,” and might have sufficed, one would have imagined, for all ordinary purposes. But a vulgar or “fast” society has thought differently, and so we have the Slang synonymes BEANS, BLUNT, (i. e., specie, – not stiff or rags, bank notes), BRADS, BRASS, BUSTLE, COPPERS (copper money, or mixed pence), CHINK, CHINKERS, CHIPS, CORKS, DIBBS, DINARLY, DIMMOCK, DUST, FEATHERS, GENT (silver, – from argent), HADDOCK (a purse of money), HORSE NAILS, LOAVER, LOUR (the oldest Cant term for money), MOPUSSES, NEEDFUL, NOBBINGS (money collected in a hat by street performers), OCHRE (gold), PEWTER, PALM OIL, QUEEN’S PICTURES, QUIDS, RAGS (bank notes), READY, or READY GILT, REDGE (gold), RHINO, ROWDY, SHINERS (sovereigns), SKIN (a purse of money), STIFF (paper, or bill of acceptance), STUFF, STUMPY, TIN (silver), WEDGE (silver), and YELLOW-BOYS (sovereigns); – just forty-two vulgar equivalents for the simple word money. So attentive is Slang speech to financial matters, that there are seven terms for bad, or “bogus” coin (as our friends, the Americans, call it): a CASE is a counterfeit five-shilling piece; HALF A CASE represents half that sum; GRAYS are halfpence made double for gambling purposes; QUEER-SOFT is counterfeit or lead coin; SCHOFEL refers to coated or spurious coin; SHEEN is bad money of any description; and SINKERS bears the same and not inappropriate meaning. Flying the kite, or obtaining money on bills and promissory notes, is a curious allusion to children tossing about a paper kite; and RAISING THE WIND is a well-known phrase for procuring money by immediate sale, pledging, or a forced loan. In winter or in summer any elderly gentleman who may have prospered in life is pronounced WARM; whilst an equivalent is immediately at hand in the phrase “his pockets are well LINED.” Each separate piece of money has its own Slang term, and often half a score of synonymes. To begin with that extremely humble coin, a farthing: first we have FADGE, then FIDDLER, then GIG, and lastly QUARTEREEN. A halfpenny is a BROWN or a MADZA SALTEE (Cant), or a MAG, or a POSH, or a RAP, – whence the popular phrase, “I don’t care a rap.” The useful and universal penny has for Slang equivalents a COPPER, a SALTEE (Cant), and a WINN. Two-pence is a DEUCE, and three-pence is either a THRUMS or a THRUPS. Four-pence, or a groat, may in vulgar speech he termed a BIT, a FLAG, or a JOEY. Six-pence is well represented in street talk, and some of the Slangisms are very comical, for instance, BANDY, BENDER, CRIPPLE, and DOWNER; then we have FYE-BUCK, HALF A HOG, KICK (thus “two and a kick,” or 2s. 6d.), LORD OF THE MANOR, PIG, POT (the price of a pot of beer), SNID, SPRAT, SOW’S BABY, TANNER, TESTER, TIZZY, – sixteen vulgar words to one coin. Seven-pence being an uncommon amount has only one Slang synonyme, SETTER. The same remark applies to eight-pence and nine-pence, the former being only represented by OTTER, and the latter by the Cant phrase, NOBBA-SALTEE. Ten-pence is DACHA-SALTEE, and eleven-pence DACHA-ONE, – both Cant expressions. One shilling boasts ten Slang equivalents; thus we have BEONG, BOB, BREAKY-LEG, DEANER, GEN (either from argent, silver, or the back slang), HOG, PEG, STAG, TEVISS, and TWELVER. Half-a-crown is known as an ALDERMAN, HALF A BULL, HALF A TUSHEROON, and a MADZA CAROON; whilst a crown piece, or five shillings, may be called either a BULL, or a CAROON, or a CARTWHEEL, or a COACHWHEEL, or a THICK-UN, or a TUSHEROON. The next advance in Slang money is ten shillings, or half-a-sovereign, which may be either pronounced as HALF A BEAN, HALF A COUTER, a MADZA POONA, or HALF A QUID. A sovereign, or twenty shillings, is a BEAN, CANARY, COUTER, FOONT, GOLDFINCH, JAMES, POONA, QUID, a THICK-UN, or a YELLOW-BOY. Guineas are nearly obsolete, yet the terms NEDS, and HALF NEDS, are still in use. Bank notes are FLIMSIES, LONG-TAILED ONES, or SOFT. A FINUF is a five-pound note. One hundred pounds (or any other “round sum”) quietly handed over as payment for services performed is curiously termed “a COOL hundred.” Thus ends, with several omissions, this long list of Slang terms for the coins of the realm, which for copiousness, I will engage to say, is not equalled by any other vulgar or unauthorised language in Europe.

The antiquity of many of these Slang names is remarkable. Winn was the vulgar term for a penny in the days of Queen Elizabeth; and TESTER, a sixpence (formerly a shilling), was the correct name in the days of Henry the Eighth. The reader, too, will have remarked the frequency of animals’ names as Slang terms for money. Little, as a modern writer has remarked, do the persons using these phrases know of their remote and somewhat classical origin, which may, indeed, be traced to the period antecedent to that when monarchs monopolised the surface of coined money with their own image and superscriptions. They are identical with the very name of money among the early Romans, which was pecunia, from pecus, a flock. The collections of coin dealers amply show that the figure of a HOG was anciently placed on a small silver coin; and that that of a BULL decorated larger ones of the same metal. These coins were frequently deeply crossed on the reverse; this was for the convenience of easily breaking them into two or more pieces, should the bargain for which they were employed require it, and the parties making it had no smaller change handy to complete the transaction. Thus we find that the HALF BULL of the itinerant street seller, or “traveller,”55 so far from being a phrase of modern invention, as is generally supposed, is in point of fact referable to an era extremely remote. There are many other Cant words directly from a classic source, as will be seen in the Dictionary.

Shopkeepers’ Slang is, perhaps, the most offensive of all Slang. It is not a casual eyesore, as newspaper Slang, neither is it an occasional discomfort to the ear, as in the case of some vulgar byeword of the street; but it is a perpetual nuisance, and stares you in the face on tradesmen’s invoices, on labels in the shop-windows, and placards on the hoardings, in posters against the house next to your own door – if it happens to be empty for a few weeks, – and in bills thrust into your hand, as you peaceably walk through the streets. Under your doors, and down your area, Slang hand-bills are dropped by some PUSHING tradesman, and for the thousandth time you are called upon to learn that an ALARMING SACRIFICE is taking place in the next street, that prices are DOWN AGAIN, that in consequence of some other tradesman not DRIVING a ROARING TRADE, being in fact SOLD UP, and for the time being a resident in BURDON’S HOTEL (Whitecross-street Prison), the PUSHING tradesman wishes to sell out at AWFULLY LOW PRICES, “to the kind patrons, and numerous customers,” &c. &c., “that have on every occasion,” &c. &c. In this Slang any occupation or calling is termed a LINE, – thus the “Building-LINE.” A tailor usurps to himself a good deal of Slang. Amongst operatives he is called a SNIP, or a STEEL BAR DRIVER; by the world, a NINTH PART OF A MAN; and by the young collegian, or “fast” man, a SUFFERER. If he takes army contracts, it is SANK WORK; if he is a SLOP tailor, he is a SPRINGER UP, and his garments are BLOWN TOGETHER. Perquisites with him are SPIFFS, and remnants of cloth, PEAKING. The percentage he allows to his assistants (or COUNTER JUMPERS) on the sale of old-fashioned articles, is termed TINGE. If he pays his workmen in goods, or gives them tickets upon other tradesmen, with whom he shares the profit, he is soon known as a TOMMY MASTER. If his business succeeds, it TAKES; if neglected, it becomes SHAKY, and GOES TO POT; if he is deceived by a creditor (a not by any means unusual circumstance) he is LET IN, or, as it is sometimes varied, TAKEN IN. I need scarcely remark that any credit he may give is termed TICK.

Operatives’ or Workmen’s Slang, in quality, is but slightly removed from tradesmen’s Slang. When belonging to the same shop or factory, they GRAFT there, and are BROTHER CHIPS. They generally dine at SLAP BANG SHOPS, and are often paid at TOMMY SHOPS. At the nearest PUB, or public-house, they generally have a SCORE CHALKED UP against them, which has to be WIPED OFF regularly on the Saturday night. When out of work, they borrow a word from the flunkey vocabulary, and describe themselves as being OUT OF COLLAR. They term each other FLINTS and DUNGS, if they are “society” or “non-society” men. Their salary is a SCREW, and to be discharged is to GET THE SACK. When they quit work, they KNOCK OFF; and when out of employ, they ask if any HANDS are wanted. Fat is the vulgar synonyme for perquisites; ELBOW-GREASE signifies labour; and SAINT MONDAY is the favourite day of the week. Names of animals figure plentifully in the workman’s vocabulary; thus we have GOOSE, a tailor’s smoothing iron; SHEEP’S-FOOT, an iron hammer; SOW, a receptacle for molten iron, whilst the metal poured from it is termed PIG. I have often thought that many of the Slang terms for money originally came from the workshop, thus – BRADS, from the ironmonger; CHIPS, from the carpenter; DUST, from the goldsmith; FEATHERS, from the upholsterer; HORSE NAILS, from the farrier; HADDOCK, from the fishmonger; and TANNER, from the leather-dresser. The subject is curious. Allow me to call the attention of numismatists to it.

There yet remain several distinct divisions of Slang to be examined; – the Slang of the stable, or jockey Slang; the Slang of the prize ring; the Slang of servitude, or flunkeydom; vulgar, or street Slang; the Slang of softened oaths; and the Slang of intoxication. I shall only examine the last two. If society, as has been remarked, is a sham, from the vulgar foundation of commonalty to the crowning summit of royalty, especially do we perceive the justness of the remark in the Slang makeshifts for oaths, and sham exclamations for passion and temper. These apologies for feeling are a disgrace to our vernacular, although it is some satisfaction to know that they serve the purpose of reducing the stock of national profanity. “You BE BLOWED,” or “I’ll BE BLOWED IF,” &c., is an exclamation often heard in the streets. Blazes, or “like BLAZES,” came probably from the army. Blast, too, although in general vulgar use, may have had a like origin; so may the phrase, “I wish I may be SHOT, if,” &c. Blow me tight, is a very windy and common exclamation. The same may be said of STRIKE ME LUCKY, NEVER TRUST ME, and SO HELP ME DAVY; the latter derived from the truer old phrase, I’LL TAKE MY DAVY ON’T, i. e., my affidavit, DAVY being a corruption of that word. By golly, GOL DARN IT, and SO HELP ME BOB, are evident shams for profane oaths. Nation is but a softening of damnation; and OD, whether used in OD DRAT IT, or OD’S BLOOD, is but an apology for the name of the Deity. The Irish phrase, BAD SCRAN TO YER! is equivalent to wishing a person bad food. “I’m SNIGGERED if you will,” and “I’m JIGGERED,” are other stupid forms of mild swearing, – fearful of committing an open profanity, yet slyly nibbling at the sin. Both DEUCE and DICKENS are vulgar old synonymes for the devil; and ZOUNDS is an abbreviation of GOD’S WOUNDS, – a very ancient catholic oath.

In a casual survey of the territory of Slang, it is curious to observe how well represented are the familiar wants and failings of life. First, there’s money, with one hundred and twenty Slang terms and synonymes; then comes drink, from small beer to champagne; and next, as a very natural sequence, intoxication, and fuddlement generally, with some half a hundred vulgar terms, graduating the scale of drunkenness from a slight inebriation, to the soaky state of gutterdom and stretcherdom, – I pray the reader to forgive the expressions. The Slang synonymes for mild intoxication are certainly very choice, – they are BEERY, BEMUSED, BOOZY, BOSKY, BUFFY, CORNED, FOGGY, FOU, FRESH, HAZY, ELEVATED, KISKY, LUSHY, MOONY, MUGGY, MUZZY, ON, SCREWED, STEWED, TIGHT, and WINEY. A higher or more intense state of beastliness is represented by the expressions, PODGY, BEARGERED, BLUED, CUT, PRIMED, LUMPY, PLOUGHED, MUDDLED, OBFUSCATED, SWIPEY, THREE SHEETS IN THE WIND, and TOP-HEAVY. But the climax of fuddlement is only obtained when the DISGUISED individual CAN’T SEE A HOLE IN A LADDER, or when he is all MOPS AND BROOMS, or OFF HIS NUT, or with his MAIN-BRACE WELL SPLICED, or with the SUN IN HIS EYES, or when he has LAPPED THE GUTTER, and got the GRAVEL RASH, or on the RAN-TAN, or on the RE-RAW, or when he is SEWED UP, or regularly SCAMMERED, – then, and not till then, is he entitled in vulgar society to the title of LUSHINGTON, or recommended to PUT IN THE PIN.

A DICTIONARY OF MODERN SLANG, CANT, & VULGAR WORDS;

MANY WITH THEIR ETYMOLOGIES TRACED

A 1, first rate, the very best; “she’s a prime girl she is; she is A 1.“ —Sam Slick. The highest classification of ships at Lloyd’s; common term in the United States, also at Liverpool and other English seaports. Another, even more intensitive form, is “first-class, letter A, No. 1.”

ABOUT RIGHT, “to do the thing ABOUT RIGHT,” i. e., to do it properly, soundly, correctly; “he guv it ’im ABOUT RIGHT,” i. e., he beat him severely.

ABRAM-SHAM, or SHAM-ABRAHAM, to feign sickness or distress. From ABRAM MAN, the ancient cant term for a begging impostor, or one who pretended to have been mad. —Burton’s Anatomy of Melancholy, part i., sec. 2, vol. i., p. 360. When Abraham Newland was Cashier of the Bank of England, and signed their notes, it was sung: —

“I have heard people sayThat SHAM ABRAHAM you may,But you mustn’t SHAM ABRAHAM Newland.”

ABSQUATULATE, to run away, or abscond; a hybrid American expression, from the Latin ab, and “squat,” to settle.

ADAM’S ALE, water. —English. The Scotch term is ADAM’S WINE.