KEEL BULLIES. Men employed to load and unload the coalvessels.
KEELHAULING. A punishment in use among the Dutch seamen, in which, for certain offences, the delinquent is drawn once, or oftener, under the ship's keel: ludicrously defined, undergoing a great hard-ship.
TO KEEP. To inhabit. Lord, where do you keep? i.e. where are your rooms? ACADEMICAL PHRASE. Mother, your tit won't keep; your daughter will not preserve her virginity.
TO KEEP IT UP. To prolong a debauch. We kept it upfinely last night; metaphor drawn from the game of shuttle-cock.
KEEPING CULLY. One who keeps a mistress, as he supposes,for his own use, but really for that of the public.
KEFFEL. A horse. WELSH.
KELTER. Condition, order. Out of kelter; out of order.
KELTER. Money.
KEMP'S MORRIS. William Kemp, said to have been the originalDogberry in Much ado about Nothing, danced a morrisfrom London to Norwich in nine days: of which heprinted the account, A. D. 1600, intitled, Kemp's NineDays Wonder, &c.
KEMP'S SHOES. Would I had Kemp's shoes to throw afteryou. BEN JONSON. Perhaps Kemp was a man remarkablefor his good luck or fortune; throwing an old shoe, or shoes,after any one going on an important business, being by thevulgar deemed lucky.
KEN. A house. A bob ken, or a bowman ken; a well-furnished house, also a house that harbours thieves. Biting the ken; robbing the house. CANT.
KEN MILLER, or KEN CRACKER. A housebreaker. CANT.
KENT-STREET EJECTMENT. To take away the street door: a method practised by the landlords in Kent-street, Southwark, when their tenants are above a fortnight's rent in arrear.
KERRY SECURITY. Bond, pledge, oath, and keep the money.
KETCH. Jack Ketch; a general name for the finishers of the law, or hangmen, ever since the year 1682, when the office was filled by a famous practitioner of that name, of whom his wife said, that any bungler might put a man to death, but only her husband knew how to make a gentleman die sweetly. This officer is mentioned in Butler's Ghost, page 54, published about the year 1682, in the following lines:
Till Ketch observing he was chous'd,And in his profits much abus'd.In open hall the tribute dunn'd,To do his office, or refund.
Mr. Ketch had not long been elevated to his office, for thename of his predecessor Dun occurs in the former part ofthis poem, page 29:
For you yourself to act squire Dun,Such ignominy ne'er saw the sun.
The addition of 'squire,' with which Mr. Dun is here dignified, is a mark that he had beheaded some state criminal for high treason; an operation which, according to custom for time out of mind, has always entitled the operator to that distinction. The predecessor of Dun was Gregory Brandon, from whom the gallows was called the Gregorian tree, by which name it is mentioned in the prologue to Mercurius Pragmaticus, tragi-comedy acted at Paris, &c. 1641:
This trembles under the black rod, and heDoth fear his fate from the Gregorian tree.
Gregory Brandon succeeded Derrick. See DERRICK.
KETTLEDRUMS. Cupid's kettle drums; a woman's breasts, called by sailors chest and bedding.
KETTLE OF FISH. When a person has perplexed his affairs in general, or any particular business, he is said to have made a fine kettle of fish of it.
KICKS. Breeches. A high kick; the top of the fashion. It is all the kick; it is the present mode. Tip us your kicks, we'll have them as well as your lour; pull off your breeches, for we must have them as well as your money. A kick; sixpence. Two and a kick; half-a-crown. A kick in the guts; a dram of gin, or any other spirituous liquor. A kick up; a disturbance, also a hop or dance. An odd kick in one's gallop; a strange whim or peculiarity.
To KICK THE BUCKET. To die. He kicked the bucket one day: he died one day. To kick the clouds before the hotel door; i.e. to be hanged.
KICKERAPOO. Dead. NEGRO WORD.
KICKSEYS. Breeches.
KICKSHAWS. French dishes: corruption of quelque chose.
KID. A little dapper fellow. A child. The blowen has napped the kid. The girl is with child.
TO KID. To coax or wheedle. To inveigle. To amuse a man or divert his attention while another robs him. The sneaksman kidded the cove of the ken, while his pall frisked the panney; the thief amused the master of the house, while his companion robbed the house.
KID LAY. Rogues who make it their business to defraud young apprentices, or errand-boys, of goods committed to their charge, by prevailing on them to execute some trifling message, pretending to take care of their parcels till they come back; these are, in cant terms, said to be on the kid lay.
KIDDER. A forestaller: see CROCKER. Kidders are also persons employed by the gardeners to gather peas.
KIDDEYS. Young thieves.
KIDDY NIPPERS. Taylors out of work, who cut off the waistcoat pockets of their brethren, when cross-legged on their board, thereby grabbling their bit. CANT.
KIDNAPPER. Originally one who stole or decoyed children or apprentices from their parents or masters, to send them to the colonies; called also spiriting: but now used for all recruiting crimps for the king's troops, or those of the East India company, and agents for indenting servants for the plantations, &c.
KIDNEY. Disposition, principles, humour. Of a strange kidney; of an odd or unaccountable humour. A man of a different kidney; a man of different principles.
KILKENNY. An old frize coat.
KILL CARE CLUB. The members of this club, styled also the Sons of Sound Sense and Satisfaction, met at their fortress, the Castle-tavern, in Paternoster-row.
KILL DEVIL. New still-burnt rum.
KILL PRIEST. Port wine.
To KIMBAW. To trick, cheat or cozen; also to beat or to bully. Let's kimbaw the cull; let's bully the fellow. To set one's arms a-kimbaw, vulgarly pronounced a-kimbo, is to rest one's hands on the hips, keeping the elbows square, and sticking out from the body; an insolent bullying attitude. CANT.
KINCHIN. A little child. Kinchin coes; orphan beggar boys, educated in thieving. Kinchin morts; young girls under the like circumstances and training. Kinchin morts, or coes in slates; beggars' children carried at their mother's backs in sheets. Kinchin cove; a little man. CANT.
KING'S PLATE. Fetters.
KING'S WOOD LION. An Ass. Kingswood is famous for the great number of asses kept by the colliers who inhabit that place.
KING'S BAD BARGAIN. One of the king's bad bargains; amalingeror, or soldier who shirks his duty.
KING'S HEAD INN, or CHEQUER INN, IN NEWGATESTREET. The prison of Newgate.
KING JOHN'S MEN. He is one of king John's men, eightscore to the hundred: a saying of a little undersized man.
KING OF THE GYPSIES. The captain, chief, or ringleader of the gang of misrule: in the cant language called also the upright man.
KING'S PICTURES. Coin, money.
KINGDOM COME. He is gone to kingdom come, he is dead.
KIP. The skin of a large calf, in the language of theExcise-office.
KISS MINE A-SE. An offer, as Fielding observes, very frequently made, but never, as he could learn, literally accepted. A kiss mine a-se fellow; a sycophant.
KISSING CRUST. That part where the loaves have touched the oven.
KIT. A dancing-master, so called from his kit or cittern, a small fiddle, which dancing-masters always carry about with them, to play to their scholars. The kit is likewise the whole of a soldier's necessaries, the contents of his knapsack: and is used also to express the whole of different commodities: as, Here, take the whole kit; i.e. take all.
KIT-CAT CLUB. A society of gentlemen, eminent for wit and learning, who in the reign of queen Anne and George I. met at a house kept by one Christopher Cat. The portraits of most of the members of this society were painted by Sir Godfrey Kneller, of one size; thence still called the kit-cat size.
KITCHEN PHYSIC. Food, good meat roasted or boiled. A little kitchen physic will set him up; he has more need of a cook than a doctor.
KITTLE PITCHERING. A jocular method of hobbling or bothering a troublesome teller of long stories: this is done by contradicting some very immaterial circumstance at the beginning of the narration, the objections to which being settled, others are immediately started to some new particular of like consequence; thus impeding, or rather not suffering him to enter into, the main story. Kittle pitchering is often practised in confederacy, one relieving the other, by which the design is rendered less obvious.
KITTYS. Effects, furniture; stock in trade. To seize one's kittys; to take his sticks.
KNACK SHOP. A toy-shop, a nick-nack-atory.
KNAPPERS POLL. A sheep's head. CANT.
KNAVE IN GRAIN. A knave of the first rate: a phrase borrowed from the dyehouse, where certain colours are said to be in grain, to denote their superiority, as being dyed with cochineal, called grain. Knave in grain is likewise a pun applied to a cornfactor or miller.
KNIGHT OF THE BLADE. A bully.
KNIGHT OF THE POST. A false evidence, one that is ready to swear any thing for hire.
KNIGHT OF THE RAINBOW. A footman: from the variety of colours in the liveries and trimming of gentlemen of that cloth.
KNIGHT OF THE ROAD. A highwayman.
KNIGHT OF THE SHEERS. A taylor.
KNIGHT OF THE THIMBLE, or NEEDLE. A taylor or stay-maker.
KNIGHT OF THE WHIP. A coachman.
KNIGHT OF THE TRENCHER. A great eater.
KNIGHT AND BARROW PIG, more hog than gentleman. A saying of any low pretender to precedency.
KNOB. The head. See NOB.
KNOCK. To knock a woman; to have carnal knowledge of her. To knock off; to conclude: phrase borrowed from the blacksmith. To knock under; to submit.
KNOCK ME DOWN. Strong ale or beer, stingo.
KNOT. A crew, gang, or fraternity. He has tied a knot with his tongue, that he cannot untie with his teeth: i.e. he is married.
KNOWING ONES. Sportsmen on the turf, who from experience and an acquaintance with the jockies, are supposed to be in the secret, that is, to know the true merits or powers of each horse; notwithstanding which it often happens that the knowing ones are taken in.
KNOWLEDGE BOX. The head.
KNUCKLES. Pickpockets who attend the avenues to public places to steal pocket-books, watches, &c. a superior kind of pickpockets. To knuckle to, to submit.
TO KNUCKLE ONE'S WIPE. To steal his handkerchief.
KNUCKLE-DABS, or KNUCKLE-CONFOUNDERS. Ruffles.
KONOBLIN RIG. Stealing large pieces of coal from coalsheds.
LACED MUTTON. A prostitute.
LACING. Beating. I'll lace your jacket handsomely.
LADDER. To go up the ladder to rest; to be hanged.
LADY. A crooked or hump-backed woman.
LADY OF EASY VIRTUE. A woman of the town, an impure, a prostitute.
LADYBIRDS. Light or lewd women.
LADY DACRE'S WINE. Gin.
LAG. A man transported. The cove was lagged for a drag.The man was transported for stealing something out of awaggon.
LAG FEVER. A term of ridicule applied to men who beingunder sentence of transportation, pretend illness, to avoidbeing sent from gaol to the hulks.
TO LAG. To drop behind, to keep back. Lag last; thelast of a company.
LAGE. Water. CANT.
LAGE OF DUDS. A buck of linen.
LAID ON THE SHELF, or LAID UP IN LAVENDER. Pawned.
To LAMB, or LAMBASTE. To beat. Lamb pye; a beating: from lambo.
LAMB'S WOOL. Apples roasted and put into strong ale.
LAMBSKIN MEN. The judges: from their robes lined andbordered with ermine.
LAMP. An eye. The cove has a queer lamp. The manhas a blind or squinting eye.
LAND. How lies the land? How stands the reckoning? Who has any land in Appleby? a question asked the man at whose door the glass stands long, or who does not circulate it in due time.
LAND LOPERS, or LAND LUBBERS. Vagabonds lurking about the country who subsist by pilfering.
LAND PIRATES. Highwaymen.
LANK SLEEVE. The empty sleeve of a one armed man.A fellow with a lank sleeve; a man who has lost an arm.
LANSPRISADO. One who has only two-pence in his pocket. Also a lance, or deputy corporal; that is, one doing the duty without the pay of a corporal. Formerly a lancier, or horseman, who being dismounted by the death of his horse, served in the foot, by the title of lansprisado, or lancepesato, a broken lance.
LANTHORN-JAWED. Thin-visaged: from their cheeks being almost transparent. Or else, lenten jawed; i.e. having the jaws of one emaciated by a too rigid observation of Lent. Dark lanthorn; a servant or agent at court, who receives a bribe for his principal or master.
LAP. Butter-milk or whey. CANT.
LARK. A boat.
LARK. A piece of merriment. People playing together jocosely.
LARRY DUGAN'S EYE WATER. Blacking: Larry Dugan was a famous shoe-black at Dublin.
LATCH. Let in.
LATHY. Thin, slender. A lathy wench; a girl almost asslender as a lath.
LATITAT. A nick-name for an attorney; from the name ofa writ.
LAVENDER. Laid up in lavender; pawned.
LAUGH. To laugh on the wrong side of the mouth; to cry. I'll make him laugh on the wrong (or t'other) side of his mouth.
LAUNCH. The delivery, or labour, of a pregnant woman; a crying out or groaning.
LAW. To give law to a hare; a sporting term, signifying to give the animal a chance of escaping, by not setting on the dogs till the hare is at some distance; it is also more figuratively used for giving any one a chance of succeeding in a scheme or project.
LAWFUL BLANKET. A wife.
LAY. Enterprize, pursuit, or attempt: to be sick of the lay. It also means a hazard or chance: he stands a queer lay; i.e. he is in danger. CANT.
LAYSTALL. A dunghill about London, on which the soil brought from necessary houses is emptied; or, in more technical terms, where the old gold collected at weddings by the Tom t—d man, is stored.
LAZY. As lazy as Ludman's dog, who leaned against thewall to bark. As lazy as the tinker, who laid down hisbudget to f—t.
LAZY MAN'S LOAD. Lazy people frequently take up morethan they can safely carry, to save the trouble of cominga second time.
LAZYBONES. An instrument like a pair of tongs, for old orvery fat people to take any thing from the ground withoutstooping.
LEAF. To go off with the fall of the leaf; to be hanged: criminals in Dublin being turned off from the outside of the prison by the falling of a board, propped up, and moving on a hinge, like the leaf of a table. IRISH TERM.
TO LEAK. To make water.
LEAKY. Apt to blab; one who cannot keep a secret is said to be leaky.
LEAPING OVER THE SWORD. An ancient ceremonial said to constitute a military marriage. A sword being laid down on the ground, the parties to be married joined hands, when the corporal or serjeant of the company repeated these words:
Leap rogue, and jump whore,And then you are married for evermore.
Whereupon the happy couple jumped hand in hand over the sword, the drum beating a ruffle; and the parties were ever after considered as man and wife.
LEAST IN SIGHT. To play least in sight; to hide, keep out of the way, or make one's self scarce.
LEATHER. To lose leather; to be galled with riding on horseback, or, as the Scotch express it, to be saddle sick. To leather also meant to beat, perhaps originally with a strap: I'll leather you to your heart's content. Leather-headed; stupid. Leathern conveniency; term used by quakers for a stage-coach.
LEERY. On one's guard. See PEERY.
LEFT-HANDED WIFE. A concubine; an allusion to an ancient German custom, according to which, when a man married his concubine, or a woman greatly his inferior, he gave her his left hand.
LEG. To make a leg; to bow. To give leg-bail and land security; to run away. To fight at the leg; to take unfair advantages: it being held unfair by back-sword players to strike at the leg. To break a leg; a woman who has had a bastard, is said to have broken a leg.
LEGGERS. Sham leggers; cheats who pretend to sell smuggled goods, but in reality only deal in old shop-keepers or damaged goods.
LENTEN FARE. Spare diet.
LETCH. A whim of the amorous kind, out of the common way.
LEVITE. A priest or parson.
TO LIB. To lie together. CANT.
LIBBEGE. A bed. CANT.
LIBBEN. A private dwelling-house. CANT.
LIBKEN. A house to lie in. CANT.
TO LICK. To beat; also to wash, or to paint slightly over. I'll give you a good lick o' the chops; I'll give you a good stroke or blow on the face. Jack tumbled into a cow t—d, and nastied his best clothes, for which his father stept up, and licked him neatly.—I'll lick you! the dovetail to which is, If you lick me all over, you won't miss—.
LICKSPITTLE. A parasite, or talebearer.
LIFT. To give one a lift; to assist. A good hand at a dead lift; a good hand upon an emergency. To lift one's hand to one's head; to drink to excess, or to drink drams. To lift or raise one's elbow; the same.
LIFT. See SHOPLIFTER, &c.
LIFTER. A crutch.
LIG. A bed. See LIB.
LIGHT BOB. A soldier of the light infantry company.
LIGHT-FINGERED. Thievish, apt to pilfer.
LIGHT-HEELED. Swift in running. A light-heeled wench; one who is apt, by the flying up of her heels, to fall flat on her back, a willing wench.
LIGHT HOUSE. A man with a red fiery nose.
LIGHT TROOPS. Lice; the light troops are in full march; the lice are crawling about.
LIGHTMANS. The day. CANT.
LIGHTNING. Gin. A flash of lightning; a glass of gin.
LIKENESS. A phrase used by thieves when the officers or turnkeys are examining their countenance. As the traps are taking our likeness; the officers are attentively observing us.
LILIPUTIAN. A diminutive man or woman: from Gulliver's Travels, written by Dean Swift, where an imaginary kingdom of dwarfs of that name is described.
LILY WHITE. A chimney-sweeper.
LILY SHALLOW. (WHIP SLANG) A white driving hat.
LIMBS. Duke of limbs; a tall awkward fellow.
LIMB OF THE LAW. An inferior or pettyfogging attorney.
LIMBO. A prison, confinement.
To LINE. A term for the act of coition between dog and bitch.
LINE OF THE OLD AUTHOR. A dram of brandy.
LINE. To get a man into a line, i.e. to divert his attentionby a ridiculous or absurd story. To humbug.
LINGO. Language. An outlandish lingo; a foreign tongue.The parlezvous lingo; the French language.
LINEN ARMOURERS. Taylors.
LION. To tip the lion; to squeeze the nose of the party tipped, flat to his face with the thumb. To shew the lions and tombs; to point out the particular curiosities of any place, to act the ciceroni: an allusion to Westminster Abbey, and the Tower, where the tombs and lions are shewn. A lion is also a name given by the gownsmen of Oxford to an inhabitant or visitor. It is a standing joke among the city wits to send boys and country folks, on the first of April, to the Tower-ditch, to see the lions washed.
LIQUOR. To liquor one's boots; to drink before a journey: among Roman Catholics, to administer the extreme unction.
LITTLE BARBARY. Wapping.
LITTLE BREECHES. A familiar appellation used to a little boy.
LITTLE CLERGYMAN. A young chimney-sweeper.
LITTLE EASE. A small dark cell in Guildhall, London, where disorderly apprentices are confined by the city chamberlain: it is called Little Ease from its being so low that a lad cannot stand upright in it.
LITTLE SNAKESMAN. A little boy who gets into a house through the sink-hole, and then opens the door for his accomplices: he is so called, from writhing and twisting like a snake, in order to work himself through the narrow passage.
LIVE LUMBER. A term used by sailors, to signify all landsmen on board their ships.
LIVE STOCK. Lice or fleas.
LOAF. To be in bad loaf, to be in a disagreeable situation,or in trouble.
LOB. A till in a tradesman's shop. To frisk a lob; to roba till. See FLASH PANNEY.
LOB. Going on the lob; going into a shop to get changefor gold, and secreting some of the change.
LOB'S POUND. A prison. Dr. Grey, in his notes on Hudibras, explains it to allude to one Doctor Lob, a dissenting preacher, who used to hold forth when conventicles were prohibited, and had made himself a retreat by means of a trap door at the bottom of his pulpit. Once being pursued by the officers of justice, they followed him through divers subterraneous passages, till they got into a dark cell, from whence they could not find their way out, but calling to some of their companions, swore they had got into Lob's Pound.
LOBCOCK. A large relaxed penis: also a dull inanimate fellow.
LOBKIN. A house to lie in: also a lodging.
LOBLOLLEY BOY. A nick name for the surgeon's servant on board a man of war, sometimes for the surgeon himself: from the water gruel prescribed to the sick, which is called loblolley.
LOBONIAN SOCIETY. A society which met at Lob Hall, atthe King and Queen, Norton Falgate, by order of Lob thegreat.
LOBSCOUSE. A dish much eaten at sea, composed of saltbeef, biscuit and onions, well peppered, and stewedtogether.
LOBSTER. A nick name for a soldier, from the colour of his clothes. To boil one's lobster, for a churchman to become a soldier: lobsters, which are of a bluish black, being made red by boiling. I will not make a lobster kettle of my ****, a reply frequently made by the nymphs of the Point at Portsmouth, when requested by a soldier to grant him a favour.
LOCK. A scheme, a mode. I must fight that lock; I must try that scheme.
LOCK. Character. He stood a queer lock; he bore but an indifferent character. A lock is also a buyer of stolen goods, as well as the receptacle for them.
LOCK HOSPITAL. An hospital for venereal patients.
LOCK UP HOUSE. A spunging house; a public house kept by sheriff's officers, to which they convey the persons they have arrested, where they practise every species of imposition and extortion with impunity. Also houses kept by agents or crimps, who enlist, or rather trepan, men to serve the East India or African company as soldiers.
LOCKERAM-JAWED. Thin-faced, or lanthorn-jawed. SeeLANTHORN JAWED.
LOCKSMITH'S DAUGHTER. A key.
LOGGERHEAD. A blockhead, or stupid fellow. We three loggerheads be: a sentence frequently written under two heads, and the reader by repeating it makes himself the third. A loggerhead is also a double-headed, or bar shot of iron. To go to loggerheads; to fall to fighting.
LOLL. Mother's loll; a favourite child, the mother's darling,
LOLL TONGUE. He has been playing a game at loll tongue; he has been salivated.
LOLLIPOPS. Sweet lozenges purchased by children.
TO LOLLOP. To lean with one's elbows on a table.
LOLLPOOP. A lazy, idle drone.
LOMBARD FEVER. Sick of the lombard fever; i.e. of the idles.
LONG ONE. A hare; a term used by poachers.
LONG. Great. A long price; a great price.
LONG GALLERY. Throwing, or rather trundling, the dicethe whole length of the board.
LONG MEG. A jeering name for a very tall woman: fromone famous in story, called Long Meg of Westminster.
LONG SHANKS. A long-legged person.
LONG STOMACH. A voracious appetite.
LONG TONGUED. Loquacious, not able to keep a secret.He is as long-tongued as Granny: Granny was an idiotwho could lick her own eye. See GRANNY.
LONG-WINDED. A long-winded parson; one who preachedlong, tedious sermons. A long-winded paymaster; onewho takes long credit.
LOO. For the good of the loo; for the benefit of the companyor community.
LOOBY. An awkward, ignorant fellow.
LOOKING AS IF ONE COULD NOT HELP IT. Looking like a simpleton, or as if one could not say boh! to a goose.
LOOKING-GLASS. A chamber pot, jordan, or member mug.
LOON, or LOUT. A country bumkin, or clown.
LOONSLATE. Thirteen pence halfpenny.
LOOPHOLE. An opening, or means of escape. To find a loophole in an act of parliament; i.e. a method of evading it,
LOP-SIDED. Uneven, having one side larger or heavier thanthe other: boys' paper kites are often said to be lop-sided.
TO LOPE. To leap, to run away. He loped down the dancers;he ran down stairs.
LORD. A crooked or hump-backed man. These unhappy people afford great scope for vulgar raillery; such as, 'Did you come straight from home? if so, you have got confoundedly bent by the way.' 'Don't abuse the gemman,' adds a by-stander, 'he has been grossly insulted already; don't you see his back's up?' Or someone asks him if the show is behind; 'because I see,' adds he, 'you have the drum at your back.' Another piece of vulgar wit is let loose on a deformed person: If met by a party of soldiers on their march, one of them observes that that gentleman is on his march too, for he has got his knapsack at his back. It is said in the British Apollo, that the title of lord was first given to deformed persons in the reign of Richard III. from several persons labouring under that misfortune being created peers by him; but it is more probably derived from the Greek word [GREEK: lordos], crooked.
LOUSE. A gentleman's companion. He will never louse a grey head of his own; he will never live to be old.
LOVE BEGOTTEN CHILD. A bastard.
LOUNGE. A loitering place, or gossiping shop.
LOUSE BAG. A black bag worn to the hair or wig.
LOUSE HOUSE. The round house, cage, or any other place of confinement.
LOUSE LADDER. A stitch fallen in a stocking.
LOUSE LAND. Scotland.
LOUSE TRAP. A small toothed comb.
LOUT. A clumsy stupid fellow.
LOWING RIG. Stealing oxen or cows.
LOW PAD. A footpad.
LOW TIDE, or LOW WATER. When there is no money in a man's pocket.
LOWRE. Money. Cant.
LUBBER. An awkward fellow: a name given by sailors to landsmen.
LUCK, or GOOD LUCK. To tread in a surreverence, to be bewrayed: an allusion to the proverb, Sh-tt-n luck is good luck.
LUD'S BULWARK. Ludgate prison.
LUGS. Ears or wattles. See WATTLES.
LULLABY CHEAT. An infant. Cant.
LULLIES. Wet linen. Cant.
LULLY TRIGGERS. Thieves who steal wet linen. Cant.
LUMB. Too much.
LUMBER. Live lumber; soldiers or passengers on board a ship are so called by the sailors.
LUMBER TROOP. A club or society of citizens of London.
LUMBER HOUSE. A house appropriated by thieves for thereception of their stolen property.
To LUMP. To beat; also to include a number of articlesunder one head.
To LUMP THE LIGHTER. To be transported.
LUMPERS. Persons who contract to unload ships; alsothieves who lurk about wharfs to pilfer goods from ships,lighters, &c.
LUMPING. Great. A lumping penny worth; a great quantityfor the money, a bargain. He has'got a lumping penny-worth;frequently said of a man who marries a fat woman.
LUN. Harlequin.
LURCH. To be left in the lurch; to be abandoned by one'sconfederates or party, to be left in a scrape.
LURCHED. Those who lose a game of whist, without scoring five,are said to be lurched.
LURCHER. A lurcher of the law; a bum bailiff, or his setter.
LURRIES. Money, watches, rings, or other moveables.
LUSH. Strong beer.
TO LUSH. To drink.
LUSHEY. Drunk. The rolling kiddeys hud a spree, and got bloody lushey; the dashing lads went on a party of pleasure, and got very drunk.
LYE. Chamber lye; urine.
MACCARONI. An Italian paste made of flour and eggs. Also a fop: which name arose from a club, called the Maccaroni Club, instituted by some of the most dressy travelled gentlemen about town, who led the fashions; whence a man foppishly dressed, was supposed a member of that club, and by contraction styled a Maccaroni.
MACE COVE. A swindler, a sharper, a cheat. On the mace; to live by swindling.
MACHINES. Mrs. Phillips's ware. See CUNDUM.
MACKEREL. A bawd: from the French maquerel. Mackerel-backed;long-backed.
MAD TOM, or TOM OF BEDLAM, otherwise an AbramMan. A rogue that counterfeits madness. CANT.
MADAM. A kept madam; a kept mistress.
MADAM RAN. A whore. CANT.
MADE. Stolen. CANT.
MADGE. The private parts of a woman.
MADGE CULLS. Sodomites. CANT.
MAGG. A halfpenny.
MAGGOT BOILER. A tallow-chandler.
MAGGOTTY. Whimsical, capricious.
MAGNUM BONUM. A bottle containing two quarts of wine.See SCOTCH PINT.
MAHOMETAN GRUEL. Coffee: because formerly usedchiefly by the Turks.
MAIDEN SESSIONS. A sessions where none of the prisonersare capitally convicted.
MAKE. A halfpenny. CANT.
MAKE WEIGHT. A small candle: a term applied to a littleslender man.
MALINGEROR. A military term for one who, under pretenceof sickness, evades his duty.
MALKIN, or MAULKIN. A general name for a cat; also a parcel of rags fastened to the end of a stick, to clean an oven; also a figure set up in a garden to scare the birds; likewise an awkward woman. The cove's so scaly, he'd spice a malkin of his jazey: the fellow is so mean, that he would rob a scare-crow of his old wig.
MALKINTRASH. One in a dismal garb.
MALMSEY NOSE. A red pimpled snout, rich in carbuncles and rubies.
MAN OF THE TOWN. A rake, a debauchee.
MAN OF THE TURF. A horse racer, or jockey.
MANOEUVRING THE APOSTLES. Robbing Peter to payPaul, i.e. borrowing of one man to pay another.
MAN TRAP. A woman's commodity.
MAN OF THE WORLD. A knowing man.
MAN, (CAMBRIDGE.) Any undergraduate from fifteen to thirty.As a man of Emanuel—a young member of Emanuel.
MANUFACTURE. Liquors prepared from materials of Englishgrowth.
MARE'S NEST. He has found a mare's nest, and is laughing at the eggs; said of one who laughs without any apparent cause.
MARGERY PRATER. A hen. CANT.
MARINE OFFICER. An empty bottle: marine officers being held useless by the seamen. SEA WIT.
MARPLOT. A spoil sport.
MARRIAGE MUSIC. The squalling and crying of children.
MARRIED. Persons chained or handcuffed together, in order to be conveyed to gaol, or on board the lighters for transportation, are in the cant language said to be married together.
MARROWBONES. The knees. To bring any one down on his marrow bones; to make him beg pardon on his knees: some derive this from Mary's bones, i.e. the bones bent in honour of the Virgin Mary; but this seems rather far-fetched. Marrow bones and cleavers; principal instruments in the band of rough music: these are generally performed on by butchers, on marriages, elections, riding skimmington, and other public or joyous occasions.
MARTINET. A military term for a strict disciplinarian: from the name of a French general, famous for restoring military discipline to the French army. He first disciplined the French infantry, and regulated their method of encampment: he was killed at the siege of Doesbourg in the year 1672.
MASON'S MAUND. A sham sore above the elbow, to counterfeit a broken arm by a fall from a scaffold.
MASTER OF THE MINT. A gardener.
MASTER OF THE ROLLS. A baker.
MASTER OF THE WARDROBE. One who pawns his clothesto purchase liquor.
MATRIMONIAL PEACE-MAKER. The sugar-stick, orarbor vitae.
MAUDLIN DRUNK. Crying drunk: perhaps from MaryMagdalene, called Maudlin, who is always painted intears.
MAULED. Extremely drunk, or soundly beaten.
MAUNDERING BROTH. Scolding.
MAUNDING. Asking or begging. CANT:
MAWKES. A vulgar slattern.
MAWLEY. A hand. Tip us your mawley; shake hands.with me. Fam the mawley; shake hands.
MAW-WALLOP. A filthy composition, sufficient to provokevomiting.
MAX. Gin.
MAY BEES. May bees don't fly all the year long; an answer to any one who prefaces a proposition with, It may be.
MEALY-MOUTHED. Over-modest or backward in speech.
MEDLAR. A fruit, vulgarly called an open a-se; of which it is more truly than delicately said, that it is never ripe till it is as rotten as a t—d, and then it is not worth a f—t.
MELLOW. Almost drunk.
MELTING MOMENTS. A fat man and woman in the amorous congress.
TO MELT. To spend. Will you melt a borde? will you spend a shilling? The cull melted a couple of decusses upon us; the gentleman spent a couple of crowns upon us. CANT.
MEMBER MUG. A chamber pot.
MEN OF STRAW. Hired bail, so called from having straw stuck in their shoes to distinguish them.
MEN OF KENT. Men born east of the river Medway, who are said to have met the Conqueror in a body, each carrying a green bough in his hand, the whole appearing like a moving wood; and thereby obtaining a confirmation of their ancient privileges. The inhabitants of Kent are divided into Kentish men and men of Kent. Also a society held at the Fountain Tavern, Bartholomew Lane, A.D. 1743.
MERKIN. Counterfeit hair for women's privy parts. SeeBAILEY'S DICT.
MERRY ANDREW, or MR. MERRYMAN. The jack pudding, jester, or zany of a mountebank, usually dressed in a party-coloured coat.
MERRY A-SE CHRISTIAN. A whore.
MERRY-BEGOTTEN. A bastard.
MAN OF THE WORLD. A knowing man.
MESS JOHN. A Scotch presbyterian teacher or parson.
MESSMATE. One who eats at the same mess, companion orcomrade.
METTLE. The semen. To fetch mettle; the act of self pollution.Mettle is also figuratively used for courage.
METTLESOME. Bold, courageous.
MICHAEL. Hip, Michael, your head's on fire. See HYP.
MIDSHIPMAN'S WATCH AND CHAIN. A sheep's heart and pluck.
MILCH COW. One who is easily tricked out of his property; a term used by gaolers, for prisoners who have money and bleed freely.
MILK AND WATER. Both ends of the busk.
TO MILK THE PIGEON. To endeavour at impossibilities.
MILLING COVE. A boxer. How the milling cove served the cull out; how the boxer beat the fellow.
MILL. A chisel.
To MILL. To rob; also to break, beat out, or kill. I'll mill your glaze; I'll beat out your eye. To mill a bleating cheat; to kill a sheep. To mill a ken; to rob a house. To mill doll; to beat hemp in bridewell. CANT.
MILL LAY. To force open the doors of houses in order to rob them.
MILLER. A murderer.
MINE A-SE ON A BANDBOX. An answer to the offer of any thing inadequate to the purpose for which it is wanted, just as a bandbox would be if used for a seat.
MINE UNCLE'S. A pawnbroker's shop; also a necessary house. Carried to my uncle's; pawned. New-married men are also said to go to their uncle's, when they leave their wives soon after the honey moon.
MINIKIN. A little man or woman: also the smallest sort of pin.
MINOR CLERGY. Young chimney sweepers.
MINT. Gold. A mint of money; common phrase for alarge sum.
MISCHIEF. A man loaded with mischief, i.e. a man withhis wife on his back.
MISH. A shirt, smock, or sheet. CANT.
MISH TOPPER. A coat, or petticoat.
MISS. A miss or kept mistress; a harlot.
MISS LAYCOCK. The monosyllable.
MITE. A nick name for a cheesemonger: from the small insect of that name found in cheese.
MIX METAL. A silversmith.
MOABITES. Bailiffs, or Philistines.
MOB; or MAB. A wench, or harlot.
MOBILITY. The mob: a sort of opposite to nobility.
MOHAIR. A man in the civil line, a townsman, or tradesman: a military term, from the mohair buttons worn by persons of those descriptions, or any others not in the army, the buttons of military men being always of metal: this is generally used as a term of contempt, meaning a bourgeois, tradesman, or mechanic.
MOIETY. Half, but vulgarly used to signify a share or portion: as, He will come in for a small moiety.
MOLL. A whore.
MOLL PEATLY'S GIG. A rogering bout.
MOLL THOMPSON'S MARK. M. T. i.e. empty: as, Take away this bottle, it has Moll Thompson's mark upon it.
MOLLY. A Miss Molly; an effeminate fellow, a sodomite.
MONDAY. Saint Monday. See SAINT.
MONEY. A girl's private parts, commonly applied to little children: as, Take care, Miss, or you will shew your money.
MONEY DROPPERS. Cheats who drop money, which they pretend to find just before some country lad; and by way of giving him a share of their good luck, entice him into a public house, where they and their confederates cheat or rob him of what money he has about him.
MONGREL. A hanger on among cheats, a spunger; also a child whose father and mother are of different countries.
MONKS AND FRIARS. Terms used by printers: monks are sheets where the letters are blotted, or printed too black; friars, those letters where the ink has failed touching the type, which are therefore white or faint.
MONKEY. To suck the monkey; to suck or draw wine, or any other liquor, privately out of a cask, by means of a straw, or small tube. Monkey's allowance; more kicks than halfpence. Who put that monkey on horseback without tying his legs? vulgar wit on a bad horseman.
MONOSYLLABLE. A woman's commodity.
MOONCURSER. A link-boy: link-boys are said to curse the moon, because it renders their assistance unnecessary; these gentry frequently, under colour of lighting passengers over kennels, or through dark passages, assist in robbing them. Cant.
MOON-EYED HEN. A squinting wench.
MOON MEN. Gypsies.
MOON RAKERS. Wiltshire men: because it is said that some men of that county, seeing the reflection of the moon in a pond, endeavoured to pull it out with a rake.
MOONSHINE. A matter or mouthful of moonshine; a trifle, nothing. The white brandy smuggled on the coasts of Kent and Sussex, and the gin in the north of Yorkshire, are also called moonshine.
MOP. A kind of annual fair in the west of England, where farmers usually hire their servants.
To MOP UP. To drink up. To empty a glass or pot.
MOPED. Stupid, melancholy for want of society.
MOPSEY. A dowdy, or homely woman.
MOPSQUEEZER. A maid servant, particularly a housemaid.
MOPUSSES. Money.
MORGLAG. A brown bill, or kind of halbert, formerlycarried by watchmen; corruption of MORE, great or broad,and GLAVE, blade.
MORNING DROP. The gallows. He napped the king's pardonand escaped the morning drop; he was pardoned, andwas not hanged.
MORRIS. Come, morris off; dance off, or get you gone.allusion to morris, i.e. MORISCO, or Moorish dancing.
MORT. A woman or wench; also a yeoman's daughter. Tobe taken all-a mort; to be confounded, surprised, or motionlessthrough fear.
MOSES. To stand Moses: a man is said to stand Moseswhen he has another man's bastard child fathered uponhim, and he is obliged by the parish to maintain it.
MOSS. A cant term for lead, because both are found on thetops of buildings.
MOSSY FACE. The mother of all saints.
MOT. A girl, or wench. See MORT.
MOTHER, or THE MOTHER. A bawd. Mother abbess: the same. Mother midnight; a midwife. Mother in law's bit; a small piece, mothers in law being supposed not apt to overload the stomachs of their husband's children.
MOTHER OF ALL SAINTS. The Monosyllable.
MOTHER OF ALL SOULS. The same. IRISH.
MOTHER OF ST. PATRICK. The same. IRISH.
MOTHER OF THE MAIDS. A bawd.
MOUCHETS. Small patches worn by ladies: from the French word mouches.
MOVEABLES. Rings, watches, or any toys of value.
MOUSE. To speak like a mouse in a cheese; i.e. faintly or indistinctly.
MOUSETRAP. The parson's mousetrap; the state of matrimony.
MOUTH. A noisy fellow. Mouth half cocked; one gaping and staring at every thing he sees. To make any one laugh on the wrong, or t'other side of his mouth; to make him cry or grieve.
MOUTH. A silly fellow. A dupe. To stand mouth; i.e. to be duped.
To MOW. A Scotch word for the act of copulation.
MOW HEATER. A drover: from their frequent sleeping on hay mows. CANT.
MOWER. A cow.
MUCK. Money; also dung.
MUCKWORM. A miser.
MUCKINDER. A child's handkerchief tied to the side.
MUD. A fool, or thick-sculled fellow; also, among printersthe same as dung among journeymen taylors. SeeDUNG.
MUD LARK. A fellow who goes about by the water sidepicking up coals, nails, or other articles in the mud. Alsoa duck.
MUFF. The private parts of a woman. To the well wearingof your muff, mort; to the happy consummation ofyour marriage, girl; a health.
MUFFLING CHEAT. A napkin.
MUGGLETONIANS. The sect or disciples of LodowickMuggleton.
MULLIGRUBS. Sick of the mulligrubs with eating choppedhay: low-spirited, having an imaginary sickness.
MUM. An interjection directing silence. Mum for that; I shall be silent as to that. As mute as Mumchance, who was hanged for saying nothing; a friendly reproach to any one who seems low-spirited and silent.
MUMCHANCE. An ancient game like hazard, played with dice: probably so named from the silence observed in playing at it.
MUM GLASS. The monument erected on Fish-street Hill,London, in memory of the great fire in 1666.
MUMBLE A SPARROW. A cruel sport practised at wakes and fairs, in the following manner: A cock sparrow whose wings are clipped, is put into the crown of a hat; a man having his arms tied behind him, attempts to bite off the sparrow's head, but is generally obliged to desist, by the many pecks and pinches he receives from the enraged bird.
MUMMER. The mouth.
MUMPERS. Originally beggars of the genteel kind, but since used for beggars in general.
MUMPERS HALL. An alehouse where beggars are harboured.
MUNDUNGUS. Bad or rank tobacco: from mondongo, a Spanish word signifying tripes, or the uncleaned entrails of a beast, full of filth.
MUNG. To beg.
MUNS. The face, or rather the mouth: from the German word MUND, the mouth. Toute his muns; look at his face.
MUNSTER PLUMS. Potatoes. IRISH.
MUNSTER HEIFER. An Irish woman. A woman with thick legs is said to be like a Munster heifer; i.e. beef to the heels.
MURDER. He looked like God's revenge against murder; he looked angrily.
MURPHIES. Potatoes.
MUSHROOM. A person or family suddenly raised to riches and eminence: an allusion to that fungus, which starts up in a night.
MUSIC. The watch-word among highwaymen, signifying the person is a friend, and must pass unmolested. Music is also an Irish term, in tossing up, to express the harp side, or reverse, of a farthing or halfpenny, opposed to the head.
MUTE. An undertaker's servant, who stands at the door of a person lying in state: so named from being supposed mute with grief.
MUTTON-HEADED. Stupid.
MUTTON MONGER. A man addicted to wenching.
MUTTON. In her mutton, i.e. having carnal knowledge of a woman.
MUZZLE. A beard.
MUZZLER. A violent blow on the mouth. The milling cove tipped the cull a muzzler; the boxer gave the fellow a blow on the mouth.
MYNT. See MINT.
MYRMIDONS. The constable's assistants, watchmen, &c.
NAB, or NAB CHEAT. A hat. Penthouse nab; a large hat.
To NAB. To seize, or catch unawares. To nab the teaze; to be privately whipped. To nab the stoop; to stand in the pillory. To nab the rust; a jockey term for a horse that becomes restive. To nab the snow: to steal linen left out to bleach or dry. CANT.
To NAB GIRDER, or NOB GIRDER. A bridle.
NACK. To have a nack; to be ready at any thing, to have a turn-for it.
NACKY. Ingenious.
NAILED. Secured, fixed. He offered me a decus, and I nailed him; he offered me a crown, and I struck or fixed him.
NANNY HOUSE. A brothel.
TO NAP. To cheat at dice by securing one chance. Alsoto catch the venereal disease. You've napt it; you areinfected.
NAPPING. To take any one napping; i.e. to come uponhim unexpectedly, to find him asleep: as, He caught himnapping, as Morse caught his mare.
NAPPER. The head; also a cheat or thief.
NAPPER OF NAPS. A sheep stealer. CANT.
NAPPY ALE. Strong ale.
NASK, or NASKIN. A prison or bridewell. The new nask; Clerkenwell bridewell. Tothil-fields nask; the bridewell at Tothil-fields. CANT.
NATION. An abbreviation of damnation: a vulgar term used in Kent, Sussex, and the adjacent counties, for very. Nation good; very good. A nation long way; a very long way.
NATTY LADS. Young thieves or pickpockets. CANT.
NATURAL. A mistress, a child; also an idiot. A naturalson or daughter; a love or merry-begotten child, a bastard.
NAVY OFFICE. The Fleet prison. Commander of theFleet; the warden of the Fleet prison.
NAY WORD. A bye-word, proverb.
NAZAKENE FORETOP. The foretop of a wig made in imitation of Christ's head of hair, as represented by the painters and sculptors.
NAZY. Drunken. Nazy cove or mort; a drunken rogue or harlot. Nazy nabs; drunken coxcombs.
NEB, or NIB. The bill of a bird, and the slit of a pen. Figuratively, the face and mouth of a woman; as, She holds up her neb: she holds up her mouth to be kissed.
NECK STAMPER. The boy who collects the pots belonging to an alehouse, sent out with beer to private houses.
NECK VERSE. Formerly the persons claiming the benefit of clergy were obliged to read a verse in a Latin manuscript psalter: this saving them from the gallows, was termed their neck verse: it was the first verse of the fiftyfirst psalm, Miserere mei,&c.
NECK WEED. Hemp.
NEEDLE POINT. A sharper.
NEGLIGEE. A woman's undressed gown, Vulgarly termed aneggledigee.
NEGROE. A black-a-moor: figuratively used for a slave.I'll be no man's negro; I will be no man's slave.
NEGROE'S HEADS. Brown leaves delivered to the ships inordinary.
NESCIO. He sports a Nescio; he pretends not to understand any thing. After the senate house examination for degrees, the students proceed to the schools, to be questioned by the proctor. According to custom immemorial the answers MUST be Nescio. The following is a translated specimen:
Ques. What is your name?—Ans. I do not know.Ques. What is the name of this university?—Ans. I do notknow.Ques. Who was your father?-Ans. I do not know.This last is probably the only true answer of the three!
NETTLED. Teized, provoked, out of temper. He or she has pissed on a nettle; said of one who is peevish or out of temper.
NEW COLLEGE STUDENTS. Golden scholars, silver bachelors, and leaden masters.
NEW DROP. The scaffold used at Newgate for hanging of criminals; which dropping down, leaves them suspended. By this improvement, the use of that vulgar vehicle, a cart, is entirely left off.
NEW LIGHT. One of the new light; a methodist.
NEWGATE BIRD. A thief or sharper, frequently caged inNewgate.
NEWGATE SOLICITOR. A petty fogging and roguish attorney,who attends the gaols to assist villains in evadingjustice.
NEWMAN'S LIFT. The gallows.
NEWMAN'S TEA GARDENS. Newgate.
NEWMAN'S HOTEL. Newgate.
To NICK. To win at dice, to hit the mark just in the nick of time, or at the critical moment.
NICK. Old nick; the Devil.
NICKNAME. A name given in ridicule or contempt: from the French nom de niqne. Niqne is a movement of the head to mark a contempt for any person or thing.
NICK NINNY. A simpleton.
NICKIN, NIKEY or NIZEY. A soft simple fellow; also a diminutive of Isaac.