BURR. A hanger on, or dependant; an allusion to the field burrs, which are not easily got rid of. Also the Northumbrian pronunciation: the people of that country, but chiefly about Newcastle and Morpeth, are said to have a burr in their throats, particularly called the Newcastle burr.
BUSHEL BUBBY. A full breasted woman.
BUSK. A piece of whalebone or ivory, formerly worn by women, to stiffen the forepart of their stays: hence the toast—Both ends of the busk.
BUSS BEGGAR. An old superannuated fumbler, whom none but beggars will suffer to kiss them.
BUS-NAPPER. A constable. CANT.
BUS-NAPPER'S KENCHIN. A watchman. CANT.
BUSY. As busy is the devil in a high wind; as busy as a hen with one chick.
BUTCHER'S DOG. To be like a butcher's dog, i.e. lie by the beef without touching it; a simile often applicable to married men.
BUTCHER'S HORSE. That must have been a butcher's horse, by his carrying a calf so well; a vulgar joke on an awkward rider.
BUTT. A dependant, poor relation, or simpleton, on whom all kinds of practical jokes are played off; and who serves as a butt for all the shafts of wit and ridicule.
BUTTER BOX. A Dutchman, from the great quantity of butter eaten by the people of that country.
BUTTERED BUN. One lying with a woman that has just lain with another man, is said to have a buttered bun.
BUTTER AND EGGS TROT. A kind of short jogg trot, such as is used by women going to market, with butter and eggs.—he looks as if butter would not melt in her mouth, yet I warrant you cheese would not choak her; a saying of a demure looking woman, of suspected character. Don't make butter dear; a gird at the patient angler.
BUTTOCK. A whore. CANT.
BUTTOCK BROKER. A bawd, or match-maker. CANT.
BUTTOCK BALL. The amorous congress. CANT.
BUTTOCK AND FILE. A common whore and a pick-pocket. Cant.
BUTTOCK AND TWANG, or DOWN BUTTOCK AND SHAM FILE. A common whore, but no pickpocket.
BUTTOCK AND TONGUE. A scolding wife.
BUTTOCKING SHOP. A brothel.
BUTTON. A bad shilling, among coiners. His a-se makes buttons; he is ready to bewray himself through fear. CANT.
BUZMAN. A pickpocket. CANT.
BUZZARD. A simple fellow. A blind buzzard: a pur-blind man or woman.
BYE BLOW. A bastard.
C
CABBAGE. Cloth, stuff, or silk purloined by laylors from their employers, which they deposit in a place called HELL, or their EYE: from the first, when taxed, with their knavery, they equivocally swear, that if they have taken any, they wish they may find it in HELL; or, alluding to the second, protest, that what they have over and above is not more than they could put in their EYE.—When the scrotum is relaxed or whiffled, it is said they will not cabbage.
CAB. A brothel. Mother: how many tails have you in your cab? how many girls have you in your bawdy house?
CACAFEOGO. A sh-te-fire, a furious braggadocio or bully huff.
CACKLE. To blab, or discover secrets. The cull is leaky, and cackles; the rogue tells all. CANT. See LEAKY.
CACKLER. A hen.
CACKLER'S KEN. A hen roost. CANT.
CACKLING CHEATS. Fowls. CANT.
CACKLING FARTS. Eggs. CANT.
CADDEE. A helper. An under-strapper.
CADGE. To beg. Cadge the swells; beg of the gentlemen.
CAFFAN. Cheese. CANT.
CAGG. To cagg; a military term used by the private soldiers, signifying a solemn vow or resolution not to get drunk for a certain time; or, as the term is, till their cagg is out: which vow is commonly observed with the strictest exactness. Ex. I have cagg'd myself for six months. Excuse me this time, and I will cagg myself for a year. This term is also used in the same sense among the common people of Scotland, where it is performed with divers ceremonies.
CAG. To be cagged. To be sulky or out of humour. The cove carries the cag; the man is vexed or sullen.
CAG MAGG. Bits and scraps of provisions. Bad meat.
CAGG MAGGS. Old Lincolnshire geese, which having been plucked ten or twelve years, are sent up to London to feast the cockneys.
CAKE, or CAKEY. A foolish fellow.
CALF-SKIN FIDDLE. A drum. To smack calf's skin; to kiss the book in taking an oath. It is held by the St. Giles's casuists, that by kissing one's thumb instead of smacking calf's skin, the guilt of taking a false oath is avoided.
CALVES. His calves are gone to grass; a saying of a man with slender legs without calves. Veal will be cheap, calves fall; said of a man whose calves fall away.
CALVES HEAD CLUB. A club instituted by the Independents and Presbyterians, to commemorate the decapitation of King Charles I. Their chief fare was calves heads; and they drank their wine and ale out of calves skulls.
CALIBOGUS. Rum and spruce beer, American beverage.
CALLE. A cloak or gown. CANT.
CAMBRIDGE FORTUNE. A wind-mill and a water-mill, used to signify a woman without any but personal endowments.
CAMBRIDGE OAK. A willow.
CAMBRADE. A chamber fellow; a Spanish military term. Soldiers were in that country divided into chambers, five men making a chamber, whence it was generally used to signify companion.
CAMESA. A shirt or shift. CANT. SPANISH.
CAMP CANDLESTICK. A bottle, or soldier's bayonet.
CAMPBELL'S ACADEMY. The hulks or lighters, on board of which felons are condemned to hard labour. Mr. Campbell was the first director of them. See ACADEMY and FLOATING ACADEMY.
CANARY BIRD. A jail bird, a person used to be kept in a cage; also, in the canting sense, guineas.
CANDLESTICKS. Bad, small, or untunable bells. Hark! how the candlesticks rattle.
CANDY. Drunk. IRISH.
CANE. To lay Cane upon Abel; to beat any one with a cane or stick.
CANK. Dumb.
CANNISTER. The head. To mill his cannister; to break his head.
CANNIKIN. A small can: also, in the canting sense, the plague.
CANT. An hypocrite, a double-tongue palavering fellow. See PALAVER.
CANT. To cant; to toss or throw: as, Cant a slug into your bread room; drink a dram. SEA WIT.
CANTICLE. A parish clerk.
CANTING. Preaching with a whining, affected tone, perhaps a corruption of chaunting; some derive it from Andrew Cant, a famous Scotch preacher, who used that whining manner of expression. Also a kind of gibberish used by thieves and gypsies, called likewise pedlar's French, the slang, &c. &c.
CANTERS, or THE CANTING CREW. Thieves, beggars, and gypsies, or any others using the canting lingo. See LINGO.
CANTERBURY STORY. A long roundabout tale.
TO CAP. To take one's oath. I will cap downright; I will swear home. CANT.
TO CAP. To take off one's hat or cap. To cap the quadrangle; a lesson of humility, or rather servility, taught undergraduates at the university, where they are obliged to cross the area of the college cap in hand, in reverence to the fellows who sometimes walk there. The same ceremony is observed on coming on the quarter deck of ships of war, although no officer should be on it.
TO CAP. To support another's assertion or tale. To assist a man in cheating. The file kidded the joskin with sham books, and his pall capped; the deep one cheated the countryman with false cards, and his confederate assisted in the fraud.
CAP ACQUAINTANCE. Persons slightly acquainted, or only so far as mutually to salute with the hat on meeting. A woman who endeavours to attract the notice of any particular man, is said to set her cap at him.
CAPER MERCHANT. A dancing master, or hop merchant; marchand des capriolles. FRENCH TERM.—To cut papers; to leap or jump in dancing. See HOP MERCHANT.
CAPPING VERSES. Repeating Latin Verses in turn, beginning with the letter with which the last speaker left off.
CAPON. A castrated cock, also an eunuch.
CAPRICORNIFIED. Cuckolded, hornified.
CAPSIZE. To overturn or reverse. He took his broth till he capsized; he drank till he fell out of his chair. SEA TERM.
CAPTAIN. Led captain; an humble dependant in a great family, who for a precarious subsistence, and distant hopes of preferment, suffers every kind of indignity, and is the butt of every species of joke or ill-humour. The small provision made for officers of the army and navy in time of peace, obliges many in both services to occupy this wretched station. The idea of the appellation is taken from a led horse, many of which for magnificence appear in the retinues of great personages on solemn occasions, such as processions, &c.
CAPTAIN COPPERTHORNE'S CREW. All officers; a saying of a company where everyone strives to rule.
CAPTAIN LIEUTENANT. Meat between veal and beef, the flesh of an old calf; a military simile, drawn from the officer of that denomination, who has only the pay of a lieutenant, with the rank of captain; and so is not entirely one or the other, but between both.
CAPTAIN PODD. A celebrated master of a puppet-shew, in Ben Johnson's time, whose name became a common one to signify any of that fraternity.
CAPTAIN QUEERNABS. A shabby ill-dressed fellow.
CAPTAIN SHARP. A cheating bully, or one in a set of gamblers, whose office is to bully any pigeon, who, suspecting roguery, refuses to pay what he has lost. CANT.
CAPTAIN TOM. The leader of a mob; also the mob itself.
CARAVAN. A large sum of money; also, a person cheated of such sum. CANT.
CARBUNCLE FACE. A red face, full of pimples.
CARDINAL. A cloak in fashion about the year 1760.
To CAROUSE. To drink freely or deep: from the German word expressing ALL OUT.
CARRIERS. A set of rogues who are employed to look out and watch upon the roads, at inns, &c. in order to carry information to their respective gangs, of a booty in prospect.
CARRIERS. Pigeons which carry expresses.
CARRION HUNTER. An undertaker; called also a cold cook, and death hunter. See COLD COOK and DEATH HUNTER.
CARROTS. Red hair.
CARROTTY-PATED. Ginger-hackled, red-haired. See GINGER-HACKLED.
CARRY WITCHET. A sort of conundrum, puzzlewit, or riddle.
CART. To put the cart before the horse; to mention the last part of a story first. To be flogged at the cart's a-se or tail; persons guilty of petty larceny are frequently sentenced to be tied to the tail of a cart, and whipped by the common executioner, for a certain distance: the degree of severity in the execution is left to the discretion of the executioner, who, it is said, has cats of nine tails of all prices.
CARTING. The punishment formerly inflicted on bawds, who were placed in a tumbrel or cart, and led through a town, that their persons might be known.
CARVEL'S RING. The private parts of a woman. Ham Carvel, a jealous old doctor, being in bed with his wife, dreamed that the Devil gave him a ring, which, so long as he had it on his finger, would prevent his being made a cuckold: waking he found he had got his finger the Lord knows where. See Rabelais, and Prior's versification of the story.
TO CASCADE. To vomit.
CASE. A house; perhaps from the Italian CASA. In the canting lingo it meant store or ware house, as well as a dwelling house. Tout that case; mark or observe that house. It is all bob, now let's dub the gig of the case; now the coast is clear, let us break open the door of the house.
CASE VROW. A prostitute attached to a particular bawdy house.
CASH, or CAFFAN. Cheese; CANT. See CAFFAN.
CASTER. A cloak. CANT.
CASTOR. A hat. To prig a castor; to steal a hat.
CASTING UP ONE'S ACCOUNTS. Vomiting.
CAT. A common prostitute. An old cat; a cross old woman.
CAT-HEADS. A Woman's breasts. SEA PHRASE.
TO CAT, or SHOOT THE CAT. To vomit from drunkenness.
CAT AND BAGPIPEAN SOCIETY. A society which met at their office in the great western road: in their summons, published in the daily papers, it was added, that the kittens might come with the old cats without being scratched.
CAT CALL. A kind of whistle, chiefly used at theatres, to interrupt the actors, and damn a new piece. It derives its name from one of its sounds, which greatly resembles the modulation of an intriguing boar cat.
CAT HARPING FASHION. Drinking cross-ways, and not, as usual, over the left thumb. SEA TERM.
CAT IN PAN. To turn cat in pan, to change sides or parties; supposed originally to have been to turn CATE or CAKE in pan.
CAT'S FOOT. To live under the cat's foot; to be under the dominion of a wife hen-pecked. To live like dog and cat; spoken of married persons who live unhappily together. As many lives as a cat; cats, according to vulgar naturalists, have nine lives, that is one less than a woman. No more chance than a cat in hell without claws; said of one who enters into a dispute or quarrel with one greatly above his match.
CAT LAP. Tea, called also scandal broth. See SCANDAL BROTH.
CAT MATCH. When a rook or cully is engaged amongst bad bowlers.
CAT OF NINE TAILS. A scourge composed of nine strings of whip-cord, each string having nine knots.
CAT'S PAW. To be made a cat's paw of; to be made a tool or instrument to accomplish the purpose of another: an allusion to the story of a monkey, who made use of a cat's paw to scratch a roasted chesnut out of the fire.
CAT'S SLEEP. Counterfeit sleep: cats often counterfeiting sleep, to decoy their prey near them, and then suddenly spring on them.
CAT STICKS. Thin legs, compared to sticks with which boys play at cat. See TRAPSTICKS.
CAT WHIPPING, or WHIPPING THE CAT. A trick often practised on ignorant country fellows, vain of their strength, by laying a wager with them that they may be pulled through a pond by a cat. The bet being made, a rope is fixed round the waist of the party to be catted, and the end thrown across the pond, to which the cat is also fastened by a packthread, and three or four sturdy fellows are appointed to lead and whip the cat; these on a signal given, seize the end of the cord, and pretending to whip the cat, haul the astonished booby through the water.—To whip the cat, is also a term among tailors for working jobs at private houses, as practised in the country.
CATAMARAN. An old scraggy woman; from a kind of float made of spars and yards lashed together, for saving ship-wrecked persons.
CATCH CLUB. A member of the patch club; a bum bailiff.
CATCH FART. A footboy; so called from such servants commonly following close behind their master or mistress.
CATCH PENNY. Any temporary contrivance to raise a contribution on the public.
CATCH POLE. A bum bailiff, or sheriff's officer.
CATCHING HARVEST. A dangerous time for a robbery, when many persons are on the road, on account of a horse-race, fair, or some other public meeting.
CATER COUSINS. Good friends. He and I are not cater cousins, i.e. we are not even cousins in the fourth degree, or four times removed; that is, we have not the least friendly connexion.
CATERPILLAR. A nick name for a soldier. In the year 1745, a soldier quartered at a house near Derby, was desired by his landlord to call upon him, whenever he came that way; for, added he, soldiers are the pillars of the nation. The rebellion being finished, it happened the same regiment was quartered in Derbyshire, when the soldier resolved to accept of his landlord's invitation, and accordingly obtained leave to go to him: but, on his arrival, he was greatly surprised to find a very cold reception; whereupon expostulating with his landlord, he reminded him of his invitation, and the circumstance of his having said, soldiers were the pillars of the nation. If I did, answered the host, I meant CATERpiliars.
CATERWAULING. Going out in the night in search of intrigues, like a cat in the gutters.
CATHEDRAL. Old-fashioned. An old cathedral-bedstead, chair, &c.
CATTLE. Sad cattle: whores or gypsies. Black cattle, bugs. CANT.
CAVAULTING SCHOOL. A Bawdy-house.
CAUDGE-PAWED. Left-handed.
CAULIFLOWER. A large white wig, such as is commonly worn by the dignified clergy, and was formerly by physicians. Also the private parts of a woman; the reason for which appellation is given in the following story: A woman, who was giving evidence in a cause wherein it was necessary to express those parts, made use of the term cauliflower; for which the judge on the bench, a peevish old fellow, reproved her, saying she might as well call it artichoke. Not so, my lord, replied she; for an artichoke has a bottom, but a **** and a cauliflower have none.
CAUTIONS. The four cautions: I. Beware of a woman before.—II. Beware of a horse behind.—III. Beware of a cart side-ways.—IV. Beware of a priest every way.
CAW-HANDED, or CAW-PAWED. Awkward, not dextrous, ready, or nimble.
CAXON. An old weather-beaten wig.
CENT PER CENT. An usurer.
CHAFED. Well beaten; from CHAUFFE, warmed.
CHALKERS. Men of wit, in Ireland, who in the night amuse themselves with cutting inoffensive passengers across the face with a knife. They are somewhat like those facetious gentlemen some time ago known in England by the title of Sweaters and Mohocks.
CHALKING. The amusement above described.
CHAP. A fellow; An odd chap; A strange fellow.
CHAPERON. The cicisbeo, or gentleman usher to a lady; from the French.
CHAPT. Dry or thirsty.
CHARACTERED, or LETTERED. Burnt in the hand. They have palmed the character upon him; they have burned him in the hand, CANT.—See LETTERED.
CHARM. A picklock. CANT.
CHARREN. The smoke of Charren.—His eyes water from the smoke of Charren; a man of that place coming out of his house weeping, because his wife had beat him, told his neighbours the smoke had made his eyes water.
CHATTER BOX. One whose tongue runs twelve score to the dozen, a chattering man or woman.
CHATTER BROTH. Tea. See CAT LAP and SCANDAL BROTH.
CHATTS. Lice: perhaps an abbreviation of chattels, lice being the chief live stock of chattels of beggars, gypsies, and the rest of the canting crew. CANT.—Also, according to the canting academy, the gallows.
CHATES. The gallows. CANT.
CHAUNTER CULLS. Grub-street writers, who compose songs, carrols, &c. for ballad-singers. CANT.
CHAUNT. A song.
TO CHAUNT. To sing. To publish an account in the newspapers. The kiddey was chaunted for a toby; his examination concerning a highway robbery was published in the papers.
CHAW BACON. A countryman. A stupid fellow.
CHEAPSIDE. He came at it by way of Cheapside; he gave little or nothing for it, he bought it cheap.
CHEATS. Sham sleeves to put over a dirty shift or shirt. See SHAMS.
CHEEK BY JOWL. Side by side, hand to fist.
CHEEKS. Ask cheeks near cunnyborough; the repartee of a St. Gilse's fair one, who bids you ask her backside, anglice her a-se. A like answer is current in France: any one asking the road or distance to Macon, a city near Lyons, would be answered by a French lady of easy virtue, 'Mettez votre nez dans mon cul, & vous serrez dans les Fauxbourgs.'
CHEESE-TOASTER. A sword.
CHEESE IT; Be silent, be quiet, don't do it. Cheese it, the coves are fly; be silent, the people understand our discourse.
CHEESER. A strong smelling fart.
CHELSEA. A village near London, famous for the military hospital. To get Chelsea; to obtain the benefit of that hospital. Dead Chelsea, by G-d! an exclamation uttered by a grenadier at Fontenoy, on having his leg carried away by a cannon-ball.
CHEST OF TOOLS. A shoe-black's brush and wig, &c. Irish.
CHERRY-COLOURED CAT. A black cat, there being black cherries as well as red.
CHERUBIMS. Peevish children, because cherubims and seraphims continually do cry.
CHESHIRE CAT. He grins like a Cheshire cat; said of anyone who shews his teeth and gums in laughing.
CHICK-A-BIDDY. A chicken, so called to and by little children.
CHICKEN-BREASTED. Said of a woman with scarce any breasts.
CHICKEN BUTCHER. A poulterer.
CHICKEN-HAMMED. Persons whose legs and thighs are bent or archward outwards.
CHICKEN-HEARTED. Fearful, cowardly.
CHICKEN NABOB. One returned from the East Indies with but a moderate fortune of fifty or sixty thousand pounds, a diminutive nabob: a term borrowed from the chicken turtle.
CHILD. To eat a child; to partake of a treat given to the parish officers, in part of commutation for a bastard child the common price was formerly ten pounds and a greasy chin. See GREASY CHIN.
CHIMNEY CHOPS. An abusive appellation for a negro.
CHINK. Money.
CHIP. A child. A chip of the old block; a child who either in person or sentiments resembles its father or mother.
CHIP. A brother chip; a person of the same trade or calling.
CHIPS, A nick name for a carpenter.
CHIRPING MERRY. Exhilarated with liquor. Chirping glass, a cheerful glass, that makes the company chirp like birds in spring.
CHIT. An infant or baby.
CHITTERLINS. The bowels. There is a rumpus among my bowels, i.e. I have the colic. The frill of a shirt.
CHITTY-FACED. Baby-faced; said of one who has a childish look.
CHIVE, or CHIFF. A knife, file: or saw. To chive the darbies; to file off the irons or fetters. To chive the bouhgs of the frows; to cut off women's pockets.
CHIVEY. I gave him a good chivey; I gave him, a hearty Scolding.
CHIVING LAY. Cutting the braces of coaches behind, on which the coachman quitting the box, an accomplice robs the boot; also, formerly, cutting the back of the coach to steal the fine large wigs then worn.
CHOAK. Choak away, the churchyard's near; a jocular saying to a person taken with a violent fit of coughing, or who has swallowed any thing, as it is called the wrong way; Choak, chicken, more are hatching: a like consolation.
CHOAK PEAR. Figuratively, an unanswerable objection: also a machine formerly used in Holland by robbers; it was of iron, shaped like a pear; this they forced into the mouths of persons from whom they intended to extort money; and on turning a key, certain interior springs thrust forth a number of points, in all directions, which so enlarged it, that it could not be taken out of the mouth: and the iron, being case-hardened, could not be filed: the only methods of getting rid of it, were either by cutting the mouth, or advertizing a reward for the key, These pears were also called pears of agony.
CHOAKING PYE, or COLD PYE, A punishment inflicted on any person sleeping in company: it consists in wrapping up cotton in a case or tube of paper, setting it on fire, and directing the smoke up the nostrils of the sleeper. See HOWELL'S COTGRAVE.
CHOCOLATE. To give chocolate without sugar; to reprove. MILITARY TERM.
CHOICE SPIRIT. A thoughtless, laughing, singing, drunken fellow.
CHOP. A blow. Boxing term.
TO CHOP AND CHANGE. To exchange backwards and forwards. To chop, in the canting sense, means making dispatch, or hurrying over any business: ex. The AUTEM BAWLER will soon quit the HUMS, for he CHOPS UP the WHINERS; the parson will soon quit the pulpit, for he hurries over the prayers. See AUTEM BAWLER, HUMS, and WHINERS.
CHOP CHURCHES. Simoniacal dealers in livings, or other ecclesiastical preferments.
CHOPPING, LUSTY. A chopping boy or girl; a lusty child.
CHOPS. The mouth. I gave him a wherrit, or a souse, across the chops; I gave him a blow over the mouth, See WHERRIT.
CHOP-STICK. A fork.
CHOUDER. A sea-dish, composed of fresh fish, salt pork, herbs, and sea-biscuits, laid in different layers, and stewed together.
TO CHOUSE. To cheat or trick: he choused me out of it. Chouse is also the term for a game like chuck-farthing.
CHRIST-CROSS ROW. The alphabet in a horn-book: called Christ-cross Row, from having, as an Irishman observed, Christ's cross PREFIXED before and AFTER the twenty-four letters.
CHRISTENING. Erasing the name of the true maker from a stolen watch, and engraving a fictitious one in its place.
CHRISTIAN PONEY. A chairman.
CHRISTIAN. A tradesman who has faith, i.e. will give credit.
CHRISTMAS COMPLIMENTS. A cough, kibed heels, and a snotty nose.
CHUB. He is a young chub, or a mere chub; i.e. a foolish fellow, easily imposed on: an illusion to a fish of that name, easily taken.
CHUBBY. Round-faced, plump.
CHUCK. My chuck; a term of endearment.
CHUCK FARTHING. A parish clerk.
CHUCKLE-HEADED. Stupid, thick-headed.
CHUFFY. Round-faced, chubby.
CHUM. A chamber-fellow, particularly at the universities and in prison.
CHUMMAGE. Money paid by the richer sort of prisoners in the Fleet and King's Bench, to the poorer, for their share of a room. When prisons are very full, which is too often the case, particularly on the eve of an insolvent act, two or three persons are obliged to sleep in a room. A prisoner who can pay for being alone, chuses two poor chums, who for a stipulated price, called chummage, give up their share of the room, and sleep on the stairs, or, as the term is, ruff it.
CHUNK. Among printers, a journeyman who refuses to work for legal wages; the same as the flint among taylors. See FLINT.
CHURCH WARDEN. A Sussex name for a shag, or cormorant, probably from its voracity.
CHURCH WORK. Said of any work that advances slowly.
CHURCHYARD COUGH. A cough that is likely to terminate in death.
CHURK. The udder.
CHURL. Originally, a labourer or husbandman: figuratively a rude, surly, boorish fellow. To put a churl upon a gentleman; to drink malt liquor immediately after having drunk wine.
CINDER GARBLER. A servant maid, from her business of sifting the ashes from the cinders. CUSTOM-HOUSE WIT.
CIRCUMBENDIBUS. A roundabout way, or story. He took such a circumbendibus; he took such a circuit.
CIT. A citizen of London.
CITY COLLEGE. Newgate.
CIVILITY MONEY. A reward claimed by bailiffs for executing their office with civility.
CIVIL RECEPTION. A house of civil reception; a bawdy-house, or nanny-house. See NANNY-HOUSE.
CLACK. A tongue, chiefly applied to women; a simile drawn from the clack of a water-mill.
CLACK-LOFT. A pulpit, so called by orator Henley.
CLAMMED. Starved.
CLAN. A family's tribe or brotherhood; a word much used in Scotland. The head of the clan; the chief: an allusion to a story of a Scotchman, who, when a very large louse crept down his arm, put him back again, saying he was the head of the clan, and that, if injured, all the rest would resent it.
CLANK. A silver tankard. CANT.
CLANK NAPPER. A silver tankard stealer. See RUM BUBBER.
CLANKER. A great lie.
CLAP. A venereal taint. He went out by Had'em, and came round by Clapham home; i.e. he went out a wenching, and got a clap.
CLAP ON THE SHOULDER. An arrest for debt; whence a bum bailiff is called a shoulder-clapper.
CLAPPER. The tongue of a bell, and figuratively of a man or woman.
CLAPPER CLAW. To scold, to abuse, or claw off with the tongue.
CLAPPERDOGEON. A beggar born. CANT.
CLARET. French red wine; figuratively, blood. I tapped his claret; I broke his head, and made the blood run. Claret-faced; red-faced.
CLAWED OFF. Severely beaten or whipped; also smartly poxed or clapped.
CLEAR. Very drunk. The cull is clear, let's bite him; the fellow is very drunk, let's cheat him. CANT.
CLEAVER. One that will cleave; used of a forward or wanton woman.
CLEAN. Expert; clever. Amongst the knuckling coves he is reckoned very clean; he is considered very expert as a pickpocket.
CLERKED. Soothed, funned, imposed on. The cull will not be clerked; i.e. the fellow will not be imposed on by fair words.
CLEYMES. Artificial sores, made by beggars to excite charity.
CLICK. A blow. A click in the muns; a blow or knock in the face. CANT.
TO CLICK. To snatch. To click a nab; to snatch a hat. CANT.
CLICKER. A salesman's servant; also, one who proportions out the different shares of the booty among thieves.
CLICKET. Copulation of foxes; and thence used, in a canting sense, for that of men and women: as, The cull and the mort are at clicket in the dyke; the man and woman are copulating in the ditch.
CLIMB. To climb the three trees with a ladder; to ascend the gallows.
CLINCH. A pun or quibble. To clinch, or to clinch the nail; to confirm an improbable story by another: as, A man swore he drove a tenpenny nail through the moon; a bystander said it was true, for he was on the other side and clinched it.
CLINK. A place in the Borough of Southwark, formerly privileged from arrests; and inhabited by lawless vagabonds of every denomination, called, from the place of their residence, clinkers. Also a gaol, from the clinking of the prisoners' chains or fetters: he is gone to clink.
CLINKERS. A kind of small Dutch bricks; also irons worn by prisoners; a crafty fellow.
TO CLIP. To hug or embrace: to clip and cling. To clip the coin; to diminish the current coin. To clip the king's English; to be unable to speak plain through drunkenness.
CLOAK TWITCHERS. Rogues who lurk about the entrances into dark alleys, and bye-lanes, to snatch cloaks from the shoulders of passengers.
CLOD HOPPER. A country farmer, or ploughman.
CLOD PATE. A dull, heavy booby.
CLOD POLE. The same.
CLOSE. As close as God's curse to a whore's a-se: close as shirt and shitten a-se.
CLOSE-FISTED. Covetous or stingy.
CLOSH. A general name given by the mobility to Dutch seamen, being a corruption of CLAUS, the abbreviation of Nicholas, a name very common among the men of that nation.
CLOTH MARKET. He is just come from the cloth market, i.e. from between the sheets, he is just risen from bed.
CLOUD. Tobacco. Under a cloud; in adversity.
CLOVEN, CLEAVE, or CLEFT. A term used for a woman who passes for a maid, but is not one.
CLOVEN FOOT. To spy the cloven foot in any business; to discover some roguery or something bad in it: a saying that alludes to a piece of vulgar superstition, which is, that, let the Devil transform himself into what shape he will, he cannot hide his cloven foot.
TO CHUCK. To shew a propensity for a man. The mors chucks; the wench wants to be doing.
CLOUT. A blow. I'll give you a clout on your jolly nob; I'll give you a blow on your head. It also means a handkerchief. CANT. Any pocket handkerchief except a silk one.
CLOUTED SHOON. Shoes tipped with iron.
CLOUTING LAY. Picking pockets of handkerchiefs.
CLOVER. To be, or live, in clover; to live luxuriously. Clover is the most desirable food for cattle.
CLOWES. Rogues.
CLOY. To steal. To cloy the clout; to steal the handkerchief. To cloy the lour; to steal money. CANT.
CLOVES. Thieves, robbers, &c.
CLUB. A meeting or association, where each man is to spend an equal and stated sum, called his club.
CLUB LAW. Argumentum bacculinum, in which an oaken stick is a better plea than an act of parliament.
CLUMP. A lump. Clumpish; lumpish, stupid.
CLUNCH. An awkward clownish fellow.
TO CLUTCH THE FIST. To clench or shut the hand. Clutch fisted; covetous, stingy. See CLOSE-FISTED.
CLUTCHES. Hands, gripe, power.
CLUTTER. A stir, noise, or racket: what a confounded clutter here is!