Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue
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The Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue dates from 1811 and this is probably the only full, uncensored and searchable version of this dictionary on the internet. All the original crudities have been restored and it offers an interesting perspective on Common English from the time of the Regency and Jane Austen.

Select a letter or type a word and click Find. Searches are automatically wild-carded and clicking on words in the first column will look for all occurrences of that word, or related word.

Example:You click A and one of the results is ARSE. If you now click on ARSE the full list of related content will be displayed.

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Entries releated to CHILD

 

ANKLE  A girl who is got with child, is said to have sprained her ankle.
 
APRIL FOOL  Any one imposed on, or sent on a bootless errand, on the first of April; which day it is the custom among the lower people, children, and servants, by dropping empty papers carefully doubled up, sending persons on absurd messages, and such like contrivances, to impose on every one they can, and then to salute them with the title of April Fool. This is also practised in Scotland under the title of Hunting the Gowke.
 
AUTEM MORT  A married woman; also a female beggar with several children hired or borrowed to excite charity.
 
BAGGAGE  Heavy baggage; women and children. Also a familiar epithet for a woman; as, cunning baggage, wanton baggage, etc.
 
BANTLING  A young child.
 
BASKET-MAKING  The good old trade of basket-making; copulation, or making feet for children's stockings.
 
BASTARD  The child of an unmarried woman.
 
BELLY PLEA  The plea of pregnancy, generally adduced by female felons capitally convicted, which they take care to provide for, previous to their trials; every gaol having, as the Beggar's Opera informs us, one or more child getters, who qualify the ladies for that expedient to procure a respite.
 
BELLYFULL  A hearty beating, sufficient to make a man yield or give out. A woman with child is also said to have got her belly full.
 
BIRD AND BABY  The sign of the eagle and child.
 
BLACK PSALM  To sing the black psalm; to cry: a saying used to children.
 
BLINDMAN'S BUFF  A play used by children, where one being blinded by a handkerchief bound over his eyes, attempts to seize any one of the company, who all endeavour to avoid him; the person caught, must be blinded in his stead.
 
BOW-WOW  The childish name for a dog; also a jeering appellation for a man born at Boston in America.
 
BRAT  A child or infant.
 
BULL BEGGAR, or BULLY BEGGAR  An imaginary being with which children are threatened by servants and nurses, like raw head and bloody bones.
 
BULL CHIN  A fat chubby child.
 
CHERUBIMS  Peevish children, because cherubims and seraphims continually do cry.
 
CHICK-A-BIDDY  A chicken, so called to and by little children.
 
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.
 
CHIP  A child. A chip of the old block; a child who either in person or sentiments resembles its father or mother.
 
CHITTY-FACED  Baby-faced; said of one who has a childish look.
 
CHOPPING, LUSTY  A chopping boy or girl; a lusty child.
 
COCKNEY  A nick name given to the citizens of London, or persons born within the sound of Bow bell, derived from the following story: A citizen of London, being in the country, and hearing a horse neigh, exclaimed, Lord! how that horse laughs! A by-stander telling him that noise was called NEIGHING, the next morning, when the cock crowed, the citizen to shew he had not forgot what was told him, cried out, Do you hear how the COCK NEIGHS? The king of the cockneys is mentioned among the regulations for the sports and shows formerly held in the Middle Temple on Childermas Day, where he had his officers, a marshal, constable, butler, etc. See DUGDALE'S ORIGINES JURIDICIALES, p. 247. - Ray says, the interpretation of the word Cockney, is, a young person coaxed or conquered, made wanton; or a nestle cock, delicately bred and brought up, so as, when arrived a man's estate, to be unable to bear the least hardship. Whatever may be the origin of this appellation, we learn from the following verses, attributed to Hugh Bigot, Earl of Norfolk, that it was in use. in the time of king Henry II. Was I in my castle at Bungay, Fast by the river Waveney, I would not care for the king of Cockney; ie: the king of London.
 
DOLL  Bartholomew doll; a tawdry, over-drest woman, like one of the children's dolls at Bartholomew fair. To mill doll; to beat hemp at Bridewell, or any other house of correction.
 
DOODLE  A silly fellow, or noodle: see NOODLE. Also a child's penis. Doodle doo, or Cock a doodle doo; a childish appellation for a cock, in imitation of its note when crowing.
 
FACE-MAKING  Begetting children. To face it out; to persist in a falsity. No face but his own: a saying of one who has no money in his pocket or no court cards in his hand.
 
FEE, FAW, FUM  Nonsensical words, supposed in childish story-books to be spoken by giants. I am not to be frighted by fee, faw, fum; I am not to be scared by nonsense.
 
FEET  To make feet for children's stockings; to beget children. An officer of feet; a jocular title for an officer of infantry.
 
FOUNDLING  A child dropped in the streets, and found, and educated at the parish expence.
 
FREE  Free of fumblers hall; a saying of one who cannot get his wife with child.
 
GORGER  A gentleman. A well dressed man. Mung kiddey. Mung the gorger; beg child beg, of the gentleman.
 
GREASE  To bribe. To grease a man in the fist; to bribe him. To grease a fat sow in the arse; to give to a rich man. Greasy chin; a treat given to parish officers in part of commutation for a bastard: called also, Eating a child.
 
HANS IN KELDER  Jack in the cellar, i.e. the child in the womb: a health frequently drank to breeding women or their husbands.
 
HIDE AND SEEK  A childish game. He plays at hide and seek; a saying of one who is in fear of being arrested for debt, or apprehended for some crime, and therefore does not chuse to appear in public, but secretly skulks up and down. See SKULK.
 
HISTORY OF THE FOUR KINGS, or CHILD'S BEST GUIDE T  A pack of cards. He studies the history of the four kings assiduously; he plays much at cards.
 
HOBBY HORSE  A man's favourite amusement, or study, is called his hobby horse. It also means a particular kind of small Irish horse: and also a wooden one, such as is given to children.
 
JACK IN A BOX, A sharper, or cheat  A child in the mother's womb.
 
KID  A little dapper fellow. A child. The blowen has napped the kid. The girl is with child.
 
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, etc.
 
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.
 
LOLL  Mother's loll; a favourite child, the mother's darling,
 
LOLLIPOPS  Sweet lozenges purchased by children.
 
LOVE BEGOTTEN CHILD  A bastard.
 
MARRIAGE MUSIC  The squalling and crying of children.
 
MONEY  A girl's private parts, commonly applied to little children: as, Take care, Miss, or you will shew your money.
 
MONGREL  A hanger on among cheats, a spunger; also a child whose father and mother are of different countries.
 
MOSES  To stand Moses: a man is said to stand Moses when he has another man's bastard child fathered upon him, and he is obliged by the parish to maintain it.
 
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.
 
MUCKINDER  A child's handkerchief tied to the side.
 
NATURAL  A mistress, a child; also an idiot. A natural son or daughter; a love or merry-begotten child, a bastard.
 
PALLIARDS  Those whose fathers were clapperdogens, or beggars born, and who themselves follow the same trade: the female sort beg with a number of children, borrowing them, if they have not a sufficient number of their own, and making them cry by pinching in order to excite charity; the males make artificial sores on different parts of their bodies, to move compassion.
 
PAW PAW TRICKS  Naughty tricks: an expression used by nurses, etc. to children.
 
PICKANINY  A young child, an infant. NEGRO TERM.
 
PIDDLE  To make water: a childish expression; as, Mammy, I want to piddle. Piddling also means trifling, or doing any thing in a small degree: perhaps from peddling.
 
PIN BASKET  The youngest child.
 
POISONED  Big with child: that wench is poisoned, see how her belly is swelled. Poison-pated: red-haired.
 
PRITTLE PRATTLE  Insignificant talk: generally applied to women and children.
 
PUNY  Weak. A puny child; a weak little child. A puny stomach; a weak stomach. Puny, or puisne judge; the last made judge.
 
RAWHEAD AND BLOODY BONES  A bull beggar, or scarechild, with which foolish nurses terrify crying brats.
 
RUFFIAN  The devil. - May the ruffian nab the cuffin queer, and let the harmanbeck trine with his kinchins about his colquarren; may the Devil take the justice, and let the constable be hanged with his children about his neck. The ruffian cly thee; the Devil take thee. Ruffian cook ruffian, who scalded the Devil in his feathers; a saying of a bad cook. Ruffian sometimes also means, a justice.
 
SKIP JACKS  Youngsters that ride horses on sale, horse- dealers boys. Also a plaything made for children with the breast bone of a goose.
 
SOW CHILD  A female child.
 
SPIT  He is as like his father as if he was spit out of his mouth; said of a child much resembling his father.
 
SQUEAKER  A bar-boy; also a bastard or any other child. To stifle the squeaker; to murder a bastard, or throw It into the necessary house. - Organ pipes are likewise called squeakers. The squeakers are meltable; the small pipes are silver.
 
SUNBURNT  Clapped; also haying many male children.
 
TITTER TATTER  One reeling, and ready to fall at the least touch; also the childish amusement of riding upon the two ends of a plank, poised upon the prop underneath its centre, called also see-saw. Perhaps tatter is a rustic pronunciation of totter.
 
TRAVELLING PIQUET  A mode of amusing themselves, practised by two persons riding in a carriage, each reckoning towards his game the persons or animals that pass by on the side next them, according to the following estimation: A parson riding a grey horse, witholue furniture; game. An old woman under a hedge; ditto. A cat looking out of a window; 60. A man, woman, and child, in a buggy; 40. A man with a woman behind him; 30. A flock of sheep; 20. A flock of geese; 10. A post chaise; 5. A horseman; 2. A man or woman walking; 1.
 
UPRIGHT MAN  An upright man signifies the chief or principal of a crew. The vilest, stoutest rogue in the pack is generally chosen to this post, and has the sole right to the first night's lodging with the dells, who afterwards are used in common among the whole fraternity. He carries a short truncheon in his hand, which he calls his filchman, and has a larger share than ordinary in whatsoever is gotten in the society. He often travels in company with thirty or forty males and females, abram men, and others, over whom he presides arbitrarily. Sometimes the women and children who are unable to travel, or fatigued, are by turns carried in panniers by an ass, or two, or by some poor jades procured for that purpose.
 
URCHIN  A child, a little fellow; also a hedgehog.
 
WHITE SWELLING  A woman big with child is said to have a white swelling.
 
WRINKLE  A wrinkle-bellied whore; one who has had a number of bastards: child-bearing leaves wrinkles in a woman's belly. To take the wrinkles out of any one's belly; to fill it out by a hearty meal. You have one wrinkle more in your arse; i.e. you have one piece of knowledge more than you had, every fresh piece of knowledge being supposed by the vulgar naturalists to add a wrinkle to that part.