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.

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Entries releated to DING

 

AMUSERS		Rogues who carried snuff or dust in their pockets, which they threw into the eyes of any person they intended to rob; and running away, their accomplices (pretending to assist and pity the half-blinded person) took that opportunity of plundering him.
APE LEADER		An old maid; their punishment after death, for neglecting increase and multiply, will be, it is said, leading apes in hell.
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.
ARK RUFFIANS		Rogues who, in conjunction with watermen, robbed, and sometimes murdered, on the water, by picking a quarrel with the passengers in a boat, boarding it, plundering, stripping, and throwing them overboard, etc. A species of badger.
BABBLE		Confused, unintelligible talk, such as was used at the building the tower of Babel.
BAKER-KNEE'D		One whose knees knock together in walking, as if kneading dough.
BARBER'S SIGN		A standing pole and two wash balls.
BARROW MAN		A man under sentence of transportation; alluding to the convicts at Woolwich, who are principally employed in wheeling barrows full of brick or dirt.
BASTONADING		Beating any one with a stick; from baton, a stick, formerly spelt baston.
BIBLE OATH		Supposed by the vulgar to be more binding than an oath taken on the Testament only, as being the bigger book, and generally containing both the Old and New Testament.
BLEEDING CULLY		One who parts easily with his money, or bleeds freely.
BLEEDING NEW		A metaphor borrowed from fish, which will not bleed when stale.
BLOODY BACK		A jeering appellation for a soldier, alluding to his scarlet coat.
BOARDING SCHOOL		Bridewell, Newgate, or any other prison, or house of correction.
BOLT		To run suddenly out of one's house, or hiding place, through fear; a term borrowed from a rabbit-warren, where the rabbits are made to bolt, by sending ferrets into their burrows: we set the house on fire, and made him bolt. To bolt, also means to swallow meat without chewing: the farmer's servants in Kent are famous for bolting large quantities of pickled pork.
BORACHIO		A skin for holding wine, commonly a goat's; also a nick name for a drunkard.
BRACE		The Brace tavern; a room in the S.E. corner of the King's Bench, where, for the convenience of prisoners residing thereabouts, beer purchased at the tap-house was retailed at a halfpenny per pot advance. It was kept by two brothers of the name of Partridge, and thence called the Brace.
BRAY		A vicar of Bray; one who frequently changes his principles, always siding with the strongest party: an allusion to a vicar of Bray, in Berkshire, commemorated in a well-known ballad for the pliability of his conscience.
BUCKINGER'S BOOT		The monosyllable. Matthew Buckinger was born without hands and legs; notwithstanding which he drew coats of arms very neatly, and could write the Lord's Prayer within the compass of a shilling; he was married to a tall handsome woman, and traversed the country, shewing himself for money.
BUDGE, or SNEAKING BUDGE		One that slips into houses in the dark, to steal cloaks or other clothes. Also lambs' fur formerly used for doctors' robes, whence they were called budge doctors. Standing budge; a thief's scout or spy.
BUM BOAT		A boat attending ships to retail greens, drams, etc. commonly rowed by a woman; a kind of floating chandler's shop.
BUTTOCK AND TONGUE		A scolding wife.
CABBAGE		Cloth, stuff, or silkpurloined 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.
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.
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.
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.
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. - Also, according to the canting academy, the gallows.
CHIVEY		I gave him a good chivey; I gave him, a hearty scolding.
COBBLER		A mender of shoes, an improver of the understandings of his customers; a translator.
COCK AND A BULL STORY		A roundabout story, without head or tail, i.e. beginning or ending.
COCK, or CHIEF COCK OF THE WALK		The leading man in any society or body; the best boxer in a village or district.
COLD BURNING		A punishment inflicted by private soldiers on their comrades for trifling offences, or breach of their mess laws; it is administered in the following manner: The prisoner is set against the wall, with the arm which is to be burned tied as high above his head as possible. The executioner then ascends a stool, and having a bottle of cold water, pours it slowly down the sleeve of the delinquent, patting him, and leading the water gently down his body, till it runs out at his breeches knees: this is repeated to the other arm, if he is sentenced to be burned in both.
COLD PUDDING		This is said to settle one's love.
COLLEGE COVE		The College cove has numbered him, and if he is knocked down he'll be twisted; the turnkey of Newgate has told the judge how many times the prisoner has been tried before and therefore if he is found guilty, he certainly will be hanged. It is said to be the custom of the Old Bailey for one of the turnkeys of Newgate to give information to the judge how many times an old offender has been tried, by holding up as many fingers as the number of times the prisoner has been before arraigned at that bar.
COME		To come; to lend. Has he come it; has he lent it? To come over any one; to cheat or over reach him. Coming wench; a forward wench, also a breeding woman.
COW		To sleep like a cow, with a cunt at one's arse; said of a married man; married men being supposed to sleep with their backs towards their wives, according to the following proclamation: All you that in your beds do lie, Turn to your wives, and occupy: And when that you have done your best, Turn arse to arse, and take your rest.
CRISPIN		A shoemaker: from a romance, wherein a prince of that name is said to have exercised the art and mystery of a shoemaker, thence called the gentle craft: or rather from the saints Crispinus and Crispianus, who according to the legend, were brethren born at Rome, from whence they travelled to Soissons in France, about the year 303, to propagate the Christian religion; but, because they would not be chargeable to others for their maintenance, they exercised the trade of shoemakers: the governor of the town discovering them to be Christians, ordered them to be beheaded, about the year 303; from which time they have been the tutelar saints of the shoemakers.
CROOK YOUR ELBOW		To crook one's elbow, and wish it may never come straight, if the fact then affirmed is not true - according to the casuists of Bow-street and St. Giles's, adds great weight and efficacy to an oath.
CROPPING DRUMS		Drummers of the foot guards, or Chelsea hospital, who find out weddings, and beat a point of war to serenade the new married couple, and thereby obtain money.
CROSS BUTTOCK		A particular lock or fall in the Broughtonian art, which, as Mr. Fielding observes, conveyed more pleasant sensations to the spectators than the patient.
CUNDUM		The dried gut of a sheep, worn by men in the act of coition, to prevent venereal infection; said to have been invented by one colonel Cundum. These machines were long prepared and sold by a matron of the name of Philips, at the Green Canister, in Half-moon-street, in the Strand. That good lady having acquired a fortune, retired from business; but learning that the town was not well served by her successors, she, out of a patriotic zeal for the public welfare, returned to her occupation; of which she gave notice by divers hand-bills, in circulation in the year 1776. Also a false scabbard over a sword, and the oil-skin case for holding the colours of a regiment.
CUR		A cut or curtailed dog. According to the forest laws, a man who had no right to the privilege of the chase, was obliged to cut or law his dog: among other modes of disabling him from disturbing the game, one was by depriving him of his tail: a dog so cut was called a cut or curtailed dog, and by contraction a cur. A cur is figuratively used to signify a surly fellow.
CURE ARSE		A dyachilon plaister, applied to the parts galled by riding.
CURMUDGEON		A covetous old fellow, derived, according to some, from the French term coeur mechant.
DING		To knock down. To ding it in one's ears; to reproach or tell one something one is not desirous of hearing. Also to throw away or hide: thus a highwayman who throws away or hides any thing with which he robbed, to prevent being known or detected, is, in the canting lingo, styled a Dinger.
DING BOY		A rogue, a hector, a bully, or sharper.
DING DONG		Helter skelter, in a hasty disorderly manner.
DINGEY CHRISTIAN		A mulatto; or any one who has, as the West-Indian term is, a lick of the tar-brush, that is, some negro blood in him.
DINING ROOM POST		A mode of stealing in houses that let lodgings, by rogues pretending to be postmen, who send up sham letters to the lodgers, and, whilst waiting in the entry for the postage, go into the first room they see open, and rob it.
DOG LATIN		Barbarous Latin, such as was formerly used by the lawyers in their pleadings.
DOMMERER		A beggar pretending that his tongue has been cutout by the Algerines, or cruel and blood-thirsty Turks, or else that he yas born deaf and dumb.
DUDDERS, or WHISPERING DUDDERS		Cheats who travel the country, pretending to sell smuggled goods: they accost their intended dupes in a whisper. The goods they have for sale are old shop-keepers, or damaged; purchased by them of large manufactories. See DUFFER.
DUMMEE		A pocket book. A dummee hunter. A pick-pocket, who lurks about to steal pocket books out of gentlemen's pockets. Frisk the dummee of the screens; take all the bank notes out of the pocket book, ding the dummee, and bolt, they sing out beef. Throw away the pocket book, and run off, as they call out "stop thief."
EIGHT EYES		I will knock out two of your eight eyes; a common Billingsgate threat from one fish nymph to another: every woman, according to the naturalists of that society, having eight eyes; viz. two seeing eyes, two bub-eyes, a bell-eye, two pope's eyes, and a cock-eye. He has fallen down and trod upon his eye; said of one who has a black eye.
EXPENDED		Killed: alluding to the gunner's accounts, wherein the articles consumed are charged under the title of expended. Sea phrase.
FAM LAY		Going into a goldsmith's shop, under pretence of buying a wedding ring, and palming one or two, by daubing the hand with some viscous matter.
FERRET		A tradesman who sells goods to youug unthrift heirs, at excessive rates, and then continually duns them for the debt. To ferret; to search out or expel any one from his hiding-place, as a ferret drives out rabbits; also to cheat. Ferret-eyed; red-eyed: ferrets have red eyes.
FIDDLESTICK'S END		Nothing; the end of the ancient fiddlesticks ending in a point; hence metaphorically used to express a thing terminating in nothing.
FLAG		A groat. - The flag of defiance, or bloody flag is out; signifying the man is drunk, and alluding to the redness of his face. SEA PHRASE.
FLASH		Knowing. Understanding another's meaning. The swell was flash, so I could not draw his fogle. The gentleman saw what I was about, and therefore I could not pick his pocket of his silk handkerchief. To patter flash, to speak the slang language. See PATTER.
FLEA BITE		A trifling injury. To send any one away with a flea in his ear; to give any one a hearty scolding.
FLY		Knowing. Acquainted with another's meaning or proceeding. The rattling cove is fly; the coachman knows what we are about.
FLY-BY-NIGHT		You old fly-by-night; an ancient term of reproach to an old woman, signifying that she was a witch, and alluding to the nocturnal excursions attributed to witches, who were supposed to fly abroad to their meetings, mounted on brooms.
FLYING PORTERS		Cheats who obtain money by pretending to persons who have been lately robbed, that they may come from a place or party where, and from whom, they may receive information respecting the goods stolen from them, and demand payment as porters.
FOB		A cheat, trick, or contrivance, I will not be fobbed off so; I will not be thus deceived with false pretences. The fob is also a small breeches pocket for holding a watch.
FOUSIL		The name of a public house, where the Eccentrics assemble in May's Buildings, St. Martin's Lane.
FOXING A BOOT		Mending the foot by capping it.
FRISK		To dance the Paddington frisk; to be hanged.
GALLEY		Building the galley; a game formerly used at sea, in order to put a trick upon a landsman, or fresh- water sailor. It being agreed to play at that game, one sailor personates the builder, and another the merchant or contractor: the builder first begins by laying the keel, which consists of a number of men laid all along on their backs, one after another, that is, head to foot; he next puts in the ribs or knees, by making a number of men sit feet to feet, at right angles to, and on each side of, the keel: he now fixing on the person intended to be the object of the joke, observes he is a fierce-looking fellow, and fit for the lion; he accordingly places him at the head, his arms being held or locked in by the two persons next to him, representing the ribs. After several other dispositions, the builder delivers over the galley to the contractor as complete: but he, among other faults and objections, observes the lion is not gilt, on which the builder or one of his assistants, runs to the head, and dipping a mop in the excrement, thrusts it into the face of the lion.
GELDING		An eunuch.
GILT, or RUM DUBBER		A thief who picks locks, so called from the gilt or picklock key: many of them are so expert, that, from the lock of a church door to that of the smallest cabinet, they will find means to open it; these go into reputable public houses, where, pretending business, they contrive to get into private rooms, up stairs, where they open any bureaus or trunks they happen to find there.
GINGERBREAD WORK		Gilding and carving: these terms are particularly applied by seamen on board Newcastle colliers, to the decorations of the sterns and quarters of West-Indiamen, which they have the greatest joy in defacing.
GLIMMERERS		Persons begging with sham licences, pretending losses by fire.
GOOD MAN		A word of various imports, according to the place where it is spoken: in the city it means a rich man; at Hockley in the Hole, or St. Giles's, an expert boxer; at a bagnio in Covent Garden, a vigorous fornicator; at an alehouse or tavern, one who loves his pot or bottle; and sometimes, though but rarely, a virtuous man
GOOSE RIDING		A goose, whose neck is greased, being suspended by the legs to a cord tied to two trees or high posts, a number of men on horseback, riding full speed, attempt to pull off the head: which if they effect, the goose is their prize. This has been practised in Derbyshire within the memory of persons now living.
GROATS		To save his groats; to come off handsomely: at the universities, nine groats are deposited in the hands of an academic officer, by every person standing for a degree; which if the depositor obtains with honour, the groats are returned to him.
GUTFOUNDERED		Exceeding hungry.
HANGMAN'S WAGES		Thirteen pence halfpenny; which, according to the vulgar tradition, was thus allotted: one shilling for the executioner, and three halfpence for the rope, - N. B. This refers to former times; the hangmen of the present day having, like other artificers, raised their prices. The true state of this matter is, that a Scottish mark was the fee allowed for an execution, and the value of that piece was settled by a proclamation of James I. at thirteen pence halfpenny.
HANS IN KELDER		Jack in the cellar, i.e. the child in the womb: a health frequently drank to breeding women or their husbands.
HASTY PUDDING		Oatmeal and milk boiled to a moderate thickness, and eaten with sugar and butter. Figuratively, a wet, muddy road: as, The way through Wandsworth is quite a hasty pudding. To eat hot hasty pudding for a laced hat, or some other prize, is a common feat at wakes and fairs.
HELL		A taylor's repository for his stolen goods, called cabbage: see CABBAGE. Little hell; a small dark covered passage, leading from London-wall to Bell-alley.
HELL CAT		A termagant, a vixen, a furious scolding woman. See TERMAGANT and VIXEN.
HOBSON'S CHOICE		That or none; from old Hobson, a famous carrier of Cambridge, who used to let horses to the students; but never permitted them to chuse, always allotting each man the horse he thought properest for his manner of riding and treatment.
HOLY WATER		He loves him as the Devil loves holy water, i.e. hates him mortally. Holy water, according to the Roman Catholics, having the virtue to chase away the Devil and his imps.
HOOK AND SNIVEY, WITH NIX THE BUFFER		This rig consists in feeding a man and a dog for nothing, and is carried on thus: Three men, one of who pretends to be sick and unable to eat, go to a public house: the two well men make a bargain with the landlord for their dinner, and when he is out of sight, feed their pretended sick companion and dog gratis.
HORSE LADDER		A piece of Wiltshire wit, which consists in sending some raw lad, or simpleton, to a neighbouring farm house, to borrow a horse ladder, in order to get up the horses, to finish a hay-mow.
HUFF		To reprove, or scold at any one; also to bluster, bounce, ding, or swagger. A captain huff; a noted bully. To stand the huff; to be answerable for the reckoning in a public house.
JACK PUDDING		The merry andrew, zany, or jester to a mountebank.
JUMP		The jump, or dining-room jump; a species of robbery effected by ascending a ladder placed by a sham lamp- lighter, against the house intended to be robbed. It is so called, because, should the lamp-lighter be put to flight, the thief who ascended the ladder has no means of escaping but that of jumping down.
JUNIPER LECTURE		A round scolding bout.
KETTLEDRUMS		Cupid's kettle drums; a woman's breasts, called by sailors chest and bedding.
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.
KISS MINE ARSE		An offer, as Fielding observes, very frequently made, but never, as he could learn, literally accepted. A kiss mine arse fellow; a sycophant.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
LOOPHOLE		An opening, or means of escape. To find a loophole in an act of parliament; i.e. a method of evading it,
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.
MAUNDERING BROTH		Scolding.
MAUNDING		Asking or begging.
MERRY ANDREW, or MR		MERRYMAN. The jack pudding, jester, or zany of a mountebank, usually dressed in a party-coloured coat.
MOSS		A cant term for lead, because both are found on the tops of buildings.
NEWGATE SOLICITOR		A petty fogging and roguish attorney, who attends the gaols to assist villains in evading justice.
NIGHTMAN		One whose business it is to empty necessary houses in London, which is always done in the night; the operation is called a wedding. See WEDDING.
NOKES		A ninny, or fool. John-a-Nokes and Tom-a-Stiles; two honest peaceable gentlemen, repeatedly set together by the ears by lawyers of different denominations: two fictitious names formerly used in law proceedings, but now very seldom, having for several years past been supplanted by two other honest peaceable gentlemen, namely, John Doe and Richard Roe.
OLD DING		See OLD HAT.
OVERSEER		A man standing in the pillory, is, from his elevated situation, said to be made an overseer.
PADDINGTON FAIR DAY		An execution day, Tyburn being in the parish or neighbourhood of Paddington. To dance the Paddington frisk; to be hanged.
PATRICO, or PATER-COVE		The fifteenth rank of the canting tribe; strolling priests that marry people under a hedge, without gospel or common prayer book: the couple standing on each side of a dead beast, are bid to live together till death them does part; so shaking hands, the wedding is ended. Also any minister or parson.
PEEPING TOM		A nick name for a curious prying fellow; derived from an old legendary tale, told of a taylor of Coventry, who, when Godiva countess of Chester rode at noon quite naked through that town, in order to procure certain immunities for the inhabitants, (notwithstanding the rest of the people shut up their houses) shly peeped out of his window, for which he was miraculously struck blind. His figure, peeping out of a window, is still kept up in remembrance of the transaction.
PHOS BOTTLE		A. bottle of phosphorus: used by housebreakers to light their lanthorns. Ding the phos; throw away the bottle of phosphorus.
PICKLE		An arch waggish fellow. In pickle, or in the pickling tub; in a salivation. There are rods in brine, or pickle, for him; a punishment awaits him, or is prepared for him. Pickle herring; the zany or merry andrew of a mountebank. See JACK PUDDING.
PINCH		To go into a tradesman's shop under the pretence of purchasing rings or other light articles, and while examining them to shift some up the sleeve of the coat. Also to ask for change for a guinea, and when the silver is received, to change some of the good shillings for bad ones; then suddenly pretending to recollect that you had sufficient silver to pay the bill, ask for the guinea again, and return the change, by which means several bad shillings are passed.
PORRIDGE ISLAND		An alley leading from St. Martin's church-yard to Round-court, chiefly inhabited by cooks, who cut off ready-dressed meat of all sorts, and also sell soup.
PRIGGING		Riding; also lying with a woman.
PUDDING SLEEVES		A parson.
PUDDING TIME		In good time, or at the beginning of a meal: pudding formerly making the first dish. To give the crows a pudding; to die. You must eat some cold pudding, to settle your love.
PUDDING-HEADED FELLOW		A stupid fellow, one whose brains are all in confusion.
PUDDINGS		The guts: I'll let out your puddings.
PUFFING		Bidding at an auction, as above; also praising any thing above its merits, from interested motives. The art of puffing is at present greatly practised, and essentially necessary in all trades, professions, and callings. To puff and blow; to be out of breath.
PUZZLE-CAUSE		A lawyer who has a confused understanding.
QUEER PLUNGERS		Cheats who throw themselves into the water, in order that they may be taken up by their accomplices, who carry them to one of the houses appointed by the Humane Society for the recovery of drowned persons, where they are rewarded by the society with a guinea each; and the supposed drowned persons, pretending he was driven to that extremity by great necessity, also frequently sent away with a contribution in his pocket.
RAILS		See HEAD RAILS. A dish of rails; a lecture, jobation, or scolding from a married woman to her husband.
RANTIPOLE		A rude romping boy or girl; also a gadabout dissipated woman. To ride rantipole; the same as riding St. George. See ST. GEORGE.
RENDEZVOUS		A place of meeting. The rendezvous of the beggars were, about the year 1638, according to the Bellman, St, Quinton's, the Three Crowns in the Vintry, St. Tybs, and at Knapsbury: there were four barns within a mile of London. In Middlesex were four other harbours, called Draw the Pudding out of the Fire, the Cross Keys in Craneford parish, St. Julian's in Isleworth parish, and the house of Pettie in Northall parish. In Kent, the King's Barn near Dartford, and Ketbrooke near Blackheath.
RICHAUD SNARY		A dictionary. A country lad, having been reproved for calling persons by their christian names, being sent by his master to borrow a dictionary, thought to shew his breeding by asking for a Richard Snary.
RIDER		A person who receives part of the salary of a place or appointment from the ostensible occupier, by virtue of an agreement with the donor, or great man appointing. The rider is said to be quartered upon the possessor, who often has one or more persons thus riding behind him. See QUARTERED.
RIDING SKIMMINGTON		A ludicrous cavalcade, in ridicule of a man beaten by his wife. It consists of a man riding behind a woman, with his face to the horse's tail, holding a distaff in his hand, at which he seems to work, the woman all the while beating him with a ladle; a smock displayed on a staff is carried before them as an emblematical standard, denoting female superiority: they are accompanied by what is called the ROUGH MUSIC, that is, frying-pans, bulls horns, marrow-bones and cleavers, etc. A procession of this kind is admirably described by Butler in his Hudibras. He rode private, i.e. was a private trooper.
RIDING ST GEORGE		The woman uppermost in the amorous congress, that is, the dragon upon St. George. This is said to be the way to get a bishop.
RIGGING		Clothing. I'll unrig the bloss; I'll strip the wench. Rum Rigging; fine clothes. The cull has rum rigging, let's ding him and mill him, and pike; the fellow has good clothes, let's knock him down, rob him, and scour off, i.e. run away.
RING		Money procured by begging: beggars so called it from its ringing when thrown to them. Also a circle formed for boxers, wrestlers, and cudgel-players, by a man styled Vinegar; who, with his hat before his eyes, goes round the circle, striking at random with his whip to prevent the populace from crowding in.
RUFFLERS		The first rank of canters; also notorious rogues pretending to be maimed soldiers or sailors.
RUMP		To rump any one; to turn the back to him: an evolution sometimes used at court. Rump and a dozen; a rump of beef and a dozen of claret; an Irish wager, called also buttock and trimmings. Rump and kidney men; fiddlers that play at feasts, fairs, weddings, etc. and live chiefly on the remnants.
SADDLE		To saddle the spit; to give a dinner or supper. To saddle one's nose; to wear spectacles. To saddle a place or pension; to oblige the holder to pay a certain portion of his income to some one nominated by the donor. Saddle sick: galled with riding, having lost leather.
SHIT SACK		A dastardly fellow: also a non-conformist. This appellation is said to have originated from the following story: - After the restoration, the laws against the non-conformists were extremely severe. They sometimes met in very obscure places: and there is a tradition that one of their congregations were assembled in a barn, the rendezvous of beggars and other vagrants, where the preacher, for want of a ladder or tub, was suspended in a sack fixed to the beam. His discourse that day being on the last judgment, he particularly attempted to describe the terrors of the wicked at the sounding of the trumpet, on which a trumpeter to a puppet-show, who had taken refuge in that barn, and lay hid under the straw, sounded a charge. The congregation, struck with the utmost consternation, fled in an instant from the place, leaving their affrighted teacher to shift for himself. The effects of his terror are said to have appeared at the bottom of the sack, and to have occasioned that opprobrious appellation by which the non-conformists were vulgarly distinguished.
SHOPLIFTER		One that steals whilst pretending to purchase goods in a shop.
SLIPSLOPPING		Misnaming and misapplying any hard word; from the character of Mrs. Slipslop, in Fielding's Joseph Andrews.
SLOPS		Wearing apparel and bedding used by seamen.
SPOIL PUDDING		A parson who preaches long sermons, keeping his congregation in church till the puddings are overdone.
SQUIRE OF ALSATIA		A weak profligate spendthrift, the squire of the company; one who pays the whole reckoning, or treats the company, called standing squire.
STOCK JOBBERS		Persons who gamble in Exchange Alley, by pretending to buy and sell the public funds, but in reality only betting that they will be at a certain price, at a particular time; possessing neither the stock pretended to be sold, nor money sufficient to make good the payments for which they contract: these gentlemen are known under the different appellations of bulls, bears, and lame ducks.
STRAIT WAISTCOAT		A tight waistcoat, with long sleeves coming over the hand, having strings for binding them behind the back of the wearer: these waistcoats are used in madhouses for the management of lunatics when outrageous.
STROLLERS		Itinerants of different kinds. Strolling morts; beggars or pedlars pretending to be widows.
SULKY		A one-horse chaise or carriage, capable of holding but one person: called by the French a DESOBLIGEANT.
SURVEYOR OF THE PAVEMENT		One standing in the pillory.
SWEATING		A mode of diminishing the gold coin, practiced chiefly by the Jews, who corrode it with aqua regia. Sweating was also a diversion practised by the bloods of the last century, who styled themselves Mohocks: these gentlemen lay in wait to surprise some person late in the night, when surrouding him, they with their swords pricked him in the posteriors, which obliged him to be constantly turning round; this they continued till they thought him sufficiently sweated.
TAYLOR		Nine taylors make a man; an ancient and common saying, originating from the effeminacy of their employment; or, as some have it, from nine taylors having been robbed by one man; according to others, from the speech of a woollendraper, meaning that the custom of nine, taylors would make or enrich one man - A London taylor, rated to furnish half a man to the Trained Bands, asking how that could possibly be done? was answered, By sending four, journeymen and and apprentice. - Put a taylor, a weaver, and a miller into a sack, shake them well, And the first that puts out his head is certainly a thief. - A taylor is frequently styled pricklouse, assaults on those vermin with their needles.
THINGSTABLE		Mr. Thingstable; Mr. Constable: a ludicrous affectation of delicacy in avoiding the pronunciation of the first syllable in the title of that officer, which in sound has some similarity to an indecent monosyllable.
THIRDING		A custom practised at the universities, where two thirds of the original price is allowed by the upholsterers to the students for household goods returned to them within the year.
THOMOND		Like Lord Thomond's cocks, all on one side. Lord Thomond's cock-feeder, an Irishman, being entrusted with some cocks which were matched for a considerable sum, the night before the battle shut them all together in one room, concluding that as they were all on the same side, they would not disagree: the consequence was, they were most of them either killed or lamed before the morning.
THOUGHT		What did thought do? lay'in bed and beshat himself, and thought he was up; reproof to any one who excuses himself for any breach of positive orders, by pleading that he thought to the contrary.
THREE-PENNY UPRIGHT		A retailer of love, who, for the sum mentioned, dispenses her favours standing against a wall.
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.
TOAD EATER		A poor female relation, and humble companion, or reduced gentlewoman, in a great family, the standing butt, on whom all kinds of practical jokes are played off, and all ill humours vented. This appellation is derived from a mountebank's servant, on whom all experiments used to be made in public by the doctor, his master; among which was the eating of toads, formerly supposed poisonous. Swallowing toads is here figuratively meant for swallowing or putting up with insults, as disagreeable to a person of feeling as toads to the stomach.
TOUCH		To touch; to get money from any one; also to arrest. Touched in the wind; broken winded. Touched in the head; insane, crazy. To touch up a woman; to have carnal knowledge of her. Touch bone and whistle; any one having broken wind backwards, according to the vulgar law, may be pinched by any of the company till he has touched bone (i.e. his teeth) and whistled.
TRADING JUSTICES		Broken mechanics, discharged footmen, and other low fellows, smuggled into the commission of the peace, who subsist by fomenting disputes, granting warrants, and otherwise retailing justice; to the honour of the present times, these nuisances are by no means, so common as formerly.
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.
TWO TO ONE SHOP		A pawnbroker's: alluding to the three blue balls, the sign of that trade: or perhaps to its being two to one that the goods pledged are never redeemed.
VOWEL		A gamester who does not immediately pay his losings, is said to vowel the winner, by repeating the vowels I. O. U. or perhaps from giving his note for the money according to the Irish form, where the acknowledgment of the debt is expressed by the letters I. O. U. which, the sum and name of the debtor being added, is deemed a sufficient security among gentlemen.
WAITS		Musicians of the lower order, who in most towns play under the windows of the chief inhabitants at midnight, a short time before Christmas, for which they collect a christmas-box from house to house. They are said to derive their name of waits from being always in waiting to celebrate weddings and other joyous events happening within their district.
WALKING THE PLANK		A mode of destroying devoted persons or officers in a mutiny or ship-board, by blindfolding them, and obliging them to walk on a plank laid over the ship's side; by this means, as the mutineers suppose, avoiding the penalty of murder.
WARREN		One that is security for goods taken up on credit by extravagant young gentlemen. Cunny warren; a girl's boarding-school, also a bawdy-house.
WEDDING		The emptying of a neoessary-hovise, particularly in London. You have been at an Irish wedding, where black eyes are given instead of favours; saying to one who has a black eye.
WELL		To divide unfairly. To conceal part. A cant phrase used by thieves, where one of the party conceals some of the booty, instead of dividing it fairly amongst his confederates.
WESTMINSTER WEDDING		A match between a whore and a rogue.
WHIP JACKS		The tenth order of the canting crew, rogues who having learned a few sea terms, beg with counterfeit passes, pretending to be sailors shipwrecked on the neighbouring coast, and on their way to the port from whence they sailed.
WOLF IN THE BREAST		An extraordinary mode of imposition, sometimes practised in the country by strolling women, who have the knack of counterfeiting extreme pain, pretending to have a small animal called a wolf in their breasts, which is continually gnawing them.
WOODEN HORSE		To fide the wooden horse was a military punishment formerly in use. This horse consisted of two or more planks about eight feet long, fixed together so as to form a sharp ridge or angle, which answered to the body of the horse. It was supported by four posts, about six feet long, for legs. A head, neck, and tail, rudely cut in wood, were added, which completed the appearance of a horse. On this sharp ridge delinquents were mounted, with their hands tied behind them; and to steady them (as it was said), and lest the horse should kick them off, one or more firelocks were tied to each leg. In this situation they were sometimes condemned to sit an hour or two; but at length it having been found to injure the soldiers materially, and sometimes to rupture them, it was left off about the time of the accession of King George I. A wooden horse was standing in the Parade at Portsmouth as late as the year 1750.
XANTIPPE		The name of Socrates's wife: now used to signify a shrew or scolding wife.
YELLOW		To look yellow; to be jealous. I happened to call on Mr. Green, who was out: on coming home, and finding me with his wife, he began to look confounded blue, and was, I thought, a little yellow.
ZANY		The jester, jack pudding, or merry andrew, to a mountebank.