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 SHERIFF

 

BEILBY'S BALL  He will dance at Beilby's ball, where the sheriff pays the music; he will be hanged. Who Mr. Beilby was, or why that ceremony was so called, remains with the quadrature of the circle, the discovery of the philosopher's stone, and divers other desiderata yet undiscovered.
 
BUM BAILIFF  A sheriff's officer, who arrests debtors; so called perhaps from following his prey, and being at their bums, or, as the vulgar phrase is, hard at their arses. Blackstone says, it is a corruption of bound bailiff, from their being obliged to give bond for their good behaviour.
 
BUM TRAP  A sheriff's officer who arrests debtors. Ware hawke! the bum traps are fly to our panney; keep a good look out, the bailiffs know where our house is situated.
 
CATCH POLE  A bum bailiff, or sheriff's officer.
 
DANGLE  To follow a woman without asking the question. Also, to be hanged: I shall see you dangle in the sheriff's picture frame; I shall see you hanging on the gallows.
 
IRONMONGER'S SHOP  To keep an ironmonger's shop by the side of a common, where the sheriff sets one up; to be hanged in chains. Iron-bound; laced. An iron-bound hat; a silver-laced hat.
 
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.
 
PICTURE FRAME  The sheriff's picture frame; the gallows or pillory.
 
SHERIFF'S BALL  An execution. To dance at the sheriff's ball, and loll out one's tongue at the company; to be hanged, or go to rest in a horse's night-cap, i.e. a halter.
 
SHERIFF'S BRACELETS  Handcuffs.
 
SHERIFF'S HOTEL  A prison.
 
SHERIFF'S JOURNEYMAN  The hangman.
 
SHERIFF'S PICTURE FRAME  The gallows.
 
TROTTERS  Feet. To shake one's trotters at Bilby's ball, where the sheriff pays the fiddlers; perhaps the Bilboes ball, i.e. the ball of fetters: fetters and stocks were anciently called the bilboes.