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 WATER

 

ADAM'S ALE		Water.
AMBASSADOR		A trick to duck some ignorant fellow or landsman, frequently played on board ships in the warm latitudes. It is thus managed: A large tub is filled with water, and two stools placed on each side of it. Over the whole is thrown a tarpaulin, or old sail: this is kept tight by two persons, who are to represent the king and queen of a foreign country, and are seated on the stools. The person intended to be ducked plays the Ambassador, and after repeating a ridiculous speech dictated to him, is led in great form up to the throne, and seated between the king and queen, who rising suddenly as soon as he is seated, he falls backwards into the tub of water.
AQUA PUMPAGINIS		Pump water. APOTHECARIES LATIN.
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.
ARTHUR, KING ARTHUR		A game used at sea, when near the line, or in a hot latitude. It is performed thus: A man who is to represent king Arthur, ridiculously dressed, having a large wig made out of oakum, or some old swabs, is seated on the side, or over a large vessel of water. Every person in his turn is to be ceremoniously introduced to him, and to pour a bucket of water over him, crying, hail, king Arthur! if during this ceremony the person introduced laughs or smiles (to which his majesty endeavours to excite him, by all sorts of ridiculous gesticulations), he changes place with, and then becomes, king Arthur, till relieved by some brother tar, who has as little command over his muscles as himself.
BAPTIZED, OR CHRISTENED		Rum, brandy, or any other spirits, that have been lowered with water.
BEAU TRAP		A loose stone in a pavement, under which water lodges, and on being trod upon, squirts it up, to the great damage of white stockings; also a sharper neatly dressed, lying in wait for raw country squires, or ignorant fops.
BISHOP		A mixture of wine and water, into which is put a roasted orange. Also one of the largest of Mrs. Philips's purses, used to contain the others.
BOB STAY		A rope which holds the bowsprit to the stem or cutwater. Figuratively, the frenum of a man's yard.
BUMBO		Brandy, water, and sugar; also the negro name for the private parts of a woman.
CAMBRIDGE FORTUNE		A wind-mill and a water-mill, used to signify a woman without any but personal endowments.
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.
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.
CLACK		A tongue, chiefly applied to women; a simile drawn from the clack of a water-mill.
COBBLERS PUNCH		Treacle, vinegar, gin, and water.
COD PIECE		The fore flap of a man's breeches. Do they bite, master? where, in the cod piece or collar? - a jocular attack on a patient angler by watermen, etc.
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 PIG		To give cold pig is a punishment inflicted on sluggards who lie too long in bed: it consists in pulling off all the bed clothes from them, and throwing cold water upon them.
COOL TANKARD		Wine and water, with lemon, sugar, and burrage.
COURT HOLY WATER, COURT PROMISES		Fair speeches and promises, without performance.
CRANK		Gin and water; also, brisk, pert.
CREW		A knot or gang; also a boat or ship's company. The canting crew are thus divided into twenty-three orders, which see under the different words: MEN. 1 Rufflers 2 Upright Men 3 Hookers or Anglers 4 Rogues 5 Wild Rogues 6 Priggers of Prancers 7 Palliardes 8 Fraters 9 Jarkmen, or Patricoes 10 Fresh Water Mariners, or Whip Jackets 11 Drummerers 12 Drunken Tinkers 13 Swadders, or Pedlars 14 Abrams. WOMEN. 1 Demanders for Glimmer or Fire 2 Bawdy Baskets 3 Morts 4 Autem Morts 5 Walking Morts 6 Doxies 7 Delles 8 Kinching Morts 9 Kinching Coes
CROWDY		Oatmeal and water, or milk; a mess much eaten in the north.
DOCTOR		Milk and water, with a little rum, and some nutmeg; also the name of a composition used by distillers, to make spirits appear stronger than they really are, or, in their phrase, better proof.
DOG'S SOUP		Rain water.
DOLLY		A Yorkshire dolly; a contrivance for washing, by means of a kind of wheel fixed in a tub, which being turned about, agitates and cleanses the linen put into it, with soap and water.
DUFFERS		Cheats who ply in different parts of the town, particularly about Water-lane, opposite St. Clement's church, in the Strand, and pretend to deal in smuggled goods, stopping all country people, or such as they think they can impose on; which they frequently do, by selling them Spital-fields goods at double their current price.
DUNEGAN		A privy. A water closet.
FAT		The last landed, inned, or stowed, of any sort of merchandise: so called by the water-side porters, carmen, etc. All the fat is in the fire; that is, it is all over with us: a saying used in case of any miscarriage or disappointment in an undertaking; an allusion to overturning the frying pan into the fire. Fat, among printers, means void spaces.
FLUMMERY		Oatmeal and water boiled to a jelly; also compliments, neither of which are over-nourishing.
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.
GO SHOP		The Queen's Head in Duke's court, Bow street, Covent Garden; frequented by the under players: where gin and water was sold in three-halfpenny bowls, called Goes; the gin was called Arrack. The go, the fashion; as, large hats are all the go.
GROG		Rum and water. Grog was first introduced into the navy about the year 1740, by Admiral Vernon, to prevent the sailors intoxicating themselves with their allowance of rum, or spirits. Groggy, or groggified; drunk.
HIGH WATER		It is high water, with him; he is full of money.
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.
HUBBLE-BUBBLE		Confusion. A hubble-bubble fellow; a man of confused ideas, or one thick of speech, whose words sound like water bubbling out of a bottle. Also an instrument used for smoaking through water in the East Indies, called likewise a caloon, and hooker.
LAGE		Water.
LARRY DUGAN'S EYE WATER		Blacking: Larry Dugan was a famous shoe-black at Dublin.
LEAK		To make water.
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.
LOW TIDE, or LOW WATER		When there is no money in a man's pocket.
MILK AND WATER		Both ends of the busk.
MUD LARK		A fellow who goes about by the water side picking up coals, nails, or other articles in the mud. Also a duck.
OWL		To catch the; a trick practised upon ignorant country boobies, who are decoyed into a barn under pretence of catching an owl, where, after divers preliminaries, the joke ends in their having a pail of water poured upon their heads.
PANTER		A hart: that animal is, in the Psalms, said to pant after the fresh water-brooks. Also the human heart, which frequently pants in time of danger.
PARELL		Whites of eggs, bay salt, milk, and pump water, beat together, and poured into a vessel of wine to prevent its fretting.
PERKIN		Water cyder.
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.
PITCHER		The miraculous pitcher, that holds water with the mouth downwards: a woman's commodity. She has crack'd her pitcher or pipkin; she has lost her maidenhead.
POMPAGINIS		Aqua pompaginis; pump water. See AQUA.
PUCKER WATER		Water impregnated with alum, or other astringents, used by old experienced traders to counterfeit virginity.
PUG DRINK		Watered cyder.
PUMP		A thin shoe. To pump; to endeavour to draw a secret from any one without his perceiving it. Your pump is good, but your sucker is dry; said by one to a person who is attempting to pump him. Pumping was also a punishment for bailiffs who attempted to act in privileged places, such as the Mint, Temple, etc. It is also a piece of discipline administered to a pickpocket caught in the fact, when there is no pond at hand. To pump ship; to make water, and sometimes to vomit. SEA PHRASE.
PUMP WATER		He was christened in pump water; commonly said of a person that has a red face.
PUNCH		A liquor called by foreigners Contradiction, from its being composed of spirits to make it strong, water to make it weak, lemon juice to make it sour, and sugar to make it sweet. Punch is also the name of the prince of puppets, the chief wit and support of a puppet-show. To punch it, is a cant term for running away. Punchable; old passable money, anno 1695. A girl that is ripe for man is called a punchable wench. Cobler's Punch. Urine with a cinder in it.
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.
RAG WATER		Gin, or any other common dram: these liquors seldom failing to reduce those that drink them to rags.
RELIGIOUS PAINTER		One who does not break the commandment which prohibits the making of the likeness of any thing in heaven or earth, or in the waters under the earth.
RUMBO		Rum, water, and sugar; also a prison.
SHOT		To pay one's shot; to pay one's share of a reckoning. Shot betwixt wind and water; poxed or clapped.
SLIPSLOPS		Tea, water-gruel, or any innocent beverage taken medicinally.
SLUSH		Greasy dish-water, or the skimmings of a pot where fat meat has been boiled.
STEPNEY		A decoction of raisins of the sun and lemons in conduit water, sweetened with sugar, and bottled up.
TOAST		A health; also a beautiful woman whose health is often drank by men. The origin of this term (as it is said) was this: a beautiful lady bathing in a cold bath, one of her admirers out of gallantry drank some of the water: whereupon another of her lovers observed, he never drank in the morning, but he would kiss the toast, and immediately saluted the lady.
TODDY		Originally the juice of the cocoa tree, and afterwards rum, water, sugar, and nutmeg.
WASH		Paint for the face, or cosmetic water. Hog-wash; thick and bad beer.
WATER		His chops watered at it; he longed earnestly for it. To watch his waters; to keep a strict watch on any one's actions. In hot water: in trouble, engaged in disputes.
WATER BEWITCHED		Very weak punch or beer.
WATER SCRIGER		A doctor who prescribes from inspecting the water of his patients. See PISS PROPHET.
WATER SNEAKSMAN		A man who steals from ships or craft on the river.
WATER-MILL		A woman's private parts.
WATERPAD		One that robs ships in the river Thames.
WATERY-HEADED		Apt to shed tears.
WIFE IN WATER COLOURS		A mistress, or concubine; water colours being, like their engagements, easily effaced, or dissolved.