Chapter 10

HEN HOUSE. A house where the woman rules; called also a SHE HOUSE, and HEN FRIGATE: the latter a sea phrase, originally applied to a ship, the captain of which had his wife on board, supposed to command him.

HENPECKED. A husband governed by his wife, is said to be henpecked.

HEN. A woman. A cock and hen club; a club composed of men and women.

HERE AND THEREIAN. One who has no settled place of residence.

HERRING. The devil a barrel the better herring; all equally bad.

HERRING GUTTED. Thin, as a shotten herring.

HERRING POND. The sea. To cross the herring pond at the king's expence; to be transported.

HERTFORDSHIRE KINDNESS. Drinking twice to the same person.

HICK. A country hick; an ignorant clown. CANT.

HICKENBOTHOM. Mr. Hickenbothom; a ludicrous name for an unknown person, similar to that of Mr. Thingambob. Hickenbothom, i.e. a corruption of the German word ickenbaum, i.e. oak tree.

HICKEY. Tipsey; quasi, hickupping.

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.

HIDEBOUND. Stingy, hard of delivery; a poet poor in invention, is said to have a hidebound muse.

HIGGLEDY PIGGLEDY. Confusedly mixed.

HIGH EATING. To eat skylarks in a garret.

HIGH FLYERS. Tories, Jacobites.

HIGH JINKS. A gambler at dice, who, having a strong head, drinks to intoxicate his adversary, or pigeon.

HIGH LIVING. To lodge in a garret, or cockloft

HIGH PAD. A highwayman. CANT.

HIGH ROPES. To be on the high ropes; to be in a passion.

HIGH SHOON, or CLOUTED SHOON. A country clown.

HIGH WATER. It is high water, with him; he is full of money.

HIGHGATE. Sworn at Highgate--a ridiculous custom formerly prevailed at the public-houses in Highgate, to administer a ludicrous oath to all travellers of the middling rank who stopped there. The party was sworn on a pair of horns, fastened on a stick: the substance of the oath was, never to kiss the maid when he could kiss the mistress, never to drink small beer when he could get strong, with many other injunctions of the like kind; to all which was added the saving cause of "unless you like it best." The person administering the oath was always to be called father by the juror; and he, in return, was to style him son, under the penalty of a bottle.

HIKE. To hike off; to run away. CANT.

HIND LEG. To kick out a hind leg; to make a rustic bow.

HINNEY, MY HONEY. A north country hinney, particularly a Northumbrian: in that county, hinney is the general term of endearment.

HISTORY OF THE FOUR KINGS, or CHILD'S BEST GUIDE TO THE GALLOWS. A pack of cards. He studies the history of the four kings assiduously; he plays much at cards.

HOAXING. Bantering, ridiculing. Hoaxing a quiz; joking an odd fellow. UNIVERSITY WIT.

HOB, or HOBBINOL, a clown.

HOB OR NOB. Will you hob or nob with me? a question formerly in fashion at polite tables, signifying a request or challenge to drink a glass of wine with the proposer: if the party challenged answered Nob, they were to chuse whether white or red. This foolish custom is said to have originated in the days of good queen Bess, thus: when great chimnies were in fashion, there was at each corner of the hearth, or grate, a small elevated projection, called the hob; and behind it a seat. In winter time the beer was placed on the hob to warm: and the cold beer was set on a small table, said to have been called the nob; so that the question, Will you have hob or nob? seems only to have meant, Will you have warm or cold beer? i.e. beer from the hob, or beer from the nob.

HOBBERDEHOY. Half a man and half a boy, a lad between both.

HOBBLED. Impeded, interrupted, puzzled. To hobble; to walk lamely.

HOBBLEDYGEE. A pace between a walk and a run, a dog-trot.

HOBBY. Sir Posthumous's hobby; one nice or whimsical in his clothes.

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.

HOBBY HORSICAL. A man who is a great keeper or rider of hobby horses; one that is apt to be strongly attached to his systems of amusement.

HOBNAIL. A country clodhopper: from the shoes of country farmers and ploughmen being commonly stuck full of hob-nails, and even often clouted, or tipped with iron. The Devil ran over his face with hobnails in his shoes; said of one pitted With the small pox.

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.

HOCKS. vulgar appellation for the feet. You have left the marks of your dirty hocks on my clean stairs; a frequent complaint from a mop squeezer to a footman.

HOCKEY. Drunk with strong stale beer, called old hock. See HICKEY.

HOCKING, or HOUGHING. A piece of cruelty practised by the butchers of Dublin, on soldiers, by cutting the tendon of Achilles; this has been by law made felony.

HOCUS POCUS. Nonsensical words used by jugglers, previous to their deceptions, as a kind of charm, or incantation. A celebrated writer supposes it to be a ludicrous corruption of the words hoc est corpus, used by the popish priests in consecrating the host. Also Hell Hocus is used to express drunkenness: as, he is quite hocus; he is quite drunk.

HOD. Brother Hod; a familiar name for a bricklayer's labourer: from the hod which is used for carrying bricks and mortar.

HODDY DODDY, ALL A-SE AND NO BODY. A short clumsy person, either male or female.

HODGE. An abbreviation of Roger: a general name for a country booby.

HODGE PODGE. An irregular mixture of numerous things.

HODMANDODS. Snails in their shells.

HOG. A shilling. To drive one's hogs; to snore: the noise made by some persons in snoring, being not much unlike the notes of that animal. He has brought his hogs to a fine market; a saying of any one who has been remarkably successful in his affairs, and is spoken ironically to signify the contrary. A hog in armour; an awkward or mean looking man or woman, finely dressed, is said to look like a hog in armour. To hog a horse's mane; to cut it short, so that the ends of the hair stick up like hog's bristles. Jonian hogs; an appellation given to the members of St. John's College, Cambridge.

HOG GRUBBER. A mean stingy fellow.

HOGGISH. Rude, unmannerly, filthy.

HOGO. Corruption of haut goust, high taste, or flavour; commonly said of flesh somewhat tainted. It has a confounded hogo; it stinks confoundedly.

HOIST. To go upon the hoist; to get into windows accidentally left open: this is done by the assistance of a confederate, called the hoist, who leans his head against the wall, making his back a kind of step or ascent.

HOISTING. A ludicrous ceremony formerly performed on every soldier, the first time he appeared in the field after being married; it was thus managed: As soon as the regiment, or company, had grounded their arms to rest a while, three or four men of the same company to which the bridegroom belonged, seized upon him, and putting a couple of bayonets out of the two corners of his hat, to represent horns, it was placed on his head, the back part foremost. He was then hoisted on the shoulders of two strong fellows, and carried round the arms, a drum and fife beating and playing the pioneers call, named Round Heads and Cuckolds, but on this occasion styled the Cuckold's March; in passing the colours, he was to take off his hat: this, in some regiments, was practised by the officers on their brethren, Hoisting, among pickpockets, is, setting a man on his head, that his money, watch, &c. may fall out of his pockets; these they pick up, and hold to be no robbery. See REVERSED.

HOITY-TOITY. A hoity-toity wench; a giddy, thoughtless, romping girl.

HOLBORN HILL. To ride backwards up Holborn hill; to go to the gallows: the way to Tyburn, the place of execution for criminals condemned in London, was up that hill. Criminals going to suffer, always ride backwards, as some conceive to increase the ignominy, but more probably to prevent them being shocked with a distant view of the gallows; as, in amputations, surgeons conceal the instruments with which they are going to operate. The last execution at Tyburn, and consequently of this procession, was in the year 1784, since which the criminals have been executed near Newgate

HOLIDAY. A holiday bowler; a bad bowler. Blind man's holiday; darkness, night. A holiday is any part of a ship's bottom, left uncovered in paying it. SEA TERM. It is all holiday; See ALL HOLIDAY.

HOLY FATHER. A butcher's boy of St. Patrick's Market, Dublin, or other Irish blackguard; among whom the exclamation, or oath, by the Holy Father (meaning the Pope), is common.

HOLY LAMB. A thorough-paced villain. IRISH.

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.

HOLLOW. It was quiet a hollow thing; i.e. a certainty, or decided business.

HONEST MAN. A term frequently used by superiors to inferiors. As honest a man as any in the cards when all the kings are out; i.e. a knave. I dare not call thee rogue for fear of the law, said a quaker to an attorney; but I wil give thee five pounds, if thou canst find any creditable person who wilt say thou art an honest man.

HONEST WOMAN. To marry a woman with whom one has cohabitated as a mistress, is termed, making an honest woman of her.

HONEY MOON. The first month after marriage. A poor honey; a harmless, foolish, goodnatured fellow. It is all honey or a t--d with them; said of persons who are either in the extremity of friendship or enmity, either kissing or fighting.

HOOD-WINKED. Blindfolded by a handkerchief, or other ligature, bound over the eyes.

HOOF. To beat the hoof; to travel on foot. He hoofed it or beat the hoof, every step of the way from Chester to London.

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.

HOOKEE WALKER. An expression signifying that the story is not true, or that the thing will not occour.

HOOKED. Over-reached, tricked, caught: a simile taken from fishing. **** hooks; fingers.

HOOKERS. See ANGLERS.

HOOP. To run the hoop; an ancient marine custom. Four or more boys having their left hands tied fast to an iron hoop, and each of them a rope, called a nettle, in their right, being naked to the waist, wait the signal to begin: this being made by a stroke with a cat of nine tails, given by the boatswain to one of the boys, he strikes the boy before him, and every one does the same: at first the blows are but gently administered; but each irritated by the strokes from the boy behind him, at length lays it on in earnest. This was anciently practised when a ship was wind-bound.

TO HOOP. To beat. I'll well hoop his or her barrel, I'll beat him or her soundly.

TO HOP THE TWIG. To run away. CANT.

HOP MERCHANT. A dancing master. See CAPER MERCHANT.

HOP-O-MY-THUMB. A diminutive person, man or woman. She was such a-hop-o-my thumb, that a pigeon, sitting on her shoulder, might pick a pea out of her a-se.

HOPKINS. Mr. Hopkins; a ludicrous address to a lame or limping man, being a pun on the word hop.

HOPPING GILES. A jeering appellation given to any person who limps, or is lame; St. Giles was the patron of cripples, lepers, &c. Churches dedicated to that saint commonly stand out of town, many of them having been chapels to hospitals. See GYLES.

HOPPER-ARSED. Having large projecting buttocks: from their resemblance to a small basket, called a hopper or hoppet, worn by husbandmen for containing seed corn, when they sow the land.

HORNS. To draw in one's horns; to retract an assertion through fear: metaphor borrowed from a snail, who on the apprehension of danger, draws in his horns, and retires to his shell.

HORN COLIC. A temporary priapism.

HORN FAIR. An annual fair held at Charlton, in Kent, on St. Luke's day, the 18th of October. It consists of a riotous mob, who after a printed summons dispersed through the adjacent towns, meet at Cuckold's Point, near Deptford, and march from thence in procession, through that town and Greenwich, to Charlton, with horns of different kinds upon their heads; and at the fair there are sold rams horns, and every sort of toy made of horn; even the gingerbread figures have horns, The vulgar tradition gives the following history of the origin of this fair; King John, or some other of our ancient kings, being at the palace of Eltham, in this neighbourhood, and having been out a hunting one day, rambled from his company to this place, then a mean hamlet; when entering a cottage to inquire his way, he was struck with the beauty of the mistress, whom he found alone; and having prevailed over her modesty, the husband returning suddenly, surprised them together; and threatening to kill them both, the king was obliged to discover himself, and to compound for his safety by a purse of gold, and a grant of the land from this place to Cuckold's Point, besides making the husband master of the hamlet. It is added that, in memory of this grant, and the occasion of it, this fair was established, for the sale of horns, and all sorts of goods made with that material. A sermon is preached at Charlton church on the fair day.

HORN MAD. A person extremely jealous of his wife, is said to be horn mad. Also a cuckold, who does not cut or breed his horns easily.

HORN WORK. Cuckold-making.

HORNIFIED. Cuckolded.

HORSE BUSS. A kiss with a loud smack; also a bite.

HORSE COSER. A dealer in horses: vulgarly and corruptly pronounced HORSE COURSER. The verb TO COSE was used by the Scots, in the sense of bartering or exchanging.

HORSE GODMOTHER. A large masculine woman, a gentlemanlike kind of a lady.

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.

HORSE'S MEAL. A meal without drinking.

HOSTELER, i.e. oat stealer. Hosteler was originally the name for an inn-keeper; inns being in old English styled hostels, from the French signifying the same.

HOT POT. Ale and brandy made hot.

HOT STOMACH. He has so hot a stomach, that he burns all the clothes off his back; said of one who pawns his clothes to purchase liquor.

HOUSE, or TENEMENT, TO LET. A widow's weeds; also an atchievement marking the death of a husband, set up on the outside of a mansion: both supposed to indicate that the dolorous widow wants a male comforter.

HOYDON. A romping girl.

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.

HUBBLE DE SHUFF. Confusedly. To fire hubble de shuff, to fire quick and irregularly. OLD MILITARY TERM.

HUBBUB. A noise, riot, or disturbance.

HUCKLE MY BUFF. Beer, egg, and brandy, made hot.

HUCKSTERS. Itinerant retailers of provisions. He is in hucksters hands; he is in a bad way.

TO HUE. To lash. The cove was hued in the naskin; the rogue was soundly lashed in bridewell. CANT.

TO 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.

HUG. To hug brown bess; to carry a firelock, or serve as a private soldier. He hugs it as the Devil hugs a witch: said of one who holds any thing as if he was afraid of losing it.

HUGGER MUGGER. By stealth, privately, without making an appearance. They spent their money in a hugger mugger way.

HUGOTONTHEONBIQUIFFINARIANS. A society existing in 1748.

HULKY, or HULKING. A great hulky fellow; an over-grown clumsy lout, or fellow.

HULVER-HEADED. Having a hard impenetrable head; hulver, in the Norfolk dialect, signifying holly, a hard and solid wood.

TO HUM, or HUMBUG. To deceive, or impose on one by some story or device. A humbug; a jocular imposition, or deception. To hum and haw; to hesitate in speech, also to delay, or be with difficulty brought to consent to any matter or business,

HUMS. Persons at church. There is a great number of hums in the autem; there is a great congregation in the church.

HUM BOX. A pulpit.

HUM CAP. Very old and strong beer, called also stingo. See STINGO.

HUM DRUM. A hum drum fellow; a dull tedious narrator, a bore; also a set of gentlemen, who (Bailey says) used to meet near the Charter House, or at the King's Head in St. John's-street, who had more of pleasantry, and less of mystery, than the free masons.

HUM DURGEON. An imaginary illness. He has got the humdurgeon, the thickest part of his thigh is nearest his a-se; i.e. nothing ails him except low spirits.

HUMBUGS. The brethren of the venerable society of humbugs was held at brother Hallam's, in Goodman's Fields.

HUMMER. A great lye, a rapper. See RAPPER.

HUMMING LIQUOR. Double ale, stout pharaoh. See PHARAOH.

HUMMUMS. A bagnio, or bathing house.

HUM TRUM. A musical instrument made of a mopstick, a bladder, and some packthread, thence also called a bladder and string, and hurdy gurdy; it is played on like a violin, which is sometimes ludicrously called a humstrum; sometimes, instead of a bladder, a tin canister is used.

HUMP. To hump; once a fashionable word for copulation.

HUMPTY DUMPTY. A little humpty dumpty man or woman; a short clumsy person of either sex: also ale boiled with brandy.

TO HUNCH. To jostle, or thrust.

HUNCH-BACKED. Hump-backed.

HUNG BEEF. A dried bull's pizzle. How the dubber served the cull with hung beef; how the turnkey beat the fellow with a bull's pizzle.

HUNKS. A covetous miserable fellow, a miser; also the name of a famous bear mentioned by Ben Jonson.

HUNT'S DOG. He is like Hunt's dog, will neither go to church nor stay at home. One Hunt, a labouring man at a small town in Shropshire, kept a mastiff, who on being shut up on Sundays, whilst his master went to church, howled so terribly as to disturb the whole village; wherefore his master resolved to take him to church with him: but when he came to the church door, the dog having perhaps formerly been whipped out by the sexton, refused to enter; whereupon Hunt exclaimed loudly against his dog's obstinacy, who would neither go to church nor stay at home. This shortly became a bye-word for discontented and whimsical persons.

HUNTING. Drawing in unwary persons to play or game. CANT.

HUNTING THE SQUIRREL. An amusement practised by postboys and stage-coachmen, which consists in following a one-horse chaise, and driving it before them, passing close to it, so as to brush the wheel, and by other means terrifying any woman or person that may be in it. A man whose turn comes for him to drink, before he has emptied his former glass, is said to be hunted.

HUNTSUP. The reveillier of huntsmen, sounded on the French horn, or other instrument.

HURDY GURDY. A kind of fiddle, originally made perhaps out of a gourd. See HUMSTRUM.

HURLY BURLY. A rout, riot, bustle or confusion.

HUSH. Hush the cull; murder the fellow.

HUSH MONEY. Money given to hush up or conceal a robbery, theft, or any other offence, or to take off the evidence from appearing against a criminal.

HUSKYLOUR. A guinea, or job. Cant.

HUSSY. An abbreviation of housewife, but now always used as a term of reproach; as, How now, hussy? or She is a light hussy.

HUZZA. Said to have been originally the cry of the huzzars or Hungarian light horse; but now the national shout of the English, both civil and military, in the sea phrase termed a cheer; to give three cheers being to huzza thrice.

HYP, or HIP. A mode of calling to one passing by. Hip, Michael, your head's on fire; a piece of vulgar wit to a red haired man.

HYP. The hypochondriac: low spirits. He is hypped; he has got the blue devils, &c.

JABBER. To talk thick and fast, as great praters usually do, to chatter like a magpye; also to speak a foreign language. He jabbered to me in his damned outlandish parlez vous, but I could not understand him; he chattered to me in French, or some other foreign language, but I could not understand him.

JACK. A farthing, a small bowl serving as the mark for bowlers. An instrument for pulling off boots.

JACK ADAMS. A fool. Jack Adams's parish; Clerkenwell.

JACK AT A PINCH, A poor hackney parson.

JACK IN A BOX, A sharper, or cheat. A child in the mother's womb.

JACK IN AN OFFICE, An insolent fellow in authority.

JACK KETCH. The hangman; vide DERRICK and KETCH.

JACK NASTY FACE. A sea term, signifying a common sailor.

JACK OF LEGS. A tall long-legged man; also a giant, said to be buried in Weston church, near Baldock, in Hertfordshire, where there are two stones fourteen feet distant, said to be the head and feet stones of his grave. This giant, says Salmon, as fame goes, lived in a wood here, and was a great robber, but a generous one; for he plundered the rich to feed the poor: he frequently took bread for this purpose from the Baldock bakers, who catching him at an advantage, put out his eyes, and afterwards hanged him upon a knoll in Baldock field. At his death he made one request, which was, that he might have his bow and arrow put into his hand, and on shooting it off, where the arrow fell, they would bury him; which being granted, the arrow fell in Weston churchyard. Above seventy years ago, a very large thigh bone was taken out of the church chest, where it had lain many years for a show, and was sold by the clerk to Sir John Tradescant, who, it is said, put it among the rarities of Oxford.

JACK PUDDING. The merry andrew, zany, or jester to a mountebank.

JACK ROBINSON. Before one could say Jack Robinson; a saying to express a very short time, originating from a very volatile gentleman of that appellation, who would call on his neighbours, and be gone before his name could be announced.

JACK SPRAT. A dwarf, or diminutive fellow.

JACK TAR. A sailor.

JACK WEIGHT. A fat man.

JACK WHORE. A large masculine overgrown wench.

JACKANAPES. An ape; a pert, ugly, little fellow.

JACKED. Spavined. A jacked horse.

JACKMEN. See JARKMEN.

JACKEY. Gin.

JACOB. A soft fellow. A fool.

JACOB. A ladder: perhaps from Jacob's dream. CANT. Also the common name for a jay, jays being usually taught to say, Poor Jacob! a cup of sack for Jacob.

JACOBITES. Sham or collar shirts. Also partizans for the Stuart family: from the name of the abdicated king, i.e. James or Jacobus. It is said by the whigs, that God changed Jacob's name to Israel, lest the descendants of that patriarch should be called Jacobites.

JADE. A term of reproach to women.

JAGUE. A ditch: perhaps from jakes.

JAIL BIRDS. Prisoners.

JAKES. A house of office, a cacatorium.

JAMMED. Hanged. CANT.