Chapter 12

LEAST IN SIGHT. To play least in sight; to hide, keep out of the way, or make one's self scarce.

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.

LEERY. On one's guard. See PEERY.

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.

LEG. To make a leg; to bow. To give leg-bail and land security; to run away. To fight at the leg; to take unfair advantages: it being held unfair by back-sword players to strike at the leg. To break a leg; a woman who has had a bastard, is said to have broken a leg.

LEGGERS. Sham leggers; cheats who pretend to sell smuggled goods, but in reality only deal in old shop-keepers or damaged goods.

LENTEN FARE. Spare diet.

LETCH. A whim of the amorous kind, out of the common way.

LEVITE. A priest or parson.

TO LIB. To lie together. CANT.

LIBBEGE. A bed. CANT.

LIBBEN. A private dwelling-house. CANT.

LIBKEN. A house to lie in. CANT.

TO LICK. To beat; also to wash, or to paint slightly over. I'll give you a good lick o' the chops; I'll give you a good stroke or blow on the face. Jack tumbled into a cow t--d, and nastied his best clothes, for which his father stept up, and licked him neatly.--I'll lick you! the dovetail to which is, If you lick me all over, you won't miss--.

LICKSPITTLE. A parasite, or talebearer.

LIFT. To give one a lift; to assist. A good hand at a dead lift; a good hand upon an emergency. To lift one's hand to one's head; to drink to excess, or to drink drams. To lift or raise one's elbow; the same.

LIFT. See SHOPLIFTER, &c.

LIFTER. A crutch.

LIG. A bed. See LIB.

LIGHT BOB. A soldier of the light infantry company.

LIGHT-FINGERED. Thievish, apt to pilfer.

LIGHT-HEELED. Swift in running. A light-heeled wench; one who is apt, by the flying up of her heels, to fall flat on her back, a willing wench.

LIGHT HOUSE. A man with a red fiery nose.

LIGHT TROOPS. Lice; the light troops are in full march; the lice are crawling about.

LIGHTMANS. The day. CANT.

LIGHTNING. Gin. A flash of lightning; a glass of gin.

LIKENESS. A phrase used by thieves when the officers or turnkeys are examining their countenance. As the traps are taking our likeness; the officers are attentively observing us.

LILIPUTIAN. A diminutive man or woman: from Gulliver's Travels, written by Dean Swift, where an imaginary kingdom of dwarfs of that name is described.

LILY WHITE. A chimney-sweeper.

LILY SHALLOW. (WHIP SLANG) A white driving hat.

LIMBS. Duke of limbs; a tall awkward fellow.

LIMB OF THE LAW. An inferior or pettyfogging attorney.

LIMBO. A prison, confinement.

To LINE. A term for the act of coition between dog and bitch.

LINE OF THE OLD AUTHOR. A dram of brandy.

LINE. To get a man into a line, i.e. to divert his attention by a ridiculous or absurd story. To humbug.

LINGO. Language. An outlandish lingo; a foreign tongue. The parlezvous lingo; the French language.

LINEN ARMOURERS. Taylors.

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.

LIQUOR. To liquor one's boots; to drink before a journey: among Roman Catholics, to administer the extreme unction.

LITTLE BARBARY. Wapping.

LITTLE BREECHES. A familiar appellation used to a little boy.

LITTLE CLERGYMAN. A young chimney-sweeper.

LITTLE EASE. A small dark cell in Guildhall, London, where disorderly apprentices are confined by the city chamberlain: it is called Little Ease from its being so low that a lad cannot stand upright in it.

LITTLE SNAKESMAN. A little boy who gets into a house through the sink-hole, and then opens the door for his accomplices: he is so called, from writhing and twisting like a snake, in order to work himself through the narrow passage.

LIVE LUMBER. A term used by sailors, to signify all landsmen on board their ships.

LIVE STOCK. Lice or fleas.

LOAF. To be in bad loaf, to be in a disagreeable situation, or in trouble.

LOB. A till in a tradesman's shop. To frisk a lob; to rob a till. See FLASH PANNEY.

LOB. Going on the lob; going into a shop to get change for gold, and secreting some of the change.

LOB'S POUND. A prison. Dr. Grey, in his notes on Hudibras, explains it to allude to one Doctor Lob, a dissenting preacher, who used to hold forth when conventicles were prohibited, and had made himself a retreat by means of a trap door at the bottom of his pulpit. Once being pursued by the officers of justice, they followed him through divers subterraneous passages, till they got into a dark cell, from whence they could not find their way out, but calling to some of their companions, swore they had got into Lob's Pound.

LOBCOCK. A large relaxed penis: also a dull inanimate fellow.

LOBKIN. A house to lie in: also a lodging.

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.

LOBONIAN SOCIETY. A society which met at Lob Hall, at the King and Queen, Norton Falgate, by order of Lob the great.

LOBSCOUSE. A dish much eaten at sea, composed of salt beef, biscuit and onions, well peppered, and stewed together.

LOBSTER. A nick name for a soldier, from the colour of his clothes. To boil one's lobster, for a churchman to become a soldier: lobsters, which are of a bluish black, being made red by boiling. I will not make a lobster kettle of my ****, a reply frequently made by the nymphs of the Point at Portsmouth, when requested by a soldier to grant him a favour.

LOCK. A scheme, a mode. I must fight that lock; I must try that scheme.

LOCK. Character. He stood a queer lock; he bore but an indifferent character. A lock is also a buyer of stolen goods, as well as the receptacle for them.

LOCK HOSPITAL. An hospital for venereal patients.

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.

LOCKERAM-JAWED. Thin-faced, or lanthorn-jawed. See LANTHORN JAWED.

LOCKSMITH'S DAUGHTER. A key.

LOGGERHEAD. A blockhead, or stupid fellow. We three loggerheads be: a sentence frequently written under two heads, and the reader by repeating it makes himself the third. A loggerhead is also a double-headed, or bar shot of iron. To go to loggerheads; to fall to fighting.

LOLL. Mother's loll; a favourite child, the mother's darling,

LOLL TONGUE. He has been playing a game at loll tongue; he has been salivated.

LOLLIPOPS. Sweet lozenges purchased by children.

TO LOLLOP. To lean with one's elbows on a table.

LOLLPOOP. A lazy, idle drone.

LOMBARD FEVER. Sick of the lombard fever; i.e. of the idles.

LONG ONE. A hare; a term used by poachers.

LONG. Great. A long price; a great price.

LONG GALLERY. Throwing, or rather trundling, the dice the whole length of the board.

LONG MEG. A jeering name for a very tall woman: from one famous in story, called Long Meg of Westminster.

LONG SHANKS. A long-legged person.

LONG STOMACH. A voracious appetite.

LONG TONGUED. Loquacious, not able to keep a secret. He is as long-tongued as Granny: Granny was an idiot who could lick her own eye. See GRANNY.

LONG-WINDED. A long-winded parson; one who preached long, tedious sermons. A long-winded paymaster; one who takes long credit.

LOO. For the good of the loo; for the benefit of the company or community.

LOOBY. An awkward, ignorant fellow.

LOOKING AS IF ONE COULD NOT HELP IT. Looking like a simpleton, or as if one could not say boh! to a goose.

LOOKING-GLASS. A chamber pot, jordan, or member mug.

LOON, or LOUT. A country bumkin, or clown.

LOONSLATE. Thirteen pence halfpenny.

LOOPHOLE. An opening, or means of escape. To find a loophole in an act of parliament; i.e. a method of evading it,

LOP-SIDED. Uneven, having one side larger or heavier than the other: boys' paper kites are often said to be lop-sided.

TO LOPE. To leap, to run away. He loped down the dancers; he ran down stairs.

LORD. A crooked or hump-backed man. These unhappy people afford great scope for vulgar raillery; such as, 'Did you come straight from home? if so, you have got confoundedly bent by the way.' 'Don't abuse the gemman,' adds a by-stander, 'he has been grossly insulted already; don't you see his back's up?' Or someone asks him if the show is behind; 'because I see,' adds he, 'you have the drum at your back.' Another piece of vulgar wit is let loose on a deformed person: If met by a party of soldiers on their march, one of them observes that that gentleman is on his march too, for he has got his knapsack at his back. It is said in the British Apollo, that the title of lord was first given to deformed persons in the reign of Richard III. from several persons labouring under that misfortune being created peers by him; but it is more probably derived from the Greek word [GREEK: lordos], crooked.

LOUSE. A gentleman's companion. He will never louse a grey head of his own; he will never live to be old.

LOVE BEGOTTEN CHILD. A bastard.

LOUNGE. A loitering place, or gossiping shop.

LOUSE BAG. A black bag worn to the hair or wig.

LOUSE HOUSE. The round house, cage, or any other place of confinement.

LOUSE LADDER. A stitch fallen in a stocking.

LOUSE LAND. Scotland.

LOUSE TRAP. A small toothed comb.

LOUT. A clumsy stupid fellow.

LOWING RIG. Stealing oxen or cows.

LOW PAD. A footpad.

LOW TIDE, or LOW WATER. When there is no money in a man's pocket.

LOWRE. Money. Cant.

LUBBER. An awkward fellow: a name given by sailors to landsmen.

LUCK, or GOOD LUCK. To tread in a surreverence, to be bewrayed: an allusion to the proverb, Sh-tt-n luck is good luck.

LUD'S BULWARK. Ludgate prison.

LUGS. Ears or wattles. See WATTLES.

LULLABY CHEAT. An infant. Cant.

LULLIES. Wet linen. Cant.

LULLY TRIGGERS. Thieves who steal wet linen. Cant.

LUMB. Too much.

LUMBER. Live lumber; soldiers or passengers on board a ship are so called by the sailors.

LUMBER TROOP. A club or society of citizens of London.

LUMBER HOUSE. A house appropriated by thieves for the reception of their stolen property.

To LUMP. To beat; also to include a number of articles under one head.

To LUMP THE LIGHTER. To be transported.

LUMPERS. Persons who contract to unload ships; also thieves who lurk about wharfs to pilfer goods from ships, lighters, &c.

LUMPING. Great. A lumping penny worth; a great quantity for the money, a bargain. He has'got a lumping penny-worth; frequently said of a man who marries a fat woman.

LUN. Harlequin.

LURCH. To be left in the lurch; to be abandoned by one's confederates or party, to be left in a scrape.

LURCHED. Those who lose a game of whist, without scoring five, are said to be lurched.

LURCHER. A lurcher of the law; a bum bailiff, or his setter.

LURRIES. Money, watches, rings, or other moveables.

LUSH. Strong beer.

TO LUSH. To drink.

LUSHEY. Drunk. The rolling kiddeys hud a spree, and got bloody lushey; the dashing lads went on a party of pleasure, and got very drunk.

LYE. Chamber lye; urine.

MACCARONI. An Italian paste made of flour and eggs. Also a fop: which name arose from a club, called the Maccaroni Club, instituted by some of the most dressy travelled gentlemen about town, who led the fashions; whence a man foppishly dressed, was supposed a member of that club, and by contraction styled a Maccaroni.

MACE COVE. A swindler, a sharper, a cheat. On the mace; to live by swindling.

MACHINES. Mrs. Phillips's ware. See CUNDUM.

MACKEREL. A bawd: from the French maquerel. Mackerel-backed; long-backed.

MAD TOM, or TOM OF BEDLAM, otherwise an Abram Man. A rogue that counterfeits madness. CANT.

MADAM. A kept madam; a kept mistress.

MADAM RAN. A whore. CANT.

MADE. Stolen. CANT.

MADGE. The private parts of a woman.

MADGE CULLS. Sodomites. CANT.

MAGG. A halfpenny.

MAGGOT BOILER. A tallow-chandler.

MAGGOTTY. Whimsical, capricious.

MAGNUM BONUM. A bottle containing two quarts of wine. See SCOTCH PINT.

MAHOMETAN GRUEL. Coffee: because formerly used chiefly by the Turks.

MAIDEN SESSIONS. A sessions where none of the prisoners are capitally convicted.

MAKE. A halfpenny. CANT.

MAKE WEIGHT. A small candle: a term applied to a little slender man.

MALINGEROR. A military term for one who, under pretence of sickness, evades his duty.

MALKIN, or MAULKIN. A general name for a cat; also a parcel of rags fastened to the end of a stick, to clean an oven; also a figure set up in a garden to scare the birds; likewise an awkward woman. The cove's so scaly, he'd spice a malkin of his jazey: the fellow is so mean, that he would rob a scare-crow of his old wig.

MALKINTRASH. One in a dismal garb.

MALMSEY NOSE. A red pimpled snout, rich in carbuncles and rubies.

MAN OF THE TOWN. A rake, a debauchee.

MAN OF THE TURF. A horse racer, or jockey.

MANOEUVRING THE APOSTLES. Robbing Peter to pay Paul, i.e. borrowing of one man to pay another.

MAN TRAP. A woman's commodity.

MAN OF THE WORLD. A knowing man.

MAN, (CAMBRIDGE.) Any undergraduate from fifteen to thirty. As a man of Emanuel--a young member of Emanuel.

MANUFACTURE. Liquors prepared from materials of English growth.

MARE'S NEST. He has found a mare's nest, and is laughing at the eggs; said of one who laughs without any apparent cause.

MARGERY PRATER. A hen. CANT.

MARINE OFFICER. An empty bottle: marine officers being held useless by the seamen. SEA WIT.

MARPLOT. A spoil sport.

MARRIAGE MUSIC. The squalling and crying of children.

MARRIED. Persons chained or handcuffed together, in order to be conveyed to gaol, or on board the lighters for transportation, are in the cant language said to be married together.

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.

MARTINET. A military term for a strict disciplinarian: from the name of a French general, famous for restoring military discipline to the French army. He first disciplined the French infantry, and regulated their method of encampment: he was killed at the siege of Doesbourg in the year 1672.

MASON'S MAUND. A sham sore above the elbow, to counterfeit a broken arm by a fall from a scaffold.

MASTER OF THE MINT. A gardener.

MASTER OF THE ROLLS. A baker.

MASTER OF THE WARDROBE. One who pawns his clothes to purchase liquor.

MATRIMONIAL PEACE-MAKER. The sugar-stick, or arbor vitae.

MAUDLIN DRUNK. Crying drunk: perhaps from Mary Magdalene, called Maudlin, who is always painted in tears.

MAULED. Extremely drunk, or soundly beaten.

MAUNDERING BROTH. Scolding.

MAUNDING. Asking or begging. CANT:

MAWKES. A vulgar slattern.

MAWLEY. A hand. Tip us your mawley; shake hands. with me. Fam the mawley; shake hands.

MAW-WALLOP. A filthy composition, sufficient to provoke vomiting.

MAX. Gin.

MAY BEES. May bees don't fly all the year long; an answer to any one who prefaces a proposition with, It may be.

MEALY-MOUTHED. Over-modest or backward in speech.

MEDLAR. A fruit, vulgarly called an open a-se; of which it is more truly than delicately said, that it is never ripe till it is as rotten as a t--d, and then it is not worth a f--t.

MELLOW. Almost drunk.

MELTING MOMENTS. A fat man and woman in the amorous congress.

TO MELT. To spend. Will you melt a borde? will you spend a shilling? The cull melted a couple of decusses upon us; the gentleman spent a couple of crowns upon us. CANT.

MEMBER MUG. A chamber pot.

MEN OF STRAW. Hired bail, so called from having straw stuck in their shoes to distinguish them.

MEN OF KENT. Men born east of the river Medway, who are said to have met the Conqueror in a body, each carrying a green bough in his hand, the whole appearing like a moving wood; and thereby obtaining a confirmation of their ancient privileges. The inhabitants of Kent are divided into Kentish men and men of Kent. Also a society held at the Fountain Tavern, Bartholomew Lane, A.D. 1743.

MERKIN. Counterfeit hair for women's privy parts. See BAILEY'S DICT.

MERRY ANDREW, or MR. MERRYMAN. The jack pudding, jester, or zany of a mountebank, usually dressed in a party-coloured coat.

MERRY A-SE CHRISTIAN. A whore.

MERRY-BEGOTTEN. A bastard.

MAN OF THE WORLD. A knowing man.

MESS JOHN. A Scotch presbyterian teacher or parson.

MESSMATE. One who eats at the same mess, companion or comrade.

METTLE. The semen. To fetch mettle; the act of self pollution. Mettle is also figuratively used for courage.

METTLESOME. Bold, courageous.

MICHAEL. Hip, Michael, your head's on fire. See HYP.

MIDSHIPMAN'S WATCH AND CHAIN. A sheep's heart and pluck.

MILCH COW. One who is easily tricked out of his property; a term used by gaolers, for prisoners who have money and bleed freely.

MILK AND WATER. Both ends of the busk.

TO MILK THE PIGEON. To endeavour at impossibilities.

MILLING COVE. A boxer. How the milling cove served the cull out; how the boxer beat the fellow.

MILL. A chisel.

To MILL. To rob; also to break, beat out, or kill. I'll mill your glaze; I'll beat out your eye. To mill a bleating cheat; to kill a sheep. To mill a ken; to rob a house. To mill doll; to beat hemp in bridewell. CANT.

MILL LAY. To force open the doors of houses in order to rob them.

MILLER. A murderer.

MINE A-SE ON A BANDBOX. An answer to the offer of any thing inadequate to the purpose for which it is wanted, just as a bandbox would be if used for a seat.

MINE UNCLE'S. A pawnbroker's shop; also a necessary house. Carried to my uncle's; pawned. New-married men are also said to go to their uncle's, when they leave their wives soon after the honey moon.

MINIKIN. A little man or woman: also the smallest sort of pin.

MINOR CLERGY. Young chimney sweepers.

MINT. Gold. A mint of money; common phrase for a large sum.

MISCHIEF. A man loaded with mischief, i.e. a man with his wife on his back.

MISH. A shirt, smock, or sheet. CANT.

MISH TOPPER. A coat, or petticoat.

MISS. A miss or kept mistress; a harlot.

MISS LAYCOCK. The monosyllable.

MITE. A nick name for a cheesemonger: from the small insect of that name found in cheese.

MIX METAL. A silversmith.

MOABITES. Bailiffs, or Philistines.

MOB; or MAB. A wench, or harlot.

MOBILITY. The mob: a sort of opposite to nobility.

MOHAIR. A man in the civil line, a townsman, or tradesman: a military term, from the mohair buttons worn by persons of those descriptions, or any others not in the army, the buttons of military men being always of metal: this is generally used as a term of contempt, meaning a bourgeois, tradesman, or mechanic.

MOIETY. Half, but vulgarly used to signify a share or portion: as, He will come in for a small moiety.

MOLL. A whore.

MOLL PEATLY'S GIG. A rogering bout.

MOLL THOMPSON'S MARK. M. T. i.e. empty: as, Take away this bottle, it has Moll Thompson's mark upon it.

MOLLY. A Miss Molly; an effeminate fellow, a sodomite.

MONDAY. Saint Monday. See SAINT.

MONEY. A girl's private parts, commonly applied to little children: as, Take care, Miss, or you will shew your money.

MONEY DROPPERS. Cheats who drop money, which they pretend to find just before some country lad; and by way of giving him a share of their good luck, entice him into a public house, where they and their confederates cheat or rob him of what money he has about him.

MONGREL. A hanger on among cheats, a spunger; also a child whose father and mother are of different countries.

MONKS AND FRIARS. Terms used by printers: monks are sheets where the letters are blotted, or printed too black; friars, those letters where the ink has failed touching the type, which are therefore white or faint.

MONKEY. To suck the monkey; to suck or draw wine, or any other liquor, privately out of a cask, by means of a straw, or small tube. Monkey's allowance; more kicks than halfpence. Who put that monkey on horseback without tying his legs? vulgar wit on a bad horseman.

MONOSYLLABLE. A woman's commodity.

MOONCURSER. A link-boy: link-boys are said to curse the moon, because it renders their assistance unnecessary; these gentry frequently, under colour of lighting passengers over kennels, or through dark passages, assist in robbing them. Cant.

MOON-EYED HEN. A squinting wench.

MOON MEN. Gypsies.

MOON RAKERS. Wiltshire men: because it is said that some men of that county, seeing the reflection of the moon in a pond, endeavoured to pull it out with a rake.

MOONSHINE. A matter or mouthful of moonshine; a trifle, nothing. The white brandy smuggled on the coasts of Kent and Sussex, and the gin in the north of Yorkshire, are also called moonshine.

MOP. A kind of annual fair in the west of England, where farmers usually hire their servants.

To MOP UP. To drink up. To empty a glass or pot.

MOPED. Stupid, melancholy for want of society.

MOPSEY. A dowdy, or homely woman.

MOPSQUEEZER. A maid servant, particularly a housemaid.

MOPUSSES. Money.

MORGLAG. A brown bill, or kind of halbert, formerly carried by watchmen; corruption of MORE, great or broad, and GLAVE, blade.

MORNING DROP. The gallows. He napped the king's pardon and escaped the morning drop; he was pardoned, and was not hanged.

MORRIS. Come, morris off; dance off, or get you gone. allusion to morris, i.e. MORISCO, or Moorish dancing.

MORT. A woman or wench; also a yeoman's daughter. To be taken all-a mort; to be confounded, surprised, or motionless through fear.

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.

MOSS. A cant term for lead, because both are found on the tops of buildings.

MOSSY FACE. The mother of all saints.

MOT. A girl, or wench. See MORT.

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.

MOTHER OF ALL SAINTS. The Monosyllable.

MOTHER OF ALL SOULS. The same. IRISH.

MOTHER OF ST. PATRICK. The same. IRISH.

MOTHER OF THE MAIDS. A bawd.

MOUCHETS. Small patches worn by ladies: from the French word mouches.

MOVEABLES. Rings, watches, or any toys of value.

MOUSE. To speak like a mouse in a cheese; i.e. faintly or indistinctly.

MOUSETRAP. The parson's mousetrap; the state of matrimony.