Chapter 7

DOWN. Aware of a thing. Knowing it. There is NO DOWN. A cant phrase used by house-breakers to signify that the persons belonging to any house are not on their guard, or that they are fast asleep, and have not heard any noise to alarm them.

TO DOWSE. To take down: as, Dowse the pendant. Dowse your dog vane; take the cockade out of your hat. Dowse the glim; put out the candle.

DOWSE ON THE CHOPS. A blow in the face.

DOWSER. Vulgar pronunciation of DOUCEUR.

DOXIES. She beggars, wenches, whores.

DRAB. A nasty, sluttish whore.

DRAG. To go on the drag; to follow a cart or waggon, in order to rob it. CANT.

DRAG LAY. Waiting in the streets to rob carts or waggons.

DRAGGLETAIL or DAGGLETAIL. One whose garments are bespattered with dag or dew: generally applied to the female sex, to signify a slattern.

DRAGOONING IT. A man who occupies two branches of one profession, is said to dragoon it; because, like the soldier of that denomination, he serves in a double capacity. Such is a physician who furnishes the medicines, and compounds his own prescriptions.

DRAIN. Gin: so called from the diuretic qualities imputed to that liquor.

DRAM. A glass or small measure of any spirituous liquors, which, being originally sold by apothecaries, were estimated by drams, ounces, &c. Dog's dram; to spit in his mouth, and clap his back.

DRAM-A-TICK. A dram served upon credit.

DRAPER. An ale draper; an alehouse keeper.

DRAUGHT, or BILL, ON THE PUMP AT ALDGATE. A bad or false bill of exchange. See ALDGATE.

DRAW LATCHES. Robbers of houses whose doors are only fastened with latches. CANT.

TO DRAW. To take any thing from a pocket. To draw a swell of a clout. To pick a gentleman's pocket of a handkerchief. To draw the long bow; to tell lies.

DRAWERS. Stockings. CANT.

DRAWING THE KING'S PICTURE. Coining. CANT.

TO DRESS. To beat. I'll dress his hide neatly; I'll beat him soundly.

DRIBBLE. A method of pouring out, as it were, the dice from the box, gently, by which an old practitioner is enabled to cog one of them with his fore-finger.

DRIPPER. A gleet.

DROMEDARY. A heavy, bungling thief or rogue. A purple dromedary; a bungler in the art and mystery of thieving. CANT.

DROMMERARS. See DOMMERER.

DROP. The new drop; a contrivance for executing felons at Newgate, by means of a platform, which drops from under them: this is also called the last drop. See LEAF. See MORNING DROP.

DROP A COG. To let fall, with design, a piece of gold or silver, in order to draw in and cheat the person who sees it picked up; the piece so dropped is called a dropt cog.

DROP IN THE EYE. Almost drunk.

DROPPING MEMBER. A man's yard with a gonorrhoea.

DROP COVES. Persons who practice the fraud of dropping a ring or other article, and picking it up before the person intended to be defrauded, they pretend that the thing is very valuable to induce their gull to lend them money, or to purchase the article. See FAWNY RIG, and MONEY DROPPERS.

TO DROP DOWN. To be dispirited. This expression is used by thieves to signify that their companion did not die game, as the kiddy dropped down when he went to be twisted; the young fellow was very low spirited when he walked out to be hanged.

TO DRUB. To beat any one with a stick, or rope's end: perhaps a contraction of DRY RUB. It is also used to signify a good beating with any instrument.

DRUMMER. A jockey term for a horse that throws about his fore legs irregularly: the idea is taken from a kettle drummer, who in beating makes many flourishes with his drumsticks.

DRUNK. Drunk as a wheel-barrow. Drunk as David's sow. See DAVID'S SOW.

DRURY LANE AGUE. The venereal disorder.

DRURY LANE VESTAL. A woman of the town, or prostitute; Drury-lane and its environs were formerly the residence of many of those ladies.

DRY BOB. A smart repartee: also copulation without emission; in law Latin, siccus robertulus.

DRY BOOTS. A sly humorous fellow.

DUB. A picklock, or master-key. CANT.

DUB LAY. Robbing houses by picking the locks.

DUB THE JIGGER. Open the door. CANT.

DUB O' TH' HICK. A lick on the head.

DUBBER. A picker of locks. CANT.

DUCE. Two-pence.

DUCK. A lame duck; an Exchange-alley phrase for a stock-jobber, who either cannot or will not pay his losses, or, differences, in which case he is said to WADDLE OUT OF THE ALLEY, as he cannot appear there again till his debts are settled and paid; should he attempt it, he would be hustled out by the fraternity.

DUCKS AND DRAKES. To make ducks and drakes: a school-boy's amusement, practised with pieces of tile, oyster-shells, or flattish stones, which being skimmed along the surface of a pond, or still river, rebound many times. To make ducks and drakes of one's money; to throw it idly away.

DUCK F-CK-R. The man who has the care of the poultry on board a ship of war.

DUCK LEGS. Short legs.

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.

DUDDERING RAKE. A thundering rake, a buck of the first head, one extremely lewd.

DUDGEON. Anger.

DUDS. Clothes.

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.

DUGS. A woman's breasts,

DUKE, or RUM DUKE. A queer unaccountable fellow.

DUKE OF LIMBS. A tall, awkward, ill-made fellow.

DUKE HUMPHREY. To dine with Duke Humphrey; to fast. In old St. Paul's church was an aisle called Duke Humphrey's walk (from a tomb vulgarly called his, but in reality belonging to John of Gaunt), and persons who walked there, while others were at dinner, were said to dine with Duke Humphrey.

DULL SWIFT. A stupid, sluggish fellow, one long going on an errand.

DUMB ARM. A lame arm.

DUMB-FOUNDED. Silenced, also soundly beaten.

DUMB GLUTTON. A woman's privities.

DUMB WATCH. A venereal bubo in the groin.

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."

DUMPLIN. A short thick man or woman. Norfolk dumplin; a jeering appellation of a Norfolk man, dumplins being a favourite kind of food in that county.

DUMPS. Down in the dumps; low-spirited, melancholy: jocularly said to be derived from Dumpos, a king of Egypt, who died of melancholy. Dumps are also small pieces of lead, cast by schoolboys in the shape of money.

DUN. An importunate creditor. Dunny, in the provincial dialect of several counties, signifies DEAF; to dun, then, perhaps may mean to deafen with importunate demands: some derive it from the word DONNEZ, which signifies GIVE. But the true original meaning of the word, owes its birth to one Joe Dun, a famous bailiff of the town of Lincoln, so extremely active, and so dexterous in his business, that it became a proverb, when a man refused to pay, Why do not you DUN him? that is, Why do not you set Dun to attest him? Hence it became a cant word, and is now as old as since the days of Henry VII. Dun was also the general name for the hangman, before that of Jack Ketch.

And presently a halter got, Made of the best strong hempen teer, And ere a cat could lick her ear, Had tied it up with as much art, As DUN himself could do for's heart.

Cotton's Virgil Trav. book iv.

DUNAKER. A stealer of cows and calves.

DUNEGAN. A privy. A water closet.

DUNGHILL. A coward: a cockpit phrase, all but gamecocks being styled dunghills. To die dunghill; to repent, or shew any signs of contrition at the gallows. Moving dunghill; a dirty, filthy man or woman. Dung, an abbreviation of dunghill, also means a journeyman taylor who submits to the law for regulating journeymen taylors' wages, therefore deemed by the flints a coward. See FLINTS.

DUNNOCK. A cow. CUNT.

TO DUP. To open a door: a contraction of DO OPE or OPEN. See DUB.

DURHAM MAN. Knocker kneed, he grinds mustard with his knees: Durham is famous for its mustard.

DUST. Money. Down with your dust; deposit the money. To raise or kick up a dust; to make a disturbance or riot: see BREEZE. Dust it away; drink about.

DUSTMAN. A dead man: your father is a dustman.

DUTCH COMFORT. Thank God it is no worse.

DUTCH CONCERT. Where every one plays or signs a different tune.

DUTCH FEAST. Where the entertainer gets drunk before his guest.

DUTCH RECKONING, or ALLE-MAL. A verbal or lump account, without particulars, as brought at spungiug or bawdy houses.

DUTCHESS. A woman enjoyed with her pattens on, or by a man-in boots, is said to be made a dutchess.

DIE HARD, or GAME. To die hard, is to shew no signs of fear or contrition at the gallows; not to whiddle or squeak. This advice is frequently given to felons going to suffer the law, by their old comrades, anxious for the honour of the gang.

EARNEST. A deposit in part of payment, to bind a bargain.

EARTH BATH. A Grave.

EASY. Make the cull easy or quiet; gag or kill him. As easy as pissing the bed.

EASY VIRTUE. A lady of easy virtue: an impure or prostitute.

EAT. To eat like a beggar man, and wag his under jaw; a jocular reproach to a proud man. To eat one's words; to retract what one has said.

TO EDGE. To excite, stimulate, or provoke; or as it is vulgarly called, to egg a man on. Fall back, fall edge; i.e. let what will happen. Some derive to egg on, from the Latin word, AGE, AGE.

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 ***-eye. He has fallen down and trod upon his eye; said of one who has a black eye.

ELBOW GREASE. Labour. Elbow grease will make an oak table shine.

ELBOW ROOM. Sufficient space to act in. Out at elbows; said of an estate that is mortgaged.

ELBOW SHAKER. A gamester, one who rattles Saint Hugh's bones, i.e. the dice.

ELLENBOROUGH LODGE. The King's Bench Prison. Lord Ellenborough's teeth; the chevaux de frize round the top of the wall of that prison.

ELF. A fairy or hobgoblin, a little man or woman.

EMPEROR. Drunk as an emperor, i.e. ten times as drunk as a lord.

ENGLISH BURGUNDY. Porter.

ENSIGN BEARER. A drunken man, who looks red in the face, or hoists his colours in his drink.

EQUIPT. Rich; also, having new clothes. Well equipt; full of money, or well dressed. The cull equipped me with a brace of meggs; the gentleman furnished me with. a couple of guineas.

ESSEX LION. A calf; Essex being famous for calves, and chiefly supplying the London markets.

ESSEX STILE. A ditch; a great part of Essex is low marshy ground, in which there are more ditches than Stiles.

ETERNITY Box. A coffin.

EVES. Hen roosts.

EVE'S CUSTOM-HOUSE, where Adam made his first entry. The monosyllable.

EVES DROPPER. One that lurks about to rob hen-roosts; also a listener at doors and windows, to hear private conversation.

EVIL. A halter. Cant, Also a wife.

EWE. A white ewe; a beautiful woman. An old ewe, drest lamb fashion; an old woman, drest like a young girl.

EXECUTION DAY. Washing day.

EXPENDED. Killed: alluding to the gunner's accounts, wherein the articles consumed are charged under the title of expended. Sea phrase.

EYE. It's all my eye and Betty Martin. It's all nonsense, all mere stuff.

EYE-SORE. A disagreeable object. It will be an eye-sore as long as she lives, said by a limn whose wife was cut for a fistula in ano.

FACE-MAKING. Begetting children. To face it out; to persist in a falsity. No face but his own: a saying of one who has no money in his pocket or no court cards in his hand.

FACER. A bumper, a glass filled so full as to leave no room for the lip. Also a violent blow on the face.

FADGE. It won't fadge; it won't do. A farthing.

TO FAG. To beat. Fag the bloss; beat the wench; Cant. A fag also means a boy of an inferior form or class, who acts as a servant to one of a superior, who is said to fag him, he is my fag; whence, perhaps, fagged out, for jaded or tired. To stand a good fag; not to be soon tired.

FAGGER. A little boy put in at a window to rob the house.

FAGGOT. A man hired at a muster to appear as a soldier. To faggot in the canting sense, means to bind: an allusion to the faggots made up by the woodmen, which are all bound. Faggot the culls; bind the men.

FAITHFUL. One of the faithful; a taylor who gives long credit. His faith has made him unwhole; i.e. trusting too much, broke him.

FAIR. A set of subterraneous rooms in the Fleet Prison.

FAKEMENT. A counterfeit signature. A forgery. Tell the macers to mind their fakements; desire the swindlers to be careful not to forge another person's signature.

FALLALLS. Ornaments, chiefly women's, such as ribands, necklaces, &c.

FALLEN AWAY FROM A HORSE LOAD TO A CART LOAD. A saying on one grown fat.

FAMILY MAN. A thief or receiver of stolen goods.

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.

FAMS, or FAMBLES. Hands. Famble cheats; rings or gloves. CANT.

TO FAMGRASP. To shake bands: figuratively, to agree or make up a difference. Famgrasp the cove; shake hands with the fellow. CANT.

FAMILY OF LOVE. Lewd women; also, a religious sect.

FANCY MAN. A man kept by a lady for secret services.

TO FAN. To beat any one. I fanned him sweetly; I beat him heartily.

FANTASTICALLY DRESSED, with more rags than ribands.

FART. He has let a brewer's fart, grains and all; said of one who has bewrayed his breeches.

Piss and fart. Sound at heart. Mingere cum bumbis, Res saluberrima est lumbis.

I dare not trust my a-se with a fart: said by a person troubled with a looseness.

FART CATCHER. A valet or footman from his walking behind his master or mistress.

FARTING CRACKERS. Breeches.

FARTLEBERRIES. Excrement hanging about the anus.

FASTNER. A warrant.

FASTNESSES. Bogs.

FAT. The last landed, inned, or stowed, of any sort of merchandise: so called by the water-side porters, carmen, &c. 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.

AS FAT AS A HEN IN THE FOREHEAD. A saying of a meagre person.

FAT CULL. A rich fellow.

FAT HEADED. Stupid.

FAULKNER. A tumbler, juggler, or shewer of tricks; perhaps because they lure the people, as a faulconer does his hawks. CANT.

FAYTORS, or FATORS. Fortune tellers.

FAWNEY RIG. A common fraud, thus practised: A fellow drops a brass ring, double gilt, which he picks up before the party meant to be cheated, and to whom he disposes of it for less than its supposed, and ten times more than its real, value. See MONEY DROPPER.

FAWNEY. A ring.

FEAGUE. To feague a horse; to put ginger up a horse's fundament, and formerly, as it is said, a live eel, to make him lively and carry his tail well; it is said, a forfeit is incurred by any horse-dealer's servant, who shall shew a horse without first feaguing him. Feague is used, figuratively, for encouraging or spiriting one up.

FEAK. The fundament.

To FEATHER ONE'S NEST. To enrich one's self.

FEATHER-BED LANE. A rough or stony lane.

FEE, FAW, FUM. Nonsensical words, supposed in childish story-books to be spoken by giants. I am not to be frighted by fee, faw, fum; I am not to be scared by nonsense.

FEEDER. A spoon. To nab the feeder; to steal a spoon.

FEET. To make feet for children's stockings; to beget children. An officer of feet; a jocular title for an officer of infantry.

FEINT. A sham attack on one part, when a real one is meant at another.

FELLOW COMMONER. An empty bottle: so called at the university of Cambridge, where fellow commoners are not in general considered as over full of learning. At Oxford an empty bottle is called a gentleman commoner for the same reason. They pay at Cambridge 250 l. a year for the privilege of wearing a gold or silver tassel to their caps. The younger branches of the nobility have the privilege of wearing a hat, and from thence are denominated HAT FELLOW COMMONERS.

FEN. A bawd, or common prostitute. CANT.

TO FENCE. To pawn or sell to a receiver of stolen goods. The kiddey fenced his thimble for three quids; the young fellow pawned his watch for three guineas. To fence invariably means to pawn or sell goods to a receiver.

FENCING KEN. The magazine, or warehouse, where stolen goods are secreted.

FERME. A hole. CANT.

FERMERDY BEGGARS. All those who have not the sham sores or clymes.

FERRARA. Andrea Ferrara; the name of a famous sword-cutler: most of the Highland broad-swords are marked with his name; whence an Andrea Ferrara has become the common name for the glaymore or Highland broad-sword. See CLAYMORE.

FERRET. A tradesman who sells goods to young 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.

FETCH. A trick, wheedle, or invention to deceive.

FEUTERER. A dog-keeper: from the French vautrier, or vaultrier, one that leads a lime hound for the chase.

TO FIB. To beat. Fib the cove's quarron in the rumpad for the lour in his bung; beat the fellow in the highway for the money in his purse. CANT.--A fib is also a tiny lie.

FICE, or FOYSE. A small windy escape backwards, more obvious to the nose than ears; frequently by old ladies charged on their lap-dogs. See FIZZLE.

FID OF TOBACCO. A quid, from the small pieces of tow with which the vent or touch hole of a cannon is stopped. SEA TERM.

FIDDLE FADDLE. Trifling discourse, nonsense. A mere fiddle faddle fellow; a trifier.

FIDDLESTICK'S END. Nothing; the end of the ancient fiddlesticks ending in a point; hence metaphorically used to express a thing terminating in nothing.

FIDGETS. He has got the fidgets; said of one that cannot sit long in a place.

FIDLAM BEN. General thieves; called also St. Peter's sons, having every finger a fish-hook. CANT.

FIDDLERS MONEY. All sixpences: sixpence being the usual sum paid by each couple, for music at country wakes and hops. Fiddler's fare; meat, drink, and money. Fiddler's pay; thanks and wine.

FIELD LANE DUCK. A baked sheep's head.

FIERI FACIAS. A red-faced man is said to have been served with a writ of fieri facias.

FIGDEAN. To kill.

FIGGER. A little boy put in at a window to hand out goods to the diver. See DIVER.

FIGGING LAW. The art of picking pockets. CANT.

FIGURE DANCER. One who alters figures on bank notes, converting tens to hundreds.

FILCH, or FILEL. A beggar's staff, with an iron hook at the end, to pluck clothes from an hedge, or any thing out of a casement. Filcher; the same as angler. Filching cove; a man thief. Filching mort; a woman thief.

FILE, FILE CLOY, or BUNGNIPPER. A pick pocket. To file; to rob or cheat. The file, or bungnipper, goes generally in company with two assistants, the adam tiler, and another called the bulk or bulker, Whose business it is to jostle the person they intend to rob, and push him against the wall, while the file picks his pocket, and gives'the booty to the adam tiler, who scours off with it. CANT.

FIN. An arm. A one finned fellow; a man who has lost an arm. SEA PHRASE.

FINE. Fine as five pence. Fine as a cow-t--d stuck with primroses.

FINE. A man imprisoned for any offence. A fine of eighty-four months; a transportation for seven years.

FINGER IN EYE. To put finger in eye; to weep: commonly applied to women. The more you cry the less you'll p-ss; a consolatory speech used by sailors to their doxies. It is as great a pity to see a woman cry, as to see a goose walk barefoot; another of the same kind.

FINGER POST. A parson: so called, because he points out a way to others which he never goes himself. Like the finger post, he points out a way he has never been, and probably will never go, i.e. the way to heaven.

FINISH. The finish; a small coffee-house in Coven Garden, market, opposite Russel-street, open very early in the morning, and therefore resorted to by debauchees shut out of every other house: it is also called Carpenter's coffee-house.

FIRING A GUN. Introducing a story by head and shoulders. A man wanting to tell a particular story, said to the company, Hark! did you not hear a gun?--but now we are talking of a gun, I will tell you the story of one.

TO FIRE A SLUG. To drink a dram.

FIRE PRIGGERS. Villains who rob at fires under pretence of assisting in removing the goods.

FIRE SHIP. A wench who has the venereal disease.

FIRE SHOVEL. He or she when young, was fed with a fire shovel; a saying of persons with wide mouths.

FISH. A seaman. A scaly fish; a rough, blunt tar. To have other fish to fry; to have other matters to mind, something else to do.

FIT. Suitable. It won't fit; It will not suit or do.

FIVE SHILLINGS. The sign of five shillings, i.e. the crown. Fifteen shillings; the sign of the three crowns.

FIZZLE. An escape backward,

FLABAGASTED. Confounded.

FLABBY. Relaxed, flaccid, not firm or solid.

FLAG. A groat. CANT.--The flag of defiance, or bloody flag is out; signifying the man is drunk, and alluding to the redness of his face. SEA PHRASE.

FLAM. A lie, or sham story: also a single stroke on a drum. To flam; to hum, to amuse, to deceive. Flim flams; idle stories.

FLAP DRAGON. A clap, or pox.

To FLARE. To blaze, shine or glare.

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.

FLASH PANNEYS. Houses to which thieves and prostitutes resort.

Next for his favourite MOT (Girl) the KIDDEY (Youth) looks about, And if she's in a FLASH PANNEY (Brothel) he swears he'll have her out; So he FENCES (Pawns) all his TOGS (Cloathes) to buy her DUDS, (Wearing Apparel) and then He FRISKS (Robs) his master's LOB (Till) to take her from the bawdy KEN (House).

FLASH SONG.

FLASH. A periwig. Rum flash; a fine long wig. Queer flash; a miserable weather-beaten caxon.

To FLASH. To shew ostentatiously. To flash one's ivory; to laugh and shew one's teeth. Don't flash your ivory, but shut your potatoe trap, and keep your guts warm; the Devil loves hot tripes.

To FLASH THE HASH. To vomit. CANT.

FLASH KEN. A house that harbours thieves.

FLASH LINGO. The canting or slang language.

FLASH MAN. A bully to a bawdy house. A whore's bully.

FLAT. A bubble, gull, or silly fellow.

FLAT COCK. A female.

FLAWD. Drunk.

FLAYBOTTOMIST. A bum-brusher, or schoolmaster.

To FLAY, or FLEA, THE FOX. To vomit.

FLEA BITE. A trifling injury. To send any one away with a flea in his ear; to give any one a hearty scolding.

To FLEECE. To rob, cheat, or plunder.