Part 1

SLANG AND ITS ANALOGUES PAST AND PRESENT.

A Dictionary, Historical and Comparative, of the Heterodox Speech of all Classes of Society for more than Three Hundred Years.

WITH SYNONYMS IN ENGLISH, FRENCH, GERMAN, ITALIAN, ETC.

COMPILED AND EDITED BY JOHN S. FARMER and W. E. HENLEY.

VOL. II.—C. to Fizzle.

PRINTED FOR SUBSCRIBERS ONLY.

MDCCCXCI.

VOL. II.

A DICTIONARY OF SLANG AND ITS ANALOGUES.

Cab, subs. 1. (University and school boys’).—An adventitious aid to study; a ‘crib’; a pony (q.v. for synonyms). [From cabbage (q.v.) = pilferings.]

1853. Rev. E. Bradley (‘Cuthbert Bede’). Adventures of Verdant Green. Those who can’t afford a coach get a cab, alias a crib, alias a translation.

1876. Academy, 4 Nov., p. 448, col. 2. The use or translations, ‘cribs,’ or ‘cabs’ as boys call them, must at some time or other engage the serious attention of schoolmasters. [m.]

2. (old).—A brothel: in use during the early part of the present century; now obsolete. [Probably a contracted form of ‘cabin,’ some of the older senses of which (e.g., a small room, bedroom, or boudoir) are in correspondence. Parallels exist in other languages, and comparison may be made with the Fr. cabane, and Sp. cabaña; also with the Latin taberna = cabin, hut, and brothel. The It. bordello (Eng. bordel) was originally precisely equivalent to taberna and cabaña, being a diminutive of borda = cottage, cabin, shed, house of boards. All these words, and many similar (e.g., Latin cella, cellula, the petite maison of the French) came to be applied in the specifically esoteric sense under discussion, by an obvious euphuism or familiarism, which left the nature of the hut, booth, cell, or cabin to be supplied by those who understood. Further, ‘cabin’ = an Eng. rendering of the Latin cella, cellula = brothel. Also Cab-Moll (q.v.), a prostitute, originally the moll or molly of a cabin, cabane, or brothel, the present meaning being a popular misuse founded on a mistaken analysis.] For all synonyms, see Nanny-shop.

1811. Lexicon Balatronicum. Mother, hew many tails have you in your cab? i.e., how many girls have you in your bawdy house?

Verb (colloquial).—1. To proceed from one place to another by means of a cab; Cf., ‘to foot or hoof it,’ ‘to tram it,’ ‘to train it,’ or ‘to ’bus it.’

1836. C. Dickens, Pickwick Papers. He’s a cabbing it, I suppose.

1882. Blackwood’s Magazine, Feb., p. 238, col. 1. He ... cabs off to take advice.

2. (schoolboys’).—To pilfer; to use a crib. Cf., Cabbage, verb, of which it is an abbreviation.

Cabbage, subs. (old).—1. Generally applied to pieces purloined by tailors; attributively to any small profits in the shape of material. Quoted by Johnson as ‘a canting term,’ but now recognised. There is little chance of cabbage nowadays, save amongst those who ‘make up gentlemen’s own material’; but the expression is well understood by low-class dressmakers. In America a corresponding term is ‘cold-slaw’ (q.v.) which consists of finely-cut cabbage, and represents the small remnants known in other quarters as ‘carpet-rags’ or cabbage. Cf., Pigeon skewings. The derivation is obscure. Murray traces it back to 1663 (Hudibras [spurious]), but points out that Herrick [1648] apparently uses garbage and carbage for ‘shreds and patches used as padding.’ He then goes on to say that ‘if this was a genuine use at the time, carbage may easily have been corrupted to cabbage.’ This difficulty can, I think, be removed. In the seventeenth century, a style of feminine headdress, then in vogue, very similar to the modern chignon, was called a cabbage. Thus in Mundus Muliebris [1690]:

Behind the noddle every baggage, Wears bundle ‘choux,’ in English cabbage.

Now, if this usage (omitted from the N.E.D.) be compared with the three quotations first following, it would appear (1) that the word cabbage was in use prior to carbage or garbage for ‘shreds and patches’; (2) that carbage and garbage contain a sarcastic reference to the materials with which a woman’s cabbage, or chignon, was stuffed; and (3) that in every quotation the play upon words appears to confirm these contentions. Hence, if cabbage as a mode of dressing the hair was current during the seventeenth century (I have come across no earlier instance), it is possible that the stages of transition were as follows:—

1. Cabbage = a well-known vegetable.

2. = A mode of dressing the hair, in such a form as to resemble a cabbage.

3. = The materials with which such a tire was stuffed.

4. = The shreds and pieces appropriated by tailors and others as perquisites.

There is no evidence in support of such guesses as those in, for example, the quotations dated 1853 and 1886.

1638. Randolph, Hey for Honestey (Old Play). Tailor. Nay, he has made me sharper than my needle; makes me eat my own cabbage.

1648. Herrick, Hesperides (Hazl.), I., 79. Upon some women, Pieces, patches, ropes of haire, In-laid garbage ev’rywhere.

1648. Herrick, Hesperides (Hazl.). II., 325. Eupez for the outside of his suite has paide; But for his heart, he cannot have it made; The reason is, his credit cannot get The inward carbage for his cloathes as yet.

1663. Hudibras, II., 56. For as tailors preserve their cabbage, So squires take care of bag and baggage.

1742. Charles Johnson, Highwaymen and Pyrates, p. 343. She takes him into Pissing Alley, in Hollywell Street, otherwise called the backside of St. Clement’s in the Strand, so eminently noted for Taylors selling there their cabbage.

1748. T. Dyche, Dictionary (5 ed.). Cabbage (s.) ... also a cant word to express anything that is pilfered privately, as pieces of cloth or silk retained by taylors, mantua-makers, or others.

1821. Cobbett, Weekly Register 28 April, col. 219. Taylor, of Charing Cross, will allow of no thumb-piece and of no cabbage.

1853. Notes and Queries, 1 S., viii., 315, col. 2. The term cabbage, by which tailors designate the cribbed pieces of cloth, is said to be derived from an old word ‘cablesh,’ i.e., wind-fallen wood. And their ‘hell’ where they store the cabbage, from helan, to hide.

1886. G. A. Sala, in Ill. Lon. News, 16 Oct., 394, 1. My correspondent’s derivation of cabbage from caboged [caboged = ‘cabossed’ or ‘caboched’ in heraldry, in Fr. cabochée. See Littré] is good; but there is another one, namely, cabas, a basket in which the pickings and stealings of cloth might be hoarded.

The place where cabbage is stored is termed hell (q.v.) or one’s eye (q.v.); these terms, as also goose (q.v.), a smoothing iron, are responsible for much cheap wit. Cf., Makings and Pickings. The Spanish has sisa = ‘a petty theft.’

2. (old).—A tailor; sometimes cabbager, and formerly cabbage-contractor (q.v.). For synonyms, see Button-catcher and Snip.

1690. B. E., Dict. Cant. Crew. Cabbage: a Taylor, and what they pinch from the Cloaths they make up.

1725. New Cant. Dict. Cabbage: Taylors are so called, because of their ... Love of that Vegetable. The cloth they steal and purloin ... is also called cabbage.

3. (old).—A style of dressing the hair similar to the modern chignon. [For suggested derivation, see sense 1.] Fr. un kilo.

1690. Mundus Muliebris. Behind the noddle every baggage, Wears bundle ‘choux,’ in English cabbage.

4. (schoolboys’).—A translation or ‘crib’; sometimes shortened to cab (q.v., sense 2).

1868. Brewer, Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, p. 129. Cabbage is also a common schoolboy term for a literary crib, or other petty theft.

5. (common).—A cigar. The French have une feuille de platane = a plane-tree leaf; also un crapulos or crapulados, a Hispanization of crapule = filth. For synonyms, see Weed.

1843. Punch’s Almanack, August 12. The cigar dealers, objecting to their lands being cribbed, have made us pay for the cabbage ever since.

1848. Punch, vol. XIV., p. 298. q. Are cigars an English invention? a. No! the cigar is a Spanish article, that has been merely cabbaged by the British manufacturer.

1853. C. S. Calverley, Verses and Translations, p. 141 [ed. 1881], Carmen Sæcularæ. O fumose puer nimuim ne crede Baconi Manillas vocat, hoc prætexit nomine caules.

1889. Ally Sloper’s Half-Holiday, July 6. Last week he offered me a weed—A worse one no man’s lips e’er soiled. ‘No, thanks,’ said, ‘I, know the breed; I much prefer my cabbage boiled.’

6. (venery).—The female pudendum. Cf., Greens. For synonyms, see Monosyllable.

Verb (old).—1. To purloin or pilfer pieces.

1712. Arbuthnot, History of John Bull, pt. I., ch. x. Your tailor, instead of shreds, cabbages whole yards of cloth.

1870. New York Evening Sun, May 24. Report of Speech of Mr Chandler. Let us knock the British crown to flinders; let us arrange for some one or two hundred thousand British graves forthwith, and cabbage the whole boundless continent without any further procrastination.

1882. Notes and Queries, 6 S., vi., 210. But he said, If I cabbage that ring to-night, I shall be all the richer to-morrow.

2. (schoolboys’).—To use a translation or other adventitious aid in preparing exercises; to ‘crib.’

1837. Gen. P. Thompson, Exerc. (1842), IV., 234. A speech, which ... had been what schoolboys call cabbaged, from some of the forms of oration ... published by way of caricature [m.]

1862. H. Marryat, Year in Sweden, II., 387. Steelyards ... sent by Gustaf Wasa as checks upon country dealers, who cabbaged, giving short weight. [m.]

So also cabbaged, ppl. adj., pilfered, or stolen; and cabbaging, verbal subs., pilfering, purloining.

Cabbage-Contractor, subs. (old).—A tailor. [From cabbage (q.v., subs., sense 1) = contractor, a trader.] For synonyms, see Button-catcher and Snip.

Cabbage-Gelder, subs. (old).—A greengrocer or market gardener.—A.B.C. of a New Dictionary of Flash, Cant, and Slang [1866].

Cabbage-Head, subs. (popular).—A fool; a soft-head; a ‘go-along.’ For synonyms generally, see Buffle, and more particularly infra.

English Synonyms. Blockhead; chuckle-head; chowder-head; cod’s-head; chump or chump of wood; dunderhead; flat; go-along; goosecap; green-lander; gulpin; juggins; thick-head; lights; loony; looby; lubber; mooney; mug; muggins; muff; ninny-hammer; nincompoop; nizzie; pigeon; sawney; Simon, or Simple Simon; slow-coach; soft-horn; sop; Tom Tug. To which may be added ‘cupboard-headed,’ ‘half-boiled,’ ‘not all there,’ and ‘off one’s chump,’ used also of one not compos mentis; a thick (Winchester College).

French Synonyms. Une tête de pioche (popular: pioche = pickaxe or mattock); un poulet d’Inde (popular: poule d’Inde = turkey-hen); un couillé (popular); un paroissien de Saint Pierre aux bœufs (popular); un noc (popular = a ‘juggins’); un loffiat (popular: this is formed from a species of French back slang, lof = fol reversed. On the same lines we get la loffitude = ‘stupidity’ or ‘nonsense’; bonisseur de loffitudes = ‘a nonsense monger’; also solliceur de loffitudes = ‘a journalist’); un Jean-bête (common: Cf., English ‘Johnnie’ and ‘Jack’); barré (= cabbage-headed); une vieille bouillote (popular); une bourriche (popular: ‘a hamper’); une badouille (popular: also = ‘a hen-pecked husband’); être déboulonné (popular: literally = ‘unpinned’ or ‘unbolted’); un fifilolo (popular); un daim (popular); être de la tribu des Bênicoco (military); être du 14 bénédictins (popular); une bestiasse (this term has passed into the language); bête comme chou (= ‘extremely stupid’); bête comme un pôt (= a perfect ass); bête comme ses pieds (= an arrant fool); un abruti or ahuri de Chaillot (popular: Chaillot, in the suburbs of Paris, is a common butt, much as are Hanwell, Colney Hatch, etc.; abrutir = ‘to stupify, to besot, to imbrute’); une tête de boche (common: = a wooden head; also a German); un bidon de zinc (military = ‘a can’ or ‘flask’); un cul or cul d’âne (popular: cul d’âne = ‘the rump of an ass’; Cf., English ‘ass’); un cantaloup (popular: literally a melon); un cube (a ‘regular idiot’); un canarie; être un c (a euphemistic phrase); un busard or buson or une buse (an allusion to the stupidity of the buzzard); une couenne (popular: = ‘pig-skin.’ ‘Est-il couenne!’ ‘What an ass!’); un coquardeau; un couillon (popular: a cullion, used in friendly jocularity = abashed, crestfallen, and above all idiotic); un espèce de cafouilleux (popular = ‘a bally bounder’); un arguche (thieves’); battre comtois (thieves’ = to play the fool); un baveux (a driveller: one who does not know what he is talking about); un boniface (popular); n’avoir pas cassé la patte à coco (thieves’ = ‘as big a bloody mug as they make ’em’).

Spanish Synonyms. Asnazo (m; properly ‘a big jackass’); asno (m); bambarria (m; also = an accidental but successful stroke at billiards, ‘a fluke’); bobalias (m; a colloquialism for ‘a very stupid fellow’); borro (m; properly a wether not two years old); echacantos (m); gentil hombre de placer (= ‘a buffoon’ or ‘clown’); guillote (m; literally a husbandman, one who enjoys the produce of a farm. Cf., ‘joskin’); Juan lanas (vulgar); mamacallos or mamaluco (m); naranjo (m; properly the citrus aurantium); pandero (m; also ‘a timbrel’); pinchauvas (m = a despicable person); porra (f); es un solemne bobo (‘he is a downright booby’); zamacuco.

Portuguese Synonyms.—Bamburrio; macacada; tauso; pãosinho.

1682. Mrs. Behn, False Count (1724), III., 146. Thou foul, filthy cabbage-head. [m.]

1862. Lowell, Biglow Papers, II., 228. For take my word for ’t, when all’s come and past, The Cabbage-heads ’ll cair the day at last.

c. 1880. Broadside Ballad, ‘Right before the missis too.’ I’ve had a dreadful row All through a chum named Tommy Sheen, I ought to call him cabbage-head, He is so very green.

Cabbage-Leaf, subs. (common).—A bad cigar; usually contracted into cabbage (q.v., subs., sense 5). [From a popular theory of material.] In French un infectados by a play upon words in two languages, infect, Fr. = more than common, vile, and infectar, Sp. = ‘to infect’ or ‘be infected’. For synonyms, see Weed.

Cabbage Plant, subs. (old).—An umbrella; gamp (q.v.); or brolly.

Cabbager, subs. (common).—A tailor. [From cabbage (q.v., subs., sense 1) + er.] For synonyms, see Button-catcher and Snip.

Cabbage-Stumps, subs. (common).—The legs. For synonyms, see Drumsticks.

Cabbage-Tree Mob, subs. (Australian). Old for what are now called Larrikins (q.v.). [Derived from the low-crowned cabbage-palm hat affected by this section of Australian society.] Cabbagites was an alternative.

18(?). Lieut.-Col. Munday, Our Antipodes. Loafers known as the cabbage-tree mob, a class whom, in the spirit of the ancient tyrant, one might excusably wish had but one nose in order to make it a bloody one. Ibid. Unaware of the propensities of the cabbagites, he was by them furiously assailed.

Cabby, subs. (colloquial).—A cabman. [From cab + y.] Amongst French equivalents are une hirondelle (properly = ‘a swallow’); un maraudeur (i.e., ‘a marauder,’ one who plies without a license; Cf., Pirate (q.v.), as applied to omnibuses.)

1852. F. E. Smedley, Lewis Arundel, ch. xxxiii. I was forced to offer him a seat in the cab, but he coolly replied, ‘No, thank ye ... I’ll sit beside cabby.’

1864–5. Yates, Broken to Harness, II., p. 41. Easy, cabby; we don’t want to be thrown into the very midst of the aristocracy.

1890. Standard, Feb. 11, p. 3, col. 1. There was a Vienna cabby with his jolly red face and his professional impudence.

Cable, verb (popular).—To send a telegram by ocean (submarine) wire.

To slip or cut one’s cable, subs. phr. (nautical).—To die. For exhaustive lists of synonymous terms, see Aloft and Hop the twig.

Cable-Hanger, subs. (nautical).—Explained by quotations.

1724–7. Defoe, Tour thro’ G. Britain (ed. 1748), I., 150. Persons who dredge or fish for oysters, not being free of the fishery, are called cable-hangers, and are prosecuted and punished by the Court.

1867. Smyth, Sailors’ Word Book. Cable-hanger, a person catching oysters, in the River Medway, not free of the fishery.

Cab-Moll, subs. (old).—A prostitute addicted professionally to cabs and trains. [From cab (q.v., sense 2) + moll (q.v.), a strumpet.] For synonyms, see Barrack-hack and Tart.

Cabobbled, ppl. adj. (nautical).—Confused; puzzled; perplexed.

Caboodle, subs. (American).—A crowd; generally ‘the whole caboodle.’ [Thought to be an enlarged form of boodle which is frequently used in the same sense, and which is supposed by some to be derived from the old English bottel, a bundle (Fr. botel, boteau. Ger. beutel.). See, however, Boodle, subs., sense 1. Another derivation is from the Spanish cabildo, a provincialism for the corporation of a town.] Caboodle is general throughout the States, and has now almost completely supplanted boodle (q.v.), which is usually applied in a different sense. Sometimes caboose (q.v.)

1858. New Orleans Picayune, 23 Feb. The whole caboodle came out and fell upon me, till I was as soft as a squash, and then they took me up for fighting.

1887. Scribner’s Magazine. Ye’ve got ter have faith in Goddie-mighty then, sure, a-swingin’ up an’ down them mount’n-sides, dark nights or bright, when a rock on the track f’om a landslide ’ud fling the whole caboodle down the mount’n an inter kingdom come afo’ you’d know it.

Caboose, subs. (American).—Generally applied to convivial quarters; also to a bachelor’s snuggery—a den (q.v.) or diggings (q.v.). [Properly a ship’s cook-house or galley; and in the United States, a car on a freight train for workmen, or for a special purpose.]

The whole caboose, phr. (nonce expression).—Obviously a variation of caboodle (q.v.).

1870. London Figaro, 19 Oct. ‘After the Fire.’ In this room, sir, said my gallant conductor, lived a bricklayer with his wife and two kids. He made that hole in the wall, and got ’em safe through—the whole caboose on ’em; and a jolly good job he did.

Cacafuego, subs. (old).—A spitfire; braggart; bully. [From the Latin cacare through the Spanish cagar, ‘to void excrement,’ + Spanish fuego, fire.] This word, once literary, has long fallen into desuetude. It was regarded as vulgar after the middle of the last century, and thereafter was only included in slang dictionaries.

1625. Fletcher, Fair Maid, III., i. She will be ravisht before our faces, by rascalls and cacafugos, wife, cacafugoes. [m.]

1696. Phillips. Cacafuego, a Spanish word signifying Shitéfire; and it is used for a bragging, vapouring fellow. [m.]

1725. New Cant. Dict. [s.v.]

1811. Lexicon Balatronicum. Cacafeugo. A sh-te-fire, a furious braggadocio or bully huff.

Cachunk! intj. (American).—Onomatopœic—the ‘bow-wow’ word of Max Müller—belonging to a class of exclamations intended to convey an imitation of the sound of a falling body. Uncertain as regards orthography they are largely affected in the Southern and Western States. Mainly of recent origin, though two, keswollop and kewhollux rare in the States, are not unfamiliar to English ears. Examples are:—Caswash; Cawhalux; Chewallop; Casouse; Cathump; Kerplunk; Katouse; Katoose; Kelumpus; Kerchunk; Kerplunk; Kerswosh; Kerslosh; Kerswollop; Kerblinkityblunk; and Kerblam.

Cackle, subs. (theatrical).—1. The dialogue of a play; especially used at first, of the patter of clowns, etc., in a circus. [From the figurative usage of cackle, to make a noise as a hen after laying an egg, a usage traceable as far back as 1225.]

1887. Referee, 21 August, p. 2, col. 3. Those [playgoers] who do not insist upon a very high order of literary quality in the cackle.

2. (colloquial).—Idle, inconsequent, noisy chatter.

1676. A. Rivetus, Jun. Mr. Smirke, 18. Bedawb’d with Addle Eggs of the Animadverters own Cackle.

1887. Punch, 10 Sept., p. 111. If a feller would tackle a feminine fair up to Dick, he ’as got to be dabs at the cackle.

Verb (old).—To talk idly, especially in the sense of telling secrets. For synonyms, see Peach.

1785. Grose, Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue. The cull is leaky and cackles; the rogue tells all.

1882. Punch, LXXXII., 177, 2. The old jokers in scarlet and erming who lounge in their red bedroom-chairs, And the cinder-wig’d toffs in alpaca who cackle and give themselves airs.

Cackle-Chucker, subs. (theatrical).—A prompter. [From cackle, the dialogue of a play, + chucker, one who throws out (from the mouth).]

Cackle-Merchant, subs. (theatrical).—A dramatic author. [From cackle, the dialogue of a play, + merchant. Cf., Caper-merchant, a dancing-master.]

Cackler, subs. (old).—1. A fowl. [From cackle (q.v.) + er.]—See also Cackling cheat.

1673. R. Head, Canting Acad., 192. A Prigger of the Cacklers.

1730–6. Bailey. Cackler ... a humorous word for capons or fowl.

1749. Life of Bamphylde-Moore Carew. Oath of the ‘Canting Crew.’ No dimber damber, angler, dancer, Prig of cackler, prig of prancer.

1811. Lexicon Balatronicum. Cackler: a hen.

2. (colloquial).—A noisy talker; a ‘blab.’—See Cackle, verb.

1400. Cov. Myst., 131. Kytt Cakelere and Colett Crane. [m.]

1598. Florio, Gracchione ... a chatter, a cackler. [m.]

1730–6. Bailey, Cackler: a Prater, a Tell-tale, a noisy Person.

1878. Browning, Poets of Croisic, 92. If they dared Count you a cackler.

3. (circus and showmen’s).—An actor or showman who has a speaking part.

1854. Dickens, Hard Times, bk. I., ch. vi., p. 14 (H. ed.). ‘He has his points as a Cackler still ... a speaker, if the gentleman likes it better.’

Cackler’s-Ken, subs. (old).—A hen-roost; a fowl-house. [From cackler (q.v., subs., sense 1), a fowl, + ken (q.v.), a place or house.] A French thieves’ equivalent is une ornière (from ornie, a hen).

Cackle-Tub, subs. (old).—A pulpit. [From cackle (q.v.) + tub, in allusion to the shape of old-fashioned pulpits.] For synonyms, see Hum-box.

1888. Musgrave, Savage London. I sorter think if yer’ll borrow Lucy’s chair to wheel me, I’ll go and sit under the cackle-tub in Little Bethel next Sunday.

Cackling-Cheat or Chete, subs. (old).—A fowl. [From cackling, that cackles, + cheat, From A.S. ceat, a thing.]—See Cheat.

English Synonyms. Beaker; cackler; margery prater; galeny; partlet; chickabiddy; rooster; chuck-chuck; chuckie.

French Synonyms. Un becquant (a thieves’ term); un ornichon (also a thieves’ term for a chicken); un pique-en-terre (literally ‘a peck-the-ground’); une estable or une estaphle (thieves’); bruantez (Breton slang).

German Synonyms. Kachni (from the Gypsy); mistkratzer.

Italian Synonyms. Ruspante or raspante (properly ‘scratching’ or ‘scraping’).

Spanish Synonyms. Capiscol (this, and indeed all the terms here given from the Germania, refer to the cock-bird. Capiscol = Fr. caporal); obispo (properly a bishop); rey (literally king).

1567. Harman, Caveat, p. 86. She has a cackling-chete, a grunting-chete, ruff pecke, cassan, and poplarr of yarum.

1622. Fletcher, Beggar’s Bush, v. 1. Or surprising a boor’s ken for grunting-cheats? Or cackling-cheats?

1785. Grose, Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue. Cackling-cheats (cant): fowls.

1811. Lexicon Balatronicum. Cackling cheats: Fowls (cant).

Cackling-Cove, subs. (theatrical and common).—An actor. [From cackling (see Cackle, subs., sense 1) + cove, an old canting term for a man.]

English Synonyms. Mummery-cove; mug-faker; mummer; mugger (properly an actor who makes free play with his face); tragedy or comedy merchant; pro; stroller; cackle-faker; barn-stormer; surf.