Part 7

1856. C. Kingsley, Letter, May. Horn minnow looks like a gudgeon, which is the pure caseine.

Caser, subs. (thieves’).—Five shillings.—See Case and Caroon.

1879. J. W. Horsley, in Macm. Mag., XL., 501. One morning I found I did not have more than a caser (5s.).

Case-Vrow, subs. (old).—A prostitute in residence in a particular brothel; now called a dress-lodger (q.v.). [From case (q.v.), a house, + Dutch vrouw, a woman.]

Casey, subs. (thieves’).—Cheese.—See Cassan.

Cash.—See Cassan.

Equal to cash.—Of unquestionable merit. In allusion to the fact that paper currency is largely a medium of exchange.

1835. Haliburton, Clockmaker, 1 S., chap. xvi. Though I say it, that shouldn’t say it, they [the U.S. Americans] fairly take the shine off creation—they are actilly equal to cash.

To cash a Prescription, subs. phr. (colloquial).—To get a prescription made up.

1890. The Scots Observer, p. 399, col. 2. The Socialist, with an ear for Ibsen, and an eye for Wagner, and a prescription in his pocket that only needs to be cashed for the world to forget its past, and belie its present, and bedevil its future.

Cashels, subs. (Stock Exchange).—Great Southern and Western of Ireland Railway Stock. [Said to be derived from the fact that the line originally had no station at Cashel.]

Cash or Pass in One’s Checks. verbal phr. (American). To die. Derived from the game of poker, where counters or checks, purchased at certain fixed rates, are equivalent to coin. The euphemism is drawn from the analogy between settling one’s earthly accounts, and paying in dues at the end of the game.

18(?). John Hay, Jim Bludsoe of the Prairie Belle. ‘How Jimmy Bludsoe pass’d in his checks The night of the Prairie Belle.’

1870. Bret Harte, Outcasts Poker Flat. Beneath this tree lies the body of J. O. who ... handed in his checks on the 7th December, 1850.

1872. S. L. Clemens (‘Mark Twain’), Roughing It, p. 332. ‘You see,’ said the miner, ‘one of the boys has passed in his checks, and we want to give him a good send off.’

1882. Dodge, Plains of the Great West. As close a shave as I ever made to passing in my checks was from a buffalo stampede.

1888. New York Sun. Well, I owned the mule for several years after that, and when he finally passed in his checks I gave him as decent a burial as any pioneer ever got.

Cash-Up, verb (colloquial).—To liquidate a debt by the transfer of money, i.e., cash, or its equivalent. For synonyms, see Shell out.

1837. Barham, I. L. (M. of Venice). And Antonio grew In a deuce of a stew, For he could not cash up, spite of all he could do.

1843. Dickens, Martin Chuzzlewit, I., p. 213. ‘When my father’s executors cash up’ he used strange expressions now and then, but that was his way.—‘Cash up’s a very good expression’ observed Martin, ‘when other people don’t apply it to you.’

1861. Sala, Seven Sons of Mammon, II., p. 197. ‘But they may cash up.’ ‘Cash up! They’ll never cash up a farthing piece.’

Cask, subs. (popular).—A brougham; otherwise a pill-box (q.v.). A French equivalent is une bagniole.

Cass.—See Cassan.

Cassan, subs. (thieves’).—Old Cant for cheese. Also cass, casson, cassam, cassom, and casey. The oldest form is cassan, which is found in Harman’s Caveat or Warening for Common Cursetors, the first known dictionary of English cant [1567]. Cass, chiefly American thieves, is a latter corruption probably influenced by the Dutch kaas, or the M. Dutch kâse, Lat. caseus. [For suggested derivation, which corresponds to that given in the N.E.D., see second quot.]

English Synonyms. Caz; sweaty-toe; choke-dog.

French Synonyms. Le renâché (thieves’ term); une côtelette de menuisier, de perruquier, or de vâche (popular terms for a portion of Brie; literally a cabinet-maker’s, hair-dresser’s, or cow-cutlet); le dûreme (thieves’); une boussole de réfroidi or de singe (popular = a Dutch Cheese.)

German Synonyms. Fendrich (Old Cant appearing in the Liber Vagatorum [1529] as Wenderich or Wendrich; subsequently modified into Fähndrich. The derivation is referable, perhaps, to an old practice, prevalent in North Germany, of using as a board sign [Fahne, a flag, standard, banner] with three cheeses pictured); Gewine (from the Hebrew gewino); Karnet or Kornet; Kawine (a variant of Gewine); Stinkefix (from the O.H.G. Stinchan, to smell, to stink; this is especially applied to old cheese).

Italian Synonyms. Tenerosa (cream cheese); mascherpo; stifello (literally a kind of flute, in allusion to the holes in some kinds of cheese, notably Gruyère).

Spanish Synonym. Formage (evidently a corruption of the French fromage).

1567. Harman, Caveat (1869), p. 86. She hath a Cacking chete, a grunting chete, ruff Pecke, cassan, and popplarr of yarum.

1609. Dekker, Lanthorne and Candlelight, in wks. (Grosart) III., 195. Cassan is cheese, and is a worde barbarously coynd out of the substantive caseus, which also signifies a cheese.

1656. Broome, Jovial Crew, Act ii. Here’s ruffpeck and cassan, and all of the best, And scraps of the dainties of gentry cofe’s feast.

1714. Memoirs of John Hall (4 ed.), p. 11. Casum: cheese.

1881. New York Slang Dictionary. Cass: cheese.

Castell, verb (old).—To see or look. [It is uncertain as to whether this word is slang or not. It is not included in the N.E.D.] For synonyms, see Pipe.

1610. Rowlands, Martin Mark-all, p. 37 (H. Club’s Repr., 1874). To Castell: to see or looke.

Caster, subs. (old).—1. A cloak. [Cf., Castor, a hat; there seems to be no historical improbability for a similar derivation].

Another Old Cant term for a cloak was calle (q.v.), and the French have un bleu, whilst the Italian Fourbesque has toppo and manto, the latter probably meaning ‘a long black veil’; Calaõ. tralha. The Germania renders cloak by noche (literally ‘night,’ and signifying also in a canting sense ‘sadness’ and ‘sentence of death’); nube (literally a ‘cloud’); pelosa (specially applied to a cloak worn in the morning; literally ‘shaggy’ or ‘hairy’); bellosa or vellosa (a sailor’s cloak).

1567. Harman, Caveat [E. E. Text Soc., 1869], p. 77. He walketh in softly a nights, when they be at their rest, and plucketh of as many garmentes as be ought worth that he may come by, ... and maketh porte sale at some conuenient place of theirs, that some be soone ready in the morning, for want of their Casters and Togemans.

1610. Rowlands, Martin Mark-all, p. 37 (H. Club’s Repr., 1874). Caster: a Clocke.

1785. Grose, Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue [s.v.].

1811. Lexicon Balatronicum [s.v.].

2. (colloquial).—A cast-off or rejected person or thing. [From cast, thrown, + er.]

1859. Lang, Wand. India, p. 144. The horse which drew the buggy had been a caster ... a horse considered no longer fit for the cavalry or horse artillery, and sold by public auction, after being branded with the letter R on the near shoulder. [m.]

Castieu’s Hotel, subs. phr. (Australian thieves’).—The Melbourne gaol, so called from Mr. J. B. Castieu. For list of nicknames of this description, see Cage.

18(?). Australian Printers Keepsake. He caught a month, and had to white it out at diamond-cracking in Castieu’s Hotel.

Castle-Rag, subs. (rhyming slang).—A flag or fourpenny piece. For synonyms, see Joey.

Cast-Offs, subs. (nautical).—1. Landsmen’s clothes. For synonyms, see Togs.

2. In singular (general).—A discarded mistress.

Castor, subs. (old).—A hat. [From Latin castor, a beaver, hats having formerly been made of beaver’s fur.] For synonyms, see Golgotha.

1640. Entick, London, II., 175. Beaver hats, Demi-casters. [m.]

1754. B. Martin, Eng. Dict., 2 ed. Castor: lat., 1, a beaver, a beast like an otter. 2, a fine hat made of its fur.

1821. W. T. Moncrieff, Tom and Jerry, Act ii., Sc. 5. Jerry. (Walks about, and, by mistake, takes Logic’s hat, which he puts on.) Damn the cards! Log. (Following Jerry, and rescuing castor.) Don’t nibble the felt, Jerry!

1857. O. W. Holmes, Autocrat of the Breakfast Table, ch. viii. The last effort of decayed fortune is expended in smoothing its dilapidated castor. The hat is the ultimum morieus of ‘respectability.’

1860. Morning Post, Jan. 30. Such as tin for money, castor for hat, brick for good fellow, gemman for gentleman.

Cast Sheep’s Eyes, verbal phr. (common).—To ogle; to leer or ‘make eyes’ at; formerly to look modestly and with diffidence, but always with longing or affection. [Probably in allusion to the quiet, gentle gaze of sheep.] The phrase has been varied by to cast lamb’s eyes. Fr. ginginer; lancer son prospectus, and un oeil en tirelire = an eye full of amorous expression.

1590. Greene, Francesco’s Fortunes, in wks. VIII., 191. That casting a sheepe’s eye at hir, away he goes; and euer since he lies by himselfe and pines away.

1614. Jonson, Bartholomew Fair, V., iii. Who chances to come by but fair Nero in a sculler; And seeing Leander’s naked leg and goodly calf, Cast at him from the boat a sheep’s eye an’ a half.

1748. Smollett, Rod. Random, ch. xvi. There was a young lady in the room, and she threw ... many sheep’s eyes at a certain person whom I shall not name.

1864. G. A. Lawrence, Guy Livingstone, ch. vii. He would stand for some time casting lamb’s-eyes at the object of his affections—to the amorous audacity of the full-grown sheep he never soared.

1881. Hawley Smart, Gt. Tontine, ch. xi. It isn’t to be expected a well-bred lass like this is going to knock under the minute a young fellow makes sheep’s-eyes at her.

Cast Up Accounts.—See Accounts, to which may be added the following.

French Synonyms. Jeter du cœur—or son lest—sur carreau (general: literally to ‘throw hearts or diamonds’ or ‘throw one’s heart,’ here meaning the stomach, ‘on the floor’); compter ses chemises (popular); débecqueter (popular); deborder (popular); lâcher son goujon (general); lâcher une fusée (popular).

1607. Dekker, Westward Ho, Act v., Sc. 1. Mist. Wafer. I would not have ’em cast up their accounts here, for more than they mean to be drunk this twelve-month.

1808. R. Anderson, Cumbrld. Ball, 26. The breyde she kest up her accounts in Rachel’s lap. [m.]

Cat, subs. (old).—1. A prostitute. For synonyms, see Barrack-hack.

[1401. Pol. Poems, II., 113. Be ware of Cristis curse, and of cattis tailis.] [m.]

1535. Lyndesay, Satyre, 468. Wantonnes. Hay! as one brydlit cat, I brank. [m.]

1690. B. E., Dict. Cant. Crew. Cat: a common Whore.

1748. T. Dyche, Dictionary (5 ed.). Cat (s.) ... also a cant word for a lewd, whorish woman, or street-walker.

2. (popular).—A shortened form of cat-o’-nine-tails (q.v.).

1788. Falconbridge, Afr. Slave Tr., 40. A cat (an instrument of correction, which consists of a handle or stem, made of a rope three inches and a half in circumference, and about eighteen inches in length, at one end of which are fastened nine branches, or tails, composed of log line, with three or more knots upon each branch). [m.]

1870. London Figaro, 23 Dec. We are delighted to learn that Mr. Baron Bramwell, at the Warwick Assizes, on Saturday, sentenced a batch of street thieves to hard labour for eighteen months, and twenty lashes each, with an instrument called the cat.

1889. Globe, 26 Oct., p. 7, col. 3. The ‘Cat.’ A companion of the prisoner was convicted last session of being concerned in the assault and robbery, and was sentenced to eighteen months’ hard labour and to receive twenty-five lashes.

3. (thieves’).—A lady’s muff. [Muff = female pudendum. See sense 4.]

1857. Snowden, Mag. Assistant, 3 ed., p. 444. To steal a muff—To free a cat.

4. (popular).—The female pudendum; otherwise a pussy; French, le chat.

5. (thieves’).—A quart pot. Pint pots are called kittens. Stealing these pots is termed cat and kitten sneaking.

1851. Mayhew, London Labour and London Poor, II., p. 118. The mistress of a lodging-house, who had conveniences for the melting of pewter-pots (called cats and kittens by the young thieves according to the size of the vessels). Ibid. I., p. 460. At this lodging-house cats and kittens are melted down.... A quart pot is a cat, and pints and half-pints are kittens.

6. (popular).—See Tame cat.

7. (common).—A monster infesting lodging houses, and assimilating, with equal readiness, cold meat and coals, spirits and paraffin, etc., etc.

1827. R. B. Peake, Comfortable Lodgings, Act I., Sc. iii. I wonder whether the cat ever comes in here, and knocks anything over? Sir Hippington Miff, here’s your health!—Ladies, yours! (Drinks.) Bless my soul! the cup’s empty! I’ll turn it over, and lay the fault at pussy’s door.

1871. Figaro, 2 July. ‘My Landlady.’ Who on my viands waxes fat?—Who keeps a most voracious cat!—Who often listens on my mat? My Landlady.

Flying cat, subs. (old).—An owl.

1690. B. E., Dictionary Canting Crew, s.v. Flutter. An owl is a Flying-Cat.

To jerk, shoot, or whip the cat; or simply, to cat. To vomit; generally from over indulgence in drink.—See Accounts and Cast up Accounts.

1609. Armin, Maids of More-cl. (1880), 70. Ile baste their bellies and their lippes till we haue ierk’t the cat with our three whippes. [m.]

1630. J. Taylor (‘Water P.’), Brood Cormor, wks. III., p. 5, col. 1. You may not say hee’s drunke.... For though he be as drunke as any rat He hath but catcht a fox, or whipt the cat.

1830. Marryat, Kings Own, ch. xxxii. I’m cursedly inclined to shoot the cat.

To whip the cat, otherwise to draw through the water with a cat, phr. (old).—1. To indulge in practical jokes. [For suggested origin, see quotation 1785.]

1614. B. Jonson, Barthol. Fair, I., iv. [n.]. I’ll be drawn with a good gib cat through the great pond at home. [m.]

1690. B. E., Dictionary Canting Crew. Catting: drawing a Fellow through a Pond with a cat.

1785. Grose, Dict. Vulg. Tongue. Cat-whipping or whipping the cat: a trick often practised on ignorant country fellows, vain of their strength; by laying a wager with them, that they may be pulled through a pond by a cat; the bet being made, a rope is fixed round the waist of the party to be catted, and the end thrown across the pond, to which the cat is also fastened by a pack-thread, and three or four sturdy fellows are appointed to lead and whip the cat; these, on a signal given, seize the end of the cord, and pretending to whip the cat, haul the astonished booby through the water.

2. (tailors’, etc.).—To work at private houses. In America the term is also used by carpenters and other itinerants, especially schoolmasters who ‘board round.’ At one time it was more convenient to pay in kind than in currency; and, in rural New England, a school-teacher would be ‘boarded round’ amongst his pupils’ parents as a part of his remuneration. (See Washington Irving’s Legend of Sleepy Hollow.) This was called whipping the cat.

1871. De Vere, Americanisms, 648. Whipping the cat: an old English phrase, used only by tailors and carpenters, has maintained its existence in New England, Pennsylvania, and a few other States, where it denotes the annual visit of a tailor to repair the clothes of a household. It is said to have originated in a very rough practical joke, which bears the same name in Hampshire, England, and of which, it is surmised, the tailor may have been the victim (J. R. Lowell). The simple tailors of former days liked thus to go from house to house in the rural districts, providing the families with clothing. The chief romance for the happy ‘Schneider’ was in the abundant and wholesome cheer of the farmer who employed him, and as his annual visits fell in the pudding and sausage season, he was usually crammed with that kind of ‘vegetables,’ as he facetiously called them, to his heart’s content. The only objection made to catwhipping, was that it afforded no opportunity to ‘cabbage,’ and in former days this was a serious grievance. The introduction of large manufacturing establishments, low-priced ready-made clothing, and the advent of the sewing-machine, have now nearly made an end to this itinerant occupation. The terms catwhipper and catwhipping were often facetiously, and sometimes very irreverently, applied to other itinerant professions: even ‘schoolmasters’—there were no ‘teachers,’ much less ‘educators,’ in those benighted days—were called catwhippers, when they boarded, as was quite usual, in turns with the parents of their scholars. Itinerating preachers also were, by the initiated, included in this category.

To see how the cat will jump, phr. (common).—To watch the course of events. An American equivalent is to sit on the fence.—See Fence and Jumping Cat.

1827. Scott, in Croker Pap. (1884), I., xi., 319. Had I time, I believe I would come to London merely to see how the cat jumped. [m.]

1853. Bulwer Lytton, My Novel, IV., p. 228. ‘But I rely equally on your friendly promise.’ ‘Promise! No—I don’t promise. I must first see how the cat jumps.’

1859. Lever, Davenport Dunn, III., 229. You’ll see with half an eye how the cat jumps.

1874. Sat. Rev., p. 139. This dismays the humble Liberal of the faint Southern type, who thinks that there are subjects as to which the heads of his party need not wait to see how the cat jumps.

1887. ‘Pol. Slang,’ in Cornhill Mag., June, p. 626. Those who sit on the fence—men with impartial minds, who wait to see, as another pretty phrase has it, how the cat will jump.

You kill my cat and I’ll kill your dog, phr. (common). ‘Ca’ me, ‘ca’ thee; an exchange in the matter of ‘scratching backs’—in Fr. passez moi la casse, et je t’enverrai la senne.

To let the cat out of the bag, phr. (common).—To reveal a secret; a variant with a slightly modified sense is to put one’s foot in it. [This and the kindred phrase ‘to buy a pig in a poke,’ are said to have had their origin in the bumpkin’s trick of substituting a cat for a young pig and bringing it to market in a bag. If the customer were wary the cat was let out of the bag, and there was no deal.]

1760. Lond. Mag., XXIX., p.224. We could have wished that the author ... had not let the cat out of the bag. [m.]

1782. Wolcot (‘P. Pindar’), Pair of Lyric Epistles To the Reader. But, to use a sublime phrase, as it would be letting the cat out of the bag, I have fortune.

1811. C. K. Sharpe, in Correspondence (1888), I., 475. She has let a wicked cat out of the bag to G. M. respecting his mother.

1855. Mrs. Gaskell, North and South, ch. xliv. You needn’t look so frightened because you have let the cat out of the bag to a faithful old hermit like me. I shall never name his having been in England.

1888. Macdermott [on the case of Crawford v. Dilke]. This noble representative of everything good in Chelsea, He let the cat, the naughty cat, right out of the Gladstone bag.

Who ate or stole the cat? phr. (common).—A gentleman whose larder was frequently broken by bargees, had a cat cooked and placed as a decoy. It was taken and eaten, and became a standing jest against the pilferers.

To lead a cat and dog life phr. (popular).—To quarrel night and day. Said of married (or unmarried) couples.

To turn cat in the pan, phr. (old).—To ‘rat’; to reverse one’s position through self-interest; to play the turncoat. [The derivation is absolutely unknown. The one generally received—that ‘cat’ is a corruption of ‘cate’ or ‘cake’—is historically untenable.]

c. 1559. Old Play, ‘Marriage of Witt and Wisdome.’ Sc. 3. Now am I true araid like a phesitien; I am as very a turncote as the wethercoke of Poles; For now I will calle my name Due Disporte. So, so, finely I can turne the catt in the pane.

1593. 4 Lett. Conf., in wks. (Grosart) II., 286. If it bee a home booke at his first conception, let it be a home booke still, and turne not cat in the panne.

1625. Bacon, Essays (of Cunning), p. 441 (Arber). There is a Cunning, which we in England call, The Turning of the Cat in the Pan, which is, when that which a Man says to another, he laies it, as if Another had said it to him.

c. 1720. Song, ‘The Vicar of Bray.’ ‘When George in pudding time came in, And moderate men looked big, sir, He turned a cat-in-pan once more, And so became a Whig, sir.’

1816. Scott, Old Mortality, ch. xxxv. ‘O, this precious Basil will turn cat in pan with any man!’ replied Claverhouse.

To feel as though a cat had kittened in one’s mouth, phr. (popular).—To ‘have a mouth’ after drunkenness.

Many other phrases and proverbial sayings might, more or less justifiably, be classed as slang in this connection; e.g., to fight like Kilkenny cats; to grin like a Cheshire cat; not room enough to swing a cat; able to make a cat speak, and a man dumb; who shot the cat (the last a reproach addressed to volunteers), etc.

Catamaran, subs. (colloquial).—A vixenish old woman; also a cross-grained person of either sex. [Cf., Catamount. Probably associated with the colloquial use of cat, a quarrelsome, vicious woman]. For synonyms, see Geezer.

1833. Marryat, Peter Simple, ch. vi. The cursed drunken old catamaran, cried he, I’ll go and cut her down by the head.

1855. Thackeray, Newcomes, ch. lxxv. ‘What a woman that Mrs. Mackenzie is!’ cries F. B. ‘What an infernal tartar and catamaran!’

1861. Macmillan’s Magazine, June, p. 113. She was such an obstinate old catamaran.

Catamount, Catamountain, or Cat O’Mountain, subs. (American).—A shrew. [Cf., Catamaran and Beaumont and Fletcher’s use of the word for a wild man from the mountains, itself a transferred sense of catamount = a leopard or panther.]

1616. Fletcher, Cust. of Country, I., i. The rude claws of such a cat o’ mountain!

1835. Haliburton, Clockmaker, 1 S., ch., xii. She was a dreadful cross-grained woman, a real catamount, as savage as a she-bear that has cubs.

Cat and Mouse, subs., phr. (rhyming slang).—A house.

Catastrophe, subs. (old).—The tail or latter end. Cf., the Falstaffism ‘I’ll tickle your catastrophe.’

Catawampous, Catawamptiously, adj. and adv. (popular).—With avidity; fiercely; eagerly; or violently destructive. See Catawampus.

1843. Dickens, Martin Chuzzlewit, ch., xxi., 216. There air some catawampous chawers in the small way too, as graze upon a human pretty strong.

1853. Lytton, My Novel, bk. X., ch. xx. If a man like me ... is to be catawampously champed up by a mercenary selfish cormorant of a capitalist.

18(?). F. Burnand, The White Cat. Don’t hurt me; spare a poor unhappy pup, Or I’ll be catawampously chawed up.

Catawampus, subs.—Vermin, especially those that sting and bite. [Apparently formed from Catawampous (q.v.).]

1880. Mortimer Collins, Thoughts in My Garden, vol. I., p. 244. Look at their [spiders’] value in destroying wasps and blue-bottles, gnats, midges, and all manner of catawampuses, as the ladies call them.

Catch, subs. (colloquial).—A man or woman matrimonially desirable; formerly in a canting sense, a prize or booty [see quot. 1877]. A woman who is ‘no great catch’ is in French argot termed une grognotte.

1593. Shakspeare, Taming of the Shrew, Act ii., Sc. 1, 333. Bap. The gain I seek is—quiet in the match. Gre. No doubt but he hath got a quiet catch.

1748. T. Dyche, Dictionary (5 ed.) Catch (s.) ... also a cant word for a prize, booty, etc.

1842. Comic Almanack, p. 333. Angelina Ampletin was one of the prettiest girls in Pimlico, and if there was any truth in rumour, very far from one of the worst catches.