1

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 arrest 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 game cocks being styled dunghills. To diedunghill; 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. Cant.

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 spunging or bawdy houses.

DUT

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

or

DIE HARD, OF 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 bubeyes, 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.

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 man whose wife was cut for a fistula in ano.

FAG

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,

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 hands: 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

:

FAT. The last landed, inned, or stowed, of any sort of nierchandise 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 in-
curred by any horse-dealer's servant, who shall shew a
horse without first feaguing him. Feague is used, figura
tively, 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. Au 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 2501. a year for the privilege of wearing a gold or silver tassel to their caps. The younger branches of the nobility have the

pri