Immagini della pagina
PDF
ePub

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.

LOUSE TRAP.

Scotland.

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 PRIGGERS.

LUMB. Too much.

Thieves who steal wet linen. Cant.

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 pennyworth; a great quantity for the money, a bargain. He has got a lumping pennyworth; 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.

LURCHRD. 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.

[blocks in formation]

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

LYE. Chamber lye; urine.

MAL

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.

MADE. Stolen. Cant.

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

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.

MARROW BONES. 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 farfetched. 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.

MATRI

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

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 divid ed 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.
K

MESS

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 smalle st 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.

MISHI 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.

MOBI

« IndietroContinua »