SEVEN-SIDED ANIMAL. A one-eyed man or woman, each having a right side and a left side, a fore side and a back side, an outside, an inside, and a blind side.

SHABBAROON. An ill-dressed shabby fellow; also a meanspirited person.

SHAFTSBURY. A gallon pot full of wine, with a cock.

TO SHAG. To copulate. He is but bad shag; he is no able woman's man.

SHAG-BAG, OF SHAKE-BAG. A poor sneaking fellow; a man of no spirit: a term borrowed from the cock-pit.

SHAKE. To shake one's elbow; to game with dice. To shake a cloth in the wind; to be hanged in chains. SHAKE. To draw any thing from the pocket. He shook the swell of his fogle; he robbed the gentleman of his silk handkerchief.

SHALLOW PATE. A simple fellow.

SHALLOW. A Whip hat, so called from the want of depth in the crown. LILLY SHALLOw, a white Whip bat. SHAM. A cheat, or trick. To cut a sham; to cheat or de-. ceive. Shams; false sleeves to put on over a dirty shirt, or false sleeves with ruffles to put over a plain one. To sham Abram ; to counterfeit sickness. TO SHAMBLE. To walk awkwardly. Shamble-legged: one that walks wide, and shuffles about his feet. SHANKER. A venereal wart...

SHANKS. Legs, or gams.

*

SHANKS NAGGY. To ride shanks naggy: to travel on foot. Scotch.

SHANNON. A river in Ireland: persons dipped in that river are perfectly and for ever cured of bashfulness.

SHAPES. To shew one's shapes; to be stript, or made peel, at the whipping-post.

Cant.

SHAPPO, OF SHAP. A hat: corruption of chapeau. SHARK. A sharper: perhaps from his preying upon any one he can lay hold of. Also a custom-house officer, or tide-waiter. Sharks; the first order of pickpockets. Bowstreet term, A. D. 1785.

SHARP. Subtle, acute, quick-witted; also a sharper or cheat, in opposition to a flat, dupe, or gull. Sharp's the word and quick's the motion with him; sad of any one very attentive to his own interest, and apt to take all advantages. Sharp set; hungry.

Sharpers

SHARPER. A cheat, one that lives by his wits. tools; a fool and false dice. SHAVER. A cunning shaver; a subtle fellow, trims close, an acute cheat. A young shaver; a boy.

Sea term.

N

one who

SHAVINGS

SHAVINGS. The clippings of money.

SHE HOUSE. A house where the wife rules, or, as the term is, wears the breeches.

SHE LION. A shilling.

SHE NAPPER. A woman thief-catcher; also a bawd or pimp. SHEEP'S HEAD. Like a sheep's head, all jaw; saying of a talkative man or woman.

SHEEPISH. Bashful. A sheepish fellow; a bashful or shamefaced fellow. To cast a sheep's eye at any thing; to look wishfully at it.

SHEEPSKIN FIDDLER. A drummer.

SHELF. On the shelf, i. e. pawned.

SHERIFF'S JOURNEYMAN. The hangman.

SHERIFF'S BALL. An execution. To dance at the sheriff's ball, and loll out one's tongue at the company; to be hanged, or go to rest in a horse's night-cap, i. e. a halter. SHERIFF'S BRACELETS. Handcuffs.

SHERIFF'S HOTEL. A prison.

SHERIFF'S PICTURE FRAME. The gallows.

To SHERK, To evade or disappoint: to sherk one's duty. To SHERRY. To run away: sherry off.

SHIFTING. Shuffling. Tricking. Shifting cove; i. e. a person who lives by tricking.

SHIFTING BALLAST. A term used by sailors, to signify soldiers, passengers, or any landsmen on board.

SHILLALEY. An oaken sapling, or cudgel: from a wood of that name famous for its oaks. Irish.

SHILLY-SHALLY. Irresolute. To stand shilly-shally; to hesitate, or stand in doubt.

SHINDY. A dance. Sea phrase.

SHINE. It shines like a shitten barn door.

SHIP SHAPE. Proper, as it ought to be. Sea phrase, SH-T SACK. A dastardly fellow: also a non-conformist. This appellation is said to have originated from the following story-After the restoration, the laws against the non-conformists were extremely severe. They sometimes met in very obscure places: and there is a tradition that one of their congregations were assembled in a barn, the rendezvous of beggars and other vagrants, where the preacher, for want of a ladder or tub, was suspended in a sack fixed to the beam. His discourse that day being on the last judgment, he particularly attempted to describe the terrors of the wicked at the sounding of the trumpet, on which a trumpeter to a puppet-show, who had taken refuge in that barn, and lay hid under the straw, sounded a charge. The congregation, struck with the utmost

con

consternation, fled in an instant from the place, leaving their affrighted teacher to shift for himself. The effects of his terror are said to have appeared at the bottom of the sack, and to have occasioned that opprobrious appellation by which the non-conformists were vulgarly distinguished.

SH-T-NG THROUGH THE TEETH. Vomiting. Hark ye, friend, have you got a padlock on your a-se, that you sh-te through your teeth? vulgar address to one vomiting. SHOD ALL ROUND. A parson who attends a funeral is said to be shod all round, when he receives a hat-band, gloves, and scarf: many shoeings being only partial.

SHOEMAKER'S STOCKS. New, or strait shoes. I was in the shoemaker's stocks; i. e. had on a new pair of shoes that were too small for me.

TO SHOOLE. To go skulking about.

TO SHOOT THE CAT. To vomit from excess of liquor; called also catting.

SHOP. A prison. Shopped; confined, imprisoned. SHOPLIFTER. One that steals whilst pretending to purchase goods in a shop.

SHORT-HEELED WENCH. A girl apt to fall on her back. SHOT. To pay one's shot; to pay one's share of a reckoning. Shot betwixt wind and water; poxed or clapped. SHOTTEN HERRING. A thin meagre fellow.

TO SHOVE THE TUMBLER. To be whipped at the cart's tail.

SHOVE IN THE MOUTH. A dram.

SHOVEL. To be put to bed with a shovel; to be buried. He or she was fed with a fire-shovel; a saying of a person with a large mouth.

SHOULDER FEAST. A dinner given after a funeral, to those who have carried the corpse.

SHOULDER CLAPPER. A bailiff, or member of the catch club. Shoulder-clapped; arrested.

SHOULDER SHAM. A partner to a file. See FILE.
SHRED. A taylor.

SHRIMP. A little diminutive person.

TO SHUFFLE. To make use of false pretences, or unfair shifts. A shuffling fellow; a slippery shifting fellow. SHY COCK. One who keeps within doors for fear of bailiffs. SICE. Sixpence.

SICK AS A HORSE. Horses are said to be extremely sick at their stomachs, from being unable to relieve themselves by vomiting. Bracken, indeed, in his Farriery, gives an instance of that evacuation being procured, but by a

means which he says would make the Devil vomit. Such as may have occasion to administer an emetic either to the animal or the fiend, may consult his book for the recipe.

SIDE POCKET. He has as much need of a wife as a dog of a side pocket; said of a weak old debilitated man. He wants it as much as a dog does a side pocket; a simile used for one who desires any thing by no means necessary. SIDLEDYWRY. Crooked.

SIGN OF A HOUSE TO LET. A widow's weeds.
FIVE SHILLINGS. The crown.

SIGN OF THE

SFIV

TEN SHILLINGS.

The two crowns.

FIFTEEN SHILLINGS. The three crowns. SILENCE. To silence a man; to knock him down, or stun him. Silence in the court, the cat is pissing; a gird upon any one requiring silence unnecessarily.

SILENT FLUTE. See PEGO, SUGAR STICK, &c.

SILK SNATCHERS. Thieves who snatch hoods or bonnets from persons walking in the streets.

SILVER LACED. Replete with lice. The cove's kickseys are silver laced: the fellow's breeches are covered with lice. SIMEONITES, (at Cambridge,) the followers of the Rev. Charles Simeon, fellow of King's College, author of Skeletons of Sermons, and preacher at Trinity church; they are in fact rank methodists.

SIMKIN. A foolish fellow.

SIMON. Sixpence. Simple Simon: a natural, a silly fellow; Simon Suck-egg, sold his wife for an addle duckegg.

To SIMPER. To smile to simper like a firmity kettle. SIMPLETON Abbreviation of simple Tony or Anthony, a foolish fellow.

SIMPLES. Physical herbs; also follies. He must go to Battersea, to be cut for the simples-Battersea is a place famous for its garden grounds, some of which were formerly appropriated to the growing of simples for apothecaries, who at a certain season used to go down to select their stock for the ensuing year, at which time the gardeners were said to cut their simples; whence it became a popular joke to advise young people to go to Battersea, at that time, to have their simples cut, or to be cut for the simples.

TOSING. To call out; the coves sing out beef; they call out stop thief.

TO SING SMALL. To be humbled, confounded, or abashed, to have little or nothing to say for one's-self. SINGLE

SINGLE PEEPER. A person having but one eye.

SINGLETON.

of nails.

A very foolish fellow; also a particular kind

SINGLETON. A corkscrew, made by a famous cutler of that name, who lived in a place called Hell, in Dublin; his screws are remarkable for their excellent temper. SIR JOHN. The old title for a country parson: as Sir John of Wrotham, mentioned by Shakespeare.

SIR JOHN BARLEYCORN. Strong beer.

SIR LOIN. The sur, or upper loin.

SIR REVERENCE. Human excrement, a t-d.

SIR TIMOTHY. One who, from a desire of being the head of the company, pays the reckoning, or, as the term is, stands squire. See SQUIRE.

SITTING BREECHES

One who stays late in company, is said to have his sitting breeches on, or that he will sit longer than a hen.

SIX AND EIGHT-PENCE. An attorney, whose fee on several occasions is fixed at that sum.

SIX AND TIPS. Whisky and small beer. Irish. SIXES AND SEVENS. Left at sixes and sevens: i. e. in confusion; commonly said of a room where the furniture, &c. is scattered about; or of a business left unsettled. SIZE OF ALE. Half a pint. Size of bread and cheese; a certain quantity. Sizings: Cambridge term for the college allowance from the buttery, called at Oxford battles. TO SIZE. (Cambridge) To sup at one's own expence. If a man asks you to sup, he treats you; if to size, you pay for what you eat-liquors only being provided by the in

viter.

SIZAR (Cambridge). Formerly students who came to the University for purposes of study and emolument. But at present they are just as gay and dissipated as their fellow collegians. About fifty years ago they were on a footing with the servitors at Oxford, but by the exertions of the present Bishop of Llandaff, who was himself a sizar, they were absolved from all marks of inferiority or of degradation. The chief difference at present between them and the pensioners, consists in the less amount of their college fees. The saving thus made induces many extravagant fellows to become sizars, that they may have more money to lavish on their dogs, pieces, &c.

SKEW. A cup, or beggar's wooden dish.

SKEWVOW, or ALL ASKEW. Crooked, inclining to one side. SKIN. In a bad skin; out of temper, in an ill humour. Thin-skinned: touchy, peevish.

SKIN.