CHRIST-CROSS Row. The alphabet in a horn-book: called Christ-cross Row, from having, as an Irishman observed, Christ's cross prefixed before and after the twenty-four letters. CHRISTENING. Erasing the name of the true maker from a stolen watch, and engraving a fictitious one in its place. CHRISTIAN PONEY. A chairman.

CHRISTIAN. A tradesman who has faith, i. e. will give cre dit.

CHRISTMAS COMPLIMENTS. A cough, kibed heels, and a snotty nose.

CHUB. He is a young chub, or a mere chub; i. e. a foolish fellow, easily imposed on: an illusion to a fish of that name, easily taken.

CHUBBY. Round-faced, plump.

CHUCK. My chuck; a term of endearment.
CHUCK FARTHING. A parish clerk.

CHUCKLE-HEADED. Stupid, thick-headed.
CHUFFY. Round-faced, chubby.

CHUм. A chamber-fellow, particularly at the universities and in prison.

CHUMMAGE. Money paid by the richer sort of prisoners in the Fleet and King's Bench, to the poorer, for their share of a room. When prisons are very full, which is too often the case, particularly on the eve of an insolvent act, two or three persons are obliged to sleep in a room. A prisoner who can pay for being alone, chuses two poor chums, who for a stipulated price, called chummage, give up their share of the room, and sleep on the stairs, or, as the term is, ruff it.

CHUNK. Among printers, a journeyman who refuses to work for legal wages; the same as the flint among taylors. See FLINT.

CHURCH WARDEN. A Sussex name for a shag, or cormorant, probably from its voracity.

CHURCH WORK. Said of any work that advances slowly. CHURCHYARD COUGH. A cough that is likely to terminate in death.

CHURK. The udder,

CHURL. Originally, a labourer or husbandman: figuratively a rude, surly, boorish fellow. To put a churl upon a gentleman; to drink malt liquor immediately after having drunk wine.

CINDER GARBLER. A servant maid, from her business of sifting the ashes from the cinders. Custom-house wit. CIRCUMBENDIBUS. A roundabout way, or story. He took such a circumbendibus; he took such a circuit.

CIT.

CIT. A citizen of London.
CITY COLLEGE. Newgate.

CIVILITY MONEY. A reward claimed by bailiffs for execut ing their office with civility.

CIVIL RECEPTION. A house of civil reception; a bawdyhouse, or nanny-house. See NANNY-HOUSE.

CLACK. A tongue, chiefly applied to women; a simile drawn from the clack of a water-mill.

CLACK-LOFT. A pulpit, so called by orator Henley.
CLAMMED. Starved.

CLAN. A family's tribe or brotherhood; a word much used in Scotland. The head of the clan; the chief: an allysion to a story of a Scotchman, who, when a very large louse crept down his arm, put him back again, saying he was the head of the clan, and that, if injured, all the rest would resent it,

CLANK NAPPER. A silver tankard stealer. See RUM BUB

BER.

CLANKER. A great lie,

CLAP. A venereal taint. He went out by Had'em,and came round by Clapham home; i, e. he went out a wenching, and got a clap.

CLAP ON THE SHOULDER. An arrest for debt; whence a bum bailiff is called a shoulder-clapper.

CLAPPER. The tongue of a bell, and figuratively of a man

or woman.

CLAPPER CLAW. To scold, to abuse, or claw off with the tongue.

CLAPPERDOGEON. A beggar born. Cant.

CLARET. French red wine; figuratively, blood. I tapped his claret; I broke his head, and made the blood run. Claret-faced; red-faced.

CLAWED OFF, Severely beaten or whipped; also smartly poxed or clapped.

CLEAR. Very drunk. The cull is clear, let's bite him; the fellow is very drunk, let's cheat him. Cant.

CLEAVER. One that will cleave; used of a forward or wanton woman.

CLEAN. Expert; clever. Amongst the knuckling coves he is reckoned very clean; he is considered very expert as a pickpocket, CLERKED. Soothed, funned, imposed on. The cull will not be clerked; i. e. the fellow will not be imposed on by fair words.

CLEYMES. Artificial sores, made by beggars to excite charity,

CLICK.

4

CLICK, A blow. A click in the muns; a blow or knock in the face. Cant.

TO CLICK, To snatch, To click a nab; to snatch a hat. Cant.

CLICKER. A salesman's servant; also, one who proportions out the different shares of the booty among thieves. CLICKET. Copulation of foxes; and thence used, in a canting sense, for that of men and women: as, The cull and the mort are at clicket in the dyke; the man and woman are copulating in the ditch.

CLIMB. To climb the three trees with a ladder; to ascend the gallows.

CLINCH, A pun or quibble. To clinch, or to clinch the nail; to confirm an improbable story by another: as, A. man swore he drove a tenpenny nail through the moon ; a bystander said it was true, for he was on the other side and clinched it,

CLINK. A place in the Borough of Southwark, formerly privileged from arrests; and inhabited by lawless vagabonds of every denomination, called, from the place of their residence, clinkers. Also a gaol, from the clinking of the prisoners' chains or fetters: he is gone to clink. CLINKERS. A kind of small Dutch bricks; also irons worn by prisoners; a crafty fellow.

To CLIP. To hug or embrace: to clip and cling. To clip the coin; to diminish the current coin. To clip the king's English; to be unable to speak plain through drunken

ness.

CLOAK TWITCHERS. Rogues who lurk about the entrances into dark alleys, and bye-lanes, to snatch cloaks from the shoulders of passengers.

CLOD HOPPER. A country farmer, or ploughman.
CLOD PATE. A dull, heavy booby,

CLOP POLE. The same.

CLOSE. As close as God's curse to a whore's a-se: close as shirt and shitten a-se.

CLOSE-FISTED. Covetous or stingy.

CLOSн. A general name given by the mobility to Dutch seamen, being a corruption of Claus, the abbreviation of Nicholas, a name very common among the men of that nation.

CLOTH MARKET. He is just come from the cloth market, i, e, from between the sheets, he is just risen from bed. CLOUD. Tobacco. Under a cloud; in adversity. CLOVEN, CLEAVE, or CLEFT. A term used for a woman who passes for a maid, but is not one.

CLOVEN FOOT, To spy the cloven foot in any business; to

discover

discover some roguery or something bad in it: a saying that alludes to a piece of vulgar superstition, which is, that, let the Devil transform himself into what shape he will, he cannot hide his cloven foot.

The mors

To CHUCK. To shew a propensity for a man. chucks; the wench wants to be doing. CLOUT. A blow. I'll give you a clout on your jolly nob; I'll give you a blow on your head. It also means a handkerchief. Cant. Any pocket handkerchief except a silk

one.

CLOUTED SHOON. Shoes tipped with iron.

CLOUTING LAY. Picking pockets of handkerchiefs. CLOVER. To be, or live, in clover; to live luxuriously. Clover is the most desirable food for cattle.

CLOWES. Rogues.

CLOY. To steal. To cloy the clout; to steal the handkerchief. To cloy the lour; to steal money. Cant. CLOYES. Thieves, robbers, &c.

CLUB. A meeting or association, where each man is to spend an equal and stated sum, called his club.

CLUB LAW. Argumentum bacculinum, in which an oaken
stick is a better plea than an act of parliament.
CLUMP. A lump. Clumpish; lumpish, stupid.
CLUNCH. An awkward clownish fellow.

TO CLUTCH THE FIST. To clench or shut the hand. Clutch fisted; covetous, stingy. See CLOSE-FISTED.

CLUTCHES. Hands, gripe, power.

CLUTTER. A stir, noise, or racket: what a confounded clutter here is !

CLY. Money; also a pocket. He has filed the cly; he has picked a pocket. Cant.

CLY THE JERK. To be whipped. Cant.

CLYSTER PIPE. A nick name for an apothecary.

COACH WHEEL. A half crown piece is a fore coach wheel, and a crown piece a hind coach wheel; the fore wheels of a coach being less than the hind ones."

TO COAX. To fondle, or wheedle. To coax a pair of stockings; to pull down the part soiled into the shoes, so as to give a dirty pair of stockings the appearance of clean ones. Coaxing is also used, instead of darning, to hide the holes about the ancles.

Cов. A Spanish dollar.

COB, or COBBING. A punishment used by the seamen for petty offences, or irregularities, among themselves: it consists in bastonadoing the offender on the posteriors with a cobbing stick, or pipe staff; the number usually inflicted is a dozen. At the first stroke the executioner repeats

the

the word watch, on which all persons present are to take off their hats, on pain of like punishment: the last stroke is always given as hard as possible, and is called the purse. Ashore, among soldiers, where this punishment is sometimes adopted, watch and the purse are not included in the number, but given over and above, or, in the vulgar phrase, free gratis for nothing. This piece of discipline is also inflicted in Ireland, by the school-boys, on persons coming into the school without taking off their hats; it is there ⚫ called school butter.

COBBLE. A kind of boat.

TO COBBLE. To mend, or patch; likewise to do a thing in a bungling manner.

COBBLE COLTER. A turkey.

COBBLER. A mender of shoes, an improver of the understandings of his customers; a translator.

COBBLERS PUNCH. Treacle, vinegar, gin, and water. COCK, OF CHIEF COCK OF THE WALK. The leading man in any society or body; the best boxer in a village or district.

COCKALE, A provocative drink.

COCK ALLEY or COCK LANE...The private parts of a wo

man.

COCK AND A BULL STORY. A roundabout story, without head or tail, i. e. beginning or ending.

COCK OF THE COMPANY. A weak man, who from the desire of being the head of the company associates with low people, and pays all the reckoning.

COCK-A-WHOOP. Elevated, in high-spirits, transported with joy.

COCK BAWD, A male keeper of a bawdy-house.
COCK HOIST. A cross buttock.

COCKISH. Wanton, forward. A cockish wench; a forward coming girl.

COCKLES. To cry cockles; to be hanged: perhaps from the noise made whilst strangling. Cant.---This will rejoice the cockles of one's heart; a saying in praise of wine, ale, or spirituous liquors.

COCK PIMP. The supposed husband of a bawd.
COCK ROBIN, A soft, easy fellow.

:

COCK-SURE. Certain a metaphor borrowed from the cock of a firelock, as being much more certain to fire than the match.

COCK YOUR EYE, Shut one eye: thus translated into apothecaries Latin.---Gallus tuus ego.

COCKER. One fond of the diversion of cock-fighting. COCKNEY. A nick name given to the citizens of London,

or