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CAP

CANE. To lay Cane upon Abel; to beat any one with a

cane or stick. CANK. Dumb. CANNISTER.

his head. CANNIKEN. the plague.

The head. To mill his cannister; to break

A small can: also, in the canting sense,

CANT. An hypocrite, a double-tongue palavering fellow.

See PALAVer.

CANT. To cant; to toss or throw: as, Cant a slug into your bread room; drink a dram. Sea wit. CANTICLE. A parish clerk.

CANTING. Preaching with a whining, affected tone, perhaps a corruption of chaunting; some derive it from Andrew Cant, a famous Scotch preacher, who used that whining manner of expression. Also a kind of gibberish used by thieves and gypsies, called likewise pedlar's French, the slang, &c. &c.

CANTERS, OF THE CANTING CREW. Thieves, beggars, and gypsies, or any others using the canting lingo. See LINGO. CANTERBURY STORY. A long roundabout tale.

TO CAP. To take one's oath. I will cap downright; I will swear home. Cant.

To CAP. To take off one's hat or cap. To cap the quadrangle; a lesson of humility, or rather servility, taught undergraduates at the university, where they are obliged to cross the area of the college cap in hand, in reverence to the fellows who sometimes walk there. The same ceremony is observed on coming on the quarter deck of ships of war, although no officer should be on it.

To CAP. To support another's assertion or tale. To assist a man in cheating. The file kidded the joskin with sham books, and his pall capped; the deep one cheated the countryman with false cards, and his confederate assisted in the fraud.

CAP ACQUAINTANCE. Persons slightly acquainted, or only so far as mutually to salute with the hat on meeting. A woman who endeavours to attract the notice of any parti cular man, is said to set her cap at him.

CAPER MERCHANT. A dancing master, or hop merchant; marchand des capriolles. French term.-To cut papers; to leap or jump in dancing. See Hor MERCHANT. CAPPING VERSES. Repeating Latin Verses in turn, beginning with the letter with which the last speaker left off. CAPON. A castrated cock, also an eunuch. CAPRICORNIFLED. Cuckolded, hornified.

CAP

CAR

CAPSIZE. To overturn or reverse.

He took his broth till he capsized; he drank till he fell out of his chair. Sea

term.

CAPTAIN. Led captain; an humble dependant in a great family, who for a precarious subsistence, and distant hopes of preferment, suffers every kind of indignity, and is the butt of every species of joke or ill-humour. The small provision made for officers of the armyandnavy in time of peace, obliges many in both services to occupy this wretched station. The idea of the appellation is taken from a led horse, many of which for magnificence appear in the retinues of great personages on solemn occasions, such as processions, &c.

CAPTAIN COPPERTHORNE'S CREW. All officers; a saying of a company where every one strives to rule.

CAPTAIN LIEUTENANT. Meat between veal and beef, the flesh of an old calf; a military simile, drawn from the officer of that denomination, who has only the pay of a lieutenant, with the rank of captain; and so is not entirely one or the other, but between both.

CAPTAIN PODD. A celebrated master of a puppet-shew, in Ben Johnson's time, whose name became a common one to signify any of that fraternity.

CAPTAIN QUEERNABS. A shabby ill-dressed fellow. CAPTAIN SHARP. A cheating bully, or one in a set of gamblers, whose office is to bully any pigeon, who, suspecting roguery, refuses to pay what he has lost. Cant. CAPTAIN TOм. The leader of a mob; also the mob itself. CARAVAN. A large sum of money; also, a person cheated of such sum. Cant.

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CARBUNCLE FACE. A red face, full of pimples.

CARDINAL. A cloak in fashion about the year 1760. TO CAROUSE. To drink freely or deep: from the German word expressing all out.

CARRIERS. A set of rogues who are employed to look ou and watch upon the roads, at inns, &c. in order to carry information to their respective gangs, of a booty in pro "spect.

CARRIERS. Pigeons which carry expresses.

CARRION HUNTER, An undertaker; called also a cold cook, and death hunter. See COLD COOK and DEATH HUNTER.

CARROTS. Red hair.

CARROTTY-PATED. Ginger-hackled, red-haired. See GIN

GER-HACKLED.

CARRY WITCHET. A sort of conundrum, puzzlewit, or

riddle.

CART.

CAT

CART. To put the cart before the horse; to mention the last part of a story first. To be flogged at the cart's a-se or tail; persons guilty of petty larceny are frequently sentenced to be tied to the tail of a cart, and whipped by the common executioner, for a certain distance: the degree of severity in the execution is left to the discretion of the executioner, who, it is said, has cats of nine tails of all prices.

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CARTING The punishment formerly inflicted on bawds, who were placed in a tumbrel or cart, and led through a town, that their persons might be known. CARVEL'S RING. The private parts of a woman. Carvel, a jealous old doctor, being in bed with his wife, dreamed that the Devil gave him a ring, which, so long as he had it on his finger, would prevent his being made a cuckold: waking he found he had got his finger the Lord knows where. See Rabelais, and Prior's versification of the story.

TO CASCADE. To vomit.

CASE. A house; perhaps from the Italian casa. In the canting lingo it meant store or ware house, as well as a dwelling house. Tout that case; mark or observe that house. It is all bob, now let's dub the gig of the case; now the coast is clear, let us break open the door of the house. CASE VROW. A prostitute attached to a particular baw dy house.

CASH, or CAFFAN. Cheese. Cant. See CAFFAN.

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CASTOR. A hat. To prig a castor; to steal a hat.
CASTING UP ONE'S ACCOUNTS. Vomiting.

CAT. A common prostitute. An old cat; à cross old wo

man.

CAT-HEADS. A woman's breasts. Sea phrase.

To CAT, or SHOOT THE CAT. To vomit from drunkenness. CAT AND BAGPIPEAN SOCIETY. A society which met at their office in the great western road: in their summons, published in the daily papers, it was added, that the kittens might come with the old cats without being scratched. CAT CALL. A kind of whistle, chiefly used at theatres, to interrupt the actors, and damn a new piece. It derives its name from one of its sounds, which greatly resembles the modulation of an intriguing boar cat.

CAT HARPING FASHION. Drinking cross-ways, and not, as usual, over the left thumb. Sea term.

CAT IN PAN. To turn cat in pan, to change sides or parties; supposed originally to have been to turn cate or cake

in pan.

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CAT'S FOOT. To live under the cat's foot; to be under the dominion of a wife hen-pecked. To live like dog and cat ; spoken of married persons who live unhappily together. As many lives as a cat; cats, according to vulgar naturalists, have nine lives, that is one less than a woman. No more chance than a cat in hell without claws; said of one who enters into a dispute or quarrel with one greatly above his match.

CAT LAP. Tea, called also scandal broth. See SCANDAL BROTH.

CAT MATCH. When a rook or cully is engaged amongst bad bowlers.

CAT OF NINE TAILS. A scourge composed of nine strings of whip-cord, each string having nine knots. CAT'S PAW. To be made a cat's paw of; to be made a tool or instrument to accomplish the purpose of another: an allusion to the story of a monkey, who made use of a cat's paw to scratch a roasted chesnut out of the fire. CAT'S SLEEP. Counterfeit sleep: cats often counterfeiting sleep, to decoy their prey near them, and then suddenly spring on them.

CAT STICKS. Thin legs, compared to sticks with which boys play at cat. See TRAPSTICKS.

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 packthread, 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. To whip the cat, is also a term among tailors for working jobs at private houses, as practised in the country. CATAMARAN. An old scraggy woman; from a kind of float made of spars and yards lashed together, for saving shipwrecked persons.

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CATCH CLUB. A member of the catch club; a bum bailiff. CATCH FART. A footboy; so called from such servants commonly following close behind their master or mistress. CATCH PENNY. Any temporary contrivance to raise a contribution on the public.

CATCH POLE. A bum bailiff, or sheriff's officer.

CATCHING HARVEST. A dangerous time for a robbery, when many persons are on the road, on account of a horserace, fair, or some other public meeting. CATER COUSINS. Good friends.

He and I are not cater

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CHA

cousins, i. e. we are not even cousins in the fourth degree, or four times removed; that is, we have not the least friendly connexion. CATERPILLAR. A nick name for a soldier. In the year 1745, a soldier quartered at a house near Derby, was desired by his landlord to call upon him, whenever he came that way; for, added he, soldiers are the pillars of the nation. The rebellion being finished, it happened the same regiment was quartered in Derbyshire, when the soldier resolved to accept of his landlord's invitation, and accordingly obtained leave to go to him: but, on his arrival, he was greatly surprised to find a very cold reception; where upon expostulating with his landlord, he reminded him of his invitation, and the circumstance of his having said, soldiers were the pillars of the nation. If I did, answered the host, I meant caterpillars.

CATERWAULING. Going out in the night in search of intrigues, like a cat in the gutters.

CATHEDRAL. Old-fashioned. An old cathedral bedstead, chair, &c.

CATTLE. Sad cattle: whores or gypsies. Black cattle, bugs. Cant.

CAVAULTING SCHOOL. A Bawdy-house.
CAUDGE PAWED.

Left-handed.

CAULIFLOWER. A large white wig, such as is commonly worn by the dignified clergy, and was formerly by physicians. Also the private parts of a woman; the reason for which appellation is given in the following story: A woman, who was giving evidence in a cause wherein it was necessary to express those parts, made use of the term cauliflower; for which the judge on the bench, a peevish old fellow, reproved her, saying she might as well call it artichoke. Not so, my lord, replied she; for an artichoke has a bottom, but a **** and cauliflower have none. CAUTIONS. The four cautions: I. Beware of a woman before. II. Beware of a horse behind.---III. Beware of a cart side-ways.---IV. Beware of a priest every way.

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CAW-HANDED, or CAW-PAWED. Awkward, not dextrous, ready, or nimble.

CAXON. An old weather-beaten wig.

CENT PER CENT. An usurer.

CHAFED. Well beaten; from chauffé, warmed.

CHALKERS. Men of wit, in Ireland, who in the night amuse themselves with cutting inoffensive passengers across the face with a knife. They are somewhat like those facetious gentlemen some time ago known in England by the title of Sweaters and Mohocks.

CHALKING. The amusement above described.

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