OYS

OX HOUSE. He must go through the ox house to bed; a saying of an old fellow who marries a young girl. OYES. Corruption of oyez, proclaimed by the crier of all courts of justice.

OYSTER. A gob of thick phlegm, spit by a consumptive man; in law Latin, unum viridum gobbum.

PAN

P'S. To mind one's P's and Q's; to be attentive to the

main chance.

P.P.C. An inscription on the visiting cards of our modern fine gentleman, signifying that they have called pour prendre conge, i.e. ' to take leave,' This has of late been ridiculed by cards inscribed D.I.O. i.e. 'Damme, I'm off.'

PACKET. A false report.

PACKTHREAD. To talk packthread; to use indecent language well wrapt up.

PAD. The highway, or a robber thereon; also a bed. Footpads; foot robbers. To go out upon the pad; to go out in order to commit a robbery.

PAD BORROWERS. Horse stealers.

TO PAD THE HOOF. See TO BEAT THE HOOF. PADDINGTON FAIR DAY. An execution day, Tyburn beingin the parish or neighbourhood of Paddington. To dance the Paddington frisk; to be hanged.

PADDY. The general name for an Irishman: being the abbreviation of Patrick, the name of the tutelar saint of that island.

PAINTER. I'll cut your painter for you; I'll send you off; the painter being the rope that holds the boat fast to the ship. Sea term.

PAIR OF WINGS. Oars. Cant.

TO PALAVER. To flatter: originally an African word for a treaty, talk, or conference.

PALLIARDS. Those whose fathers were clapperdogens, or beggars born, and who themselves follow the same trade : the female sort beg with a number of children, borrowing them, if they have not a sufficient number of their own, and making them cry by pinching in order to excite charity; the males make artificial sores on different parts of their bodies, to move compassion.

PALL. A companion. One who generally accompanies another, or who commit robberies together.

PAM. The knave of clubs.
PANNAM. Bread,

PANNIER PAR

PANNIER MAN. A servant belonging to the Temple and Gray's Inn, whose office is to announce the dinner. This in the Temple, is done by blowing a horn; and in Gray's Inn proclaiming the word Manger, Manger, Manger, in * each of the three courts.

PANNY. A house. To do a panny: to rob a house. See the Sessions Papers. Probably, panny originally meant the butler's pantry, where the knives and forks, spoons, &c. are usually kept. The pigs frisked my panney, and nailed my screws; the officers searched my house, and seized my picklock keys. Cant.

PANTER. A hart: that animal is, in the Psalms, said to pant after the fresh water-brooks. Also the human heart, which frequently pants in time of danger. Cant. PANTILE SHOP. A presbyterian, or other dissenting meeting house, frequently covered with pantiles: called also a cock-pit.

PANTLER. A butler.

PAP. Bread sauce; also the food of infants. His mouth is full of pap; he is still a baby.

PAPER SCULL. A thin-scull'd foolish fellow.

PAPLER. Milk pottage.

PARELL. Whites of eggs, hay salt, milk, and pump water, beat together, and poured into a vessel of wine to prevent its fretting.

PARENTHESIS. To put a man's nose into a parenthesis; to pull it, the fingers and thumb answering the hooks or crochets. A wooden parenthesis; the pillory. An iron parenthesis; a prison.

PARINGS. The chippings of money. Cant.

PARISH BULL. A parson.

PARISH. His stockings are of two parishes; i. e. they are not fellows.

PARISH SOLDIER. A jeering name for a militia man: from substitutes being frequently hired by the parish from which one of its inhabitants is drawn.

PARK PAILING. Teeth.

PARSON. A guide post, hand or finger post by the road side for directing travellers: compared to a parson, because, like him, it sets people in the right way. See GUIDE POST. He that would have luck in horse-flesh, must kiss a parson's wife. PARSON'S JOURNEYMAN. A curate.

PARSON PALMER. A jocular name, or term of reproach, to one who stops the circulation of the glass by preaching - over his liquor; as it is said was done by a paison of that name whose cellar was under his pulpit.

PARPAY

PARTIAL. Inclining more to one side than the other,

crooked, all o' one hugh.

PASS BANK. The place for playing at passage, cut into the ground almost like a cock-pit. Also the stock or fund.

PASSAGE. A camp game with three dice: doublets, making up ten or more, to pass or win; any other chances lose.

PAT. Apposite, or to the purpose. PATE. The head. Carroty-pated; red-haired. PATRICO, or PATER-COVE. The fifteenth rank of the canting tribe; strolling priests that marry people under a hedge, without gospel or common prayer book: the couple standing on each side of a dead beast, are bid to live together till death them does part; so shaking hands, the wedding is ended. Also any minister or parson. PATTERING. The maundering or pert replies of servants; also talk or palaver in order to amuse one intended to be cheated. Pattering of prayers; the confused sound of a number of persons praying together.

TO PATTER. To talk. To patter flash; to speak flash, or the language used by thieves. How the blowen lushes jackey, and patters flash; how the wench drinks gin, and talks flash.

PAVIOUR'S WORKSHOP. The street.

TO PAUM. To conceal in the hand. To paum a die: to hide a die in the palm of the hand. He paums; he cheats. Don't pretend to paum that upon me.

PAUNCH. The belly. Some think paunch was the original name of that facetious prince of puppets, now called Mr. Punch, as he is always represented with a very prominent belly: though the common opinion is, that both the name and character were taken from a celebrated Italian comedian, called Polichenello.

PAW. A hand or foot; look at his dirty paws. Fore paw; the hand. Hind paw; the foot. To paw; to touch or handle clumsily.

PAW PAW TRICKS. Naughty tricks: an expression used by nurses, &c. to children.

TO PAY. To smear over. To pay the bottom of a ship or boat; to smear it over with pitch: The devil to pay, and no pitch hot or ready. Sea term.---Also to beat: as, I will pay you as Paul paid the Ephesians, over the face and eyes, and all your d---d jaws. To pay away; to fight manfully, also to eat voraciously, To pay through the nose: to pay an extravagant price.

L

To PEL

TO PEACH. To impeach; called also to blow the gab, squeak, or turn stag.

PEAK. Any kind of lace.

PEAL. To ring a peal in a man's ears; to scold at him: his wife rang him such a peal !

PEAR MAKING. Taking bounties from several regiments and immediately deserting. The cove was fined in the steel for pear making; the fellow was imprisoned in the house of correction for taking bounties from different regiments.

PECCAVI. To cry peccavi; to acknowledge one's self in an
error, to own a fault: from the Latin peccavi, I have sinned.
PECK. Victuals. Peck and booze; victuals and drink.
PECKISH. Hungry.
PECULIAR. A mistress.
Cant.

PED. A basket.

PEDLAR'S FRENCH. The cant language. Pedlar's pony; a walking-stick.

TO PEEL. To strip: allusion to the taking off the coat or rind of an orange or apple.

PEEPER. A spying glass; also a looking-glass. Track up the dancers, and pike with the peeper; whip up stairs, and run off with the looking-glass. Cant. PEEPERS. Eyes. Single peeper, a one-eyed man. PEEPING TOM. A nick name for a curious prying fellow; derived from an old legendary tale, told of a taylor of Coventry, who, when Godiva countess of Chester rode at noon quite naked through that town, in order to procure certain immunities for the inhabitants, (notwithstanding the rest of the people shut up their houses) slily peeped out of his window, for which he was miraculously struck blind. His figure, peeping out of a window, is still kept up in remembrance of the transaction.

PEEPY. Drowsy.

TO PEER. To look about, to be circumspect.

PEERY. Inquisitive, suspicious. The cull's peery; that fellow suspects something. There's a peery, tis 'snitch: we are observed, there's nothing to be done.

PEG. Old Peg; poor hard Suffolk or Yorkshire cheese. A peg is also a blow with a straightarm: a term used by the professors of gymnastic arts. A peg in the day-light, the victualling office, or the haltering-place; a blow in the eye, stomach, or under the ear.

PEG TRANTUM'S. Gone to Peg Trantum's; dead.
PEGO. The penis of man or beast.
PELL-MELL. Tumultuously, helter skelter, jumbled toge-
ther.

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PELT.

PHR

PELT. A heat, chafe, or passion, as, What a pelt he was in! Pelt is also the skin of several beasts.

PENANCE BOARD. The pillory.

- PENNY WISE AND POUND FOOLISH. Saving in small mat

ters, and extravagant in great.

PENNYWORTH. An equivalent. A good pennyworth; cheap bargain.

PENTHOUSE NAB. A broad brimmed hat.
PEPPERED. Infected with the venereal disease.

PEPPERY. Warm, passionate.

PERKIN. Water cyder.

PERRIWINKLE. A wig.

PERSUADERS. Spurs. The kiddey clapped his persuaders to his prad, but the traps boned him; the highwayman spurred his horse hard, but the officers seized him..

PET. In a pet; in a passion or miff.

PETER. A portmanteau or cloke-bag. Biter of peters; one that makes it a trade to steal boxes and trunks from behind stage coaches or out of waggons. To rob Peter to pay Paul; to borrow of one man to pay another: styled also manœuvring the apostles.

PETER GUNNER, will kill all the birds that died last summer. A piece of wit commonly thrown out at a person walking through a street or village near London, with a gun in his hand.

PETER LAY. The department of stealing portmanteaus, trunks, &c.

PETER LUG. Who is Peter Lug? who lets the glass stand at his door, or before him.

PETTICOAT HOLD. One who has an estate during his wife's life, called theapron-string hold.

PETTICOAT PENSIONER. One kept by a woman for secret

services.

PETTISH. Passionate.

PETTY FOGGER. A little dirty attorney, ready to undertake any litigious or bad cause: it is derived from the Freuch words petit vogue, of small credit, or little reputation.

PHARAOH. Strong malt liquor.

PHILISTINES, Bailiffs, or officers of justice; also drunkards. PHENIX MEN. Firemen belonging to an insurance office, which gave a badge charged with a phenix: these men were called likewise firedrakes.

PHOS BOTTLE. A bottle of phosphorus: used by housebreakers to light their lanthorns. Ding the phos; throw away the bottle of phosphorus.

PHRASE OF PAPER. Half a quarter of a sheet. See VESSEL.