A Dictionary of Modern Slang, Cant, and Vulgar Words: Used at the Present Day in the Streets of London, the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, the Houses of Parliament, the Dens of St. Giles, and the Palaces of St. James : Preceded by a History of Cant and Vulgar Language from the Time of Henry VIII, Shewing Its Connection with the Gipsey Tongue : with Glossaries of Two Secret Languages, Spoken by the Wandering Tribes of London, the Costermongers, and the Patterers |
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Common terms and phrases
amongst Ancient cant Bacchus and Venus BACK SLANG beat beer beggars begging Ben Jonson blow called cant and slang cant language cant term cant words century chaunters cheat CHETE clothes Corruption coster costermongers COVE curious drink drunk dying speeches English fashionable favourite FAWNEY fellow FENCER Flash Flash Songs formerly Freemasonry French GENS GEORGE CRUIKSHANK Gipsey girl Glossary half Harman hieroglyphics horse Hudibras intoxicated Jack Shepherd JIBB JOHN CAMDEN HOTTEN London Mayhew meaning modern Nearly obsolete Old cant old word one's origin PATTERERS pence penny person phrase pickpocket piece pocket popular prison pugilist remark rogues SALTEE Scotch SCREEVE secret language sell Seven Dials Shakspere shillings sixpence slang terms slang words Songs sovereign steal STICK street swindler synonymous Theat thief thieves thrash tongue tramps vagabonds vulgar language vulgar words whilst woman YENEPS
Popular passages
Page xxxix - II ridiculous words make their first entry into a language ty familiar phrases ; I dare not answer for these that they will not in time be looked upon as apart of our tongue." — Addison's Spectator. A SHORT HISTORY OF SLANG, OR THE VULGAR LANGUAGE OF FAST LIFE. SLANG is the language of street humour, of fast, high, and low life. CANT, as was stated in the chapter upon that subject, is the vulgar language of secrecy. They are both universal and ancient, and appear to have been the peculiar concomitants...
Page v - Cant' is, by some people, derived from one Andrew Cant, who, they say, was a presbyterian minister in some illiterate part of Scotland, who by exercise and use had obtained the faculty, alias gift, of talking in the pulpit in such a dialect, that it is said he was understood by none but his own congregation, and not by all of them.
Page xii - Bing out bien Morts, and toure ; For all your Duds are bing'd awast The bien Cove hath the loure.
Page 25 - Now, my brethren," said he, " if you are satisfied with the security, down with the BUST." DUST, a disturbance, or noise, " to raise a dust,
Page 98 - Three halfpennies are thrown up, and when they fall all 'heads' or all 'tails', it is a mark; and the man who gets the greatest number of marks out of a given amount - three, or five, or more - wins.
Page ii - Mayhew very pertinently remarks, " it would appear, that not only are all races divisible into wanderers and settlers, but that each civilized or settled tribe has generally some wandering horde intermingled with, and in a measure preying upon it.
Page 141 - POVERTY, MENDICITY, and CRIME, or the Facts, Examinations, &c. upon which the Report, presented to the House of Lords, by WA Miles, Esq. was founded. To which is added a Dictionary of the Flash or Cant Language, known to every Thief and Beggar. Edited by H. BRANDON, Esq. 5s. GRAND JURIES; REASONS FOR THEIR ABOLITION. By WILLIAM FOOTE, Author of " Suggestions for the Improvement of Portions of the Criminal Law...
Page xxxii - Two hawkers (pAist) go together, but separate when they enter a village, one taking one side of the road, and selling different things ; and so as to inform each other as to the character of the people at whose houses they call, they chalk certain marks on their door-posts.
Page lii - France ; an unmeaning gibberish of Gallicisms runs through English fashionable conversation, and fashionable novels, and accounts of fashionable parties in the fashionable newspapers. Yet, ludicrously enough, immediately the fashionable magnates of England seize on any French idiom, the French themselves not only universally abandon it to us, but positively repudiate it altogether from their idiomatic vocabulary.
Page 88 - SPILL, to throw from a horse or chase. — See PURL. SPIN", to reject from an examination. — Army. SPINDLESHANKS, a nickname for any one who has thin legs. SPIN-'EM ROUNDS, a street game consisting of a piece of brass, wood, or iron, balanced on a pin, and turned quickly round on a board, when the point, arrow-shaped, stops at a number, and decides the bet one way or the other. The contrivance very much resembles a sea compass, and was formerly the gambling accompaniment of London piemen. The apparatus...