PREFACE. (continued 6)

WOODEN RUFF. The pillory. See NORWAY NECKCLOTH.

WOODEN SURTOUT. A coilin.

WOMAN OF THE TOWN, or WOMAN OF PLEASURE. A prostitute.

WOMAN AND HER HUSBAND. A married couple, where the woman is bigger than her husband.

WOMAN'S CONSCIENCE. Never satisfied.

WOMAN OF ALL WORK. Sometimes applied to a female servant, who refuses none of her master's commands.

WOOLBIRD. A sheep. CANT.

WOOL GATHERING. Your wits are gone a woolgathering; saying to an absent man, one in a reverie, or absorbed in thought.

WOOLLEY CROWN. A soft-headed fellow.

WORD GRUBBERS. Verbal critics, and also persons who use hard words in common discourse.

WORD PECKER. A punster, one who plays upon words.

WORD OF MOUTH. To drink by word of mouth, i.e. out of the bowl or bottle instead, of a glass.

WORLD. All the world and his wife; every body, a great company.

WORM. To worm out; to obtain the knowledge of a secret by craft, also to undermine or supplant. He is gone to the diet of worms; he is dead and buried, or gone to Rothisbone.

WRANGLERS. At CAMBRIDGE the first class (generally of twelve) at the annual examination for a degree. There are three classes of honours, wranglers, senior optimes, and junior optimes. Wranglers are said to be born with golden spoons in their mouths, the senior optimes with silver, and the junior with leaden ones. The last junior optime is called the wooden spoon. Those who are not qualified for honors are either in the GULF (that is, meritorious, but not deserving of being in the three first classes) or among the pollot [Proofreaders Note: Greek Letters] the many. See PLUCK, APOSTLES, &C.

WRAP RASCAL. A red cloak, called also a roquelaire.

WRAPT UP IN WARM FLANNEL. Drunk with spirituous liquors. He was wrapt up in the tail of his mother's smock; saying of any one remarkable for his success with the ladies. To be wrapt up in any one: to have a good opinion of him, or to be under his influence.

WRINKLE. A wrinkle-bellied whore; one who has had a number of bastards: child-bearing leaves wrinkles in a woman's belly. To take the wrinkles out of any one's belly; to fill it out by a hearty meal. You have one wrinkle more in your a-se; i.e. you have one piece of knowledge more than you had, every fresh piece of knowledge being supposed by the vulgar naturalists to add a wrinkle to that part.

WRY MOUTH AND A PISSEN PAIR OF BREECHES. Hanging.

WRY NECK DAY. Hanging day.

WYN. See WIN.

XANTIPPE. The name of Socrates's wife: now used to signify a shrew or scolding wife.

YAFFLING. Eating. CANT.

TO YAM. To eat or stuff heartily.

YANKEY, or YANKEY DOODLE. A booby, or country lout: a name given to the New England men in North America. A general appellation for an American.

YARMOUTH CAPON. A red herring: Yarmouth is a famous place for curing herrings.

YARMOUTH COACH. A kind of low two-wheeled cart drawn by one horse, not much unlike an Irish car.

YARMOUTH PYE. A pye made of herrings highly spiced, which the city of Norwich is by charter bound to present annually to the king.

YARUM. Milk. CANT.

YEA AND NAY MAN. A quaker, a simple fellow, one who can only answer yes, or no.

YELLOW. To look yellow; to be jealous. I happened to call on Mr. Green, who was out: on coming home, and finding me with his wife, he began to look confounded blue, and was, I thought, a little yellow.

YELLOW BELLY. A native of the Fens of Lincolnshire; an allusion to the eels caught there.

YELLOW BOYS. Guineas.

TO YELP. To cry out. Yelper; a town cryer, also one apt to make great complaints on trifling occasions.

YEST. A contraction of yesterday.

YOKED. Married. A yoke; the quantum of labour performed at one spell by husbandmen, the day's work being divided in summer into three yokes. Kentish term.

YORKSHIRE TYKE. A Yorkshire clown. To come Yorkshire over any one; to cheat him.

YOUNG ONE. A familiar expression of contempt for another's ignorance, as "ah! I see you're a young one." How d'ye do, young one?

TO YOWL. To cry aloud, or howl.

ZAD. Crooked like the letter Z. He is a mere zad, or perhaps zed; a description of a very crooked or deformed person.

ZANY. The jester, jack pudding, or merry andrew, to a mountebank.

ZEDLAND. Great part of the west country, where the letter Z is substituted for S; as zee for see, zun for sun,