Volume 2 — A · Dictionary · of Slang · and · its · Analogues. (continued 10)

1830. Cobbett, in Rural Rides, I., 199 (1886). It is barter, truck, change, dicker, as the Yankees call it, but, as our horse-jockeys call it, swap, or chop.

1831–90. Whittier, Poems. For peddling dicker, not for honest sales.

1888. New York Weekly Times, 28 March. He had perhaps been considering the advisability of making a dicker with his old political opponents in the hope of bettering his condition.

1888. Denver Republican, 7 April. After some dickering a style of coffin was selected and a price decided upon.

Dickey, subs. (old).—1. A woman’s under petticoat.

1811. Lexicon Balatronicum, s.v.

2. (common).—A donkey.

b. 1766, d. 1823. Bloomfield, Richard and Kate. But now, as at some nobler places Amongst the leaders ’twas decreed Time to begin the dicky races, More famed for laughter than for speed.

1841. John Mills, Old Eng. Gentleman, ch. vii., p. 60 (3rd ed.). A young dickey, in the full kick of youth, mistook some sweet briar for a thistle.

3. (common).—A sham shirt front, formerly a worn-out shirt. Cf., sense 4. [Hotten: originally tommy (from the Greek, τομη, a section), a word once used in Trinity College, Dublin.] Also, by implication, any sham contrivance; see quots.

1781. G. Parker, View of Society, I., 82, note. Dickey: cant for a worn-out shirt.

1811. Lexicon Balatronicum, s.v. A sham shirt.

1835–40. Haliburton, Clockmaker, 2 S., ch. ix. She made frill, shirt-collar, and Dicky fly like snow.

1836. Willis Gayford Clarke, The Olla Podriana Papers. For a handkerchief I had flourished a common dickey, the strings whereof fell to my feet.

1848. Thackeray, Book of Snobs, ch. xx. Those wretched Beaux Tibbs’s of society, who sport a lace dickey, and nothing besides.

1857. Hood, Pen and Pencil Pictures, p. 206. Do not take off that article of apparel which Fanny Fern distinguishes by a name which, on this side the Atlantic, is the familiar for a youthful Richard. Spare it, we say … although it may be (and we guess, from the absence of cuffs and sleeves, it is) an imitation, a sham, a make-shift!

1872. Public Opinion, 24 Feb., p. 241. ‘Inside Newgate.’ What is she here for? I asked, pointing to a florid-looking girl who was taking a deep professional interest in ironing a dickey.

1876. Jas. Greenwood, Low Life Deeps. ‘I saw a laden waggon bearing the name of one of the cheap advertising firms you speak of.’… ‘Ah, bearing the name … you saw a waggon wearing a dicky, you mean—a false front-plate with a name on it which slips on and off like them on the wans that the pianoforte-makers borrow.’

1883. Jas. Greenwood, ‘Veteran of Vauxhall,’ in Odd People in Odd Places, p. 38. Besides these articles there was a pair of what had once been white linen cuffs, a dickey of the same dubious complexion, and a white tie.

4. (American: New England).—A shirt collar. De Vere. Cf., sense 3.

5. (nautical).—A ship’s officer or mate; generally, second dickey, i.e., second mate.

6. (London).—A swell. For synonyms, see Dandy.

7. (schoolboys’).—The penis.

Adj. (common).—1. Sorry; inferior; paltry and poor in quality. Dickey domus (theatrical) = a poor ‘house.’

2. (London).—Smart. A corruption of up to dick (q.v.). Cf., subs., sense 6.

All dickey with [one], adv. phr. (common).—Queer; gone wrong; ‘all up with.’

1811. Poole, Hamlet Travestied, III., vi. O, Hamlet! ’tis all dickey with us both You’ve done my business by a blow, ’tis true; But I—Oh! I—have done the same for you.

1819. Moore, Tom Crib’s Memorial, p. 21. ’Twas all dicky with Georgy, his mug hung so dead.

1837. Thackeray, in Fraser’s Magazine, 10 Oct. Sam, the stable boy [who from living chiefly among the hosses and things has got a sad low way of talking], said it was all dicky, and bid us drive on to the nex’ page.

1837. Barham, I. L. (Brothers of Birchington). Here a monk, whose teeth funk and concern made to chatter, Sobs out as he points to the corpse on the floor, ‘’Tis all dickey with poor Father Dick—he’s no more.’

1882. Daily Telegraph, 3 Oct., p. 2, col. 2. I was coolly told that ‘anyhow, all the actual meat there was in, say half a pound of cheap German sausage, couldn’t do any one much harm if it was ever so dicky.’

Dickey-bird, subs. (common).—1. A louse. For synonyms, see Chates.

2. pl. (theatrical)—Professional singers of all grades.

3. (venery).—A prostitute; generally naughty dicky-bird. For synonyms, see Barrack-hack and tart.

c. 1830. Broadside Ballad, George Barnwell. When he had put the shutters up He went to see his dickey-bird, And when he came back next morning, Blowed if he could speak a word.

Dickey-diaper, subs. (old).—A linendraper.

Dickey-dido, subs. (popular).—An idiot. For synonyms, see Buffle and Cabbage-head.

Dickey-Lagger, subs. (common).—A bird catcher. [From dickey, a pet name for a bird + lagger, one who lays hold of.]

1881. W. Black, Beautiful Wretch, ch. xviii. ‘They’re starved out in this weather, Miss; and then the boys come out wi’ their guns; and the dicky-laggers are after them too.’ ‘The what?’ ‘The bird-catchers, Miss.’

Dickey-Sam, subs. phr. (common).—A native of Liverpool.

1870. Athenæum, 10 Sept. We cannot even guess why a Liverpool man is called a Dickey Sam.

1884. Book Lore, Dec., p. 27. The natives of Liverpool call themselves, or are called by others, Dicky Sams.

Dicky, subs. (Scots’).—1. The penis. For synonyms, see Creamstick.

2. See Dick in all senses.

Diddies, subs. (common).—The paps. For synonyms, see Dairy.

Diddle, subs. (old).—1. Gin. For synonyms, see Drinks. In America, liquor generally.

1858. H. Mayhew, Paved with Gold, bk. iii., ch. i, p. 252. And there’s a first-rate ‘diddle cove’ (publican) keeps a gin-shop there.

2. (schoolboys’).—The penis. For synonyms, see Creamstick.

3. (common).—A swindle or ‘do.’—See verb, sense 1.

1885. Punch, 5 Sept., p. 110. And something whispered me—in diction chaste—It’s all a diddle!

Verb (common).—1. To cheat. For synonyms, see Stick.

1811. Poole, Hamlet Travestied.

1819. Moore, Tom Crib’s Memorial, 1. Diddling your subjects, and gutting their fobs.

1825. Scott, St. Ronan’s Well, ch. v. And Jack is diddled, said the Baronet.

1841. Comic Almanack, p. 266. Thus, while pig and tail the villagers diddle, My tale’s in the middle, my tale’s in the middle!

1880. Hawley Smart, Social Sinners, ch. xv. He had me, and no mistake. Done, yes, diddled; and I thought I had rather an easy-going lawyer to deal with.

1887. Lic. Vict. Gazette, 2 Dec., 362, 1. You have been done, regularly diddled, by that fellow.

2. (venery).—To copulate. Cf., Diddle, subs., sense 2. For synonyms, see Ride.

3. (Scots’ colloquial).—To shake.

Diddle-Cove, subs. (American).—A landlord. Cf., Diddler.

1859. Matsell, Rogue’s Lexicon, s.v.

Diddler, subs. (common).—A cheat; a dodger. [From diddle (q.v.) + er.] For synonyms, see Rook.—See Jeremy Diddler (Kenny’s Raising the Wind). Also a chronic borrower. Diddling = cheating; also borrowing.

Diddly-pout, subs. (venery).—The female pudendum. For synonyms, see Monosyllable.

Didoes, subs. (American).—Pranks; tricks; fantastic proceedings.—See Cut Didoes, and Cut Capers.

1835. Haliburton, Clockmaker, 1 S., ch. xvii. I met a man this mornin’ … frum Halifax, a real conceited lookin’ critter as you e’enamost ever seed, all shines and didoes.

1851. New York Tribune, 10 April, Had the Free States been manly enough, true enough, to enact the Wilmot Proviso as to all present or future territories of the Union, we should have had just the same didoes cut up by the chivalry that we have witnessed, and with no more damage to the Union.

Die or Dee, subs. (American thieves’).—A pocket-book. Matsell’s Vocabulum [1859]. For synonyms, see Leather.

Die-by-the-Hedge, subs. phr. (provincial).—The flesh of animals deceased by accident or of disease; by implication, inferior meat.

Die-Hards, subs. (military).—The Fifty-Seventh Foot. [From the rallying call at Albuera (1811) its Colonel (Inglis) calling to the men, ‘Die hard, my men, die hard,’ when it had thirty bullets through the King’s Colour, and only had one officer out of twenty-four, and one hundred and sixty-eight men out of five hundred and eighty-four, when left standing.]

Die in One’s Boots or Shoes, verb. phr. (old).—1. To be hanged. For synonyms, see Ladder.

1653. Urquhart, Rabelais.

1837. R. H. Barham, Ingoldsby Legends. ‘The Execution’ (ed. 1862), p. 196. And there is McFuze And Lieutenant Tregooze, And there is Sir Carnaby Jenks of the Blues All come to see a man die in his shoes.

1888. Denver Republican, 9 April. When in liquor he was quarrelsome and the prediction was commonly made that he would die with his boots on.

2. (American).—To ‘die standing’: at work, ‘in harness,’ in full possession of one’s faculties.

1887. Scribner’s Magazine. These stiff prairie plants never wilt—they die in their boots.

1888. Cincinnatti Enquirer, Title: died with his boots on. The killing of the notorious Desperado Leo Renfro.

Die with One’s Ears Stuffed with Cotton.—See Cotton.

Dig, subs. (colloquial).—1. A blow, thrust, punch, or poke; in pugilism = a ‘straight left-hander’ delivered under the guard on the ‘mark.’

1819. Moore, Tom Crib’s Memorial, p. 51. While ribbers rung from each resounding frame, and divers digs, and many a ponderous pelt.

1876. C. W. Wall, trans. Molière, vol. i., p. 80. The digs in the ribs I gave you with such hearty good will.

English Synonyms.—Auctioneer; biff; bang; buck-horse; buster; chatterer; chin-chopper; chopper; clip; click; clinker; clout; cock; cork; comber; cuff; cant; corker; dab; downer; douser; ding; domino; floorer; ferricadouzer; fibbing; facer; flush-hit; finisher; gooser; hot ’un; jaw-breaker; lick; mendoza; muzzler; noser; nobbler; nose-ender; nope; oner; punch; stock-dollager; stotor; spank; topper; twister; whack; wipe.

French Synonyms.—Un coup d’encensoir (popular: a tap on the nose; ‘one on the smeller’); un coup de tampon (pop.: tampon = buffer); un coup de Garibaldi (thieves’: a butt in the stomach); un moule de gant (popular: ‘a mould for a glove’); une mornifle (colloquial: ‘a wipe in the jaw’); une mandole (popular); une gnole (popular: from torgnole); un coup de gilquin (popular); un cataplasme de Venise (popular); un gnon (popular); une dariole (pop.: also, a cream-cake); une beugne (popular); une dandine (popular: ‘a twister’); une baffre (popular); des castagnettes (military: punches); une châtaigne (popular); une couleur (popular); une bouffe (popular: bouffée = gust or blast); un cabochon (popular); un estaffion (popular); une estaphe (popular); une accolade; une balle de coton (thieves’).—See also Tan, verb.

German Synonym. Azkes malaikes (Viennese thieves’: = a blow with the fist on the throat. The derivation may be: azke from Heb. osak, to quarrel + malaikes from Heb. melocho, work).

Spanish Synonyms.—Duros (whip-strokes; also = harsh, merciless); tapaboca (a ‘corker’: also any action or observation which cuts one short); pasagonzalo (a quick hit); capon (generally colloquial); chamorrada (a butt with the head); mojada (a stab); zumbido or zumbo (literally, a humming or buzzing); tantarantin (a thwack; also = beat of a drum); tarja (also = a target).

Italian Synonym. Ramenghi d’alta foia (blows with a stick).

2. (American).—A diligent student. [By implication from the verb (q.v.); also study; e.g., To have a dig at Cæsar or Livy.

Verb (American)—To work hard; especially to study.

1876. Miss Alcott, Little Wives, ch. ix. He … turned studious, and gave out that he was going to dig, intending to graduate in a blaze of glory.

Dig a day under the skin, verb. phr. (common).—To make a shave serve for two days.

To dig up the hatchet.—See Bury.

Digester.—See Patent Digester.

Digged.—See Jigged.

Diggers, subs. (common).—1. Spurs; ‘persuaders.’

1789. Geo. Parker, Life’s Painter, p. 173, s.v.

1811. Lexicon Balatronicum, s.v.

2. (cards’).—The spades suit; also Diggums. Big digger = ace of spades.

3. (vulgar).—The finger nails.

1859. Matsell, Vocabulum, s.v.

1881. New York Slang Dict. ‘On the Trail.’ ‘If you do,’ returned Bill, ‘I will fix my diggers in your dial-plate and turn it up with red.’

Diggers’-Delight, subs. (New Zealand).—A wide-brimmed felt hat. For synonyms, see Golgotha.

Diggings, subs. (common).—A place of residence or employment. [First used at the Western lead mines in the U.S.A. to denote whence ore was dug.]

English Synonyms.—Birk; box; case; crib; chat; den; dry-lodgings; drum; place; pig-sty; pew; cabin; castle; chaffing-crib; caboose; sky-parlour; shop; ken; dossing-ken; hole; rookery; hutch; hang-out.

French Synonyms.—Une bagnole (pop.: from bagne = hulks); un bazar (military: also, a brothel); un bocal (pop.: also = stomach); une baraque (common: in disparagement); une baite (thieves’); une case (thieves’); une carrée (thieves’); une cambriole (thieves’); une cambuse (popular); une condition (thieves’); un creux (thieves’); une piole or piolle (thieves’).

German Synonym.—Bes, Beth, or Bajis.

Italian Synonyms.—Bacchia; clocchia or cloccia (also = a bell); coschetto delle Fantasime.

Spanish Synonyms.—Caverna (‘a cavern’; cf., English den); aduana (also = a brothel, and thieves’ resort); nido (‘a nest’; nido de ladrones, a ‘cross-drum’; a thieves’ resort); percha (‘a perch’).

1838. J. C. Neal, Charcoal Sketches, II., 119. Look here, Ned, I reckon it’s about time we should go to our diggings; I am dead beat.

1871. De Vere, Americanisms, p. 171. The miner in California and Nevada has been known, in times of a rush, to speak of a place where he could stand leaning against a stout post, as his diggings for the night.

1883. Referee, 1 July, p. 3, col. 2. Mr. and Mrs. Bancroft are changing their diggings, and clearing out of Cavendish-square.

1884. W. C. Russell, Jack’s Courtship, ch. viii. Oh, he lives round the corner. You may see his diggings from your daughter’s bedroom window, sir.

1888. C. J. Dunphie, The Chameleon, p. 86. ‘Diggings’ I call my dwelling, according to the prevalent slang.

Diggums, subs. (provincial).—1. A gardener.

2. (gamesters’).—The suit of spades; also diggers (q.v.).

Dilberries, subs. (common).—Fæcal and seminal deposits in the hair of the anus and the female pudendum; clinkers.

Dilberry-bush, subs. (common).—The hair about the female pudendum or the anus.—See Dilberries.

Dildo, subs. (old).—An instrument (of wax, horn, leather, india-rubber, gutta-percha, etc., and other soft material), shaped like, and used by women as a substitute for, the penis. Now called a broom-handle or broomstick, the pudendum in this connection = broom (q.v.). [Bailey: from It., diletto, a woman’s delight or from dally = to toy.] In Lombardy, passo tempo.

c. 1672. Butler, Dildoides (Occasioned by Burning a hogshead of dildoes at Stocks Market).

1886. Burton, The Thousand Nights and a Night, vol. x, p. 239. Of the penis succedaneus, that imitation of the Arbor-vitæ, or Sotor-Kosmou, which the Latins called phallus and fascinum, the French godemiché, and the Italians passatempo and diletto (whence our dildo), every kind abounds, varying from a stuffed ‘French Letter’ to a cone of ribbed horn, which looks like an instrument of torture.

Verb (old).—To wanton with a woman. Cf., subs., sense. For synonyms, see Firkytoodle.

Dilly, subs. (common).—A night cart; formerly a coach. [From Fr., diligence.]

17(?). The Anti-Jacobin. So down thy hill, romantic Ashbourne glides, The Derby Dilly having four inside.

1833. Marryat, Peter Simple, ch. ix. One which they called a dilly.

Dilly-bag, subs. (Australian).—A wallet; or scran-bag.

1880. A. C. Grant. Their own dilly-bags have nothing of value or interest in them.

Dilly-dally, verb (colloquial).—To loiter; hesitate; trifle. [A duplication of dally.]

1740. Richardson, Pamela, i., 275. What you do, sir, do; don’t stand dilly-dallying.

1750. Fielding, Tom Jones, bk. XVIII., ch. xii. But if I had suffered her to stand shill I shall I, dilly dally, you might not have had that honour yet awhile.

1869. W. S. Gilbert, The Bohemian Girl. When at a pinch you should never dilly-dally.

Dimber, adj. (old).—Pretty, neat, lively. Variants are scrumptious; natty. Fr., batif (thieves’); fignole (thieves’); girofle (thieves’).

1671. R. Head, English Rogue, pt. I., ch. v., p. 48 (1874), s.v.

1706. E. Coles, Eng. Dict., s.v.

Dimber Cove = a sprightly man, a gentleman: Dimber Mort = a pretty girl. Fr., une largue girofle. Cf., Dimber-damber.

1837. Disraeli, Venetia, book I., ch. xiv. ’Tis a dimber cove, whispered one of the younger men to a companion: Ibid, Tip me the clank like a dimber mort.

Dimber-damber, subs. (old).—A captain of thieves or vagrants. [From dimber (q.v.), skilful, etc., + damber (q.v.), a chief or head man.]

1671. R. Head, English Rogue, pt. I, ch. v., p. 48 (1874).

1724. E. Coles, Eng. Dict.

1749. Life of Bampfylde-Moore Carew, ‘Oath of the Canting Crew.’… No dimber damber, angler, dancer, prig of cackler, prig of prancer.

1834. H. Ainsworth, Rookwood, bk. III., ch. v. No; no refusal, exclaimed a chorus of voices. Dick Turpin must be one of us. He shall be our dimber damber.

Dimmock, subs. (common).—Money. For synonyms, see Actual and Gilt.

1834. H. Ainsworth, Rookwood, bk. IV., ch. i. ‘I have … pocketed the dimmock’ (‘here ’tis,’ continued he, parenthetically slapping his pockets).

Dinahs, subs. (Stock-Exchange).—Edinburgh and Glasgow Railway Ordinary Stock.

Dinarly or Dinali, subs. (theatrical).—Money. For synonyms, see Actual and Gilt. Nantee or Nanti Dinarly = no money. Sp., dinero; Lingua Franca, niente dinaro = not a penny.

1851–61. H. Mayhew, London Lab. and Lon. Poor, vol. III., p. 149. ‘I have got no money’ is, ‘My nabs has nanti dinali’ [among strolling actors].

1870. South London Press, 8 Oct., Advt. So don’t forget when you’ve the tin To here spend your ‘Dinarley.’

Dine-out, verb. phr. (common).—To go dinnerless, to dine with Duke Humphrey (q.v.). Variants: to take a Spitalfields’ breakfast (q.v.), or an Irishman’s dinner (q.v.), also to go out and count the railings (q.v.). Fr., Se coucher bredouille = to go to bed supperless; aller voir défiler les dragons = to go and watch the dragoons march past; diner en ville = to dine in town, i.e., to munch a roll in the street or to eat nothing; lire le journal.

1888. All the Year Round, 9 June. p. 542. To ‘dine with Duke Humphrey,’ or, as it is now sometimes more shortly phrased, to ‘dine out,’ in both cases meaning not to dine at all.

Dine with Duke Humphrey, verb. phr. (old).—To go dinnerless; to dine out (q.v.).—[Origin uncertain; supposed, however, to refer to Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, the youngest son of Henry the Fourth, who, though really buried at St. Alban’s, was reputed to have a monument in Old St. Paul’s, from which one part of the church was termed Duke Humphrey’s Walk. Old Paul’s was a regular promenade, especially for lackeys out of livery, and ruffians and sea-captains out of luck. Thus Falstaff explains of Bardolph that he ‘got him in Paul’s,’ while Jonson actually lays the scene of Every Man Out of His Humour (1599), in ‘The Middle Aisle of St. Paul’s,’ to introduce his cavaliero Shift. Shift and Bardolph, in fact, were what is now called ‘inspectors of public buildings’; they walked in Paul’s on the chance of a pick-up, and they dined by looking at the monuments. The Bodleian Library was founded by the same Duke Humphrey, and the Gentleman’s Mag. (1794, p. 529) records that when a student stayed on during the dinner hour, at which time it used to be closed, he was said to dine with Duke Humphrey. An alternative traces the saying to the report that Duke Humphrey was starved to death. Chambers, in his Historical Sketch of St. Giles’s Cathedral, Edinburgh, records a similar pleasantry concerning the tomb of the Earl of Murray, and quotes a Scots poet, one Sempill (16th cent.), who makes a hungry idler say: I dined with saints and gentlemen, E’en sweet St. Giles and the Earl of Murray. See Wharton, Hist. of Eng. Poetry (ed. 1824), vol. IV., p. 361.

1592. Nashe, Pierce Penilesse, in wks., ii., 18. I … retired me to Paules, to seeke my dinner with Duke Humfrey.

1592. Gab. Harvey, Four Letters. To seek his dinner in Poules with Duke Humphrey.

1608. The Penniless Parliament of Threadbare Poets. And if I prove not that a mince-pie is the better weapon, let me dine twice a week at Duke Humphry’s table.

1664. H. Peacham, Worth of a Penny, in Arber’s Garner, vol. VI., p. 273. Who, having been troubled with over much money, afterward, in no long time, have been fain, after ‘a long dinner with Duke Humphrey,’ to take a nap on ‘penniless bench,’ only to verify the old proverb, ‘A fool and his money is soon parted.’

1748. Smollett, Rod. Random, ch. lv. My mistress and her mother must have dined with Duke Humphrey, had I not exerted myself in their behalf.

1884. Daily Telegraph, 22 Jan., p. 5, col. 3. In future, not even the most impecunious of diners-out must accept an invitation from Duke Humphrey.

Ding, verb (Old Cant, in some senses).—Used as a colloquialism (as in Scott) it signifies to knock, to strike down, to pound or (as in quot., 1786) to give way: while in slang it means to get rid of; to pass to a confederate; ‘to steal by a single effort.’ To ding a castor = to snatch a hat and run with it: the booty being dinged if it has to be thrown away. Going upon the ding = to go on the prowl. Ding the tot! = Run away with the lot!

c. 1340. Hampole, Pricke of Conscience, 7015 (ed. Morris). Right swa pe devels salle ay dyng, on pe synfulle, withouten styntyng.

1600. Sir John Oldcastle, Act III., Sc. ii. For the credit of Dunstable, ding down the money to-morrow.

1610. Jonson, Alchemist, V., iii. Sur. [without]. Down with the door. Kas. [without]. ’Slight, ding it open.

1773. O. Goldsmith, She Stoops to Conquer, Act II. If I’m to have any good, let it come of itself; not to keep dinging it, dinging it into one so.

1786. Burns, A Dream. But facts are chiels that winna ding.

1821. Pierce Egan, Tom and Jerry [ed. 1890], p. 78. Oh I took him such a lick of his mummer, and dinged his rattle clean out of his hand.

b. 1793, d. 1872. Dean Ramsey. Our meenister’s dinged the guts out of twa Bibles.

1846. Dickens, Dombey, ch. ix., p. 74. These were succeeded by anchor and chain-cable forges, where sledge hammers were dinging upon iron all day long.

Ding-Bat, subs. (American).—Money. For synonyms, see Actual and Gilt.

Ding-Boy, subs. (old).—A rogue; a bully.

1785. Grose, Dict. Vulg. Tongue, s.v.

Ding-Dong. To go at it, or to it, ding-dong, verb. phr. (colloquial).—To tackle with vigor, or in right good earnest. Formerly, helter-skelter, (Grose, 1785).

1887. H. Smart, Saddle and Sabre, ch. xx. For the next hundred yards it was a ding-dong struggle between them.

Dinge, subs. (Royal Military Academy).—A picture or painting.

Dinged, adj. (American).—A euphemism for ‘darned’ = dammed. Sometimes Ding-goned.—See Oaths.

Dinger, subs. (old).—1. A thief who throws away his booty to escape detection. [From ding (q.v.), to throw away + er.]

2. in pl. (conjurers’).—Cups and balls; Fr., gobelets et muscades.

Ding-fury, subs. (provincial).—Huff; anger.

Ding-goned.—See Dinged.

Dingle, adj. (old).—Hackneyed; used up.

1786. The Microcosm, No. 3. Your Mic is dead-lounge—dissipates insufferable ennui of tea-table,—fills boring intervals of conversazione,… By the by, in your next propose some new lounge.—They are all so dingle at present, they are quite a bore.

Dining-Room, subs. (common).—The mouth. For synonyms, see Potato-trap.

Dining-room chairs, subs. phr. (common).—The teeth; also dinner-set (q.v.). For synonyms, see Grinders.

Dining-Room Post, subs. phr. (old).—Petty pilfering done from houses by sham postmen.

Dink, adj. (Scots’ colloquial).—Dainty; trim.

1794. Burns, My Lady’s Gown. My lady’s dink, my lady’s drest.

Dinner-set, subs. (common).—The teeth. ‘Your dinner-set wants looking to’ = you need to go to the dentist. For synonyms, see Grinders.

Dip, subs. (thieves’).—1. A pickpocket; also dipper and dipping-bloke. For synonyms, see Stook-Hauler.

1859. Matsell, Vocabulum, p. 26, s.v.

1866. Vance, The Chickaleary Cove. Off to Paris I shall go to show a thing or two To the dipping-blokes wot hangs about the cafés.

1888. St. Louis Globe Democrat. A dip touched the Canadian sheriff for his watch and massive chain while he was reading the Riot Act.

2. (American).—A stolen kiss, especially one in the dark.

3. (Westminster School).—A pocket inkstand.

4. (colloquial).—A candle made by dipping the wick in tallow.

1837. Barham, I. L. (Ingoldsby Penance.) None of your rascally dips, but sound, Best superfine wax-wicks, four to the pound.

Verb (thieves’).—1. To pick pockets. To dip a lob = to rob a till. Also to go on the dipe = to go pocket-picking. For synonyms, see Frisk.

1817. Sporting Mag. Defence of Groves at Bristol Assizes. I have dipped into 150 … pockets and not found a shilling.

2. (old).—To pawn; mortgage.

1693. Dryden, Persius, vi., 160. Put out the principal in trusty hands: Live of the use; and never dip thy lands.

1711. Spectator, No. 114. What gives the unhappy man this peevishness of spirit is, that his estate is dipped, and is eating out with usury; and yet he has not the heart to sell any part of it.

1860. Thackeray, Philip, ch. xiv. You have but one son, and he has a fortune of his own, as I happen to know. You haven’t dipped it, Master Philip?

3. (thieves’).—To be convicted; to get into trouble.

To dip one’s beak, verb. phr. (common).—To drink. For synonyms, see Lush.

Dipe.—See Dip, verb, sense 1.

1877. S. L. Clemens (‘Mark Twain’) Life on the Mississippi, p. 460. i felt very rough and was thinking i would have to go on the dipe again.

Dipped in Wing, adv. phr. (popular).—Worsted.

Dipper, subs. (old).—1. A baptist.—[Grose, 1785.]

2. See Dip, subs., sense 1.

Dipping-bloke.—See Dip, subs., sense 1.

Dips, subs. (nautical).—1. The purser’s boy.

2. (colloquial).—A grocer.

Dipstick, subs. (old).—A gauger.

Dirk, subs. (Scots’).—The penis. For synonyms, see Creamstick.

Dirt, subs. (American).—Money. For synonyms, see Actual and Gilt.

To eat dirt, verb. phr. (colloquial).—To submit to insult; to eat broiled crow, or humble pie (q.v.); to retract.

1854. Whyte Melville, General Bounce, ch. x. Though they bow before a calf, is it not a golden one? though they ‘eat dirt,’ is it not dressed by a French cook?

1861. New York Evening Post, 4 Jan. After eating so much dirt, are we asked to swallow free soil?

To fling dirt or mud, verb. phr. (colloquial).—To abuse; to vituperate.

1689. Selden, Table Talk, p. 104 (Arber’s ed.). One that writes against his Adversary, and throws all the dirt he can in his Face.

1705. Ward, Hudibras Redivivus, vol. I., pt. ii., p. 11. Scurrility’s a useful trick, Approv’d by the most politick; Fling dirt enough, and some will stick.

1875. Ouida, Signa, vol. I., ch. xv., p. 358. A wicked old tongue that could throw dirt with any man’s or woman’s either.

1885. J. S. Winter, Bootles’ Baby, p. 66. I suppose he wants to daub Bootles with some of his own mud. Thinks if he only throws enough some of it’s sure to stick.

To cut dirt.—See Cut.

Dirt-Baillie, subs. (Scots’).—An inspector of nuisances.

Dirt-scraper subs. (American).—An advocate who rakes up unpleasant facts in a witness’s past.

Dirty-Dishes, subs. (common).—Poor relations.

Dirty Half-Hundred, subs. phr. (military).—The Fiftieth Foot. [From the fact that, in action, during the Peninsular War, the men wiped their faces with their black facings.] Also nicknamed the Blind Half-Hundred.

1841. Lever, Charles O’Malley, ch. xciv. A kind of neutral tint between green and yellow, like nothing I know of except the facings of the ‘dirty half-hundred.’

Dirty-Puzzle, subs. (old).—A slut.—Grose [1785].

Dirty Shirt March, subs. phr. (vulgar).—On Sunday mornings the male population of Drury Lane, Whitechapel, and other crowded districts loaf about the streets, before attiring themselves in their Sunday clothes. This promenade is called a ‘dirty shirt march.’

Dirty-Shirts, subs. (military).—The Hundred and First Foot. [They fought in their shirt-sleeves at Delhi in 1857.]

1887. Daily News, 11 July. As the old Bengal European Regiment … they [the 2nd Munster Fusiliers] had won their honourable sobriquet of the dirty shirts, half-a-century earlier.

Disgruntled, adj. (old).—Offended: still colloquial in U.S.A. Undisgruntled = unoffended.

1785. Grose, Dict. Vulg. Tongue, s.v.

1869. Springfield Republican, 20 Nov. Rev. Dr. Newman Hall, of London, tells how when he was journeying to Chicago, an apple-peddling boy, on the cars, without any preliminaries took hold of and immediately examined his breast-pin. Nevertheless the reverend gentleman, quite undisgruntled, remarked, ‘Was it not there to be seen? Was he not a man and a brother?’

1877. Providence Journal, 1 March. We have had enough exercise of extraordinary power, and this continual grasping after authority for the purpose of meeting the individual case of some disgruntled persons should receive the stamp of this committee’s disapprobation.

Disguised, adj. (old).—Drunk. For synonyms, see Drinks and Screwed.

1622. Massinger, Virgin Martyr, III., iii. Harp. I am a prince disguised. Hir. Disguised! How? Drunk!

1625. Jonson, Staple of News, IV. Come, I will shew you the way home, if drink Or too full diet have disguised you.

1663. Dryden, Wild Gallant, Act I. Fail. Will not ale serve the turn, Will? Bib. I had too much of that last night; I was a little disguised, as they say.

1704. Steele, Lying Lover, Act IV., Sc. i. Sim. You are a little disguis’d in Drink tho’ Mr. John.

1773. Goldsmith, She Stoops to Conquer, Act IV. A damned up and down hand, as if it was disguised in liquor.

1884. W. C. Russell, Jack’s Courtship, ch. xvi. I met a third mate I knew, slightly disguised in liquor.

Dish, verb (common).—To cheat; to circumvent; to disappoint; to ruin.

1798. Monthly Mag. [quoted in N. and Q., 1 S., iv., p. 313. In the Monthly Mag., in 1798, is a paper on peculiarities of expression among which are … ‘done up,’ dish’d, etc.

1811. E. Nares, Thinks I to Myself, i., 208. He was completely dished—he could never have appeared again.

1819. Moore, Tom Crib’s Memorial, p. 26.… Could old Nap himself, in his glory, have wish’d To show up a fat Gemman more handsomely dish’d?

1821. Moncrieff, Tom and Jerry, i. 7. No, I’m out of spirits because I have been dished and doodled out of forty pounds to-day.

1884. W. C. Russell, Jack’s Courtship, ch. xvi. I oughtn’t to show a youngster like you any sympathy in this job of dishing a parent’s hopes.

Dish-Clout, subs. (common).—A dirty, slatternly woman.

To make a napkin of one’s dish-clout, verb. phr. (old).—To marry one’s cook; to contract a mésalliance.

1785. Grose, Dict. Vulg. Tongue, s.v.

Dished, ppl. adj. (printers’).—Said of electrotypes when the centre of a letter is lower than its edges.

Dismal-ditty, subs. (old).—See quot.

1748. T. Dyche, Dictionary (5th ed.). Dismal Ditty … also a cant expression for a psalm sung by a criminal at the gallows (s.v. Ditty).

Dispar, subs. (Winchester College).—See Cat’s-head.

Dispatches, subs. (old).—False dice; so contrived as always to throw a nick.—See Doctor.

1811. Vaux, Memoirs, s.v.

1866. Times, 27 Nov.

Dissecting-job, subs. (tailors’).—Garments requiring extensive alteration.

Distiller, subs. (Australian thieves’).—A man easily vexed, and unable to dissemble his condition.

Ditto-blues, subs. (Winchester College).—A suit of clothes all of blue cloth. Cf., Dittoes.

Ditto Brother, or Sister, Smut.—See Brother Smut.

Dittoes, subs. (colloquial).—A complete suit of clothes of the same material. Fr., un complet. Occasionally applied to trousers only.

1880. Hawley Smart, Social Sinners, ch. x. A slight, dark man, of middle height, clad in an ordinary suit of dittoes, entered the room.

1882. James Payn, Thicker than Water, ch. ix. His attire, though quite as faultless and more equable—he was never seen in dittos even in September—was not so splendid as of some members of the Aglaia.

Ditty-Bag, subs. (common).—A handy bag, used by sailors as a ‘huswife.’ [From deft, dight = neat, active, handy.]

Dive, subs. (American).—A drinking-saloon; also a brothel.

1888. Troy Daily Times, 7 Feb. A plot to entrap young women for the dives of Northern Wisconsin has been discovered at Eau Claire, Wis.

1888. St. Louis Globe Democrat, 27 Feb. Even fallen women, when the rose is gone from their cheeks, are pushed aside, and from a gilded house to the lowest dive is the last and quickest step of all.

Verb (old).—To pick pockets. Cf., dip, and for synonyms, see Frisk. Also diving = picking pockets.

1631. Ben Jonson, Metam. Gipsies. Or using your nimbles [fingers], in diving the pockets.

1712. Gay, Trivia, bk. III., l., 80. Guard well thy pocket; for these sirens stand To aid the labours of the diving hand.

1748. T. Dyche, Dictionary (5th ed.). Dive (v.) … and in the Canting Language, to pick pockets in a crowd, church, etc.

1785. Grose, Dict. Vulg. Tongue, s.v.

1859. Matsell, Vocabulum, or The Rogue’s Lexicon, s.v.

A dive in the dark, subs. phr. (venery).—The ‘act of kind.’

To dive into one’s sky, verb. phr. (common).—To put one’s hands into one’s pockets.

To dive into the woods, verb. phr. (American).—To conceal oneself.

Diver, or Dive [see quot., 1608], subs. (old).—A pickpocket (as Jenny Diver in ‘The Beggar’s Opera’); a dip (q.v.). For synonyms, see Stook-Hauler.

1608. Dekker, Belman of London, in wks. (Grosart), III., 140. [One who steals from houses by putting a boy in through a window to hand out to him the plunder—is called a Diver.]

c. 1626. Dick of Devonshire, in Bullen’s Old Plays, ii., 40. Your horse and weapons I will take, but no pilferage. I am no pocketeer, no diver into slopps.

1705. Ward, Hudibras Redivivus, vol. I., pt. i., p. 24 (2nd ed.). So expert divers call aloud, Pray mind your pockets, to the crowd.

1748. T. Dyche, Dictionary (5th ed.). Diver (s.) … also a cant name for a pick-pocket.

1828. Jon. Bee, Picture of London, p. 56. Thieves frequently go well-dressed, especially pickpockets; good toggery being considered a necessary qualification for his calling, without which the divercould not possibly mix in genteel company nor approach such in the streets.

1887. Baumann, Londismen, V. Smashers and divers and noble contrivers.

Divers, subs. (common).—The fingers. For synonyms, see Forks.

Divide the House with One’s Wife, verb. phr. (old).—To turn her out of doors.

Diving-bell, subs. (common).—A cellar-tavern. Cf., Dive. For synonyms, see Lush-crib.

Do, subs. (colloquial).—1. A fraud.

1812. Vaux, Memoirs, s.v.

1835. Dickens, Sketches by Boz, p. 17. I thought it was a do, to get me out of the house.

1837. R. H. Barham, Ingoldsby Legends (ed. 1862.), p. 418. I should like to see you Try to sauter le coup With this chap at short whist or unlimited loo, By the Pope you’d soon find it a regular do.

1846. Punch, vol. XI., p. 114. What is the meaning of the rise? I’m sure I cannot tell—can you? Yes, fame with hundred tongues replies, ’Tis in one word A Do! a Do!

2. (colloquial).—One’s duty; a success; performance; what one has to do; once literary.

1663–78. Butler, Hudibras. No sooner does he peep into the world but he has done his doe.

1851. H. Mayhew, Lon. Lab. and Lon. Poor, vol. I., p. 162. Well, I heard how a man … was making a fortune at the hot-eel and pea-soup line.… So I thought I’d have a touch at the same thing. But you see I never could rise money enough to make a do of it.

Verb (colloquial).—1. To cheat. For synonyms, see Gammon.

1789. Geo. Parker, Life’s Painter, p. 142. Who are continually looking out for flats, in order to do them upon the broads, that is, cards.

1803. Kenney, Raising the Wind, I., i. I wasn’t born two hundred miles north of Lunnun, to be done by Mr. Diddler, I know.

1831. Disraeli, The Young Duke, bk. iv., ch. vi., p. 220 (ed. 1866). There was the juvenile Lord Dice, who boasted of having done his brothers out of their miserable £5,000.

1835. Dickens, Sketches by Boz, p. 265. I should have a much better opinion of an individual if he’d say at once, in an honourable and gentlemanly manner, as he’d done everybody he possibly could.

1843. Comic Almanack, p. 373. England expects every man to do his duty, a strong recommendation to every man ‘to do’ the authorities who collect the duty at the Custom-house.

1871. Public Opinion, 4 Feb. Do you suppose that you can do the landlord in the ‘Lady of Lyons?’ asked a theatrical manager of a seedy actor in quest of an engagement. If I can’t do him, was the reply, he will be the first landlord I ever had anything to do with that wasn’t done by me.

1889. Answers, 9 Feb. The regular hotel thieves are constantly inventing new dodges to do us.

2. (pugilistic).—To ‘punish.’

3. (common).—To visit a place; e.g., ‘to do Italy,’ ‘to do the Row,’ ‘to do the High’ (at Oxford), etc. Early quots. are given; latterly the phrase is common enough. The Fr., faire is used in the same sense; faire ses Acacias, i.e., to walk or drive in the Allée des Acacias.

1857. G. A. Lawrence, Guy Livingstone, ch. xxxii. We did Venice very severely, with the exception of Forrester, who … declined seeing anything more than what he could view from his gondola.

1858. Shirley Brooks, The Gordian Knot, p. 53. You have been in Egypt? asked Margaret, with much interest. I did Egypt, as they say, about two years back, [said Philip].

4. (colloquial).—To perform; to ‘come’; e.g., to do the polite = to be polite; to do a book = to write one; to do the heavy, the grand, or the genteel = to put on airs.

1767. Colman, Eng. Merchant, I., in wks. (1777), ii. 17. I compose pamphlets on all subjects, compile magazines, and do newspapers.

1835. Dickens, Sketches by Boz, p. 224. He used to talk politics to papas, flatter the vanity of mammas, do the amiable to their daughters.

1836. Dickens, Pickwick, ch. xv., p. 125. There was the young lady who did the poetry in the Eatanswill Gazette, in the garb of a sultana.

1855. Thackeray, Newcomes, ch. xxiv. A great number of the descriptions in Cook’s Voyages, for instance, were notoriously invented by Dr. Hawkesworth, who did the book.

1856. Whyte Melville, Kate Coventry, ch. iii. A vision of John doing the polite, and laughing as he ceremoniously introduced Captain Lovell and Miss Coventry.

1864. Glasgow Citizen, 29 Nov. Is not the exhilarating short-length of being known beyond our own Queen Street that it is not registered here? And we miss the rag trade whose worthy members do the above-named goes.

1880. Milliken, Punch’s Almanack. Nobby button ’oler very well, When one wants to do the ’eavy swell.

5. (counterfeiters’).—To utter base coin or queer (q.v.).

Do as I do, phr. (common).—An invitation to drink.—See Drinks.

To do a beer, or a bitter, or a drink, or a drop, verb. phr. (common).—To take a drink.

1853. Bradley (‘Cuthbert Bede’), Verdant Green, ch. x. To do bitters, as Mr. Bouncer phrased the act of drinking bitter beer.

1880. Milliken, Punch’s Almanack. Got the doldrums dreadful, that is clear, Two d left!—must go and do a beer.

To do a bilk.—See Bilk.

To do a bill, verb. phr. (commercial).—To utter an acceptance or bill of exchange. Cf., to fly paper or kites.

1837. R. H. Barham, Ingoldsby Legends [ed. 1862], p. 257. Now, then, old sinner, let’s hear what you’ll say As to doing a bill at three months from to-day.

1849. Thackeray, Pendennis, ch. lxii. Sir Francis Clavering … had managed to sign his respectable name to a piece of stamped paper, which … Mr. Moss Abrams had carried off, promising to have the bill done by a party with whose intimacy Mr. Abrams was favoured.

To do a bishop, verb. phr. (military).—To parade at short notice.

To do a bit, verb. phr. (common).—To eat something. Cf., to do a beer. Also (venery), to have a woman.

To do a bunk or shift, verb. phr. (vulgar).—To ease nature.—See Bury a quaker and Mrs. Jones. Also (colloquial), to go away.

To do a crib, verb. phr. (thieves’).—To break into a house, to burgle. Fr., maquiller une cambriole. For synonyms, see Crack a Crib.

To do a guy, verb. phr. (thieves’).—1. To run away; to make an escape. [From do, verb of action + guy, an escape.] For synonyms, see Amputate and Skedaddle.

1889. Answers, 6 April, p. 297. They all dispersed at once—to put it in their own language, they did a guy.

2. (workman’s).—To absent oneself when supposed to be at work.

To do a nob, verb. phr. (circus and showmen’s).—To make a collection.

To do a pitch.—See Pitch.

To do a rush.—See Rush.

To do a Snatch.—See Snatch.

To do a star pitch, verb. phr. (theatrical).—To sleep in the open air. Fr., loger à la belle étoile. For synonyms, see Hedge Square.

To do a brown.—See under Brown; also Bamboozle. Also to do brown and to do it up brown.

To do for, verb. phr. (common).—1. To ruin. Also, to kill, in which sense, cf., quots., 1650 and 1877. For synonyms, see Dead broke and Cook one’s Goose respectively.

1650. Howell, Familiar Letters. The Emperor, who, rather than becom captif to the base Tartar, burnt his castle, and did away himself, his thirty wives, and children.

1752. Fielding, Amelia, bk. vi., ch. iv. He said something, too, about my master … he said he would do for him, I am sure he said that; and other wicked, bad words, too, if I could but think of them.

1811. Jane Austen, Sense and S., ch. xli. He has done for himself completely! shut himself out for ever from all decent society!

1877. Five Years’ Penal Servitude, ch. iii., p. 233. He called out, He’s done for me; he’s done for me; send at once for Doctor Howell.

2. (common).—To attend on (as landladies on lodgers).

3. (thieves’).—To convict; to sentence. Done for = convicted.

To do a grind, a mount, a tread, etc., verb. phr. (venery).—To copulate.

To do or play gooseberry.—See Gooseberry.

To do gospel, verb. phr. (common).—To go to church.

To do the handsome or the handsome thing, verb. phr. (colloquial).—To behave extremely well to one.

To do it away, verb. phr. (thieves’).—To dispose of stolen goods. Also To do the swag (q.v.); to fence (q.v.).

To do it on the B. H., verb. phr. (common).—To perform with ease. [B = bloody; H = head].

1877. Five Years’ Penal Servitude, ch. iii., p. 221. ‘What’s yer dose?’ Looking on to my badge, ‘Five, oh, you can do that little lot on yer ’ed easy.’

To do it up, verb. phr. (old).—To accomplish an object in view; to obtain one’s quest. To do it up in good twig = to live an easy life by one’s wits.

To do one proud, phr. (colloquial).—To flatter: e.g., ‘Will you drink?’ ‘You do me proud.’

1836. W. G. Clark, Ollapodriana Papers. To this damsel I addressed myself, and solicited her hand in the dance. She assented; and with my brain reeling with fancies of wine and women, I really thought, for the moment, that ‘she did me proud.’

1887. Sidney Luska, Land of Love, in ‘Lippincott’s Mag.,’ p. 241. Ah? So? The frank confession does you proud.

To do out, verb. phr. (American thieves’).—To plead guilty and exonerate an accomplice.

To do over, verb. phr. (common).—1. To knock down; to persuade; to cheat; to ruin.

1789. Geo. Parker, Life’s Painter, p. 50. Who could, at any time, do him over, as they phrased it, for half-a-crown or half-a-guinea.

1836. C. Dickens, Pickwick Papers, p. 326 (ed. 1857). Well, said Sam, he’s in a horrid state o’ love; reg’larly comfoozled, and done over with it.

2. (thieves’).—To search a victim’s pockets without his knowing it. Cf., run the rule over.

3. (venery).—To seduce; also to copulate. For synonyms, see Dock and Ride respectively.

To do polly, verb. phr. (American prison).—To pick oakum in gaol.

1859. Matsell, Vocabulum, or the Rogue’s Lexicon, s.v.

To do one’s business, verb. phr. (common).—To kill. For synonyms, see Cook one’s Goose. Cf., Business. Also (vulgar), to evacuate; and (venery), to serve a woman.

1750. Fielding, Tom Jones, bk. VIII., ch. x. He concluded he had pretty well done their business, for both of them, as they ran off, cried out with bitter oaths, that they were dead men.

1849. Thackeray, Pendennis, ch. xii. Then he took down his venerable and murderous duelling-pistols, with flint locks, that had done the business of many a pretty fellow in Dublin.

1856. C. Reade, Never Too Late, ch. xvi. She was stronger than he was for a moment or two, and that moment would have done his business. She meant killing.

To do the downy, verb. phr. (common).—To lie in bed. Downy flea pasture = a bed. Cf., Balmy.

1841. Leman Rede, Sixteen-String Jack, Act i., Sc. vi. Jer. The family’s gone to downy nap this half-hour. Why don’t the captain give the signal.

1853. C. Bede, Verdant Green, pt. ii., p. 59. This’ll never do, Giglamps! Cutting chapel to do the downy.

To do the swag, verb. phr. (thieves’).—To sell stolen property, Fr., laver la camelote or les fourgueroles. Cf., To do clobber.

To do the trick, verb. phr. (colloquial).—To accomplish one’s object; specifically (venery), to do the ‘act of kind’ effectually, and (for woman), to get rid of one’s maidenhead.

1864. Derby Day, p. 38. If the little ’un don’t do the trick me an’ him’ll fall out.

1870–2. Gallery of Comicalities. Star of the stable! Ostler Dick, Still in your calling wide awake; I warrant you can do the trick—A cunning cove, and no mistake.

18(?). W. C. Russell, Representative Actors, p. 476. Edmund Kean then whispered in his son’s ear ‘Charlie, we are doing the trick.’

To do time, verb. phr. (thieves’).—To serve a term of imprisonment.

1871. Times, Dec. Both … fled to New York to save doing time on the treadmill.

1884. Cornhill Mag., June, p. 614. He has repeatedly done time for drunks and disorderlies, and for assaults upon the police.

1888. Referee, 15 April, 3, 1. The robbers-in-chief, who had done time before, were sentenced to five years’ penal servitude.

To do to death, verb. phr. (colloquial).—To repeat ad nauseam.

To do to tie to, verb. phr. (American).—To be fit to associate with; to be trustworthy.

To do up, verb. phr. (common).—To use up; finish; or quiet. Done up = tired out; ruined; ‘sold up.’ For synonyms, see Floored.

1594. Nashe, Unf. Traveller, in wks. v., 170. I was cleane spent and done, there was no hope of me.

1667. Dryden, Ann. Mir., st. 70. Not so the Holland fleet, who, tired and done, Stretch’d on their decks like weary oxen lie.

1815. Scott, Guy Mannering, ch. xxxiv. ‘How did he get back from India?’ ‘Why, how should I know? The house there was done up, and that gave us a shake at Middleburgh.’

1831. Disraeli, The Young Duke, bk. iv., ch. xii., p. 245 (ed. 1866), ‘The Universe’ and ‘The New World’ announced that the young duke was done up.

1851–61. H. Mayhew, London Lab. and Lon. Poor, vol. III., p. 264. A man’s done up at fifty, and seldom lives long after, if he has to keep on at coal-portering.

1870. L. Oliphant, Piccadilly, pt. iii., p. 130. I am awfully done, said Spiffy. I never went to bed at all last night.

[For the rest, do, like chuck and cop, is a verb-of-all-work, and is used in every possible and impossible connection. Thus, to do reason and to do right = to honour a toast; to do a bit of stiff = to draw a bill; to do a chuck = to eject, or to go away; to do a rub-up = to masturbate; to do a sip (back slang) = to make water; to do a cat = to vomit; to do a hall or a theatre = to visit a music hall or a playhouse; to do a fluff (theatrical) = to forget one’s part; to do a pitch (showman’s or street artists’) = to go through a performance; to do a mouch or a mike = to go on the prowl; to do a grouse = to go questing for women; to do a doss = to go to sleep; to do a cadge = to go begging; to do a tumble or a spread = to lie down to a man; to do a perpendicular or knee-trembler = to copulate standing; to do a scrap = to engage in combat; to do a rural = to ‘rear’ by the wayside; to do a dive in the dark = to copulate; etc.

Doash, subs. (Old Cant).—A cloak. For synonyms, see Capella.

Dobbin, subs. (old).—Ribbon. Dobbin Rig = stealing ribbon.

Dock, subs. (printers’).—1. The weekly work bill or pole (q.v.).

2. (popular).—The hospital.

Verb (old).—1. To deflower; hence, by implication, to possess; [Gypsy dūkker, to ravish]. Feminine analogues are to have done the trick; to have had it; to have done it at last; to be cracked in the ring; to have broken her tea-cup; to have had it there; to have gone star-gazing on her back; to have given her pussy a taste of cream; to have let the pony over the dyke (Scots’); to have broken her knees or her leg; to have sprained her ankle. Fr., avoir vu le loup; laisser aller le chat au fromage; and avoir vu la lune; whilst l’avoir encore and avoir encore l’avoine is said of maids. Sp., desvirgar = to deflower: Docked = possessed.

1567. Harman, Caveat [ed. 1869, E.E.T. Soc.], p. 87. He dokte the dell.

1609. Dekker, Lanthorne and Candlelight. ‘Canting Rithmes.’ Docked the dell for a Coper meke.

1611. Middleton and Dekker, Roaring Girl, v., 1. And couch till a pallyard docked my dell.

2. (Winchester College).—To scratch out; to tear out (as from a book); also to strike down.

To go into dock, verb. phr. (nautical).—To undergo salivation.

To be docked smack smooth, verb. phr. (old).—To have suffered amputation of the penis.

Docker, subs. (legal).—1. A brief handed to counsel by a prisoner in the dock. Legal etiquette compels acceptance if ‘marked’ with a minimum fee of £1 3s. 6d.

2. (colloquial).—A dock labourer.

Dock-walloper, subs. (American).—A loafer; one who loiters about docks and wharves; also an unemployed emigrant.

1871. De Vere, Americanisms, p. 344.… A dock-walloper is an object of great contempt to Jack.

Dockyarder, subs. (nautical).—A skulker. Cf., Strawyarder (q.v.).

Dockyard-horse, subs. (naval).—An officer better at correspondence than at active service.

Doctor, subs. (old).—1. A false die; sometimes a manipulated card.—See To put the doctor on one.

1688. Shadwell, Sq. of Alsatia, I., in wks. (1720), iv., 18. Belf. Sen. Tatts, and Doctor! what’s that? Sham. The tools of sharpers, false dice.

1709. Centlivre, Gamester, Act i. Now, sir, here is your true dice, a man seldom gets anything by them; here is your false, sir; hey, how they run! Now, sir, those we generally call doctors.

1750. Fielding, Tom Jones. Here, said he, taking some dice out of his pockets, here are the little doctors which cure the distempers of the purse.

1822. Scott, Fortunes of Nigel, ch. xxxiii. A gamester, one who deals with the devil’s bones and the doctors.

1823. Scott, Peveril, ch. xxviii. The dicers with their doctors in their pockets, I presume.

2. (common).—An adulterant. Cf., To keep the doctor.

1785. Grose, Dict. Vulg. Tongue, s.v. A composition used by distillers to make spirits appear stronger than they really are.

1828. G. Smeaton, Doings in London. Maton, in his ‘Tricks of Bakers Unmasked,’ says alum, which is called the Doctor, ground and unground, is sold to the bakers at fourpence per pound.

3. (licensed victuallers’).—Brown sherry. [Because a ‘doctored’ (q.v.), wine. Cf., sense 2.]

4. (nautical and up-country Australian).—A ship’s cook.

5. (Winchester College).—The head master.

1870. Mansfield, School Life at Winchester College, p. 27. The head master, or the Doctor, as he is always called, lives in ‘Commoners’ buildings.’

6. (Old gamesters’).—The last throw of dice or ninepins.

Verb (common).—1. To patch; adulterate; falsify; ‘cook.’

1837. R. H. Barham, Ingoldsby Legends [ed. 1862], p. 464. She doctor’d the punch and she doctor’d the negus, Taking care not to put in sufficient to flavour it.

1862. H. Greeley, in N. Y. Independent. The news [of success to the United States armies, said the English leading journals] all came through Northern channels, and was doctored by the government which controlled the telegraph.

2. (sporting).—To poison a horse.

To keep the doctor, verb. phr. (licensed victuallers’).—To make a practice of adulterating the liquor sold. Cf., doctor, subs., sense 2.

To put the doctor on one, verb. phr. (common).—To cheat.

Doctor Draw-fart, subs. phr. (common).—A wandering quack.

Doctored, ppl. adj. (common).—Patched; adulterated; falsified; ‘cooked.’

1866. G. Eliot, Felix Holt, ch. xxviii. The Cross-keys … had doctored ale, an odour of bad tobacco, and remarkably strong cheese.

Dod Burn it! intj. phr. (American).—A euphemistic oath; on the model of dadbinged (q.v.).

Dodder, subs. (Irish).—Burnt tobacco taken from the bottom of a pipe and placed on the top of a fresh plug to give a stronger flavor.

Dodderer, subs. (street).—A meddler; always used in contempt. Sometimes doddering old sheep’s head, which also = a fool.

Doddy, subs. (provincial).—In Norfolk a person of low stature. Sometimes hodmandod and hoddy-doddy, all head and no body. Dodman in the same dialect = a snail.

Dodfetched, adj. (American).—A euphemistic oath. [Dod = God.] Most of its kind have originated in New England, where the descendants of the Puritans form the largest portion of the population.

1888. Texas Siftings, 7 July. Then the poet was sore grieved, and he said unto himself, ‘I’m a dodfetched fool.’

Dodgasted, adj. (American).—See dodfetched.

1888. Detroit Free Press. It’s a dodgasted funny thing, Uncle Zeke, but it’s a fact, never knew it to fail; straight as a string, too.

Dodge, subs. and verb, [and derivative. Dodging, verb. subs.] (colloquial).—To trick; to swindle; to elude. Once slang, now recognised. Used in various combinations: the pious dodge = a pretence of piety; the tidy-dodge = begging in the streets with tidily but poorly dressed children, etc. Also, to ‘nart.’ For synonyms, see Lay.

1708. Swift, Abolishing of Christianity in prose wks. (Camelot Cl.), p. 235. The chaffering with Dissenters, and dodging about this or the other ceremony.

1754. B. Martin, Eng. Dict. (2nd ed.). To dodge.… 2. To be off and on. 3. To prevaricate, or play shifting tricks.

1836. C. Dickens, Pickwick Papers, p. 135 (ed. 1857). ‘It was all false, of course?’ ‘All, sir,’ replied Mr. Weller, ‘reg’lar do, sir; artful dodge.’

1851–61. H. Mayhew, London Lab. and Lon. Poor, vol. i., p. 227. Conscious how much their own livelihood depends upon assumption and trickery, they naturally consider that others have some dodge, as they call it, or some latent object in view when any good is sought to be done them.

1856. Punch, vol. XXXI., p. 217. Long though your sentence and your task severe, The pious dodge a ticket soon will send.

1865. Spectator, 2 Dec., Women’s Tact. [Mrs. Caudle.] Nagged, and nagging is universally useful only with maids. She lost her temper occasionally, and the suffering angel dodge is a very much more effective as well as Christian resource.

1865. Spectator (On the Academy Dinner), p. 492. Earl Russell … broke loose from one conventionality of public dinners to fall into another. He dodged the toast of Her Majesty’s Ministers, and did not promise the Academy.

1883. Daily Telegraph, 23 March, p. 6, col. 1. He is naturally anxious to ascertain if any new dodge has been brought to light, and what was the amount of the penalty imposed for its perpetration.

Dodger, subs. (common).—1. A trickster. Cf., The ‘Artful Dodger’ (Dickens, Oliver Twist, ch. viii.). Fr., être ficelle = ‘to be a dodger.’

1611. Cotgrave, Dict., Caqueraffe, a base micher, scurvie hagler, lowsie dodger, etc.

1825. Scott, St. Ronan’s Well, ch. xxviii. A sly cock, this Frank Tyrrel, thought the traveller; a very complete dodger—but no matter—I shall wind him, were he to double like a fan.

1887. Baumann, Londonismen, vi. So from hartful young dodgers, From vaxy old codgers, From the blowens ve got Soon to know vot is vot.

2. (popular).—A dram; provincially, a nightcap. For synonyms, see Go.

3. (American).—A hard-baked cake or biscuit, more usually termed corn-dodger. When mixed with beef, beef-dodgers.

4. (American).—A handbill.

1888. Texas Siftings, 15 Sept. Then I would have a great quantity of little dodgers printed to throw around everywhere.

Dodo, subs. (old).—A stupid, old man.

Dodrotted, ppl. adj. (American).—A euphemistic oath. See Oaths.

1887. Century Magazine. You ketch us with yer dodrotted foolin’, says he; we hain’t the kind to be fooled.

Does it? phr. (common).—A sarcastic retort.—See Does your Mother know you’re out?

Does your Mother know you’re out? phr. (streets’).—A popular locution, vague as to meaning and inexact in application—an expression expressive of contempt, incredulity, sarcasm, anything you please.—See All my eye, Street cries, and infra.

English Variants.—Has your mother sold her mangle? Not to-day, or it won’t do, Mr. Ferguson! Sawdust and treacle! Draw it mild! And the rest! Who are you? All round my hat! Go it, ye cripples! Shoo, fly! How does the old thing work? Well, you know how it is yourself! How’s your poor feet? Why, certainly! I’ll have your whelk! Not to-day, baker, call to-morrow, and we’ll take a crusty one! Do you see any green in my eye? Put that in your pipe and smoke it! Where are you going on Sunday? Go to Putney! Who stole the donkey: the man in the white hat! Cough, Julia! Over the bender! There you go with your eye out! etc., etc.

French Variants.—Et les mois de nourrice = (and the rest!); du combustible (popular: = go it you cripples); tu t’en ferais péter le cylindre (popular: = don’t you wish you may get it); chiche! (popular: a defiant refusal); chaleur! (popular: expressive of contempt, disbelief, and ironical admiration); croyez ça et buvez de l’eau (popular: = believe that and drink water); à Chaillot ( = ‘go to Bath and get your head shaved’); tu t’en ferais crèver (pop.: = don’t you wish you may get it?); colle-toi ça dans l’cornet (pop.: = put that in your pipe and smoke it!) je la connais (pop.: = do you see any green?); j’entrave pas dans tes vannes (thieves’: = you don’t take me in); de la bourrache! (popular: = no go); un sale truc pour la fanfare (popular: an expression of disgust); de quoi (popular: what next? also = wealth, money, etc.); allez donc raconter cela à dache (thieves’: = tell that to the marines!); des dattes! (pop.: = take a carrot!); et ta sœur (popular: indicative of refusal, contempt, and insult); faut pas m’la faire (popular: = Walker!); et le pouce (pop.: = and the rest!)

1841. Punch, vol. I., p. 6, col. 2. Where are they that should protect thee In this darkling hour of doubt? Love could never thus neglect thee! Does your mother know you’re out?

1864. Sun, 28 Dec. ‘Review of Hotten’s Slang Dictionary.’ Ridiculous street cries, such as does your mother know you’re out? or, Has your Aunt sold her mangle? or, You don’t lodge here, Mr. Fergusson—whatever those sapient remarks may mean.

Dog, subs. (colloquial).—1. A man; sometimes used contemptuously (Cf., Cat = a woman), but more frequently in half-serious chiding; e.g., a sad dog, gay dog, old dog, etc. For synonyms, see Cove. Sometimes adjectively = male; see quot., 1856. An old dog at it = expert, or accustomed to.

1596. Nashe, Have with you, Epis. Ded. par. 5. O, he hath been olde dogge at that drunken, staggering kinde of verse.

1697. Vanbrugh, Æsop, part II., Sc. iii. Why, I’m a strong young dog, you old gent, you.

1703. Mrs. Centlivre, Stolen Heiress, I., wks, (1872), i., 336. She is in love, forsooth, with a young beggarly dog not worth a groat.

1736. Fielding, Don Quixote, II. iv. A comical dog, I fancy; go, give my service to him.

b. 1764, d. 1817. J. G. Holman, Abroad and at Home, I., 3. And my praise to withhold none so currish, With a girl so divine! Such dinners! such wine! What a d—d clever dog was Jack Flourish!

1810. Crabbe, The Borough, Letter 6, Law. For he’d a way that many judg’d polite, A cunning dog—he’d fawn before he’d bite.

1836. C. Dickens, Pickwick Papers, p. 369. (ed. 1857). Curse me, they’re friends of mine from this minute and friends of Mivins, too. Infernal pleasant, gentlemenly, dog Mivins, isn’t he? said Smangle, with great feeling.

1856. Whyte Melville, Kate Coventry, ch. vii. Then comes Ascot, for which meeting they leave the metropolis, and enjoy some quiet retreat in the neighbourhood of Windsor, taking with them many potables, and what they call a dog cook.

2. (thieves’).—A burglar’s iron. For synonyms, see Jemmy.

1888. American Humorist, 31 Mar. The safe was rifled, and every appearance of robbery was manifest. In this case the murderer was discovered by means of a dog, which was described in the newspapers as having certain peculiar scratches on it.

Verb (venery).—To copulate on all fours.

To go, or throw to the dogs.—See Go and Demnition Bow-wows.

Hair of the dog that bit you.—See Hair.

To blush like a blue dog.—See Blush.

Dogberry, subs. (common).—A stupid constable, or magistrate. [From Much Ado about Nothing.] For synonyms, see Beak and Copper.

1864. M. E. Braddon, Aurora Floyd, ch. xxxviii. The detective had reason to know that the dogberries of Doncaster, … were on the wrong scent.

1869. Gent. Mag., July, p. 195. I trust I shall not be accounted a dogberry, lavish in my tediousness, if I bestow one more anecdote upon my readers.

Dog Biting Dog, adv. phr. (theatrical).—Said of actors who spitefully criticise each others performance.

Dog-Cheap, adj. (colloquial).—Very cheap; of little worth; foolish. [Skeat: from Swed., dog, = very; Latham: the first syllable is god = good, transposed + cheap, from chapman, a merchant—hence, a good bargain (Fr., bon marché).]

1598. Shakspeare, 1 Henry IV., iii. 3. The sack … would have bought me lights as good-cheap at the dearest chandler’s in Europe.

1606. Dekker, Newes from Hell, in wks. (Grosart), ii., 116. Three things there are dog-cheap, learning, poore men’s sweat, and others.

1663. Dryden, Wild Gallant, Act II. No fat over-grown virgin of forty ever offered herself so dog cheap, or was more despised.

1772. Foote, Nabob, Act II. dog-cheap; neck-beef; a penny-loaf for a halfpenny.

1830. Marryat, Kings Own, ch. xxx. I’ll sell mine, dog-cheap, if any one will buy it.

1851. Carlyle, John Sterling, pt. I., ch. x. There lay in a certain neighbouring creek of the Irish coast, a worn-out royal gun-brig condemned to sale, to be had dog-cheap.

Dog-Collar, subs. (common).—A ‘stand-up’ shirt collar; an all-rounder (q.v.).

1883. Grenville-Murray, People I have Met, p. 42. The dog-collar which rose above the black cloth was of spotless purity.

Dog-Drawn (old), adj. phr.—Said of a bitch from which a dog has been removed by force during coition. Sometimes applied to women.

Dogger, verb (Charterhouse).—To cheat; to sell rubbish.

Doggery, subs. (popular).—1. Transparent cheating. Cf., dogger.

[Carlyle in Frederick uses doggery = the doings of a scurvy set of soldiers.]

2. (American).—A low drinking saloon.

1871. De Vere, Americanisms, p. 315. Doggeries are only found near the shanties of Irish laborers or in remote western and southern settlements.

Doggoned, adj. (American).—A euphemistic oath.—See Oaths.

1852. Gladstone, Englishman in Kansas, p. 46. If there’s a dog-goned abolitionist aboard this boat, I should like to see him. I’m the man to put a chunk o’ lead into his woolly head right off.

1873. Carlton, Farm Ballads, p. 80. But when that choir got up to sing, I couldn’t catch a word; They sung the most dog-gondest thing A body ever heard!

1879. Eggleston, The Hoosier Schoolmaster. I never knowed but one gal in my life as had cyphered into fractions, and she was so dog on stuck up, that she turned up her nose one night at an apple-peelin’ bekase I tuck a sheet off the bed to splice out the table-cloth, which was rather short.

Doggy, subs. (mining).—See quot.

1845. Disraeli, Sybil, bk. III., ch. i., note. A Batty in the mining districts is a middleman; a doggy is his manager.

Adj. (colloquial).—1. Connected with, or relating to dogs.

1883. Graphic, 24 Feb., p. 199, col. 3. Liverpool and the Adelphi Hotel in particular, are now [time of Altcar coursing meeting] the headquarters of all the doggy men of the three kingdoms.

2. (colloquial).—Stylish.

Dog in a Blanket, subs. phr. (colloquial).—A pudding of preserved fruit spread on thin dough, rolled up, and boiled; also called roly-poly and stocking.

1887. G. A. Sala, in Ill. Lon. News, 12 Feb., p. 174, col. 3. Bubble and squeak … is a colloquialism, and no more slangy than ‘toad in the hole’ or dog in a blanket.

Like a dog in shoes, adv. phr. (Irish).—A pattering sound; as the noise of a brisk walk.

Dog in the Manger, subs. phr. (colloquial).—A selfish churl; who does not want himself, yet will not let others enjoy. [From the fable.]

1621. Burton, Anat. of Mel., I., II., III., xii., 189 (1836). Like a hog, or dog in the manger, he doth only keep it, because it shall do nobody else good.

1673. Dryden, Amboyna, Act ii. You’re like dogs in the manger, you will neither manage it yourselves nor permit your neighbours.

1757. Garrick, Irish Widow, II. That’s the dog in the manger; you can’t eat the oats, and won’t let those who can.

1836. Marryat, Japhet, ch. lxxii. Why, what a dog in the manger you must be—you can’t marry them both.

Dog-Latin, subs. (colloquial).—Barbarous or sham Latin; also Kitchen, Bog, Garden, or Apothecaries’ Latin.

1856. H. Mayhew, Great World of London, p. 149. A Spaniard … who called himself a physician, and who, being unable to speak English, communicated with the doctor in a kind of Spanish dog-Latin.

Dogs, subs. (university).—1. Sausages; otherwise Bags of Mystery (q.v.), or Chambers of Horrors (q.v.).

2. (Stock Exchange).—Newfoundland Land Company’s shares; now amalgamated with the Anglo-American United, and called Anglos.

To go to the dogs.—See under Go.

To let sleeping dogs lie.—See Sleeping Dogs.

Dog’s-Body, subs. (nautical).—Pease pudding.

1851. Chambers’ Papers, No. 52, p. 16. Peas-pudding (alias dog’s body) is often allowed upon pork days.

1883. W. Clark Russell, Sailors’ Language, p. 42. dogs-body.—A mess made of pea-soup, powdered biscuit, and slush.

1889. Chambers’ Journal, 3 Aug., p. 495, col. 1.

Dog’s-eared, adj. (colloquial).—Crumpled, as the leaves of a page with much reading.

Dog’s Match. To make a dog’s match of it, verb. phr. (vulgar).—To copulate by the wayside.

Dog’s Meat, subs. (colloquial).—Anything worthless; as a bad book, a common tale, a villainous picture, etc.

Dog-shooter, subs. (old).—1. A volunteer.

2. (Royal Military Academy).—See quot.

1889. Barrère, Slang, Jargon and Cant, p. 317. Cadets thus term a student who accelerates, that is, who, being pretty certain of not being able to obtain a commission in the engineers, or not caring for it, elects to join a superior class before the end of the term.

Dog’s-nose, subs. (common).—A mixture of gin and beer.—See Drinks.

1812. Vaux, Flash Dict., s.v.

1836. Dickens, Pickwick, ch. xxxiii., p. 285. dog’s nose … your committee find upon enquiry, to be compounded of warm porter, moist sugar, gin, and nutmeg.

1861. Hughes, Tom Brown at Oxford, ch. xl. Ah! that’s not bad tipple after such a ducking as we’ve had. dog’s nose, isn’t it?

Dog’s-paste, subs. (common).—Sausage or mince-meat. Cf., bags of mystery and chambers of horror (q.v.).

Dog’s-portion, subs. (common).—‘A lick and a smell,’ i.e., next to nothing.

Dog’s Sleep, subs. phr. (colloquial).—The lightest possible form of slumber.

Dog’s-soup, subs. (common).—Water. For synonyms, see Adam’s Ale and Fish Broth.

1836. W. H. Smith. ‘The Thieves’ Chaunt.’ For she never lushes dog’s-soup or lap.

Dog’s-tail, subs. (nautical).—The constellation of Ursa minor or Little Bear.

Dog-stealer, subs. (common).—A dog-dealer; applied sarcastically.

1854. Whyte Melville, General Bounce, ch. xiii. Now nodding to a trainer, now indulging in quaint badinage, which the vulgar call ‘chaff,’ with a dog-stealer.

Doldrums, subs. (colloquial).—Low spirits; the dumps or hump (q.v.). [Properly parts of the ocean near the Equator abounding in calms and light, baffling winds.]

1865. M. Browne, in the ‘Argosy,’ I., 36. An Apology for the Nerves. All I say is, do not let us have any abuse of the nerves. Do not confound nervousness with the megrims, or the doldrums, or any other complaint. Do not confound it with cowardice or ill-temper.

1883. James Payn, The Canon’s Ward, ch. xi. She treated all subjects in the same light way; … from aversion to serious thoughts of any kind, which she stigmatised generally as the doldrums.

Dole, subs. (Winchester College).—A stratagem or trick. [From Latin dolus.]

Dolifier, subs. (Winchester College).—One who contrives a trick.—See Dole.

Dollar, subs. (common).—A five-shilling piece. Half-dollar = half-a-crown, or two shillings. For synonyms, see Caroon.

Dollop, subs. and verb (common).—A lot; All the dollop = the whole thing. Cf., quot., 1812. In Norfolk to dollop = to dole out; also to ‘plank.’ Dolloping = throwing down.

1812. Vaux, Flash Dict., s.v. = the whole sum of money.

1853. Notes and Queries, 16 July, p. 65, col. 2. Applied to lumps of any substances, whether food or otherwise. Such a phrase as this might be heard: What a dollop of fat you have given me.

1871. Beli’s Life, 23 Dec. All we wish to convey is, that a large bait is absolutely necessary to a heavy bag of chub. Exceptions may arise, as giants may dally with crumbs, but as a rule these fish desire a dollop.

1876. Hindley, Life and Adventures of a Cheap Jack, p. 28. I have known men literally give their goods away, or to throw them at each other, which is termed dolloping.

1883. Daily Telegraph, 8 March, p. 4, col. 1. A dollop of something having a mortar-like appearance, imaginatively styled pudding.

Dolly, subs. (venery).—1. A mistress. For synonyms, see Barrack-hack and Tart.

1647–48. Herrick, Hesperides, p. 38. Drink, and dance, and pipe, and play, Kisse our dollies night and day.

1843. Punch, vol. V., p. 8. Dol is a pure Anglo-Saxon word signifying dull, erring—whence the English Dolly, any one who has made a faux pas.

2. (tailors’).—A piece of cloth used as a sponge.

3. (venery).—The penis. For synonyms, see Creamstick.

Adj. (popular).—Silly.

1864. Dickens, Our Mutual Friend, bk. I., chap. 4. You are a chit and a little idiot, returned Bella, or you wouldn’t make such a dolly speech.

Dolly-mop, subs. (common).—Specifically, a professional strumpet, but see quot., 1851. For synonyms, see Barrack-hack and Tart.

1833. Marryat, Peter Simple, ch. iv. The captain says we are to take the young gentleman on board directly. His liberty’s stopped for getting drunk and running after the Dolly-Mops!

1851. H. Mayhew, Lon. Lab. and Lon. Poor, IV., 234. Those women who, for the sake of distinguishing them from the professionals, I must call amateurs, are generally spoken of as Dolly-mops.

Dolly-Shop, subs. (common).—A marine store: really an illegal pawn-shop and fence (q.v.); also leaving-shop. No questions are asked; all goods are received on the understanding that they may be repurchased within a given time; so much per day is charged; no duplicate is given; and no books are kept. [From the black doll (q.v.) suspended outside as a sign.]

1851–61. H. Mayhew, London Lab. and Lon. Poor, vol. I., p. 142. If she hasn’t, or if the neighbours hasn’t it, she borrows it at a dolly-shop (the illegal pawnshop).

1860–68. Chambers’ Encyclopædia, s.v.

1871. Echo, 16 March. Chimney sweeps having lent their machines to dolly-shop keepers for the price of a spree, could not redeem them to commence business.

Dome, subs. (common).—The head. For synonyms, see Crumpet.

Domestic-Afflictions, subs. (common).—The menstrual flux; a woman’s flower-time. For synonyms, see Flag-up.

Dome-stick, subs. (common).—A ‘domestic’ servant.

Dominie, subs. (old).—A clergyman; modern Scots = a pedagogue or schoolmaster. [From Latin dominus, a lord or master.]

1616. Beaumont and Fletcher, Scornful Lady, II., i. Wel. [addressing parson], Adieu, dear Domine!

1754. Foote, Knights, Act ii. She falls in love with young Sleek, her father’s chaplain; … what does me I, but slips on Domine’s robes, you; passed myself upon her for him, and we were tacked together.

1819. Moore, Tom Crib’s Memorial, p. 21. And, take him at ruffianing work (though, in common, he Hums about Peace and all that, like a Domine.

1883. Brinsley-Richards, Seven Years at Eton, xii., 122. The Scotch dominie, from whom he had learnt Latin … knew nothing of elegiacs.

Dominie Do-Little, subs. phr. (old).—An impotent old man.

Domino! intj. (common).—An ejaculation of completion: e.g., for sailors and soldiers at the last lash of a flogging; and for ’bus conductors when an omnibus is full inside and out [N. and Q., 6 S., v., 229]; also, by implication, a knock-down blow, or the last of a series. [From the call at the end of a game of dominoes.]

Domino-Box, subs. (old).—The mouth. For synonyms, see Potato-trap.

1812. Vaux, Flash Dictionary, s.v.

Dominoes, subs. (popular).—1. The teeth. For synonyms, see Grinders.

1823. Moncrieff, Tom and Jerry, ii., 6. Mr. J. Sluice your dominos—vill you? Green. Vot! I never plays at dominos—It’s too wulgar. Mr. J. Vy, then vash your ivories? Green. I’ve got no hiveries to vash. Mr. J. Drink, vill you? don’t you understand Hinglish?

1856. H. Mayhew, Gt. World of London, p. 6, note. Fanciful metaphors contribute largely to the formation of slang. It is upon this principle that the mouth has come to be styled the ‘tater-trap’; the teeth, dominoes.

1864. E. D. Forgues, in Revue des deux Mondes, 15 Sept., p. 470. Le mot ‘dents’ est remplacé par celui de dominos aussi bien sur les bordes de la Tamise que sur ceux de la Seine.

2. (colloquial).—The keys of a piano.

To sluice one’s dominoes, verb. phr. (common).—To drink.—See quot., 1823 ante.

Domino-thumper, subs. (common).—A pianist.

Dommerar, Dommerer, or Dummerer, subs. (old).—A beggar feigning to be deaf and dumb; also, a madman.

1567. Harman, Caveat, p. 57. These Dommerars are leud and most subtyll people: the moste part of these are Walch men, and wyll neuer speake, vnlesse they haue extreame punishment, but wyll gape, and with a maruelous force wyll hold downe their toungs doubled, groning for your charyty, and holding vp their handes full pitiously, so that with their deepe dissimulation they get very much.

1621. Burton, Anat. of Mel., I., II., IV., vi., 233 (1836). It compels some miserable wretches to counterfeit several diseases, to dismember, make themselves blind, lame, to have a more plausible cause to beg … we have dummerers, Abraham men, etc.

1671. R. Head, English Rogue, pt. I., ch. v. (Repr. 1874), p. 49. Dommerar, a Madman.

1706. E. Coles, Eng. Dict. Dommeror, a Madman.

1785. Grose, Dict. Vulg. Tongue, s.v.

1859. Matsell, Vocabulum. Dommerer, a fellow that pretends to be deaf and dumb.

Don, subs. (colloquial).—An adept; a swell; also a man that ‘puts on side.’ At the Universities a fellow or officer of a college; whence the vulgar usage. [From Latin, dominus, a lord, through the Spanish title.]

1665. Dryden, Indian Emperor, Epilogue, 21. For the great dons of wit—Phœbus gives them full privilege alone, To damn all others, and cry up their own.

1698–1700. Ward, London Spy, pt. xiii., p. 299. Like the Great Old Dons of the Law, when they dance the Measures in an Inns-of-Court Hall upon the first day of Christmas.

1730. Jas. Miller, Humours of Oxford, Act I., p. 7 (2 ed.) The old dons … will come cringing, cap in hand, to offer to show the ladies the curiosities of the college.

1826. Reynolds (‘Peter Corcoran’), Song on the Fancy. Dull innocence! Twaddle on, Thy weary worshipper—and fain Would give thee up, to be a don, And beat the watch in Drury Lane.

1855. Thackeray, Newcomes, ch. xi. Does not go much into society, except … once or twice to the houses of great country dons who dwell near him in the country.

c. 1880. Broadside Ballad, sung by Jenny Hill. ‘’Arry, ’Arry, There you are now, ’Arry, I say, ’Arry, by Jove, you are a Don.’

Adj. (common).—Clever, expert; first rate. [From the subs. sense.]

Dona, Donna, Donny, or Doner, subs. (vulgar).—A woman. [From the Italian.] For synonyms, see Petticoat.

1875. Athenæum, 24 April, p. 545, col. 2. A circus man almost always speaks of a circus woman, not as a woman, but a dona.

Donaker, subs. (old).—A cattle-lifter.

1669. Nicker Nicked, in Harl. Misc. (ed. Park), ii., 108.

Done! intj. (common).—An interjection of acceptance or agreement.

1602. Dekker, Honest Whore, in wks. (1873), ii., 17. Cast. … I’le wage a hundred duckats upon the head on’t, that it moves him, frets him, and galles him. Pio. Done, ’tis a lay, joyne gols [hands] on’t.

1761. Colman, Jealous Wife, IV., in wks. (1777), i., 106. Why, it’s a match, miss! it’s done and done on both sides.

1762. Goldsmith, Life of Nash, in wks., p. 546 (Globe). Why, if you think me a dab I will get this strange gentleman, or this, pointing to the flat. done! cries the sailor, but you shall not tell him.

1840. Thackeray, Paris Sketch-book, p. 196. ‘I will bet thee thy water for a year that none of the three will pray for thee.’ ‘Done!’ said Rollo. ‘Done! said the daemon.’

Ppl. adj. (common).—Exhausted; ruined; cheated; convicted.

[See Do in most of its senses.]

Done-over, adj. (common).—1. Intoxicated. For synonyms, see Screwed.

2. (venery). Possessed in kind; said only of women.

Donkey, subs. (printers’).—1. A compositor; pressmen are in turn called Pigs (q.v.).

English Synonyms.—Ass; moke; galley-slave.

French Synonyms.—Un mulet (printers’); un compositeur mie de pain (an unskilled or clumsy workman; mie de pain also = a louse); un marron (a compositor working on his own account with another printer’s plant); un homme de lettres (= a man of letters); un singe (= a monkey); un amphibie (a compositor who is donkey and pig [q.v.] together).

1857. In Notes and Queries, 2 S., iv., 192. Compositors are jocosely called mokes or donkeys.

2. (nautical).—A sailor’s chest.

3. (colloquial).—A blockhead. For synonyms, see Cabbage-head and Buffle.

A penny, twopence or threepence more and up goes the donkey, phr. (common).—An exclamation of derision. [Street acrobats’: the custom was to finish off the pitch by balancing a donkey at the top of a ladder on receipt of ‘tuppence more’; which sum, however often subscribed, was always re-demanded, so that the donkey never ‘went up’ at all.]

1841. Punch, vol. I., p. 41, col. 2. Mr. Joseph Muggins begs to inform his old crony, Punch, that the report of Sir John Pullon, ‘as to the possibility of elevating an ass to the head of the poll by bribery and corruption’ is perfectly correct, provided there is no abatement in the price. Let him canvass again, and Mr. J. M. pledges himself, whatever his weight, if he will only stand one penny more, up goes the donkey!

1850. F. E. Smedley, Frank Fairleigh, ch. xv. He … has left the key in the lock; so I shall take the liberty of exploring a little; I’ve a strong though undeveloped taste for architectural antiquities. Twopence more, and up goes the donkey! Come along! So saying, he flung open the door.

Who stole the donkey? phr. (common).—A street cry once in vogue on the appearance of a man in a white hat. With a similar expression ‘Who stole the leg of mutton’? applied to the police, it had its rise in a case of larceny. J. H. Dixon, writing to Hotten, Nov. 6th, 1864, remembered both. The first occurred at Hatton Garden Police Court, where a man, wearing a white hat, was charged with stealing a costermonger’s donkey.

1889. Sporting Times, 3 Aug., p. 3, col. 5. Who stole the donkey? The man with the white hat! This was a very popular street colloquy some years ago.

To ride the donkey, verb. phr. (common).—To cheat with weights and measures. Also donkey-riding = cheating as aforesaid. Cf., Ambush.

1859. Matsell, Vocabulum, or Rogue’s Lexicon. Donkey-Riding. Cheating in weight or measure; miscounting.

To talk the hind leg off a donkey.—See Talk.

Donkey-Drops, subs. phr. (cricket).—See quot.

1890. The Hon. and Rev. E. Lyttelton, Cricket, p. 69. Slow round-hand bowling, such as is seldom seen in good matches, but is effective against boys, and is known by the contumelious designation of donkey-drops.

Donkey’s-ears, subs. (old).—An old-fashioned shirt-collar with long points.

Donna.—See Dona.

Donnish, adj. Donnism, Donnishness, subs. (University).—Arrogant; arrogance. [From Don (q.v.).]

1823. Hints for Oxford, p. 66. The Bachelors, we imagine, are the most pleasant set of beings in Oxford.… They have luckily not been so long emancipated as to have become stiff, and donnish, and disagreeable.

c. 1830. Ballad, quoted in N. and Q., 2nd S., xii., 154. Our Yankee, who’d commenced the fight and rather to be donnish meant, Sam squabbled felt (as well he might) with genu-ine astonishment.

1853. Thackeray, in Scribner’s Mag., Oct., 1887, p. 415. At Boston is very good literate company indeed; it is like Edinburgh for that,—a vast amount of toryism and donnishness everywhere.

1888. Mrs. Ward, Robt. Elsmere, vol. I., bk. I., ch. ii., p. 48. He was a curious man, a refined-looking, melancholy creature, with a face that reminded you of Wordsworth, and cold donnish ways, except to his children and the poor.

Donny.—See Dona.

Donovans, subs. (old).—Potatoes. Cf., Murphy. [Donovan, like Murphy, is a common Irish patronym.]

Don’s Week, subs. phr. (tailors’).—The week before a general holiday.

Don’t get your Back up.—See Back, and Hold your Hair on.

Don’t-name-’ems, subs. phr. (common).—Trousers. For synonyms, see Kicksies.

Don’t you wish you may get it, phr. (street).—A retort forcible.

1837. Barham, Ingoldsby Legends (ed. 1862), p. 179. A thousand marks, continued the confessor.… Sir Guy shrank from the monk’s gaze; he turned to the window, and muttered to himself something that sounded like, ‘don’t you wish you may get it?’

1841. Punch, vol. I., p. 22, col. 2. Who would own her heart thine, Though a monarch beset it, And love on unchanged, ‘don’t you wish you may get it?’

1844. Puck, p. 14. The Proctor caught him in a spree, Asked his name and college with courtesie; ‘Don’t you wish you may get it?’ and off he ran, Did my spicy swell small college man.

Doodle, subs. (old).—1. A dolt. For synonyms, see Buffle and Cabbage-head. [Thought to be a corruption of Dawdle, to trifle.]

1775. Ash, Eng. Dict., s.v.

1830. S. Warren, Diary of a Late Physician, ch. v. I know it was every word composed by that abominable old addlehead, Dr. ——, a doodle that he is!

2. (old).—The penis. For synonyms, see Creamstick.

1785. Grose, Dic. Vulg. Tongue, s.v.

Doodled, ppl. adj. (old).—Cheated, ‘done.’

1823. Moncrieff, Tom and Jerry, i., 7. No, I’m out of spirits because I have been dished and doodled out of forty pounds to-day.

Doodle-dasher, subs. (venery).—A masturbator. [From Doodle, the penis + dasher.]

Doodle-doo-man, subs. (old cock-pit).—A cockfighter or breeder. [From the childish name for poultry.]

Doodlesack, subs. (old).—The female pudendum. Also Doodle-case and Doodle-trap. For synonyms, see Monosyllable.

Doog, adj. (back-slang).—Good.

Dookie, subs. (theatrical).—A penny show or unlicensed theatre. Cf., Gaff.

Dookin and Dookering, subs. (thieves’ and gypsies’).—Fortune-telling.

1857. Snowden, Mag. Assistant, 3rd ed., p. 444.

Dookin-Cove, subs. (common).—A fortune-teller. [From dookin = fortune-telling + cove, a man.]

Door-nail. Dead as a door-nail.—See Dead.

Doorsman, subs. (common).—See Barker and Clicker.

Doorstep, subs. (common).—A thick slice of bread and butter. Fr., une fondante.

1885. Miss Tennant, in Eng. Ill. Mag., June, p. 604. Doorsteps, I found, were thick slices of bread spread with jam.

1890. Spectator, 3 May, Rev. of vol. I., ‘Slang and its Analogues.’… The extraordinary ‘bouncer’ that a very common request at Lockhart’s coffee-houses in London is for ‘a doorstep and a sea-rover,’ i.e., for a halfpenny slice of bread and butter and a herring, &c.

Dooteroomus or Doot, subs. (American).—Money. For synonyms, see Actual and Gilt.

1871. De Vere, Americanisms, s.v.

Dope, verb (American).—To drug with tobacco. Also doping = the practice.

Dopey, subs. (old).—1. A beggar’s trull.

1785. Grose, Dict. Vulg. Tongue, s.v.

2. (old).—The podex.

Dor, subs. (Old Westminster School).—1. See quot.

1715. J. Kersey, English Dictionary. Sub voce, a term used at Westminster School for leave to sleep awhile.

2. (old).—An affront.

1600. Jonson, Cynthia’s Revels.

Doras, subs. (Stock Exchange).—South-Eastern Railway Deferred Ordinary Stock, sometimes applied to the ‘A’ Stock.

Dorbie, subs. (Scots Masonic).—An initiate.

The Dorbies’ knock, subs. phr.—A peculiar rap given by masons as a signal amongst themselves. It may be represented by the time of the following notes:

Dorcas, subs. (colloquial).—A sempstress; especially one employing herself for charitable purposes.

Dorse.—See Doss.

Dose, subs. (thieves’).—1. A sentence of imprisonment; specifically three months’ hard labour.

English Synonyms.—Spell, time, drag, three moon, length, stretch, seven-pennorth, sixer, twelver, lagging.

French Synonym.—Une marque.

1877. Five Years’ Penal Servitude, ch. iii., p. 22. ‘What’s yer dose?’ looking on to my badge; ‘five, oh, you can do that little lot on yer ’ed easy.’

2. (thieves’).—A burglary.

1859. Matsell, Vocabulum, or Rogue’s Lexicon, s.v.

3. (pugilistic).—A beating.

1819. Moore, Tom Crib’s Memorial to Congress p. 17. Sandy tipp’d him a dose of that kind, that, when taken, It isn’t the stuff, but the patient that’s shaken.

4. (colloquial).—As much liquor as one can hold.

To have a dose of the balmy, verbal phr. (common).—To ‘do a sleep.’—See Balmy and Doss.

To take a grown man’s dose, verb. phr. (common).—To take a very large quantity of liquor.

Doss or Dorse, subs. (vagrants’).—A bed, or lodging; also a sleep, or lib (q.v.). [Origin uncertain.] For synonyms, see Kip and Balmy.

1789. Geo. Parker, Life’s Painter, p. 165. Dorsed. The place where a person sleeps, or a bed. ‘I dorsed there last darkey.’

1858. Mayhew, Paved with Gold, p. 118. Into this branch curtained retreat, the lads crept on all fours, one after another, to enjoy their doss, as, in their slang, they called sleep.

1883. Daily News, 3 April, p. 3, col. 5. He replied that he had only come there to have a doss (sleep).

1889. Pall Mall Gazette, 9 Sep., p. 3, col. 2. If you want a doss, a doss is provided. A wooden framework, about as wide as the widest part of a coffin, and a wooden pillow and a blanket of leather.

Verb (vagrants’).—To sleep. For synonyms, see Balmy and infra. Also Dorse.

English Synonyms.—To go to the arms of Murphy (q.v.); to have forty winks; to go to Bedfordshire; to take a little (or do a dose) of the balmy; to chuck (or do) a doss; to snooze; to go to by-by; to read the paper; to shut one’s eyes to think; to retire to the land of Nod.

French Synonyms.—Battre la couverte (military); se foutre un coup de traversin (= to have a little turn up with the bolster); se bâcher, pagnotter or percher (to roost); se mettre dans la bâche; se bourser (popular); éteindre son gaz (popular: to put out one’s light; = also to die); entrer aux quinze-vingts (Les Quinze-vingts = a government hospital for the blind); dormir en chien de fusil (i.e., to sleep sitting, the head between the knees); dormir en gendarme (popular: ‘to sleep with one eye round the corner’); fermer les châssis (to put up shutters or ‘peepers’); se coller dans le pieu (popular).

Spanish Synonyms.—Acostarse con las gallinas (= to go to bed by cock-light); encamarse; tomarle á uno el sueño; tumbar (literally, to tumble down).

1785. Grose, Dict. Vulg. Tongue, s.v. To dorse with a woman signifies to sleep with her.

1846. Punch, vol. XI., p. 165. Then silent flowed the tears of those maidens as perforce, Each saw her favourite champion sent, as Bell’s Life says, dorse.

1850. Lloyd’s Weekly, 3 Feb., ‘Low Lodging House of London.’ One said, Mate, how long have you been knocking about; where did you doss? I didn’t know what they meant, and when they’d told me, they meant, where did I sleep?

Dosser, subs. (vagrants’).—One who frequents a doss house (q.v.).

’Appy-dossers, subs. (vagrants’).—Houseless vagrants who creep in, sleep on stairs, in passages, and in empty cellars.

1880. G. R. Sims, How the Poor Live, p. 43. A ’appy dosser can make himself comfortable anywhere. I heard of one who used to crawl into the dust-bin, and pull the lid down.

1883. Referee, 15 July, p. 7, col. 2. The Lazaruses of to-day don’t lie exactly at Dives’s front door—the police are too active to allow such happy dossing as that.

The dosser, subs.—The father of a family.

Doss-house or Dossing-crib or Ken, subs. (vagrants’).—A common lodging-house. [From doss, to sleep + crib, or ken, a place of abode.] Fr., un bastengue and un garno. English variants: Libken, two-penny-rope, padding-ken, and kidden (all of which see). Doss-money = the price of a night’s lodging.

1838. Comic Almanack, April. The hulks is now my bowsing-crib, the hold my dossing-ken.

1851–61. H. Mayhew, London Lab. and Lon. Poor, vol. I., p. 150. When their funds are insufficient to defray the charge of a bed, or a part of one, at a country dossing-crib (his lodging-house).

1885. Daily Telegraph, 22 August, p. 2. col. 1. Her’s is no common dossing-crib, with a squalid kitchen, common to all comers.

1889. Globe, 29 Aug., p. 2, col. 2. Various other smart people who are at present residing in the doss-houses of London.

1890. Speaker, 22 Feb., p. 211, col. 1. Equally bad doss-houses exist in Notting Hill and near Drury Lane.

Dossy, adj. (common).—Elegant, ‘spiff’ (q.v.).

Dot, subs. (old).—A ribbon. Dot-drag = a watch ribbon.

1821. D. Haggart, Life, Glossary, p. 171, s.v.

Dot-and-Carry-, or Go-one, subs. phr. (common).—1. Properly, a man with a wooden leg; by implication, a hopping-giles or limping jesus (q.v.). Fr., un (or une) banban. Cf., verbal sense.

1785. Grose, Dict. Vulg. Tongue, s.v.

1822. Scott, The Fortunes of Nigel, ch. v. That was his father.… You old dotard. Dot-and-carry-one that you are.

1837. Barham, Ingoldsby Legends (Lay of S. Nicholas). How he rose with the sun, limping dot and go one.

1841. Leman Rede, Sixteen-String Jack, Act i., Sc. 4. Kit. Of all the rummy chaps I ever did see, that dot-and-carry-one-of-old poetry is the queerest; he’s as green as a babby, and as deep as a wooden spoon.

2. (old).—A writing-master or teacher of arithmetic. [Grose, 1785.]

Verb (old).—To ‘hirple’; especially applied to a person with one leg shorter than the other, or, ‘with an uneven keel.’

Do tell! intj. (American).—A useful interjection, for listeners who feel that some remark is expected; equivalent to the English Really? and Indeed? A similar phrase in the South is the old English, You don’t say so? which a Yankee will vary by, I want to know! Do tell is also used with inexperienced Munchausens who by its means may often be lured to repeat themselves.

1824. R. B. Peake, Americans Abroad, Act I., Sc. ii. Mrs. L. But when they order nothing at all— Dou: What then, du pray tell?

1854. N. and Q., 1 S., x., p. 84, R. Does Jeremiur behave well now? S. No, he’s very ugly. He tried to burn the barn. R. do tell!

1871. De Vere, Americanisms, p. 598 s.v.

Dots, subs. (American journalist).—1. Items of news.

2. (popular).—Money. For synonyms, see Actual and Gilt.

Dotter, subs. (common).—A reporter; penny-a-liner. Cf., Dots, sense 1.

Dottle, subs. (common).—The same as Dodder (q.v.).

1885. John Coleman, in Longm. Mag., VII., 69. During the performance of ‘It’s Never Too Late to Mend,’ some gentleman of the proletariat, in knocking out the burning dottle of his pipe, succeeded in setting the gallery on fire.

Dotty, adj. and adv. (common).—1. Feeble; dizzy; idiotic; e.g., dotty in the crumpet = weak in the head; dotty in the pins = unsteady on the legs. [Totty is given in Cole’s Eng. Dict. (1724) = dizzy, but cf., dotish and dotage.] For synonyms, see Apartments, Balmy, and Cf., Cabbage-head.

1870. Sportsman, 9 April. Although he begins to go a little stiff in his limbs and dotty on his feet he enjoys good health.

1884. Daily Telegraph, 9 April, p. 2, col. 6. His bad leg grows worse … and, as usual, he [a race-horse] pulled up in a dotty condition.

1889. Ally Sloper’s Half Holiday, 3 Aug., p. 242, col. 3. As poor Doody on his knees had dropt In front of lovely Tottie, And the fatal question just had pop’t. He really look’d quite dotty.

Subs. (common).—The fancy man of prostitutes of the lowest type.

Doubite, subs. (old).—A street.

1859. Matsell, Vocabulum, or Rogue’s Lexicon, s.v.

Double, subs. (colloquial).—1. A trick.

2. (theatrical).—An actor playing two parts in the same piece; used also as a verb.

1825. Egan, Life of an Actor, ‘The Country Manager.’ I make no reserve for myself, like all other managers; indeed, I am to double any character, and only anxious to make the most of every little bit.

3. (thieves’).—See quot.

1879. J. W. Horsley, in Macm. Mag., xl., 501. I piped a slavey (servant) come out of a chat (house), so when she had got a little way up the double (turning) I pratted (went) in the house.

4. (printers’).—Repetition of a word or sentence.

[Double, adj. and adv., is also used as an intensitive in many obscene or offensive connotations: e.g., double-arsed = large in the posteriors; double-duggs (and double-dugged or diddied) = heavy breasted; double-guts (and double-gutted) = excessively corpulent; double-cunted = stretched beyond service; double-hocked = abnormally thick ankled; double-shung = extravagantly large in the genitals; double-mouthed = mouth-almighty (q.v.); and so forth.]

To put the double on, verb. phr. (colloquial).—To circumvent.

To tip or give the double, verb. phr. (common).—To run or slip away openly or unperceived; to double as a hare; formerly to escape one’s creditors. Also to tip one the Dublin packet. For synonyms, see Amputate and Skedaddle.

1781. G. Parker, View of Society, I., 174, s.v.

1860. The Druid, ‘Post and Paddock.’ Alas! my innocent rural police, Your fondest hopes were a bubble; Your attempts to prevent a breach of the peace, Your race o’er the Derbyshire stubble; You must freely own that you felt like geese, When Sam Rogers gave you the double.

1870. Daily News, 26 May. ‘The Metropolitan Police.’ The policeman must do his best to ‘keep square’ with the sergeant who looks after him and his beats, who can be down upon him at any moment and double upon him three or four times a-night.

1884. Hawley Smart, Post to Finish, ch. i. Old Gregson would never put the double upon us. No, it’s right enough, you may depend upon it.

Double-back, verb. phr. (colloquial).—To go back upon oneself; an action; an opinion.

Double-barrel, subs. (popular).—A field or opera glass.

1890. H. D. Traill, Saturday Songs, p. 61. Intently as the masher plies O’er all the stage his double-barrel That Eightyer mute had fixed his eyes Upon his honoured guest’s apparel.

Double-barrelled, adj. (venery).—Said of a harlot working both before and behind.

Double-bottomed, adj. (colloquial).—Insincere; saying one thing and meaning another.

Double-breasted feet, subs. phr. (common).—Club feet. Also Double Breasters.

Double-cross or Double-double, subs. (sporting).—Winning or doing one’s best to win after engaging to lose or ‘mike’; (q.v.).

1887. Referee, 21 Aug., 1, 3. When the pair raced before, Teemer declared, and Hanlan did not deny, that a double cross was brought off. Teemer promised to sell the match, and finished by selling those who calculated on his losing.

Double-distilled, adj. (colloquial).—Superlative: e.g., ‘a double-distilled whopper’ = a tremendous lie.

Double-dutch, adj. (colloquial).—Unintelligible speech; jargon; gibberish. ‘It was all Double-dutch to me’ = I didn’t understand a word of it.

Double-event, subs. (sporting).—1. Backing a horse for two races.

1883. Grenville Murray, People I Have Met, p. 155. His lordship, who had won largely on a double event.

2. (venery).—Gonorrhœa and syphilis at once. Said also of simultaneous defloration and impregnation.

Double-finn, subs. (common).—A £10 note.—[See Finn.]

1879. J. W. Horsley, in Macm. Mag., xl., 505. Yes, there it was, fifty quid in double finns (£10 notes).