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

1825. Scott, St. Ronan’s Well, ch. vii. Well, dearest Rachel, we will not pull caps about this man.

Cape Cod Turkey, subs. phr. (American).—A salted cod fish, another name for which is marble-head turkey. Cf., Billingsgate pheasant, Yarmouth capon, and Albany beef.

1865. C. Nordhoff, 1 May (in letter). A salted cod fish is known in American ships as a cape cod turkey.

1890. New York Herald, 3 June. ‘Newfoundland Fishery Dispute.’ Factories have been established for the production of cape cod turkeys; i.e., salted cod fish.

Capella, subs. (theatrical).—A coat. [From the Italian.]

English Synonyms. Benjamin; cover-me-decently; upper benjamin (a great coat); joseph; wrap-rascal; bum-cooler or arse-hole-perisher, or shaver (a short jacket); claw-hammer, swallow-tail, steel-pen (all three = a dress coat); M.B. coat; panupetaston; rock-a-low; reliever; pygostole; ulster; monkey-jacket. See also Caster, many synonyms of which = a coat.

French Synonyms. Un cache-misère (familiar: specially applied to a coat buttoned close to the throat to conceal the absence of a shirt or the soiled state of one’s linen); un alpague (also alpaga and alpag); un elbeuf; un Berry (a fatigue jacket); une menuisière (pop.: a long coat); un ne-te-gêne-pas-dans-le-parc (a short jacket; also termed un saute-en-barque, un pet-en-l’air, and un montretout).

German Synonyms. Oberhänger (an overcoat; also a cloak). Wallnusch (Hanoverian: corruption from the Hebrew malbusch = clothes); Schwalbenschweif (a dress-coat, a ‘swallow-tail’).

Italian Synonym. Tappe (clothing in general; it also signifies ‘feathers’).

Cape-Nightingale, subs. (colonial).—A frog. Cf., Cambridgeshire nightingale.

1889. H. A. Bryden, Kloof and Karroo: or Sport, Legend, and Natural History in Cape Colony. The very smell of the water and the din of the huge frogs, cape nightingales as we call them, revived them.

Capeovi, adj. (costers’).—Sick; seedy (q.v. for synonyms). Cf., Capivi.

Caper, subs. (vagrants’).—A device, idea, performance, or occupation. Americans use it in the same sense as racket (q.v.), e.g., the ‘real estate racket’ or ‘caper.’ [From the figurative sense of caper, signifying a fantastic proceeding, freak, or prank.] Also used in the sense of ‘the go,’ ‘the fad,’ i.e., the latest fashionable fancy.

1867. London Herald, 23 March, p. 221. ‘He’ll get five years penal for this little caper,’ said the policeman.

1870. C. Hindley, Life and Adventures of a Cheap Jack, p. 220. Charley would reply … ‘I have just done such and such an amount to-day with these people,’ at the same time showing the invoice of the goods he had just purchased at the house where he got change for his fifty sovereigns. The conversation, as a rule, ended in Charley’s giving them an order too. Of course, this little caper would only ‘wash’ once.

1884. J. Greenwood, The Little Ragamuffins. ‘Are you goin’ a ‘tottin’?’ ‘No,’… ‘Then what caper are you up to?’

To cut a caper upon nothing, or to cut caper sauce, phr. (old).—To be hanged. For synonyms, see Ladder.

1708. Motteux, Rabelais. IV. xvi. Two of the honestest Gentlemen in Catchpole-land had been made to cut a caper on nothing.

1834. H. Ainsworth, Rookwood, bk. III., ch. v. And my father, as I’ve heard say, Was a merchant of capers gay, Who cut his last fling with great applause.

Caper-Juice, subs. (American).—Whiskey. [From caper, a freak or antic + juice.] For synonyms, see Drinks.

1888. Portland Transcript, 29 Feb. Say, fellers, let’s take a leetle mo’ uv the caper juice. [They drink again. Sam and the girl exchange affectionate glances.]

Caper-Merchant, subs. (old).—A dancing master. [From caper, a frolicsome leap or step, + merchant.] Also called a hop-merchant (q.v. for synonyms).

1785. Grose, Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue. [Quoted as above.]

Capital, To work capital, verbal phr. (old).—To commit an offence punishable with death.

1878. Charles Hindley, Life and Times of James Catnach. And though I don’t work capital, And do not weigh my weight, sirs, Who knows but that in time I shall.

Capivi or Capivvy (vulgar).—Balsam copaiba, a popular remedy for clap.

To cry capivvy (sporting).—To be persecuted to the death, or very near it. In Handley Cross [1843] Mr. Jorrocks promises to make the foxes cry capivvy.

Capon, subs. (popular).—Primarily, a red herring; but applied to other kinds of fish, herrings now receiving the distinctive cognomen of Yarmouth capons. The usage is a very old one, and it is notable that Glasgow Magistrate, another name for a red herring, was formerly Glasgow capon.

c. 1640. J. Smyth, Hundred of Berkeley (1885), 319. The Sole wee call our Seuverne Capon. [m.]

1690. B. E., Dict. Cant. Crew, Yarmouth capon: a Red Herring.

1719. Ramsey, Hamilton, II., iii. A Glasgow capon and a fadge ye thought a feast. [m.]

1812. W. Tennant, Anster F., iv. Each to his jaws A good Crail’s capon holds [note ‘a dried haddock’]. [m.]

Cappadochio, Caperdochy, or Caperdewsie, subs. (old).—Nares says ‘a cant term for a prison.’ [The same authority suggests that it is a corruption of Cappadocia: ‘The king of Cappadocia, says Horace, was rich in slaves, but had little money.’] For synonyms, see Cage.

1600. Heywood, I. Edw. IV. My son’s in Dybell here, in Caperdochy, i’ the gaol.

1607. w. s., Puritan, in Supp. Shaks., II., 510 (n.). How captain Idle? my old aunt’s son, my dear kinsman, in Cappadochio?

1663. Butler, Hudibras, I., ii., 832. I here engage myself to loose ye, and free your heels from caperdewsie.

Capper, subs. (American thieves’).—1. A confederate; at cards one who makes false bids in order to encourage a genuine player. [See Cap, verb, sense 1.]

1871. De Vere, Americanisms, p. 319. In the West a striker is not only a shoulder-hitter, as might be suspected, but a runner for gambling establishments, who must be as ready to strike down a complaining victim as to ensnare an unsuspecting stranger.… Cappers they are called, when the game is the famous Three-Card Monte.

1881. New York Slang Dictionary. Gamblers are called knights of the green cloth, and their lieutenants, who are sent out after greenhorns, are called decoys, cappers, and steerers.

2. (auctioneers’).—A dummy bidder whose function is either to start the bidding or to run up the price of articles for sale.

Capper-Clawing.—See Clapper-clawing.

Captain, subs. (general).—1. A familiar and jesting form of address. An equivalent of ‘governor,’ ‘boss,’ etc. Very common in U.S.A., where also it signifies the conductor or guard of a train—an analogy being drawn between the phraseology of rail and water traffic. (see quot. 1862).

1598. Shakspeare, King Henry IV., pt. 2, Act ii., Sc. 4. Doll Tearsheet. A captain! God’s light, these villains will make the word as odious as the word ‘occupy.’

1862. Russell, Diary, North and S., I., xiii., 139. All the people who addressed me by name prefixed ‘Major’ or ‘Colonel.’ ‘Captain’ is very low.… The conductor who took our tickets was called ‘Captain.’ [m.]

2. (old).—A gaming or bawdy house bully. Cf., Fielding’s Captain Bilkum in Covent Garden Tragedy. Fr. un major de table d’hôte.

1731. Daily Journal, Jan. 9. ‘List of the officers established in the most notorious gaming-houses.’ 12th. A Captain, who is to fight any gentleman who is peevish for losing his money.

1748. T. Dyche, Dictionary (5 ed.). Captain (s.) … and in the Cant Phrase, a captain is a bully, who is to quarrel or fight with peevish gamesters, who are testy or quarrelsome at the loss of their money; and sometimes it signifies money itself, as, ‘the captain is not at home,’ that is, there is no money in my pocket.

[Captain is also a fancy title for a highwayman in a good way of business; Fletcher uses the term copper-captain, as also does Washington Irving, for one who has no right to the title, and, in modern athletics, we have the captain of a club or crew, with the corresponding verb to captain.]

3. (old).—Money.—See preceding quot. [1748].

4. (knackers’).—A glandered (horse).

Captain Armstrong. To come Captain Armstrong, phr. (turf)—To ‘pull’ a horse and thus prevent him from winning. Captain Armstrong is often used for a dishonest jockey. [A play upon words, i.e., ‘to pull with a strong arm.’]

1864. Sporting Life, 5 Nov. (Leader). Captain Armstrong is again abroad, muscular and powerful, riding his favourite hobby in the steeple-chase field, preparing thus early in the season for pulling, stopping, and putting the strings on.

Captain Copperthorn’s Crew. subs. phr. (old).—All officers Said of a company where everyone wants to be first.

Captain Cork, subs. phr. (military).—A nickname for a man who is slow in passing the bottle.

Captain Crank, subs. phr. (old).—The chief of a gang of highwaymen.

Captain Grand, subs. phr. (old).—A haughty, blustering fellow. For synonyms, see Furioso.

Captain Hackum, subs. phr. (old).—A hectoring bully.—Grose.

Captain Lieutenant, subs. phr. (old).—Meat neither young enough for veal, nor old enough for beef. [The simile is drawn from the brevet officer who, while ranking as captain, receives lieutenant’s pay.]—Grose.

Captain Queernabs, subs. phr. (old).—A shabby or ill-dressed man. For synonyms, see Guy.

Captain Quiz, subs. phr. (old).—A mocker.

Captain Sharp, subs. phr. (old).—A cheating bully, or one in a set of gamblers, whose office it is to bully the ‘pigeon,’ who refuses to pay.—Grose. Cf., Captain, sense 2.

Captain Tom, subs. phr. (old).—The head or leader of a mob; also the mob itself.—Grose.

Caravan, subs. (old).—1. A dupe; gull; a subject of plunder.—See Bubble.

1676. Etherege, Man of Mode, III., iii., in wks. (1704), 233. What spruce prig is that? A caravan, lately come from Paris.

1688. Shadwell, Sq. of Alsatia. [In list of cant words prefixed to.] Caravan: a bubble, the cheated.

1889. G. L. Apperson, in Gentleman’s Magazine (‘Seventeenth Century Colloquialisms’), p. 598. Towards the end of the century a person easily gulled, or ‘bubbled’ was known as a caravan, but earlier the term ‘rook’ which is now restricted to a cheat or sharper, appears to have been applied to the person cheated.

2. (old).—A large sum of money.

1690. B. E., Dict. Cant. Crew. Caravan: a good round sum of money about a man, and him that is cheated of it.

3. (pugilistic).—A railway train, especially a train expressly chartered to convey people to a prize fight. [Early in the present century caravan, now shortened to ‘van,’ was applied to a third class covered railway carriage; now a pleasure party is so described; also a gypsy’s cart; also the wheeled cages of a travelling menagerie.]

Caravansera, subs. (pugilistic).—A railway station. As thus: ‘The scratch must be toed at sharp five, so the caravan will start at four from the caravansera.’—Hotten. See Caravan, sense 3.

Card, subs. (common).—1. A device; expedient; or undertaking; that which is likely to attain its object, or through which success is sure. Thus we have such expressions as a ‘good card,’ a ‘strong card,’ a ‘safe card,’ a ‘likely, or a doubtful card.’ [Figurative; from card playing.] That’s a sure card sounds modern, but as Lowell has pointed out it is to be found in the old interlude of ‘Thursytes’ (1537).

1690. b. e., Dic. Cant. Crew. A sure card, a trusty Tool, or Confiding Man.

1763. Fr. Brooke, Lady J. Mandeville, in Barbauld Brit. Novelists (1820) xxvii., 23. Poor fellow! I pity him; but marriage is his only card. [m.]

1826. Scott, Woodstock, III., xiv., 358. No card seemed to turn up favourable to the royal cause.

2. A character; an odd fish; an eccentric; generally coupled with such adjectives as ‘knowing,’ ‘old,’ ‘queer,’ ‘downy,’ ‘rum,’ etc. [Apparently derived from the card-table, such expressions as a ‘sure card,’ a ‘sound card,’ being of very ancient use. Osric tells Hamlet that Laertes is the card and calendar of gentry.—(Hamlet, v., 2.)]

1835. Dickens, Sketches by Boz, 264. Mr. Thomas Potter, whose great aim it was to be considered as a knowing card.

1852. Dickens, Bleak House, ch. xx., p. 173. ‘Such an old card as this; so deep, so sly, and secret.’

1854. Whyte Melville, General Bounce, ch. ii. Frank Hardingstone was, to use their favourite word, ‘a great card’ amongst all the associates of his age and standing.

1854. Whyte Melville, General Bounce, ch. xii. A quaint boy at Eton, cool hand at Oxford, a deep card in the regiment, man or woman never yet had the best of ‘Uppy.’

1864. Dickens, Our Mutual Friend, bk. III., ch. i. ‘You’re one of the Patriarchs; you’re a shaky old card; and you can’t be in love with this Lizzie.’

3. (common).—The ‘ticket’; the ‘figure’; the correct thing. [Possibly from the k’rect card (q.v.) of racing.]

1851. Mayhew, London Labour and London Poor, II., p. 47. I’ve got 10s. often for a great coat, and higher and lower, oftener lower in course; but 10s. is about the card for a good thing.

Verb.—Also carding, subs. (Irish Nationalist). A peculiar form of torture, which consists in the application of the card, a spiked or toothed implement used in the preparation of flax and wool, to the naked shoulders, &c., and is commonly reserved for ‘unpatriotic’ girls and women.

1889. The Scots Observer. ‘They never told the ramping crowd to card a woman’s hide.’

To give one cards, phr. (American).—To give one an advantage. The English equivalent, ‘to give points,’ is derived from the billiard saloon. An analogous French phrase is faire un bœuf.

1888. Grip (Toronto), May. You know that Artie found a Chinaman out in ’Frisco who could give him cards and spades and beat him out.

On the cards, phr. (common).—Within the range of probability. [Dickens popularised the expression, which appears to mean ‘possible to turn up,’ as anything in the game when the cards are turned up. Still, it is not unlikely that the phrase originated with cartomancy, at a time when cards were frequently consulted as to the issue of enterprises.] See N. and Q., 7 s. iv., 507; v. 14, 77, 495.

1740. Smollett, Translation of Gil Blas. I showed them tricks which they did not know to be on the cards, and yet acknowledged to be better than their own.

1813. Sir R. Wilson, Diary, II., 40. It is not out of the cards that we might do more. [m.]

1849. Dickens, David Copperfield, I., p. 219. By way of going in for anything that might be on the cards, petition to the House of Commons, etc.

1868. W. Collins, Moonstone, I., p. 149. It’s quite on the cards, sir, that you have put the clue into our hands.

1874. Saturday Review, April, p. 488. When they discovered that a Restoration was not at present on the cards, they became Conservatives.

1890. H. D. Traill, A Bulgarian Appeal. ‘Saturday Songs,’ p. 43. I’ll be shot if I do, though it’s equally true That it’s quite on the cards I’ll be shot if I don’t.

To pack, stock, or put up, the cards, phr. (Western American).—To prepare cards for cheating purposes.—See Concaves, Pack, and Stock broads.

To speak by the card, phr. (general).—To speak with precision; or with the utmost accuracy. [An allusion to the card of the mariner’s compass.]

1596. Shakspeare, Hamlet, v., 1, 149. We must speak by the card, or equivocation will undo us.

1867. Yates, Forlorn Hope, i., p. 23. ‘Are you speaking by the card?’ said Count Bulow, with the slightest foreign accent.

1879. Trollope, Thackeray [in ‘English men of Letters’ series], p. 186. Henry Esmond … however, is not made to speak altogether by the card, or he would be unnatural.

Cardinal, subs. (old).—1. A red cloak worn by ladies circa 1740 and later. [From the colour and shape which suggested a cardinal’s vestment.]

1755. Connoisseur, No. 62. That fashionable cloak … which indeed is with great propriety styled the cardinal.

1755. The World, No. 127. I have made no objection to their (the ladies) wearing the cardinal, though it be a habit of popish etymology, and was, I am afraid, first invented to hide the sluttishness of French dishabille.

1881. Besant and Rice, Chap. of the Fleet, pt. 1, ch. iv. In the windows of which were hoods, cardinals, sashes, pinners, and shawls.

2. (general).—Mulled red wine.

1861. Hughes, Tom Brown at Oxford, ch. xv. He goes up, and finds the remains of the supper, Tankards full of egg-flip and cardinal, and a party playing at vingt-un.

3. in plural (street).—Shoeblacks. [In allusion to the red tunics of some London brigades. That stationed in the City is now better known as the City Reds.]

1889. T. Mackay [on ‘Shoeblacks’], in Time, Aug., p. 132. From that hour the Shoeblack Brigade has been firmly established in London … costermongers called them cardinals.

4. (American).—A lobster; from its colour when cooked. Jules Janin once made a curious blunder and called the lobster le cardinal de la mer. Cardinal hash = a lobster salad.

5. (common).—A new [1890] variety of red.

Care. Not to care or be worth a [fig, pin, rap, button, cent, straw, rush, or hang, etc.], phr. (colloquial).—Similes of indifference; to care about a matter not even so much as to the value of a fig, a pin, or a straw. Fr. s’en battre l’œil.—See Not worth a Fig.

1590. Spenser, Fairie Queene, I., ii., 12. He … cared not for God or man a point. [m.]

1633. Marmyon, Fine Compan., II., i., 68. I do not care a pin for her. [m.]

1709. Steele, Tatler, No. 50. I do not care a farthing for you. [m.]

1760. Goldsmith, Citizen of the World, xlvi. Not that I care three damns what figure I may cut.

1833. Marryat, Peter Simple, ed. 1846, vol. I., ch. iii., p. 13. You told him you did not care a fig for him.

1848–62. J. R. Lowell, Biglow Papers. ‘Don’t fire,’ sez Joe, ‘it ain’t no use, Thet Deacon Peleg’s tame wil-’goose’; Seys Isrel, ‘I don’t care a cent, I’ve sighted an’ I’ll let her went.’

1871. London Figaro, May 13, p. 4, col. 2. Coster Ballads, ‘Found Drowned.’ ‘Well, sir, to cut it short, she ’ad the chap—’Twos cruel ’ard on me—I don’t believe he cared for ’er a rap, But so it wos, yer see.’

1889. Answers, June 22, p. 49, col. 1. ‘Is it for sale?’ demanded the visitor, excitedly. ‘If it is I want it. I don’t care a snap what it costs.’

I don’t care if I do, phr. (American).—A street phrase, meaning nothing in particular. Also a form of accepting an invitation to drink: ‘Will you peg?’ ‘I don’t care if I do.’

1888. New York Tribune. Volapuk will never be popular in Kentucky. It contains no sentence to take the place of that classic phrase, I don’t care if I do.

Care-Grinder, subs. (thieves’).—More usually the vertical care-grinder.—See quot. For synonyms, see Wheel of life.

1883. Echo, Jan. 25, p. 2, col 4. The treadmill again, is more politely called … the wheel of life, or the vertical care-grinder.

Cargo, subs. (Winchester College).—A hamper from home. The word is still in use.

1870. Mansfield, School Life at Winchester College, p. 77. The boys, eager for breakfast, tumultuously rushed out from school-court … to see if Poole, the porter, had letters, or, what was even more delightful, a cargo (a hamper of game or eatables from home).

1883. Every-day Life in our Public Schools. Scholars may supplement their fare with jam, potted meats … or, better still, from the contents of cargoes, i.e., hampers from home.

Carler, subs. (New York thieves’).—A clerk. For synonyms, see Quill-driver.

Carlicues.—See Curlycues.

Carney or Carny, subs. (colloquial).—Soothing and seductive flattery; language covering a design. [The origin is unknown, though some have conjectured the word to be of Irish derivation. As a verb it first appears as a dialecticism, and is now mostly in use as a ppl. adj.—carneying (q.v.). The word, however, seems to be fast making its way into respectable usage, and is even now largely in literary use.]

Verb, tr. and intrans.—To wheedle; coax or insinuate oneself; to act in a cajoling manner.—See Carneying.

Carneying, ppl. adj. (common).—In a wheedling, coaxing, or insinuating manner. Cf., Carney.

1851–61. H. Mayhew, London Lab. and Lon. Poor, vol. II., p. 566. When I tried to turn ’em off they’d say, in a carnying way, ‘Oh, let us stay on,’ so I never took no heed of ’em.

1869. H. J. Byron, Not such a Fool as He Looks [French’s Acting ed.], p. 12. Sharp old skinflint, downy old robber as he is, he’s under Jane Mould’s thumb, and well he knows it. (In carnying voice) With many thanks, sir, for your kind attention to my case.

1871. Daily Telegraph, 15 May, ‘Critique on Mr. H. J. Byron’s Play of An English Gentleman.’ Rachel does not like Brandon’s carnying ways.

1884. R. L. Stevenson in Eng. Illustr. Mag., Feb., p. 305. The female dog, that mass of carnying affectations.

1885. Clement Scott, in Ill. Lon. News, 3 Oct., p. 339, 2. The change from the carnying, wheedling sneak to the cowardly bully, is extremely clever.

Carnish, subs. (thieves’).—Meat. [From the Italian carne, flesh, through the Lingua Franca. Carne, in French argot, signifies tough meat.]

French Synonyms. La crie, crigne, or crignolle (thieves’: Old Cant; Greek, κρίας; Fourbesque, crea, creata, creatura, criulfa; Germania, crioja); la criolle (thieves’); la niorte (thieves’); la barbaque or bidoche (popular); le choléra (popular = bad meat); le mastic (= bread or meat).

German Synonyms. Kärner (this is the same as carnish and comes from the Italian carne; Kärnerfetzer = a butcher).

Italian Synonyms. Bronco (specially applied to beef); slavigna; crea (see remarks under crie in French synonyms).

Carnish-Ken, subs. (thieves’).—A thieves’ eating house, or prog-shop. [From carnish, meat, through the Italian carne, + ken, a house or dwelling.] A French equivalent for the proprietor of such a place is un fripier, a term which also means a cook, a ‘dripping’ or old clothes’ man.

Carny.—See Carney.

Caroon, subs. (costermongers’).—A five shilling piece. [Hotten and Barrère trace it to the French couronne, Spanish and Italian corona; it is in all probability a mispronunciation of the English word ‘crown.’]

English Synonyms. Bull, or bull’s-eye; cartwheel, coach-wheel, or simply wheel; tusheroon; dollar; thick ’un (obsolete, the term being now applied to a sovereign); case; caser; decus.

The nearest French equivalent, a five franc piece, is called un roue de derrière (literally ‘a hind wheel,’ and corresponding pretty closely to the English wheel, cartwheel, and coachwheel); un bouton de guêtre; un blafard de cinq balles; une drille or dringue; une croix (the old six franc piece, in allusion to the cross inscribed on it); une chatte (a piece of six francs: very old; and formerly prostitutes’); une médaille or médaille de St. Hubert (popular); un monarque (popular); un œil de bœuf (= an ox’s eye); un noble étrangère (literary: = a distinguished stranger).

1859. G. W. Matsell, Vocabulum, or the Rogue’s Lexicon. Kersey-mere kicksies, any colour, built very slap with the artful dodge, from three caroon.

Carpet, verb (colloquial).—To reprimand. Equivalents are to ‘call over the coals,’ to ‘give a wigging’ or ‘earwigging,’ etc. The phrase sometimes runs ‘to walk the carpet.’ so also carpeting; for synonyms, see Wig.

1823. Galt, Entail, III., xxix., 278. Making … her servants walk the carpet. [m.]

1840. H. Cockton, Valentine Vox, xli. They had done nothing! Why were they carpeted?

1871. Chester Chronicle, 11 Feb. ‘Report of Affiliation Case at Hawarden Petty Sessions.’ [The plaintiff, Louisa Jackson, said] neither did Lunt, the page, say that night if her master knew of her coming home in that state she would be carpeted for it.

1877. Hawley Smart, Bound to Win, ch. xxx. There is no hurry; but, before the race, I think Mr. Luxmoore will have to carpet Sam.

To bring on the carpet. To bring up or forward. A slang rendering of mettre sur le tapis.

Carpet-Bag, subs. used attributively as adj. (American).—See Carpet-bagger for explanation of such phrases as carpet-bag rule, carpet-bag adventurers, carpet-bag government, etc.

1872. New York Herald, 22 Aug. Hundreds of millions have been taken from the pockets of the people since the beginning of the war by dishonest contractors, unjust claimants, county robbers, and city plunderers, and Carpet-bag State Governments. Ibid. The Tammany robberies, although trifling in comparison with the old revenue robberies, and the present wholesale plunder of the Carpet-bag Governments in the South, etc.

1888. Chicago Record. The head of the ticket is one of the most vulnerable men who figured in Southern politics in the carpet-bag era. No man of that period left a blacker record.

Carpet-Bagger, subs. (American political).—A political adventurer. [After the Civil War, numbers of Northerners went South. Honest or not, they were looked upon with suspicion by the Southerners, and, as they were generally Republican in politics and joined with the freedmen at the polls, the nickname carpet-bagger came to have, and still retains, a political significance. It was unjustly applied to many well-meaning men, but at the same time it fitted the horde of corrupt adventurers who infested the South, and whose only ‘property qualification’ was contained in the carpet bag with which they had arrived from the North. Originally, however, a carpet-bagger was a ‘wild-cat banker’ out West: a banker, that is, who had no local abiding place, his worldly possessions being contained in a carpet bag.] Applied to politics the term has become of general application.—Cf., Scalawag.

1868. Daily News, Sept. 18. All carpet-baggers and ‘scalawags’ are whites. The carpet-baggers are immigrants from the North who have thrown themselves into local politics, and through their influence with the negroes obtained office.

1871. New York Post, April. ‘The general drift of public sentiment is, that the carpet-baggers, scalawags, ex-slaves, ex-slaveholders, rebels reconstructed, rebels unreconstructed, and Southern loyalists should be left, for a brief period at least, to fight out their own battles, in their own way; and that if the nation is ever again to become a party to their quarrels, it shall be on no slight pretext and for no trivial purpose.’

1877. Temple Bar, May, p. 107. At the same moment a swarm of adventurers settled in the conquered states, and became governors, judges, tax-collectors, and so on. These are the carpet-baggers of history. They came with two shirts, got salaries of (on an average) four thousand dollars per annum, and made fortunes of a million in four years!

Carpet-Bag Recruit, subs. phr. (military).—A recruit of better than the ordinary standing; one with more than he stands upright in.

Carpet-Swab, subs. (common).—A carpet-bag.

1837. Barham, I.L. (Misadv. at Margate). A little gallows-looking chap—dear me! what could he mean? With a carpet-swab and mucking togs, and a hat turned up with green.

Carrier, subs. (old).—See quot., and Cf., Carrier-pigeon.

1725. New Cant. Dict. Carriers: a sett of Rogues … employ’d to look out, and watch upon the Roads, at Inns, etc., in order to carry Information to their respective Gangs, of a booty in Prospect.

Carrier-Pigeon, subs. (old).—1. A cheat—especially one who victimised lottery office keepers. Cf., Carrier.

1781. G. Parker, View of Society, II., 64 [named and described in].

1785. Grose, Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue. Carrier Pigeons; sharpers who attend the drawing of the lottery in Guildhall, and as soon as a number or two are drawn, write them on a card, and run with them to a confederate, who is waiting near at hand, ready mounted; with these numbers he rides full speed to some distant insurance office before fixed on, where there is another of the gang, commonly a decent-looking woman, who takes care to be at the office before the hour of drawing; to her he secretly gives the number, which she insures for a considerable sum, thus biting the biter.

2. (racing).—One that runs from place to place with ‘commissions’; a kind of tout.

Carrion, subs. (venery).—1. A prostitute. For synonyms, see Barrack-hack and tart.

2. (common).—The human body; formerly a corpse.

Carrion Case, subs. (common).—A shirt or chemise. [From carrion, the human body, + case, a covering.] For synonyms, see Flesh bag.

Carrion Hunter, subs. (old).—An undertaker. [Carrion was formerly general to signify a corpse]. For synonyms, see Cold cook.

1785. Grose, Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue. Carrion Hunter: an undertaker, etc.

Carrots, subs. (popular).—Red hair. Used attributively, and also as a proper name. The adjectival form is carrotty. An analogous colloquialism is Ginger-hackled, which see for synonyms.

1685. S. Wesley, Maggots, 57. The Ancients … Pure carrots call’d pure threads of beaten gold. [m.]

1690. B. E., Dict. Cant. Crew. Carrots: Red hair’d People.

1703. T. Baker, Tunbridge Walks, quoted in Ashton’s Social Life in Reign of Q. Anne, I., 129. Jenny Trapes! What that Carrot-pated Jade.

1748. Smollett, Rod. Random, ch. xiv. Not to appear before Mr. Cringer till I had parted with my carroty locks.

1848. Thackeray, Book of Snobs, ch. vii. ‘Blanche, with her radish of a nose, and her carrots of ringlets.’

1855. Newcomes, ch. xxii. ‘Tom is here with a fine carroty beard.’

1864. Mark Lemon, Jest Book, p. 205. Carrots Classically Considered. Why scorn red hair? The Greeks, we know (I note it here in charity) Had taste in beauty, and with them The graces were all Χαριται.

1882. Daily Telegraph, Oct. 6, p. 2, col. 1. The two elder of the party were a boy and a girl of unmistakably Irish parentage, and with unkempt and carrotty heads of hair.

Take a carrot! (common).—A vulgar insult; equivalent to calling one a fool, or telling one to ‘go to hell.’ The phrase was originally obscene [Cf., Et ta sœur! aime-t-elle les radis?] and applied to women only.

Carry Boodle, verbal phr. (American).—See Boodle.

Carry Coals, verbal phr. (obsolete).—To put up with insults; to endure an affront or injury.

1593. G. Harvey, Pierces Supererog., in wks. II., 32. Because Silence may seeme suspicious to many: Patience contemptible to some … a knowne forbearer of Libellers, a continuall bearer of coales.

1595. Shakspeare, Romeo and Juliet, i., 1. Gregory o’ my word, we’ll not carry coals.

1638. H. Shirley, Martyr’d Souldier, Act ii., Sc. 1. Hub. I can carry anything but Blowes, Coles, my Drink, and—the tongue of a Scould.

Carry Corn, verbal phr. (common).—To bear success well and equably. It is said of a man who breaks down under a sudden access of wealth—as successful racing men and unexpected legatees often do—or who becomes affected and intolerant, that ‘he doesn’t carry corn well.’

Carryings On, subs. phr. (colloquial).—Frolicsome or questionable proceedings; a course of conduct that attracts attention.—See Carry on.

1663. Butler, Hudibras, I., ii., 556. Is this the end to which these carryings on did tend?

1859. Sala, Gaslight and Daylight, ch. xxi. Many have heard her stern demands for rent, and her shrill denunciation of the carryings on of her tenants.

1876. M. S. Braddon, Joshua Haggard, ch., iv. ‘And what about the rest of the time when he wasn’t with you? Fine carryings on indeed for a grocer’s daughter!’

Carry-Knave, subs. (old).—A common prostitute. For synonyms, see Barrack-hack and Tart.

1630. Taylor’s Workes. And I doe wish with all my heart that the superflous number of all our hyreling hackney carry-knaves, and hurry-whores, with their makers and maintainers were there.

Carry Me Out and Bury Me Decently, phr. (general).—An exclamation or objurgation generally called forth by an incredible story, or by something displeasing to the auditor; varied by ‘let me die!’ ‘good night!’ etc., as also by ‘carry me home!’ ‘carry me upstairs!’ ‘carry me out and leave me in the gutter!’ A writer in Notes and Queries [2 S., iii., 387] states it to have been in use circa 1780. [The origin is obscure, but some derive it from the Nunc dimittis (Luke ii. 29).]

1857. Notes and Queries, 16 May, p. 387, col. 2. Carry me out and bury me decently. Do any of your correspondents recollect to have heard this phrase?

1861. Hughes, Tom Brown at Oxford, ch. xlv. And so the president comes out to see the St. Ambrose boat row? Seldom misses two nights running. Then ‘carry me out, and bury me decently’ … Don’t be afraid. I am ready for anything you like to tell me.

1864. The Reader, Nov. 12. Mr. Hotten has carry me out. Well the equivalent ‘Federal’ is ‘D’you tell?’

Carry On, verbal phr. (colloquial).—To make oneself conspicuous by a certain line of behaviour; to conduct oneself wildly or recklessly; to joke or frolic; also in a special sense applied to open flirtation on the part of both sexes.

French equivalents are canarder (based on canard = a ‘take in,’ an extravagant or absurd story); faire du jardin (popular).

1856. Whyte Melville, Kate Coventry, ch. iii. With lynx-eyes she notes how Lady Carmine’s eldest girl is carrying on with young Thriftless.

1876. Besant and Rice, Golden Butterfly, ch. xxxv. ‘She and I carried on for a whole season. People talked.’

1884. M. Twain, Huckleberry Finn, ch. xxii., 222. And all the time that clown carried on so it most killed the people.

Carry one’s real estate about one, verbal phr. (American).—To neglect the finger nails till they show a black rim; to go so unwashed as to display a considerable amount of what Palmerston called ‘matter in the wrong place.’

1877. Joseph Hatton, in Belgravia, April, p. 221. We looked at the hands of several of the gamblers, and found that they carried their real estate with them.

Carry Out One’s Bat.—See Bat.

Carry the Stick, verbal phr. (Scotch thieves’).—To rob in the manner described in quotation.—See also Tripping up.

1870. Times. 21 Sept [Marlborough Street Police Court Report.] Police Sergeant Cole said the prisoner’s plan was for the woman to go up to well-dressed elderly or drunken men, to get them into conversation, and rob them. The male prisoner would then come up, and, pretending to be a detective, make a disturbance, so as to enable the woman to escape. The practice was called in London ‘tripping up,’ and in Scotland, where it is also practised, carrying the stick.

Carsey, subs. (thieves’).—A house, den, or crib. [From the Lingua Franca casa = a house.] For synonyms, see Ken.

Cart, verb (University).—To defeat: in a match, a fight, an examination, a race, &c. We carted them home = we gave them an awful licking.

In the cart, or carted, phr. (racing).—1. An employee is said to put an owner in the cart when, by some trick or fraud, his horse is prevented from winning. Also in the box.

1889. Evening Standard, 25 June. [Sir Chas. Russell’s speech in Durham-Chetwynd case.] It was alleged that in two races run by Fullerton in 1887, Sir George Chetwynd—to use a vulgarism—had been put in the cart by his Jockey.

2. (common).—‘In the know’; ‘in the hunt.’

1883. Referee, 1 April, p. 1, col. 1. No one, not even the previously most authoritative—and most in the cart—seems at all astonished at the success of Knight of Burghley.

3. (gaming).—The lowest scorer at any point is said to be in the cart; sometimes on the tailboard.

To walk the cart, phr. (racing).—To walk over the course.

To cart off or out, or away, phr. (colloquial).—To remove.

Cart-Grease, subs. (common).—Butter; in the first instance bad butter.

English Synonyms. Cow-grease; Thames mud; cow-oil; spread; scrape; smear; ointment; sluter.

French Synonym. Le fondant.

German Synonyms. Schmierling (Schmier is properly ‘grease,’ especially ‘wheel-grease,’ also ‘ointment.’ The term is, therefore, practically identical with cart-grease); Schmunk (used by knackers. Schmünkig signifies ‘fat’ of any kind, but especially that of horses).

Carts, subs. (common).—A pair of shoes. For synonyms, see Trotter-cases.

Cart-Wheel, subs. (popular)—1. A five-shilling piece. A variant is coach-wheel, and both forms are often contracted into wheel. For synonyms, see Caroon.

1871. London Figaro, 15 Feb. ‘Mornings at Mutton’s.’ The coin of the realm in question was the largest that we have known in the present century—so large, that, in the slang language of thieves and costermongers, it is called a cart-wheel, ‘coach-wheel’ and ‘thick-’un.’ It was, in fact, a crown-piece.

2. (popular).—A broad hint.

3. (popular).—A continuous series of somersaults in which the hands and feet alternately touch the ground, the appearance produced being similar to the spokes of a cart wheel in motion. Otherwise called a Catharine wheel.

1851. Mayhew, London Labour and London Poor, II., p. 562. We either do the cat’unwheel (Sic) or else we keep before the gentleman and lady, turning head-over-heels. Ib., p. 564: at night I go along with the others tumbling. I does the cat’enwheel. (Sic.)

1864. Sala, in Daily Telegraph, Dec. 23. I saw a little … blackguard boy turning cartwheels in front of the Clifton House.

Carver and Gilder, subs. phr. (common).—A match maker. Cf., Fingersmith, a midwife.

Casa.—See Case.

Cascade, subs. (Australian).—1. In Tasmania beer is called cascade because manufactured from ‘cascade’ water. Cf., Artesian. For synonyms, see Swipes and Drinks.

2. (theatrical).—Explained by quotation. Another name for the same effect is hang out.

1851. Mayhew, Lon. Lab. and Lon. Poor, III., p. 156. The principal distinction between pantomimes and ballets is that there are more cascades, and trips, and valleys in pantomimes, and none in ballets. A trip is a dance between Harlequin and the Columbine, and cascades and valleys are trundling and gymnastic performances, such as tumbling across the stage on wheels, and catching hold of hands and twirling round.

Verb (old).—To vomit. For synonyms, see Accounts.

1771. Smollet, Humphry Clinker, III., Oct. 4, iii. She cascaded in his urn.

1836. M. Scott, Tom Cringle’s Log, ch. ii. I daresay five hundred rank and file, at the fewest, were all cascading at one and the same moment.

Case, subs. (colloquial).—1. A certainty in fact, an accentuated or abnormal instance in character. When two persons fall in love, or are engaged to marry, it is said to be a case with them. An eccentric person is likewise a case. [As a designation for persons, case probably had its origin in Journalese and Police-court English; e.g., a case of larceny.]

1848. Bartlett, Dictionary of Americanisms. Case: a character, a queer one; as ‘That Sol Haddock is a case.’ ‘What a hard case he is,’ meaning a reckless scapegrace, mauvais sujet.

1859. H. Kingsley, Geoffrey Hamlyn, ch. xlii. Tossed from workhouse to prison, from prison to hulk—every man’s hand against him—an Arab of society. As hopeless a case, my lord judge, as you ever had to deal with.

1868. O. W. Holmes, Guardian Angel, ch. iv., p. 35 (Rose Lib.). ‘It was a devilish hard case,’ he said, ‘that old Malachi had left his money as he did.’

1872. Miss Braddon, To the Bitter End, ch. xlviii. They have only been engaged three weeks; but from the day we first met Lord Stanmore at a hunting breakfast at Stoneleigh, the business was settled. It was a case, as you fast young men say.

1880. Hawley Smart, Social Sinners, ch. xxiv. He saw people began to make way for him when she was concerned; in short, that they looked upon it as a case.

1887. Cassell’s Mag., Dec, p. 26. It isn’t Mr. and Mrs. Cardewe he comes to see! It’s Miss Amy.… They have met before; and in my opinion it’s a case!

2. (thieves’)—A bad five-shilling piece; half a case, a bad half-crown. Cf., caser. In America a dollar, good or bad. [There are two sources, either of which may have contributed this slang term. (1.) Caser, the Hebrew word for a crown; (2.) silver coin is frequently counterfeited by coating or casing pewter or iron imitations with silver.—Hotten.]

1857. Snowden, Mag. Assistant, 3 ed., p. 444. Bad five shillings—case.

3. (old).—A house, respectable or otherwise. Subsequently restricted to a brothel, and, by derivation, a ‘water-closet.’ [Presumably from the Italian casa, a house, through the Lingua Franca. It is found in various forms, casa, case, caser, carser, carsey, the last a phonetic rendering of the usual pronunciation of casa.] For synonyms, see Ken.

1678. Marvell, wks. (1875) III., 497. A net … That Charles himself might chase To Caresbrook’s narrow case. [m.]

1690. b. e., Dict. Cant. Crew. Case: a House, Shop, or Ware-house.

1785. Grose, Dict. of Vul. Tongue. Case: a house, perhaps from the Italian casa. In the canting lingo it meant store or warehouse, as well as dwelling house. Tout that case: mark or observe that house. It is all bob, now let’s dub the gigg of the case: now the coast is clear, let us break open the door of the house.

1883. Echo, Jan. 25, p. 2, col. 3. From the Italian we get the thieves’ slang term casa for house.

4. (Westminster School).—The discussion by Seniors and Upper Election preceding a tanning (q.v.), and the tanning itself.

A case of Crabs, subs. phr. (colloquial).—A failure.

A case of Pickles, subs. phr. (colloquial).—An incident; a bad break-down; a break up.

A case of Stump, subs. phr. (colloquial).—Said of one absolutely guiltless of the possession of coin.

Caseine, subs. (rare).—The correct thing. A variant of the cheese (q.v.) Cf., Cassan.

1856. C. Kingsley, Letter, May. Horn minnow looks like a gudgeon, which is the pure caseine.

Caser, subs. (thieves’).—Five shillings.—See Case and Caroon.

1879. J. W. Horsley, in Macm. Mag., XL., 501. One morning I found I did not have more than a caser (5s.).

Case-Vrow, subs. (old).—A prostitute in residence in a particular brothel; now called a dress-lodger (q.v.). [From case (q.v.), a house, + Dutch vrouw, a woman.]

Casey, subs. (thieves’).—Cheese.—See Cassan.

Cash.—See Cassan.

Equal to cash.—Of unquestionable merit. In allusion to the fact that paper currency is largely a medium of exchange.

1835. Haliburton, Clockmaker, 1 S., chap. xvi. Though I say it, that shouldn’t say it, they [the U.S. Americans] fairly take the shine off creation—they are actilly equal to cash.

To cash a Prescription, subs. phr. (colloquial).—To get a prescription made up.

1890. The Scots Observer, p. 399, col. 2. The Socialist, with an ear for Ibsen, and an eye for Wagner, and a prescription in his pocket that only needs to be cashed for the world to forget its past, and belie its present, and bedevil its future.

Cashels, subs. (Stock Exchange).—Great Southern and Western of Ireland Railway Stock. [Said to be derived from the fact that the line originally had no station at Cashel.]

Cash or Pass in One’s Checks. verbal phr. (American). To die. Derived from the game of poker, where counters or checks, purchased at certain fixed rates, are equivalent to coin. The euphemism is drawn from the analogy between settling one’s earthly accounts, and paying in dues at the end of the game.

18(?). John Hay, Jim Bludsoe of the Prairie Belle. ‘How Jimmy Bludsoe pass’d in his checks The night of the Prairie Belle.’

1870. Bret Harte, Outcasts Poker Flat. Beneath this tree lies the body of J. O. who … handed in his checks on the 7th December, 1850.

1872. S. L. Clemens (‘Mark Twain’), Roughing It, p. 332. ‘You see,’ said the miner, ‘one of the boys has passed in his checks, and we want to give him a good send off.’

1882. Dodge, Plains of the Great West. As close a shave as I ever made to passing in my checks was from a buffalo stampede.

1888. New York Sun. Well, I owned the mule for several years after that, and when he finally passed in his checks I gave him as decent a burial as any pioneer ever got.

Cash-Up, verb (colloquial).—To liquidate a debt by the transfer of money, i.e., cash, or its equivalent. For synonyms, see Shell out.

1837. Barham, I. L. (M. of Venice). And Antonio grew In a deuce of a stew, For he could not cash up, spite of all he could do.

1843. Dickens, Martin Chuzzlewit, I., p. 213. ‘When my father’s executors cash up’ he used strange expressions now and then, but that was his way.—‘Cash up’s a very good expression’ observed Martin, ‘when other people don’t apply it to you.’

1861. Sala, Seven Sons of Mammon, II., p. 197. ‘But they may cash up.’ ‘Cash up! They’ll never cash up a farthing piece.’

Cask, subs. (popular).—A brougham; otherwise a pill-box (q.v.). A French equivalent is une bagniole.

Cass.—See Cassan.

Cassan, subs. (thieves’).—Old Cant for cheese. Also cass, casson, cassam, cassom, and casey. The oldest form is cassan, which is found in Harman’s Caveat or Warening for Common Cursetors, the first known dictionary of English cant [1567]. Cass, chiefly American thieves, is a latter corruption probably influenced by the Dutch kaas, or the M. Dutch kâse, Lat. caseus. [For suggested derivation, which corresponds to that given in the N.E.D., see second quot.]

English Synonyms. Caz; sweaty-toe; choke-dog.

French Synonyms. Le renâché (thieves’ term); une côtelette de menuisier, de perruquier, or de vâche (popular terms for a portion of Brie; literally a cabinet-maker’s, hair-dresser’s, or cow-cutlet); le dûreme (thieves’); une boussole de réfroidi or de singe (popular = a Dutch Cheese.)

German Synonyms. Fendrich (Old Cant appearing in the Liber Vagatorum [1529] as Wenderich or Wendrich; subsequently modified into Fähndrich. The derivation is referable, perhaps, to an old practice, prevalent in North Germany, of using as a board sign [Fahne, a flag, standard, banner] with three cheeses pictured); Gewine (from the Hebrew gewino); Karnet or Kornet; Kawine (a variant of Gewine); Stinkefix (from the O.H.G. Stinchan, to smell, to stink; this is especially applied to old cheese).

Italian Synonyms. Tenerosa (cream cheese); mascherpo; stifello (literally a kind of flute, in allusion to the holes in some kinds of cheese, notably Gruyère).

Spanish Synonym. Formage (evidently a corruption of the French fromage).

1567. Harman, Caveat (1869), p. 86. She hath a Cacking chete, a grunting chete, ruff Pecke, cassan, and popplarr of yarum.

1609. Dekker, Lanthorne and Candlelight, in wks. (Grosart) III., 195. Cassan is cheese, and is a worde barbarously coynd out of the substantive caseus, which also signifies a cheese.

1656. Broome, Jovial Crew, Act ii. Here’s ruffpeck and cassan, and all of the best, And scraps of the dainties of gentry cofe’s feast.

1714. Memoirs of John Hall (4 ed.), p. 11. Casum: cheese.

1881. New York Slang Dictionary. Cass: cheese.

Castell, verb (old).—To see or look. [It is uncertain as to whether this word is slang or not. It is not included in the N.E.D.] For synonyms, see Pipe.

1610. Rowlands, Martin Mark-all, p. 37 (H. Club’s Repr., 1874). To Castell: to see or looke.

Caster, subs. (old).—1. A cloak. [Cf., Castor, a hat; there seems to be no historical improbability for a similar derivation].

Another Old Cant term for a cloak was calle (q.v.), and the French have un bleu, whilst the Italian Fourbesque has toppo and manto, the latter probably meaning ‘a long black veil’; Calaõ. tralha. The Germania renders cloak by noche (literally ‘night,’ and signifying also in a canting sense ‘sadness’ and ‘sentence of death’); nube (literally a ‘cloud’); pelosa (specially applied to a cloak worn in the morning; literally ‘shaggy’ or ‘hairy’); bellosa or vellosa (a sailor’s cloak).

1567. Harman, Caveat [E. E. Text Soc., 1869], p. 77. He walketh in softly a nights, when they be at their rest, and plucketh of as many garmentes as be ought worth that he may come by, … and maketh porte sale at some conuenient place of theirs, that some be soone ready in the morning, for want of their Casters and Togemans.

1610. Rowlands, Martin Mark-all, p. 37 (H. Club’s Repr., 1874). Caster: a Clocke.

1785. Grose, Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue [s.v.].

1811. Lexicon Balatronicum [s.v.].

2. (colloquial).—A cast-off or rejected person or thing. [From cast, thrown, + er.]

1859. Lang, Wand. India, p. 144. The horse which drew the buggy had been a caster … a horse considered no longer fit for the cavalry or horse artillery, and sold by public auction, after being branded with the letter R on the near shoulder. [m.]

Castieu’s Hotel, subs. phr. (Australian thieves’).—The Melbourne gaol, so called from Mr. J. B. Castieu. For list of nicknames of this description, see Cage.

18(?). Australian Printers Keepsake. He caught a month, and had to white it out at diamond-cracking in Castieu’s Hotel.

Castle-Rag, subs. (rhyming slang).—A flag or fourpenny piece. For synonyms, see Joey.

Cast-Offs, subs. (nautical).—1. Landsmen’s clothes. For synonyms, see Togs.

2. In singular (general).—A discarded mistress.

Castor, subs. (old).—A hat. [From Latin castor, a beaver, hats having formerly been made of beaver’s fur.] For synonyms, see Golgotha.

1640. Entick, London, II., 175. Beaver hats, Demi-casters. [m.]

1754. B. Martin, Eng. Dict., 2 ed. Castor: lat., 1, a beaver, a beast like an otter. 2, a fine hat made of its fur.

1821. W. T. Moncrieff, Tom and Jerry, Act ii., Sc. 5. Jerry. (Walks about, and, by mistake, takes Logic’s hat, which he puts on.) Damn the cards! Log. (Following Jerry, and rescuing castor.) Don’t nibble the felt, Jerry!

1857. O. W. Holmes, Autocrat of the Breakfast Table, ch. viii. The last effort of decayed fortune is expended in smoothing its dilapidated castor. The hat is the ultimum morieus of ‘respectability.’

1860. Morning Post, Jan. 30. Such as tin for money, castor for hat, brick for good fellow, gemman for gentleman.

Cast Sheep’s Eyes, verbal phr. (common).—To ogle; to leer or ‘make eyes’ at; formerly to look modestly and with diffidence, but always with longing or affection. [Probably in allusion to the quiet, gentle gaze of sheep.] The phrase has been varied by to cast lamb’s eyes. Fr. ginginer; lancer son prospectus, and un oeil en tirelire = an eye full of amorous expression.

1590. Greene, Francesco’s Fortunes, in wks. VIII., 191. That casting a sheepe’s eye at hir, away he goes; and euer since he lies by himselfe and pines away.

1614. Jonson, Bartholomew Fair, V., iii. Who chances to come by but fair Nero in a sculler; And seeing Leander’s naked leg and goodly calf, Cast at him from the boat a sheep’s eye an’ a half.

1748. Smollett, Rod. Random, ch. xvi. There was a young lady in the room, and she threw … many sheep’s eyes at a certain person whom I shall not name.

1864. G. A. Lawrence, Guy Livingstone, ch. vii. He would stand for some time casting lamb’s-eyes at the object of his affections—to the amorous audacity of the full-grown sheep he never soared.

1881. Hawley Smart, Gt. Tontine, ch. xi. It isn’t to be expected a well-bred lass like this is going to knock under the minute a young fellow makes sheep’s-eyes at her.

Cast Up Accounts.—See Accounts, to which may be added the following.

French Synonyms. Jeter du cœur—or son lest—sur carreau (general: literally to ‘throw hearts or diamonds’ or ‘throw one’s heart,’ here meaning the stomach, ‘on the floor’); compter ses chemises (popular); débecqueter (popular); deborder (popular); lâcher son goujon (general); lâcher une fusée (popular).

1607. Dekker, Westward Ho, Act v., Sc. 1. Mist. Wafer. I would not have ’em cast up their accounts here, for more than they mean to be drunk this twelve-month.

1808. R. Anderson, Cumbrld. Ball, 26. The breyde she kest up her accounts in Rachel’s lap. [m.]

Cat, subs. (old).—1. A prostitute. For synonyms, see Barrack-hack.

[1401. Pol. Poems, II., 113. Be ware of Cristis curse, and of cattis tailis.] [m.]

1535. Lyndesay, Satyre, 468. Wantonnes. Hay! as one brydlit cat, I brank. [m.]

1690. B. E., Dict. Cant. Crew. Cat: a common Whore.

1748. T. Dyche, Dictionary (5 ed.). Cat (s.) … also a cant word for a lewd, whorish woman, or street-walker.

2. (popular).—A shortened form of cat-o’-nine-tails (q.v.).

1788. Falconbridge, Afr. Slave Tr., 40. A cat (an instrument of correction, which consists of a handle or stem, made of a rope three inches and a half in circumference, and about eighteen inches in length, at one end of which are fastened nine branches, or tails, composed of log line, with three or more knots upon each branch). [m.]

1870. London Figaro, 23 Dec. We are delighted to learn that Mr. Baron Bramwell, at the Warwick Assizes, on Saturday, sentenced a batch of street thieves to hard labour for eighteen months, and twenty lashes each, with an instrument called the cat.

1889. Globe, 26 Oct., p. 7, col. 3. The ‘Cat.’ A companion of the prisoner was convicted last session of being concerned in the assault and robbery, and was sentenced to eighteen months’ hard labour and to receive twenty-five lashes.

3. (thieves’).—A lady’s muff. [Muff = female pudendum. See sense 4.]

1857. Snowden, Mag. Assistant, 3 ed., p. 444. To steal a muff—To free a cat.

4. (popular).—The female pudendum; otherwise a pussy; French, le chat.

5. (thieves’).—A quart pot. Pint pots are called kittens. Stealing these pots is termed cat and kitten sneaking.

1851. Mayhew, London Labour and London Poor, II., p. 118. The mistress of a lodging-house, who had conveniences for the melting of pewter-pots (called cats and kittens by the young thieves according to the size of the vessels). Ibid. I., p. 460. At this lodging-house cats and kittens are melted down.… A quart pot is a cat, and pints and half-pints are kittens.

6. (popular).—See Tame cat.

7. (common).—A monster infesting lodging houses, and assimilating, with equal readiness, cold meat and coals, spirits and paraffin, etc., etc.

1827. R. B. Peake, Comfortable Lodgings, Act I., Sc. iii. I wonder whether the cat ever comes in here, and knocks anything over? Sir Hippington Miff, here’s your health!—Ladies, yours! (Drinks.) Bless my soul! the cup’s empty! I’ll turn it over, and lay the fault at pussy’s door.

1871. Figaro, 2 July. ‘My Landlady.’ Who on my viands waxes fat?—Who keeps a most voracious cat!—Who often listens on my mat? My Landlady.

Flying cat, subs. (old).—An owl.

1690. B. E., Dictionary Canting Crew, s.v. Flutter. An owl is a Flying-Cat.

To jerk, shoot, or whip the cat; or simply, to cat. To vomit; generally from over indulgence in drink.—See Accounts and Cast up Accounts.

1609. Armin, Maids of More-cl. (1880), 70. Ile baste their bellies and their lippes till we haue ierk’t the cat with our three whippes. [m.]

1630. J. Taylor (‘Water P.’), Brood Cormor, wks. III., p. 5, col. 1. You may not say hee’s drunke.… For though he be as drunke as any rat He hath but catcht a fox, or whipt the cat.

1830. Marryat, Kings Own, ch. xxxii. I’m cursedly inclined to shoot the cat.

To whip the cat, otherwise to draw through the water with a cat, phr. (old).—1. To indulge in practical jokes. [For suggested origin, see quotation 1785.]

1614. B. Jonson, Barthol. Fair, I., iv. [n.]. I’ll be drawn with a good gib cat through the great pond at home. [m.]

1690. B. E., Dictionary Canting Crew. Catting: drawing a Fellow through a Pond with a cat.

1785. Grose, Dict. Vulg. Tongue. Cat-whipping or whipping the cat: a trick often practised on ignorant country fellows, vain of their strength; by laying a wager with them, that they may be pulled through a pond by a cat; the bet being made, a rope is fixed round the waist of the party to be catted, and the end thrown across the pond, to which the cat is also fastened by a pack-thread, and three or four sturdy fellows are appointed to lead and whip the cat; these, on a signal given, seize the end of the cord, and pretending to whip the cat, haul the astonished booby through the water.

2. (tailors’, etc.).—To work at private houses. In America the term is also used by carpenters and other itinerants, especially schoolmasters who ‘board round.’ At one time it was more convenient to pay in kind than in currency; and, in rural New England, a school-teacher would be ‘boarded round’ amongst his pupils’ parents as a part of his remuneration. (See Washington Irving’s Legend of Sleepy Hollow.) This was called whipping the cat.

1871. De Vere, Americanisms, 648. Whipping the cat: an old English phrase, used only by tailors and carpenters, has maintained its existence in New England, Pennsylvania, and a few other States, where it denotes the annual visit of a tailor to repair the clothes of a household. It is said to have originated in a very rough practical joke, which bears the same name in Hampshire, England, and of which, it is surmised, the tailor may have been the victim (J. R. Lowell). The simple tailors of former days liked thus to go from house to house in the rural districts, providing the families with clothing. The chief romance for the happy ‘Schneider’ was in the abundant and wholesome cheer of the farmer who employed him, and as his annual visits fell in the pudding and sausage season, he was usually crammed with that kind of ‘vegetables,’ as he facetiously called them, to his heart’s content. The only objection made to catwhipping, was that it afforded no opportunity to ‘cabbage,’ and in former days this was a serious grievance. The introduction of large manufacturing establishments, low-priced ready-made clothing, and the advent of the sewing-machine, have now nearly made an end to this itinerant occupation. The terms catwhipper and catwhipping were often facetiously, and sometimes very irreverently, applied to other itinerant professions: even ‘schoolmasters’—there were no ‘teachers,’ much less ‘educators,’ in those benighted days—were called catwhippers, when they boarded, as was quite usual, in turns with the parents of their scholars. Itinerating preachers also were, by the initiated, included in this category.

To see how the cat will jump, phr. (common).—To watch the course of events. An American equivalent is to sit on the fence.—See Fence and Jumping Cat.

1827. Scott, in Croker Pap. (1884), I., xi., 319. Had I time, I believe I would come to London merely to see how the cat jumped. [m.]

1853. Bulwer Lytton, My Novel, IV., p. 228. ‘But I rely equally on your friendly promise.’ ‘Promise! No—I don’t promise. I must first see how the cat jumps.’

1859. Lever, Davenport Dunn, III., 229. You’ll see with half an eye how the cat jumps.

1874. Sat. Rev., p. 139. This dismays the humble Liberal of the faint Southern type, who thinks that there are subjects as to which the heads of his party need not wait to see how the cat jumps.

1887. ‘Pol. Slang,’ in Cornhill Mag., June, p. 626. Those who sit on the fence—men with impartial minds, who wait to see, as another pretty phrase has it, how the cat will jump.

You kill my cat and I’ll kill your dog, phr. (common). ‘Ca’ me, ‘ca’ thee; an exchange in the matter of ‘scratching backs’—in Fr. passez moi la casse, et je t’enverrai la senne.

To let the cat out of the bag, phr. (common).—To reveal a secret; a variant with a slightly modified sense is to put one’s foot in it. [This and the kindred phrase ‘to buy a pig in a poke,’ are said to have had their origin in the bumpkin’s trick of substituting a cat for a young pig and bringing it to market in a bag. If the customer were wary the cat was let out of the bag, and there was no deal.]

1760. Lond. Mag., XXIX., p.224. We could have wished that the author … had not let the cat out of the bag. [m.]

1782. Wolcot (‘P. Pindar’), Pair of Lyric Epistles To the Reader. But, to use a sublime phrase, as it would be letting the cat out of the bag, I have fortune.

1811. C. K. Sharpe, in Correspondence (1888), I., 475. She has let a wicked cat out of the bag to G. M. respecting his mother.

1855. Mrs. Gaskell, North and South, ch. xliv. You needn’t look so frightened because you have let the cat out of the bag to a faithful old hermit like me. I shall never name his having been in England.

1888. Macdermott [on the case of Crawford v. Dilke]. This noble representative of everything good in Chelsea, He let the cat, the naughty cat, right out of the Gladstone bag.

Who ate or stole the cat? phr. (common).—A gentleman whose larder was frequently broken by bargees, had a cat cooked and placed as a decoy. It was taken and eaten, and became a standing jest against the pilferers.

To lead a cat and dog life phr. (popular).—To quarrel night and day. Said of married (or unmarried) couples.

To turn cat in the pan, phr. (old).—To ‘rat’; to reverse one’s position through self-interest; to play the turncoat. [The derivation is absolutely unknown. The one generally received—that ‘cat’ is a corruption of ‘cate’ or ‘cake’—is historically untenable.]

c. 1559. Old Play, ‘Marriage of Witt and Wisdome.’ Sc. 3. Now am I true araid like a phesitien; I am as very a turncote as the wethercoke of Poles; For now I will calle my name Due Disporte. So, so, finely I can turne the catt in the pane.

1593. 4 Lett. Conf., in wks. (Grosart) II., 286. If it bee a home booke at his first conception, let it be a home booke still, and turne not cat in the panne.

1625. Bacon, Essays (of Cunning), p. 441 (Arber). There is a Cunning, which we in England call, The Turning of the Cat in the Pan, which is, when that which a Man says to another, he laies it, as if Another had said it to him.

c. 1720. Song, ‘The Vicar of Bray.’ ‘When George in pudding time came in, And moderate men looked big, sir, He turned a cat-in-pan once more, And so became a Whig, sir.’

1816. Scott, Old Mortality, ch. xxxv. ‘O, this precious Basil will turn cat in pan with any man!’ replied Claverhouse.

To feel as though a cat had kittened in one’s mouth, phr. (popular).—To ‘have a mouth’ after drunkenness.

Many other phrases and proverbial sayings might, more or less justifiably, be classed as slang in this connection; e.g., to fight like Kilkenny cats; to grin like a Cheshire cat; not room enough to swing a cat; able to make a cat speak, and a man dumb; who shot the cat (the last a reproach addressed to volunteers), etc.

Catamaran, subs. (colloquial).—A vixenish old woman; also a cross-grained person of either sex. [Cf., Catamount. Probably associated with the colloquial use of cat, a quarrelsome, vicious woman]. For synonyms, see Geezer.

1833. Marryat, Peter Simple, ch. vi. The cursed drunken old catamaran, cried he, I’ll go and cut her down by the head.

1855. Thackeray, Newcomes, ch. lxxv. ‘What a woman that Mrs. Mackenzie is!’ cries F. B. ‘What an infernal tartar and catamaran!’

1861. Macmillan’s Magazine, June, p. 113. She was such an obstinate old catamaran.

Catamount, Catamountain, or Cat O’Mountain, subs. (American).—A shrew. [Cf., Catamaran and Beaumont and Fletcher’s use of the word for a wild man from the mountains, itself a transferred sense of catamount = a leopard or panther.]

1616. Fletcher, Cust. of Country, I., i. The rude claws of such a cat o’ mountain!

1835. Haliburton, Clockmaker, 1 S., ch., xii. She was a dreadful cross-grained woman, a real catamount, as savage as a she-bear that has cubs.

Cat and Mouse, subs., phr. (rhyming slang).—A house.

Catastrophe, subs. (old).—The tail or latter end. Cf., the Falstaffism ‘I’ll tickle your catastrophe.’

Catawampous, Catawamptiously, adj. and adv. (popular).—With avidity; fiercely; eagerly; or violently destructive. See Catawampus.

1843. Dickens, Martin Chuzzlewit, ch., xxi., 216. There air some catawampous chawers in the small way too, as graze upon a human pretty strong.

1853. Lytton, My Novel, bk. X., ch. xx. If a man like me … is to be catawampously champed up by a mercenary selfish cormorant of a capitalist.

18(?). F. Burnand, The White Cat. Don’t hurt me; spare a poor unhappy pup, Or I’ll be catawampously chawed up.

Catawampus, subs.—Vermin, especially those that sting and bite. [Apparently formed from Catawampous (q.v.).]

1880. Mortimer Collins, Thoughts in My Garden, vol. I., p. 244. Look at their [spiders’] value in destroying wasps and blue-bottles, gnats, midges, and all manner of catawampuses, as the ladies call them.

Catch, subs. (colloquial).—A man or woman matrimonially desirable; formerly in a canting sense, a prize or booty [see quot. 1877]. A woman who is ‘no great catch’ is in French argot termed une grognotte.

1593. Shakspeare, Taming of the Shrew, Act ii., Sc. 1, 333. Bap. The gain I seek is—quiet in the match. Gre. No doubt but he hath got a quiet catch.

1748. T. Dyche, Dictionary (5 ed.) Catch (s.) … also a cant word for a prize, booty, etc.

1842. Comic Almanack, p. 333. Angelina Ampletin was one of the prettiest girls in Pimlico, and if there was any truth in rumour, very far from one of the worst catches.

1877. Five Years’ Penal Servitude, ch. iii., p. 244. Well, as it was her catch, I thought as I’d consult along of her whether we should take the £200.

Catch or Cut a Crab, verbal phr. (common).—There are various ways of catching a crab, as for example, (1) to turn the blade of the oar or ‘feather’ under water at the end of the stroke, and thus be unable to recover; (2) to lose control of the oar at the middle of the stroke by ‘digging’ too deeply; or (3) to miss the water altogether. An English variant is to ‘capture a cancer,’ an American form being ‘to catch a lobster.’—See Lobster.

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

1833. Marryat, Peter Simple [ed. 1846], ch viii., p. 206, s.v.

1844. Puck, p. 134. Now, Johnson, thou wilt surely rue! Didst ever pull before? (Brown had been up to fish at Kew. And caught—of crabs—a store.)

1849. John Smith (J. D. Lewis) Hark, the gun has gone thrice, and now off in a trice, With the Johnians we’re soon on a level. When Hicks, who’s no dab, with his oar cuts a crab, And our coxswain he swears like the Devil.

1857. Hood, Pen and Pencil Pictures, p. 144. Awful muff! Can’t pull two strokes without catching as many crabs; he’d upset the veriest tub on the river.

1872. Daily News, 10 Sept. ‘London Rowing Club Regatta.’ The excitement and fun engendered by the numerous scrimmages resulted in ‘fouls’ and crabs of most portentous magnitude.

Catch a Tartar, verbal phr. (popular).—To unexpectedly meet with one’s superior; to fall into one’s own trap; having a design upon another, to be caught oneself. [Explanation may be found, perhaps, in the horror born of the atrocities of the Tartar hordes who devastated Eastern Europe in the reign of St. Louis of France. Cf., Tartar, a person of irritable temper.] An American variant is to catch on a snag (q.v.).

1682. Dryden, Prol. to King and Queen, in wks., p. 456 (Globe). When men will needlessly their freedom barter for lawless power, sometimes they catch a tarter.

1748. Smollett, Rod. Random, ch. xxx. Who, looking at me with a contemptuous sneer, exclaimed, Ah, ah! have you caught a tarter?

1778. Fanny Burney, Diary, 23 Aug. ‘Ah,’ he (Johnson) added, ‘they will little think what a tarter you carry to them.’

1857. O. W. Holmes, Autocrat of the Breakfast Table, ch. v. When the Danish pirates made descents upon the English coast, they caught a few tartars occasionally, in the shape of Saxons.

c. 1880. Broadside Ballad, ‘Unhappy Because it Can’t Last.’ They say two heads are better than one, so I took a wife and caught a tartar, and found two of a trade could never agree, and proved the proverb that marry in haste repent at leisure.

Catch-’em-Alive, or Alivo, subs. phr. (common).—1. A fly-paper. [In allusion to the sticky substance smeared over the paper which, attracting the flies, literally ‘catches them alive.’]

1851–61. H. Mayhew, London Lab. and Lon. Poor, vol. III., p. 38. They used to … call ’em Egyptian flypapers, but now they use merely the word ‘flypapers,’ or ‘fly-destroyers,’ or ‘fly-catchers,’ or ‘catch ’em alive, oh’s.’

1857. Dickens, Dorrit, wks. I., ch. xvi., 122. And such coats of varnish that every holy personage served for a fly trap, and became what is now called in the vulgar tongue a catch-em-alive, O.

1890. Globe, 16 April, p. 1, col. 3. Typhoid microbes take as kindly to sluggish waters as flies do to catch-em-alive-oh’s.

2. (common).—A tooth-comb; a ‘louse-trap.’

3. (general).—The female pudendum.

Catch-Fart, subs. (old).—A footman, or page boy. [A combination of catch, in its ordinary sense, + fart (q.v.). Fourbesque, bolognino and falcone (‘a falcon’).]

Catch it, verb (colloquial).—To get a scolding or castigation; to get into trouble; to ‘come in for it.’ For synonyms, see Tan and Wig.

1835. Marryat, Jacob Faithful, ch. xxxviii. We all thought Tom was about to catch it.

1848. Mrs. Gaskell, M. Barton, xxxi. I shall catch it down stairs, I know.

1872. Black, Adv. Phaeton, xvi., 218. He catches it if he does not bring home a fair proportion to his wife.

Catch me! or Catch me at it! phr. (colloquial).—An intimation that the person speaking will not do such and such a thing. An analogous phrase is don’t you wish you may get it!

1780. Mrs. Cowley, The Belle’s Stratagem, Act iii., Sc. 2. First Gent. May I be a bottle, and an empty bottle, if you catch me at that! Why, I am going to the masquerade.

1830. Galt, Lawrie, T., V., iv. (1849), 207. Catch me again at such costly daffin.

1841. R. B. Peake, Court and City, I., i. Satisfaction! Catch me at that!

1846. Dickens, Dombey and Son, I., p. 112, col. 3. ‘You have a committee to-day at three, you know.’ ‘And one at three, three-quarters,’ added Mr. Dombey, ‘Catch you at forgetting anything!’ exclaimed Carker.

Catch on, verb (colloquial).—To understand; to grasp in meaning; to apprehend; to attach or fix oneself to; to quickly seize an opportunity and turn it to advantage. [A literal translation, in fact, into the language of slang of the Latin apprehendere.] A French equivalent is piger, but for synonyms, see Twig.

1884. Lisbon (Dakota) Star, 27 June. Now is the time to catch on in order to keep up with the procession. [m.]

1889. The Nation, 19 Dec., p. 499, col. 1.… The farmer knows only the traffic of his market town and his county, and he is slow to catch on to the new and progressive.

1890. Globe, Feb. 13, p. 1. col. 5. Well, assuming that the notion were to catch on, and the example of this enterprising mother to be generally imitated in the upper orbits of the social system, would there be a balance of advantage to the nation?

Catch on a Snag, verbal phr. (American).—to catch a Tartar (q.v.); to meet with one’s superior.

1887. Stuart Cumberland, The Queen’s Highway. In rough Western parlance a man who falls in with such a player (a man, who, bearing a high reputation for all-round godliness, is a crack ‘poker’ player) catches on a snag, and it is said that everyone who visits the North-West comes across, sooner or later, the snag on which he is to catch.

Catch on the Hop, verbal phr. (popular).—Properly to catch or have on the hip, as Gratiano catches Shylock.—See Hop.

c. 1869. The Chickaleary Bloke, sung by Vance. For to get me on the hop, or on my ‘tibby’ drop, You must wake up very early in the morning.

Catch-Pole, subs. (old).—A warrant-officer; a bum-bailiff. A very old term formerly in respectable use, but employed contemptuously from the sixteenth century. [From catch, to arrest, or stop, + pole or poll, the head.] Fourbesque, foco or fuoco = fire. Cf., Bum-bailiff.

1377. Langl., P. Pl., bk. XVIII., 46. Crucifige, quod a cacchepolle I warante hym a wicche. [m.]

c. 1510. Barclay, Mrr. Good Mann. (1570), G., iv. Be no towler, catchpoll, nor customer.

1601. B. Johnson, Poetaster, III. Catchpole, loose the gentlemen, or by my velvet arms, etc.

1751. Smollett, Peregrine Pickle, ch. xcvii. The catchpole, after a diligent search, had an opportunity of executing the writ upon the defendant.

1859. Sala, Gaslight and Daylight, ch. xiii. You are brought there by a catchpole, and kept there under lock and key until your creditors are paid.

Catch the Wind of the Word, verbal phr. (Irish).—To quickly understand the meaning of what is said. For synonyms, see Twig.

Catchy, adj. (colloquial).—Vulgarly or cheaply attractive; of a quality to take the eye or ear; easily caught and remembered (as a tune). Wrongly used in quot. 1885.

1831. Fraser’s Mag., III., 679. A catchy, stage-like effect. [m.]

1885. S. O. Addy, in N. and Q., 6 S., xii., 143. This seemed to be like one of those catchy questions which examiners in law and history are said to ‘stump’ the candidates.

Caterpillar, subs. (old).—A soldier. For synonyms, see Mudcrusher.

Caterwaul, verb (colloquial).—Properly to make a noise like cats at rutting time; to woo, to ‘make love.’ The quotations show the process of transition from the old figurative usage of the word, to be ‘in heat,’ ‘to be lecherous,’ to the current sense. For synonyms, see Firkytoodle.

1599. Nashe, Lenten Stuffe, in wks. V., 284. The friars and monks caterwawld from the abbots and priors to the novices.

1700. Congreve, Way of the World, Act i., Sc. 9. An old aunt, who loves catterwauling better than a conventicle.

1771. Smollet, Humphry Clinker, l. 64. I hope you have worked a reformation among them [servant-maids], as I exhorted you in my last, and set their hearts upon better things than they can find in junketting and caterwauling with the fellows of the country.

1884. Hawley Smart, Post to Finish, ch. xvii. From what I hear, you came to Riddleton fooling after my daughter. Now, I’ll have no caterwauling of that sort.

Catever, subs. (common).—A queer, or singular affair; anything poor or bad. [From the Lingua Franca, and Italian cattivo, bad.] Variously spelled by the lower orders.—Hotten.

Catfish Death, subs. (American).—Suicide by drowning.

c. 1889. Chicago Press [quoted by Barrère].… driving his sweetheart to lunacy and a catfish death, by his dime-museum freaks.

Catgut-Scraper, subs. (common).—A fiddler. [From catgut, the material of which fiddle strings are made, + scraper, one that rubs or scrapes.] Sometimes simply scraper or catgut; the latter of which is also used to signify the music produced. Also Rosin-the-bow and Teaser of the Catgut.

1633. Massinger, Guardian, IV., ii. Wire-string and catgut, men and strong-breathed heautbois. [m.]

1785. Burns, Jolly Beggars. Her charms had struck a sturdy caird, As weel’s a poor gut-scraper.

1796. Wolcot (‘P. Pindar’), Tristia, wks. (1812) V., 267. Behold! the Catgut-scraper with his croud Commands at will the house of hospitality.

1851–61. H. Mayhew, London Lab. and Lon. Poor, vol. I., p. 21. Or they will call to the orchestra, saying, ‘Now then you catgut-scraper! Let’s have a ha’purth of liveliness.’

Cat Harping Fashion, adv. phr. (nautical).—See quot.

1785. Grose, Dict. Vulg. Tongue. Drinking cross ways, and not as usual over the left thumb.

Cat Heads, subs. (old).—The paps. For synonyms, see Dairy.

Cathedral, subs. (Winchester College).—A high hat. [So called because only worn when going to the Cathedral.] For synonyms, see Golgotha.

Adj. (old)—Old-fashioned; antique.

1690. B. E., Dictionary Canting Crew. Cathedral: old-fashioned, out of Date, Ancient.

1755. Johnson. Cathedral: in low phrase, antique, venerable, old.

1785. Grose, Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue. Cathedral: old-fashioned, an old cathedral bedstead, chair, etc.

Catharine Puritans, subs. phr. (University).—Members of St. Catharine’s Hall, at Cambridge. [Puritan from the pun on the words Catharine and Καθαίρειν = to purify.] They were also called Doves (q.v.).

Catherine Hayes, subs. (Australian).—See quot. [The derivation may presumedly be traced to the immense popularity of the Irish singer at the antipodes.]

1859. Frank Fowler, Southern Light and Shadows, p. 53. [A liquor consisting of] claret, sugar, and nutmeg.

Cat’s, subs. (University).—A short name for St. Catharine’s Hall.

Cat’s Men, subs. (University).—Members of St. Catharine’s Hall.

Catherine Wheel.—See Cartwheel.

Cat-Lap, subs. (common).—Thin potations of any sort, especially tea. Such a beverage being so feeble as to be only fit for women. For synonyms, see Scandal broth.

1785. Grose, Dict. Vulg. Tongue. Cat-lap: tea, called also scandal broth.

1824. Scott, Redgauntlet, ch. xiii. We have tea and coffee aboard … You are at the age to like such catlap.

1864. M. E. Braddon, Aurora Floyd, ch. xvii. ‘I’ve mashed the tea for ’ee,’ said the ‘softy’; ‘I thought you’d like a coop.’ The trainer shrugged his shoulders. ‘I can’t say I’m particular attached to the cat-lap,’ he said, laughing.

Cat-Market, subs. (common).—A number of people all talking at once. ‘You make a row like a cat-market’—a general ‘caterwauling.’

Cat-Match, subs. (old).—See quot.

1785. Grose, Dict. Vulg. Tongue. Cat Match: when a rook or cully is engaged amongst bad bowlers.

Catoller or Catolla, subs. (old).—A noisy, prating fellow.—See quot.

1832. Pierce Egan, Book of Sports, p. 70. [Catolla is given as a foolish, betting man.]

Cat-o’-Nine-Tails or Cat, subs. (common).—A nine-lashed scourge now used for the punishment of criminals, but until 1881 the authorised means of punishment in the British army and navy. [From cat, a beast with claws, + o’ + nine tails, the nine knotted lashes.] History is against the view of some military authorities that the cat-o’-nine-tails was a Batavian importation of William III., and that the word ‘cat’ is derived from the Sclavonic kat, an executioner, or from katowae, to lash or torture. Another theory is that it was introduced at the time of the Armada (1588), when vast numbers of these ‘straunge whips’ were found in the captured ships of the Spaniards. A ballad of the period declares of the Spaniards that—

They made such whippes wherewith no man Would seeme to strike a dogge; So strengthened eke with brasen tagges And filde so roughe and thinne, That they would force at every lash The bloud abroad to spinne.

This view is not inconsistent with the quotations, the first of which antedates the earliest given in the N.E.D. by thirty years.] In prison parlance the cat-o’-nine-tails is known as number one or the nine-tailed bruiser (q.v.), the birch as number two (q.v.).

1665. R. Head, English Rogue, pt. I., ch. iii., p. 28 (1874). A Cat of Nine-tails (as he called it) being so many small cords.

1702. Vanbrugh, False Friend, prologue. You dread reformers of an impious age, You awful cat-a-nine-tails to the stage.

1748. Smollett, Rod. Random, ch. v. ‘I’ll bring him to the gangway, and anoint him with a cat-a-nine-tails.’

1837. Carlyle, Fr. Rev., pt. III., bk. VII., ch. iii. Rash coalised kings, such a fire have ye kindled; yourselves fireless, your fighters animated only by drill-sergeants, mess-room moralities, and the drummer’s cat.

Cat-Party; also Bitch-Party, subs. (common).—A party consisting entirely of women. [From cat, a woman, + party.] Cf., Stag-party, and see Hen-Party for synonyms.

Cats, subs. (commercial).—Atlantic Seconds were formerly so-called for telegraphic purposes.

Cats and Dogs. To rain cats and dogs, sometimes extended to and pitchforks and shovels, phr. (popular).—To rain heavily. [The French catadoupe, a waterfall, has been suggested as the origin. Another etymon has been found in the Greek κατὰ δόξαν in reference to the downpour being out of the common. Possibly Swift, who seems to have been the first to have used the expression, may have evolved it out of his own description of a city shower (1710).]

Now from all parts the swelling kennels flow, And bear their trophies with them as they go.… Drown’d puppies, stinking sprats, all drench’d in mud, Dead cats, and turnip-tops, come tumbling down the flood.]

1738. Swift, Pol. Convers., dial. 2. I know Sir John will go, though he was sure it would rain cats and dogs.

1819 (Feb. 25). Shelley to Peacock, in Letters, etc. (Camelot), p. 264. After two months of cloudless serenity, it began raining cats and dogs.

1837. Barham, I. L. (Blasphemer’s Warning). But it rains cats and dogs and you’re fairly wet through Ere you know where to turn, what to say, or to do.

Cat’s Foot. To live under the cat’s foot, phr. (old).—To be under petticoat government; hen-pecked. Cf., Apron-string.—See Cat’s-paw.

Cat’s Head, subs. (Winchester College).—The end of a shoulder of mutton; further explained by quotation.

1870. Mansfield, School-Life at Winchester College, p. 84. His meal [dinner] took place at six o’clock p.m. in College (in Commoners’ it was at one); it was ample in quantity, and excellent in quality. That of the Præfects was nicely served in joints, that of the Inferiors was divided into portions, (Dispars; there were, if I remember rightly, six of these to a shoulder, and eight to a leg of mutton, the other joints being divided in like proportion. All these ‘Dispars’ had different names; the thick slice out of the centre was called ‘a Middle Cut,’ that out of the shoulder a ‘Fleshy,’ the ribs ‘Racks,’ the loin ‘Long Dispars’; these were the best, the more indifferent were the end of the shoulder, or Cat’s head, the breast, or ‘Fat Flab,’ etc., etc.)

Catskin-Earls, subs. (parliamentary).—The three senior earls in the House of Lords, viz., the Earls of Shrewsbury, Derby, and Huntingdon, the only three earldoms before the seventeenth century now existing, save those that (like Arundel, Rutland, etc.), are merged in higher titles, and the anomalous earldom of Devon (1553), resuscitated in 1831. [A correspondent of Notes and Queries (7 S. ix., p. 314) suggests that the reason of the application may be that in the seventeenth or late in the sixteenth century an order was issued for the use of ermine instead of the skin of cats—(but were such skins then used?)—for the robes of a peer. If so, however, it is curious that there are not ‘catskin dukes’ and ‘catskin barons’ as well. There is yet another theory: an earl’s robes consist (now) of but three rows of ermine; but in some early representations they are shown with four, the same as (now) a duke; and it has been suggested that these four rows (quatre-skins) may have given the name of catskin.]

1861–75. Dean Hook, Life of Cardinal Pole, vide note, p. 264. The Earl of Huntingdon is one of the three Catskin Earls of the present day.

Cat’s-Meat, subs. (common).—The lungs. [The ‘lights’ or lungs of animals are usually sold to feed cats.]

Catso, subs. and intj. (old).—The penis. Murray says: ‘Also catzo.’ [a. It. cazzo = membrum virile. Also an exclamation, Cf., the English ejaculation, Balls! Florio says: ‘also as cazzica, interjection, “What! God’s me! God forbid! tush!” ’] Frequent in seventeenth century in the Italian senses; also = rogue, scamp, cullion. Cf., Fr. cul, couillé and couillon as terms of contempt; also see the later Gadso.

Cat’s-Paw or Cat’s-Foot, subs. (common).—A dupe or tool. [A reference to the fable (Bertrand et Raton) of a monkey using the paw of a cat, dog, or fox, to pull roasted chestnuts off the fire, current in the sixteenth century, but varying considerably in details. The earliest printed version occurs in John Sambucus’ Emblemata (Plantin, Antwerp, 1564), where the sufferer is a dog, and not a cat. There is, however, a story of the same kind told (Maiol. Coll. vii., scil Simon Maiolus, Astensis, Episcopus Vulturariensis, Dies Caniculares, h.e. Colloquia XXIII., Physica, Collog. vii., p. 249, Ursellis, 1600) of Pope Julius II., 1503–13 [see N. and Q., 6 S., viii., 35.]]

[1657. M. Hawke. Killing is murder. These he useth as the Monkey did the cat’s paw to scrape the nuts out of the fire.]

1782. Geo. Parker, Humorous Sketches, p. 140. They lug in Spain, to their assistance, a cat’s-paw made.

1815. Scott, Guy Mannering, ch. lvi. Sir Robert, who had rather begun to suspect that his plebeian neighbour had made a cat’s-paw of him, inclined his head stiffly.

1878. M. E. Braddon, Cloven Foot, ch. xli. He felt angry with himself for having been in some wise a cat’s-paw to serve the young man’s malice.

Cat-Sticks, subs. (old).—Thin legs. [In comparison to the stick used by boys in the game of tip-cat.] For synonyms see Drumsticks.

1785. Grose, Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue, s.v.

Cat’s-Water, subs. (common).—Gin. [From cat, a woman + water, a white liquid.] Cf., Bitches’ wine = champagne. For synonyms, see Drinks.

Cattie, adj. and adv. (printers’).—An imperfect or ‘smutty’ look on a printed sheet, caused by an oily or unclean roller.

Catting, verbal subs. (common).—1. Vomiting.—See Cat, verb.

2. (venery).—Running after loose women; molrowing (q.v.) for synonyms.

1725. New Canting Dictionary. Catting: whoring.

Cattle, subs. (common).—A term of contempt applied to human beings. Cf., Queer cattle, Kittle cattle. The generic names of the lower creation are pretty generally used in such transferred senses; e.g., Queer fish, Downy bird, Pigeon, Rook, Sad dog, etc. In England mostly employed disparagingly, but in the U.S.A. bug—here the name of one of the most offensive of vermin, but there the common term for all varieties of beetles—is used in a good sense; e.g., Big bug.

1579. Gosson, School of Abuse, p. 27 (Arber’s ed.). We have infinite Poets, and Pipers, and suche peeuishe cattel among vs in Englande.

1600. Shakspeare, As You Like It, Act iii., Sc. 2, 435. Boyes and women are … cattle of this colour.

188(?) G. R. Sims, Dagonet Ballads (‘Moll Jarvis’). Queer cattle is women to deal with? Lord bless ye, yer honour, they are!

[Cattle is often used of horses. See Harrison Ainsworth’s Rookwood: Have you any horses? Our Cattle are all blown. Also Goldsmith’s ‘She Stoops to Conquer.’]

Cattle-Bug, subs. (American).—See Bug, subs., sense 4.

Caudge-Pawed, adj. (old).—Left-handed.—Grose.

Caught on the Fly, phr. (American).—‘Caught in the act.’ An equivalent of ‘caught on the hop’ or ‘hip.’—See Hop.

Cauliflower, subs. (old).—1. A clerical wig supposed to resemble a cauliflower; modish in the time of Queen Anne.

2. (old).—The female pudendum. For synonyms, see Monosyllable.

3. (popular).—The foaming head of a tankard of beer. In France, a glass of beer without any head is termed un bock sans linge or sans faux-col.

1882. Daily Telegraph, Oct. 10, p. 5, col. 4. This gave the porter a fine frothy or cauliflower head. [m.]

4. (military).—In plural.—The Forty-seventh Regiment of Foot, so called from its white facings. It is also known as The Lancashire Lads from its county title.

Caulk, subs. and verb (nautical).—1. Sleep; to sleep. In substantive form it sometimes appears as caulking. To caulk formerly meant ‘to pick out a soft plank,’ i.e., to lie down on deck; to sleep with one’s clothes on. [Cf., Bundling.]

1836. Marryat, Midshipman Easy, ch. xix. But it’s no go with old Smallsole, if I want a bit of caulk.

1851. Chambers’ Papers, No. 52, p. 30. Sleeping upon deck is called, I know not why, calking.

2. Verb.—To cease; to shut up; i.e., to stop one’s talk or leave off talking. [This usage is obviously derived from the legitimate meaning of the word, to stop up crevices and seams.] For synonyms, see Stow it.

3. (common).—To copulate; to do the ‘act of kind.’ For synonyms, see Ride.

Caulker, subs. (common).—1. A dram; a stiff glass of grog—generally applied to a finishing bumper. When this happens to be sherry and follows the drinking of red wines it is called a whitewash (q.v.). [There are three suggested derivations: (1) that it is a punning reference to caulking, that which serves to keep out the wet; (2) because such a draught takes a deal of swallowing; and (3) that it is a corruption of corker (q.v.), a regular stopper.] For synonyms, see Go.

1808. J. Mayne, Siller Gun, 89 (Jam.). The magistrates wi’ loyal din, Tak off their cau’kers. [m.]

1836. M. Scott, Cruise of the Midge, ch. vi. We … finished off with a caulker of good cognac.

1849. C. Kingsley, Alton Locke, ch. xxi. ‘Take a caulker? Summat heavy, then?’

1871. A. Forbes, My Experiences of the War between France and Germany, II., p. 201. The Mobile officer joins us heartily in a caulker, and does not need to be pressed to take a little supper.

1884. W. C. Russell, Jack’s Courtship, ch. viii. The caulker of rum served out under the break of the poop by the light of a bull’s-eye lamp.

2. (popular).—A lie; anything surprising or incredible. For synonyms, see Whopper.

1884. W. C. Russell, Jack’s Courtship, ch. xxxi. I also took care that she should never afterwards be able to charge me with having told her a real caulker.

Caution, subs. (popular).—A colloquialism used both of men and things. Anything out of the common, or that conveys a warning; something wonderful or staggering; something to be avoided. Anything that causes surprise, wonder, fear, or indeed any uncommon emotion, is a caution to this, that, or the other. At Oxford in 1865 it was employed to designate a ‘guy’ or ‘cure.’

1835. C. F. Hoffman, Winter in the West, p. 234. The way the icy blast would come down the bleak shore was a caution.

1853. Wh. Melville, Digby Grand, ch. ii. ‘The way he cleaned out a southerner, a fine young Carolinian, who made a series of matches with him, was, as the Squire himself would have said, a caution.’

1861. Whyte Melville, Good for Nothing, ch. i. Such a clench of the slender hand and stamp of the slender foot as constitute what our American friends term a caution.

Cautionary, adj. (American).—Pertaining to that which is a caution (q.v.).

1843–4. Haliburton, Sam Slick in England. Well, the way the cow cut dirt was cautionary; she cleared stumps, ditches, windfalls, and everything.

Cavaulting or Cavolting, verbal subs. (old).—Sexual intercourse. [From the Lingua Franca cavolta, the equivalent of horsing or riding, both of which are frequently used in the same sense. Italian cavaliero = a rake or debauchee.] Cf., Cavort. For synonyms, see Greens.

Cavaulting School, subs. (old).—A house of ill-fame.—See Cavaulting, and for synonyms, see Nanny-shop.

Cave or Cave in, verb (American).—To give way when opposition can no longer be maintained; to break down; to ‘turn up.’ [Derived from the practice of navvies in digging earthworks, when the lower part is undermined until it can no longer sustain the overhanging mass. Murray says all the earliest instances of cave in, in print, are from America, and its literary use appears to have arisen there; but, as the word is given as East Anglian by Forby [1830], and is widely used in Eng. dialects, it is generally conjectured to have reached the U.S. from East Anglia.] The French has barrer; the Spanish acomodarse; and the Fourbesque battere.

English Synonyms. To knuckle under; knock under; give in; sing small; turn it up; chuck it up; jack up; climb down (q.v.); throw up the sponge; chuck it; go down; go out; cut it; cut the rope (pugilistic), etc.

1837–40. Haliburton, Sam Slick, Hum. Nat., 55 (Bardett). He was a plucky fellow, and warn’t a goin’ to cave in that way.

1862. Brown (‘Artemus Ward’), His Book. I kin cave in enny man’s head that, etc.

1869. S. L. Clemens (‘Mark Twain’), Innocents at Home. In the meantime the tropical sun was beating down and threatening to cave the top of my head in.

1883. Hawley Smart, Hard Lines, ch. xxii. ‘The Russians will cave when they find we are in earnest.’

Cave! intj. (Eton College).—‘Beware!’ A byword among boys out of bounds when a master is in sight. [From the Latin. The modern, ‘beware of the dog’ was rendered cave canem by the Romans.]

Caviare, subs. (literary).—The obnoxious matter ‘blacked out’ by the Russian Press Censor. Every foreign periodical entering Russia is examined for objectionable references or ‘irreligious’ matter, the removal whereof is accomplished in two ways. If the articles or items are bulky, they are torn or cut out bodily. If they are brief, they are ‘blacked out’ by means of a rectangular stamp about as wide as an ordinary newspaper column, and ‘cross-hatched’ in such a way that, when inked and dabbed upon the paper, it makes a close network of white lines and black diamonds. The peculiar mottled or grained look of a page thus treated has suggested the attributive caviare: a memory of the look of the black salted caviare spread upon a slice of bread and butter. A verb has been formed from the noun, and every Russian now understands that ‘to caviare’ = to ‘black out.’ Of course as long as the Russian Government permits the entry of letters without censorial examination, any citizen of St. Petersburg or Moscow can write to Berlin, Paris, or London, and ask to have cut out and forwarded in a sealed envelope either a particular article that has been caviared, or all articles relating to Russia that may appear in any specified newspaper or magazine.

1890. St. James’s Gaz., 25 April, p. 7, col. 1. Every one of Mr. Kennan’s articles in the Century has been caviared.

Cavort, verb (American).—To prance; to frisk; to run or ride in a heedless or purposeless manner. [From the Lingua Franca cavolta = prancing on horseback. Some, however, derive it from ‘curvetting’ = capering for show; there are also, as possible sources, the Spanish cavar, the pawing of a spirited horse; and the French courbetter.]—See Cavaulting.

1848. Major Jones’s Courtship, 41 (Bartlett). A whole gang … came ridin’ up, and reinin’ in, and prancin’, and cavortin’.

1883. Bret Harte, In the Carquinez Woods, ch. i. ‘If we had’nt been cavorting round this yer spot for the last half-hour I’d swear there was a shanty not a hundred yards away,’ said the sheriff.

1889. Puck’s Library, April, p. 12. Being an educated man, I feel ten thousand woes Cavorting for the populace In illustrated clothes.

Cawbawn.—See Cobbon.

Caw Handed, or Caw Pawed.—Awkward; not dexterous, ready or nimble.—Grose [1785].

Caxton, subs. (theatrical).—A wig. [A corruption of caxon, a kind of wig.] In Grose’s time a caxon signified an old weather-beaten wig. Cf., Cauliflower.

Cayuse, subs. (American).—A nickname given by Mormon girls to young ‘Latter Day Saints’: the ‘Yahoos’ of the Gentiles. [The cayuse is properly the common Indian pony. In explanation, it must be noted that there exists among Americans a passionate love of horses. A near and dear friend, an old companion, or men and women whose traits of character command respect and homage, are familiarly ‘horses.’ A distinguished Kentuckian carried away by enthusiasm for Miss Kemble’s acting, started to his feet, and with tremendous energy roared out, ‘By heaven she’s a “horse.” ’] See Old Hog.

Caz, subs. (thieves’).—Cheese.—[See Cassan.]

1812. J. H. Vaux, Flash Dictionary. Caz: cheese; ‘As good as caz,’ is a phrase signifying that any projected fraud or robbery may be easily and certainly accomplished.

Caze, subs. (venery).—The female pudendum.

Cedar, subs. (Eton College).—1. A pair-oared boat inrigged, without canvas, and very ‘crank.’ [From the material.]

2. (prison).—A pencil. [This, like the foregoing, is derived from the wood of which both are made.]

Celestial Poultry, subs. (popular).—Angels. [An allusion to the mythological wings of ‘men out of the body.’]

Celestials, subs. (military).—The Ninety-seventh Regiment of Foot. [So nicknamed from its facings of sky blue.]

1856. Notes and Queries, 2 S., ii., p. 215. The 97th too is not mentioned by your correspondents as far as I have seen, the celestials.

1871. Chambers’ Journal, Dec. 23, p. 801. ‘Celestials’—the facings of the … corps being sky blue.

2. sing. (common).—A ‘turn-up’ or ‘pug’ nose. For synonyms, see Conk.

3. (colloquial).—The Chinese. The Chinese Empire is spoken of as the Celestial Empire.

Cellier, subs. (old).—An out-and-out, unmitigated lie. [A word of great interest, illustrating the temporary use for certain purposes of the name of a certain person, as in the cases of Burke, Boycott, Bishop, and Salisbury (q.v.). The Meal-tub Plot in 1680 was the concoction of Thomas Dangerfield and Elizabeth Cellier, a Roman Catholic midwife. Forged documents which Dangerfield hid in Colonel Mansel’s lodgings were upon his deposition found there by Government officers; but the fraud was soon discovered, and Dangerfield was committed to Newgate. On his trial he endeavoured to throw the entire blame on Mrs. Cellier, and asserted that the original papers were all to be found in her house hidden in a meal tub. This turned out to be true, and Mrs. Cellier was committed to prison. On her trial she managed to prove that Dangerfield was wholly unworthy of credit, and her marvellous impudence and vigorous mendacity led to her own acquittal, and made her name for the time the equivalent of ‘an out-and-out lie.’ After her trial she thanked the jurors for giving her a good deliverance, and offered to ‘serve their ladies with the same fidelity in their deliveries.’] For synonyms, see Whopper.