Volume 2 — A · Dictionary · of Slang · and · its · Analogues. (continued 4)

1884. Hawley Smart, From Post to Finish [Ry. ed.], p. 157. A dozen cigars a day make one feel dreadfully chippy in the morning.

Chips, subs. (old).—1. A carpenter. Fourbesque equivalents are gangherino and zangarino, whilst the Gaunersprache has Mepaie.

1785. Grose, Dict. Vulg. Tongue. A nick-name for a carpenter.

1851. Chambers’ Paper, No. 52, p. 20. The carpenter, a rough hardy Swede, rejoicing in the name of Burstrome, was not offended in the slightest degree at being called chips even by the black cuddy servant.

1883. Clark Russell, Sailors’ Language, pref., xii. The carpenter is more politely termed chips.

2. (gaming).—Counters used in games of chance. Cf., Checks.

1869. S. L. Clemens (‘Mark Twain’), Innocents at Home, ch. ii. Don’t put up another chip till I look at my hand.

3. (American).—Cards. [Mr. C. Nordhoff writing to Mr. John Camden Hotten, on 1 May, 1865, states that ‘chips = slang for cards.’]

4. (common).—Money. [This usage is derived through sense 2, and passes naturally to sense 5 (q.v.).]

1877. W. Black, Green Past. and Picc., ch. xlix. You kent fool away your hand and keep the chips.

1885. Sporting Times, 23 May. ‘The Chorister’s Promise.’ The landlady came and knocked at the door—(Sing Fulham Road), Saying she’d have to clear out, and swore She’d distrain on her wardrobe what was more (Because of the chips she owed).

5. (general).—A sovereign. Used both in sing. and pl.—See quot. under Chip, sense 3, and Cf., preceding sense.

6. (Wellington College).—A kind of grill, so called from its hardness.

To hand in one’s chips, phr. (gamblers’).—To die. [For probable derivation, see Checks.]

Chirp, verb (thieves’).—1. To talk. For synonyms, see Patter. Grose has chirping merry = exhilarated with liquor.

1884. J. Greenwood, The Little Ragamuffins. I firmly resolved to chirp, when I was taken before the magistrate to give evidence, as little as possible.

2. To inform. For synonyms, see Peach.

Chirper, subs. (common).—1. A singer.

2. (common).—A glass or tankard.

1862. George Meredith, Juggling Jerry Poems. Hand up the chirper! ripe ale winks in it; Let’s have comfort and be at peace. Once a stout draught made me light as a linnet. Cheer up! the Lord must have his lease.

3. (common).—The mouth. For synonyms, see Potato trap.

4. (music-hall).—One of a gang frequenting the stage doors of music-halls to blackmail the singers. If money be refused them, they go into the auditorium and hoot, hiss, and groan at the performer. [Cf., Chirrup, quot., 1888.]

1889. Daily News, 2 July, p. 2. Singularly enough the Canterbury Music-hall … was mentioned in one of the night-charges, two men known as chirpers or chirripers being brought before Mr. Biron.

Chirpy, adj. (colloquial).—Cheerful; lively. [From chirp = babble of birds, + y.]

1837. J. Bates, in Ht. Martineau, Soc. Amer., III., 332. It makes me chirpy to think of Roseland.

1879. Justin McCarthy, Donna Quixote, ch. xxxv. To Charlton this appeared gravely ominous … Paulina, on the other hand, was what she would herself have called chirpy.

1882. Besant, All Sorts and Conditions of Men, ch. xx., p. 146. Her ladyship put quite a chirpy face upon it.

Chirrup, verb (music-hall).—To cheer or applaud under a system of blackmail. [The term appears to have come into vogue in the early part of 1888.—See quots, under Chirruper; also Cf., Chirper, sense 4, and Chirruping.]

Chirruper.—See Chirper, senses 1 and 4, Fr., un intime.

1888. Pall Mall Gazette, 6 Mar., p. 4, col. 2. A chirruper … excused himself at the Lambeth Police Court yesterday by alleging that ‘he thought there was no harm in it.’

1888. J. Payn, in Illustrated London News, 17 Mar., p. 268. The … singers in music-halls cannot … do without him (the chirruper). [m.]

Chirruping, verbal subs. (music-hall).—Hanging about stage doors to intercept the ‘artistes,’ and extort money with a statement that the performer who ‘parts’ will be applauded. [For suggested, but very dubious, derivation, see quot., and Cf., Chirper, sense 4.]

1888. Pall Mall Gazette, 9 March, p. 14. Chirruping. Mr. Rintoul Mitchell writing from the Savage Club [asks] to add a hint as to the etymology of the word. It is not remote. The French argot for blackmail is chantage. Such paltry operations as those reported from the Lambeth music-hall do not merit the description of singing—they are simply twittering or chirruping.

Chisel, Chizzle, or Chuzzle, verb (common).—To cheat. [Possibly an extension of the orthodox meaning of the verb in the sense of ‘to cut, shave, or pare with a chisel to an excessive degree.’ Jamieson (1808) gives chisel as to cheat, or act deceitfully. Current during the first half of the present century, it seems first to have appeared in literature about 1840. Cf., Gouge, Shave, Skin, and other words of a kindred type.] For synonyms, see Stick.

1844. Illustrated London News, 25 May. ‘The Derby.’ They have chiseled the peaman and no mistake about that.

1851–61. H. Mayhew, London Lab. and Lon. Poor, vol. III., p. 78. When we got home at night we shared 2s. a piece. There was five of us altogether; but I think they chisselled me.

1858. Savannah Republican, 17 May. When the books were overhauled by the Committee, it was found that … the stockholders would be chiselled out of a pretty considerable sum.

1865. Saturday Review, April. Mr. Hotten has given the supposed classical originals of ‘Dickey’ and of ‘Skedaddle.’ He might have traced the slang verb to chisel to the Latin deascio and deruncino.

1865. G. A. Sala, Trip to Barbary, ch. xx. To ‘carrotter’ any one, say an uncle or a creditor, is to chizzle or ‘chouse’ or ‘do’ him out of his property amidst assurances of high-flown benevolence and exalted integrity.

To go full chisel, phr. (American).—To go at full speed or ‘full drive’; to show intense earnestness; to use great force; to go off brilliantly.

1835. Haliburton, Clockmaker (1862), 95. The long shanks of a bittern … a drivin’ away like mad, full chisel arter a frog.

1878. Mrs. Stowe, Poganuc P., ix., 76. Then he’d turn and run up the narrow way, full chisel. [m.]

Chiselling, verbal subs. Cheating. [Cf. Chisel, verb.] Variants are bamming; biting; besting; gouging, etc.

1871. De Vere, Americanisms, p. 298. Other efforts at cheating are designated as chisselling—not as some have believed from the practice of chiselling, that is, opening by means of cold chisels the safes of banks and merchants, since the term is much older than the introduction of safes.

Chit, subs. (Anglo-Indian).—1. A letter; corruption of a Hindoo word.

1785. In Seton-Karr, I., 114. [They] may know his terms by sending a chit. [m.]

1887. Chamb. Jour., 25 June, p. 411. He had brought a note or chitti, as they call it in those parts [Bengal].

2. (society).—An order for drinks in clubs, etc. [Obviously an extended use of sense 1. In India the practice of writing chits or notes on the smallest provocation has always been carried to excess.]

3. (common).—A girl, under age and undersized. For general synonyms, see Titter.

4. subs. (Scots). Food eaten in the hand: as a thumber (q.v.), a workman’s lunch, and a child’s piece (q.v.).

Chitterlings, subs. (old).—The shirt frills once fashionable. [Properly the entrails of a pig, to which they are supposed to bear some resemblance.]

Chitty, subs. (tailors’).—An assistant cutter or trimmer.

Chitty-Faced, adj. (old).—Thin; weazened; baby-faced. Cf., Chit, sense 3.

1601. Munday, Downf. R. Earl of Huntingdon, I., iii. You halfe-fac’t groat, you thick [? thin] cheekt chitti-face. [m.]

1621. Burton, Anat. of Melan., [2nd ed.], p. 519. A thin, lean, chitty-face.

1690. B. E., Dict. Cant. Crew.

1725. New Cant. Dict.

1785. Grose, Dict. Vulg. Tongue.

1811. Lexicon Balatronicum.

1859. Hotten, Slang Dict.

Chiv.—See Chive.

Chivalry, subs. (old).—Coition. [From the Lingua Franca or O. F. chevaulcher.] For synonyms, see Greens and Cf., Ride.

Chive or Chiv, subs. (thieves’).—1. A knife. [The Gypsy has chive, to stab.]

English Synonyms. Arkansas toothpick (a bowie knife); cabbage-bleeder; whittle; gully; jocteleg (a clasp knife: a corruption of Jacques de Liége); snickersnee (nautical); cuttle; cuttle-bung; pig-sticker.

French Synonyms. Un bince (thieves’); un coupe-lard (popular: literary ‘a bacon slicer,’ lard being used as the English ‘bacon’ for the human body); un coupe-sifflet (thieves’: couper le sifflet à quelqu’un = ‘to cut any one’s throat’); un lingre or lingue (thieves’: from Langres, a manufacturing town); un trente-deux or un vingt-deux (thieves’: originally terms used by Dutch and Flemish thieves’); un chourin or surin (thieves’: possibly from the Gypsy churi, ‘a knife’); un pliant (thieves’); une petite flambe (thieves’: also a sword, said by Michel to be derived from Flamberge, the name of the sword of Renaud de Montauban. Mettre flamberge au vent = ‘to draw’).

German Synonyms. Hechtling; Kaut (possibly connected with the English ‘cut’); Mandel or Mandle: (Viennese thieves’: in the Gaunersprache = ‘a man,’ especially a little one); Sackin, Sackem, Sackum, Zackin, Zacken (from the Hebrew sochan); Schorin or Schorie (from the Gypsy churi, which in Hanover appears as Czuri).

Italian Synonym. Bacchetto.

Portuguese Synonym. Sarda.

1674. R. Head, Canting Academy, 12. He takes his chive and cuts us down.

1714. Memoirs of John Hall (4 ed.), p. 11. Chieve, knife.

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

1828. Jon. Bee, Picture of London, p. 26. Some of these accomplices also carry a chiv, or knife.

1837. Disraeli, Venetia, ch. xiv. ‘Berwnu,’ he shouted, ‘gibela chiv for the gentry cove.’

1879. J. W. Horsley, in Macm. Mag., XL., 503. So we had a fight, and he put the chive (knife) into me.

2. See Chivey.

Verb.—To stab; to ‘knife.’

1725. New Cant. Dict. To Chive his Darbies: to saw asunder his Irons.

1812. J. H. Vaux, Flash Dict., s.v. To chiv a person is to stab or cut him with a knife.

1868. Cassell’s Magazine, May, p. 80. He [a bushranger] was as good a man as Jacky at any weapon that could be named, and if Jacky were game for a chiving (stabbing) match, he (Kavanagh) was ready for him.

1879. J. W. Horsley, in Macm. Mag., XL., 503. After the place got well where I was chived.

Chive-Fencer, subs. (costers’).—A street hawker of cutlery. [From chive, a knife, + fence or fencer, a receiver of stolen property.]

Chivey or Chivvy, subs. (common).—A shout; greeting or cheer. Cf., Chi-ike.

Verb (common).—To ‘guy’; to chase round or hunt about; to throw or pitch about. Also chevy. [Mr. C. G. Leland says in Annandale (vol. I., 460) chivvy is a common English word, meaning to goad, drive, vex, hunt, or throw as it were here and there. It is purely Gypsy. Chiv in Rommany means anything sharp-pointed, as a dagger, goad, or knife. The old Gypsy word Chiv among its numerous meanings has exactly that of casting, throwing, pitching, and driving. Murray, however, inclines to derive it from Chevy Chase, the scene of a famous Border skirmish; in any case the usage is modern, but see quot., 1821.] So also chivied, chiveying, etc.

1821. Moncrieff, Tom and Jerry, I., vii. Log. Come along, then. Now, Jerry, chivey! Jerry. Chivey? Log. Mizzle! Jerry. Mizzle? Log. Tip your rags a gallop! Jerry. Tip my rags a gallop?… Log. Bolt! Jerry. Bolt? Oh, aye! I’m fly now. You mean go.

1840. Gen. P. Thompson, Exerc. (1842), V. 50. The other side are to blame, if they do not, as we should say in the dragoons ‘chevy’ them back again.

1851–61. H. Mayhew, London Lab. and Lon. Poor, vol. III., p. 44. I never had patience enough to try and kill fleas by my process; it would be too much of a chivey to please me.

1863. H. Kingsley, Austin Elliot, ch. xxxix. The dog … used to chivy the cats into the window among the bon bons, and play the deuce and all.

1864. Eton School-days, ch. xiv., p. 168. Burke, however, ran the faster of the two, and after a short chivey, succeeded in capturing him.

1868. Miss Braddon, Trail of the Serpent, bk. VI., ch. iv. The Board of Health came a-chivying of us to take up our floorings, and limewash ourselves inside.

1871. Daily News Report, ‘A Republican Demonstration in Hyde Park, on Sunday, April 17.’ A comparatively decent man selling ‘A History of Ireland’ was mobbed and chivied from side to side.

Chiving Lay, subs. phr. (old).—Cutting the braces of coaches behind, whereupon, the coachman quitting the box, an accomplice broke and robbed the boot. Also cutting through the back of the coach to snatch the large and costly wigs then fashionable.—Grose. [From Chive, a knife.]

Chivy or Chevy, subs. (thieves’).—The face. For synonyms, see Dial.

c. 1886. Music Hall Song. ‘’Aint he got an artful chevy.’

Verb.—To scold; to bullyrag. For synonyms, see Wig.

Choakee.—See Chokey.

Chock, verb (streets’).—To strike a person under the chin. [Probably a corruption of to chuck, i.e., ‘chuck under the chin.’]—See Chocker.

Chocker, subs. (streets’).—A man. Generally Old Chocker, and thus comparable with Old Codger (q.v.). The term is not however, used in contempt; presumably, therefore, it signifies a manly man, i.e., one who is capable of ‘chocking.’—See Chock.

Chocolate. To give chocolate without sugar, phr. (old).—To reprove.—Grose [1785], and Lexicon Balatronicum [1811].

Choke-Dog, subs. (common).—Cheese; especially that made in Devonshire.

1870. Good Words, March. As I have said before, the Dorsetshire hind is undoubtedly under-fed. Bread and choke-dog, as he calls his county’s cheese, etc.—these, as I have said before, are the chief items in his bill of fare.

Choke Off, verb (common).—To get rid of; to put a stop to; and in a milder sense, ‘to run contrary to.’ [In the first instance the idea was associated with the throttling of bull-dogs to make them loose their hold; but the editor of a recent edition of the Slang Dictionary (Mr. Henry M. Sampson of The Referee) adds en parenthèse, ‘Of course by those who don’t know the scientific way used in canine exhibitions and dog-fights—of biting their tails till they round to bite the biter.’]

English Synonyms. To shut off; to shunt; to fub off; to rump; to cold shoulder. For synonyms in a more emphatic sense, see Floor.

French Synonyms. Envoyer quelqu’un s’asseoir (popular: Cf., ‘to set one down’); arrêter les frais (‘to put a stop to proceedings.’)

1818. Cobbett, Pol. Reg., XXXIII., 72. The Duke’s seven mouths … made the Whig party choak off Sheridan. [m.]

1848. New York Exp., 21 Feb. (Bartlett). In the House … of … Representatives. The operation of choking off a speaker was very funny, and reminded me of the lawless conduct of fighting school-boys.

1864. Derby Day, p. 155. ‘That will do, mother,’ he said; ‘I think I have had my five shillings’ worth’; but the gipsy would not be choked off until she had finished the patter she had learnt by heart.

1870. London Figaro, 26 November. The hair-oil vendor was proceeding in this strain of eulogium on the virtues of his particular invigorating application when he was gently but firmly choked off.

1883. Graphic, July 7, p. 11, col. 2. English dealers attend these fairs with the object of purchasing these noble-looking animals, but prices have now risen to £20 per head, and the English demand is being choked off.

Choker, subs. (common).—1. A cravat; primarily the large neckerchief once worn high round the neck. Sometimes white choker (q.v.), the white neckerchief peculiar to evening dress.

English Synonyms. Neckinger; tie (this is now technical, but was formerly a slang term); crumpler.

French Synonyms. Un collier or coulant; un blave or blavin; un épiploon (students’).

1848. Thackeray, Book of Snobs, ch. i., p. 146. The usual attire of a gentleman, viz., pumps, a gold waistcoat, a crush hat, a sham frill, and a white choker.

1853. Wh. Melville, Digby Grand, ch. xix. Cram on a wrap-rascal and a shawl choaker. Never mind the gold-laced overalls and spurs.

1853. Rev. E. Bradley (‘Cuthbert Bede’), Verdant Green, pt. I., p. 72. I’ll take off his choker and make him easy about the neck, and then we’ll shut him up and leave him. Why, the beggar’s asleep already.

1855. Thackeray, Newcomes, ch. vii. There’s Mr. Brown, who oils his hair, and wears rings, and white chokers—my eyes! such white chokers!—and yet we call him the handsome snob!

1869. Orchestra, 20 August. I found myself elbowing a fellow-countryman in a button-up waistcoat, and white choker!

1871. London Figaro, 13 May, p. 3, col. 3. ‘Bill ain’t hungry this morning,’ she repeated; ‘or the cove with the white choker ’ud be safe to collar. But look!’

2. (popular).—An all-round collar. Cf., All-rounder.

1869. New York Herald, 6 Sept. ‘Prince Arthur in Canada.’ A neat and elegant black dress coat, closely buttoned, pants of a light drab hue, a choker collar of enormous size, and a black silk tie, were the garments most conspicuous.

3. (common).—A garotter.—See Wind-stopper.

4. (thieves’).—A cell; prison; lock up.—See Chokey.

1884. St. James’s Gazette, Jan. 4, p. 12, col. [missing text] He preferred to go to choker.

5. (thieves’).—The hangman’s rope or ‘squeezer’; a halter. For synonyms, see Horse’s nightcap.

White-choker, subs. (common).—A clergyman. [In allusion to the white ties worn by ‘the cloth.’] For synonyms, see Devil-dodger.

1849. Punch’s Almanack. The Swell Mobsman’s Almanack. Plant about Exeter ’All, in May take old ladies on way to ’All, as they generally hempties into the plate. The vite chokers may be fingured on their way ’ome as they mostly brings hoff a pocketful.

1852. Comic Almanack. ‘Modes of addressing persons of various ranks.’ The Clergy as a body, you will speak of as the white-chokers, The lay aristocracy are simply styled The Nobs.

Chokered, ppl. adj. (common).—Wearing a choker (q.v.).

1866. London Review, 7 April, p. 388, col. 1. A whitebait waiter is admirably chokered.

Chokey, Choky, Chokee or Choker, subs. (common).—1. A prison. [Indian: from Hindī chaukī, a shed, station, or lock-up. In use from 1698 onwards and transferred to English slang early in the present century.] The Queen’s Bench prison has been called the Queen’s chokey. For synonyms, see Cage.

1836. Michael Scott, Cruise of the Midge (ed. 18), p. 107. Lord, but it’s chokey!

1866. London Miscellany, March 3, p. 58, col. 1. I’ve jist crept out o’ chokey. This is the twenty-ninth time I’ve been took that way, and I’m jist gone twenty.

1877. Five Years’ Penal Servitude, ch. ii., p. 131. Both were marched off to chokee, and I have no doubt got punished.

1877. Besant and Rice, This Son of Vulcan, II., ch. vi., p. 223. Find out this stranger, and, by God, I’m a justice of the peace, and I’ll cool his heels in chokee for a month.

1884. Daily News, Sept. 24, p. 3, col. 1. Wright … would get two or three days’ choky (i.e., bread and water).

2. (prison).—A cell, specially a punishment cell. For synonyms, see Clinch.

1889. Answers, 30 March, p. 280, col. 2. But I am reminded that I have not yet described that horrible institution known as the dark cell—chokey, we convicts called it.

Chonkeys, subs. (common).—See quot.

1851–61. H. Mayhew, London Lab. and Lon. Poor, vol. I., p. 208. Chonkeys, or a kind of mincemeat baked in crust.

Chop, subs. (old).—1. A blow. Once (in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries) literary; and still respectable in a ‘chopping’—i.e., a beating ‘sea.’

2. An exchange; a barter. Cf., Chop and change.

1876. C. Hindley, Life and Adventures of a Cheap Jack, p. 140. I purchased, or more properly speaking, had a chop with a wooden bowl maker from Chesham.

Verb (colloquial).—1. To exchange; to barter: as, to chop logic = to give argument for argument; and to chop stories = to ‘cap’ one anecdote with another. Also to change quarters: as ‘the wind chopped round to the north.’ Cf., Swap.

1554. Latimer, wks. (1845), II., 433. Shall we go about to chop away this good occasion, which God offereth us. [m.]

1693. Shadwell, Volunteers, IV. (1720), iv., 467. Horses that are jades … may be chopt away or sold in Smithfield. [m.]

1871. City Press, Jan. 21. ‘Curiosities of Street Literature.’ He hangs out in Monmouth-court, And wears a pair of blue-black breeches, Where all the ‘Polly Cox’s crew’ do resort, To chop their swag for badly-printed dying speeches.

2. To eat a chop.

1841. Mrs. Gore, Cecil, xx. I would rather have chopped at the ‘Blue Posts’ as I once did, fifteen years before. [m.]

1887. Sala, Illustrated London News, Feb. 5, 144. I went one day … to chop at the ‘Cock.’ [m.]

3. (colonial).—See quot.

1871. Sheffield Telegraph, April. West African (New Calabar) slang for cannibalistic practice. He’s chopped, i.e., he is eaten.

Chop and change, subs. phr. (colloquial).—Ups and downs; vicissitudes; changes of fortune.

1759–67. Sterne, Tristam Shandy [ed. 1772], I., ch. xi. [Surnames] which, in a course of years, have generally undergone as many chops and changes as their owners.

1835. Marryat, Jacob Faithful, xvi. At last we were all arranged … although there were several chops and changes about until the order of precedence could be correctly observed.

1845. Hood, To Kitchener, iii. Like Fortune, full of chops and changes.

1849–50. Thackeray, Pendennis, III., p. 423. I have heard of all that has happened, and all the chops and changes that have taken place during my absence.

1851. Mayhew, London Labour and London Poor, II., 238. The accounts of such transactions for a series of years, with all their chops and changes.

Verbal phr., trs. and intrs.—To barter; buy and sell; exchange; change tactics; veer frequently from one side to the other; vacillate, etc.

1485. Digby Myst. (1882), v., 641. I … choppe and chaunge with Symonye, and take large yiftes. [m.]

1593. G. Harvey, Pierces Super., in wks. II., 115. To mangle my sentences, hack my arguments, chopp and change my phrases.

1672. Wycherley, Love in a Wood, wks. V. (1713), 431. We have chop’d and chang’d, and hid our Christina’s so long, and often, that at last, we have drawn each of us our own?

1706. E. Coles, Eng. Dict. Chop Church, changing of one Church for another.

1883. Principal Shairp, in Good Words, Jan., p. 27. The politicians seemed bent on making the Church a tool which they might chop and change as the political wind blew.

First chop, second chop, etc. (q.v.).

Chop-Chop, adv. (pidgin).—Immediately; quickly.

1878. Jas. Payn, By Proxy, ch. ii. ‘Chow-chow is not fish, but food,’ explained Conway, laughing, ‘and chop-chop only means directly.’

Chopper or Chopping Blow, subs. (pugilistic).—1. See quotation. For synonyms, see Dig, Bang, and Wipe.

1819. Thos. Moore, Tom Crib’s Memorial to Congress, pref., p. 30. A chopper is a blow, struck on the face with the back of the hand. Mendoza claims the honour of its invention, but unjustly; he certainly revived, and considerably improved it. It was practised long before our time—Broughton occasionally used it; and Slack, it also appears, struck the chopper in giving the return in many of his battles.

2. (trade).—A sausage maker.

1865. Pall Mall Gazette, 4 Sept., p. 9, col. 2. I was glad to get it off to a chopper at last.… Dr. Letheby explained that a chopper is the trade term for a sausage maker.

To have a chopper, or Button, on, phr. (printers’).—To be miserable; ‘down in the dumps’ or in a fit of the ‘blues.’

Chopping, adj. (old).—Sexually forward; said of girls unduly ‘vain and amatorious.’ [An extension in sense of chopping = strapping, thumping, bouncing, etc.] The French express it by avoir la cuisse gaie.

Chopping-Block, subs. (pugilistic).—A man like a butcher’s block, i.e., who takes an immense amount of ‘punishment’ in a fight without the science or the strength to return it.

Chops. To lick the chops, phr. (common).—See quots. [Chops = the mouth, lips, jaws.] Fr., les jaffes.

1655. Fellowes, tr., Milton’s 2nd Defence, 227. The sight of this egg … caused our monarchy-men … to lick their chops. [m.]

1841. Punch, vol. I., p. 6, Manager. Of course then the Tories will take office? Punch. I rayther suspect they will. Have they not been licking their chops for ten years outside the Treasury door while the sneaking Whigs were helping themselves to all the fat tit-bits within?

Down in the Chops or mouth, phr. (colloquial).—Sad, melancholy. Cf., To have a chopper on.

1830. Sir E. B. Lytton, Paul Clifford, p. 28, ed. 1854. ‘Vy, Paul, my kid, you looks down in the chops; cheer up, care killed a cat.’

1868. Brewer, Phrase and Fable. Down in the chops—i.e., down in the mouth; in a melancholy state; with the mouth drawn down. Chop or chap is Saxon for mouth; we still say a pig’s chap.

Chop the Whiners, verbal phr. (thieves’).—To say prayers. [From an extended use of chop in the sense of to bandy words—hence to speak + whiners (q.v.), prayers.] Fr., manger sa paillasse.

1830. Bulwer Lytton, Paul Clifford, p. 2, ed. 1854. I tells you, I vent first to Mother Bussblour’s, who, I knows, chops the whiners morning and evening to the young ladies, and I axes there for a Bible, and she says, says she, ‘I ’as only a Companion to the Halter! but you’ll get a Bible, I think at Master Talkins the cobbler as preaches.’

1857. Punch, 31 Jan. For them coves in Guildhall and that blessed Lord Mayor, Prigs on their four bones should chop whiners I swear.

Chortle, verb (popular).—To chuckle; to laugh in one’s sleeve; to ‘snort.’ [Introduced by Lewis Carrol in Through the Looking Glass.—See quot.]

1872. Lewis Carrol, Through the Looking Glass, i. ‘O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!’ He chortled in his joy.

1876. Besant and Rice, Golden Butterfly, xxxii., 242. It makes the cynic and the worldly-minded man to chuckle and chortle with an open joy.

1887. Athenæum, 3 Dec., p. 751, col. 1. A means of exciting cynical chortling.

1888. Daily News, 10 Jan., p. 5, col. 2. So may chortle the Anthropophagi. [m.]

Chosen Twelve.—See Apostles.

Chouse, subs. (colloquial).—1. A trick; swindle; sham; or ‘sell’ (q.v.). [From chouse, a cheat, trickster, or swindler, through the verb. The derivation is thus discussed and weighed by Dr. Murray: ‘As to the origin of the Eng. use, Gifford (1814), in a note on the quot. from Ben Jonson, says, ‘In 1609, Sir Robt. Shirley sent a messenger or chiaus to this country, as his agent from the Grand Signior and the Sophy to transact some preparatory business.’ The latter ‘chiaused the Turkish and Persian merchants of £4,000,’ and decamped. But no trace of this incident has yet been found outside of Gifford’s note; it was unknown to Peter Whalley, a previous editor of Ben Jonson, 1756; also to Skinner, Henshaw, Dr. Johnson, Todd, and others who discussed the history of the word. Yet most of these recognised the likeness of chouse to the Turkish word, which Henshaw even proposed as the etymon on the ground that the Turkish chiaus ‘is little better than a fool.’ Gifford’s note must therefore be taken with reserve.’] The word is also used at Eton in this sense, but see sense 2, which is the commoner. Variously spelt chiaus, chews, showse, ghowse, and chouse.

1610. Ben Jonson, Alchymist, I., ii., 25. ‘D. What do you think of me? That I am a chiause? Face. What’s that? D. The Turk [who] was here. As one would say, doe you think I am a Turke?’

1639. Ford, Lady’s Trial, II., i. Gulls, or Moguls, Tag, rag, or other, hogen-mogen, vanden, Skip-jacks, or chouses.

1672. Wycherley, Love in a Wood, I., i., wks. (1713), 343. You are no better than a chouse, a cheat.

1673. Wycherley, Gent. Danc. Master, III., in wks. (1713), 295. He a dancing-master, he’s a chouse, a cheat, a meer cheat.

1754. B. Martin, Eng. Dict. (2 ed.).

2. (Eton College).—A shame; an imposition.

1864. Athenæum. When an Eton boy says that anything is ‘a beastly chouse,’ he means that it is a great shame; and when an Eton peripatetic tradesman is playful enough to call his customer ‘a little chouser,’ he means that a leaf has been taken out of his own book by one on whom he has practised.

1883. Brinsley Richards, Seven Years at Eton. The boy … was told that what he had done was an awful chouse.

Verb (colloquial).—To cheat. [For suggested derivation, see subs., sense 1.] Synonyms will be found under Stick.

1659. Shirley, Honoria and Mam., II., iii. We are in a fair way to be ridiculous.… Chiaus’d by a scholar! [m.]

1663. Pepys, Diary, May 15. The Portugalls have choused us, it seems, in the Island of Bombay, in the East Indys.

1708. Centlivre, Busie Body, Act iii. You and my most conscionable Guardian here … plotted and agreed, to chouse a very civil, honest, honourable gentleman, out of a Hundred Pound.

1742–4. Roger North, Lives of the Norths, I., 90. The judge held them to it, and they were choused of the treble value.

1823. Hints for Oxford, p. 26. Everything in common use at Oxford, with the exception, perhaps, of books, is charged at an exorbitant rate; and, what is worse … you are often having yourself choused with abominable trash.

1890. Academy, Feb. 22, p. 125, col. 1. Susan Burnay’s letters, with charming naïveté, confess that, in the expectation of an early visit from the delightful mimic, she for four mornings was up at seven o’clock, only to find herself, borrowing the slang phrases of the day, ‘choused, for he nick’d us entirely, and never came at all.’

So also choused, ppl. adj., chousing, verbal subs., and chouser, subs.

Chout, subs. (East London).—An entertainment.—Hotten.

Chovey, subs. (costermongers’).—A shop. A shopman is known amongst the fraternity as a man-chovey, and a shop-woman as ann-chovey.

1857. Snowden, Mag. Assistant (2 ed.), 444. A shop—Chovey.

French Synonyms. Une boutogue (thieves’); une boutanche (thieves’); un boucard (thieves’); un rade or radeau (thieves’); also primarily, a till.

German Synonym. Chenwene (a market stall, the stock itself, or a box full of goods; Chenwener, the owner of such a place—a merchant or shop-keeper).

Chow, subs. (theatrical).—Talk; ‘lip’; jaw; e.g., to have ‘plenty of chow’ = to have a good deal to say.

Verb (theatrical).—To talk incessantly; to grumble. A variant is to chip. [Chow is apparently a form of ‘chew,’ now fallen into desuetude.]

Chowder-Headed, adj. (American).—Stupid. [The term though only dialectical in England is pretty general in U.S.A. It is given by Murray as a variant of cholter-headed, which in turn is another form for jolt or jolter-headed. Chowder is properly a kind of hotch-potch, and applied to the intellectuals would imply ‘confusedness,’ and hence idiocy.]

1819. Scott, Lett., 15 April, in Lockhart. I hesitate a little about Raeburn … [he] has twice already made a very chowder-headed person of me.

1851. H. Melville, Whale, xv., 73. What’s that stultifying saying about chowder-headed people? [m.]

18(?). S. L. Clemens (‘Mark Twain’), Launch of the Steamer ‘Capital.’ The Showman … grabbed the orchestra and shook him up, and says, ‘That lets you out, you chowder-headed old clam.’

Christen, verb (thieves’)—1. To erase the markings from a watch, and substitute a fictitious inscription, with a view to preventing identification. An Old Cant variant was to church (q.v.), the derivation being analogous. French thieves, in speaking of a Christened watch or other ‘faked’ silver, use couvert.

1781. G. Parker, View of Society, II., 74. This alteration is called christening, and the watch thus transformed faces the world without fear of detection.

1811. Lexicon Balatronicum, s.v.

1857. Snowden, Mag. Assistant, 3 ed., p. 444. To alter the maker’s name in a watch—to christen a yack.

1868. Doran, Saint and Sinn., II., 290. The pietist thieves … christen daily as soon as they have stolen a watch. This thieves’ christening consists in erasing the maker’s name and supplying another. [m.]

1872. Standard, ‘Middlesex Sessions Report.’ William Miller, the detective officer in the case, being called upon by the judge to state what he knew of the prisoner, said he knew him by his trade as a baker, but he mixed up with watch thieves and housebreakers, and the tools found in his possession he used for christening stolen watches and putting new bows to them.

2. (colloquial).—To mix water with wine; to mix liquors generally. Fr., Maquiller le vitriol = to adulterate brandy; monter sur le tonneau (vinters’ = to add water to a cask of wine). A Spanish equivalent is exactly translated bautizar el vino. To drown the miller (q.v.), = to add too much water.

1824. Scott, Redgauntlet, let. xiii. We’ll christen him with the brewer (here he added a little small beer to his beverage).

3. (low).—To souse from a chamber utensil.

4. (common).—To take a dram; or ‘do a drain,’ in celebration of something, as the purchase of a new pair of boots, a removal, etc.

Christian, subs. (common).—A good fellow; a decent or presentable person. [A human being as distinguished from the brute creation, in which sense it is used by Shakspeare; the modern slang usage was apparently introduced by Dickens.]—See quots. in various senses.

1595. Shakspeare, Two Gentlemen of Verona, Act iii., Sc. 1, 272. Thee hath more qualities than a Water-Spaniell, which is much in a bare Christian.

1811. Lexicon Balatronicum, Christian: a tradesman who has faith, i.e., will give credit.

1843. Dickens, Martin Chuzzlewit, xxxiv. You must take your passage like a Christian; at least, as like a Christian as a fore-cabin passenger can.

1859. Times, 20 April. Grey parrot for sale, the property of a lady. She talks like a Christian, and is in first-rate condition. Price, including cage. £15. Apply, etc., etc.

Adj. (common).—Decent; respectable, etc.—[See subs.]

Christian Pony, subs. phr. (old Irish slang).—The chairman or president of a meeting.

Christians, subs. pl. (Cambridge Univ.).—Members of Christ’s College.—[Of obvious derivation.]

Christmas, Christmassing, subs. and verbal subs. (colloquial).—Holly and mistletoe.

1836. C. Dickens, Pickwick Papers, p. 228 (ed. 1857). The fat boy pointed to the destination of the pies. ‘Wery good,’ said Sam, ‘stick a bit o’ Christmas in ’em.’

1851. H. Mayhew, Lon. Lab. and Lon. Poor, vol. I., p. 141. In London a large trade is carried on in Christmasing, or in the sale of holly and mistletoe for Christmas sports and decorations.… ‘Look,’ said a gardener to me, ‘what’s spent on a Christmasing the churches!’

Chuck, subs. (prison).—1. Bread; meat; in fact, refreshment of any kind.

1850. Lloyd’s Newspaper, Oct. 6. ‘Inquest on murder of Rev. Mr. Hollest, Frimley Grove, Surrey.’ Macey, the village constable, stated that the prisoner, upon coming to his cottage door had tried hard to get some chuck out of him, but had failed.

1877. Five Years’ Penal Servitude, ch. i., p. 4. Two large slices of bread, … the allowance given out to some prisoner who … had forgotten to eat what in prison slang is called his ‘toke’ or chuck.

1877. S. L. Clemens (‘Mark Twain’), Life on the Mississippi, ch. lii., p. 463. i wish i was nere you so i could send you chuck (refreshments) on holidays.

2. (common).—Scraps of meat; block ornaments (q.v.). For synonyms, see Duck.

1871. Echo, 11 Dec. ‘Sunday amongst the Silk Weavers.’ Few regular butchers ply their trade on Sunday morning—money is only to be made by the vendors of nauseous substitutes for wholesome meat—the refuse portion of beef and mutton, tough, coarse, and meagre pork, flaccid tripe, lean little sheeps’ chuks, as the natives call them, the savourless saveloy of Old England.

1887. Standard, 20 Jan. ‘The Poor at Market.’ From a sort of ludicrous spirit of snobbery a labourer will term a fellow he dislikes a ‘beggar who eats chuck,’ chuck being a low-priced part of the carcase.

3. (Billingsgate).—See quot.

1851–61. Mayhew, London Lab. and Lon. Poor, vol. I., p. 73. Sprats … are sold at Billingsgate by the ‘toss,’ or chuck, which is about half a bushel, and weighs about 40 lbs. to 50 lbs.

4. (colloquial).—A toss or throw.

1883. Punch, June 2, p. 264, col. 1. The average number of chucks at cocoa-nuts before achieving success is six.

5. (nautical).—Sea biscuit. Cf., senses 1 and 6. A sailor’s variant is ‘chow-dow.’

1864. Standard, 13 Dec. Of naval slang Mr. Hotten has missed the words chuck, used by sailors for biscuit, and barge, the box or cask in which the chuck is kept by the messes on the lower deck.

6. (military).—Mealy bread. Cf., nautical usage, sense 5.

7. (Westminster School).—A schoolboy’s treat.

1864. Hotten, Slang Dict., p. 101, s.v.

Verb (colloquial).—1. To throw; especially to throw away; to pitch.

1593. Prodigal Son, iv., 112. Yes, this old one will I give you (chucks him old hose and doublet). [m.]

1627. Drayton, Agincourt, 63. In the Tauerne, in his cups doth rore, chocking his crownes. [m.]

1753. Adventurer, No. 43. I … was kicked about, hustled, tossed up, and chucked into holes.

1771. Smollet, Humphry Clinker, l. 36. Dirt and trash chucked into it by roguish boys for the joke’s sake.

1820. Coombe, Dr. Syntax, tour II., ch. i. Yes, faith, as I’ve a soul to save, I will for nothing dig her grave; Yes, I would do it too as willing As if her hand had chuck’d a shilling.

1836. Dickens, Pickwick, ch. xxxix., p. 342. I’m not only ready but villin’ to do anythin’ as’ll make matters agreeable; and if chuckin’ either o’ them sawbonesses out of winder u’ll do it, I’m the man.

1851. H. Mayhew, Lon. Lab. and Lon. Poor, vol. I., p. 150. Many a time I walked through the streets and picked a piece of bread that the servants chucked out of the door.

1864. Dickens, Our Mutual Friend, bk. IV., ch. i. ‘When you’re ready for your snooze,’ said the honest creature, ‘chuck yourself on my bed in the corner.’

2. (vagrants’).—To eat.—See subs., sense 1. For synonyms, see Grub.

1876. Hindley, Life and Adventures of a Cheap Jack, p. 192. Mo and his man were having a great breakfast one morning … Mo exclaimed to his man, ‘Chuck rumbo (eat plenty), my lad.’

3. (pigeon fanciers’).—To despatch a pigeon. Cf., sense 1, and To chuck it; also Hard chuck.

4. (general).—To spend extravagantly. For synonyms, see Ducks and Drakes.

1876. Besant and Rice, Golden Butterfly, ch. xviii. Next to unlimited chucking of his own money, the youthful Englishman would like—what he never gets—the unlimited chucking of other people’s.

5. (old).—To desire (sexually); to be ‘warm,’ or a hot member (q.v.).

To chuck, chuck it, or chuck up, verbal phr. To abandon; ‘turn up’; dismiss; turn out of doors; to give up. Also chuck it up = ‘drop it.’ [From the custom of throwing up the sponge at a prize fight in sign of defeat. Often corrupted into jack up.—See Sponge. A French equivalent is laisser tout en plan.

1869. Daily Telegraph, 6 Sept. ‘Season at Baden.’ Why is it that Englishwomen can never combine their colours, or put on their clothes? Are their maids used to haymaking when at home, and do they ‘pitch’ on the petticoats, and give three cheers and have beer when they finish the work by chucking up the dress?

1883. Hawley Smart, Hard Lines, ch. xxvi. ‘But here, Cis, if you mean business, take my advice and chuck that corps.’

1883. Miss Braddon, Phantom Fortune, ch. xxv. She knows on which side her bread is buttered. Look how easily she chucked you up because she did not think you good enough.

To get or give the chuck, phr.—To dismiss, or be dismissed, Cf., bag and sack.

1889. Sporting Times [quoted in Slang, Jargon, and Cant]. And I shall get the blooming chuck as well as fourteen days.

Chuck up the sponge.—See Sponge.

To chuck [oneself] about or into, phr.—To move expeditiously. For synonyms, see Amputate and Skedaddle. Also, to fall into.

1860. Funny Fellow, 7 May, p. 1. Hollo, my kiddy, stir your stumps, And chuck yourself about.

Chuck her up, phr. (cricket).—An expression of delight. [From the practice of throwing the ball into the air after a successful catch.]

[The verb, to chuck, is attached in an active sense to any number of objectives, and may be taken as equivalent to ‘to perform’ or ‘do.’ Thus ‘to chuck a fag’ = to ‘give a beating’; to ‘chuck a turd’ = to ‘rear,’ to evacuate; to ‘chuck a tread’ = to have intercourse; to ‘chuck a jolly’ = to undertake a bout of chaff; to ‘chuck a fit’ = to have an epileptic, or apoplectic, seizure; to ‘chuck a cram’ or ‘a kid’ = to lie, etc.]

Hard-chuck (pigeon fanciers’).—A long distance; also a trying flight. From Gravesend to London is considered a hard-chuck, as the low, flat country is bare of landmarks.

Chuck a Curly, verbal phr. (military).—To feign sickness; to malinger. [For possible derivation, see general remarks on Chuck, in a preceding paragraph, + curly, ‘doubling up,’ or writhing, as in pain.]

Chuck a Jolly, verbal phr. (costermongers’).—To bear up or ‘bonnet’: as when a costermonger praises the inferior article his mate or partner is trying to sell. This process is usually commenced with a chi-ike (q.v.). Also to undertake a bout of chaff.

Chuck a Stall, verb phr. (thieves’).—To attract a person’s attention while a confederate picks his pockets, or otherwise robs him. [Stall = an accomplice; and as a verb, to keep watch or spy upon.]

1884. Greenwood, Seven Years’ Penal Servitude. I said to my pal ‘chuck me a stall and I’ll have that.’ What did I mean? Why, keep close to me, and cover what I’m doing.

Chucked. To be chucked or chucked up, verbal phr. (thieves’).—1. To escape committal; to be acquitted or released.

1887. Horsley, Jottings from Jail, Rit from 7 dials; remanded innocent on two charges of pokes, only out 2 weeks for a drag, expects to be fullied or else chucked.

1889. Evening News [quoted in Slang, Jargon, and Cant, p. 251, col. 1]. When I was chucked up they took me to an old Jew’s in Dudley Street for my clothes.

1889. Answers, 9 Feb. He was fortunate enough to get chucked, to escape, that is to say, as the evidence against him was not strong enough.

2. (common).—[Generally chucked out.] To be forcibly ejected. [From chuck, verb, sense 1, + ed + out.] Cf., Chucker-out.

3. (common).—Slightly intoxicated. For synonyms see Screwed.

1889. Ally Sloper’s Half-Holiday, Aug. 17, p. 258, col. 2. His back being nearly broken from your constantly falling over him when you’ve been chucked.

4. (prostitutes’).—Amorous; and hence ‘fast.’ French, galoper une femme = to make hot love to a woman. Cf., Molrower.

French Synonyms. S’allumer or allumer son pétrole or son gaz (the first of these terms is in general use, the others being employed chiefly by prostitutes); battre du beurre (popular: used more in the sense of ‘to be fast,’ but also = to speculate on ‘Change’ and to dissemble).

German Synonym. Spannen (to ogle prostitutes; to waylay women in order to make overtures; generally to lear with concupiscence).

Spanish Synonyms. Apacentar (properly to tend cattle); desbeber (also = to make water); despepitarse (literally to give a loose to one’s tongue or to act imprudently); rabanillo (m = an ardent longing).

5. (common).—To be disappointed; put out in one’s calculations; put to shame; ‘sold.’

c. 1879. Broadside Ballad. ‘Chucked again.’ Chucked again, chucked again! Whatever may happen I get all the blame, Wherever I go, it is always the same—Jolly well chucked again!

Chucked-In, adv. phr. (popular).—Into the bargain. Cf., Lagniappe. [From chuck, sense 1, + ed + in.]

1880. Punch, No. 2055, p. 245. Happy thought! chucked in an extra chapter on Literature.

1884. Punch, Oct. 11. ‘’Arry at a Political Picnic.’ Went to one on ’em yesterday, Charlie; a regular old up and down lark. The Pallis free gratis, mixed up with a old country fair in a park, And Rosherville Gardens chucked in.

Chucker, subs. (cricketers’).—1. A volunteer who does not keep a promise to play.

2. A bowler who throws the ball.

Chucker-Out, subs. (colloquial).—A man retained to eject or ‘chuck out’ from public meetings, taverns, brothels, and hells.—See quot., 1880.

1880. Punch, No. 2040, p. 63. Lord Grey was about to resume his rôle of chucker-out to the proposed measures of his own party.

1883. Saturday Review, March 31, p. 398, col. 1. We hired a smiling but stalwart assistant to act in the capacity of chucker-out.

1884. Good Words, June, p. 400, col. 1. He had done twelve months [in prison] for crippling for life the chucker-out of one of these pubs. [m.]

1885. All the Year Round, Nov., 2226. Dens to which Brickey is attached in the capacity of chucker-out. [m.]

1887. Guardian, 2 March, p. 343, col. 1. Bogus meetings, where the chairman, committee, reporters, audience, and chuckers-out were all subsidised. [m.]

1890. The Scots Observer, p. 394, col. 2. The result of which was the resolution to appoint a body of Chuckers-out to keep delegates in order, and to show the Commons what to do with its Healys and its Tanners.

Chuck-Farthing, Chuck, Chuck-and-Toss, or Pitch-and-Toss, subs. phr. (common).—Games played with money, which is pitched at a line, gathered, shaken in the hands, and tossed up into the air so as to fall ‘heads and tails’ until the stakes are guessed away. A parish clerk was formerly nicknamed a chuck-farthing.

1690. B. E., Dict. Cant. Crew. Chuck Farthing: a Parish Clerk (in the Satyr against Hypocrites) also a Play among Boies.

1703. Ward, London Spy, pt. XIII., p. 317. Where Mumpers, Soldiers and Ballad-Singers, were as busie at chuck-farthing and Hussle-Cap, as so many Rooks at a gaming Ordinary.

1712. Spectator, No. 509. The unlucky boys with toys and balls were whipped away by a beadle, I have seen this done indeed of late, but then it has been only to chase the lads from chuck, that the beadle might seize their copper.

1759. Sterne, Tristram Shandy, vol. I., ch. x. The spinning-wheel forgot its round,—even chuck-farthing and shuffle-cap themselves stood gaping till he had got out of sight.

1821. Clare, Vill. Minstr., I., 174. With chuck and marbles wearing Sunday through.

1851. Mayhew, Lon. Lab. and Lon. Poor, II., p. 398. They frequently had halfpence given to them. They played also at chuck and toss with the journeymen, and of course were stripped of every farthing.

c. 1868. Brough, Field of the Cloth of Gold. From pitch-and-toss to manslaughter’s my game.

1878. M. E. Braddon, Cloven Foot, ch. xlii. ‘I remember when I was a little chap, at Dr. Prossford’s grammar school, playing chuck-farthing.’

1888. Illus. London News, Summer Number, p. 26, col. 1. Having replaced the musty documents upon the shelf, that ingenious youth adjourned to indulge in the passionately exhilarating game of chuck-farthing.

Chuck In, verb (pugilistic).—To challenge.—[From the custom of throwing a hat into the ring; a modern version of throwing down the gauntlet. Also, ‘to compete’; e.g., I shall have a chuck in = ‘I shall try my luck’—with a woman, a raffle, a personal encounter, and so on.

Chucking-Out, subs. (popular).—Ejection. [From chuck, verb, sense 1, through chuck up (q.v.), + ing + out.] Also as an adj.

1881. Sportsman, Jan. 31, p. 3, col. 5. We were the first to take the part of the pit against a chucking-out policy. [m.]

1887. Pall Mall Gaz., Feb. 23, p. 11, col. 1. Evictions in Glenbeigh … and chuckings-out in London. [m.]

1887. G. R. Sims, How the Poor Live, p. 83. It is fair to say that the youths seemed quite ready for the emergency, and took their chucking-out most skilfully.

Chucks! intj. (school).—A boy’s signal on a master’s approach. A French schoolboy’s equivalent is Vesse!

Chuck the Dummy, verbal phr. (thieves’).—To feign sickness, especially epilepsy; a common dodge in prisons to get an order for the infirmary.

Chuff It! intj. (common).—Be off! Take it away! For synonyms, see Hookey Walker!

Chul or Chull, verb (Anglo-Indian).—See quot.

1886. G. A. Sala, in Ill. L. News, June 19, p. 644. In Calcutta chul is a word that you hear fifty times a day. A lady tells you that her new Ayah will not chul at all; the proprietor of that popular weekly journal, the Hooghly Dacoit … tells you that he is going home for six months; but that he has an able editor, and that the paper will chul very well during his absence. The chul, I apprehend, means to go on, to proceed, to do.

Chum, subs. (colloquial).—A close companion; a bosom friend; an intimate. Formerly a chamber-fellow or mate. [Johnson calls it a term used in the Universities, and the earliest quot. seems to bear him out. The derivation is uncertain, and Dr. Murray says ‘no historical proof connecting it with “chamber-fellow” or “chamber-mate” has been found.’]

1684. Creech, Theocritus, Idyll XII. Ded. to my chum, Mr. Hody of Wadham College. [m.]

1690. B. E., Dict. Cant. Crew. Chum: a Chamber-fellow, or constant Companion.

1714. Spectator, No. 617. Letter written by University man to a friend begins ‘Dear Chum.’

c. 1750. Humours of the Fleet, quot. in Ashton’s Eighteenth Century Waifs, p. 249. When you have a chum, you pay but fifteen pence per week each.

1828–45. T. Hood, Poems, vol. II., p. 201 (ed. 1846). The very chum that shared my cake Holds out so cold a hand to shake It makes me shrink and sigh.

1855. Thackeray, Newcomes, ch. v. The Colonel, as has been stated, had an Indian chum or companion, with whom he shared his lodgings.

1889. Pall Mall Gazette, Nov. 21, p. 6, col. 2. His [Allingham’s] own chosen friend was Dante Gabriel Rossetti, his chums the Pre-Raphaelite brotherhood.

English Synonyms. Gossip; pal; pard (American); marrow (north-country); cully (theatrical); cummer; ben cull; butty; bo’ (nautical); mate or matey; ribstone; bloater.

French Synonyms. Une branche (literally a branch or bough); un amar or amarre (thieves’, Cf., amarre, a cable, rope, hawser); un aminche, aminchemar, or aminchemince (thieves’: aminche d’af = an accomplice or stallsman); amis comme cochons (popular, m. pl.: literally ‘as thick as pigs.’ Cf., as thick as thieves); un matelot; une coterie (popular); un bon attelage (cavalry = a couple of good friends; literally ‘a good team’); un artiste (popular); un camerluche or camarluche (popular); vieux frère la côte (sailors’); un camaro; une faridole (prostitutes’ = a female pal); un fanande, or fanandel (thieves’).

German Synonyms. Gleicher (also ‘a brother’); Kineh or Kinehbruder (Viennese thieves’: German thieves use Kinne; from the Hebrew Kinnim, ‘a louse’; Kinnemachler, literally ‘lice eater’ = a dirty, filthy fellow; also = a miser. Kinimer = a man full of lice).

Italian Synonyms. Furbo = ‘an imposter, rogue, or sharper’; foneo; calcagno; guido, or guidone (literally a ‘guide.’ Also a ‘dog’ or ‘beggar’).

Spanish Synonyms. Cirinco (m); compinche (m).

Portuguese Synonym. Filhos do Golpe (literally ‘children of the crowd’).

2. (military).—A brother-in-arms.

1890. Rudyard Kipling, Plain Tales (3rd ed.), p. 264. Oh! where would I be when my froat was dry? Oh! where would I be when the bullets fly? Oh! where would I be when I came to die? Why, Somewheres anigh my chum.

Verb, trs. and intrs. (colloquial).—To occupy a joint lodging, or share expenses; to be on the closest terms of intimacy with another; to be ‘thick as thieves’; or ‘thick as hops.’ French slang has être dans la chemise de quelqu’un; also être du dernier bien avec quelqu’un.

1730. Wesley, wks. (1872) XII., 20. There are … some honest fellows in College, who would be willing to chum in one of them. [m.]

1762. Churchill, The Ghost, bk. II. Old Maids and Rakes are join’d together. Coquettes and Prudes, like April weather, Wits forc’d to chum with Common Sense.

1836. C. Dickens, Pickwick Papers, p. 339 (ed. 1857). ‘Why I don’t rightly know about to night,’ replied the stout turnkey. ‘You’ll be chummed on somebody to-morrow, and then you’ll be all snug and comfortable.’

1864. Temple Bar, Nov., p. 587. We choose our own carriages, and either leave our fellow trippers altogether, or, making a selection, chum in parties of three or four.

1871. Mortimer Collins, Mrq. and Merch., II., v., 143. She … found herself chummed upon a young person who turned out to be … a … slattern. [m.]

1877. Besant and Rice, With Harp and Crown, ch. xii. Here are City clerks, who, by chumming together, are able to afford one festive evening in the week at the Oxford.

New Chum, subs. (Australian).—A new arrival in the colony; a ‘greenhorn’; or ‘tenderfoot.’ For general synonyms, see Snooker.

1861. Earles, Ups and Downs of Australian Life, p. 199. ‘I suppose you’re a stranger, or as we calls ’em, a new chum, ain’t you?’

1886. E. Wakefield, Nineteenth Century, Aug., p. 173. In these colonies [Australia], where pretty nearly every one has made several sea voyages, that subject is strictly tabooed in all rational society. To dilate upon it is to betray a new chum.

1889. Town and Country, 16 Feb. ‘Answers to Correspondents.’ New Chum (Forbes):—The first instalment will be due, etc.

Chummage, subs. (old).—Money procured by the practice of chumming together; but various extensions of meaning appear to have been in vogue at different periods.—See quots. [The practice alluded to in quot. 1777, was the rough music made with pokers, tongs, sticks, and saucepans, for which ovation the initiated prisoner had to pay or ‘fork out’ a certain sum of money, or submit to being deprived of its equivalent from among his personal effects; otherwise called chumming up.]

1777. Howard, State of Prisons in England and Wales, quoted in J. Ashton’s The Fleet, p. 295. A cruel custom obtains in most of our Gaols, which is that of the prisoners demanding of a new comer Garnish, Footing, or (as it is called in some London Gaols) chummage.

1785. Grose, Dict. Vulg. Tongue. Chummage: money paid by the richer sort of prisoners in the Fleet and King’s Bench to the poorer for their share of a room.… A prisoner who can pay for being alone, chooses two poor chums, who for a stipulated price, called chummage, give up their share of the room.

1836. Dickens, Pickwick, xlii. The regular chummage is two-and-sixpence.

1859. G. A. Sala, Twice Round the Clock (1861), 103. The time-honoured system of chummage, or quartering two or more collegians in one room, and allowing the richest to pay his companions a stipulated sum to go out and find quarters elsewhere.

Also used as an adjective.

1836. Dickens, Pickwick, ch. xlii., p. 364. You’ll have a chummage ticket upon twenty-seven in the third, and them as is in the room will be your chums.

Chummery, subs. (common).—Chumhood; also the quarters occupied by ‘chums.’ [From Chum + ery; cf., Rookery, snuggery, &c.].

1877. Besant and Rice, Son of Vulcan, p. 196. Jack and her father lived in bachelor Chummery.

Chummy, subs. (colloquial).—1. A chimney-sweep’s climbing boy. [A corruption of ‘chimney’ through ‘chumley.’]

1835. Dickens, Sketches by Boz, p. 169. Vereas he ’ad been a chummy—he begged the cheerman’s parding for using such a vulgar hexpression, etc.

1844. Thackeray, Greenwich, wks. (1886) XXIII., 380. The hall … was decorated with banners and escutcheons of deceased chummies. [m.]

1851–61. H. Mayhew, London Lab. and Lond. Poor, vol. II., p. 417. A chummy (once a common name for the climbing-boy, being a corruption of chimney).

1859. W. Gregory, Egypt, I.; 154. His shrill voice, high up aloft, like a chummy’s on a London summer morn. [m.]

2. A diminutive form of chum (q.v.).

1864. Gilbert, Bab Ballads, Etiquette. Old chummies at the Charterhouse were Robinson and he. [m.]

3. (common).—A low-crowned felt hat; For synonyms, see Golgotha.

Adj. (colloquial).—Very intimate; friendly; sociable. The analogous French terms are chouette; chouettard; chouettaud.

1884. Harper’s Magazine, Sept., p. 536 col. 2. I … saw them form into small chummy groups. [m.]

1888. W. Besant, Herr Paulus, bk. III, ch. xi., vol. III., p. 204. I liked the fellow, I confess, and we got chummy in the evenings.

1889. Answers, May 11, p. 380. When I was at Pentonville, a man in the same ward, who had got rather chummy with his warder, asked him to post a letter to his friends in Manchester.

Chump, subs. (common).—1. A blockhead.

1883. Hawley Smart, At Fault, II., i., 29. Such a long-winded old chump at telling a story one don’t often see, thank goodness.

1887. Pall Mall Gazette, 2 Feb., p. 10. col. 1. Frank audibly remarked: ‘This man is a chump. I could go … this minute and do better than that.’ [m.]

2. (popular).—A variant of chum, subs. (q.v.). French ma vieille branche = my old chump.

1884. Punch, 11 Oct. ‘’Arry at a Political Picnic.’ All my Saturday arfs are devoted to Politics. Fancy, old chump, Me doing the sawdusty reglar, and follering swells on the stump.

3. (popular).—The head; especially in the phrase off one’s chump (q.v.). For synonyms, see Crumpet.

Chump-of-Wood, subs. phr. (rhyming slang).—No good. Also a blockhead.

Off one’s chump, phr. (vulgar).—Insane. Cf., Off one’s Head, nut, etc. For synonyms, see Apartments.

c. 1860. Broadside Ballad, ‘We are a merry family.’ The fire is out, the fender’s broke, And father’s out on strike, Sister Ann’s gone off her chump, In fact, we’re all alike.

1866. Broadside Ballad, ‘Oh, She Was Such a Beautiful Girl.’ She diddled me, she fiddled me, She sent me off my chump.

1877. Besant and Rice, Son of Vulcan, II., xxiv., p. 377. ‘Master.’ he said, ‘have gone off his chump—that’s all.’

1883. Besant, Captain’s Room, ch. vii., p. 85 (1885). He … was engaged to be married to the king’s sister … unfortunately, only the week before I arrived, he was killed and devoured by a lion, and the princess was gone off her royal chump.

To get one’s own chump, phr. (thieves’).—See quot.

1877. Five Years’ Penal Servitude, ch. iii., p. 242. ‘Cut her own grass! Good gracious, what is that?’ I asked. ‘Why, purvide her own chump—earn her own living,’ the old man replied.

Chumpy, adj. (common).—The same as off one’s chump.

Chunk, subs. (colloquial).—1. A thick piece or lump of wood, bread, coal, etc.

1691. Ray, S. and E. Country Wds. (E.D.S.) Chuck, a great chip.… In other countries [= districts] they call it a chunk. [m.]

1787. Grose, Prov. Glossary, ‘Chuck.’ Chuck, a great chip, Suss. In other counties called a chunk or junk.

1876. Besant and Rice, Golden Butterfly, ch. xxix. Why not keep a clerk to read for you, and pay out the information in small chunks? I should like to tackle Mr. Carlyle that way.

c. 1880. Broadside Ballad, ‘The Hungry Man from Clapham.’ He’d eat everything there was in the place, He bit a chunk from his mother-in-law’s face.

2. (streets’).—A school-board officer.

18(?). Thor Fredur, Sketches from Shady Places. Here they gambol about like rabbits, until somebody raises the cry, ‘Nix! the chunk’ (the slang term for School Board officer).

Church, verb (thieves’).—To take out the works of a watch and substitute another set, so that identification is impossible.—See Christen, verb, sense 1.

1857. Snowden, Mag. Assistant, 3 ed., p. 445. To have the works of a watch put into another case—To church a yack.

1868. Doran, Saints and Sinn., II., 290. The (thieves’) church their yacks when they transpose the works of stolen watches to prevent identification. [m.]

To talk church, verbal phr. (colloquial).—To talk ‘shop’ (q.v.).

1851. Newland, Erne, 217. Looking at those wretched people and talking church. [m.]

Churchwarden, subs. (general).—A clay pipe with a long stem.—See quot., 1864, under Clay. The following are general variants.

English Synonyms. Alderman; steamer; yard of clay; clay.

French Synonyms. Une bouffarde; une Belge; une chiffarde (thieves’); une marseillaise; une gambier (pop. from a manufacturer’s name).

German Synonyms. Lülke (M.H.G. lullen or löllen = to suck; lülken, to smoke); Massel (Swabian: also = a street-walker; masseln = to smoke); Nagel; Pilmerstab (only in Zimmermann); Sarcherstock (from the Hebrew sorach, through särchen, to stink or to smoke. Sarcher, tobacco; Sarcherkippe or Sarchertiefe, tobacco-box; Sarcherhanjo, tobacco-pouch); Selcher (Viennese thieves’: from selchen, to smoke); Schmalfink.

1857. Hood, Pen and Pencil Pictures, p. 269. Give me my willow-tube for a lance, the lid of a cigar-box for a shield. Thrust me a pair of cutties into my girdle for pistols; hang a churchwarden by my side for a sabre.

1863. Alex. Smith, Dreamthorpe, p. 262. He … lifted a pipe of the kind called churchwarden from the box on the ground, filled and lighted it.

1864. Dr. Richardson, on ‘Tobacco,’ before Brit. Assoc. Meeting at Bath. Cigars are more injurious than any form of pipe; and the best pipe is unquestionably what is commonly called a churchwarden or long clay.

Churl. To put a churl upon a gentleman.—See Gentleman.

Cider. All talk and no cider, phr. (American).—Purposeless loquacity; ‘Much cry and little wool.’ Literally, much ado about nothing. [For suggested derivation, see quot., 1871.]

1835–40. Haliburton (‘Sam Slick’), Clockmaker, 1 S., ch. xxi. It is an expensive kind of honour that, bein’ Governor.… Great cry and little wool! all talk and no cider.

1858. Notes and Queries, 2 S., v., 233. All talk and no cider. This expression is applied to persons whose performances fall far short of their promises.

1862. C. F. Browne, Artemus Ward: His Book, p. 135. What we want is more cider and less talk.

1871. De Vere, Americanisms, p. 591. This phrase originated at a party in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, which had assembled to drink a barrel of superior cider; but politics being introduced, speeches were made, and discussion ensued, till some malcontents withdrew on the plea that it was a trap into which they had been lured, politics and not pleasure being the purpose of the meeting, or, as they called it, all talk and no cider.

Cider And, subs. phr. (colloquial).—Cider mixed with some other ingredient. Cf., Cold without, Hot with, etc.

1742. Fielding, Joseph Andrews, bk. I., ch. xvi. She then asked the doctor and Mr. Barnabas what morning’s draught they chose, who answered, they had a pot of cider-and at the fire.

Cig, subs. (common).—A cigar. [An abbreviation of the legitimate word.] For synonyms, see Weed.

Cinch, verb (American).—To get a grip on; to ‘corner’; to put the screw on; also, in the passive sense, to come out on the wrong side in speculations. [From the Spanish cincha, a belt or girdle; cinchar, to girdle. Properly used of the saddling of horses with the huge Mexican saddle. To cinch a horse, however, is by no means the same as girthing him. The two ends of the tough cordage which constitute the cinch terminate in long narrow strips of leather called latigos—thongs—which connect the cinches with the saddle, and are run through an iron ring and then tied by a series of complicated turns and knots known only to the craft.]

1875. Scribner’s Mag., July, p. 277. A man is cinched = he is hurt in a mining transaction (San Francisco localism).

1881. New York Times, Dec. 18, quoted in Notes and Queries, 6 S., v. 65. Cinch. To subdue, to forcibly bind down and overcome. Thus it is unfairly said that the Northern Pacific Company intends to cinch the settlers by exacting large prices for its lands. Query, from Latin cingere.

1888. Daily Inter-Ocean, 2 Feb. Black and Blue thinks the Dwyers have a cinch on both the great events.

1888. New York World, 22 July. The bettor, of whom the pool-room bookmaker stands in dread, however, is the racehorse owner, who has a cinch bottled up for a particular race, and drops into the room an hour or two before the races begin.

Cincinnati Olive, subs. (American).—A pig. [A spurious ‘olive oil’ is manufactured from lard, and Cincinnati is one of the largest centres of the ‘pork packing industry’ in America.] Cf., Cincinnati Oysters.

Cincinnati Oysters, subs. (American).—Pigs’ trotters. A curious interchange of names occurs between fish, flesh, and fowl. In Cincinnati Oysters we have flesh presented in the guise of fish; and the reverse is the case when the sturgeon is spoken of as Albany beef. Amongst other examples may be quoted marble-head turkey, for a codfish; also, in Nova Scotia a digby chicken = a herring smoked and dried in a peculiar fashion. In England a Billingsgate pheasant is a fresh herring; whilst a Yarmouth bloater is sometimes a two-eyed steak.

Cinder, subs. (common).—1. Any strong liquor as brandy, whiskey, sherry, etc., mixed with a weaker, as soda-water, lemonade, water, etc., to fortify it.

1864. Hotten, Slang Dictionary, s.v.

1883. Referee, March 18, p. 2, col. 4. Having rushed out to get a glass of cold water with a cinder in it to take the chill off.

2. (sporting).—A running path or track; merely an abbreviation of ‘cinder-path,’ it being laid with ‘cinders.’

Cinder-Garbler, subs. (old).—A female servant. Grose [1785] says the term was ‘Custom House wit,’ but gives no particulars.

English Synonyms. Marchioness; slavey; cinder-grabber; cinderella; can (Scots); piss-kitchen; Julia.

French Synonyms. Un extrait de garni (popular); un chambrillon; une bobonne (for bonne); une larbine; une cambrouse; une jeanneton; une groule or groulasse.

German Synonyms. Schifche or Schifches; Schammesch or Schammes (from the Hebrew).

Spanish Synonym. Famula (f).

Circling-Boy, subs. (old).—A ‘rook’; swindler. Nares says a species of roarer; one who in some way drew a man into a snare, to cheat or rob him. See Gifford.—Ben Jonson, Barth. Fair, iv., 3, p. 481.

Circs, subs. (common).—Circumstances.

Circumbendibus, subs. (old).—A roundabout; a long-winded story. [From Lat. circum, around, + Eng. bend, with a Latin termination.]

1681. Dryden, Sp. Friar, V., ii. I shall fetch him back with a circumbendibus, I warrant him. [m.]

1768. Lord Carlisle, in Jesse’s Selwyn, II., 317 (1882). I can assure you it grieved me that anything of yours should make such a circumbendibus before it came to my hands.

1773. O. Goldsmith, She Stoops to Conquer, Act v., Sc. 2. ‘And from that, with a circumbendibus, I fairly lodged them in the horse-pond at the bottom of the garden.’

1849. Lytton, Caxtons, pt. VIII., ch. i. The cabman, to swell his fare, had thought proper to take a circumbendibus.

1890. Notes and Queries, 7 S., ix., 29 March.… No choice but to deliver himself of a malediction with a circumbendibus.

Circumlocution Office, subs. (common).—A centre of red-tape; a roundabout way. [A term invented by Charles Dickens (see quot., 1857), and applied at first in ridicule to public offices, where everybody tries to shuffle off his responsibilities upon some one else.]

1857. C. Dickens, Little Dorrit, I., x. The Circumlocution Office was the most important Department under Government. Ibid. Whatever was required to be done, the Circumlocution Office was beforehand with all the public departments in the art of perceiving—How not to do it.

1870. Graphic, Feb. 19, in ‘By the Bye.’ To complete the contretemps a portion of the telegraphs struck work on the very first day of the Government taking them in hand. Of course the great tribe of evil-wishers ran about chuckling, and rubbing their hands gleefully. ‘I told you so,’ cried Rubasore. Circumlocution Office again, sneered Crossgrain.

Circumslogdologize.—See Stockdollagize.

Circumstance. Not a circumstance, etc., phr. (American).—Not to be compared with; a trifle; of no account—unfavourable comparison.

18(?). J. H. Beadle, Western Wilds, p. 28. I took a broadhorn to Noo Orleens, and when I was paid off on the levee, I was the worst lost man you ever did see. In the middle of the thickest woods in the world wasn’t a circumstance to it.

1848. J. R. Lowell, Biglow Papers. For Jacob warn’t a suckemstance to Jeff at financierin’; He never’d thought of borryin’ from Esau like all nater An’ then cornfiscatin’ all debts to sech a small pertater.

To whip [something] into a circumstance = to surpass. Thus a newspaper correspondent writes that ‘the streets of Georgetown, Demerara, are broad, smooth, and well laid out. Georgetown could give points to New York in its roads, and whip it into a circumstance.’

Circus-Cuss, subs. (thieves’).—A circus-rider.

Citizen, subs. (thieves’).—A wedge for ‘prizing open’ safes, before the alderman (q.v.), and jemmy (q.v.).—See also Citizens’ friend.

Citizens’ Friend, subs. (thieves’).—A smaller wedge than the citizen (q.v.), for ‘prizing open’ safes. The order in which the tools are used is (1) Citizens’ Friend; (2) Citizen; (3) the Alderman (i.e., a Jemmy); and sometimes (4) a Lord Mayor. For synonyms, see Jemmy and Betty.

City College, subs. (thieves’).—Newgate. In New York = ‘The Tombs.’ For synonyms, see Cage.

City Stage, subs. (old).—The gallows, formerly in front of Newgate. For synonyms, see Nubbing Cheat.

Civet, subs. (general).—The female pudendum. For synonyms, see Monosyllable.

Civil Reception.—See House of Civil Reception.

Civil-Rig, subs. (vagrants’).—A trick to obtain alms by a profuse show of civility and obsequiousness.

Civvies, subs. (military).—Civilians’ clothes, as opposed to regimentals. [A corruption of the legitimate word.]

Clack, subs. (colloquial).—1. Idle, loquacious talk; gossip; prattle—an exceedingly old usage. For synonyms, see Patter.

c. 1440. York, Myst. XXXIV., 211. Ther quenes vs comeres with her clakke. [m.]

1599. Nashe, Lenten Stuffe, in wks. V. 251. Their clacke or gabbling to this purport.

1678. Butler, Hudibras, pt. III., ch. ii. And, with his everlasting clack, Set all men’s ears upon the rack.

1748. Smollett, Rod. Random, ch. liv. I dreaded her unruly tongue, and felt by anticipation the horrors of an eternal clack!

1812. H. and J. Smith, Rejected Addresses (‘Punch’s Apotheosis’). See she twists her mutton fists like Molyneux or Beelzebub, And t’other’s clack, who pats her back, is louder far than Bell’s hubbub.

1888. J. Payn, Myst Mirbridge (Tauchn.) II., xviii., 197. The old fellow would have had a clack with her. [m.]

2. (common).—The tongue [i.e., that which clacks (q.v.), verb.] A more ancient form was clap dating back to 1225.

English Synonyms. Glib; red-rag; clapper; dubber; velvet; jibb; quail-pipe.

French Synonyms. La diligence de Rome (popular); un battant (thieves’: also ‘heart,’ ‘stomach,’ and ‘throat’); un bon battant (‘a nimble tongue.’ Cf., ‘clapper’); une chiffe or un chiffon rouge (popular); une gaffe; le grelot.

German Synonym. Lecker (literally ‘the licker’).

Italian Synonyms. Serpentina; dannoso (literally ‘damagable’); zavarina (properly ‘a trifling old woman’).

Spanish Synonym. La desosada (i.e., Old Boneless).

1598. Greene, Jas. IV., wks. (Gros.) XIII., 210. Haud your clacks, lads. [m.]

1748. T. Dyche, Dictionary (5 ed.). Clack (s.) … also a nickname for a woman’s tongue; a prattler or busybody.

1828. D’Israeli, Chas. I., II., i., 23. Who, as washerwomen … at their work, could not hold their clack. [m.]

1864. E. Sargent, Peculiar, III., 76. To hermetically seal up this Mrs. Gentry’s clack. [m.]

Verb.—To gabble. For synonyms, see Patter.

Clack-Box, subs. (common).—1. The mouth. For synonyms, see Potato-trap.

2. (common).—A chatterbox.

English Synonyms. A mouth almighty; poll parrot; babble-merchant; slammer.

French Synonyms. Un parlotteur (familiar); un dévideur or une dévideuse (popular: literally ‘a winder’); un bagoulard (popular: c’est un fameux bagoulard = he is the bloke to slam); un chambert: abuser du crachoir (said of a chatterbox who does too much with the ‘spitter’).

Spanish Synonyms. Hablatista (m; jocular); hablantin or hablanchin (m; colloquial); ladrador (m; properly ‘a barker’); prosador (m; properly ‘a sarcastic and malicious babbler’); gazetilla (f; ‘a farthing newspaper’); garlador; fuelle (m; properly ‘a pair of bellows’); ya escampa (it is importunate babbling; escampar signifies literally ‘to clean or clear out a place’); cotorrera (= a gossip; cotorreria = loquacity; a term specially applied to women); comadre (f; juéves de comadres = Cummers’ Thursday, the last before Shrove Tuesday); una chicharra (a prattler; chicharra = ‘a froth worm’ or ‘harvest fly’); charlantin.

Clack-Loft, subs. (popular).—A pulpit. [From clack, verb, + loft, an elevated room or place.] For synonyms, see Hum-box.

Claim, verb (thieves’).—To steal. (A locution similar in character to ‘annex,’ ‘convey,’ etc., and derived from a sense of the legitimate word signifying ‘to demand on the ground of right.’) For synonyms, see Prig.

1879. J. W. Horsley, in Macmillan’s Mag., XL., 501. So I claimed (stole) them.

To jump a claim, phr. (American and colonial).—To take forcible possession; to defraud; specifically to seize land which has been taken up and occupied by another settler, or squatter. The first occupant is, by squatter law and custom, entitled to the first claim on the land.—See Jump.

1846. E. H. Smith, Hist. of Black Hawk. When I hunted claims, I went far and near, Resolved from all others to keep myself clear; And if, through mistake, I jumped a man’s claim, As soon as I knew it I jumped off again.

18(?). F. Marryat, Mountains and Molehills, p. 217. If a man jumped my claim, and encroached on my boundaries, and I didn’t knock him on the head with a pickaxe, I appealed to the crowd, and, my claim being carefully measured and found correct, the jumper would be ordered to confine himself to his own territory.

1883. R. L. Stevenson, The Silverado Squatters, p. 221. The claim was jumped; a track of mountain-side, fifteen hundred feet long by six hundred wide … had passed from Ronalds to Hanson, and in the passage changed its name from the ‘Mammoth’ to the ‘Calistoga.’

Clam, subs. (American).—1. A blockhead. Anglicé, ‘as stupid as an oyster.’ Shakspeare (Much Ado About Nothing, ii. 3) has ‘Love may transform me to an oyster; but I’ll take my oath on it, till he hath made an oyster of me, he shall never make me such a fool.’—See Chowder-headed; chowder is a favourite form of serving clams.

1871. S. L. Clemens (‘Mark Twain’), Sketches, I., 46. A fine stroke of sarcasm, that, but it will be lost on such an intellectual clam as you.

2. The mouth or lips. Also clam-shell. ‘Shut your clam-shell’ = ‘Shut your mouth.’ The padlock now used on the United States mail-bags is called the ‘Clam-shell padlock.’ For synonyms, see Potato-trap.

1825. J. Neal, Bro. Jonathan, I., 143. Shet your clam, our David.

1848. J. R. Lowell, Biglow Papers, II., p. 19. You don’t feel much like speakin’, When if you let your clam-shells gape, a quart of tar will leak in.

1848. Bartlett, Dict. Americanisms. Shut up your clam-shells. Close your lips together; be silent. Common along the shores of Connecticut and Rhode Island, where clams abound. Same as ‘shut your head.’

Clam-Butcher, subs. (American).—A man who opens clams; the attendant at an oyster bar is an ‘oyster-butcher.’

Clank, subs. (thieves’).—A pewter tankard; formerly a silver one.

1785. Grose, Dict. Vulg. Tongue Clank: a silver tankard.

1837. Disraeli, Venetia, ch. xiv. Tip me the clank like a dimber mort as you are.

Clanker, subs. (old).—1. A great lie.—Grose. Cf., Clinker. For synonyms, see Whopper.

2. (old).—Silver plate. Cf., Clank.

Clank Napper, subs. (old).—A thief whose speciality is silver-plate. [From clank, subs. + napper (q.v.), a thief.] For synonyms, see Thieves.

Clap (or Clapper), subs. (common).—1. The tongue. [From clap = chatter; a babbler’s tongue is said to be hung in the middle, and to sound with both ends.] For synonyms, see Clack.

a. 1225. Ancr. R., 72. Þeone kuðen heo neuere astunten hore cleppe.

1609. Dekker, Guls’ Horne-Booke, ch. vi. And to let that clapper (your tongue) be tost so high, that all the house may ring of it.

1633. Massinger, New Way to Pay Old Debts, III., 2. Greedy. Sir Giles, Sir Giles! Over. The great fiend, stop that clapper!

1750. Fielding, Tom Jones, bk. VII., ch. xv. My landlady was in such high mirth with her company that no clapper could be heard there but her own.

1835. Haliburton, Clockmaker, 1 S., ch. xix. I thought I should have snorted right out two or three times … to hear the critter let her clapper run that fashion.

1861. Hughes, Tom Brown at Oxford, ch. vi. But old Murdoch was too pleased at hearing his own clapper going, and too full of whiskey, to find him out.

1878. John Payne, tr. Poems of Villon, p. 139. Enough was left me (as warrant I will) To keep me from holding my clapper still, When jargon that meant ‘You shall be hung’ They read to me from the notary’s bill: Was it a time to hold my tongue?

2. (vulgar).—Gonorrhœa; once in polite use. [Origin uncertain; cf., Old Fr. clapoir, bosse, bubo, panus inguinis; clapoire, clapier, ‘lieu de débauche,’ ‘maladie q’on y attrape’]. For synonyms, see Ladies’ Fever.

1587. Myrr. Mag., Malin iii. Before they get the clap.

1706. Farquhar, The Recruiting Officer. Five hundred a year besides guineas for claps.

1709. Swift, Adv. Relig. Works [1755] II., i. 99, s.v.

1738. Johnson, London, 114. They sing, they dance, clean shoes, or cure a clap.

1881. In Syd. Soc. Lex.

Verb (vulgar).—To infect with clap; see subs. Also figuratively.

1658. Osborn, Jas. I. [1673], 514. Atropos clapt him, a Pox on the Drab!

1680. Butler, Rem. [1759], I. 249. [They] had ne’er been clap’d with a poetic itch.

1738. Laws of Chance. Pref. 9. It is hardly 1 to 10 … that a Town-Spark of that Age has not been clap’d.

Clapper-Dudgeon, subs. (old).—A whining beggar.

1567. Harman, Caveat (1814), p. 26. These Palliards be called also Clapper dogens, these go with patched clokes, and haue their morts with them which they cal wiues.

1625. Jonson, Staple of News, II. Here he is, and with him—what? a clapper-dudgeon! That’s a good sign, to have the beggar follow him so near.

1705–7. Ward, Hudibras Redivivus, vol. I., pt. V., p. 10. Says he, there is an old curmudgeon, A hum-drum, preaching, clapperdudgeon.

1863. Sala, Capt. Dang., II., vii., 225. Rogues, Thieves … and Clapper-dudgeons … infested the outskirts of the Old Palace. [m.]

Clap of Thunder, subs. phr. (old).—A glass of gin: a variant of Flash of Lightning (q.v.).

1821. P. Egan, Tom and Jerry [Ed. 1890], p. 79. I have not exactly recovered from the severe effects of the repeated ‘flashes of lightning’ and strong claps of thunder, with which I had to encounter last night.

Clap-Shoulder, subs. (old).—A term applied to the officers of justice who laid their hands upon people’s shoulders when they arrested them. Cf., Catch-pole.

1630. Taylor, Workes. Clap-shoulder serjeants get the devill and all, By begging and by bringing men in thrall.

Clapster, subs. (vulgar).—An habitual sufferer from gonorrhœa; by implication, one much and often in the way of getting clapped.

Claras, subs. (Stock Exchange).—Caledonian Railway Deferred and Ordinary Stock.

1887. Atkin, House Scraps. For we have our Sarahs and Claras. Our Noras and Doras for fays.

Claret, subs. (pugilistic).—Blood, Variants are Badminton, Bordeaux, and Cochineal-dye. French le vermeil or le vermois.

1604. Dekker, Honest Whore, II., 45, wks. [1873]. This should be a Coronation day: for my head runs claret lustily.

1819. Thomas Moore, Tom Crib’s Memorial to Congress, p. 25.… This being the first Royal Claret let flow, Since Tom took the Holy Alliance in Tow, The uncorking produced much sensation about, As bets had been flush on the first painted snout.

1878. Besant and Rice, By Celia’s Arbour, ch. xxxix. The lieutenant picked him up, and placed him—because he declined to stand; and, indeed, the claret was flowing freely—in the President’s arm chair.

To tap one’s Claret, phr.—To draw blood.

Claret Jug, subs. (pugilistic).—The nose. [From claret, blood, + jug, a receptacle.] For synonyms, see Conk.

1859. Punch, vol. XXXVII., p. 22. ‘A Chapter on Slang.’ A man’s broken nose, is his claret-jug smashed.

Clarian, subs. (Cambridge University).—A member of Clare Hall, Cambridge; also a Greyhound (q.v.).

1889. C. Whibley, Cap and Gown. E’en stuke-struck Clarians strove to stoop.

Class, subs. (athletic).—The highest quality or combination of highest qualities among athletes. He’s not class enough, i.e., not good enough. There’s a deal of class about him, i.e., a deal of quality. The term obtains to a certain extent among turfites.

1884. Referee, March 23, p. 1, col. 3. The elasticity necessary for anything like class at sprinting departs comparatively early.

Claw, subs. (prison).—A lash of the cat-o’-nine-tails. Cf., Clawed-off, sense 1.

1876. Greenwood, A Night in a Work-house. Oh! cuss that old Kerr, who condemned me to twenty-five claws with the cat.

Claws for Breakfast, subs. phr. (prison).—See quot.

1873. Greenwood, In Strange Company. A ruffian being uncertain as to the morning when he is to have, as he himself would say, claws for breakfast, is in the habit of lying night after night in a sweat of terror.

Clawed-off, adv. phr. (old).—1. Severely beaten or whipped. Cf., Claw.

2. (old).—Venereally infected.

Claw-Hammer, subs. (Irish).—A dress coat. [From a supposed similarity in the cut of the tails to a claw hammer, one end of which is divided into two claws, for extracting nails from wood.] Also called steel-pen coat and swallow-tail. For synonyms of evening dress generally, see War-paint.

1863. Nathaniel Hawthorne, Passages from English Note-books, I., 538. Sea-captains call a dress-coat a claw-hammer.

1883. Punch, July 21, p. 29, col. 2. An ‘Impressionist’ is not impressive In a claw-hammer on a public platform.

1889. Pall Mall Gazette, Nov. 11, p. 7, col. 1. After the claw-hammer crowd had been exhausted, he sent up an invitation to the great army of unvarnished.

Clay, subs. (colloquial).—A clay pipe. Cf., Yard of clay, but for synonyms, see Churchwarden.

1859. Fairholt, Tobacco (1876), 173. Such long pipes were reverently termed aldermen in the last age, and irreverently yards of clay in the present one.

1861. Hughes, Tom Brown at Oxford, ch. xxi., p. 223. ‘He is churchwarden at home, and can’t smoke anything but a long clay.’

1866. London Miscellany, 19 May, p. 235, col. 2. Surely these men, who win and lose fortunes with the stolidity of a mynheer smoking his clay yard, must be of entirely different stuff from the rest of us.

1871. Calverley, Verses and Tr. Ode Tobacco. Jones … daily absorbs a clay after his labours.

To moisten, soak, or wet one’s clay, verbal phr.—To drink. [Clay = the human body.]

1708. Brit Apollo, No. 80, 3, 1. We were moistening our clay.

1711. Addison, Spectator, No. 72, par. 9. To moisten their clay, and grow immortal by drinking.

1731. Fielding, Letter Writers, Act ii., Sc. 2. A soph, he is immortal, And never can decay; For how should he return to dust Who daily wets his clay?

1790. Rhodes, Bombastes Furioso. Moistening our clay and puffing off our cares.

1800. Morning Chronicle (in Whibley, p. 92). Cram not your attics With dry mathematics, But moisten your clay with a bumper of wine.

1836. Dickens, Pickwick, ch. xxxix., p. 345. Ever and anon moistening his clay and his labours with a glass of claret.

1837. Barham, I. L. (The Monstre Baloon). And they’re feasting the party, and soaking their clay, With Johannisberg, Rudesheimer, Moselle, and Tokay.

1864. Lowell, Fireside Trav., 119. When his poor old clay was wet with gin. [m.]

Clean, adj. and adv. (colloquial and expletive).—1. Entirely; altogether; e.g., clean gone, clean broke, etc. Employed by the best writers until a recent date, and scarce colloquial even now.

1888. W. E. Henley, A Book of Verses, ‘Ballade of a Toyokuni Colour Print.’ Child, although I have forgotten clean, I know That in the shade of Fuji-san, What time the cherry orchards blow, I loved you, once, in old Japan.

1890. Mark Rutherford (‘Reuben Shapcott’), Miriam’s Schooling, p. 11. The memory of the battle by the hill Moreh is clean forgotten.

2. Expert; smart.

1878. Charles Hindley, Life and Times of James Catnach. The cleanest angler on the pad, In daylight or the darky.

Clean-Out, verbal phr. (colloquial)—To exhaust; strip; ‘rack’; or ruin. Fr., se faire lessiver.

1812. J. H. Vaux, Flash Dict. Cleaned out: said of a gambler who has lost his last stake at play; also, of a flat who has been stript of all his money.

1819. Thos. Moore, Tom Crib’s Memorial to Congress, p. 38. All Lombard-street to ninepence on it, Bobby’s the boy would clean them out!

1840. Dickens, Old Curiosity Shop, ch. xxix., p. 184. He never took a dice-box in his hand, or held a card, but he was plucked, pigeoned, and cleaned out completely.

c. 1880. Broadside Ballad, ‘When I was Prince of Paradise.’ I introduced ‘loo’—in an hour or two, I’d cleaned all their pockets right out.

Clean Potato, phr. (general).—The right thing. Of an action indiscreet or dishonest, it is said that ‘It’s not the clean potato.’

Clean Straw, subs. (Winchester College).—Clean sheets. [Before 1540 the beds were bundles of straw on a stone floor. At that date Dean Fleshmonger put in oaken floors, and provided proper beds, such as existed in 1871 in Third, and later in the case of the Præfect of Hall’s unused beds in Sixth. The term has never been used, as stated by Barrère, in reference to mattresses of any kind, straw or other.]

Clean Wheat. It’s the clean wheat, phr. (general). The best of its kind. For synonyms, see a1 and Fizzing.

Clear, adj. and adv. (old).—Thick with liquor. [Apparently on the principle lucus a non lucendo.]

1688. Shadwell, Sq. of Alsatia, I., iv. Yes, really I was clear; for I do not remember what I did.

1690. B. E., Dict. Cant. Crew. Clear: very Drunk.

1699. Vanbrugh, Relapse, IV., iii. I suppose you are clear—you’d never play such a trick as this else.

1725. New Cant. Dict., s.v.

1785. Grose, Dict. Vulg. Tongue. The cull is clear let’s bite him.

1811. Lexicon Balatronicum, s.v.

Verb.—See Clear Out.

Clear as Mud, adv. phr. (common) = Not particularly lucid.

Clear Crystal, subs. (popular).—White spirits, as gin and whisky, but extended to brandy and rum.

Clear Grit, subs.—1. (Canadian).—A member of the colonial Liberal party.

1884. Fortnightly Review, May, 592. There arose up [in Canada] a political party of a Radical persuasion, who were called Clear Grits, and the Clear Grits declared for the secularisation of the Clergy Reserves.

2. (American).—The right sort; having no lack of spirit; unalloyed; decided.

1835–40. Haliburton (‘Sam Slick’), Clockmaker, 3 S., ch. xxxii. I used to think champagne no better nor mean cider … but if you get the clear grit there is no mistaking it.

1861. New York Tribune, 10 Oct. Nor do we think the matter much mended by a clear grit Republican convention, putting one or two Democrats at the foot of their tickets.

Clear out (or Clear off), verbal phr. (colloquial).—1. To depart.

1825. J. Neal, Bro. Jonathan, II., 151. Like many a hero before him, he cleared out.

1861. Harper’s Monthly, August. You’ll have to clear out, and that pretty quick or I’ll be after you with a sharp stick.

1885. Truth, 28 May, 1847. I would have the Canal under the control of an International Commission … and then I would clear out of the country.

1888. J. Rickaby, Moral Philos., 205. To warn the visitor to clear off.

2. (popular).—To rid of cash; to ruin; to ‘clean out.’

1849–50. Thackeray, Pendennis. The luck turned from that minute … came away cleared out, leaving that infernal check behind me.

1884. Illustrated London News, Christmas Number, p. 6, col. 2. He cleared you out that night, old man.

Cleave, verb (old).—To be wanton; used of women. [Quoted by Grose, 1785.]

Cleft, subs. (common).—The female pudendum. For synonyms, see Monosyllable.

Clegg, subs. (Scots).—A horse-fly.

Clencher.—See Clincher.

Clergyman, subs. (common).—A chimney-sweep. [In allusion to the colour of ‘the cloth.’] Clergymen in their turn = ‘chimney sweeps.’

English Synonyms. Black draught; knuller; flue-faker; querier; chummy.

French Synonyms. Un artiste; Jean de la suie.

St. Nicholas’ clerk or clergyman (old).—A highwayman.

1589. R. Harvey, Pl. Perc., I. A quarrel, by the highway side, between a brace of Saint Nicholas Clargie men. [m.]

1597. Shakspeare, King Henry IV., i. 1. Sirrah, if they meet not with St. Nicholas’ clerks, I’ll give thee this neck.

Clerked, ppl. adj. (old). Imposed upon; ‘sold’ (q.v.).

1785. Grose, Dict. Vulg. Tongue. The cull will not be clerked.

Clerks.—See St. Nicholas’ Clerk.

Clerk’s Blood, subs. (old).—Red ink. A common expression of Charles Lamb’s.

Clever Shins, phr. (school).—Sly to no purpose.

Cleymes, subs. (old).—Artificial sores, made by beggars to excite charity.

Click, subs. (pugilistic).—A blow. For synonyms, see Dig, bang and wipe. Also a hold in wrestling.

1819. T. Moore, Tom Crib’s Memorial, p. 18. Home-hits in the bread-basket clicks in the gob. Ibid, p. 30.

1871. Daily Telegraph, 8 April. C. and W. Wrestling Society. The various competitors struggled hard and put on all they knew in ‘hipes,’ ‘hanks,’ ‘clicks,’ ‘strokes,’ and ‘buttockings.’

Verb (old).—See quots., and Cf., Clicker.

1748. T. Dyche, Dictionary (5 ed.). Click (v.) … or to stand at a shop-door and invite customers in, as salesmen and shoemakers do.

1785. Grose, Dict. Vulg. Tongue. To click a nab; to snatch a hat.

Clicker, or Klicker, subs. (old).—1. A shop-keeper’s tout. [Formerly a shoemaker’s doorsman or barker (q.v.), but in this particular trade the term is nowadays appropriated to a foreman who cuts out leather and dispenses materials to workpeople; a sense not altogether wanting from the very first.]

c. 1690. B. E., Dict. Cant. Crew. Clicker: the shoemaker’s journeyman or servant, that cutts out all the work, and stands at or walks before the door, and saies, ‘What d’ye lack, sir? what d’ye buy, madam?’

1698. Ward, London Spy, pt. V., p. 117. Women were here almost as Troublesome as the Long-Lane Clickers.

1748. T. Dyche, Dictionary (5 ed.). Clicker (s.): the person that stands at a shoe-maker’s door to invite customers to buy the wares sold there.

1864. Hotten, Slang Dictionary. Clicker: a female touter at the bonnet shops in Cranbourne Alley. In Northamptonshire, the cutter out in a shoemaking establishment.

2. (popular).—A knockdown blow.—See Click, subs. sense.

3. (thieves’).—One who apportions the booty or ‘regulars.’

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

Clift, verb (thieves’).—To steal. For synonyms, see Prig.

Climb Down, subs. and verb (colloquial).—The abandonment of a position; downward or retrograde motion; the act of surrender. At first American.

1871. Rev. H. W. Beecher, Star Papers, p. 41, quoted in De Vere’s Americanisms. To climb down the wall was easy enough, too easy for a man who did not love wetting. Ibid. I partly climbed down, and wholly clambered back again, satisfied that it was easier to get myself in than to get the flowers out.

1889 St. James’s Gazette, 22 Nov., p. 12, col. 2. I am particularly pleased (adds our correspondent) with the noble conduct of the Bread Union, the first to climb down, and the promptest to send in its little bill.

1890. Globe, 7 April, p. 2, col. 2. It is satisfactory to learn on no less an authority than that of the New York Herald that the general election may at the moment be regarded remote. This is indeed a climb down on the part of the chief disseminator of the Dissolution rumour.

1890. Globe, 19 Feb., p. 2, col. 2. Mr. MacNeill’s ‘personal statement’ in the House yesterday was distinctly in the nature of a climb down.

Clinch, subs. (thieves’).—A prison cell. [? From clinch, to clutch, grip, and hold fast. Cf., Clink.] Variants in English are box, cob, salt-box, chokey and shoe. Fr., une cachemitte, une cachemar or cachemince (all thieves’, from cachot, ‘a black hole’); also un clou (military); maison de campagne (military); un mazaro, or lazaro; une matatane (military); un ours (popular); un abattoir (thieves’; properly ‘a slaughter house.’ This last, the name of the condemned cell in the prison of La Roquette, corresponds to the Newgate Salt Box). In German: Näck (only in Zimmermann; single cell in a prison; probably from the U.G. Noche and the M.H.G. Nacke = boat, from its shape; derivation from the Hebrew Nekef = hole, is also possible).

To get or kiss the Clinch or Clink, verbal phr. (thieves’).—To be imprisoned. For synonyms, see Cop.

1864. Hotten, Slang Dict., p. 102. s.v.

Clincher or Clencher, subs. (colloquial).—1. That which decides a matter, especially a retort which closes an argument; a ‘finisher,’ ‘settler,’ ‘corker.’ [From clinch, ‘to secure or make fast,’ through its obsolete meaning of ‘to pun or quibble,’ + er.]

1754. B. Martin, Eng. Dict. Clincher … an unanswerable reason or argument.

1839. Pierce Egan, Finish to Life in London, p. 13. Death comes but once, the Philosophers say And ’tis true my brave boys, but that once is a clencher It takes us from drinking and loving away And spoils at a blow the best tippler and wencher.

1836. Dickens, Pickwick, ch. xvi., p. 136. ‘Why cannot I communicate with the young lady’s friends?’ ‘Because they live one hundred miles from here, sir,’ responded Job Trotter. ‘That’s a clincher,’ said Mr. Weller, aside.

2. (common).—An unsurpassed lie; a ‘stopper-up,’ [This sense flows naturally from sense 1 and the accepted usages of clinch, verb and noun. Cf., Clinker, Whopper, Thumper, Whacker, etc.] For synonyms, see Whopper.

Cling-Rig.—See Clink-rig.

Clink, subs. (old).—1. A prison or lock-up; specifically applied, it is thought, to a noted gaol in the borough of Southwark; subsequently to places—like Alsatia, the Mint, etc.—privileged from arrests; and latterly, to a small dismal prison or a military guard room. For synonyms, see Cage.

1515. Barclay, Egloges, I. (1570) A. 5, 4. Then art thou clapped in the Flete or Clinke. [m.]

1642. Milton, Apol. for Smect, § ii., in wks. (1806) I., 237. And the divine right of episcopacy was then valiantly asserted, when he who would have been respondent, must have bethought himself withal how he could refute the Clink or the Gatehouse.

1835. Marryat, Jacob Faithful, ch. xix. Come along with me; we’ve a nice clink at Wandsworth to lock you up in.

1839. H. Ainsworth, Jack Sheppard, ep. I., ch. vi. The old and ruinous prison belonging to the liberty of the Bishop of Winchester (whose palace formerly adjoined the river); called the Clink.

2. (thieves’).—Silver plate; also clinch.—See Clank.

1781. G. Parker, View of Society, II. He wouldn’t have been hobbled but the melting-pot receiver proved his selling the clink to him.

3. (Scotch colloquial).—Money. Cf., Chink.

1724–40. Ramsay, Tea-t. Misc., 14. The Warld is rul’d by Asses, And the Wise are sway’d by clink.

1789. Burns, Let. J. Tennant, May ye get … Monie a laugh, and monie a drink, An’ aye enough o’ needfu’ clink.

1817. Hogg, Tales and Sk., II., 2, 3. Such young ladies as were particularly beautiful … and had the clink. [m.]

4. (colloquial). Also bum-clink.—A very indifferent beer made from the gyle of malt and the sweepings of hop bins, and brewed especially for the benefit of agricultural labourers in harvest time.

1863. Sala, Capt. Dang., I., ix., 266. A miserable hovel of an inn … where they ate their rye-bread and drank their sour clink. [m.]

To kiss the clink, verbal phr. (old).—To be imprisoned. [From Clink, subs., sense 1.] For synonyms, see Cop.

1588. John Udall, State of the Ch. of England, etc., p. 22 (Arber’s ed.) Diotr. Awaye, thou rayling hypocrite, I will talke with thee no longer, if I catche thee in London, I will make thee kiss the clinke for this geare. Paul. In deede the Clynke, Gate-house, White-lyon, and the Fleet, haue bin your onely argumentes whereby you haue proued your cause these many yeeres.

1889. Gentleman’s Magazine, p. 598. s.v.

Clinker, subs.—1. (in plural, old).—Fetters. For synonyms, see Darbies.

1690. B. E., Dict. Cant. Crew, Clinkers: the Irons Felons wear in Gaols.

1785. Grose, Dict. Vulg. Tongue, Clinkers: irons worn by prisoners.

1811. Lexicon Balatronicum, s.v.

2. (old).—A crafty, designing man.

1690. B. E., Dict. Cant. Crew, Clinker: a crafty fellow.

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

1811. Lexicon Balatronicum, s.v.

3. (thieves’).—A chain of any kind, whether fetter or watch chain. Cf., sense 1.

4. (pugilistic).—A well-delivered blow; a ‘hot-’un.’

c. 1863. Thackeray, Men’s Wives, Frank Berry, ch. i. Berry goes gallantly in, and delivers a clinker on the gown-boy’s jaw.

5. (colloquial, chiefly sporting).—Any thing or person of first-rate and triumphant quality; also a clincher (q.v.); a ‘settler.’ Cf., sense 4.

1733. Swift, Life and Character Dean S——t. A protestant’s a special clinker. It serves for sceptic and free-thinker. [m.]