Volume 2 — A · Dictionary · of Slang · and · its · Analogues. (continued 5)

1869. Daily Telegraph, 5 April. Despite the indifferent manner in which Vagabond cut up at the finish of the Metropolitan, quite sufficient was seen of him to prove that at a mile and a half he is a clinker.

1871. Daily News, 17 April, p. 2., col. 1. Ripponden and Cheesewring performed so indifferently as to strengthen the doubts whether they are really clinkers.

6. (common).—Deposits of fæcal or seminal matter in the hair about the anus or the female pudendum.

7. (common).—A lie. For synonyms, see Whopper.

To have clinkers in one’s bum, phr. (vulgar).—To be uneasy; unable to sit still.

Clinkerum. The same as clink, sense 1.

Clinking, ppl. adj. (common).—First-rate; extra good; about the best possible. Cf., Clipping, Thumping, Whopping, Battling, etc.

1868. Daily Telegraph, 6 June. Vermouth was a clinking good horse.

1887. Sporting Times, 12 March, p. 2, col. 2. Prince Henry must be a clinking good horse when in the humour to go.

1889. Polytechnic Mag., 24 Oct., p. 263. Soon afterwards the Poly. obtained a free kick, and Young notched a point for them. Heard again steered the ball to the Clapham goal, and Toghill put in a clinking shot which just shaved the upright.

Clink-Rig or Cling-Rig, subs. (old).—Stealing silver tankards from public-houses, etc. [From clink, plate, + rig, a theft, or dodge.]

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

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

Clip, subs. (colloquial).—A smart blow, e.g., a clip in the eye. For synonyms, see Dig, bang, and wipe.

1830. Marryat, King’s Own, xxvi. The master fires and hits the cat a clip on the neck.

1835. Haliburton (‘Sam Slick’), The Clockmaker (1862), 89. He made a pull at the old-fashioned sword … and drawing it out he made a clip at him.

1860. Police Gazette, 17 November. He ran up to him, hit him a severe clip, and dashed through the window.

Verb (colloquial).—To move quickly. For analogous terms, see Amputate. [Probably originally a falconry term = to fly swiftly.]

1833. M. Scott, Tom Cringle, xii. (1859), 281. He clipped into the water with the speed of light.

1835–40. Haliburton (‘Sam Slick’), The Clockmaker (1862), 46. He sees a steam-boat a clippin it by him like mad.

1843–4. Sam Slick in England, viii. (Bartlett). I ran all the way, right down as hard as I could clip.

Clipe, verb (school).—To tell tales; to ‘split’; to Peach; q.v. (for synonyms).

Clipper, subs. (colloquial).—A triumph in horses, men, or women; a splendid man; a brilliant or very stylish woman; an admirable horse. [From Clipper, = a vessel built with a view to fast sailing; previous to which the term was applied to a hack for the road.]

1835. Haliburton, Clockmaker, 1 S., ch. xv. A perfect pictur’ of a horse, and a genuine clipper; could gallop like the wind.

1846. Thackeray, V. Fair, ch. xvi. You have head enough for both of us, Beck, said he. You’re sure to get us out of the scrape. I never saw your equal, and I’ve met with some clippers in my time, too.

1851. Mayhew, Lon. Lab. and Lon. Poor, I., p. 133. They [wild ducks] come over here when the weather’s a clipper; for you see cold weather suits some birds and kills others.

Clipping or Clippingly, ppl. adj. and adv. (common).—Excellent; very showy; first-rate. [From that sense of clipping = that flies or moves fast.—See quot., 1643.] For synonyms, see A1 and Fizzing.

1643. P. Quarles, Emblemes, B. IV., ii., p. 194 (ed. 1648). O that the pinions of a clipping Dove Would cut my passage through the Empty Air, Mine eyes being sealed, how would I mount above The reach of danger and forgotten care!

1860. Thackeray, Philip, ch. i., p. 46. What clipping girls there were in that barouche.

1864. E. Yates, Broken to Harness, ch. xxiii. [Mr. Commissioner Beresford loq.:] Clipping riders, those girls! good as Kate Mellon anyday!

Cloak, subs. (thieves’).—A watch case. [From cloak, an outer garment.]

1839. Harrison Ainsworth, Jack Sheppard [1889], p. 70. Near to these hopeful youths sat a fence, or receiver, bargaining with a clouter, or pickpocket, for a ‘suit,’ or, to speak in more intelligible language, a watch and seals, two ‘cloaks,’ commonly called watch-cases and a ‘wedge-lobb,’ otherwise known as a silver snuff-box.

Cloak-Twitchers, subs. (old).—Thieves who made a special business of robbing the lieges of their cloaks. [From cloak + twitch, to snatch, + er.] In the old French cant these rogues were termed tirelaines, i.e., wool-pullers (tirer = pull). For synonyms, see Thieves.

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

1811. Lexicon Balatronicum, s.v.

Clobber, subs. (common).—Primarily old, but now also applied to new clothes. For synonyms, see Togs.

1879. J. W. Horsley, Macm. Mag., XL., 502. Having a new suit of clobber on me.

1889. Answers, 11 May, p. 374, col. 3. The clobber (old clothes) which have been presented by charitable persons are exchanged and sold.

1889. Sporting Times, quoted in Slang, Jargon, and Cant, p. 255. If you are hard up always tell the dear things that you are a gentleman’s valet. This will account for your good clobber.

Verb.—Also clobber up. 1. To patch; revive; or ‘translate’ clothes. [Properly applied to cobbling of the lowest class. Cf., Clobberer.]

1865. Cassell’s Paper, Article, ‘Old Clo’.’ They are now past ‘clobbering,’ ‘reviving,’ or ‘translating,’ they are, in fact, at the lowest point of Fortune’s wheel: but the next turn puts them in its highest point again.

2. To dress smartly; to rig oneself out presentably. For synonyms, see Rig out.

1879. J. W. Horsley, Macm. Mag., XL., 501. I used to get a good many pieces about this time, so I used to clobber myself up and go to the concert-rooms.

1886. W. E. Henley, Villon’s Good-Night. You judes that clobber for the stramm.

1889. Fun [quoted in S., J., and C. p. 256]. ‘D’you know, if you were clobbered up I shouldn’t mind taking you out?’ She promised to be presentable. In her own words she said, ‘I’ll come clobbered up like a dukess.’

To do clobber at a fence, phr. (thieves’).—To sell stolen clothes. Fr., laver les harnais.

Clobberer, subs. (common).—See quot. and Cf., Clobber, subs. and verb.

1864. The Times, Nov. 2. Old clothes that are intended to remain in this country have to be tutored and transformed. The clobberer, the ‘reviver,’ and the ‘translator’ lay hands upon them. The duty of the clobberer is to patch, to sew up, and to restore as far as possible the garments to their pristine appearance.

Clock, subs. (thieves’).—A watch. A red clock = a gold watch; a white clock = a silver watch. Generally modified into ‘red’un’ and ‘white’un,’ but for synonyms, see Ticker.

1886. Tit-Bits, 5 June, p. 121. Thus Fillied for a Clock and Slang, reveals the fact that the writer stole a watch and chain, was apprehended, and has been fully committed for trial.

To know what’s o’clock, phr. (common).—To be on the alert; in full possession of one’s senses; a downey cove: generally knowing (q.v. for synonyms). A variant is to know the time o’day.

1835. Dickens, Sketches by Boz, p. 451. Our governor’s wide awake, he is, I’ll never say nothin’ agin him, nor no man; but he knows what’s o’clock, he does, uncommon.

1849–50. Thackeray, Pendennis, I., p. 138. I’m not clever, p’raps, but I am rather downy, and partial friends say that I know what’s o’clock tolerably well.

Clock Stopped.—See Tick.

Clod-Crushers, subs. (popular).—1. Clumsy boots. [In agriculture an implement for pulverising clods. Cf., Beetle-crushers, and for synonyms, see Trotter-cases.]

2. (common).—Large feet. [A transferred usage.—See sense 1.]

Clods and Stickings, subs. phr. (paupers’).—See quot.

1871. Daily Telegraph, 24 Oct., Henry Melville’s (the pauper) passionate, ‘beutiful,’ for Stepney Workhouse is a grotesque reflex of Marie Stuart’s pathetic farewell to France. Is the skilly we wonder most ‘beutiful’ at Stepney, or are the clods and stickings unusually free from bone.

Cloister-Roush, subs. (Winchester College: obsolete).—See quot.

1870. Mansfield, School Life at Winchester College, p. 117. We had some singular customs at the commencement of Cloister time. Senior part and Cloisters, just before the entrance of the Masters into School, used to engage in a kind of general tournament; this was called Cloister Roush.

Clootie (Scots).—The Devil.—See Cloots.

1786. Burns, Address to the Deil. Auld Hornie, Satan, Nick, or clootie.

Cloots (Scots), subs.—Hooves.

1786. Burns, The Death and Dying Words of Puir Mailie. An’ no to rin and wear his cloots, Are ither menseless, graceless brutes.

Close as Wax, adv. phr. (general).—Miserly; niggardly; secretive. [A simile derived mainly from close, adj. = hidden or reticent.]

1863. C. Reade, Hard Cash, I., 231. Then commenced a long and steady struggle, conducted with a Spartan dignity and self command, and a countenance as close as wax.

Close-File, subs. (old).—A person secretive or ‘close’; not ‘open’ or communicative. [From close, adj. = secretive + file = a man.]

1839. Harrison Ainsworth, Jack Sheppard [1889], p. 8. Tom Sheppard was always a close file, and would never tell whom he married.

Cloth. [Generally the cloth], subs. (colloquial).—Primarily clergymen; the members of a particular profession. For synonyms, see Devil-dodger.

1836. C. Dickens, Pickwick Papers (about 1827), p. 363 (ed. 1857). ‘I maintain that that ’ere song’s personal to the cloth,’ said the mottle-faced gentleman.

1864. Daily Review, Nov. 3. It might have seemed more decorous to draw our illustration of the Doctor’s [Revd.] ingenuity from an incident related of two persons who have some right to be considered as in a sense belonging to the cloth—The Abbess and Novice of Andouillets.

Clothes-Line. Able to sleep upon a clothes-line, phr. (common).—Capable of sleeping anywhere or in any position; said of those able and willing to rest as well upon the roughest ‘shakedown’ as upon the most comfortable bed. [Cf., Two-penny rope and plank-bed.] Also applied in a transferred sense—a synonym for general capacity and ability.

Clothes-Pin. That’s the sort of clothes-pin I am, phr. (popular).—That’s the sort of man I am. In the case of women That’s the sort of hair-pin (q.v.).

Cloth-Market, subs. (old).—A bed. [Of obvious derivation. Cf., Fr., la halle aux draps.] For synonyms, see Bug-walk and Kip.

1738. Swift, Pol. Convers., dial i. I hope your early rising will do you no harm. I find you are but just come out of the cloth market.

1824. T. Fielding, Proverbs, etc. (Familiar Phrases), p. 148. He’s in the cloth market. In bed.

Cloud.—See Blow a cloud. Cloud originally signified tobacco smoke.—[Grose, 1785.] Fr., en griller une = to smoke a pipe or cigarette; also en griller une sèche and en griller une bouffarde.

Cloud-Cleaner, subs. (nautical).—See quot. Angel’s footstool, and Cf.

1883. W. Clark Russell, Sailors’ Word Book, p. 31. Cloud-cleaner, an imaginary sail jokingly assumed to be carried by Yankee ships.

Clout, subs. (vulgar).—1. A blow; a kick. For synonyms, see Bang, Dig, and Wipe.

1785. Grose, Dict. Vulg. Tongue. Clout: a blow (cant), I’ll give you a clout on your jolly nob; I’ll give you a blow on the head.

1811. Lexicon Balatronicum, s.v.

1864. M. E. Braddon, Aurora Floyd, ch. xx. ‘If you had a father that’d fetch you a clout of the head as soon as look at you, you’d run away perhaps.’

2. (thieves’).—A pocket-handkerchief. [A.S. clút, a clout or patch; Dan. klud, Swed. klut, or perhaps from the Keltic; hence, any worthless piece of cloth.] For synonyms, see Wipe, sense 2.

1574–1637. Ben Jonson, Metam. Gipsies. And Tidslefoot has lost his clout, he says, with a three-pence and four tokens in’t.

1714. Memoirs of John Hall, 4 ed., p. 11. [List of Cant Words in.] Clout: a handkerchief.

1754. Fielding, Jon. Wild, bk. I., ch. ix. A neat double clout, which seemed to have been worn a few weeks only, was pinned under her chin.

1785. Grose, Dict. Vulg. Tongue. A handkerchief.

1811. Lexicon Balatronicum. A handkerchief (cant). Any pocket handkerchief except a silk one.

1864. Hotten, Slang Dict. Clout, or Rag, a cotton pocket handkerchief (old cant).

3. plural (low).—A woman’s under-clothes, from the waist downwards. Also her complete wardrobe, on or off the person.

4. (common).—A woman’s ‘bandage’; ‘diaper’; or ‘sanitary.’

Verb (low).—1. To strike. Fr., jeter une mandole. For synonyms, see Tan.

1576–1625. Beaumont and Fletcher [quoted in Annandale’s ed. of Ogilvie’s Imperial Dict.]. Pay him over the pate, clout him for all his courtesies.

2. (old).—To patch; to tinker.

17(?). Scots Ballad. I’ll clout my Johnnie’s grey breeks For a’ the ill he’s done me yet.

1785. Burns, The Jolly Beggars. In vain they searched when off I marched To go and clout the caudron.

Clouter, subs. (old).—A pickpocket—especially one who steals handkerchiefs. [From clout, sense 2 (q.v.), a pocket-handkerchief, + er.] Cf., Clouting, sense 2. For synonyms, see Stook-hauler.

1839. W. H. Ainsworth, J. Sheppard, p. 158, ed. 1840. Near to these hopeful youths sat a fence, or receiver, bargaining with a clouter, or pickpocket.

Clouting, verbal subs. (common). 1. A beating, basting, or tanning (q.v. for synonyms).—See also Baste.

2. (thieves’).—Stealing handkerchiefs. Cf., Clouter.

Cloven, Cleaved, Cleft, adj. (old).—Terms applied to a sham virgin. (Cleft, subs. = the female pudendum.)

In Clover, adv. phr. (colloquial).—Well-off; comfortable; e.g., like a horse at grass in a clover field.

Clow, subs. (Winchester College). Pronounced clō.—A box on the ear. [Possibly from clout (q.v.) on the model of ‘bow’ from ‘bout,’ and ‘low’ from ‘lout.’ Halliwell gives ‘clow’ as a Cumberland word, meaning ‘to scratch.’] Cf., Baste, and for general synonyms, see Bang, Dig, and Wipe.

1870. Mansfield, School-Life at Winchester College, p. 140. The juniors did not get much fun out of the regular games, as their part consisted solely in kicking in the ball, and receiving divers kicks and clows in return for their vigilance. Ibid, p. 39. Nor, when ordered to ‘hold down,’ (i.e., put your head in a convenient position) for a clow, would the victim dare to ward off the blow.

Verb.—To box one on the ear. It was customary to preface the action by an injunction to ‘hold down.’—See quot., 1870, under subs., sense.

Clowes, subs. (old).—Rogues.—Grose [1785].

Cloy, Cligh, or Cly, verb (old).—To steal. For synonyms, see Prig. An old Gloucestershire vulgarism for the hands is clees.

1610. Rowlands, Martin Mark-all, p. 8 (H. Club’s Repr., 1874). They are sure to be clyd in the night by the angler, or hooker, or such like pilferers that liue upon the spoyle of other poore people.

1622. Head and Kirkman, Canting Song, in English Rogue. I met a Dell, I viewed her well, She was benship to my watch; So she and I did stall and cloy, Whatever we could catch.

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

1706. E. Coles, Eng. Dict. Cloy: to steal.

1785. Grose, Dict. Vulg. Tongue, s.v. To cloy the clout, to steal the handkerchief. To cloy the lour, to steal money.

1811. Lexicon Balatronicum, s.v.

Cloyer, subs. (old).—A thief who intruded on the profits of young sharpers, by claiming a share.

1611. Middleton, Roaring Girl, O. Pl., vi., 113. Then there’s a cloyer, or snap, that dogs any new brother in that trade, and snaps,—will have half in any booty.

1659. The Catterpillars of this Nation Anatomised. [Cloyer = a pickpocket.]

Cloyes, subs. (old).—Thieves; robbers, etc. [In Grose, 1785, and Lexicon Balatronicum, 1811.]—See Cloy and Cloyer.

Cloying, verbal subs. (old) Stealing.

1739. Poor Robin. Money is now a hard commodity to get, insomuch that some will venture their necks for it, by padding, cloying, milling, filching, nabbing, etc., all of which in plain English is only stealing.

Club, verb (military).—In manœuvring troops, so to blunder the word of command that the soldiers get into a position from which they cannot extricate themselves by ordinary tactics.

18(?). Thackeray, Novels by Eminent Hands. ‘Phil Fogarty.’ ‘Clubbed, be jabers!’ roared Lanty Clancy. ‘I wish we could show ’em the Fighting Onety-Oneth, Captain, darlin’!’

1854. Whyte Melville, General Bounce, ch. xi. If you’re in difficulties, ask Sergeant File what is best to be done, only don’t club ’em, my boy, as you did at Limerick.

Subs. (venery).—The penis.

Clump, subs. (common).—A blow, generally a heavy one, with the hand.—See quots. under verbal sense. For synonyms, see Bang, Dig, and Wipe.

Verb (common).—To strike; to give a heavy blow. Fr., faire du bifteck. For synonyms, see Tan.

1864. Derby Day, p. 52. ‘We can’t give ’em in charge now.’… ‘Because why? I’ll tell you … we shouldn’t know when to spot ’em. No. I want to clump them. It will spoil sport to call in the bobbies.’

1874. W. E. Henley, MS. Ballad. Which they calls me the Professor, But I’m only Hogan’s Novice, Bloody artful with the mufflers, And a mark on fancy clumping.

1888. Daily News, 2 Jan., p. 7, col. 1. The prisoner clumped (struck) both of them, and then ran away.

Clumper, subs. (common).—1. A thick, heavy boot for walking. [Clumps in shoemakers’ technology = extra fore or half soles.] Cf., quot. under Clumping. For synonyms, see Trotter-cases.

2. (common).—One that clumps; a ‘basher.’

Clumperton, subs. (old).—A countryman. For synonyms, see Joskin.

1870. All the Year Round, Mar. 5. ‘Byegone Cant (Geo. II.).’ Clumpertons agape at the giant proportions of the still somewhat new St. Paul’s would turn from their wondering walks to shudder and shrink at the ghastly gallows exhibition at Newgate.

Clumping, verbal subs. (common).—Walking heavily and noisily: as in hobnails or in clogs.

1864. [From Hotten’s MS. Collection, n.d.] ‘Why, woman! dost ’oo think I’se had naught better to do than go clumping up and down the sky a-searching for thy Tummas?’

Cly, subs. (thieves’).—1. A pocket; purse; sack; or basket. For synonyms, see Brigh and Sky-rocket.

1714. Memoirs of John Hall (4 ed.). p. 12. Cly: a pocket.

1742. Charles Johnson, Highwaymen and Pirates, p. 252. Filing a cly which is picking pockets of watches, money, books or handkerchiefs.

1748. T. Dyche, Dict. (5 ed.). Cly (s.): the cant term for … purse or pocket.

1818. Maginn, from Vidocq. The Pickpocket’s Chaunt. A regular swell cove lushy lay. To his clies my hooks I throw in, Tol, lol, etc.

1834. Ainsworth, Rookwood. No knuckler so deftly could fake a cly.

1858. A. Mayhew, Paved with Gold, bk. II., ch. i., p. 69. They’re just made for hooking a fogle [handkerchief] out of a clye.

1878. Charles Hindley, Life and Times of James Catnach. Frisk the cly and fork the rag, Draw the fogles plummy.

2. (thieves’).—Money.

1748. T. Dyche, Dictionary (5 ed.), Cly (s.): the cant name for money, a purse, or a pocket.

1785. Grose, Dict. Vulg. Tongue, Cly: money.

1811. Lexicon Balatronicum, s.v.

Verb (old).—1. To take; have; receive; pocket: in fact, ‘to cop.’

1567. Harman, Caveat (1814), p. 66. The ruffian cly thee, the deuil take thee.

1609. Dekker, a Gypsy song, in Lanthorne and Candlelight, etc. The Ruffin cly the nab of the Harman beck. If we mawnd Pannam, lap or Ruff-peck.

Cly-Faker, subs. (thieves’).—A pickpocket. [From cly, a pocket, + fake, to steal. + er.] For synonyms, see Stookhauler.

1827. Lytton, Pelham, ch. lxxxii. They were gentlemen-sharpers, and not vulgar cracksmen and clyfakers.

1839. Harrison Ainsworth, Jack Sheppard [1889], p. 14. ‘Oh, I see!’ replied Blueskin, winking significantly.… ‘Now! slip the purse into my hand. Bravo! the best cly-faker of ’em all; couldn’t have done it better.’

1852. Punch, vol. XXIII., p. 161.

1864. Hotten, Slang Dict., p. 103. Cly-faker: a pickpocket.

Cly-faking, subs. (thieves’).—Pocket-picking. For synonyms, see Push.

1851. Borrow, Lavengro, ch. xxxi., p. 112 (1888). ‘What do you mean by cly-faking?’ ‘Lor, dear! no harm; only taking a handkerchief now and then.’

1861. H. Kingsley, Ravenshoe, ch. lx. Well, sir, I won’t deny that the young woman is Bess, and perhaps she may be on the cross, and I don’t go to say that what with flimping, and with cly-faking, and such-like, she mayn’t be wanted.

Cly-Off, verb (old).—To carry off. Cf., Cly, verb, sense 1.

1656. Brome, Jovial Crew. Act ii. Here safe in our skipper Let’s cly off our peck, And bowse in defiance O’ th’ Harman-beck.

Clyster-pipe, subs. (old).—An apothecary. [From clyster = an injection for costiveness.] Fr., un flûtencul, a play upon words. For synonyms, see Gallipot.

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

1811. Lexicon Balatronicum, s.v.

Cly the Gerke or Jerk, verbal phr. (old).—See quots.

1567. Harman, Caveat (1814), p. 66. To cly the gerke, to get a whipping. Cf., to cop a hiding.

1610. Rowlands, Martin Mark-all, p. 38 (H. Club’s Repr., 1874), s.v.

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

1827. Lytton, Pelham, ch. lxxxii. You deserve to cly the jerk for your patter.

Coach, subs. (formerly University and public schools’; now common).—A private tutor; and in a transferred sense one who trains another in mental or physical acquirements, e.g., in Sanskrit, Shakspeare, cricket, or rowing. Analogous terms are crammer, feeder, and grinder.

1850. F. E. Smedley, Frank Fairleigh, ch. xxix., p. 240. Besides the regular college tutor, I secured the assistance of what, in the slang of the day, we irreverently termed a coach.

1853. C. Bede, Verdant Green, pt. I., pp. 63–4. ‘That man is Cram, the patent safety. He’s the first coach in Oxford.’ ‘A coach,’ said our freshman in some wonder. ‘Oh, I forgot you didn’t know college slang. I suppose a royal mail is the only gentleman coach you know of. Why, in Oxford a coach means a private tutor you must know; and those who can’t afford a coach, get a cab alias a crib alias translation.’

1864. Eton School-days, ch. ix., p. 103. Lord Fitzwinton, one of the smallest and best coaches—in aquatics—in the school.

1871. Times. ‘Report of the Debate in House of Lords on University Test Bill.’ The test proposed would be wholly ineffective … while it would apply to the college tutors, who had little influence over the young men, it would not affect the coaches, who had the chief direction of their studies.

1889. Pall Mall Gazette, 29 Nov., p. 1, col. 3. The schoolmaster is concerned with the education of boys up to eighteen; all beyond that falls either to the coach or the professor.

Verb (common).—To prepare for an examination by private instruction; to train: in general use both by coacher and coachee.

1846. Thackeray, Vanity Fair, ch. v. The superb Cuff himself … helped him on with his Latin verses, coached him in play-hours.

1870. London Figaro, June 10. ‘Quadrille Conversation.’ It is, we fear, Quixotic to hope that ladies and gentlemen invited to the same ball would coach with the same master.

Coachee, subs. (colloquial).—A coachman. Cf., Cabby.

1819. Thos. Moore, Tom Crib’s Mem. Cong., p. 79. This song … in which the language and sentiments of Coachee are transferred so ingeniously.

1825. English Spy, I., pp. 134–5.

Coaching, verbal subs. (common).—1. Instruction; training, etc.—See Coach, subs. French students call it la barbe.

1836. Pluck Examination Papers for Candidates at Oxford and Cambridge, by Scriblerus Redivivus [Oxford]. The system of coaching pupils considerably improved by the examiners becoming pupils.

2. (Rugby School).—A flogging. Now obsolete.

Coachman, subs. (anglers’).—A fly-fisher’s rod. [In allusion to whipping the stream.]

Coach-Wheel, subs. (popular).—A crown-piece, or five shillings. For synonyms, see Cart-wheel.

1785. Grose, Dict. Vulg. Tongue. Coach wheel: a half crown piece is a fore coach wheel, and a crown piece a hind coach wheel, the fore wheels of a coach being less than the hind ones.

Coal.—See Cole.

To take in one’s coals, or winter coals, phr. (nautical).—To contract a venereal disease. For synonyms, see Ladies’ fever.

Coal-Box, subs. (musical).—A chorus. [Obviously ‘music-hally’ or ‘circussy’ in derivation: a cross between rhyming slang and a clown’s wheeze (q.v.).]

1809–70. Mark Lemon, Up and Down London Streets. The slang word for chorus, coal box, if we might mention anything so ungenteel.

Coaley, subs. (common).—A coal-heaver, or porter.

1880. Jas. Greenwood, ‘Diddler Domesticus,’ in Odd People in Odd Places, p. 93. With such arguments the bargain is driven to a conclusion, and the grateful coaley takes his departure.

1889. Star, 3 Dec., p. 3, col. 4. The coalies demonstrated last night in right novel fashion at St. Pancras Arches.

Coaling or Coally, adj. (theatrical).—Among ‘pros’ a coally or coaling part is one that is grateful to the player. [Hotten says it means ‘profitable,’ and derives it from cole = money, but this is doubtful.—See quot.]

1872. M. E. Braddon, Dead Sea Fruit, ch. xiv. The gorger’s awful coally on his own slumming, eh?… I mean to say that our friend the manager is rather sweet upon his own acting.

Coal-Scuttle, subs. (common).—A poke bonnet; modish once, but now reserved for old-fashioned Quakeresses and ‘Hallelujah Lasses.’ [From the shape.]

1838. Dickens, Nicholas Nickleby. There was Miss Snevellici … glancing from the depths of her coal-scuttle bonnet at Nicholas.

Coat. To get the sun into a horse’s coat, phr. (racing).—Explained by quot.

1889. Standard. ‘Sir Chas. Russell’s Speech in Durham-Chetwynd Case,’ June 25. An owner says to his trainer, ‘I suppose, Mr. Jones, we’ll have very good luck to-morrow?’ (laughter). ‘Well no, sir,’ says the trainer; ‘I don’t think the horse has any chance to-morrow. The fact is, he isn’t fit.’ A fortnight elapses, and on comes another meeting at Newmarket, and the owner goes down again, and he sees the horse. To his uninitiated eye the horse seems as well as when he saw it on the previous occasion. In the interval the trainer had ‘slipped in a lot of work into him,’ I think that is the term, and the owner, who thinks he knows something about horses (laughter) says to his trainer ‘You’re going to run this horse to-morrow?’ ‘Oh, I think so, sir,’ says the trainer. ‘But look here,’ says the owner, ‘This is a much better class. He is meeting this horse upon no better terms than before.’ ‘But, sir,’ says the trainer, ‘he has greatly improved. The sun has got into his coat.’

Coax, verb (old).—To dissemble in the shoes the soiled or ragged parts of a pair of stockings.—[Grose, 1785.]

Cob, subs. (prison).—1. A punishment cell. For synonyms, see Clinch.

2. (nautical).—Money. Especially given to a Spanish coin formerly current in Ireland, worth about 4s. 8d. Also the name still given at Gibraltar to a Spanish dollar.

1805. Plymouth Newspaper of Feb. 24, quoted in ‘Autobiography of a Seaman,’ by Earl of Dundonald, vol. I., ch. x., p. 174. His Lordship sent word to Plymouth that, if ever it was in his power he would fulfil his public advertisement (stuck up here) for entering seamen, of filling their pockets with Spanish ‘pewter’ and ‘cobs,’ nicknames given by seamen to ingots and dollars.

3. (Winchester College).—A hard hit at cricket. Of modern introduction. Cf., Barter.

Verb (schoolboys’).—1. To detect, catch, etc.

2. (popular).—To humbug; deceive; to gammon (q.v.).

3. To hit hard.—See subs., sense 3.

Cobb, verb (general).—To spank; to smack the posteriors with (say) a tailor’s sleeve-board.

1830. Marryat, King’s Own. Gentlemen, gentlemen, if you must cobb Mrs. Skrimmage, for God’s sake let it be over all.

Cobber, subs. (common).—A prodigious falsehood; i.e., ‘a thumper’; whopper (q.v.).

Cobble-Colter, subs. (old).—A turkey. Fr., une ornie de balle and un Jésuite. Cf., Alderman in chains.

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

1837. Disraeli, Venetia, p. 69. ‘Come, old mort,’ said the leader, in a very different tone to the one in which he addressed his young guest, ‘tout the cobble-colter; are we to have darkmans upon us?’

Cobbled, ppl. adj. (schoolboys’).—Caught; detected; spotted. [From cob, verb, sense 1.]

Cobblers’ Knock. To give the cobbler’s knock or to knock at the cobbler’s door, verbal phr. (provincial).—A sort of fancy sliding in which the artist raps the ice in triplets with one foot while progressing swiftly on the other.

1836. Dickens, Pickwick, vol. ii., ch. 2. Sam Weller, in particular was displaying that beautiful feat of fancy sliding which is currently called knocking at the cobbler’s door, and which is achieved by skimming over the ice on one foot and occasionally giving a postman’s knock upon it with the other.

Cobblers’ Marbles, subs. phr. (vulgar).—A corrupt pronunciation of cholera morbus, once a name for Asiatic cholera.

Cobbler’s Thumb, subs. (Irish localism).—A small fish; the bull-head, called in English the miller’s thumb.

1839. Lever, Harry Lorrequer, ch. xxvii. His hands and feet, forming some compensation by their ample proportions, give to his entire air and appearance somewhat the look of a small fish, with short, thick fins, vulgarly called a cobbler’s thumb.

Cochineal Dye, subs. (pugilistic).—Blood. [From the colour.] For synonyms, see Claret.

1853. Rev. E. Bradley (‘Cuthbert Bede’), Verdant Green, pt. 11., p. 31. He would kindly inquire of one gentleman, ‘What d’ye ask for a pint of your cochineal dye?’

1883. Referee. It certainly seemed that their stock-in-trade was largely composed of cochineal dye; there was in truth no lack of the gory accessory of the fight.

Cock, subs. (common).—1. The penis, Cf., Ger., Hahn, Hänchen. [Possibly related to ‘cock’ = turn-valve.] For synonyms, see cream-stick.

1600. Shakspeare, King Henry V., ii. i.—Cf.

1647. Beaumont and Fletcher. The Custom of the County, v., 4. The mainspring’s weakened that holds up his cock.

1730. Bailey, Dict., s.v.

1737. Rabelais. Trans. I., 185., s.v.

1807. Rabelais. Trans. [Longman’s ed.]. s.v., I., 169.

1849. Rabelais. Trans. [Bohn’s ed.], s.v., I., 135.

2. (colloquial).—A chief or leader; particularly in such phrases as cock of the walk, school, etc. [A simile drawn from the barndoor.] Cf., sense 3, and adj.

1711. Spectator, No. 131. Service to the knight. Sir Andrew is grown the cock of the club since he left us, and if he does not return quickly will make every mother’s son of us commonwealth’s men.

1729. Swift, Grand Question Debated. But at cuffs I was always the cock of the school.

1764. O’Hara, Midas, I., 1. Cock of the school. He bears despotic rule.

1811–63. W. M. Thackeray, Miscellanies, II., 275. There is no more dangerous or stupifying position for a man in life than to be a cock of small society.

1862. Mrs. H. Wood, Channings, ch. xxix. ‘Were I going in for the seniorship, and one below me were suddenly hoisted above my head, and made a cock of the walk, I’d know the reason why.’

3. (common).—A familiar address; e.g., old cock, or jolly old cock. [Probably derived from sense 1.] Amongst similar expressions may be mentioned old man, my pippin, and in French, mon vieux zig, or lapin.

1639. Massinger, Unnatural Combat, II., i. He has drawn blood of him yet: well done, old cock.

1749. Fielding, Tom Jones, bk. XVIII., ch. x. Then give me thy fist, a’t as hearty an honest cock as any in the kingdom.

1836. C. Dickens, Pickwick Papers (about 1827), p. 367 (ed. 1857). ‘Do you always smoke arter you goes to bed, old cock?’ inquired Mr. Weller of his landlord, when they had both retired for the night. ‘Yes, I does, young Bantam,’ replied the cobbler.

1841. Punch, vol. I., p. 278. The people down here are a queer lot, but I have hunted up two or three jolly cocks, and we contrive to keep the place alive between us.

1855. Thackeray, Newcomes, ch. xvi. Shrewd old cock, Mr. Binnie. Has brought home a good bit of money from India.

1870. London Figaro, 19 Oct. What on earth is the meaning of Mr. Santley’s voice being over-crowed by a mammoth orchestra? I never heard before that fiddles crowed, or that Mr. Santley was a cock. He is what is known as a jolly cock, but there his similarity to the noisy fowl ends.

4. (racing).—A horse not intended to win the race for which it is put down, but kept in the lists to deceive the public.

1887. Field, May 29. In the phraseology of slangy turfites, the horse was a cock; i.e., it had been liberally backed, but was never intended to run.

5. (common).—Primarily the fictitious narratives in verse or prose of murders, fires, etc. (see quot., 1851), produced for sale in the streets. Famous manufactories of cocks were kept by ‘Jemmy’ Catnach and Johnny Pitts, called the Colburn and Bentley of the ‘paper’ trade. They fought bitterly, and Catnach informed the world that Pitts had once been a ‘bumboat woman,’ while Pitts declared—

That all the boys and girls around, Who go out prigging rags and phials, Know Jemmy Catnach!!! well, Who lives in a back slum in the Dials.

Catnach got at last to be ‘Cock of the Walk,’ and remained so till his retirement in 1839. [Hotten thought the word might be a corruption of cook, a ‘cooked’ or garbled statement, or a coinage from ‘cock and bull story.’] Fr., une goualante.

1851–61. H. Mayhew, Lon. Lab. and Lon. Poor, vol. I., p. 228. What are technically termed cocks, which, in polite language, means accounts of fabulous duels between ladies of fashion, of apocryphal elopements … or awful tragedies, etc.

Hence applied to any incredible story.

1870. London Figaro, 1 Feb. We are disposed to think that cocks must have penetrated to Eastern Missouri.

6. (thieves’).—An abbreviation of ‘cockney.’

7. (printers’).—In gambling or playing with ‘quads,’ a cock is when one (or more) of the nine pieces does not fall flat but lodges crosswise on another. The player is then given another chance.

8. (tailors’).—Good cock—poor cock. A good and bad workman respectively.

Adj. (colloquial).—Chief; first and foremost. Cf., Cock, subs., sense 2.

1676. Etherege, Man of Mode, II., ii., in wks. (1704), 211. Why the very cock-fool of all those fools, Sir Fopling Flutter.

1856. T. Hughes, Tom Brown’s School-days, pt. II., ch. vi. They’ll make the old Madman cock medicine-man and tattoo him all over.

Verb (venery).—1. To copulate. Usually employed by women and in the passive sense: e.g., ‘to want cocking,’ or ‘to get cocked.’ For synonyms, see Ride.

2. (common).—To smoke.

Cock the eye, verbal phr. (colloquial).—To shut or wink one eye; to leer; to look incredulous. Fr., cligner des œillets. Cf., Cock-eyed. [In venery a woman with a cock in her eye = a woman in a condition of sexual excitement, a woman that ‘means business.’ Cf., Pintle-keek (q.v.) and Look Pricks.] Of the kindred phrase, to cock the chin, an illustration appears in Elegant Extracts.

As Dick and Tom in fierce dispute engage, And face to face the noisy contest wage; ‘Don’t cock your chin at me,’ Dick smartly cries. ‘Fear not, his head’s not charg’d,’ a friend replies.

The French equivalent is s’aborgner (literally ‘to make oneself blind of one eye by closing it’).

1751. Smollett, Peregrine Pickle, ch. ii. He … made wry faces, and, to use the vulgar phrase, cocked his eye at him, to the no small entertainment of the spectators.

1836. Marryat, Japhet, ch. iv. Timothy put on his hat, cocked his eye at me, and left us alone.

1859. J. Eastwood, in Notes and Queries, 2 S., viii., 461. The phrase cock your eye is not at all an uncommon one in Yorkshire—meaning ‘direct your eye, give a glance.’

To Cock Snooks, verbal phr. (common).—See Coffee-milling and Snooks.

That cock won’t fight. phr. (common).—Originally cock-pit slang. Said of things problematical or doubtful.

1844. Puck, p. 124. ‘Song of the First Tragedian … having pawned his properties.’ Suppose I told my uncle what I fear he’d not believe, That I’ll certainly repay him the money ere I leave; That my benefit when it comes off is sure to prove a hit, I don’t think, with a screw like him, that cock would fight a bit.

By cock or by cock and pye. phr. (old).—‘Cock’ is here a corruption, or disguise of ‘God.’ We find also ‘cocks-passion,’ ‘cocks-body,’ and other allusions to the Saviour, or His body, as supposed to exist in the Host: the expression surviving the belief. In by cock and pye, the pie, or Sacred Book of Offices is added. By cock and pie and mousefoot, is quoted from the old play of Soliman and Perseda, Orig. of Drama, ii., p. 211.

1571. Edwards, Damon and Pythias, Old Pl., i., 216. W. By the masse I will boxe you. J. By cocke I will foxe you.

1596. Shakspeare, Hamlet, iv., 5. By cocke they are to blame.

1598. Shakspeare, Henry IV., pt. II., Act v., Sc. 1. By cock and pie, sir, you shall not away to-night.

1606. Wily, Beguilede. Now by cock and pie, you never spoke a truer word in your life.

Knocked a-cock, adv. phr. (pugilistic).—Knocked ‘all of a heap,’ or ‘out of time.’ Obviously adapted from the lingo of the cock-pit, and suggested by the sight of the beaten bird laid on his back.

Cock-a-Doodle Broth, subs. phr. (? nonce phrase).—See quot.

1856. Reade, Never Too Late to Mend, ch. lxxxv. He complains that ‘he can’t peck,’ yet continues the cause of his infirmity, living almost entirely upon cock-a-doodle broth,—eggs beat up in brandy and a little water.

Cock-a-Hoop or Cock-on (or in-a)-Hoop, adj. (colloquial).—Strutting; triumphant; high-spirited; ‘uppish.’ [Ray suggested that it refers to the practice of taking out the spigot (an old synonym for the penis, by the way) and laying it on the top of a barrel with a view to drinking the latter dry; a proceeding that would naturally induce a certain swagger in the actors. There seems, however, no doubt that the true derivative is the French coq à houppé. Houppé, in French, is a tuft, touffe (and toupet, is kindred). Littré says, terme de blason, tuft of silk or tassel hanging from a hat: ‘Elle sert de timbre au chapeau des cardinaux,’ etc. Houppée is the foam on the top of a wave. Houppe is the tuft on a trencher cap: ‘Qui distingue,’ says Tarver, ‘le bonnet des nobles de celui des autres’ at the universities—hence tuft-hunter, coureur de houppes. Also, ‘Il trouve à se fourrer parmi les plus huppés’ = he contrives to vie with those at the very top of fashion. The Hoopoe, (Lat. Upupa), is a crested bird. Hence coq à houppé is a crested cock, and by analogy one swaggering, triumphant, exulting; so ‘cock-a-hoop’ is ‘cock-a-top,’ ‘cock-a-crest,’ elated beyond reason—‘cocky,’ as schoolboys say—‘cock of the walk,’ ‘cock at the top.’ In cock-fighting, the ‘cock-a-top’ is he that gets the vantage stroke. ‘Abattre l’orgueil des plus huppés’; to bring down the crest of the highest. Cock-a-hoop is plainly the original expression, and cock-on-the-hoop a later form adopted when the original meaning had vanished.] English equivalents are ‘in full feather,’ and ‘a-cock-horse’ (q.v.), while colloquial French has s’en pourlécher la face and s’émérillonner (to become cheerful through repeated potations).

1595. Shakspeare, Romeo and Juliet, Act i., Sc. 5. Am I the master here or you? Go to.… You will set cock-a-hoop! you’ll be the man.

1633. Jonson, Tale of a Tub, V., ii. John Clay agen! nay then—set cock-a-hoop: I have lost no daughter, nor no money, justice.

1707. Ward, Hudibras Redivivus, vol. II., pt. XII., p. 20. Those cruel, sanctify’d Pretenders, Now rais’d by Fortune, cock-a-hoop.

1853. Diogenes, II., 195. ‘Our Foreign News Summary.’ All the cock-a-hoop Beys in the Sultan’s dominions Have taken to expressing their individual opinions.

1885. D. C. Murray, Rainbow Gold, bk. IV., ch. vi. He’s a fine lad, a fine lad, but cock-a-whoop, and over certain for his years.

Cock-Ale, subs. (old).—A homely aphrodisiac.—[Grose, 1785.] [An allusion to the penis and the stirring tendency of strong beer.] Nares says it was ‘a sort of ale which was very celebrated in the seventeenth century for its superior quality.’

1675. Woman Turn’d Bully [quoted in Nares]. Spr. How, Mr. Trupenny, not a drop worth drinking? Did you ever taste our cock-ale?

1698. Ward, London Spy. My friend by this time (knowing the entertainment of the house) had called for a bottle of cock-ale, of which I tasted a glass, but could not conceive it to be anything but a mixture of small beer and treacle. If this be cock-ale, said I, e’en let cockscombs drink it. [n.]

1738. Poor Robin. Notwithstanding the large commendations you give the juice of barley, yet if compar’d with canary, it’s no more than a mole-hill to a mountain; whether it be cock-ale, China ale, etc. [n.]

Also cock-broth, etc.

Cock Alley, subs. (old).—The female pudendum. Other derivations of the same make are Cock-chafer, Cock Hall, Cock Inn, Cock Lane, Cock-Loft, Cock-Pit, Cockshire, and Cock-shy. For synonyms, see Monosyllable.

Cockalorum or Cockylorum, subs. (common).—1. A half contemptuous address.—See quot.

1815–23. T. C. Carter, in Daily News, 7 Dec., 1889, p. 3, col. 5. In 1823 was displayed in a shop window in Pilgrim Street, Ludgate Hill, a picture entitled ‘Seizure for Rent.’ It represented the interior of a room; the only article of furniture a bottomless chair, on the edge of which was seated a half-clad man smoking a pipe. The doorway was filled up by a very fat beadle in full uniform; behind him in the shade could be seen two men, each with a porter’s knot. To the beadle the tenant was saying: ‘Now then, old cockalorum jig, seize away.’ In my school days, from 1815 to 1820, we often heard in the playground: ‘Now little cockalorum, out of that.’

2. (schoolboys’).—A rough and tumble game described as follows by a correspondent of the Pall Mall Gazette (1890, Jan. 4, p. 2, col. 1):—

When I went to Harrow, thirty years ago, I found a winter evening game in force there, called ‘high cockalorum,’ of which I send you a sketch. The players used to divide into two opposing bands of from twelve to fourteen each—in fact, the more the merrier. One side ‘went down,’ so as to constitute a long ‘hogsback’—the last boy having a couple of pillows between himself and the wall, and each boy clasping his front rank man, and carefully tucking his own ‘cocoa-nut’ under his right arm, so as to prevent fracture of the vertebræ. When the hogsback was thus formed, the other side came on, leap-frogging on to the backs of those who were down, the best and steadiest jumpers being sent first. Sometimes the passive line was broken quite easily by the ruse of a short high jump, coming with irresistible impulse on a back which was not expecting weight just yet. Sometimes a too ambitious leap-frogger ruined his party by overbalancing and falling off. It was, however, as the last two or three leap-froggers came on that the real excitement more generally began. There was absolutely no back-space belonging to the other party left to them; and they were obliged to pile themselves one upon another—‘Pelion on Ossa’ as it was called. When the last man was up it was his duty to say, ‘High cockalorum jig jig jig—high cockalorum jig jig jig—high cockalorum jig jig jig—off, off, off,’ and then alone was it permissible for tortured and perspiring human nature to fall in one indistinguishable heap to the ground. The repeater of the shibboleth often fell off himself as he was uttering the above incantation—thus losing the victory for his side. It was a splendid game. I understood from family inquiries that it was played at Harrow in my great grandfather’s time.

Cock-and-Breeches, subs. (common).—A sturdy, little man, or boy.

Cock-and-Bull-Story, subs. (colloquial).—An idle or silly story. [Presumably from some old legend of a cock and a bull, apropos to which it should be noted that the French equivalent is coq-à-l’âne, a ‘cock-and-ass.’]

1603. John Day, Law Trickes, Act iv., p. 66. Didst marke what a tale of a Cock and a Bull he tolde my father whilst I made thee and the rest away.

1759. Sterne, Tristram Shandy, vol. IX., ch. xxxiii. L—d! said my mother, what is all this about? A Cock and a Bull, said Yorick—and one of the best of its kind I ever heard.

1857. O. W. Holmes, Autocrat of the Breakfast Table, ch. v. That sounds like a cock-and-bull story, said the young fellow whom they call John. I abstained from making Hamlet’s remarks to Horatio and continued.

1874. Mrs. H. Wood, Johnny Ludlow, 1 S., xxiv., p. 432. ‘Giving ear to a cock-and-bull story that can’t be true!’

Cock-and-Hen-Club, subs. (common).—1. A free and easy gathering, or ‘sing-song,’ where females are admitted as well as males. [From cock-and-hen, the male and female bird, and used figuratively for men and women, + club.]

1819. Thos. Moore, Tom Crib’s Mem. to Congr., p. 78. A Masquerade, or Fancy Ball, given lately at one of the most fashionable Cock-and-Hen Clubs in St. Giles’s.

1828. G. Smeeton, Days in London, p. 40. Introduced him to one of the cock-and-hen houses near Drury Lane Theatre well primed with wine.

2. A club for both sexes; e.g., The Lyric.

Cock-and-Pinch, subs. (old).—The old-fashioned beaver of forty years since. [From its being cocked back and front, and pinched at the sides.] For synonyms, see Golgotha.

Cockatoo-Farmer, subs. (Australian).—In Victoria and New South Wales a small farmer or selector. A term of contempt used by large holders in describing agricultural squatters with small capital. [Probably an allusion to their numbers: a comparing to the rush for land, the swooping of cockatoos in myriads in new sown corn.]

1865. H. Kingsley, Hillyars and Burtons, ch. lx. The small farmers [in Australian wool districts] contemptuously called cockatoos are the fathers of fire, the inventors of scab, the seducers of bush-hands for haymaking and harvesting [and many other heinous crimes].

1886. G. Sutherland, Australia, p. 64. The shepherd king tries to steal a march upon the poor cockatoo, as he contemptuously calls the small farmer.

1887. G. A. Sala, in Ill. L. News, 12 March, 282, col. 2. I venture to differ from my correspondent when, in telling me that ‘cocky’ is Australian argot for a small farmer, adds, ‘by-the-by, you never hear the word “farmer” over there … many scores of times at the Antipodes I have heard agriculturists, whose holdings were small, spoken of, not as “cockies” but as “cockatoo farmers.” ’

Cockatrice, subs. (old).—1. A common prostitute; also a mistress or ‘keep.’ [Nares says ‘probably from the fascination of the eye,’ alluding to the fabulous monster hatched from a cock’s egg by a serpent. Shakspeare speaks of ‘the death-dealing’ eye of a cockatrice.] For synonyms, see Barrack-hack and Tart.

1600. Ben Jonson, Cynth Rev., IV., 4. And withall, calls me at his pleasure I know not how many cockatrices and things.

1604. Marston and Webster, Malcontent, O. P., iv., 93. No courtier but has his mistress, no captain but has his cockatrice.

1630. Taylor, Workes [quoted by Nares]. And amongst souldiers this sweet piece of vice Is counted for a captaines cockatrice.

1664. Killegrew, Pandora. Some wine there, That I may court my cockatrice. Care. Good Captaine, Bid our noble friend welcome.

1740. Poor Robin. Some gallants will this month be so penurious that they will not part with a crack’d groat to a poor body, but on their cockatrice or punquetto will bestow half a dozen taffety gowns, who in requital bestows on him the French pox.

2. (common).—A baby.

Cock-a-Wax, subs. (common).—1. A cobbler. [From cock a man (q.v.), + a + wax, an adjunct of the cobbler’s trade.] For synonyms, see Snob.

2. A familiar address.

Cock-Bawd, subs. (old).—A male brothel keeper. [Quoted in Grose (1785).]

Cockchafer, subs. (thieves’).—1. The treadmill. For synonyms, see Wheel of life.

1851–61. H. Mayhew, London Lab. and Lon. Poor, vol. II., p. 59. ‘He enpiated,’ as it is called, this offence by three months’ exercise on the cockchafer (treadmill).

1864. Glasgow Citizen, Nov. 19. The Jeremy Diddler who forges his honest name to a fakement, incurring thereby a drag at the cockchafer.

2. (venery).—The female pudendum.

3. (venery).—See Cock-teaser.

Cocked-Hat. To be knocked into a cocked hat, verbal phr. (common).—To be limp enough to be doubled up and carried flat under the arm [like the cocked hat of an officer.]

English Synonyms. To be doubled up; knocked into the middle of next week; spifflicated; beaten to a jelly; knocked a-cock; wiped out; sent all of a heap; bottled up; settled; to get beans, or snuff; sent, done, or smashed to smithereens, etc.—See also Tan, Tanning, and Wipe.

French Synonyms. Effondrer quelqu’un (popular: literally ‘to dig into one’; effondrer une volaille = to draw a fowl); tatouiller quelqu’un (popular: tatouiller is a slang term for a thrashing); soigner quelqu’un (popular: properly ‘to take care of,’ or ‘to attend,’ ‘to nurse’); se faire écharpiller (popular); déboulonner la colonne à quelqu’un (popular); décarcasser quelqu’un (popular); manger le nez à quelqu’un (popular: literally ‘to eat one’s nose’).

1870. Daily Telegraph, 20 Aug., ‘Speech of Mr. Ralph Harrison at the Crystal Palace.’ The publication of the Morning Star on March 17, 1856, it was prophesied, would knock the Daily Telegraph into a cocked hat.

1877. C. Reade, The Jilt, I., in Belgravia, March, p. 59. I never knew a Welsh girl yet who couldn’t dance an Englishman into a cocked hat.

1881. Hawley Smart, Gt. Tontine, ch. xxx. I think now we may consider Bob Pegram’s marriage as knocked pretty well into a cocked hat.

1889. Pall Mall Gaz., 18 Sept. p. 2, col. 3. You give in the Pall Mall of to-night three translations of Plato’s well-known epigram. Permit me to give you another which in my opinion knocks all the rest into a cocked hat.

Also in the moral sense to be amazed to stupefaction and speechlessness.

Cocker, According to Cocker, adv. phr. (colloquial).—According to rule; properly, arithmetically, or correctly done. [From old Cocker, a famous writing master in Charles II. time, author of a treatise on arithmetic. Professor de Morgan notes ‘that it became a proverbial representative of arithmetic from Murphy’s farce of The Apprentice (1756), in which the strong point of the old merchant Wingate is his extreme reverence for Cocker and his arithmetic.’] In America a similar locution is according to Gunter (q.v.). Gunter was a famous arithmetician a century before Cocker, and the American is no doubt the older phrase. The old laws of Rhode Island say, ‘All casks shall be gauged by the rule commonly known as “gauging by Gunter.” ’ Among sailors, the standard of appeal is according to John Norie—the compiler of a popular Navigator’s Manual.

1851. Mayhew, Lon. Lab. and Lon. Poor. ‘Answers to Correspondents.’ Surely, to increase the quantity of labour, while the amount expended in the direct purchase of that labour remains the same, is according to Cocker—to decrease the wages in precisely the same proportion.

1861. T. Hughes, Tom Brown at Oxford, ch. xxxii., p. 337. Well, so you ought to be, according to Cocker, spending all your time in sick rooms.

1883. G. A. S[ala], in Ill. L. News, Nov. 24, p. 499, col. 2. The average American may not know what we mean by according to Cocker; while the average Englishman may be unaware of the meaning of ‘according to Gunter.’ They both mean the same thing; implying irreproachable accuracy in computation.

1888. Grant Allen, This Mortal Coil, ch. ii. According to Cocker nought and nought make nothing.

Cock-Eyed, adj. (common).—Squinting. [Cf., Cock the eye.] For synonyms, see Squinny-eye.

1884. Daily News, Nov. 27, p. 2, col. 2. I am told the proper description of him would be a little man with a cock-eye.

Cock-Fighting. That beats cock fighting, phr. (common).—A general expression of approval—up to the mark; A 1. [From the esteem in which the sport was held.]

1659. Gauden, Tears of the Church, p. 228. Ministers’ scufflings and contests with one another is beyond any cock fighting or Bear-baiting to the vulgar envy, malice, profaneness, and petulancy.

1884. W. C. Russell, Jack’s Courtship, ch. vi. ‘Well, roast me!’ cried he, viewing me with a kind of admiration; ‘if this don’t beat cock fighting.’

Cock-Horse, adv. phr. (old).—Triumphant; in full swing; cock-a-hoop. Halliwell says, ‘a somewhat slang expression not quite obsolete.’

Cocking.—See Cock, verb, sense 1.

Cockish, adj. (old).—Wanton; ‘on heat.’ [From cock, the penis, + ish.] Latham quotes cockish in the sense of ‘pert,’ from the strutting of the barn-door cock.

1785. Grose, Dict. Vulg. Tongue. A cockish wench: a forward, coming girl.

Cock it, verb (tailors’).—To examine; see; or speak of (a thing).

Cockles, subs. (venery).—The labia minora.

Cockles of the Heart, subs. phr. (common).—A jocose vulgarism encountered in a variety of combinations; e.g., ‘that will rejoice’ or ‘tickle’ or ‘warm the cockles of your heart,’ etc. [It is suggested (N. and Q., 7 S., iv., 26) that a hint as to its origin may be found in Lower, an eminent anatomist of the seventeenth century, who thus speaks in his Tractatus de Corde (1669), p. 25, of the muscular fibres of the ventricles.

‘Fibræ quidem rectis hisce exteri oribus in dextro ventriculo proximè subjectæ obliquè dextrorsum ascendentes in basin cordis terminantur, et spirali suo ambitu helicem sive cochleam satis aptè referunt.’

The ventricles of the heart might, therefore, be called cochlea cordis, and this would easily be turned into cockles of the heart.] The French say, Tu t’en pourlécheras la face (that’ll rejoice the cockles of your heart).

1671. Eachard, Observations [Wright]. This contrivance of his did inwardly rejoice the cockles of his heart.

1822. Scott, Fortunes of Nigel, ch. xxvi. Which would have cheered the cockles of the reigning monarch.

1834. Marryat, Jacob Faithful, ch. xii. ‘There now, master, there’s a glass of grog for you that would float a marling-spike. See if that don’t warm the cockles of your old heart.’

1839. W. H. Ainsworth, Jack Sheppard, p. 49 (ed. 1840). ‘There, Mr. Wood,’ cried David, pouring out a glass of the spirit, and offering it to the carpenter, ‘that’ll warm the cockles of your heart.’

To cry cockles, verbal phr. (common).—To be hanged. [From the gurgling noise made in strangulation.] For synonyms, see Ladder.

Cock-Loft, subs. (old).—The head. [A cock-loft is properly a small loft, garret, or apartment at the top of a house. Cf., Garret, Upper Storey, etc.] An old proverb runs, ‘All his gear is in his cock-loft’; i.e., ‘all his wealth, work, or worth is in his head.’ For synonyms, see Crumpet.

1642. Thomas Fuller, Holy and Profane State, And. Ad. fen. 1. Often the cockloft is empty, in those whom nature hath built many stories high.

Cockney, subs. (colloquial).—One born within the sound of bow-bells. [The origin of cockney has been much debated; but, says Dr. Murray, in the course of an exhaustive statement (Academy, May 10, 1890, p. 320), the history of the word, so far as it means a person, is very clear and simple. We have the senses (1) ‘cockered or pet child,’ ‘nestle-cock,’ ‘mother’s darling,’ ‘milksop,’ the name being applicable primarily to the child, but continued to the squeamish and effeminate man into which he grows up. (2) A nickname applied by country people to the inhabitants of great towns, whom they considered ‘milksops,’ from their daintier habits and incapacity for rough work. York, London, Perugia, were, according to Harman, all nests of cockneys. (3) By about 1600 the name began to be attached especially to Londoners, as the representatives par excellence of the city milksop. One understands the disgust with which a cavalier in 1641 wrote that he was ‘obliged to quit Oxford at the approach of Essex and Waller, with their prodigious number of cockneys.’]

1607. Dekker, Westward Ho, Act ii., Sc. 2. As Frenchmen love to be bold … and Irishmen to be costermongers, so cockneys, especially she-cockneys, love not aqua-vitæ when ’tis good for them.

1760. Foote, Minor, Act i. But you cockneys now beat us suburbians at our own weapons.

1840. Thackeray, Paris Sketch Book, p. 28. ‘You ’ad such an ’eadach’, sir,’ said British, sternly, who piques himself on his grammar and pronunciation, and scorns a cockney.

1889. Pall Mall Gaz., 6 Nov., p. 3, col. 2. London mist, when turned into London black fog by the poisonous carbonic anhydride and sulphurous anhydride with which it is loaded, encompasses all cockneys, good or bad with a real danger to health and life.

Cockney-Shire, subs. (common).—London. [From cockney, a native of London, + shire.]

Cock Pimp, subs. (old).—The husband, real or supposed, of a bawd or procuress. [From cock, male, + pimp, a procurer.]—Grose [1785].

Cockquean, subs. (obsolete).—A man who interests himself in women’s affairs. The common form is ‘cotquean.’ Cf., Molly.

Cockroaches. To get or eat cockroaches, verbal phr. (old).—To practise masturbation. For synonyms, see Frig.

Cock-Robin, subs. (old).—A soft, easy fellow.—Grose [1785].

Cock-Robin Shop, subs. phr. (printers’).—A small printing office, for cheap work done at vile wages. In other trades a slop shop.

1888. R. R., in Notes and Queries, 7 S., v., 333. Let me advise collectors of such things [cheap books] to avoid the regular booksellers, and try the cock-robin shops, and the general dealers in small wares, down back streets.

Cocks, subs. (popular).—1. See Cock, subs., sense 2.

2. (trade).—Explained by quotation. The word appears to be slang for anything fictitious. Cf., Cocks, subs., sense 2.

1880. Daily News, Nov. 4. [Quoted in N. and Q., 6 S., ii., p. 387.]

3. (Charterhouse).—A lavatory where changing for games, washing before meals, etc., goes on. [From the taps over the basins.] It is equivalent to the Winchester Moab (q.v.).

Cock’s Egg. To give one a cock’s egg, phr. (common).—To send one on a fool’s errand; to gammon (q.v. for synonyms). The expression is of the same type as ‘to send one to buy pigeon’s milk,’ ‘oil of strappum,’ ‘strap oil,’ etc.

Cock-Shy, subs. (popular).—A mark, butt, or target; any person or thing that is the centre of jaculation.

c. 1834. Marryat, Rattlin the Reefer, p. 92. What a fine cockshy he would make, said Master Blubberlips.

18(?). Lord Strangford, Letters and Papers, p. 215. This was as if the great geologists … had invited two rival theorists to settle the question of a geological formation by picking up the stones and appealing to the test of a cockshy.

1849. Thackeray, Pendennis, ch. iii. He had seen Tom Ricketts, of the fourth form, who used to wear a jacket and trousers so ludicrously tight, that the elder boys could not forbear using him in the quality of a butt or cockshy.

1876. Hindley, Life and Adventures of a Cheap Jack, p. 262. A desperate fight ensued, the ‘nobblers’ arming themselves with cock-shy sticks.

Cock-Stand, subs. (venery).—An erection of the penis. For synonyms, see Horn and Cf., Stand.

Cock-Sucker, subs. (venery).—A fellatrix.

Cocksure, adj. (colloquial).—Confidently certain; pertly sure. [Probably a corruption of ‘cocky sure.’ We call a self-confident, overbearing prig a cocky fellow, from the barnyard despot. Shakspeare (I Henry IV., ii., 1) employs the phrase in the sense of ‘sure as the cock of a firelock.’

We steal as in a castle, cocksure:

and still earlier usages imply its derivation from the fact that the cock was much surer than the older fashioned match.]

1549. Latimer, Sermon on the Ploughers, p. 32 (Arber’s ed.) For the Deuyll was dysapoynted of his purpose for he thoughte all to be hys owne. And when he had once broughte Christe to the crosse, he thought all cock-sure.

1603. John Day, Law Trickes, Act iii., p. 30. Then did I learn to … Make false conueyances, yet with a trick, Close and cock-sure, I cony-catch’d the world.

1667. Dryden, Sir Martin Marr-all, Act. iv. Nothing vexes me, but that I had made my game cock-sure, and then to be backgammoned.

b. 1738, d. 1819. Wolcot (‘Paul Pindar’), Odes to the Pope, II., in wks. (Dublin, 1795) V. ii., p. 492. Yet deem themselves, poor dupes, cocksure of Heav’n.

1837. R. H. Barham, The Ingoldsby Legends (ed. 1862), 320. Last of all, gentle Reader, don’t be too secure!—Let seeming success never make you cock-sure.

1849. T. Carlyle, IV., 108. [Yes, Manning was shot there; he had told us Hyde was cocksure.]

1884. W. C. Russell, Jack’s Courtship, ch. iii. ‘Hawke will not get his daughter to have him, he may be cocksure of that.’

1889. The Star, Aug. 24, p. 3, col. 4. In his most insolent and cocksure manner he declared, etc.

Cocktail, subs. (common).—1. A prostitute; a wanton.

2. (common).—A coward.

3. (American).—A drink composed of spirits (gin, brandy, whisky, etc.), bitters, crushed ice, sugar, etc., the whole whisked briskly until foaming, and then drunk ‘hot.’

Cocktail or Cocktailed, adj. (military).—Unsoldierlike; uneven; showing bad form; and in its specifically military sense, anything unworthy of the regular army. For example, at one time the Volunteer auxiliaries were described as ‘such a cocktailed crew.’

1877. Five Years’ Penal Servitude, ch. ii., p. 67. He confessed he not only urged his brother into it, but compelled him to be as bad as himself, and had thrashed him many times for turning cocktail.

Cock-Teaser, or Cockchafer, subs. (venery).—A girl in the habit of permitting all familiarities but the last.

Cock-up, subs. (printers’).—What is technically known as a ‘superior’; e.g., the smaller letters in the following examples:

Y^e Limt^d Comp^y; J^no. Smith, Sen^r.; N^o.; London¹

Cocked-up, adj.—See Cocky.

Cock Up One’s Toes, verbal phr. (thieves’).—To die. For synonyms, see Aloft and Hop the twig.

1820. Reynolds, (‘Peter Corcoran’), The Fancy. ‘King Tims the First.’ Now I see a neighbour cock his toe—Walk by his side in black—in well paid woe.

1864. E. D. Forgues, in Revue des deux Mondes, Sep. 15, p. 472, note. Cock one’s toes. Cette … locution, si bizarre au premier coup d’œil, doit s’expliquer par un des phénomènes de la retraction cadavérique; les pieds du mort, ramenés en arrière, ont pu rappeler la position que prend le chien de la batterie quand le fusil est armé.

Cocky or Cocking, adj. (popular).—1. Pert or saucy; forward; coolly audacious; over confident, ‘botty.’ [Formerly cocking. An allusion to the strut of the barn-door bird.] Fr., se gourer, to be cocky; also se gonfler, faire sa merde, and faire son matador.

1711. Spectator, No. 153. But the cocking young fellow who treads upon the toes of his elders, and the old fool who envies the saucy pride he sees in him, are the objects of our present contempt and derision.

1820. Clare, Poems of Rural Life, Familiar Epistle, st. 5. I’ve long been aggravated shocking, To see our gentry folks go cocking.

1856. T. Hughes, Tom Brown’s School-days, pt. II., ch. vi. ‘It seems so cocky in me to be advising you.’

1864. Glasgow Citizen, Nov. 19. Cotgrave (1672) gives us ‘Herr, master or sir; a rogue.’ Aleman [‘The Spanish Rogue’] Vous faite du Herr. ‘You are very cockit, or lusty; you take too much upon you.’ Is it not gratifying to know that cockiness is older than this century, in which it has been developed to so alarming an extent?

1872. The Scotsman, 29 Oct. ‘Sir J. Pakington at Stourbridge.’ He should be inclined to offer him a little homely advice, and to tell him in somewhat plain language ‘Not to be too cocky.’

1884. Cornhill Mag., April, p. 442. ‘Davis,’ said Toddy, ‘you haven’t had a banging this term, and you’re getting cocky.’

2. (Stock Exchange).—Brisk; active—applied to the money market.

1871. Figaro, 3 June. ‘Notes on Change.’ Everything again brisk, and the market, what is expressly termed cocky.

Cocoa-Nut, subs. (general).—The head. Fr. le coco. For synonyms, see Crumpet.

1834. W. H. Ainsworth, Rookwood, p. 176 (ed. 1864). ‘A thousand pities that so fine a fellow should have a sconce like a cocoa-nut!’

1840. Haliburton, Clockmaker, 3 S., ch. iii. ‘The Major a-pokin’ along with his cocoa-nut down, a-studyin’ over somethin’ or another quite deep.’

c. 1880. Broadside Ballad, ‘Waltzing Round the Water-butt.’ Gaily the troubadour will waltz round the water-butt, Blissful the happy thoughts that float round my cocoa-nut, Moonlight and spooning ’neath the old hazel tree!

That accounts for the milk in the cocoa-nut, phr. (common).—A rejoinder upon having a thing explained for the first time.

To have no milk in the cocoa-nut, phr.—To be insane; silly; ‘cracked.’—See Apartments.

Cocum, Kocum, subs. (common).—1. Shrewdness; ability; luck; cleverness. [From the Hebrew chochum, chochem, or cochem, crafty; learned, wise, or a wise man. The term is found passim in early Hebrew literature, especially in the Book of Proverbs: ‘A cochem will hear and increase learning’ (Prov. i. 5). The slang sense has been introduced by the Whitechapel Jews. In Yiddish cochemer or cochem, the pronunciation of which is not dissimilar to cocum, means wisdom; cochumwirth = a thieves’ landlord. (Cf., paragraph on German analogues.) Cocma is another Hebraism used by London Jews in a similar sense, but it has not made its way into slang.

English Analogues. Real jam (this in the sense of anything exceptionally good or lucky); all beer and skittles (extremely pleasant); rattling (extremely jolly, pleasant, or well appointed); to be in clover (happiness and luck); to stand on velvet (a variant of the last mentioned); to be cracking a tidy crust (to be doing very well); to be having a good swim (thieves’ for a good run of luck, i.e., being a long time out of the policeman’s clutches); well ballasted; on the spot; up to Dick; on it; right; and so forth.

French Analogues. Etre de la bonne (popular: to be lucky); décrocher la timballe (popular); être de la fête (popular and thieves’); avoir des as dans son jeu (popular: to have an advantage, ‘to be in luck’s way’); avoir l’assiette au beurre (popular: to be fortunate in life); bidard (m. lucky); être de la bate (popular).

German Analogues. Chochom, Chochem, Chochemer (which Hebraism is the root of the English cocum. Among German thieves who more frequently spell the word Kochem, Kochemer, the meaning is almost identical with that given it by their English brethren, except that the wisdom, profit, or luck, applies almost solely to the results of crooked ways and dealings. Chochom and its variants signify, therefore, the cunning, prudent, and successful vagabond; Chochem lehorre = a dangerous vagabond, one who is prepared for the worst; Chochem mechutten = a bad patron, a dangerous companion, a rogue of the worst type; Chochme = wisdom, cunning, circumspection, or the practice of swindling).

Italian Analogues. Cavazzonare (literally ‘to place well or be well placed’); aver primavera (this applies to cocum as represented by pleasure; literally ‘to have spring’).

Spanish Analogues. Cucarachera (f; a vulgarism for luck or good fortune); harlarse buena cucarachera (to be lucky or fortunate); potroso (a colloquialism signifying lucky; literally ‘afflicted with a rupture’); charanguero (m; a lucky fellow, one with cocum); hijo de la gallina blanca (a lucky bird).

1851–61. H. Mayhew, London Lab. and Lon. Poor, vol. I., p. 279. ‘It’s decent and comfortable too, and it’s about 6d. a night to me for singing and patter in the tap-room. That’s my cokum (advantage).’

1861. Earl, Ups and Downs of Australian Life, p. 224. ‘No one was to get drunk, the governor said as how it wasn’t cokum, and he wouldn’t have it,—and so we were all fit for work the next day.’

1864. Hotten, Slang Dict., s.v. ‘Jack’s got cocum, he’s safe to get on, he is,’ viz., he starts under favourable circumstances.

c. 1886. Broadside Ballad, ‘The Flippity Flop Young Man.’ I once was a Member-for-Slocum young man, And for Parliament had a strong fancy, A know-pretty-well-what-is-kocum young man When addressing a constituency.

2. (publishers’).—A sliding scale of profit. [Publishers sometimes issue books without fixing the published price. These they sell to the retail trade at a fixed sum, leaving the bookseller to make what he can.

To fight or play cocum, verbal phr. (common). To play double; to be wary, cunning, or ‘artful.’

1857. Snowden, Mag. Assistant (3 ed.), p. 445, s.v. To be cunning, wary, or sly.

1885. Referee, April 26, p. 1, col. 2. The best show in the Crawfurd Plate—that is, unless a lot of the pulling-up division were playing cokum—was that of Ptolemy.

Cod, subs. (common).—1. A fool. [Cf., Cod’s head, of which it is possibly an abbreviation.] For synonyms, see Buffle and Cabbage-head.

2. (tailors’).—A drunkard.—[See verb, sense 2.]

3. (thieves’).—A purse; a cod of money = a large sum of money. [A.S. cod or codd, a small bag.] For synonyms, see Poge.

4. (street).—A ‘pal’ or friend; generally prefixed to a surname. [Here cod is the diminutive of ‘codlin,’ an old endearment.] Cf., Codd.

Verb (common).—1. To play the fool; to monkey (q.v.).

2. (tailors’).—To go on the drink; generally, to act loosely.

3. (common).—To chaff; hoax; ‘take a rise out of.’

1865. Evening Citizen, 28 Nov. Codding a Town Council.—The Fife Circular, Kirkcaldy, says:—According to usual practice, several members of the new Town Council attended divine service at the Parish Church on Sunday forenoon last. The Rev. M. J. Bryden officiated, and preached an eloquent and appropriate sermon to the Council from these words in the 10th chapter of St. Matthew:—‘Ye are of more value than many sparrows.’

1884. W. C. Russell, Jack’s Courtship, ch. xxxi. ‘What do you think of that, cook?’ ‘Think?’ answered the cook, who had a rather sour eye; ‘why, that that rough sailor man was a-coddin’ of you, sir.’

Codd or Cod, subs. (Charterhouse).—A pensioner of the Charterhouse.—See quot., and Cf., Cod, sense 4.

1855. Thackeray, Newcomes, II., p. 333. Yonder sit some three score of gentlemen, pensioners of the hospital, listening to the prayers and psalms. You hear them coughing feebly in the twilight—the old reverend blackgowns. Is Codd Ajax alive, you wonder?—the Cistercian lads called these old gentlemen Codds, I know not wherefore—I know not wherefore—but is old Codd Ajax alive, I wonder? or Codd Soldier? or kind old Codd Gentleman? or has the grave closed over them?

Coddam or Coddom, subs. (common).—A public-house game played three, four, or more a side. The only ‘property’ required is a coin, a button, or anything which can be hidden in the clenched hand. The principle of the game, which is simplicity itself, is that of ‘Guess whose hand it’s in.’ If the guesser ‘brings it home,’ his side takes the ‘piece,’ and the centre man ‘works’ it. If the guess be wrong, a chalk is taken to the holders, who go on again.

1884. J. Greenwood, Seven Years’ Penal Servitude. The convicts take advantage of that to the extent sometimes of playing a gambling game called coddom.

1885. Good Words, August, p. 530. Some prefer coddam, and risk their pint of beer on the discovery of the coin.

1890. Pall Mall Gaz., March 1, p. 5, col. 2. The boys were playing a game called coddom, a guessing game.

Codding, verbal subs. (common).—Nonsense; humbug; chaff. [From cod (q.v., verb, sense 3).]

Codger, subs. (common).—A familiar term of address, especially in old codger; a curious old fellow; an odd fish; a ‘rum’ character; a precise, and sometimes a mean or miserly man.

English Synonyms. Most of the general slang terms for a man or fellow correspond in usage to ‘old codger,’ e.g., old chap; ben cull; old man; my pippin; old cock, etc.

French Synonyms. Un béquillard (popular: French thieves give the same name to the executioner); vieux canasson (popular: ‘old man,’ ‘old cock’); un birbe; ma vieille branche.

Italian Synonym. Fuino (literally a pole-cat).

1760. Colman, Polly Honeycombe, in wks. (1777) IV., 39. A clear coast, I find. The old codger’s gone, and has locked me up with his daughter.

1760. Smollett, Sir L. Greaves, vol. I., ch. iii. She twisted her hand in Grove’s neckcloth without ceremony, crying—‘Sha’t then, I tell thee, old coger.’

1796. Mad. D’Arblay, Camilla, bk. IX., ch. iv. He gave himself the airs of an old justice of the peace, and said if he did not find the affair given up, nothing should induce him ever to help me again. What a mere codger that lad has turned out!

1837. Barham, I. L. (Lay of St. Nicholas). How a thirsty old codger, the neighbours call’d Roger, With them drank cold water in lieu of old wine.

1859. Dickens, Tale of Two Cities, bk. II., ch. xxiv. Why, I am a boy, sir, to half-a-dozen old codgers here.

1876. Hindley, Life and Adventures of a Cheap Jack, p. 61. His father, a rum old codger, had been a captain in the army.

1883. F. R. Stockton, Rudder Grange, ch. xi. I knew that any sensible man would rather have me in charge of his tent than a young codger like that.

1887. Baumann, Londinismen, Slang u. Cant. pref., vi. So from hartful young dodgers, From vaxy old codger, From the blowens we got Soon to know vot is vot.

Codicils, subs. (American journalists’).—A kind of literary sparring match; also called accumulatives (q.v.). Some editor will make a remark or a joke—with a capital J; another will cite it with comments; and, in his turn, he will be handled by a third. There are cases in which the original paragraph has gone the round of twenty or thirty prints. [A codicil is properly a writing by way of supplement to a will.]

1889. Polytechnic Mag., 24 Oct., p. 253. ‘How many apples did Adam and Eve eat?’ Some say Eve 8 and Adam 2—a total of 10. Now, we figure the thing out far different. Eve 8, and Adam 8 also—total 16.—Boston Journal. We think the above figures are entirely wrong. If Eve 8, and Adam 8–2, certainly the total will be 90. Scientific men, however, on the strength of the theory that the antidiluvians were a race of giants, and consequently great eaters, reason something like this:—Eve, 8–1st, and Adam 8–2—total, 163.—Gloucester Advertiser. Wrong again; what could be clearer than if Eve 8–1–1st, and Adam 8–1–2, would not the whole be 1,623?—Boston Journal. Now we think these figures are not according to Cocker. The following is probably the true solution:—Eve 8–1–4 Adam, Adam 8–1–2–4 Eve—total, 8,698.—Veritas. Stop friend; still another calculation is as follows:—If Eve 8–1–4 Adam, Adam 8–1–2–4–2 oblige Eve—total, 82,056. We think, however, this is not a sufficient quantity; for, if we admit that Eve 8–1–4 Adam, Adam, if he 8–0-8–1–2–4–2 keep Eve company—total, 1,082,056.—New York Mail. You do the fair thing by Adam, brother, but you slight Eve. This poor smit 10–1–8–1–4–2 please the serpent, and Adam, of course, if he as good husbands do of-10–8–0–8–1–2–4–2 keep Eve company—total, 109,099,384.—Syracuse Journal. The American newspaper calculators, with the savagery of all other historians, meanly stigmatise the woman. Adam, a mere dupe, lacked the nobility to try a dangerous experiment first. Eve eat an apple for dinner: Adam, forgetting the injuries to many an unborn 1,000,000–8–1–4 millions more—the coward! True total, 1,000,000,814,000,000. Whoopee! Now is the time to subscribe.—Polytechnic Magazine.

Codland, subs. (American).—Newfoundland. Cf., Cod-preserves.

Codlings.—See Cods.

Cod-Preserves, subs. (nautical).—The Atlantic Ocean. [An obvious allusion. Cf., Codland = Newfoundland; also Briney.]

Cods, subs. (venery).—1. The testicles. [From A.S. cod or codd = a small bag.] Also codlings.

English Synonyms. Bawbels, baubels, or bobbles; bollocks; balls; beef (the penis and testes); bird’s-eggs; bobbies; bullets; bum-balls; cannon-balls; clock-weights; culls (old); dowsetts (old); gingambobs; jelly-bags (more properly in sing = the scrotum); knackers; love-apples; marbles; nick-nacks; pebbles; seals (Cf., watch-and-seals = the male pudenda); spunk-holders; stones; thingambobs.

French Synonyms. Les antilles (thieves’: f. pl.); les virolets (obsolete: in allusion to a man’s virility); les sonnettes (common: literally bells); les frères siamois (popular: an allusion to the Siamese twins); les prunes (common); les grains (leger de deux grains = an eunuch).

German Synonym. Dickmann (also ‘an egg,’ and ‘the penis.’ Dick = enciente; dick machen, to deflower and quicken. Dick means literally ‘thick’).

Spanish Synonym. Cojones.

2. (old).—See quot.

1871. Bookseller, 4 Nov. The Cods and Hooks were the Whigs and Tories of Dutch William’s land.

Cod’s-Head, subs. (old).—A stupid fellow; a fool.—See Buffle and Cabbage-Head.

1675. The Woman turn’d Bully. Dash. Sweet sir, I think it is neer octa hora. Your servant, gentlemen. Good. Farewell, cods-head.

1694. Dunton, Ladies’ Dictionary. You confounded toad, you, where were your eyes, in your heels? that you should be such a bungling cods-head to see no better.

Cofe.—See Cove.

Coffee, subs. (American thieves’).—Beans.

1859. G. W. Matsell, Vocabulum, or Rogue’s Lexicon, p. 19, s.v.

Greased coffee, subs. phr. (American).—Pork and beans.

Coffee-House or Coffee-Shop, subs. (common).—1. A water-closet. For synonyms, see Mrs. Jones, and Cf., Bury a Quaker.

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

Coffee-Housing, subs.—See quot.

1877 Hawley Smart, Play or Pay, ch. iv. ‘Not going to hunt? Why Miss Bazing told me you had a regular string of horses coming down!’ ‘Ah, Bessie’s wrong. I always was a changeable beggar, you know. The string consists of a hack, just good enough to do a little bit of coffee-housing occasionally.’

Coffee-Mill, subs. (old).—The mouth: a ‘grinder’ itself, and furnished with ‘grinders’—American ‘cogs,’—as well. For synonyms, see Potato-trap.

1821. W. T. Moncrieff, Tom and Jerry, Act ii., Sc. 2. Gas. Come, come, silence your coffee-mill.

Coffee-Milling, subs. phr. (common).—1. Grinding; working hard. Cf., To cock snooks (see Snooks) or ‘take a sight’ by putting the thumb of one hand to the nose and grinding the little finger with the other, as if you worked an imaginary coffee mill.

1837. Dickens, Pickwick, p. 249.

1854. Aytoun and Martin, The Bon Gaultier Ballads. ‘The Lay of the Lovelorn.’ When I went the pace so wildly, caring little what might come, Coffee-milling care and sorrow, with a nose-adapted thumb.

Coffins, subs. (Stock Exchange).—The Funeral Furnishing Company’s Shares.

Another nail in one’s coffin.—See Nail.

Cog, subs. (American thieves’).—A tooth.—Matsell [1859]. Cf., Coffee-mill.

Coke. Go and Eat Coke, verb. phr. (vulgar).—A phrase indicative of contempt. A corollary is ‘and evacuate, or s—t cinders.’

Coker, subs. (old).—A lie.—Grose [1785]. For synonyms, see Whopper.

Colchester Clocks, subs. (streets’).—A breed of large oysters.

1865. Daily Telegraph, 13 Sep. For the big, uncompromising Colchester clock, which we see on stalls and shudder at, with unlimited vinegar and pepper, the East-ender willingly gives his penny.

Cold. To have a bad cold, verbal phr. (common).—Said of one who keeps his door closed against all comers for fear of duns; also of one who has ‘shot the moon.’ Also of one that has taken clap.

1863. Chambers’ Journal, vol. XX., p. 5. ‘It’s no good your ringing,’ remarked the book-boy, when I had discovered that fact for myself; ‘Mr. Cranium ain’t at home, he ain’t. He’s got a werry bad cold.’ After a few minutes, however, and many genial impertinences, I discovered that having a bad cold means, in Camden Town, being in debt, while a very bad cold implies that the sufferer has taken clandestine departure from his lodgings.

To leave out in the cold, verbal phr.—To neglect; shut out, or abandon.

1861. New York Tribune, July, The ‘Assents’ continue to come in freely at the Erie Railroad office; and the appearances are that at the closing of the books … there will be few shares or bonds left out in the cold.

Cold Blood, subs. (licensed victuallers’).—A house licensed for the sale of beer ‘not to be drunk on the premises.’

Cold Coffee, subs. phr. (Oxford University).—1. A sell; a hoax; a trumpery affair.

2. (common).—Misfortune; ill-luck. A variant is cold gruel; also to have one’s comb cut; in French, to experience a run of ill-luck is expressed by être abonné au guignon; literally ‘to become a subscriber to ill-luck’; in Spanish, dar al traste con los negocios, signifies, colloquially, ‘to fail’ or ‘to be unfortunate in business.’

3. (familiar).—An unpleasant return or snub for a proffered kindness.

Cold Comfort, subs. phr. (trade).—An expression used of articles sent out on approval and returned. [Merely an extension of the literal meaning i.e., what is barren of consolation: a usage dating from the sixteenth century.

Cold Cook, subs. (popular).—An undertaker. [Literally one who has to deal with cold meat, i.e., the lifeless human body.] Cf., Cold meat and its derivatives.

English Synonyms. Carrion hunter; body snatcher; death hunter; black worker (see Black work).

French Synonyms. Un emballeur de refroidis (thieves’: an undertaker’s man; literally ‘a packer of cold meat’).

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

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

Cold Cookshop, subs. phr. (popular).—An undertaker’s premises.—See Cold cook.

Cold Cream.—See Cream of the valley.

Cold Deck, subs. (American thieves’).—A prepared pack of cards. Cf., Concaves and convexes and Stock broads. More politely a good hand obtained on first dealing and without drawing fresh cards.

1880. S. L. Clemens (‘Mark Twain’), Screamers. I never have gambled from that day to this—never once—without a cold deck in my pocket. I cannot even tell who is going to lose in games that are being played unless I deal myself.

Cold Gruel.—See Cold coffee, sense 2.

Cold Meat, subs. (common).—A corpse. [The human carcass is compared to butchers’ wares.] For synonyms, see Dead Meat. Among medical students the term cold meat or pickles (q.v.) = specimens direct from the subject.

1819. Thos. Moore, Tom Crib’s Mem. to Con., p. 25. In the Twelfth and Last Round Sandy fetched him a downer, That left him all’s one as cold meat for the Crowner.

To make cold meat of one, verbal phr. (common).—To kill. For synonyms, see Cook one’s goose.

1836. C. Dickens, Pickwick Papers, p. 148 (ed. 1857). ‘You mustn’t handle your piece in that ’ere way, when you come to have the charge in it, sir,’ said the tall gamekeeper, gruffly, ‘or I’m damned if you won’t make cold meat of some of us!’

Cold-Meat Box, subs. phr. (common).—A coffin. [From cold-meat, a corpse, + box, a receptacle.] For synonyms, see Eternity box.

1889. Sporting Times, 3 Aug., p. 1, col. 3. ‘Well, s’pose I perched first?’ ‘Well,’ replied Pitcher, ‘I should just come in where you were lying in the cold-meat box, and I should whisper in your ear,’ etc.

Cold-Meat Cart, subs. phr. (common).—A hearse. [From cold-meat, a corpse, + cart.] Fr., mannequin à refroidis. Cf., Cold-meat train.

1820. Reynolds (‘Peter Corcoran’), The Fancy, p. 46. He’s gone—how very muddy some folks die!—He’s for the cold-meat cart, and so am I.

Cold-Meat Train, subs. phr. (popular).—Generally, the funeral trains to Brookwood, Kensal Green, and other cemeteries. Specifically, the last train at night per S.W.R., by which officers can reach Aldershot in time for their morning duties. It starts about 2 a.m. from Nine Elms, and is properly a goods train, but a carriage is attached which is known as the ‘Larky Subaltern.’ [It is an error to suppose that this particular train received its nickname for taking corpses to Woking Cemetery. It carries nothing more dreadful than a portion of the beef and mutton for the morning ration to the troops in camp; and, as before stated, a few belated officers.]

1876. R. M. Jephson, Girl He Left Behind Him, ch. xi. The train by which Dorrien journeyed to Aldershot was that one known as the cold-meat.

Cold Pig. To give cold pig, verbal phr. (common).—To waken a sleeper either by sluicing him with cold water, or by suddenly stripping him of his bed-clothes.

1818. J. R. Planché, Amoroso, King of Little Britain. For if the Queen should come this way, As sure as fate and quarter day, cold pig will be your fare.

1837. Comic Almanack, June. I’ve given him strap,—a thick rope’s end,—cold pig! In vain!—There lies the stupid clown, As if the Night Mare held him down.

1846. Thackeray, Jeames’s Diary (in Punch, vol. II., p. 72). ‘What was it I red there? What was it that made me spring outabed as if sumbady had given me cold pig?—I red Rewin in that share list—the Pannick was in full hoporation.’

1869. W. Bradwood, The O. V. H., ch. xxxv. Then he came back rosy and hungry, and revenged himself by an administration of cold pig to the still slumbering Ralph.

Subs. (thieves’).—1. A person robbed of his clothing. Cf., sense 2.

2. (thieves’).—A corpse. For synonyms, see Dead meat.

3. (commercial travellers’).—The ‘empty returns’ sent back by rail to wholesale houses.

Cold Shivers, subs. phr. (common).—A figure of speech describing the effect of illness, intense fear or any violent emotion. An American equivalent is a ‘cold shake,’ which may refer alike to a period of cold weather, and an attack of fever and ague.

1864. Derby Day, p. 50. ‘There’s our friend the Littl’un,’ he resumed; ‘he’s all shivery shakey as if he got the staggers or the cold shivers, and was going wurra, wurra, wurra, between his teeth, as if he couldn’t help himself.’

Cold Shoulder. To give, show, or turn the cold shoulder, verbal phr. (colloquial).—To treat a person with studied coldness, neglect, or contempt; to ‘cut,’ in a modified form. The phrase appears to have been first used by Scott in the Antiquary, in the glossary to which it is explained as ‘to appear cold and reserved.’ Jamieson localizes it in the South of Scotland.

1816. Scott, Antiquary, ch. xxxiii. The countess’s dislike didna gang farther at first than just showing o’ the cauld shouther.

1840. Dickens, Old Curiosity Shop, ch. lxvi. He gives me the cold shoulder on this very matter, as if he had had nothing to do with it, instead of being the first to propose it.

1880. G. R. Sims, Three Brass Balls, pledge iii. They were not received everywhere with open arms. He was, of course, but the wife was occasionally cold shouldered.

c. 1882. Broadside Ballad, ‘Where’s the Cat?’ She gave him the cold shoulder, and quickly told him to depart.

Cold Slaw.—See Cabbage, sense 1.

Cold Tea, subs. (common).—Brandy—a seventeenth and eighteenth century colloquialism. For synonyms, see Drinks.

1690. Dict. Cant. Crew. Cold tea: brandy.

1693. Remonstrance of the Batchelors, in Harl. Misc. (ed. Park), IV., 505. Since their sex has been so familiar with brandy (blasphemed by the name of cold tea).

1857. Notes and Queries, 2 S., iii., p. 59, s.v.

1888. C. J. Dunphie, The Chameleon, p. 235. It is worthy of remark that cold tea was a slang name for Brandy in the 18th century.

Cold Water Army, subs. phr. (colloquial).—The general body of total abstainers.

Cold Without, subs. phr. (common).—Spirits and cold water without sugar. Cf., Cider and; also Hot with.

1837. R. H. Barham, Ingoldsby Legends, p. 156 (ed. 1862). On the fire, too, she pops some nice mutton-chops, And she mixes a stiff glass of cold without.

1853. Bulwer Lytton, My Novel. I laugh at fame. Fame, sir! not worth a glass of cold without.

Cole or Coal, subs. (popular).—Money. For synonyms, see Actual and Gilt.

1671. R. Head, English Rogue, pt. I., ch. v., p. 52 (1874). Tip the cole to Adam Tyler, give what money you pocket-pickt to the next party, presently.

1676. A Warning for Housekeepers (canting song). But when that we come not agen, As we walk along the street, We bite the Culley of his cole.

1688. Shadwell, Sq. of Alsatia, I., in wks. (1720) IV., 16. Cheat. My lusty rustick, learn, and be instructed. Cole is, in the language of the witty, money; the ready, the rhino.

16(?). Song of Seventeenth Century, (quoted in Halliwell and Wright’s ed. of Nares’ Glossary). The twelfth a trapan, if a cull he doth meet, He naps all his cole, and turns him i’ th’ street.

1741. Walpole, ballad in Letters to Mann, i., 22. This our captain no sooner had finger’d the cole, But he hies him aboard with his good Madam Vole.

1837. R. H. Barham, The Ingoldsby Legends (ed. 1862), p. 398. Moreover—the whole Of the said cash or cole; Shall be spent for the good of the said Old Woman’s soul!

1844. Puck, p. 146. Thank you for the offer of your bill; but I can wait until you can finger the cole, when I shan’t stand on ceremony about taking a cool hundred or two.…

To post or tip the cole, phr. (common).—To hand over money; to ‘shell’ or ‘fork out.’—See 1671 quot., subs. sense.

1839. Harrison Ainsworth, Jack Sheppard [1889], p. 13. ‘Will he post the cole? Will he come down with the dues? Ask him that,’ cried Blueskin. Ibid. If he don’t tip the cole without more ado, give him a taste of the pump, that’s all.

1883. G. A. S[ala], in Ill. L. News, Nov. 10, p. 451, col. 3. The lamented J. B. Buckstone, at a Theatrical Fund Dinner, once entreated the guests present to post the cole, i.e., to be prompt with their subscriptions and donations.

Colfabias or Colfabis.—See quot.

1864. Hotten, Slang Dict. Colfabias, a Latinized Irish phrase signifying the closet of decency, applied as a slang term to a place of resort in Trinity College, Dublin.

Coliander or Coliander-Seeds, subs. (old).—Money.—Grose [1785]. For synonyms, see Actual and Gilt.

Collar, verb (common).—To seize: appropriate; steal; e.g., ‘collar his dragons,’ i.e., steal his sovereigns. [Properly ‘to seize by the collar’; hence, by transition, ‘to lay hold of anything forcibly.’] For synonyms, see Nab and Prig.

1841. Leman Rede, Song, ‘Kit Clayton,’ in Sixteen-String Jack, Act i., Sc. 3. Ve collar’d the blunt, started off for town, With the dashy, splashy, leary, little stringer, Horses knock’d up, men knocked down—Phililoo!

1852. Dickens, Bleak House, ch. lvii., p. 476. Look well after your own money, for they are dead certain to collar it, if they can.

1866. London Miscellany, March 3, p. 58. I slept in Holborn Workhouse. While I was asleep the other coves tore every rag up and collar’d my toke.

1866. Hindley, Life and Adventures of a Cheap Jack, p. 242. Old Sir John Collywobbles had six black horses, six white horses, and six pied horses. So I recommended my father-which-is-in-law to collar the lot.

1884. W. Besant, Julia, ch. iv. Your grandmother tells me you’ve plucked up spirit at last and won’t let her collar more than half the wages.

To Collar the Bun, Cake, Banbury, or Confectioner’s Shop, verb. phr. (common).—To be easily first; to surpass.—See Cake.

Out of Collar, adv. phr. (colloquial).—Out of work; out of cash; not in training. Conversely, in collar = in work; in comfortable circumstances; and, as regards training, ‘fit’ or ‘in form.’ [Simile taken from the stable, in allusion to a horse, i.e., with his collar on or off.]

French Synonyms. Balloter (tailors’ = ‘to be out of work’); caler (popular and nautical = ‘to sink’); envoyer à la comédie (popular: to dismiss a workman for want of work to give him. Cf., remporter une veste); être à la comédie (‘to be out of work’); un panas (popular: ‘one out of work’); un inspecteur des pavés (literally ‘an inspector of the pavement’); avoir de la laine (to be in work).

1857. Ducange Anglicus, The Vulgar Tongue. A decent allowance made to seedy swells, head robbers, and flunkeys out of collar.

1867. Scottish Journal, p. 39, col. 1. There is nothing that so materially and frequently effects the well-being and social position of a working man as the circumstances arising from being, in his own phrase, ‘out of collar’—that is, his being unable to obtain work when he is able to do it and anxious to get it to do. Ibid. A workman on tramp will, if he is tolerably well known in the trade, and if he have, when in collar, shown a disposition to assist those who were out, often be kept among his former shopmates.

1880. Millikin, Punch’s Almanack. Now October! Back again to collar, Funds run low, reduced to last ’alf dollar.

c. 1880. Broadside Ballad, ‘Why Did She Leave her Jeremiah?’ When I was in collar I loved a fair maid, With eyes of a sweet dark blue.

Against collar, adv. phr. (common).—Uphill; working against difficulties, or against the grain.

To be put to the pin of the collar, verbal phr. (common).—To be driven to extremities; to come to the end of one’s resources.

To wear the collar, verbal phr. (colloquial).—To be subject to control not altogether to one’s liking. The antithesis of ‘to have the whip hand’ and ‘to wear the breeches’; etc.

Collar and Elbow, subs. phr. (wrestling).—A term for a peculiar style of wrestling—the Cornwall and Devon style.

Collar-Day, subs. (old).—Hanging day. [In allusion to the hangman’s noose.] Also Wry-neck-day (q.v.); Fr., jour de la St. Jean Baptiste.

Collared. To be collared, verbal phr. (gaming).—To be unable to play one’s usual game owing to temper, ‘funk,’ or other causes.

Collared Up, ppl. adj. (colloquial).—Kept close to business. Cf., Out of collar.

Collar or Get the Big Bird.—See Big Bird, and for synonyms, Goosed.

Collar Work, subs. phr. (colloquial). Laborious work.—See Against Collar.

1883. Daily Telegraph, July 3, p. 2, col. 1. The bald patches on their shoulders testified to their intimate acquaintance with collar work and tugging on stoney roads with heavy loads behind them.

1888. Ant. Trollope, What I Remember. And when Lucca was reached there were still fourteen miles, nearly all collar work, between that and the baths.

Collector, subs. (old).—A highwayman or footpad.

College, subs. (thieves’).—A prison; the inmates are called collegians or collegiates (q.v.); Newgate was formerly called ‘the City College.’ The Spanish Germania has colegio and collège is found in the argot of French thieves.

1703. Title, ‘The History of Whittington’s Colledge otherwise (vulgarly) called Newgate. London, Printed in the Year 1703.’

1785. Grose, Dict. Vulg. Tongue. College, Newgate, or any other prison.

1836. Dickens, Pickwick Papers (about 1827), p. 370 (ed. 1857). ‘Mornin’, gen’l’mem’, said Sam, entering at the moment with the shoes and gaiters; ‘avay vith melancholly, as the little boy said ven his schoolmissus died. Velcome to the college, gen’l’mem.’

1859. Matsell, Vacabulum, or Rogue’s Lexicon, p. 20. College: a State prison.

1889. Answers, 8 June, p. 25. I have since met several men whom I knew in prison at one time or other, and most of them have recognised me; but only one other has stopped me to remind me that we were at ‘college’ together.

College Chum.—See Collegiate.

Colleger, subs. (University and public schools’).—A square cap, otherwise known as a mortar-board. For general synonyms, see Golgotha.

Collegian.—See Collegiate.

Collegiate, Collegian or College Chum, subs. (thieves’).—The inmate of a prison.—[See College.]

1743. North, Life of Lord Guildford, I., 123. His beginnings were debauched, and his study and first practice in the gaol. For having been one of the fiercest town-rakes and spent more than he had of his own, his case forced him upon that expedient for a lodging, and there he … busied himself with the cases of his fellow-collegiates.

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

1836. Dickens, Pickwick Papers (about 1827), p. 369 (ed. 1857). ‘I say—do you expect anybody this morning? Three men—devilish gentlemanly fellows—have been asking after you downstairs, and knocking at every door on the hall flight: for which they’ve been most infernally blown up by the collegians that had the trouble of opening ’em.’

1859. G. W. Matsell, Vocabulum, or the Rogues Lexicon, College Chum: a fellow-prisoner.

1884. Dickens. [Quoted in Supplement to Annandale’s ed. of Ogilvie’s Imperial Dict.] It became a not unusual circumstance for letters to be put under his door at night enclosing half-a-crown … for the father of the Marshalsea, ‘with the compliments of a collegian taking leave.’

Ladies’ College, subs. (general).—A brothel. For synonyms, see Nanny-shop.

Collogue, verb (colloquial).—To confer confidentially and secretly; to conspire; to wheedle; or flatter. The term is also used in a humorous sense. [From Lat. col, together + Lat. loquor, to speak, influenced probably by ‘colleague’ and ‘colloquy.’]

1596. Nashe, Saffron Walden, in wks. III., 136. For once before I had bin so cousend by his colloging, though personally we neuer met face to face.

1676. Earl of Rochester, Hist. of Insipids, st. 9. When to give Money he can’t cologue ’um, He doth with Scorn prorogue, prorogue ’um.

1748. T. Dyche, Dictionary (5 ed.). collogue (v.): to treat with a person underhandedly, to cheat, flatter, coax, or sooth a person in order to get a secret out of him.

1818. Scott, Rob Roy, ch. xxxvii. It was hardly possible two such d—d rascals should collogue together without mischief to honest people.

1857. Barham, I. L. (House-warming). Miss Alice, in short, was supposed to collogue—I Don’t much like the word—with the subtle old rogue, I’ve heard call’d by so many names,—one of them’s Bogy.