Volume 2 — A · Dictionary · of Slang · and · its · Analogues. (continued 9)

Dance, subs. (thieves’).—A staircase or flight of steps. A contraction of the older form—dancers. [Ducange Anglicus, 1857.]

Verb (old).—1. To be hanged. Also to dance upon nothing and to dance the Paddington frisk. Fr., danser une danse où il n’y a pas d’plancher and faire la bénédiction du pied en l’air. For synonyms, see Ladder.

1839. H. Ainsworth, Jack Sheppard, ch. xxxi. ‘My limbs feel so light, now that my irons are removed,’ he observed with a smile, ‘that I am half inclined to dance.’ ‘You’ll dance upon nothing, presently,’ rejoined Jonathan, brutally.

1840. Hood, Miss Kilmansegg. Just as the felon condemned to die, With a very natural loathing, Leaving the sheriff to dream of ropes, From his gloomy cell in a vision elopes To a caper on sunny greens and slopes Instead of the dance upon nothing.

1864. Daily News, 2 Dec. Another synonym for being hanged is dancing on nothing in a hempen cravat.

2. (printers’).—Type dances if letters drop out when the forme is lifted.

To dance Barnaby.—See Barnaby.

Dance of Death, subs. phr. (old).—Hanging. Cf., Dance, verb, sense 1.

Dancers, subs. (thieves’).—1. Stairs; a flight of steps. Fr., les grimpants.

1671. R. Head, English Rogue, pt. I., ch. v., p. 52 (1874). Track up the dancers, go up the stayres.

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

1847. Lytton, Lucretia, pt. II., ch. vii. ‘Bob, track the dancers. Up like a lark—and down like a dump.’ Bob grinned … and scampered up the stairs.

1858. Lytton, What will he do with it? bk. III., ch. xvi. Come, my Hebe, track the dancers, that is, go up the stairs.

2. sing. (thieves’).—Also dancing master. A thief whose speciality is prowling about the roofs of houses and effecting an entrance through attic and upper storey windows; a garreteer (q.v.). [In allusion to dexterity of walk.] For synonyms, see Area-sneak.

Dancing-Master, subs. (old).—1. A species of Mohock or dandy, temp. Queen Anne. [Who made his victims caper by running his sword through the legs; for detailed description, see Spectator (1712), No. 324.] For list of synonyms, see Dandy.

2. (thieves’).—See Dancers, sense 2.

3. (old).—The hangman; Jack Ketch.—See Dance, verb, sense 1.

D and D, phr. (police).—‘Drunk and disorderly’ (in connection with charge sheet cases). A synonym is Lushy and Stropolus.

1889. Answers, 2 March, p. 218, col. 1. Last New Year’s Day he took over 14s. to my certain knowledge, for the old man was up for d and d, trying to break a window with his broom.

Dander, subs. (colloquial).—Anger. To raise one’s dander or Get one’s dander up or riz = to make or get angry. [Derivation uncertain; provincial in several English counties.]

1843. Dickens, Martin Chuzzlewit, ch. xxi., p. 223. I do my duty; and I raise the dander of my feller critters, as I wish to serve; … they rile up rough, along of my objecting to their selling Eden off too cheap.

1848–62. J. Russell Lowell, Biglow Papers. Wut’ll make ye act like freemen? Wut’ll git your dander riz?

1849. Thackeray, Pendennis, ch. xliii. Don’t talk to me about daring to do this thing or t’other, or when my dander is up, it’s the very thing to urge me on.

1863. Punch, 7 Feb. If John Bull had riz our dander, Settin’ foot on yonder shore, Then we should have holler’d grander Than the broad Atlantic’s roar.

1872. Chamb. Journal, 14 Dec., p. 791. They knew he’d never find out who did it, for he was in such an awful dander.

Dandered, ppl. adj. (colloquial).—Angry; ‘mad.’

1890. H. D. Traill, Saturday Songs, ‘The Precipitate Grandmother,’ p. 30. Whose way of tackling dandered snakes Is to perpitiate the critters With hominy an’ buckwheat cakes And pumpkin-squash an’ apple fritters.

Dando, subs. (common).—A great eater; a glutton; specifically a sharper who subsists at the expense of hotels, restaurants, or oyster bars. [From one dando, a ‘bouncing, seedy swell,’ hero of a hundred ballads, notorious for being ‘charged’ at least twice a month with bilking.]

18(?). Thackeray, The Professor. ‘What a flat you are,’ shouted he in a voice of thunder, ‘to think I’m agoing to pay! Pay! I never pay—I’m Dando.’

1850. Macaulay, Journal in Life, by Trevelyan, ch. xii., p. 539 (1884), April 27.—To Westbourne Terrace, and passed an hour in playing with Alice.… I was dando at a pastry cook’s and then at an oyster shop.

1885. Ill. London News, 15 Aug., p. 154, col. 3. One day we are told that the couplet should be:—Oysters, you’ll find, are best by far In every month which ends with an r. Next day this is pooh-poohed, and we are to read, instead:—Oysters, you’ll find, are best by far In every month which contains an r. Spiritualists might be kind enough to consult dando, who would, no doubt, have the true version at his finger’s ends, so as to rap it out on the instant.

Dandy, subs. (formerly slang, now recognized).—1. A fop; a coxcomb; a man who pays excessive attention to dress. The feminine forms, ‘dandilly’ and ‘dandizette,’ did not ‘catch on.’ Dandy was first applied half in admiration, half in derision to a fop about the year 1816. John Bee (Slang Dict., 1823) says that Lord Petersham was the chief of these successors to the departed Macaronis, and gives, as their peculiarities, ‘French gait, lispings, wrinkled foreheads, killing king’s English, wearing immense plaited pantaloons, coat cut away, small waistcoat, cravat and chitterlings immense, hat small, hair frizzled and protruding.’ In common English dandy has come to be applied to such as are neat and careful in dressing according to fashion. [From dandy-pratt (q.v.).]

English Synonyms. Beau; blade; blood; buck; chappie; corinthian; count; court-card; cheese; daffy-down-dilly; dancing-master; dude; dundreary; exquisite; flasher; fop; gallant; gommy; gorger; Jemmy Jessamy; Johnny; lounger; macaroni; masher; mohawk; nerve; nicker; nizzie; nob; oatmeal; scourer; smart; spark; sweater; swell; toff; tip-topper; tumbler; yum-yun.

French Synonyms. Un gandin (popular = a frequenter of the old Boulevard de Gand); un gommeux; un mouchard; un mouget; un petit maître; un talon-rouge (from the red heels worn in the seventeenth century); un incroyable (a ‘swell’ of the Directoire period, as also un merveilleux); un mirliflore (an allusion to millefleurs, a favourite perfume); un muscadin; un élégant; un dandy; un lion; un fashionable; un cocodès; un crevé; un petit crevé; un col-cassé; un luisant; un poisseux; un boudiné; un pschutteux; un exhumé; un gratiné; un faucheur; un bécarre; un daim; un excellent bon; un fade; un fadard; un gilet en cœur; un muguet (properly lily of the valley. Cf., daffy-down-dilly).

Spanish Synonyms. Don guindo; hopeo; pisaverde.

1818. Carlyle, in Early Letters (Norton), vol. I., p. 158. When I walk along the streets, I see fair women … and fops (dandies as they are called in current slang), shaped like an hour-glass—creatures whose life and death, as Crispin pithily observes, ‘I esteem of like importance, and decline to speak of either.’

1821. Coombe, Syntax, Wife, c. iv. I met just now, upon the stairs, A dandy in his highest airs.

1835. Haliburton, Clockmaker, 2 S., ch. viii. Great dandy was Mr. Bobbin; he looked just as if he had come out of the tailors’ hands.

1847. Lytton, Lucretia, pt. I., ch. i. What is now the dandy was then [1780] the Buck.

1866. W. D. Howells, Venetian Life, ch. xx. He is a dandy, of course,—all Italians are dandies,—but his vanity is perfectly harmless, and his heart is not bad.

1890. Lord Lamington, The Days of the Dandies [Title].

2. (thieves’).—A bad gold coin. [In allusion to its careful make and composition, this coin containing a certain proportion of pure gold.]

1883. Jas. Greenwood, Tag, Rag, and Co., p. 24. It is not in paltry pewter ‘sours’ with which the young woman has dealings, but in dandys, which, rendered into intelligible English, means imitation gold coin—half-sovereigns and whole ones.

3. (Irish).—A ‘small whiskey.’

1838. Blackwood’s Mag., May, ‘Father Tom and the Pope.’ ‘Dimidium cyathi vero apud Metropolitanos Hibernicos dicitur dandy.’

1883. Hawley Smart, Hawkins, ch. vi. It’s beautiful punch—ah, well, as you’re so pressing, I’ll just take another dandy.

4. (American).—Anything first-rate; a daisy (q.v.). Also used adjectively.

1888. Superior Inter-Ocean. Dr. H. Conner has invested in a fine piece of horse-flesh. The animal was purchased in Oshkosh, and has a record of 3′37. It is said to be a dandy.

1888. St. Louis Globe Democrat, 21 Jan. My box ain’t no good mister, but I know a feller over dere dat’s got de dandy one.

1888. Missouri Republican, 2 Feb. I’m a terror from Philadelphia, and I can lick any man in the world. I’m a dandy from away back; the farther back they come the dandier they are, and I come from the furthest back.

The dandy, adv. phr. (common).—All right; ‘your sort’; ‘the ticket.’ Cf., Dandy, sense 4. A north-country song has the line, ‘The South Shields lasses are The Dandy O!’

1835. Haliburton, Clockmaker, 1 S., ch. xxvi. I guess our great nation may be stumped to produce more eleganter liquor than this here. It’s the dandy, that’s a fact.

1884. Notes and Queries, 6 S., ix., p. 35. I not long since heard a carpenter whose saw did not cut, wanting, as he expressed it, ‘to be sharpn’d,’ and who took up another in better condition, say, ‘Ah! that’s the dandy.’

Dandy-Master, subs. (thieves’).—The head of a gang of counterfeiters; who makes the coin, but does not himself attempt to pass it. [From dandy, subs., sense 2, + master.]

1883. Greenwood, Tag, Rag, and Co. The spirits obtained being mostly bottled and labelled, and unopened, find a ready sale at public-houses known to the dandy-master, so that no serious loss is experienced in that direction.

Dandypratt or Dandipratt, subs. (old).—Primarily a dwarf; a page; by implication a jackanapes. In all likelihood, the etymon of the modern ‘dandy,’ erroneously derived from the French dandin = a fool, as in Molière, Georges Dandin. [From dandipratt, a half farthing of the time of Henry VII.]

1580. Lingua, or the Five Senses, O. Pl., v., 172. This Heuresis, this invention, is the proudest Jackanapes, the pertest, self-conceited boy that ever breathed; because, forsooth, some odd poet, or some such fantastic fellows, make much on him, there’s no ho with him; the vile dandiprat will overlook the proudest of his acquaintance.

1622. Massinger, Virgin-Martyr, II., i. The smug dandiprat smells us out, whatsoever we are doing.

1657. Middleton, More Dissembler besides Women, Anc. Dr., IV., 372. There’s no good fellowship in this dandiprat, this divedapper [didapper], as in other pages.

1706. R. Estcourt, Fair Example, Act iii., Sc. 3, p. 40. Boy. A candle, sir! ’tis broad daylight yet. Whims. What then, you little dandiprat? If we have a mind to a candle we will have a candle.

1821. Scott, Kenilwortht, ch. xxvi. It is even so, my little dandiprat, but who the devil could teach it thee.

Dang it! phr. (provincial).—A euphemism for ‘damn it!’ Also Dang my buttons! and Dang me!

Danglers, subs. (thieves’).—A bunch of seals.

1859. Matsell, Rogues Lexicon, p. 124. And where the swag, so bleakly pinched, A hundred stretches hence? The thimbles, slang, and danglers filched, A hundred stretches hence?

Dan Tucker, subs. phr. (rhyming slang).—Butter. For synonyms, see Cart-grease.

Darbies, subs. (common).—1. Handcuffs. [Origin uncertain. Father Derby’s name (he is supposed to have been a noted usurer) was already proverbial in 1576, but that is all now known of him.]

English Synonyms. Black-bracelets; buckles; Father derbie’s bands; ruffles; wife; snitchers; clinkers; government securities; twisters; darbies and joans (= fetters coupling two persons).

French Synonyms. Les alliances (popular = wedding rings); une bride (thieves’ = a convicts’ chain); le bouclage (thieves’: also = imprisonment); une cadenne (thieves’: applied to a neck-chain); un cabriolet (thieves’ = a small rope or strap); une guirlande (a chain for two).

Italian Synonym. Trionfo (literally = triumph).

Spanish Synonym. Calceta (properly = understocking).

1576. Gascoigne, Steel Glas, I., 787. To binde such babes in father derbie’s bands.

1592. Greene, Quip for an Upstart Courtier (Harl. Misc., V., 405). Then hath my broker an usurer at hand, as ill as himself, and he brings the money; but they tie the poor soul in such darbies’ bands [i.e., bonds], what with receiving ill commodities [i.e., goods in lieu of cash], and forfeitures upon the bond, that they dub him ‘Sir John had Land,’ before they leave him; and share, like wolves, the poor novice’s wealth betwixt them as a prey.

1602. Carew, Survey of Cornwall, p. 15 (ed. 1769). [Speaking of the hard dealings and usurious tricks of the marchant Londoners in their dealings with the Cornish tinners of his day, this writer tells the wiles by which the poor wretches became bound ‘in darbye’s bonds.’]

1676. Canting Song, ‘A Warning for Housekeepers.’ But when that we come to the Whitt, Our darbies to behold.

1714. Memoirs of John Hall (4 ed.), p. 12, s.v.

1819. T. Moore, Tom Crib’s Memorial to Congress p. 77. Thus a new set of darbies, when first they are worn, Makes the jail-bird uneasy, though splendid their ray.

1836. Marryat, Japhet, ch. lvii. We may as well put on the darbies, continued he, producing a pair of handcuffs.

1890. Standard, 7 April, p. 6, col. 3. (Addressing the officer): Didn’t you take me by the scruff of the neck, and hold me whilst others put the darbies on me?—I did not.

2. (common).—Sausages. Also bags of mystery and chambers of horrors (q.v.).

Darble, subs. (old).—The devil. [A corruption of French diable.]

Darby, subs. (old).—Ready money. [One Derby is supposed to have been a noted sixteenth century usurer.—See quots. under Darbies, sense 1.] For synonyms, see Actual and Gilt.

1688. Shadwell, Squire of Alsatia (list of cant words), s.v.

c. 1712. R. Estcourt, Prunella, Act i., p. 4. Come nimbly lay down darby; Come, pray sir, don’t be tardy.

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

1811. Lexicon Balatronicum, s.v.

Darby Allen, subs. phr. (Lancashire).—Cajolery; ‘chaff’; ‘gammon.’

Darby-Roll, subs. (old).—A gait peculiar to felons of long standing: the result of long shackles-wearing. Cf., Baker-kneed.

Darby’s-Dyke, subs. (old).—The grave; also death.

Darby’s-Fair, subs. (old).—The day of removal from one prison to another for trial.

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

Dark. To get the dark, verbal phr. (prison).—To be confined in the punishment cell.

Dark-Cull or Cully, subs. (old).—A married man with a secret mistress.—[Grose, 1785.]

Dark-Horse or Dark’un, subs. (turf).—A horse whose pace is unknown to the backers; figuratively, a candidate about whom little is known.

1831. Disraeli, Young Duke, ch. v., p. 66 (ed. 1866). All the ten-to-oners were in the rear, and a dark horse, which had never been thought of, and which the careless St. James had never even observed in the list, rushed past the grand stand in sweeping triumph.

1853. Diogenes, vol. II., p. 271. Farewell! oh, farewell to the lists On whose varying prices I’ve hung; I care nought for the dark-horse that lives Unknown, who shall put me all right.

1884. Hawley Smart, Post to Finish, ch. i. He had beaten everything that was going to oppose him, with the exception of some two or three dark colts, of which little was expected.

Dark-House, subs. (old).—A mad-house. Shakspeare (All’s Well, etc., ii., 3) used it to denote the seat of gloom and discontent.

Darkmans, Darks, Darky, subs. (old).—The night; also twilight.

1567. Harman, Caveat (1814), p. 84. Bene Lightmans to thy quarromes, in what lipken hast thou lypped in this darkemans, whether in a lybbege or in the strummell?

1667. Dekker, Lanthorne and Candlelight. ‘Canting Rithmes.’ Enough—with bowsy Cove Maund Nace, Tour the Parting Coue in the darkeman’s Case.

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

1815. Scott, Guy Mannering, ch. xxviii. I think we should be down upon the fellow, one of these darkmans, and let him get it well.

1857. Punch, 31 Jan. ‘Dear Bill, this Stone Jug.’ And at darkmans we run the rig just as we please.

English Synonyms. Blackmans; blind; blindman’s holiday (twilight).

French Synonym. La sorgue, or sorne.

German Synonyms. Mittelaile (midnight); Choschech, Chauschech, or Koschech (from the Hebrew choschach = a moonless night); Eref (specifically the eve of a Sabbath or festival); Fichte (literally a fir-tree); Ratt (Gypsy); Schwärze = (the black ’un); Zofon or Zofen (from Hebrew zophan = to hide).

Italian Synonyms. Bruna or brunora (Fr. brune); materna (properly = the maternal).

Spanish Synonym. Sorna.

Portuguese Synonym. Zona.

Darkman’s Budge, subs. phr. (old).—A housebreaker’s confederate, who slips into a house during the day, hides there, and opens the door at night.—[Grose, 1785.]

Darky, or Darkey, subs. (old).—1. A dark lantern; a bull’s eye.

1811. Lexicon Balatronicum. Stow the darkee and bolt, the cove of the cub is fly.

2. (old).—The night; the twilight. Also (nautical) darks.

1789. Geo. Parker, Life’s Painter, p. 124. Bless your eyes and limbs, lay out a mag with poor Chirruping Joe. I don’t come here every darkey.

1851–61. H. Mayhew, London Lab. and Lon. Poor, vol. III., p. 216. We could average our ‘duey bionk peroon a darkey,’ or two shillings each, in the night.

1878. C. Hindley, Life and Times of Jas. Catnach. The cleanest angler on the pad in daylight or the darkey.

3. (common).—A negro. [From his complexion.] For synonyms, see Snowball.

1840. Dana, Two Years before the Mast, ch. xvii. Tom Cringle says that no one can fathom a negro’s affection for a pig; and I believe he is right, for it almost broke our poor darky’s heart when he heard that Bess was to be taken ashore.

1870. Negro Hymn. Walk in, darkies, troo de gate; Hark, de kullered angels holler; Go ’way, white fokes, ye’re too late, We’s de winnin’ kuller! Wait, Till de trumwet blow to foller!

1871. De Vere, Americanisms, p. 594. I wish de legislatur’ would set dis darkie free, Oh! what a happy place den de darkie land would be; We’d have a darkie Parliament An’ darkie codes of law, An’ darkie judges on the bench, Darkie barristers and aw’.

Darn, Darned, verb and ppl. adj. (colloquial).—Euphemistic forms of ‘damn’ and ‘damned’; used to avoid ‘cussing bar’-foot.’ Also darnation, dangnation, darn burn it, and darn or dash my buttons or wig.—See Dadbinged and Oaths for synonyms.

c. 1840. West of England Ballad [quoted in Literary World, 11 Apr., 1890, p. 347, col. 1]. But if he’d know’d he’d got so much money He darned his buttons if he’d gi’ed ’un the shillin’.

1880. G. R. Sims, Zeph and other Stories, p. 87. I shall bring you to your senses, Bess, now, my girl, and you won’t be so darned fast refusin’ a good offer.

1888. Harper’s Magazine. My experience has taught me that in Colorado the man who tells the first story has a darned poor show.

Dart, subs. (pugilistic).—A straight-armed blow.

D.A.’s, subs. (general).—The menstrual flux. [An abbreviation of domestic afflictions (q.v.) and for synonyms see Flag-up.]

Dash, subs. (old).—1. A tavern waiter.

2. (common).—A small quantity; a ‘drink’; a ‘go’ (q.v. for synonyms). Also a small quantity of one fluid to give a flavour to another, e.g., a lemon and a dash = a bottle of lemonade with just a suggestion of bitter beer in it.

Verb (brewers’).—1. To adulterate.

1871. Times, 4 April. ‘Leader on Licensing Bill.’ The brewers are careless of the characters of their tenants; they compel them to take all their beer from themselves, and too often at such prices that they are driven to adulterate or dash the liquor.

2. Also dash it! or dash my buttons, wig, timbers, etc., intj. phr. (common).—Colloquial expletives; also employed euphemistically = ‘to damn.’—See Buttons and Oaths.

1819. Moore, Tom Crib’s Memorial to Congress p. 46. Except light oaths, to grace his speeches, Like ‘Dash my wig!’ or ‘burn my breeches!’

1839. Harrison Ainsworth, Jack Sheppard [1889], p. 22. You may try, but dash my timbers if you’ll ever cross the Thames to-night!

1842. Punch, vol. II., p. 20, col. 2. Yet henceforth—dash my wig! I’ll live with thee, with thee I’ll hop the twig!

1849. C. Kingsley, Alton Locke, ch. iv. Gunpowder is your true leveller—dash physical strength! A boy’s a man with a musket in his hand, my chap!

1864. Dickens, Our Mutual Friend, bk. IV., ch. iii. And if you hadn’t come round to me to-night, dash my wig if I wouldn’t have come round to you to-morrow.

1880. G. R. Sims, Three Brass Balls, pledge ii. ‘Dash it all!’ said the police-surgeon, ‘that’s two fatal cases I’ve had to-day.’

Cut a Dash.—See Cut.

To have a dash on, verbal phr. (turf).—To speculate largely or wildly; ‘to go it strong.’

Dasher, subs. (old).—1. A showy prostitute. (Cf., sense 2).

1790. C. Dibdin, Sea Songs, ‘Old Cunwell the Pilot.’ My Poll, once a dasher, now turned to a nurse.

2. (colloquial).—An ostentatious or extravagant man or woman; an impetuous person; a ‘clipper’; also latterly,—the word has shown progress towards literary English throughout—a man or woman of fashion; a person of brilliant qualities, mental or physical. Fr., genreux-se; une femme catapulteuse (a fine woman, as also une cocodète). Spanish equivalents are damaza and sibila, while tiene garabato is said of women who ‘hook’ men by their manner and grace (garabato = a meat-hook).

1843. Dickens, Martin Chuzzlewit, ch. xxix., p. 289. ‘Why, you look smarter by day,’ said Poll, ‘than you do by candlelight. I never see such a tight young dasher.’

1856. Miss Edgeworth, Almeria, p. 292. She was astonished to find in high life a degree of vulgarity of which her country companions would have been ashamed: but all such things in high life go under the general term dashing. These young ladies were dashers.

Daub, subs. (common).—1. An artist. Verb.—See Dawb.

2. A bad picture.

David, subs. (common).—1.—See Davy, sense 1.

2. (American).—A torpedo.

1872. Morning Advertiser, 3 April.

David Jones or David Jones’s Locker.—See under Davy.

David’s Sow. Drunk as David’s, or Davy’s sow, adv. phr. (old).—Beastly drunk. [For a somewhat far-fetched derivation, see Grose’s Dict. Vulg. Tongue.]

c. 1720. Gay, New Song of New Similes. Though as drunk as David’s sow.

1733. Bailey, Erasmus, p. 127. When he comes home, after I have been waiting for him till I do not know what time at night, as drunk as David’s sow, he does nothing but lie snoring all night long by my side.

1836. Marryat, Midshipman Easy, ch. xiv. Fellows who have no respect for the articles of war, and who get as drunk as David’s sow.

Davy, subs. (colloquial).—1. An affidavit. Synonymous, by implication, with ‘God,’ in so help, or s’welp me davy, or Alfred Davy (q.v.). Fr., Je t’en fous mon billet or mon petit turlututu = I’ll take my davy on it.

1764. O’Hara, Midas, II., iv. And I with my davy will back it, I’ll swear.

1835. Haliburton, Clockmaker, 1 S., ch. xxii. ‘I’ll take my davy,’ says the captain, ‘it’s some Yankee trick.’

1842. Punch, vol. III., p. 136. Tell me on thy davy; whether thou dost dear thy Colin hold.

1884. Daily Telegraph, 4 Sept., p. 2, col. 2. You may take your davy I didn’t care anything about that.

2. (nautical).—Also old Davy and Davy Jones (q.v.).

Davy Jones, Davy, or old Davy, subs. phr. (nautical).—The spirit of the sea; specifically the sailors’ devil. [For suggested derivation, see Davy Jones’s locker, and for synonyms, Skipper.]

1751. Smollett, Peregrine Pickle, ch. xiii. This same Davy Jones, according to the mythology of sailors, is the fiend that presides over all the evil spirits of the deep.

1790. C. Dibdin, Sea Songs. And if to old Davy I should go, friend Poll, Why you will ne’er hear of me more.

c. 1800. C. Dibdin, The Birthday, Act I., Sc. 2. June. When your back’s turn’d she’s for … sending you in a gale to old Davy.

Davy Jones’ (or Davy’s) locker, subs. phr. (nautical).—The ocean; specifically, the grave of them that perish at sea. The popular derivation (= a corruption of ‘Jonah’s locker,’ i.e., the place where Jonah was kept and confined, and by implication the grave of all gone to the bottom, drowned or dead) is conjectural. The following, however, may be an additional link in the chain of evidence.

1628. Bishop Andrewes, Ninety-six Sermons, p. 515 (fol.) Of any, that hath beene in extreme perill, we use to say: he hath beene where Ionas was; by Iona’s going downe the Whales throat, by Him againe comming forth of the Whales mouth, we expresse, we even point out, the greatest extremity, and the greatest deliverence that can be.

[Cf., quots. under Davy Jones.]

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

1836. Marryat, Midshipman Easy, ch. xxvii. By de holy poker, Massa Easy, but that terrible sort of gale the other day, anyhow. I tink one time we all go to Davy Jones’s locker.

1842. Comic Almanack, p. 324. There is no reason right why Jones’s kid Should be consign’d to Davy Jones’s locker.

1851. Notes and Queries, 1 S., iii., p. 478. If a sailor is killed in a sea-skirmish, or falls overboard and is drowned, or any other fatality occurs which necessitates the consignment of his remains to the ‘great deep,’ his surviving messmates speak of him as one who has been sent to Davy Jones’ locker.

Davy putting on the coppers for the parsons, phr. (nautical).—The indications of a coming storm.

Davy Jones’ natural children, subs. phr. (nautical).—Smugglers; sea-rovers; pirates.

Davy’s Dust, subs. phr. (common).—Gunpowder. [Davy (q.v.) = the devil.]

1864. G. W. Reynolds, Pickwick Abroad, ch. xxvi. Let Davy’s dust and a well-faked claw, For fancy coves be the only law.

Dawb or Daub, verb (old).—To bribe.

1785. Grose, Dict. Vulg. Tongue, s.v. The cull was scragged because he could not dawb.

Daylight, subs. (University).—A glass that is not a bumper; also Skylight (q.v.). Obsolete.

To burn daylight, verbal phr. (colloquial).—To use artificial light before it is really dark; to waste time.

1595. Shakspeare, Romeo and Juliet, Act i., 4. Mercutio. Come, we burn daylight.

To let or knock daylight into one, into the victualling department, or into the luncheon reservoir, phr. (common).—To stab in the stomach (or breadbasket); in the bread-room, potato-store, or giblet-pie, etc., and by implication to kill. Fr., bayafer. For synonyms, see Cook one’s goose.

1841. Punch, vol. I., p. 101, col. 2. A gentleman in a blue uniform has thrown himself into an attitude à la Crib, with the facetious intention of letting daylight into the wittling department.

Daylights, subs. (common).—1. The eyes. Cf., quots. under Darken the Daylights. For synonyms, see Glims.

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

1823. Bee, Sl. Dict. [quoted in]. The hero (Achilles) in his tent they found, His day-lights fixed upon the cold, cold ground.

2. (general).—The space in a glass between liquor and brim: inadmissible in bumpers at toasts: the toast-master cries ‘no daylights nor heeltaps!’

To darken one’s daylights, verbal phr. (pugilistic).—1. To give a black-eye; ‘to sew up one’s sees.’

1752. Fielding, Amelia, bk. I., ch. x. If the lady says such another word to me, d—n me, I will darken her daylights.

1786. The Microcosm, No. 2. The nobility and gentry were taught theoretically as well as practically, to bruise the bodies, and (to use a technical term) darken the daylights of each other, with the vigour of a Hercules, tempered with the grace of an Apollo.

1819. T. Moore, Tom Crib’s Memorial, p. 3. If the Fine Arts Of fibbing and boring be dear to your hearts; If to level, to punish, to ruffian mankind, And to darken their daylights, be pleasures refin’d.

1822. David Carey, Life in Paris, p. 200. So here’s at darkening his daylights for the advantage of his mummer.

Deacon, verb (American).—To pack fruit, vegetables, etc., the finest on the top. [Either derived by inversion, or in allusion to the Yankee proverb—‘All deacons are good, but there is odds in deacons.’]

1868. Miss Alcott, Little Women, ch. xi. The blanc-mange was lumpy, and the strawberries not as ripe as they looked, having been skilfully deaconed.

To deacon a calf, verbal phr. (American).—To kill.

To deacon land, verbal phr. (American).—To filch land by removing one’s fences into the highway or other common property.

To deacon off, verbal phr. (American).—To give the cue; to lead in debate. [From a custom, once universal but now almost extinct, in the New England Congregational churches. An important function of the deacon’s office was to read aloud the hymns given out by the minister one line at a time, the congregation singing each line as soon as read. This was called deaconing off.]

1848. J. R. Lowell, Biglow Papers. To funk right out o’ p’lit’cal strife ain’t thought to be the thing, Without you deacon off the tune you want your folks should sing.

1890. H. D. Traill, Saturday Songs, p. 7. We grieve, too, that of all men you, Your own great Union’s stout defender Should deacon off the craven crew, Who here are clamouring for surrender.

Deacon-Seat, subs. (American lumberers’).—In log cabins the sleeping apartment is partitioned off by poles. The bed is mother earth, the pillow is a log, the foot-board a long pole six feet from the fire and in the centre of the cabin. The deacon seat is a plank fixed over and running parallel with the footboard so as to form a kind of settee in front of the fire. [Probably in allusion to the seats round a pulpit, facing the congregation, reserved for deacons.]

Deacon’s Hiding Place, subs. phr. (American).—A private compartment in oyster saloons and cafés; the Fr. cabinet particulier.

Dead, subs. (turf).—An abbreviation of ‘dead certainty.’—See Cert.

1889. Bailey’s Magazine [quoted in S. J. & C.]. ‘Dealers in the dead’ did well then.

Adj. (various).—Stagnant; ‘quiet’ (of trade); ‘flat’ (as of beer or aërated waters after exposure); cold (Am., see quot., 1888); good; thorough; complete (Cf., subs., sense). Also as an adv. as in dead beat, dead best, dead drunk, dead rolled (or flummoxed), dead nuts, dead bitched, etc.

1602. Shakspeare, Othello, ii., 2. Why, he drinks you, with facility, your Dane dead-drunk.

1819. Moore, Tom Crib’s Memorial to Congress p. 36. As dead hands at a mill as they, and quite as ready after it.

1843. Dickens, Martin Chuzzlewit, ch. xvii., p. 187. ‘I wish you would pull off my boots for me,’ said Martin, dropping into one of the chairs, ‘I am quite knocked up. Dead beat, Mark.’

1845. Punch, vol. IX., p. 163. The general opinion is that the Premier is dead beat.

1860. Punch, vol. XXXIX., p. 37. A dead take-in is swipes too thin.

1864. Punch. Veal is as dead as mutton.

1872. Derby Mercury, 1 May. ‘Freemasonry in New Zealand.’ He was not dead, but only dead drunk.

1884. W. C. Russell, Jack’s Courtship, ch. vii. So surely do I intend to try my dead best—all that I know—to win Florence’s love and possess her as a wife.

1888. Puck’s Library, May, p. 27. Hungry Guest. Please bring me some clam fritters. Count (in disguise). Live ’r dead? Hungry Guest. Why, dead, of course! (And he got them stone-cold.)

Dead as a door-nail, mutton, a herring, a tent-peg, Julius Cæsar, etc., adv. phr. (common).—Utterly, completely dead. Dead as a door-nail is found in Langland’s Piers Plowman [1362]; all other forms are modern. [The door-nail is the striking-plate of the knocker. Herrings die sooner after capture than most fish.]

1593. G. Harvey, Pierces Super., in wks. II., 71. If you will needes strike it as dead as a dore naile.

1596. Nashe, Saffron Walden, in wks. III., 182. Wee’l strike it as dead as a doore-naile.

1598. Shakspeare, II. King Henry IV., iii. Falstaff. What! is the old king dead? Pistol. As nail in door.

1608. Armin, Nest of Ninnies. But now the thought of the new come foole so much moved him, that he was as dead as a doore-nayle, standing on tip-toe, looking toward the door to behold arivall.

1700. Farquhar, Constant Couple, Act iv., Sc. 1. He’s as dead as a door-nail; for I gave him seven knocks on the head with a hammer.

1790. Rhodes, Bombastes Furioso, Ay, dead as herrings—herrings that are red.

1843. C. Dickens, Christmas Carol, s.v.

1864. D. W. Thompson, Daydreams of a Schoolmaster, p. 230. The boat of Charon will push a difficult furrow through innumerable bodies, brick-bat laden, of purrless, soul-less dead-as-door-nail cats. Poor pussies.

1878. Besant and Rice, By Celia’s Arbour, ch. xlviii. Quite dead he was, dead as a door-nail.

In dead earnest, adv. phr. (colloquial).—Without doubt; in very truth.

1880. E. Bellamy, Dr. Heidenhoff’s Process, p. 11. I am sure that you never had a more sincere, more dead-in-earnest convert than I was.

Dead Against, adv. phr. (colloquial).—Decidedly opposed to.

1835. Haliburton, Clockmaker, 1 S., ch. vii. You know I was always dead agin your tariff bill.

Dead-Alive or Dead-and-Alive, adj. (colloquial).—Dull; stupid; mopish; formerly deadly-lively.

1884. H. D. Traill, in Eng. Ill. Mag., I., 541. The city has greatly revived of late … it has ceased to belong to the category of the dead-alive, and has entered that of the lively.

Dead-Amiss, adv. phr. (turf).—Incapacitated through illness from competing in a race; said of horses.

Dead-Beat, subs. (American).—1. A sponger; loafer; sharper. Cf., Dead-head and Beat, subs., sense 1.

1865. Glasgow Herald, 25 Dec. ‘Trial Swanborough v. Sotheran.’ I returned the whole of the receipts, and about £4 16s. for dead beats—free admissions who took advantage of the occasion and got paid—which caused great discontent.

1884. S. L. Clemens (‘Mark Twain’), The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, p. 284. These uncles of your’n ain’t no uncles at all; they’re a couple of frauds—regular dead-beats.

1888. Bulletin, 24 Nov. All the dead-beats and suspected hen-snatchers plead when before the Bench that they were ‘only mouching round to find out whether the family neglected its religious dooties, yer washup.’

2. (American).—A pick-me-up compounded of ginger, soda, and whiskey.

Verb (American).—To sponge; loaf; cheat. Cf., Beat, verb, and Dead-head.

1880. Boston Journal. No party can dead-beat his way on me these hard times.

Adj.—Exhausted; e.g., Billy romped in as ‘fresh as paint,’ but the rest were dead-beat.

1821. P. Egan, Tom and Jerry [ed. 1890], p. 34. Logic was at length not only so dead-beat, as to be compelled to cry for quarter, but to seek a temporary retirement, in order to renovate his constitution.

Dead Broke, adv. phr. (general).—Utterly penniless; ruined. Also Flat or stone broke; used verbally, to dead-break.

1866. Cincinnatti Enquirer, 1 June. When he left the gambling-house, he was observed to turn toward a friend with the words, dead-broke! and then to disappear round the corner.

English Synonyms. Wound up; settled; coopered; smashed up; under a cloud; cleaned out; cracked up; done up; on one’s back; floored; on one’s beam ends; gone to pot; broken-backed; all U. P.; in the wrong box; stumped; feathered; squeezed; dry; gutted; burnt one’s fingers; dished; in a bad way; gone up; gone by the board; made mince meat of; broziered; willowed; not to have a feather to fly with; burst; fleeced; stony; pebble-beached; in Queer Street; stripped; rooked; hard up; broke; hooped-up; strapped; gruelled.

French Synonyms. Enfoncé (familiar: also—done brown); centré (popular); désossé (popular: properly = boned); eréné (popular); atigé (thieves’); panné (= in Queer Street); see also Beat.

Italian Synonym.—Ferrare (to be ruined; also = to spoil or corrupt).

Dead-Cargo, subs. (thieves’).—Booty of a disappointing character.

Dead Certainty, subs. phr. (colloquial).—That which is sure to occur; usually contracted to Dead or Cert, both of which see.

18(?). Aytoun. The Dreepdaily Burghs, p. 4. Everybody is realising; the banks won’t discount; and when your bills become due, they will be, to a dead certainty, protested.

Dead cut.—See Cut.

Dead Duck, subs. phr. (American).—That which has depreciated to the verge of worthlessness.

1888. New York Clipper. Long Branch is said to be a dead duck. But for the investments made at Elberon the Branch proper would probably have been abandoned long ago.

Deader, subs. (military).—1. A funeral; a black-job (q.v.).

2. (common).—A corpse.

Dead Frost, subs. (theatrical).—A fiasco; a columbus (q.v.). Fr., un four noir.

Dead-Give-Away.—See Give dead-away.

Dead Gone, adv. phr. (colloquial). Utterly collapsed.

Dead-Head, Dead-Beat or Dead-Hand, subs. (American).—One who obtains something of commercial value without special payment or charge; a person who travels by rail, visits theatres, etc., by means of free passes (cf., Paper); a sponge (q.v.). Also a loafing sharper.—See Beat and Dead-beat.

1861. Morning Post, ‘New York Correspondence.’ The editor had evidently been travelling as a dead-hand, as it is called, and paid his bill by a laudatory notice.

1871. De Vere, Americanisms. The dead-head receives his newspapers without subscribing, travels free of charge on steamboat, railroad, and stage, walks into theatres and shows of every kind unmolested, and even drinks at the bar and lives at the hotel without charge.

1883. Daily Telegraph, 21 May, p. 3, col. 1. ‘Lucia di Lammermoor’ is stale enough to warrant the most confirmed deadhead in declining to help make a house.

Also to dead-head, dead-headism, etc.

1871. New York Tribune, March. Elder Knapp, the noted revivalist, advertised that he would furnish a free pass to glory, but very few of the unrighteous population seemed anxious to be dead-headed on this train.

1888. Portland Transcript, 14 March. Unless we count those which had to do with the stage business and went dead-head.

Dead-Heat, subs. (colloquial).—A race with an equal finish. Formerly dead.

1635. Quarles, Emblems, Epig. 10. Mammon well follow’d, Cupid bravely led; Both touchers; equal fortune makes a dead; No reed can measure where the conquest lies; Take my advice; compound, and share the prize.

1828–45. T. Hood, Poems, vol. I., p. 170 (ed. 1846). Away! Away! she could ride a dead heat With the Dead who rides so fast and fleet.

1884. Ill. London News, 18 Oct., p. 362, col. 3. St. Gatien, the horse that ran a dead-heat for the Derby.

Dead-Horse, subs. (common).—1. Work, the wages for which have been paid in advance; by implication, distasteful, or thankless labor. Fr., la bijouterie. To pull the dead horse = to work for wages already paid. [Seamen, on signing articles, sometimes get pay in advance, and they celebrate the term of the period thus paid for by dragging a canvas horse, stuffed with straw, round the deck and dropping him into the sea amidst cheers.] Fr., manger du salé (to eat salt pork.)

1651. Cartwright, Siedge. Ply. Now you’l wish I know, you ne’r might wear Foul linnen more, never be lowzy agen, Nor ly perdue with the fat sutler’s wife In the provoking vertue of dead horse, Your dear delights, and rare camp pleasures.

1669. Nicker Nicked, in Harl. Misc. (ed. Park), ii., 110. Sir Humphry Foster had lost the greatest part of his estate, and then (playing, as it is said, for a dead horse) did, by happy fortune, recover it again.

1824. T. Fielding, Proverbs, etc. (Familiar Phrases), p. 148, s.v.

1857. Notes and Queries, 2 S., iv., p. 192. A workman ‘horses’ it when he charges for more in his week’s work than he has really done. Of course he has so much unprofitable work to get through in the ensuing week, which is called dead horse.

2. (West Indian).—A shooting star. Among Jamaican negroes the spirits of horses that have fallen over precipices are thought to re-appear in this form.

To flog the dead horse, verb. phr. (common).—To work to no purpose; to dissipate one’s energy in vain; to make ‘much ado about nothing.’

1872. Globe, 1 Aug. ‘In the House,’ For full twenty minutes by the clock the Premier … might be said to have rehearsed that particularly lively operation known as flogging a dead horse.

Dead-Letter, subs. (colloquial).—Anything that has lost its force or authority by lapse of time or other causes.

1755. Fielding, Voyage to Lisbon, p. 145. And to enact laws without doing this, is to fill our statute-books, much too full already, still fuller with dead letter, of no use but to the printer of the Acts of Parliament.

1859. Sala, Gaslight and Daylight, ch. xxi. The Metropolitan Buildings’ Act is a dead letter in Tattyboys Rents, for nobody ever thinks of building.

1861. Chambers’ Encyclopædia, s.v. Bunkum. Many laws, agitated for by popular factions, remain a dead letter, unless they happen to be enforced by clubs organized for the purpose.

Deadlights, subs. (nautical).—The eyes. For synonyms, see Glims.

Dead Lurk, subs. (thieves’).—See quot.

1851–61. H. Mayhew, London Lab. and Lon. Poor, vol. i., p. 403. The dead lurk, for instance, is the expressive slang phrase for the art of entering dwelling-houses during divine service.

Deadly, adv. (colloquial).—Very; extremely; excessively. In Arbuthnot: ‘So deadly cunning a man.’

Deadly Lively, adv. phr. (common).—Jovial against the grain and to no purpose.

Deadly Nevergreen, subs. phr. (old).—The gallows. Also known as the leafless tree and the tree that bears fruit all the year round. For synonyms, see Nubbing Cheat.

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

Dead Man, subs. phr. (common).—1. An empty bottle: said also to bear Moll Thompson’s mark (i.e. M.T. = empty).

English Synonyms.—Camp-candlestick; fellow-commoner; corpse; dummy; dead marine; dead recruit; dead ’un.

French Synonyms.—Une fillette (= a half-bottle); un corps mort (popular: literally, a corpse); une négresse morte (popular: a reference to color as well as condition).

1738. Swift, Polite Convers., Dial. 2. Ld. S. Come, John, bring us a fresh bottle. Col. Ay, my lord; and pray, let him carry off the dead men, as we say in the army [meaning the empty bottles].

1825. The English Spy, vol I., p. 152. On the right was the sleeping room and at the foot of a neat French bed, I could perceive the wine bin, surrounded by a regiment of dead men (empty bottles).

1853. Rev. E. Bradley (‘Cuthbert Bede’), Verdant Green, pt. I., p. 59. Talk of the pleasures of the dead languages, indeed! why, how many jolly nights have you, and I, Larkyns passed ‘down among the dead men.’

1871. London Figaro, 15 April. We knew that, in practical use, imperials were inconvenient and wasteful; and that, moreover, it was far from easy to dispose of their corpses when they became dead men.

1879. Miss Braddon, Vixen, ch. viii. And added more dead men to the formidable corps of tall hock bottles, which the astonished butler ranged rank and file in a lobby outside the dining room.

1888. E. Zola. Translation of L’Assommoir, ch. vii., p. 208. In a corner of the shop, the heap of dead men increased, a cemetery of bottles.

2. (bakers’).—A loaf, overcharged, or marked down though not delivered. In London, dead ’un is a popular term for a half-quartern loaf. Also, by implication, a baker.

1819. T. Moore, Tom Crib’s Memorial, p. 16. Dead men are bakers, so called from the loaves falsely charged to their master’s customers.

3. (tailors’).—In pl. Misfits; hence, a scarecrow.

Deadman’s Lurk, subs. phr. (thieves’).—Extortion of money from the relatives of deceased persons. [Lurk = a sham, swindle, or imposition of any kind.]

Dead Marine.—See Dead Man.

Dead-Meat, subs. (common).—A corpse. [By comparison to butchers’ wares.] Cf., Cold meat.

English Synonyms.—Cold meat; pickles (medical students’: for specimens direct from the subject); croaker; stiff; stiff ’un; dustman; cold pig.

French Synonyms.—Un engourdi (thieves’: properly, torpid, heavy, dull); une falourde engourdie (popular: falourde = a heavy piece of firewood); un dégelé (pop: dégel = death); un rebouis (thieves’: one who has been ‘polished off’); un refroidi (thieves’: refroidir = to cool, to chill; in cant, to kill); les conserves (popular: literally, preserves; cf., ‘pickles’: specifically used of murdered bodies recovered from the water).

Dead-meat train.—See Cold-meat train.

Dead Men’s Shoes, subs. phr. (common).—A situation, property, or possession formerly occupied or enjoyed by a person who is dead and buried. Waiting for dead men’s shoes = looking forward to inheritances.

b. 1584, d. 1660. Phineas Fletcher, Poems, p. 256. And ’tis a general shrift, that most men use, But yet ’tis tedious waiting dead men’s shoes.

1758. A. Murphy, The Upholsterer, Act i. I grant ye, ma’am, you have very good pretensions; but then it’s waiting for dead men’s shoes.

1764. Wilkes [in P. Fitzgerald’s Life of] (1888), vol. I., p. 244. As they have no other relation but Miss Wilkes, I therefore suppose they will leave everything to her, independent of me. Yet this is, after all, waiting for dead men’s shoes.

1878. C. H. Wall, tr. Molière II., 218. Death is not always ready to indulge the heir’s wishes and prayers, and we may starve while waiting for dead men’s shoes.

Dead-nap, subs. (provincial).—A thorough-going rogue.

Dead-nip, subs. (provincial).—A plan or scheme of little importance which has turned out a failure.

Dead-oh, adv. (naval).—In the last stage of intoxication. For synonyms, see Drinks and cf., Screwed.

Dead on, or Dead nuts on, adv. phr. (common).—Originally, having some cause of complaint or quarrel; also, very fond of; having complete mastery over; sure hand at. Cf., death on, Derry on and down on, all of which are variants.—See also nuts on, an older form.

1877. Five Years’ Penal Servitude, ch. iv., p. 288. Davies was dead nuts upon cutting men’s hair. The whole evening long was he calling men out to be operated upon.

Dead-set, subs. (colloquial).—A pointed and persistent effort or attempt.

1781. G. Parker, View of Society, I., 196. He then gave me what I term the dead set with his eye.

1877. Five Years’ Penal Servitude, ch. iii., p. 145. He was made a dead set at by some other prisoners, who schooled him for a career of vice and crime.

1889. Globe, 2 Nov., p. 6, col. 2. Certain persons of the ‘thoughtful’ kind, says Rod and Gun, are making a dead set against the field sports of Britain.

Dead Sow’s Eye, subs. phr. (tailors’).—A badly worked button-hole.

Dead Stuck, adv. phr. (theatrical).—Said of actors who break down in the midst of a performance through sudden lapse of memory.

Dead Swag, subs. (thieves’).—‘Dead stock’ or dead cargo (q.v.); plunder that cannot be disposed of. [Swag = booty.]

Dead to Rights, adv. phr. (common).—Certain; without doubt. An amplification of To rights (q.v.).

1888. Cincinnati Weekly Gazette, 22 Feb. Hill claims he has the thing down dead to rights, and that he will make the farmers sweat who have been asserting that his claim was ‘N.G.’

Dead-’un, subs. (thieves’).—1. An uninhabited house. The cracksman who confines his attentions to ‘busting’ of this kind is, in Fr., un nourrisseur.

1879. J. W. Horsley, in Macm. Mag., xl., 505. Me and the screwsman went to Gravesend, and I found a dead ’un (uninhabited house).

2. (common).—A half-quartern loaf. Cf., dead man, sense 2.

3. (turf).—A horse destined to be scratched or not intended to win, and against which odds may be safely laid; a safe ’un (q.v.).

1864. Bailey’s Magazine, June. These al fresco speculators have their dead ’uns, and carry ‘milking pails,’ like their more civilised brethren, privileged with the entrée to the clubs and the Corner.

1868. London Review, 11 July, p. 38, col. 2. The stable and owners might safely lay against what was technically a dead ’un from the first.

1880. Hawley Smart, Social Sinners, ch. v. Lord, what dead ’uns he did back, to be sure!

4. (common).—An empty bottle. For synonyms, see Dead man.

1889. Bird o’ Freedom, 7 Aug., p. 3. We submitted, and with her help were soon surrounded with a formidable array of dead ’uns.

5. (theatrical).—An unpaid super.

Dead Unit for [or against], adv. phr. (colloquial).—Collective advocacy of (or opposition to) a subject, principle, or line of action. Cf., to go the whole hog.

1888. The Solid Muldoon (Ouray, Colorado). The Eastern Press is a dead unit against the passage of the Postal Telegraph Bill.

Dead-wood Earnest, adv. phr. (American).—Quite earnest; ‘dead on.’ Cf., in dead earnest.

1876. S. L. Clemens (‘Mark Twain’), Tom Sawyer. No! oh, good licks, are you in real dead-wood earnest?

Dead Wrong ’Un.—See Wrong ’un.

Deady (modern American, Dead-Eye), subs. (old).—Gin; a special brand of full proof spirit, also known as Stark-naked (q.v.). [From Deady, a well-known gin-spinner.] For synonyms, see Drinks.

1819. T. Moore, Tom Crib’s Memorial to Congress, p. 35. As we’d been summon’d thus, to quaff our deady o’er some state affairs.

1834. Southey, The Doctor, inter-chapter xvi. Some of the whole-hoggery in the House of Commons he would designate by Deady, or Wet and Heavy; some by Weak Tea, others by Blue-Ruin.

Deal. There’s a deal of glass about, phr. (common).—Said of men and things; used as a compliment = showy, ‘its the thing.’

To wet the deal, verb. phr. (common).—To ratify a bargain by drinking; to ‘shake.’

1876. C. Hindley, Life and Adventures of a Cheap Jack, p. 268. I shall be back again shortly, when we will wet the deal.

To do a deal, verb. phr. (common).—To conclude a bargain.

Deal-Suit, subs. (common).—A coffin; especially one supplied by the parish. [In allusion to the wood of which cheap coffins are made.] For synonyms, see Eternity Box.

Dean, subs. (Winchester College).—A small piece of wood bound round a Bill-Brighter (q.v.); that securing a fagot is called a Bishop.

Deaner, subs. (thieves’).—A shilling. [Origin uncertain; possibly related to Latin denarius. In the 16th and 17th centuries, denier = a coin—vide Nashe, Shakspeare, Johnson, etc. Others trace it to (a) the Cornish dinair; (b) Yiddish dinoh, a coin; (c) Gypsy deanee, a pound; (d) Lingua Franca dinarly.] For synonyms, see Blow.

1857. Snowden, Mag. Assistant, 3rd ed., p. 444. Shilling, Deaner, also twelver.

1864. Times, 12 October, p. 11, col. 6. One woman said where’s the deaner?

1879. J. W. Horsley, in Macm. Mag., xl., 501. I had been down three or four days running, and could not buy anything to earn a deaner (shilling) out of.

Dearest Member.—The penis.

Death. To be death on, verb. phr. (common).—Very fond of, or thoroughly master of—a metaphor of completeness; the same as dead on, a mark on, or some pumpkins on. Cf., nuts on. [Literally to prosecute or pursue any course of action to the death.]

To dress to death (colloquial).—To attire oneself in the very extreme of fashion. In America to dress within an inch of one’s life; to dress up drunk and to dress to kill. An old Cornish proverb has dressed to death like sally hatch (N. and Q., 3 ser., vi., 6). [Apparently a pun on killing (q.v.).]

1869. Newfoundland Fisheries [quoted in De Vere]. The next day I met Davis and Nye, my two chums, on board the Little Rhody, dressed to death and trunk empty, as they said of themselves.

Death-Hunter, subs. (common).—1. A vendor of the last dying speeches, or confessions of criminals; a running patterer or stationer.

1738. [From J. W. Jarvis and Son: Cat. No. 40, p. 38]. Ramble through London, containing observations on Beggars, Pedlars, Petticoat Pensioners, death hunters, Humours of the Exchange, etc., by a True-born Englishman [Title].

1851–61. H. Mayhew, London Lab. and Lon. Poor, vol. I., 228. The latter include the ‘running patterers,’ or death-hunters; being men (no women) engaged in vending last dying speeches and confessions.

2. (popular).—An undertaker. For synonyms, see Cold cook.

? Old Song, ‘Life’s a Chase.’ And e’en the death-hunter, in coffins who deals Is at last hunted into a coffin.

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

Death or Glory Boys.—See Bingham’s dandies.

Debblish, subs. (South African).—A penny. For synonyms, see Winn.

Decapitate.—See Cut off one’s head.

Decent, Decently, Decentish, adj. and adv. (colloquial).—Moderate; tolerable; passably; fairly good.

Decoy-bird or Duck, subs. (colloquial).—One employed to decoy persons into a snare; a buttoner or bug-hunter (q.v.). Fr., un allumeur, un chatouilleur, or un arrangeur.

Decus, subs. (old).—A crown piece. [From the Latin, the motto decus et tutamen on the rims of these coins.] For synonyms, see Caroon.

1688. T. Shadwell, Squire of Alsatia, ed. 1720, 2, vol. IV., p. 48. Madam Hackum, to testify my gratitude, I make bold to equip you with some Meggs, Decus’s, and Georges.

1822. Scott, Fort. of Nigel, ch. xxiii. ‘You see,’ he said, pointing to the casket, ‘that noble Master Grahame, whom you call Green, has got the decuses and the smelts.’

Dee, subs. (vagrants’).—1. A pocket-book or reader. For synonyms, see Leather.

2. (common).—A detective; also ’tec, (q.v.). Cf., Deeker, and for synonyms, see Nark.

1886. Graphic, 30 Jan., p. 130, col. 1. A detective is known as a dee and a teck; the former is principally used by tramps and gipsies, and is properly D, the initial letter of the word.

3. (common).—See D, sense 2.

Deeker, subs. (old).—See quot.

1821. D. Haggart, Life, Glossary, p. 171. Deeker, a thief kept in pay by a constable.

Deep, adj. (colloquial).—Artful; e.g., ‘a deep one.’ [An extension of the figurative sense = remote from comprehension, hard to penetrate—usages frequent in Biblical language.]

1672–1726. Vanbrugh, The Mistake, Act I. When you take us for fools, we never take you for wise men. For my part, in this present case, I take myself to be mighty deep.

1688. Shadwell, Sq. of Alsatia, III., in wks. (1720) iv., 63. Fools! nay, there I am sure you are out: they are all deep, they are very deep, and sharp.

1841. Punch, vol. I., p. 268. I can scarcely believe my eyes. Oh! he’s a deep one.

1880. A. Trollope, The Duke’s Children, ch. vi. He was, too, very deep, and some men, who could put up with his other failings, could not endure that.

1890. Pall Mall Gaz., 17 Oct., p. 2, col. 2. His Majesty the Sultan is ‘a deep one,’ it is clear.

Deerstalker, subs. (popular).—A felt hat. For synonyms, see Golgotha.

1870. London Figaro [letter dated Dec. 9]. Either the wind must be bottled up or the P. of W. must start the fashion of wearing deerstalkers … in the windy weather.

Deferred Stock, subs. (city).—Inferior soup. [A play upon words.] For synonyms, see Glue.

1871. Pall Mall Gaz., 22 May. A few years ago, at an economical Chancellor of Exchequer’s dinner on the Queen’s Birthday, the Chairman of one of the Revenue Boards, after tasting the soup, asked the Governor of the Bank of England, who happened to be sitting next to him at the table, ‘What is this?’ ‘Deferred Stock, I suspect,’ replied the Governor.

Degen, Degan, or Dagen, subs. (old).—A sword. [From the German.]

1785. Grose, Dict. Vulg. Tongue, Nun the degen, steal the sword.

1827. Bulwer Lytton, Pelham, p. 325. ed. 1864. Tip him the degen.

Delicate, subs. (vagrants’).—A lurker’s (q.v.) false subscription book.

Dell, subs. (old).—1. A young girl; a virgin; a young wanton. Later, a mistress: cf., doxy. For synonyms, see Titter.

1567. Harman, Caveat, p. 75. A Dell is a yonge wenche, able for generation, and not yet knowen or broken by the vpright man.

1574–1637. Ben Jonson, Metam. Gipsies. Sweet doxies and dells My Roses and Nells.

1609. Thomas Dekker, Lanthorne and Candlelight. Docked the Dell, for a Coper meke His wach shall feng a Prounces Nab-chete.

1622. Head and Kirkman, English Rogue. I met a dell, I viewed her well.

1694. Dunton, Ladies’ Dictionary. Dells are young bucksom wenches, ripe, and prone to venery, but have not yet been debauch’d.

1706. E. Coles, Eng. Dict. Dell, Doxy, a wench.

1834. H. Ainsworth, Rookwood, bk. I., ch. ix. He was seized … by the bailiff of Westminster when dead drunk, his liquor having been drugged by his dells—and was shortly afterwards hanged at Tyburn.

Delog, subs. (back slang).—Gold. For synonyms, see Redge.

Delo-Nammow, subs. (back slang).—An old woman. For synonyms, see Old Geezer.

Delve It, verb. phr. (tailors’).—To hurry with one’s work, head down and sewing fast. Cf., dig, verb.

Demand the Box, verb. phr. (nautical).—To call for a bottle.

Demaunder for Glymmar, subs. phr. (old).—See quot.

1567. Harman, Caveat, p. 61. These Demaunders for Glymmar be for the moste parte wemen; for glymmar in their language, is fyre. These goe with fayned lycences and counterfayted wrytings, hauing the hands and seales of suche gentlemen as dwelleth nere to the place where they fayne them selues to haue bene burnt, and their goods consumed with fyre. They wyll most lamentable demaunde your charitie, and wyll quicklye shed salte teares, they be so tender harted. They wyll neuer begge in that Shiere where their losses (as they say) was.

Demi-doss, subs. (vagrants’).—See quot.

1886. Daily News, 3 Nov., p. 5, col. 5. Others, unable to find the coin wherewith to obtain even a demi-doss, i.e., penny sleep.

Demi-Rep, subs. (old slang, now recognised).—A woman of doubtful repute. [A contraction of demi-reputation.] For synonyms, see Barrack Hack and Tart.

1750. Fielding, Tom Jones, bk. XV., ch. ix. That character which is vulgarly called a demi-rep; that is to say, a woman who intrigues with every man she likes, under the name and appearance of virtue … in short, whom everybody knows to be what nobody calls her.

1754. Connoisseur, No. 4. An order of females lately sprung up … usually distinguished by the denomination of Demi-Reps; a word not to be found in any of our dictionaries.

1846–48. Thackeray, Vanity Fair, vol. II., ch. xx. So they went on talking about dancers, fights, drinking, demi-reps, until Macmurdo came down.

Demnition Bow-wows, subs. phr. (common).—The ‘dogs’ which spell ‘ruin.’ Originally a Dickensism (see quot., 1838). For analogues, see Dead Broke.

1838. Dickens, Nicholas Nickleby, II., 32. ‘I beg its little pardon,’ said Mr. Mantalini, dropping the handle of the mangle, and folding his arms together, ‘It’s all up with its handsome friend. He has gone to the demnition bow-wows.’

1888. New York Herald, 25 March. There are some men who, if they don’t make twice as much as they expect to make, will cry hard times, and say that general business is going to the demnition bow-wows, but these men would say the same thing in any event.

1889. The Nation, 19 Dec., p. 499, col. 1. Our great farming industry—the very soil of National growth—is not going to the demnition bow-wows.

Demnition Hot, adv. phr. (American).—Exceedingly warm; a heat supposed to be akin to that of the place where they don’t rake out the fires at night.

1888. San Francisco Weekly Examiner, 22 March. It was demnition hot, and I commenced to hunt for soft spots in my saddle.

Demon, subs. (Australian prison).—1. A policeman. For synonyms, see Beak and Copper.

2. (colloquial).—A super-excellent adept; e.g., The demon bowler = Mr. Spofforth; The demon jockey = Fordham or Fred Archer, and so forth.

Den, subs. (common).—A place where intimates are received; one’s ‘diggings’ or ‘snuggery.’ [In Anglo-Saxon = a bed, cave, or lurking place.] For synonyms, see Diggings.

1865. Punch, vol. XLVIII., p. 111 col. 2, s.v.

Dennis, subs. (old).—A small walking stick.

Dep, subs. (common).—1. A deputy; specifically the night porter or chamberlain at padding or dossing kens.

1870. C. Dickens, Mystery of Edwin Drood, ch. v. I’m man-servant up at the Travellers’ Twopenny in Gas Works Garding, this thing explains, all man-servants at Travellers’ Lodgings is named Deputy.

2. (Christ’s Hospital).—A deputy Grecian, i.e., a boy in the form below the Grecians.

Derby.—See Darby.

Derrey, subs. (thieves’).—An eyeglass. To take the derrey, (tailors’) = to quiz, ridicule.

Derrick, subs. (old).—The gallows. [A corruption of Theodoric, the name of the public hangman at the end of the sixteenth and the beginning of the seventeenth centuries.] Now the name of an apparatus, resembling a crane. Also, used as a verb = to hang; apparently the earliest recorded sense. For synonyms, see Nubbing Cheat.

1600. W. Kemp, Nine Days’ Wonder, in Arber’s English Garner, vol. VIII., p. 37. One that … would pol his father, derick his dad! do anything, how ill soever, to please his apish humour.

1607. Dekker, Jests to Make you Merie, in wks. (Grosart), ii., 318. For might I have beene her Judge, shee should haue had her due, and danst Derriks dance in a hempen halter.

1609. Dekker, Gul’s Horne-Booke, chap. ii. The Neapolitan will (like Derick, the hangman) embrace you with one arme, and rip your guts with the other.

Derwenter, subs. (Australian).—A convict. [From the penal settlement on the banks of the Derwent, Tasmania.]

Despatchers, subs. (gamesters’).—False dice with two sides, double four, five, and six.

1856. Times, 27 Nov., s.v.

Desperate, and Desperately, adj. and adv. (colloquial).—A metaphor of excessiveness; e.g., desperately mashed = over head and ears in love.

Detrimental, subs. (society).—An ineligible suitor; also a male flirt.

1841. Punch, vol. I., p. 133, col. 1. Defining that zero of fortune to stand below which constitutes a detrimental.

1859. Whitty, Political Portraits, p. 113. The fact is, that the detrimentals won’t work; born into shifty affluence, it is easier to struggle on in a false position than to struggle out of it.

1886. Household Words, 13 March, p. 400. A detrimental, in genteel slang, is a lover, who, owing to his poverty is ineligible as a husband; or one who professes to pay attentions to a lady without serious intention of marriage, and thereby discourages the intentions of others.

Detrimental-Club, subs. (society).—The Reform Club.

Deuce, Dewce, or Deuse, subs. (common).—1. The devil; perdition. Also used as an ejaculative, e.g., The deuce! What the deuce! Who the deuce! Deuce take you! etc. [Wedgwood: ‘The evolution of deuce from Thurs., the name of a Scandinavian demon is fully vouched.’ Skeat: Latin deus, God, deus, borrowed from French usage, being found as an interjection in early English works. Low German duus, Ger. daus are used similarly and may have the same origin; others connect it with Armor. dus, teuz, a goblin.] For synonyms, see Skipper.

b. 1670, d. 1729. Congreve. It was the prettiest prologue as he wrote it; well, the deuce take me if I ha’n’t forgot it.

1754. B. Martin, Eng. Dict. (2nd ed.), s.v. Dewce.

1780. Mrs. Cowley, The Belle’s Stratagem, Act v., Sc. i. Miss C. Deuce take her! She’s six years younger than I am.

1827. R. B. Peake, Comfortable Lodgings, Act I., Sc. iii. De C. I am the Intendant of Police, sir. Sir H. The deuce you are!

1837. Barham, I. L. (Jackdaw of Rheims). There’s a cry and a shout, And a deuce of a rout, And nobody seems to know what they’re about.

1854. Aytoun and Martin, Bon Gaultier Ballads. ‘To a forget-me-not.’ I can’t tell who the deuce it was That gave me this Forget-me-not.

2. (vagrants’).—Twopence.

1714. Memoirs of John Hall (4th ed.), p. 12, s.v.

1851–61. H. Mayhew, London Lab. and Lon. Poor, vol. I., p. 276. ‘Give him a deuce’ (2d.).

3. (gamesters’).—The two at dice or cards.

To play the deuce or devil with, verb. phr. (common).—To send, or be sent, to rack and ruin.

1881. Jas. Payn, Grape from a Thorn, ch. i. I have a presentiment that the cooking will play the deuce with my digestion.

1885. Indoor Paupers, p. 89. Her drinking played the deuce with the shop.

The deuce to pay, phr. (common).—Unpleasant or awkward consequences to be faced; see Devil to pay.

1854. Thackeray, The Rose and the Ring, p. 69. There has been such a row, and disturbance, and quarrelling, and fighting, and chopping of heads off, and the deuce to pay, that I’m inclined to go back to Cumtartary.

1869. Mrs. H. Wood, Roland Yorke, ch. xxxiii. One or both of ’em … report me for negligence! I get a curt telegram to come to town, and here’s the deuce to pay!

Deuced, adj. (common).—Devilish; excessive; confounded. Also adverbially. [From deuce (q.v.), + ed.]

1836. Michael Scott, The Cruise of the Midge, vol. I. [ed. 1860], p. 160. Quacco all this while was twisting and turning himself, and, although evidently in a deuced quandary, trying to laugh the affair off as a joke.

Deusea-ville, subs. (old).—The Country.—See Daisyville.

Deusea-ville Stampers, subs. phr. (old).—Country carriers.

Devil, subs. (common).—1. Formerly a barrister who devils, or ‘gets up,’ a case for a leader; as in A Tale of Two Cities, Sydney Carton for Mr. Stryver. Now common for anyone hacking for another.—(See quots., 1889.)

1872. Echo, 14 Nov. Mr. Archibald, the Attorney-General’s devil is to be made a judge. Well, other devils have been made judges of. Sir James Hannen, we are told, was a devil once.

1873. Daily Telegraph, 12 Feb. It will not be possible even to send a telegram to a French journal during a sitting. Not a word must be printed until the President’s devil has distributed the Officiel to the different office boys who will henceforth, etc.

1889. Telegram. M— 84, B— Street, London, E.C. Strange letter received. Will you please see devil at my chambers? R—. [In original telegram the word ‘devil’ was queried by the P.O. authorities!]

1889. George R. Sims, The Author’s Ghost. ‘Who are you?’ I asked in dismay. ‘I’m a devil.…’ ‘A what!’ I exclaimed with a start. ‘A devil.… I give plots and incidents to popular authors, sir, write poetry for them, drop in situations, jokes, work up their rough material: in short, sir, I devil for them.’

1890. Speaker, 22 Feb., p. 211, col. 2. No one who is not in the swim can have any conception of the amount of work and worry that devolves upon a counsel in leading practice at the criminal bar.… He has to do the best he can, with the assistance of juniors and devils.

2. (printers’).—An errand boy or young apprentice; in the early days of the craft, the boy who took the printed sheets as they came from the press. Fr., un attrape-science.

1754. Connoisseur, No. 9. Our publisher, printer, corrector, devil, or any other employed in our service.

1757. Foote, Author, Act I. A printer’s prime minister, called a devil.

1859. Punch, vol. XXXVI, p. 82. ‘An author’s paradise.’ A place where there are no printers’ devils.

1863. Alex. Smith, Dreamthorp, p. 211. He wrote in a leisurely world, when there was plenty of time for writing and reading; long before the advent of the printer’s devil or of Mr. Mudie.

3. (nautical).—See quot.

1883. Illustrated London News, 16 June, p. 603, col. 2. It is proposed to prevent the use of the devil, a kind of sharpened anchor, at the bows of a trawler for cutting the nets of drifters in the North Sea.

4. (old).—A firework.

1742. Fielding, Joseph Andrews, bk. III., ch. vii. The captain, perceiving an opportunity, pinned a cracker or devil to the cassock, and then lighted it.

5. (licensed victuallers’).—Gin seasoned with capsicums. Cf., following sense.

1828. G. Smeaton, Doings in London. The extract of Capsicums or extract of Grains of Paradise is known in the gin-selling trade by the appellation of the devil. They are manufactured by putting a quantity of small East India chillies into a bottle of spirits of wine and keeping it closely stopped for about a month.

6. (common).—A grilled bone seasoned with mustard and cayenne. Cf., Attorney.

7. (military).—A sand-storm.

1889. Daily News, 8 July. ‘The Camp at Wimbledon.’ They raised also clouds of dust that went whirling across the common in spiral cones like desert devils.

8. (common).—A species of firewood soaked in resin.

The or a devil of [a thing], adj. and adv. (colloquial).—An indefinite intensitive: e.g., devil of a mess, of a woman, of a row, etc.

1602. Shakspeare, Twelfth Night, ii., 3. The devil, a puritan that he is, or anything constantly.

1836. Michael Scott, Cruise of the Midge [ed. 1860], p. 102. a devil of a good fight he made of it.

1836. Michael Scott, Cruise of the Midge [ed. 1860], p. 298. The devil a thing was there in sight, not even a small white speck of a sail.

American devil, subs. phr. (workmen’s).—A steam whistle or ‘hooter’; used in place of a bell for summoning to work.

1872. Manchester Guardian, 24 Sept. Mr. Powell’s Bill contains abundant powers for suppressing the vile nuisance known as the American devil, and should any man suffer from it in future he will have nobody to thank but himself.

Blue devils.—See ante.

Little (or young) devil, subs. phr. (common).—A half playful, half sarcastic, address; a term of endearment; e.g., you little devil. Cf., you young tinker.

1841. R. B. Peake, Court and City, Act i., Sc. 1. My wife was such an unreasonable little devil, as to ask me forty questions about my staying out so late.

Verb (common).—1. To act as a devil (q.v., subs.); to perform routine or detail work for another.

1872. Daily Telegraph, 30 Nov. Letter, ‘Called to the Bar.’ Then I took legislative rambles in the Courts, so that I might see practice, and that practitioners might see me; and then I devilled and reported a little.

1883. Graphic, 12 May, p. 478, col. 2. The practice prevailing among eminent counsel of undertaking more cases than they can possibly manage, and handing over some to the juniors who devil for them.

2. (American cadet).—To victimize.

What, Who, When, Where, or How the Devil, phr. (common).—An expletive of wonder, vexation, etc.

b. 1688, d. 1744. Pope [quoted in Annandale]. The things we know are neither rich nor rare; But wonder how the devil they got there.

1776. David Garrick, Bon Ton, or High Life Above Stairs, Act ii., Sc. 1. Sir T. Why, what the devil do you make one at these masqueradings.

1780. Mrs. Cowley, The Belle’s Stratagem, Act i., Sc. 3. Har. Who the devil could have foreseen that?

1827. R. B. Peake, Comfortable Lodgings, Act i, Sc. 3. What the devil is all this about?

1836. Michael Scott, Cruise of the Midge [Ry. ed. 1860], p. 134. How the devil can you get anything out of an empty vessel?

To play the devil with, verb. phr. (colloquial).—To ruin or molest.

1821. Egan, Tom and Jerry, p. 46. The passions, as I’ve said, are far from evil, But if not well confined they play the devil.

To pull the devil by the tail, phr. (colloquial).—To go to ruin headlong; also to be reduced to one’s last shift. Cf., To play the devil with.

1890. European Mail, 2 Aug., p. 30, col. 2. The immense disproportion between the solid assets and the liabilities of the enterprise made experienced Parisian financiers say from the first that the company was pulling the devil by the tail, and a perusal of M. Monchicourt’s report must confirm this view.

To whip the devil round the stump, verb. phr. (American).—To enjoy the sweets of wickedness and yet escape the penalty.

1857. New York Evening Post. While Mr. Jones is describing his wants in the money line, and telling the president how near through he is, that officer is carrying on a mental addition it may be after this manner: Jones, you’re a clever fellow, but Smith tells me you are engaged in a coal-stock operation. I have heard also that you have been dabbling in Erie. There is a want of candor now, I perceive, in the statement of your affairs. There, you are now whipping the devil around the stump: I see his foot.

1871. De Vere, Americanisms, p. 187. Nor is the slang phrase: to whip the devil around the stump to be traced very clearly to the backwoods.

1872. Haldeman, Pennsylvania Dutch. I whipped the devil round the stump, And gave a cut at every jump.

Haul devil, pull baker, phr. (colloquial).—To contend with varying fortunes. In the sense of endeavouring to overreach, a variant is diamond cut diamond.

1889. Cornhill Mag., July, p. 99. I can’t get proper accounts from her; and it’s a regular case of pull devil, pull baker, whenever I want to look at the trades-people’s books.

And the devil knows what or who, phr. (colloquial).—A term used vaguely and indefinitely to include details not specifically mentioned or known.

1717. Mrs. Centlivre, A Bold Stroke for a Wife, Act iii., Sc. 1. Per. Why, what a pack of trumpery has this rogue picked up! His pagod, poluflosboio, his zonos moros musphonons, and the devil knows what.

To go to the devil, phr. (colloquial).—To go to rack and ruin. Go to the devil! = begone! A summary form of dismissal with no heed as to what may become of the person who is sent about his business.

1801. T. Dibdin, The Birthday, Act i., Sc. 2. Capt. Hold your tongue, Junk; you are a libellous rascal. You, and your box, too, may go to the devil.

To hold a light or candle to, or burn a candle before, the devil, phr. (colloquial).—To propitiate through fear; to assist or wink at wrong doing. Shakspeare (Merchant of Venice, Act ii., Sc. 6), employs ‘What! must I hold a candle to my shame,’ in much the same sense. [From the practice of burning candles before the images of saints, etc.]. Not fit to hold a candle to the devil = a simile of inferiority. To hold a candle to another = to assist in, occupy a subordinate position, or (see quot., 1859) to compare to another.

c. 1461. In Paston Letters, II., 73 (ed. Gairdner). For it is a common proverbe, ‘A man must sumtyme set a candel befor the Devyle;’ and therefor thow it be not alder most mede and profytabyl, yet if ij harmys the leste is to be take.

1557. Tusser, Husbandrie, p. 148. Though not for hope of good, Yet for the feare of euill, Thou maist find ease so proffering up a candell to the deuill.

1672. Wycherley, Love in a Wood, I., i., wks. (1713), 346. You cannot hold a candle to the devil.

1705. Ward, Hudibras Redivivus, vol. I., pt. III., p. 17. To hold a candle to the devil, Is not the means to stop this evil.

1828. Scott, Fair Maid of Perth, ii., 213. Here have I been holding a candle to the devil, to show him the way to mischief.

1859. H. Kingsley, Geoffrey Hamlyn, ch. xxxii. A Frenchman is conceited enough, but, by George, he can’t hold a candle to a Scotchman.

The devil, or the devil and all to pay, phr. (colloquial).—A simile of fruitless effort; awkward consequences to be faced. [Nautical: originally, ‘There’s the devil to pay and no pitch hot’; the ‘devil’ being any seam in a vessel, awkward to caulk, or in sailors’ language ‘to pay.’ Hence by confusion the deuce to pay (q.v.).]

1711. Swift, Journal to Stella, 28 Sept. Letter 31. And then there will be the devil and all to pay.

1761. Colman, Jealous Wife, III., in wks. (1777), i., 69. There’s the devil to pay in meddling with them.

1762. Foote, Liar, iii., 3. Sir, here has been the devil to pay within.

1836. Michael Scott, Cruise of the Midge. [Ry. ed. 1860], p. 127. Here was the devil to pay with a vengeance.

1837. R. H. Barham, The Ingoldsby Legends. The Execution (ed. 1862), p. 198. Hollo! Hollo! Here’s a rum go. Why, Captain!—My Lord!—Here’s the devil to pay!—The fellow’s been cut down and taken away!

1866. G. Eliot, Felix Holt, ch. xxi. He made a fool of himself with marrying at Vesoul; and there was the devil to pay with the girl’s relations.

Talk of the devil and you’ll see his horns or tail, phr. (colloquial).—Said of a person who, being the subject of conversation, unexpectedly makes an appearance. Fr., parlez des anges et vous en voyez les ailes.

b. 1664, d. 1721. M. Prior. Hans Carvel. Since therefore ’tis to combat evil, ’Tis lawful to employ the Devil, Forthwith the Devil did appear, For name him and he’s always near.

Devil-may-care, adj. (colloquial).—Rollicking; reckless; rash.

1822–36. Jno. Wilson, Noctes Amb. I., 274. [The shepherd has thrown back to the fire a live coal.] Belyve the blisters’ll be rising like foam-bells; but deil may care.

1836. Dickens, Pickwick, ch. xlix., p. 428. He was a mighty free and easy, roving, devil-may-care sort of person, was my Uncle, gentlemen.

1839. Lever, Harry Lorrequer, ch. xii. There was also a certain devil-may-care recklessness about the self-satisfied swagger of his gait.

1849. Albert Smith, in Gabarni in London (Acrobats). Unsettled, wandering, and devil-may-care as his disposition may be, he cannot be called idle.

1863. Hon. Mrs. Norton, Lost and Saved, p. 33. Treherne had a hot twinge of doubt, in spite of his devil-may-care style of writing, whether Lewellyn would answer him at all.

1865. Punch, vol. XLVIII., p. 106. Fechter’s acting [as Robert Macaire] in The Roadside Inn may be described as the devil-may-care style.

Devil take, or fetch, or send, or snatch, or fly away with, you, me, him! etc., phr. (colloquial).—An imprecation of impatience. Fr., le boulanger t’entrolle en son pasclin.

1837. R. H. Barham, Ingoldsby Legends (ed. 1862), p. 339. Don’t use naughty words, in the next place, and ne’er in your language adopt a bad habit of swearin’. Never say, ‘Devil take me,’ or ‘shake me,’ or ‘bake me,’ or such-like expressions. Remember Old Nick, To take folks at their word, is remarkably quick.

There’s the devil among the tailors, phr. (common).—A row is going on. [Edwards:—Originating in a riot at the Haymarket when Dowton announced the performance for his benefit, of a burlesque entitled ‘The Tailors: a Tragedy for Warm Weather.’ Many thousands of journeymen tailors congregated, and interrupted the performances. Thirty-three were brought up at Bow Street next day.—See Biographica Dramatica under ‘Tailors.’]

When the devil is blind, adv. phr. (colloquial).—Never, i.e., in a month of Sundays; said of anything unlikely to happen. For synonyms, see Greek Kalends.

Devil Dodger, subs. (common).—A clergyman. Also, by implication, anyone of a religious turn of mind.

English Synonyms.—Devil catcher, driver, pitcher, or scolder; snub devil; bible pounder; duck that grinds the gospel mill; commister; camister; sky-pilot; chimney-sweep; rat; rum (Johnson); pantiler; cushion smiter, duster, or thumper; couple, or buckle, beggar; rook; gospel grinder; earwig; one-in-ten (tramps’ = a tithe-monger); finger-post; parish prig; parish bull; holy Joe; green apron; black cattle (collectively); crow; the cloth (collectively); white choker; patrico; black coat; black fly; glue pot; gospel postillion; prunella; pudding-sleeves; puzzle-text; schism-monger; cod; Black Brunswicker; spiritual flesh-broker; head-clerk of the Doxology Works; Lady Green; fire-escape; gospel sharp; padre (Anglo-Indian); pound-text.

French Synonyms.—Un radicon (thieves’); un otage (popular: = hostage, in allusion to events under the Commune of 1871); un radis noir (familiar: also a police officer. In allusion to ‘the cloth’); un ratichon (pop. from ratissé, rasé = shaved); un sanglier (thieves’: a wild boar, but also a play upon words sans without, + glier, the infernal regions); un raze or razi (thieves’); un rochet (thieves’: a surplice); un pante en robe (thieves’: ‘a cove in a gown,’ also a judge); un chasublard (popular); une calotte (fam.: le régiment de la calotte = the skull-cap brigade, i.e., the company of the Society of Jesus); un corbeau (pop.: = crow); un couac (popular); un babillard (thieves’: especially a confessor, a ‘blab-monger’); un bichot (a bishop); une enseigne de cimetière (‘a cemetery signpost.’ Cf., sky-pilot and finger-post); un bâton de réglisse (thieves’: = a stick of liquorice. Also a police-officer); un barbichon (popular: a preaching friar. From barbe = beard, in allusion to the long beard characteristic of the order).

German Synonyms.—Herrle (especially applied to Catholic priests). Lefranz or Lefrenz (a transposition of Franzle or Fränzle = the Franciscan. Liber Vagatorum Lefrenzin, = a priest’s harlot, still popular in N. Germany); Schocherer (from Hebrew schochar = black. Cf., analogous English terms); Schwarzfärber (Schwarz = black; Färber = a dyer).

Italian Synonyms.—Chiodrino; capellano rosso (a cardinal; ‘a red chaplain’); farfoio (= a monk; farfoia, a nun); rossignolo (= ‘a nightingale’); pisto or pistolfo (Michel: ‘parce qu’il suit le condamné à la piste’).

Spanish Synonym.—Cleriguillo (= a little cleric: both insult and endearment).

1791. Lackington, Memoirs, Letter vi. [ed. 1803]. These devil-dodgers happened to be so very powerful (that is, noisy) that they soon sent John home, crying out he should be damn’d.

1889. Cornhill Mag., Jan., p. 50. He’s just a kind of a fine-haired cuss—a gambler, or a devil-dodger. I reckon … I’m open ter bet he’s a preacher.

Devil-Drawer, subs. (old).—An indifferent artist.

Devilish, adv. (colloquial).—Used intensitively. Cf., Awfully, and Beastly.

1755. The World, No. 140. How arbitrary is language! and how does the custom of mankind join words, that reason has put asunder. Thus we often hear of hell-fire cold, of devilish handsome, and the like.

1780. Mrs. Cowley, The Belle’s Stratagem, iii., 1. I tell you, sir, that, for all that, she’s dev’lish sensible.

1871. Sir M. Lopez, Speech on Army Bill, H. of C., 3 July. It was devilish hard—he meant very hard—to lay it.

Devil’s Bed-posts, or Devil’s Four-poster, subs. phr. (cards’).—The four of clubs; held as an unlucky ‘turn-up.’

1879. J. C. J., in N. and Q., 5 S., xii., 473. In London I have always heard the four of clubs called the devil’s bedpost, and also that it is the worst turn-up one could have.

Devil’s-Bones, subs. (old).—Dice; also Devil’s teeth. Cf., Devil’s books.

1664. Etherege, Comical Revenge, II., iii., in wks. (1704), 27. I do not understand dice: I understand good pasture and drink—hang the devil’s bones.

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

Devil’s-Books, subs. (common).—Cards. [Of Presbyterian origin; in reproof of a synonymous term—King’s Books, or more fully, The History of the Four Kings (Fr., livre des quatre rois).] Also Books of Briefs (Fr., la cartouchière à portées).

1729. Swift, Intelligencer, No. 4, p. 43 (2nd ed.). Cards are the devil’s own invention, for which reason, time out of mind, they are and have been called the devil’s books.

18(?). Thackeray, Character Sketches (Capt. Rook and Mr. Pigeon). I often think that the devil’s books, as cards are called, are let out to us from Old Nick’s circulating library.

Devil’s-Claws, subs. (thieves’).—The broad arrow on convicts’ uniforms.

Devil’s-Colours or Livery, subs. (common).—Black and yellow.

Devil’s-Daughter, subs. (common).—A shrew.

Devil’s-Delight. To kick up the devil’s delight, verbal phr. (common).—To make a disturbance.

1854. Whyte Melville, General Bounce, ch. xv. His wives, five or six on ’em, was yowlin’, and cryin’, and kickin’ up the devil’s delight.

1863. Chas. Reade, Hard Cash, I., 278. Well then, speak quick, both of you, said Sharpe, or I’ll lay ye both by the heels. Ye black scoundrels, what business have you in the Captain’s cabin, kicking up the devil’s delight?

Devil’s-Dozen, subs. (old).—Thirteen; the original baker’s-dozen (q.v.). [From the number of witches supposed to sit down together at a ‘Sabbath.’ In Fr. le boulanger (the baker) = the devil.]

Devil’s-Dung, subs. (old).—Asafœtida: the old pharmaceutical name. [From the smell.] Now recognised.

1604. Dekker, Honest Wh., in wks. (1873), ii. 40. Fust. The divel’s dung in thy teeth: I’ll be welcome whether thou wilt or no.

1759. Sterne, Tristram Shandy, vol. VIII., ch. xi. ’Tis all pepper, garlic, staragen, salt, and devil’s dung.

1804. C. K. Sharpe, in Correspondence (1888), i. 203. I devoured loads of devil’s dung rounded into pills.

Devil’s-dust, subs. (trade).—1. Old cloth shredded for re-manufacture. [In allusion both to the swindle and to the ‘dust’ or ‘flock’ produced by the disintegrating machine which is called a ‘devil.’ The practice and the name are old. Latimer, in one of his sermons before Edward the Sixth, treating of trade rascality, remarked that manufacturers could stretch cloth seventeen yards long, into a length of seven-and-twenty yards: ‘When they have brought him to that perfection,’ he continues, ‘they have a pretty feat to thick him again. He makes me a powder for it, and plays the pothicary. They call it flock-powder, they do so incorporate it to the cloth, that it is wonderful to consider; truly a good invention. Oh that so goodly wits should be so applied; they may well deceive the people, but they cannot deceive God. They were wont to make beds of flocks, and it was a good bed too. Now they have turned their flocks into powder, to play the false thieves with it.’ Popularised by Mr. Ferrand in a speech before the House of Commons, March 4, 1842 (Hansard, 3 S, lxi., p. 140) when he tore a piece of cloth made from devil’s dust, into shreds to prove its worthlessness.] Also Shoddy (q.v.).

1840. Carlyle, Misc., iv., 239. Does it beseem thee to weave cloth of devil’s dust instead of true wool, and cut and sew it as if those wert not a tailor but the fraction of a very tailor?

1851. Mayhew, London Lab. and Lon. Poor, II., p. 30.

1864. Times, 2 Nov. It is not many years since Mr. Ferrand denounced the devil’s dust of the Yorkshire woollen manufacturers; this devil’s dust arises from the grand translation of old cloth into new.

2. (military)—Gunpowder.

1883. Hawley Smart, Hard Lines, ch. i. One looks up at the snow-white walls … and then remembers grimly what a mess the devil’s dust, as used by modern artillery, would make of them in these days.

Devil’s Guts, subs. (old).—A surveyor’s chain.

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

Devil’s Own, subs. (military).—1. The Eighty-Eight Foot. [A contraction of the devil’s own Connaught boys, a name given by General Picton for their gallantry in action and their irregularity in quarters during the Peninsular War, 1809–14.]

2. (volunteer)—The Inns of Court Volunteers [in allusion to the legal personnel].

1864. Mark Lemon, Jest Book, p. 211. At a review of the volunteers, when the half-drowned heroes were defiling by all the best ways, the devil’s own walked straight through. This being reported to Lord B——, he remarked, ‘that the lawyers always went through thick and thin.’

1872. Daily Telegraph, 28 Nov. In Richmond Park the Inns of Court Rifle Volunteers, more familiarly known as the Devil’s Own, were inspected by Colonel Daubeney.

Devil’s-Paternoster. To say the Devil’s Paternoster, verb. phr. (old).—To grumble.

1614. Terence, in English. D. What devills pater noster is this he is saying? what would he? what saist thou honest man?

Devil’s Playthings, subs. phr. (common).—Cards.—See Devil’s Books.

Devil’s-Sharpshooters, subs. (American).—Clerics who took part in the Mexican War.

Devil’s-Smiles, subs. (common).—April weather with alternations of sunshine and rain.

Devil’s-Tattoo, subs. (common). Drumming the fingers on any resonant surface, or tapping the floor with one’s feet, acts of vacancy or impatience.

1817. Scott, Search after Happiness, st. xv. His sugar-loaves and bales about he threw, And on his counter beat the devil’s tattoo.

1837. R. H. Barham, Ingoldsby Legends (ed. 1862), p. 181. Her tears had ceased; but her eyes were cast down, and mournfully fixed upon her delicate little foot, which was beating the devil’s tattoo.

1841. Lytton, Night and Morning, bk. III., ch. vi. Mr. Gawtrey remained by the fire beating the devil’s tattoo upon the chimney-piece.

1855. Thackeray, The Newcomes, II., 130. Lady Kew (loq.): ‘Have you been quarrelling as much as usual?’ ‘Pretty much as usual,’ says Barnes, drumming on his hat. ‘Don’t beat that devil’s tattoo.’

Devil’s Teeth.—See Devil’s Bones.

[Also to note in this connexion are devil’s own boy = a young blackguard; imp of the devil = idem; devil’s own ship = a pirate; devil’s own luck = uncommon, or inexplicable, good fortune; to lead one the devil’s own dance = to baffle one in the pursuit of any object; the devil a bit says punch = a jocular yet decided negative; and neat but not gaudy, as the devil said when he painted his bottom pink and tied up his tail with pea green, a locution employed of aged ladies dressed in flaming colours.]

Deviltry, subs. (low).—A vulgar form of ‘devilry.’

Devor, subs. (Charterhouse).—Plum Cake. [From the Latin.]

Devotional-Habits, subs. (stable).—Said of a horse that is apt to ‘say his prayers,’ i.e., to stumble and go on his knees.

Dew-Beaters, -Dusters, or -Treaders, subs. (old).—1. Pedestrians out early in the morning, i.e., before the dew is off the ground.

1692. Hacket, Life of Williams, i., 57. It is not equity at lust and pleasure that is moved for, but equity according to decrees and precedents foregoing, as the dew-beaters have trod their way for those that come after them.

2. (common).—The feet. [An extension of sense 1.] For synonyms, see Creepers.

1811. Lexicon Balatronicum, s.v.

1823. Scott, Peveril, ch. xxxvi. First hold out your dew-beaters till I take off the darbies. Is that usual? said Peveril, stretching out his feet.

3. (tramps’).—Shoes. [Cf., senses 1 and 2.] In Norfolk, heavy shoes for wet weather.—Forby.

Dew-bit, subs. (common).—A snack before breakfast. Cf., Dew-Drink and Dew-Beaters.

Dew-Drink, subs. (common).—A drink before breakfast. Cf., Dew-Bit and Dew-Beaters. Fr., une goutte pour tuer le ver, i.e., ‘to drown the maggot,’ or ‘to crinkle the worm.’ Not, of course, the ‘early worm’ of the proverb, but his spiritual cousin, the worm that never dies.

Dewitt, verb (old).—To lynch. [The two De Witts, opponents of William of Orange, were massacred by the mob in 1672, without subsequent enquiry.] Cf., Boycott, Burke, Cellier.

1690. Modest Enquiry into the Present Disasters (Life of Ken, p. 561). It is a wonder the English Nation … have not in their fury de-witted some of these men who have brought all this upon us. And I must tell them that the crimes of the two unhappy brothers in Holland (which gave rise to that word) were not fully so great as some of theirs.

b. 1664, d. 1721. Prior, The Viceroy. To her I leave thee, gloomy peer, Think on thy crimes committed; Repent, and be for once sincere, Thou ne’er wilt be de-witted.

1849–1861. Macaulay, Hist. of England. One writer … expressed his wonder that the people had not … dewitted the nonjuring prelates.

Dewse-a-Vyle.—The country.—See Daisyville. Cf., Rom-vile = London.

1567. Harman, Caveat, etc., s.v. 1609. Dekker, Lanthorne and Candlelight, in wks. (Grosart), iii., 200, s.v. 1610. Rowlands, Martin Mark-all, p. 38. (H. Club’s Repr., 1874), s.v. 1714. Memoirs of John Hall (4th ed.), p. 12, s.v.

Dewskitch, subs. (tramps’).—A thrashing. For synonyms, see Tanning.

1851–61. H. Mayhew, London Lab. and Lon. Poor, vol. i., p. 244. It means a dewskitch (a good thrashing).

Dial or Dial-plate, subs. (common).—The face. To turn the hands on the dial = to disfigure the face.

English Synonyms.—Frontispiece; gills (the jaws); chump (also the head); phiz; physog; mug; jib; chivy, or chevy; roach and dace (rhyming); signboard; door-plate; front-window.

French Synonyms.—La binette (familiar: quelle sale binette = what an ugly mug); un abcès (pop. = ‘a red or bloated face’); la fertille (thieves’: also straw); la fiole (fam. = phial); la bobine (pop: from O. F. bobe = grimace); une balle d’amour (prostitutes’: a handsome face); une balle (pop.: also = a franc piece and head); une glutouse (thieves’); une gargouille, gargouine, or gargue (popular); une gargarousse (thieves’); une gargagoitche (thieves’); une frime (thieves’: une frime à la manque = ugly face).

German Synonyms.—Bonum or Bunem (Hanoverian: from Heb. ponim = face); Ponim (see preceding); Rauner (also = the eye; im Rauner halten = to keep an eye upon one).

Italian Synonyms.—Berlo; baleffo (literally, a gash or scar: primarily = the mouth).

Spanish Synonyms.—El mundo (also = the world); el geme (a woman’s face. Properly, the space between the extended ends of thumb, and forefinger).

1811. Lexicon Balatronicum, s.v.

1889. Bird o’ Freedom, 7 Aug., p. 3. An absinthe tumbler which caught him a nasty crack across the dial finally convinced him that discretion was the better part of valour.

1890. Polytechnic Magazine; 21 March. ‘Boxing Brutalities.’ Now if there is a rule that no competitor may strike another with a force greater than a fixed number of pounds, it will be easy to disqualify a man whose opponent’s dial shows a greater amount of punishment.

Dials, subs. (prison).—Convicts and thieves hailing from Seven Dials.

Diamond-Cracking, subs. (Australian thieves’).—1. Stonebreaking.

1885. Australian Printers Keepsake. He caught a month, and had to white it out at diamond-cracking in Castieu’s Hotel [Melbourne Gaol].

2. (English miners’).—Working in a coal mine. Cf., Black Diamonds.

Dibble, subs. (common).—The penis. For synonyms, see Creamstick.

Dibs or Dibbs, subs. (common).—Generic for money. [Said to be a corruption of diobs, i.e., diobolus, a classic coin = 2½d. Another derivation is from the hucklebones of sheep, popularly dibbs, used for gambling; Scots ‘chuckies.’] For synonyms, see Actual and Gilt. To brush with the dibs = to abscond with the cash; To tip over the dibs = to pay down or ‘shell out’; To flash the dibs = to show money, etc.

1837. Barham, I. L. (Dead Drummer). One of their drummers, and one Sergeant Matcham, Had brush’d with the dibs, and they never could catch ’em.

1842. Comic Almanack, p. 313. Governor,—Science can’t be purchased without dibbs. When we want subjects we must shell out.

1862. Penny Newspaper. The other informed him that if he did not tip over the dibs he would blow his —— brains out.

1880. Punch’s Almanack, p. 7. Time to think about my outing. No dibs yet, though, so it’s no use shouting.

1887. W. E. Henley, Villon’s Straight Tip. The merry little dibbs you’ll bag.

Dice. To box the Dice, verb. phr. (legal).—To carry a point by tricking or swindling.

Dick, subs. (common).—1. A dictionary; a Richard (q.v.); also, by implication, fine language or long words.—See Swallow the Dick.

1860. Haliburton (‘Sam. Slick’), The Season Ticket, No. xii. Ah, now you are talking ‘dic.,’ exclaimed Peabody, and I can’t follow you. When I talk —— You use the vulgar tongue, retorted the Senator.

2. (coachman’s).—A riding whip.

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

4. (common).—An affidavit.

1861. Dutton Cook, Paul Foster’s Daughter, ch. xxvi. No. I’d take my dying dick he hasn’t got a writ in his pocket, or he couldn’t move along so easy as that.

5. (American).—An Irish Catholic—See Crawthumper.

Verb (thieves’).—To look; to pipe (q.v.); e.g., the bulky’s dicking = the policeman is watching you. [From the gypsy dikk.] Fr., gaffer. For synonyms, see Pipe.

Dick in the green, phr. (thieves’).—Weak; inferior. Cf., Dicky.

1812. Vaux, Memoirs, s.v.

In the reign of Queen Dick, adv. phr. (common).—Never; ‘when two Sundays come in a week.’ For synonyms, see Greek Kalends.

1811. Lexicon Balatronicum, s.v.

1864. Standard, 13 Dec., Rev. of Sl. Dicy. Moreover … a few days since, a ‘bus driver in altercation with his conductor, who threatened him with paying off soon, replied, ‘Oh yes, in the reign of queen dick,’ which, on inquiry we found to be synonymous with ‘Never,’ or ‘Tib’s eve.’’

To swallow the Dick, verb. phr. (common).—To use long words without knowledge of their meaning; to high falute (American).

Up to Dick, adv. phr. (common).—Not to be ‘taken in’; ‘artful’; ‘fly’; wide-awake. For synonyms, see Downy. Also = up to the mark, i.e., perfectly satisfactory.

1877. J. Greenwood, Under the Blue Blanket. ‘Ain’t that up to dick, my biffin?’ ‘I never said it warn’t.’

1887. Walford’s Antiquarian, April, p. 251. Betwixt you and me I think you’ll agree That of course I look ‘up to Dick.’

Dickens, subs. (old).—The devil (q.v.) or deuce (q.v.); used interchangeably. [A corruption of nick (q.v.).] For synonyms, see Skipper.

1596. Shakspeare, Merry Wives of Windsor, Act III., Sc. ii. I cannot tell what the dickens his name is.

1653. Urquhart, Rabelais, bk. I., prol. (Bohn), vol. I., p. 99. But hearken, joltheads, you vie-dayes, or dickens take ye.

1727. John Gay, Beggar’s Opera, Act I. Sc. 1. Peach. What a dickens is the woman always whimpering about murder for! No gentleman is ever looked upon the worse for killing a man in his own defence.

1754. Foote, Knights, Act II. Mally Pengrouse! Who the dickens is she?

1824. R. B. Peake, Americans Abroad, i., 1. Oh! the dickens—I’m stunded.

1880. G. R. Sims, Zeph. ch. xv. ‘Inez is fretting after Pedro,’ he said to himself, ‘but what the dickens is Totty blubbering about?’

1889. C. Haddon Chambers, Ne’er-do-Well, ‘In Australian Wilds.’ What the dickens could I do? I believe I swore a little at first, and then I flourished my whip.

Dicker, subs. and verb: also Dickering, subs. (American).—Barter; swap (q.v.): generally applied to trade in small articles.