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

ab, subs. 1. (University and school boys’).—An adventitious aid to study; a ‘crib’; a pony (q.v. for synonyms). [From cabbage (q.v.) = pilferings.]

1853. Rev. E. Bradley (‘Cuthbert Bede’). Adventures of Verdant Green. Those who can’t afford a coach get a cab, alias a crib, alias a translation.

1876. Academy, 4 Nov., p. 448, col. 2. The use or translations, ‘cribs,’ or ‘cabs’ as boys call them, must at some time or other engage the serious attention of schoolmasters. [m.]

2. (old).—A brothel: in use during the early part of the present century; now obsolete. [Probably a contracted form of ‘cabin,’ some of the older senses of which (e.g., a small room, bedroom, or boudoir) are in correspondence. Parallels exist in other languages, and comparison may be made with the Fr. cabane, and Sp. cabaña; also with the Latin taberna = cabin, hut, and brothel. The It. bordello (Eng. bordel) was originally precisely equivalent to taberna and cabaña, being a diminutive of borda = cottage, cabin, shed, house of boards. All these words, and many similar (e.g., Latin cella, cellula, the petite maison of the French) came to be applied in the specifically esoteric sense under discussion, by an obvious euphuism or familiarism, which left the nature of the hut, booth, cell, or cabin to be supplied by those who understood. Further, ‘cabin’ = an Eng. rendering of the Latin cella, cellula = brothel. Also Cab-Moll (q.v.), a prostitute, originally the moll or molly of a cabin, cabane, or brothel, the present meaning being a popular misuse founded on a mistaken analysis.] For all synonyms, see Nanny-shop.

1811. Lexicon Balatronicum. Mother, hew many tails have you in your cab? i.e., how many girls have you in your bawdy house?

Verb (colloquial).—1. To proceed from one place to another by means of a cab; Cf., ‘to foot or hoof it,’ ‘to tram it,’ ‘to train it,’ or ‘to ’bus it.’

1836. C. Dickens, Pickwick Papers. He’s a cabbing it, I suppose.

1882. Blackwood’s Magazine, Feb., p. 238, col. 1. He … cabs off to take advice.

2. (schoolboys’).—To pilfer; to use a crib. Cf., Cabbage, verb, of which it is an abbreviation.

Cabbage, subs. (old).—1. Generally applied to pieces purloined by tailors; attributively to any small profits in the shape of material. Quoted by Johnson as ‘a canting term,’ but now recognised. There is little chance of cabbage nowadays, save amongst those who ‘make up gentlemen’s own material’; but the expression is well understood by low-class dressmakers. In America a corresponding term is ‘cold-slaw’ (q.v.) which consists of finely-cut cabbage, and represents the small remnants known in other quarters as ‘carpet-rags’ or cabbage. Cf., Pigeon skewings. The derivation is obscure. Murray traces it back to 1663 (Hudibras [spurious]), but points out that Herrick [1648] apparently uses garbage and carbage for ‘shreds and patches used as padding.’ He then goes on to say that ‘if this was a genuine use at the time, carbage may easily have been corrupted to cabbage.’ This difficulty can, I think, be removed. In the seventeenth century, a style of feminine headdress, then in vogue, very similar to the modern chignon, was called a cabbage. Thus in Mundus Muliebris [1690]:

Behind the noddle every baggage, Wears bundle ‘choux,’ in English cabbage.

Now, if this usage (omitted from the N.E.D.) be compared with the three quotations first following, it would appear (1) that the word cabbage was in use prior to carbage or garbage for ‘shreds and patches’; (2) that carbage and garbage contain a sarcastic reference to the materials with which a woman’s cabbage, or chignon, was stuffed; and (3) that in every quotation the play upon words appears to confirm these contentions. Hence, if cabbage as a mode of dressing the hair was current during the seventeenth century (I have come across no earlier instance), it is possible that the stages of transition were as follows:—

1. Cabbage = a well-known vegetable.

2. = A mode of dressing the hair, in such a form as to resemble a cabbage.

3. = The materials with which such a tire was stuffed.

4. = The shreds and pieces appropriated by tailors and others as perquisites.

There is no evidence in support of such guesses as those in, for example, the quotations dated 1853 and 1886.

1638. Randolph, Hey for Honestey (Old Play). Tailor. Nay, he has made me sharper than my needle; makes me eat my own cabbage.

1648. Herrick, Hesperides (Hazl.), I., 79. Upon some women, Pieces, patches, ropes of haire, In-laid garbage ev’rywhere.

1648. Herrick, Hesperides (Hazl.). II., 325. Eupez for the outside of his suite has paide; But for his heart, he cannot have it made; The reason is, his credit cannot get The inward carbage for his cloathes as yet.

1663. Hudibras, II., 56. For as tailors preserve their cabbage, So squires take care of bag and baggage.

1742. Charles Johnson, Highwaymen and Pyrates, p. 343. She takes him into Pissing Alley, in Hollywell Street, otherwise called the backside of St. Clement’s in the Strand, so eminently noted for Taylors selling there their cabbage.

1748. T. Dyche, Dictionary (5 ed.). Cabbage (s.) … also a cant word to express anything that is pilfered privately, as pieces of cloth or silk retained by taylors, mantua-makers, or others.

1821. Cobbett, Weekly Register 28 April, col. 219. Taylor, of Charing Cross, will allow of no thumb-piece and of no cabbage.

1853. Notes and Queries, 1 S., viii., 315, col. 2. The term cabbage, by which tailors designate the cribbed pieces of cloth, is said to be derived from an old word ‘cablesh,’ i.e., wind-fallen wood. And their ‘hell’ where they store the cabbage, from helan, to hide.

1886. G. A. Sala, in Ill. Lon. News, 16 Oct., 394, 1. My correspondent’s derivation of cabbage from caboged [caboged = ‘cabossed’ or ‘caboched’ in heraldry, in Fr. cabochée. See Littré] is good; but there is another one, namely, cabas, a basket in which the pickings and stealings of cloth might be hoarded.

The place where cabbage is stored is termed hell (q.v.) or one’s eye (q.v.); these terms, as also goose (q.v.), a smoothing iron, are responsible for much cheap wit. Cf., Makings and Pickings. The Spanish has sisa = ‘a petty theft.’

2. (old).—A tailor; sometimes cabbager, and formerly cabbage-contractor (q.v.). For synonyms, see Button-catcher and Snip.

1690. B. E., Dict. Cant. Crew. Cabbage: a Taylor, and what they pinch from the Cloaths they make up.

1725. New Cant. Dict. Cabbage: Taylors are so called, because of their … Love of that Vegetable. The cloth they steal and purloin … is also called cabbage.

3. (old).—A style of dressing the hair similar to the modern chignon. [For suggested derivation, see sense 1.] Fr. un kilo.

1690. Mundus Muliebris. Behind the noddle every baggage, Wears bundle ‘choux,’ in English cabbage.

4. (schoolboys’).—A translation or ‘crib’; sometimes shortened to cab (q.v., sense 2).

1868. Brewer, Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, p. 129. Cabbage is also a common schoolboy term for a literary crib, or other petty theft.

5. (common).—A cigar. The French have une feuille de platane = a plane-tree leaf; also un crapulos or crapulados, a Hispanization of crapule = filth. For synonyms, see Weed.

1843. Punch’s Almanack, August 12. The cigar dealers, objecting to their lands being cribbed, have made us pay for the cabbage ever since.

1848. Punch, vol. XIV., p. 298. q. Are cigars an English invention? a. No! the cigar is a Spanish article, that has been merely cabbaged by the British manufacturer.

1853. C. S. Calverley, Verses and Translations, p. 141 [ed. 1881], Carmen Sæcularæ. O fumose puer nimuim ne crede Baconi Manillas vocat, hoc prætexit nomine caules.

1889. Ally Sloper’s Half-Holiday, July 6. Last week he offered me a weed—A worse one no man’s lips e’er soiled. ‘No, thanks,’ said, ‘I, know the breed; I much prefer my cabbage boiled.’

6. (venery).—The female pudendum. Cf., Greens. For synonyms, see Monosyllable.

Verb (old).—1. To purloin or pilfer pieces.

1712. Arbuthnot, History of John Bull, pt. I., ch. x. Your tailor, instead of shreds, cabbages whole yards of cloth.

1870. New York Evening Sun, May 24. Report of Speech of Mr Chandler. Let us knock the British crown to flinders; let us arrange for some one or two hundred thousand British graves forthwith, and cabbage the whole boundless continent without any further procrastination.

1882. Notes and Queries, 6 S., vi., 210. But he said, If I cabbage that ring to-night, I shall be all the richer to-morrow.

2. (schoolboys’).—To use a translation or other adventitious aid in preparing exercises; to ‘crib.’

1837. Gen. P. Thompson, Exerc. (1842), IV., 234. A speech, which … had been what schoolboys call cabbaged, from some of the forms of oration … published by way of caricature [m.]

1862. H. Marryat, Year in Sweden, II., 387. Steelyards … sent by Gustaf Wasa as checks upon country dealers, who cabbaged, giving short weight. [m.]

So also cabbaged, ppl. adj., pilfered, or stolen; and cabbaging, verbal subs., pilfering, purloining.

Cabbage-Contractor, subs. (old).—A tailor. [From cabbage (q.v., subs., sense 1) = contractor, a trader.] For synonyms, see Button-catcher and Snip.

Cabbage-Gelder, subs. (old).—A greengrocer or market gardener.—A.B.C. of a New Dictionary of Flash, Cant, and Slang [1866].

Cabbage-Head, subs. (popular).—A fool; a soft-head; a ‘go-along.’ For synonyms generally, see Buffle, and more particularly infra.

English Synonyms. Blockhead; chuckle-head; chowder-head; cod’s-head; chump or chump of wood; dunderhead; flat; go-along; goosecap; green-lander; gulpin; juggins; thick-head; lights; loony; looby; lubber; mooney; mug; muggins; muff; ninny-hammer; nincompoop; nizzie; pigeon; sawney; Simon, or Simple Simon; slow-coach; soft-horn; sop; Tom Tug. To which may be added ‘cupboard-headed,’ ‘half-boiled,’ ‘not all there,’ and ‘off one’s chump,’ used also of one not compos mentis; a thick (Winchester College).

French Synonyms. Une tête de pioche (popular: pioche = pickaxe or mattock); un poulet d’Inde (popular: poule d’Inde = turkey-hen); un couillé (popular); un paroissien de Saint Pierre aux bœufs (popular); un noc (popular = a ‘juggins’); un loffiat (popular: this is formed from a species of French back slang, lof = fol reversed. On the same lines we get la loffitude = ‘stupidity’ or ‘nonsense’; bonisseur de loffitudes = ‘a nonsense monger’; also solliceur de loffitudes = ‘a journalist’); un Jean-bête (common: Cf., English ‘Johnnie’ and ‘Jack’); barré (= cabbage-headed); une vieille bouillote (popular); une bourriche (popular: ‘a hamper’); une badouille (popular: also = ‘a hen-pecked husband’); être déboulonné (popular: literally = ‘unpinned’ or ‘unbolted’); un fifilolo (popular); un daim (popular); être de la tribu des Bênicoco (military); être du 14 bénédictins (popular); une bestiasse (this term has passed into the language); bête comme chou (= ‘extremely stupid’); bête comme un pôt (= a perfect ass); bête comme ses pieds (= an arrant fool); un abruti or ahuri de Chaillot (popular: Chaillot, in the suburbs of Paris, is a common butt, much as are Hanwell, Colney Hatch, etc.; abrutir = ‘to stupify, to besot, to imbrute’); une tête de boche (common: = a wooden head; also a German); un bidon de zinc (military = ‘a can’ or ‘flask’); un cul or cul d’âne (popular: cul d’âne = ‘the rump of an ass’; Cf., English ‘ass’); un cantaloup (popular: literally a melon); un cube (a ‘regular idiot’); un canarie; être un c (a euphemistic phrase); un busard or buson or une buse (an allusion to the stupidity of the buzzard); une couenne (popular: = ‘pig-skin.’ ‘Est-il couenne!’ ‘What an ass!’); un coquardeau; un couillon (popular: a cullion, used in friendly jocularity = abashed, crestfallen, and above all idiotic); un espèce de cafouilleux (popular = ‘a bally bounder’); un arguche (thieves’); battre comtois (thieves’ = to play the fool); un baveux (a driveller: one who does not know what he is talking about); un boniface (popular); n’avoir pas cassé la patte à coco (thieves’ = ‘as big a bloody mug as they make ’em’).

Spanish Synonyms. Asnazo (m; properly ‘a big jackass’); asno (m); bambarria (m; also = an accidental but successful stroke at billiards, ‘a fluke’); bobalias (m; a colloquialism for ‘a very stupid fellow’); borro (m; properly a wether not two years old); echacantos (m); gentil hombre de placer (= ‘a buffoon’ or ‘clown’); guillote (m; literally a husbandman, one who enjoys the produce of a farm. Cf., ‘joskin’); Juan lanas (vulgar); mamacallos or mamaluco (m); naranjo (m; properly the citrus aurantium); pandero (m; also ‘a timbrel’); pinchauvas (m = a despicable person); porra (f); es un solemne bobo (‘he is a downright booby’); zamacuco.

Portuguese Synonyms.—Bamburrio; macacada; tauso; pãosinho.

1682. Mrs. Behn, False Count (1724), III., 146. Thou foul, filthy cabbage-head. [m.]

1862. Lowell, Biglow Papers, II., 228. For take my word for ’t, when all’s come and past, The Cabbage-heads ’ll cair the day at last.

c. 1880. Broadside Ballad, ‘Right before the missis too.’ I’ve had a dreadful row All through a chum named Tommy Sheen, I ought to call him cabbage-head, He is so very green.

Cabbage-Leaf, subs. (common).—A bad cigar; usually contracted into cabbage (q.v., subs., sense 5). [From a popular theory of material.] In French un infectados by a play upon words in two languages, infect, Fr. = more than common, vile, and infectar, Sp. = ‘to infect’ or ‘be infected’. For synonyms, see Weed.

Cabbage Plant, subs. (old).—An umbrella; gamp (q.v.); or brolly.

Cabbager, subs. (common).—A tailor. [From cabbage (q.v., subs., sense 1) + er.] For synonyms, see Button-catcher and Snip.

Cabbage-Stumps, subs. (common).—The legs. For synonyms, see Drumsticks.

Cabbage-Tree Mob, subs. (Australian). Old for what are now called Larrikins (q.v.). [Derived from the low-crowned cabbage-palm hat affected by this section of Australian society.] Cabbagites was an alternative.

18(?). Lieut.-Col. Munday, Our Antipodes. Loafers known as the cabbage-tree mob, a class whom, in the spirit of the ancient tyrant, one might excusably wish had but one nose in order to make it a bloody one. Ibid. Unaware of the propensities of the cabbagites, he was by them furiously assailed.

Cabby, subs. (colloquial).—A cabman. [From cab + y.] Amongst French equivalents are une hirondelle (properly = ‘a swallow’); un maraudeur (i.e., ‘a marauder,’ one who plies without a license; Cf., Pirate (q.v.), as applied to omnibuses.)

1852. F. E. Smedley, Lewis Arundel, ch. xxxiii. I was forced to offer him a seat in the cab, but he coolly replied, ‘No, thank ye … I’ll sit beside cabby.’

1864–5. Yates, Broken to Harness, II., p. 41. Easy, cabby; we don’t want to be thrown into the very midst of the aristocracy.

1890. Standard, Feb. 11, p. 3, col. 1. There was a Vienna cabby with his jolly red face and his professional impudence.

Cable, verb (popular).—To send a telegram by ocean (submarine) wire.

To slip or cut one’s cable, subs. phr. (nautical).—To die. For exhaustive lists of synonymous terms, see Aloft and Hop the twig.

Cable-Hanger, subs. (nautical).—Explained by quotations.

1724–7. Defoe, Tour thro’ G. Britain (ed. 1748), I., 150. Persons who dredge or fish for oysters, not being free of the fishery, are called cable-hangers, and are prosecuted and punished by the Court.

1867. Smyth, Sailors’ Word Book. Cable-hanger, a person catching oysters, in the River Medway, not free of the fishery.

Cab-Moll, subs. (old).—A prostitute addicted professionally to cabs and trains. [From cab (q.v., sense 2) + moll (q.v.), a strumpet.] For synonyms, see Barrack-hack and Tart.

Cabobbled, ppl. adj. (nautical).—Confused; puzzled; perplexed.

Caboodle, subs. (American).—A crowd; generally ‘the whole caboodle.’ [Thought to be an enlarged form of boodle which is frequently used in the same sense, and which is supposed by some to be derived from the old English bottel, a bundle (Fr. botel, boteau. Ger. beutel.). See, however, Boodle, subs., sense 1. Another derivation is from the Spanish cabildo, a provincialism for the corporation of a town.] Caboodle is general throughout the States, and has now almost completely supplanted boodle (q.v.), which is usually applied in a different sense. Sometimes caboose (q.v.)

1858. New Orleans Picayune, 23 Feb. The whole caboodle came out and fell upon me, till I was as soft as a squash, and then they took me up for fighting.

1887. Scribner’s Magazine. Ye’ve got ter have faith in Goddie-mighty then, sure, a-swingin’ up an’ down them mount’n-sides, dark nights or bright, when a rock on the track f’om a landslide ’ud fling the whole caboodle down the mount’n an inter kingdom come afo’ you’d know it.

Caboose, subs. (American).—Generally applied to convivial quarters; also to a bachelor’s snuggery—a den (q.v.) or diggings (q.v.). [Properly a ship’s cook-house or galley; and in the United States, a car on a freight train for workmen, or for a special purpose.]

The whole caboose, phr. (nonce expression).—Obviously a variation of caboodle (q.v.).

1870. London Figaro, 19 Oct. ‘After the Fire.’ In this room, sir, said my gallant conductor, lived a bricklayer with his wife and two kids. He made that hole in the wall, and got ’em safe through—the whole caboose on ’em; and a jolly good job he did.

Cacafuego, subs. (old).—A spitfire; braggart; bully. [From the Latin cacare through the Spanish cagar, ‘to void excrement,’ + Spanish fuego, fire.] This word, once literary, has long fallen into desuetude. It was regarded as vulgar after the middle of the last century, and thereafter was only included in slang dictionaries.

1625. Fletcher, Fair Maid, III., i. She will be ravisht before our faces, by rascalls and cacafugos, wife, cacafugoes. [m.]

1696. Phillips. Cacafuego, a Spanish word signifying Shitéfire; and it is used for a bragging, vapouring fellow. [m.]

1725. New Cant. Dict. [s.v.]

1811. Lexicon Balatronicum. Cacafeugo. A sh-te-fire, a furious braggadocio or bully huff.

Cachunk! intj. (American).—Onomatopœic—the ‘bow-wow’ word of Max Müller—belonging to a class of exclamations intended to convey an imitation of the sound of a falling body. Uncertain as regards orthography they are largely affected in the Southern and Western States. Mainly of recent origin, though two, keswollop and kewhollux rare in the States, are not unfamiliar to English ears. Examples are:—Caswash; Cawhalux; Chewallop; Casouse; Cathump; Kerplunk; Katouse; Katoose; Kelumpus; Kerchunk; Kerplunk; Kerswosh; Kerslosh; Kerswollop; Kerblinkityblunk; and Kerblam.

Cackle, subs. (theatrical).—1. The dialogue of a play; especially used at first, of the patter of clowns, etc., in a circus. [From the figurative usage of cackle, to make a noise as a hen after laying an egg, a usage traceable as far back as 1225.]

1887. Referee, 21 August, p. 2, col. 3. Those [playgoers] who do not insist upon a very high order of literary quality in the cackle.

2. (colloquial).—Idle, inconsequent, noisy chatter.

1676. A. Rivetus, Jun. Mr. Smirke, 18. Bedawb’d with Addle Eggs of the Animadverters own Cackle.

1887. Punch, 10 Sept., p. 111. If a feller would tackle a feminine fair up to Dick, he ’as got to be dabs at the cackle.

Verb (old).—To talk idly, especially in the sense of telling secrets. For synonyms, see Peach.

1785. Grose, Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue. The cull is leaky and cackles; the rogue tells all.

1882. Punch, LXXXII., 177, 2. The old jokers in scarlet and erming who lounge in their red bedroom-chairs, And the cinder-wig’d toffs in alpaca who cackle and give themselves airs.

Cackle-Chucker, subs. (theatrical).—A prompter. [From cackle, the dialogue of a play, + chucker, one who throws out (from the mouth).]

Cackle-Merchant, subs. (theatrical).—A dramatic author. [From cackle, the dialogue of a play, + merchant. Cf., Caper-merchant, a dancing-master.]

Cackler, subs. (old).—1. A fowl. [From cackle (q.v.) + er.]—See also Cackling cheat.

1673. R. Head, Canting Acad., 192. A Prigger of the Cacklers.

1730–6. Bailey. Cackler … a humorous word for capons or fowl.

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

1811. Lexicon Balatronicum. Cackler: a hen.

2. (colloquial).—A noisy talker; a ‘blab.’—See Cackle, verb.

1400. Cov. Myst., 131. Kytt Cakelere and Colett Crane. [m.]

1598. Florio, Gracchione … a chatter, a cackler. [m.]

1730–6. Bailey, Cackler: a Prater, a Tell-tale, a noisy Person.

1878. Browning, Poets of Croisic, 92. If they dared Count you a cackler.

3. (circus and showmen’s).—An actor or showman who has a speaking part.

1854. Dickens, Hard Times, bk. I., ch. vi., p. 14 (H. ed.). ‘He has his points as a Cackler still … a speaker, if the gentleman likes it better.’

Cackler’s-Ken, subs. (old).—A hen-roost; a fowl-house. [From cackler (q.v., subs., sense 1), a fowl, + ken (q.v.), a place or house.] A French thieves’ equivalent is une ornière (from ornie, a hen).

Cackle-Tub, subs. (old).—A pulpit. [From cackle (q.v.) + tub, in allusion to the shape of old-fashioned pulpits.] For synonyms, see Hum-box.

1888. Musgrave, Savage London. I sorter think if yer’ll borrow Lucy’s chair to wheel me, I’ll go and sit under the cackle-tub in Little Bethel next Sunday.

Cackling-Cheat or Chete, subs. (old).—A fowl. [From cackling, that cackles, + cheat, From A.S. ceat, a thing.]—See Cheat.

English Synonyms. Beaker; cackler; margery prater; galeny; partlet; chickabiddy; rooster; chuck-chuck; chuckie.

French Synonyms. Un becquant (a thieves’ term); un ornichon (also a thieves’ term for a chicken); un pique-en-terre (literally ‘a peck-the-ground’); une estable or une estaphle (thieves’); bruantez (Breton slang).

German Synonyms. Kachni (from the Gypsy); mistkratzer.

Italian Synonyms. Ruspante or raspante (properly ‘scratching’ or ‘scraping’).

Spanish Synonyms. Capiscol (this, and indeed all the terms here given from the Germania, refer to the cock-bird. Capiscol = Fr. caporal); obispo (properly a bishop); rey (literally king).

1567. Harman, Caveat, p. 86. She has a cackling-chete, a grunting-chete, ruff pecke, cassan, and poplarr of yarum.

1622. Fletcher, Beggar’s Bush, v. 1. Or surprising a boor’s ken for grunting-cheats? Or cackling-cheats?

1785. Grose, Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue. Cackling-cheats (cant): fowls.

1811. Lexicon Balatronicum. Cackling cheats: Fowls (cant).

Cackling-Cove, subs. (theatrical and common).—An actor. [From cackling (see Cackle, subs., sense 1) + cove, an old canting term for a man.]

English Synonyms. Mummery-cove; mug-faker; mummer; mugger (properly an actor who makes free play with his face); tragedy or comedy merchant; pro; stroller; cackle-faker; barn-stormer; surf.

French Synonyms. Un prètre (thieves’: literally ‘a priest’: a curious sidelight on the views concerning religious orders of the criminal classes); un raze or razi pour l’af (thieves’: raze or razi = priest; and affe in old French cant signified ‘life’ or ‘the soul,’ but latterly eau d’affe = ‘brandy.’ There seems, however, little connection between either of these readings and the example under consideration); un Egyptien (theatrical: a term applied to a bad or inferior actor); un acteur-guitare (a term specially applied to one who elicits applause in lacrymose scenes only—an actor with only one string to his bow); un enleveur (theatrical: one who plays in such a way as to enlever la salle, i.e., ‘to bring down the house’); une doublure (an understudy); un cab, cabot, or cabotin, (used mainly in contempt, much in the same way as ‘mummer.’ Cabotinage is the life of hardship led by strolling players, and thence, by derivation, the life of the ‘profession’ generally); un brûleur de planches (theatrical: a spirited or restless actor); un acteur brûlé (popular: one that has had his day); un bouch trou (theatrical: an understudy or stop-gap); un bouleur or une bouleuse (a substitute, or understudy); un misloquier or une misloquière (thieves’); un nom (theatrical: ‘a star’).

Cackling-Fart, subs. (old).—An egg. [From cackling (see Cackle) + fart (q.v.) a discharge of wind through the anus.] A variant in English is hen-fruit; Fr. un avergot (thieves’); the Breton cant has bruant, whilst in the German Gaunersprache is found Dickmann (also = the penis and testes); the Fourbesque has arbifi and alberto (the latter from the Italian albo, white).

Cad, subs. (popular).—A term of contempt now generally applied to an offensively ill-bred person, irrespective of social position. Formerly used of underlings and others performing menial offices. [Murray favours its origin in cadet and the popular forms cadee and caddie. See, however, Cadator, the quotations under which appear to suggest a collateral, if an independent origin. Some regard the word as a contraction of ‘cadger’; whilst others trace it to the Scotch ‘cadie’ or ‘caddie,’ an errand boy—now an attendant at golf; or to the slang University sense of the word, a non-member]. The vocable has passed through a variety of meanings.

1. Passengers taken up by coach drivers for their own profit. [m.]

2. (obsolete).—A chum or companion.

3. (old).—An assistant.

4. (old).—An omnibus conductor.

1833. Hood, Sk. fr. Road. Though I am a cad now, I was once a coachman. [m.]

1836. Dickens, Pickwick, ch. xxxiii., p. 279. He paused, and contemplated, with a face of great calmness and philosophy, the numerous cads and drivers of short stages who assemble near that famous place of resort [the Mansion-House].

1851–61. H. Mayhew, London Lab. and Lon. Poor, vol. III., p. 355. The conductor, who is vulgarly known as the cad, stands on a small projection at the end of the omnibus.

5. A messenger or errand boy.

1835. T. Hook, Gilbert Gurney, ch. vii. I will appear to know more of you than one of the cads of the thimble-rig knows of the pea-holder.

1839. T. Hood, Miss Kilmansegg, p. 230. Not to forget that saucy lad (Ostentation’s favourite cad), The page, who looked so splendidly clad.

1843. J. Hewlett, College Life, I., p. 115. Webb’s boy, who went as cad with the dog.

6. (University and public schools’).—A contemptuous term applied to non-school or non-University men. At Cambridge snob, the word Thackeray used, has long been a common term for a townsman; now the undergrad says Townee or Towner (q.v.). The German analogue is Philister. Dr. Günther (Jena and its Environs) tells that of the old towers and gates which formed the entrance to Jena, the square one to the west alone remains; and is remarkable not only for its prison, called ‘The Cheese-Basket,’ but for four images of monkeys’ heads carved at the several corners of the gate itself. In a quarrel between students and townsfolk in the vicinity of the Johannis-Thor, the former dubbed the watchmen there ‘the monkey watchmen.’ The guard vowed vengeance, and one evening killed a student who had taken no part in the disturbance. The ecclesiastical superintendent, Götz, preached a sermon at the boy’s funeral from Judges xvi. 20, ‘The Philistines be upon thee, Samson!’ and that night his text was heard in the street, Philister über dir Samson! ‘Henceforward the citizens were called ‘Philister’ by the students; and, the name being exported to the other Universities, it came at length to be applied to burgher folk throughout Germany.’ According to some this fight occurred in 1693. For synonyms, see Rank outsider.

1831. Hone, Year Book, 670. Preceded by one or two bands of music in two boats, rowed by cads.

1856. Rev. E. Bradley (‘Cuthbert Bede’), Adventures of Verdant Green, I., p. 117. And I can chaff a cad.

1860. Macmillan’s Mag., March p. 327. You don’t think a gentleman can lick a cad, unless he is the biggest and strongest of the two.

1873. Saturday Review, September, p. 305. At Oxford the population of the University and city is divided into ‘Dons, men and cads.’

7. (general).—A vulgar, ill-mannered person; a blackguard, i.e., a person incapable of moral decency. For synonyms, see Snide.

1849. Charles Kingsley, Alton Locke. ‘The cads,’ ‘the snobs,’ ‘the blackguards,’ looked on with a dislike, contempt, and fear which they were not backward to return.

1860. Thackeray, Lovell the Widower, p. 245. There’s a set of cads in that club that will say anything.

1880. Punch’s Almanack, 12. Lor’ if I’d the ochre, make no doubt I could cut no end of big-pots out. Call me a cad? When moneys in the game, cad and swell are pooty much the same.

1882. F. Anstey, Vice Versâ, ch. vii. Perhaps your old governor has been making a cad of himself then, and you’re out of sorts with him.

1889. Answers, Feb. 23, p. 205, col. 3. You wouldn’t care to know Goodfellow, Miss Smart; he’s awfully bad form—a regular cad, you know.

Cadator, subs. (old).—A beggar in the character of a decayed gentleman.

1703. Ward, London Spy, pt. I., p. 7. He is one of those gentile [? genteel] Mumpers, we call Cadators; he goes a Circuit round England once a year, and under Pretence of a decay’d gentleman, gets both Money and Entertainment at every good House he comes at.

ed. 1760. T. Brown, Works, II., 179. You … sot away your time in Mongo’s fumitory, among a parcel of old smoak-dry cadators.

Caddie, subs. (Scots).—An attendant at golf.

1889. Scots Observer, Feb. Oh, my Caddie, my Caddie ye’re a vera intelligent laddie. But I dinna like yer grinnin When I’m no exactly winnin’.

Caddish, adj. (popular).—Vulgar; offensively ill-bred. [From Cad (q.v., sense 7) + ish.]

1869. Shirley Brooks, Sooner or Later, II., p. 31. ‘Well I don’t care about walking on Sundays. Religious scruples, perhaps.’ ‘I should think not. But it seems so caddish—like snobs who can go out on no other day.’

1872. Civilian, Aug. 10. There are many sorts of Ministerial insolence at present ‘on view’ in the House of Commons. Mr. Ayrton’s is coarse and caddish, the Attorney-General’s contemptuously courteous, and Mr. Lowe’s cynically and facetiously insulting.

1874. E. L. Linton, Patricia Kemball, ch. xx. ‘However, I have brought you here to reason, not to wrangle,’ he continued more quietly; ‘and wrangling is caddish.’

Cade, subs. (society).—The Burlington Arcade. [An abbreviated form of ‘Arcade.’] Cf., The Zoo for ‘the Zoological gardens,’ The Proms. for ‘the Promenade Concerts,’ The Pops. for ‘the Monday Popular Concerts,’ and The Cri. for the ‘Criterion Bar.’ Somewhat older examples are The Lane (q.v.) and The House (q.v.).

Cadge, subs. (vulgar).—The profession of cadging or begging.—See verbal sense.

1812. J. H. Vaux, Flash Dictionary. The cadge is the game or profession of begging.

1832–53. Whistle-Binkie (Sc. Songs), Ser. II., 68. He could ‘lay on the cadge’ better than ony walleteer that e’er cost a pock o’er his shouther.

Verb tr. and intr.—To obtain by begging; to beg. Now applied to vagrants and others who solicit in an artful wheedling manner. [A comparatively modern derivative. Cadger (Scots) a pedlar or carrier, i.e., one who strolls the country with his stock-in-trade in a cadge, i.e., a panier or basket for the carriage of small wares. Cf., ‘to beg,’ from ‘bag.’] Hence said of anyone who lives by sponging on another, or who gets a livelihood without giving a proper quid pro quo. For example, a waiter when hanging about for ‘a tip’ is said to be cadging or ‘on the cadge.’ Among intimates To Cadge a dinner or supper is now often used without implied reproach.

1811. Lexicon Balatronicum. Cadge the swells, beg of the gentlemen.

1846. Lytton, Lucretia, II., xii. ‘I be’s good for nothin’ now, but to cadge about the streets and steal and filch. [m.]

1848. E. Farmer, Scrap Book (ed. 6), 115. Let each cadge a trifle.

1866. G. A. Sala, Trip to Barbary. ch. xiv. Thumping the tom-tom, and cadging for coppers.

1833. Daily Telegraph, Feb. 8, p. 3, col. 1. ‘It’s as bad a’ most as drawing peoples’ teeth to cadge a trifle off them in such winter months as we’ve had since the Autumn broke.’

English Synonyms. To mump; to pike; to mouch; to stand the pad; to maund; to tramp; to mike.

French Synonyms. Bettander (thieves’); aller à la chasse avec un fusil de toile (popular: literally ‘to go hunting with a canvas gun,’ an allusion to the necessary wallet or bag); bellander (tramps’; Cf., bettander; possibly some confusion has arisen between these two terms); balauder (tramps’); truquer de la pogne (tramps’); trucher (Old Cant, from truc, any kind of open air small trade or artifice. The word appears in various French, Italian and Spanish dialects, whilst Méril in his Dictionnaire du pâtois Normand allies it with the English ‘trick’); tendre la demi-aune (popular: demi-aune = the arm); cameloter (popular: meaning also to sell, cheapen, or tramp); faire le coup de manche, or faire la manche (to call at people’s houses); mendigoter (popular).

German Synonyms. Abgeilen (to get by begging. From the O.H.G. gil); abschnurren (to beg through a lane, town, or province; also = to take to one’s heels; M.H.G. snurren, schnurren (q.v., infra) and Schnurrant, a beggar musician); bimmeln (Bimmler, Bummler, a beggar or vagrant); benschen (a corruption of the Latin benedicere = to say grace after meat; from praying to begging is but a step); paternellen (perhaps, like the foregoing, a formation, from the Latin pater noster, signifying to say much pater); noppeln (vagrants’); Schnurren, schnorren, snurren, (from the O.H.G. snurren, to grind, to grind out music on a hurdy-gurdy [q.v.], or to grind out prayers. A beggar or vagrant is termed Schnurrer, Schnorrer, or Snurrer = a grinder. Auf die Pille schnurren = to beg by feigning epileptic fits; auf Serffleppe schnurren = to beg on the pretence of having been ‘burnt out’; Schnurrpilsel, Schnurrscheye, Scenurrschicksel, Schurrkeibelche, and Schnurrmädchen, are epithets for very young girls who are beggars or strumpets as occasion fits; the dual occupation being known as Kommistarchenen and Hemdenschnurren); tarchenen, targenen, dörgen, dorchen (‘to beg’ or ‘to hawk.’ The derivation is obscure, but it is possibly to be found in the Hebrew tirgel, ‘to teach to walk’ or ‘to guide the foot.’ Others trace it to the O.H.G. Turg, ‘uncertain’ or to storgen from Störger, ‘a wandering quack.’ The Fiesellange, or Viennese thieves’ lingo, has Tarchener as equivalent to Kegler, a kitchen thief); linkstappeln (to beg or collect money under false pretences; see Linkstappler under cadger); prachern (probably from the Hebrew berocha, a blessing: wandering beggars generally introducing themselves with some sort of a benediction); Schnallendrücken gehen, or auf Schnallen, drücken gehen (these terms also signify to walk the streets as a prostitute. Schnalle = untruth, cheating, deception, and the female pudendum); stabeln, stappeln, and stapeln (the first of these forms is peculiar to Vienna, and all are traceable to Stiban or Stap, the Anglo-Saxon staff. The meaning is to go with a begging staff, generally with a pretence of having seen better days); dalfen and dalfern (the corresponding noun Dalfon = a poor fellow, is supposed to be derived from Dalfon, the only one of the ten sons of Haman, whose name had not the letter aleph either at the beginning or end of it [Esther ix. 7–9]. The story goes that because of this he was not only hanged, but mocked into the bargain: the feast in commemoration of Haman’s fall being essentially a merrymaking. Thenceforth, a poor man became a Dalfon); deufen gehen = to go begging with the intention of committing a robbery. Cf., O.H.G. Diufa, Deube = theft; fechten, Viennese thieves’ lingo).

Italian Synonyms. Truccare (identical with the French truquer q.v.); Santocchiare (also = ‘to say one’s prayers’); calcheggiare (also = to steal).

Cadge-Cloak or Gloak, subs. (old).—A beggar. For synonyms, see Cadger.

1791. Carew, Life and Adventures of Bamphylde-Moore Carew. Cadge-cloak, curtal, or curmudgeon; no Whip-Jack, palliard, patrico … nor any other will I suffer.

Cadger, subs. (common).—Primarily a carrier, pedlar, or itinerant dealer; now mainly applied to a whining beggar; also, occasionally, a ‘sponger,’ snide (q.v.), or ‘mean man’ (see quots.). [From cadge (q.v.) + er.]

English Synonyms. Abram man; croaker, Abraham cove; Tom of Bedlam; Bedlam beggar; maunderer, moucher; pikey; traveller; turnpike, or dry land sailor; scoldrum; shyster; Shivering James; silver beggar; skipper-bird; mumper; paper-worker; goose-shearer; master of the black art; durrynacker.

French Synonyms. Un trucheur, or un trucheux (Old Cant, from truc, which see under Cadge); un marcandier or une marcandière (thieves’; a variety of the mendicant tribe which is described in le Jargon de l’Argot as ‘those who journey with a great purse by their side, with a pretty good coat, and a cloak on their shoulders, pretending they have met with robbers who have stolen all their money’); les millards. (Old Cant); un bêcheur; une comète (popular: ‘a comet’—one here and there); les callots; un enfant de la loupe (thieves’); un loupiat (popular); un mendigot (thieves’); un lartin (Old Cant).

German Synonyms. Dalfon (see Cadge); Techtbrud (Viennese thieves’); Gomol (from the Hebrew, and used only as a nickname); Hochstappler (a beggar cheat who has seen better days. Cf., Stappler and Linkstappler); Linkstappler (a beggar by means of false papers; a dealer in sham lottery tickets; or a ‘snide’ collector for purposes of charity); Pracher (possibly from the Hebrew berocha, ‘a blessing,’ in allusion to the mumper’s benediction); Schnallendrücker (from Schnalle = ‘an untruth,’ ‘cheating,’ or ‘deception,’ + Trecker, one who pulls); Schnurrer (see under Cadge); Stabeler (see under Cadge); Standjunge (a beggar frequenting markets, fairs, and public processions).

Italian Synonyms. Campagno di calca (campagno = companion or comrade, calca = ‘crowd’); calco (see preceding); corteggiano or cortigiano (literally ‘a courtier’); cavorante di scarpe (literally ‘working shoes’; specially applied to a beggar who is also a pickpocket); granchetto (especially one who patters in flash (q.v.); truccante (also = a thief); guido or guidone (literally ‘a guide’; also = a ‘dog’ or a ‘companion’); incatenato an old and decrepit beggar’s boy-leader. Literally one put up or hung up in chains).

Spanish Synonym. Chita (a nickname for a deformed vagrant or beggar).

1821.—W. T. Moncrieff, Tom and Jerry, Act ii., Sc. 6. Cadgers make holiday, Hey, for the maunder’s joys, Let pious ones fast and pray, They save us the trouble, my boys.

1851.—Mayhew, Lon. Lab. and Lon. Poor, I., 339. A street seller nowadays is looked upon as a ‘cadger,’ and treated as one.

1882.—Daily Telegraph, 5 Oct., p. 3. col. 1. See on a Saturday night, in Whitechapel, the rank hypocritical cadger, whose coarse disguise of cleanness and respectability would scarcely deceive the most foolish persons at the West-end.

1884.—Jas. Greenwood, The Little Ragamuffins. I may here remark that amongst people of my born grade no one is so contemptuously regarded as he who is known as a cadger. The meaning they set on the word is not the dictionary meaning. The cadger with them is the whining beggar, the cowardly impostor, who being driven or finding it convenient to subsist on charity, goes about his business with an affectation of profoundest humility, and a consciousness of his own unworthiness; a sneaking, abject wretch, aiming to crop a meal out of the despising and disgust he excites in his fellow-creatures.

Cadging, verbal subs. (common).—Begging, frequently eked out by petty pilfering. [From cadge (q.v.) + ing.]

1859. H. Kingsley, Geoffrey Hamlyn, ch. xv. I’ve got my living by casting fortins, and begging, and cadging, and such like.

1873. Jas. Greenwood, In Strange Company. But what one in vain looked for was the ‘jolly beggar,’ the oft-quoted and steadfastly believed in personage who scorns work because he can ‘make’ in a day three times the wages of an honest mechanic by the simple process of cadging.

Cady, subs. (common).—A hat. [Derivation unknown.] Sometimes written cadey and caddy. For synonyms, see Golgotha.

1886. The A.B.C. of New Dictionary of Flash, Cant, Slang, etc., p. 85. Caddy: a man’s hat.

1887. Walford’s Antiquarian, April, p. 251. Sixpence I gave for my cadey A penny I gave for my stick.

Caffan.—See Cassan.

Caffre’s Lightener, subs. (South African).—A full meal. Fr. une lichance (from licher = lécher, ‘to lick’).

1864. Lady Duff Gordon. Letters from the Cape. I asked him [a young black shepherd at the Cape] to sing; and he flung himself at my feet, in an attitude that would make Watts crazy with delight, and crooned queer little mournful ditties. I gave him sixpence and told him not to get drunk. He said, ‘Oh, no! I will buy bread enough to make my belly stiff; I almost never had my belly stiff.’ He likewise informed me that he had just been in the tronk [Cape Dutch slang for a prison, answering to the English stone jug], and, on my asking why, replied, ‘Oh, for fighting and telling lies.’

Cage, subs. (old).—1. A minor kind of prison for petty malefactors; a country ‘lock-up.’ [From cage, a place of confinement for birds, beasts, and, formerly, human beings.] Once in literary use; now thieves’ slang.

1500. Lancelot, 2767. As cowart thut schamfully to ly Excludit in to cage from chewalry. [m.]

1593. Shakspeare, II. Henry VI., iv., 2. Dick. Ay, by my faith, the field is honorable, and there he was born, under a hedge; for his father had never a house but the cage.

1748. T. Dyche, Dictionary (5 ed). Cage (s): a place of confinement for thieves or vagrants that are taken up by the watch in the night-time, to secure them till the proper officer can carry them before a magistrate.

1815. Scott, Guy Mannering, ch. liii. I was doomed—still I kept my purpose in the cage and in the stocks.

1839. Harrison Ainsworth, Jack Sheppard [1882], p. 78. The cage at Willesden was, and is—for it is still standing—a small round building about eight feet high, with a pointed tiled roof, to which a number of boards inscribed with the names of the parish officers, and charged with a multitude of admonitory notices to vagrants and other disorderly persons, are attached.

1841. Punch, vol. I., p. 3. ‘A synopsis of voting.’ He who is incited into an assault, that he may be put into the cage.

English Synonyms. For a prison generally, academy; boat; boarding-house; bower; block-house; bastille; bladhunk; stone-jug; jug; calaboose; cooler; coop; downs; clink; jigger; Irish theatre; quod; shop; stir; clinch; steel; sturrabin; mill; toll shop; floating hell; floating academy; dry room; House that Jack Built; choakee.

Among special names for particular prisons may be mentioned Bates’s Farm or Garden (Cold Bath Fields); Akerman’s Hotel (Newgate); Castieu’s Hotel (Melbourne Gaol); Burdon’s Hotel (White Cross Street Prison); Ellenborough Lodge, Spike or Park (the King’s Bench Prison, to which, as a matter of fact, every Chief Justice stood god-father); Campbell’s Academy (the Hulks); City College and Whittington’s College (Newgate); Tench; Pen; and Smith’s Hotel (Edinburgh).

French Synonyms. Le castue (thieves’); la caruche (thieves’); la boîte aux cailloux (thieves’); cailloux = stones; Cf., ‘stone jug’; le collège (thieves’: Newgate at one time was called the City College); la cage (popular); le château (thieves’: literally a castle, château de l’ombre = a convict settlement); la chambre de sûreté (the parish prison of the Conciergerie); le chetard (thieves’); le canton (thieves’: according to Ménage in his Dictionnaire Etymologique, the original sense of this word is the same as coin. From canton has been derived the verb, cantonner, a military term signifying the billetting of troops in one or more villages); en ballon (popular: in prison); la grosse boîte (thieves’: literally the big box); la bonde (thieves’: a central prison); la Biscaye (thieves’); l’abbaye de sots bougres (thieves’: obsolete = The Silly Bugger’s Arms); le bloc (a military prison or cell, Cf., block-house); la dure (thieves’: a central prison, dur is properly hard, merciless, obdurate); la femme de l’adjudant (a military lock-up, jigger, or Irish theatre; literally the adjutant’s wife); la bagnole (popular: a diminutive of bagne, of the same meaning); la motte (thieves’: a central prison or house of correction); l’hôpital (thieves’: a man in durance is un malade = a patient); la mitre (thieves’: a corruption of mithridate, the name of a certain ointment; mitre formerly meant ‘itch’); le jetar (military; the same as chetar); l’ours (common: a term given to a prison, guard-room, or cell); la boîte à violon (a lock-up at a police-station; violon itself signifies a prison, the barred windows being compared to the strings of that instrument. Argot and Slang says:—The lingo terms jouer de la harpe, to be in prison, and jouer du violon, to file through the window bars of a cell, seem to bear out this explanation. Some philologists, however, think that the stocks being termed psaltérion, mettre an psaltérion, to put in the stocks, became synonymous with ‘to imprison,’ the expression being superseded in time by mettre au violon when that instrument itself superseded the psaltérion); la tuneçon (Old Cant); l’austo (a military prison); le lycée (thieves’: = ‘academy’); l’école préparatoire (pop.: a preparatory school for young thieves); le lazaro (military: = lazar-house, or ‘spike’); le mazaro (military: = cells); la matatane (military: ‘a guard room’ or the cells); le loustaud (thieves’); la lorcefé (thieves’: the old prison of La Force); le loir (thieves’ = ‘dormouse’); l’hosto (soldiers’ and thieves’: also popularly, ‘a house or crib’); la grotte (thieves’: the hulks. Properly a grotto or crypt); l’hôtel des haricots (familiar: from the staple of diet, Cf., Ger. Erbsien and Graupenpalais); la morte paye sur mer (obsolete: the hulks); l’ombre (popular: = ‘shade,’ Cf., Ger. Kühle); la maze (abbreviation of Mazas, a central prison in Paris); là-bas (prostitutes: St. Lazare; thieves’: the convict settlement at New Caledonia, or in Cayenne); la malle (military: Cf., English ‘box’).

German Synonyms. Antoniklosterl (Viennese thieves’ = a prison in Vienna); Drillbajis or Drillhaus (a house of drill or correction); Echetel (Viennese thieves’); Erbsien (Viennese thieves’: from the staple of diet—Erbsen = peas. Cf., Graupenpalais); Graupenpalais (a prison in Berlin, from the staple of diet—barley); Grannigebais (Granigire Marochum = a fortress); Gymnasium (Cf., college, academy, lycée); Kaan or Kân (from the Hebrew; im Kaan scheften, to be in prison); Kue or Kuh (in die Kue sperren; to imprison); Kitt or Kittchen (from the Hebrew Kisse = a chair, throne, roof, common lodging-house, brothel, workhouse, and prison); Kille (literally an assembly); Kühle (im Kühlen sitzen, literally to sit in the ‘cooler’ or in the shade; Cf., être à l’ombre, and ‘to be under a cloud’); Leck (Viennese thieves’ M.H.G., luken, to lock up); Mifzer (Hebrew pozar, a fortress or prison); Schofelbajis (from the Hebrew schophal, bad, common, low, or unfortunate. Also a brothel); Stube (this, according to Zimmermann, signifies a prison); Tallesmasky (Hanoverian: from tallo, gallows, + masky from Maskopei, society, i.e., gallows-birds); T’fise (from the Hebrew tophas).

Italian Synonyms. Basta; casa (a house. The forms casaccia and cazanza are also used); cavagna; travagliosa (literally laborious); sentina (properly a sink of vice); viscola or visco losa.

Spanish Synonyms. Madrastra; angustias or ansias (literally grief or anguish); banasto (literally a large round basket); banco (properly a bench); temor (i.e., fear); trena (f).

Portuguese Synonyms. Estarim or xelro; limoeiro (a cant name for a prison in Lisbon).

2. (common).—An ‘improver,’ or bustle. See Bird-cage.

3. (venery).—A bed; also Breeding-cage.

1875. W. E. Henley, Unpublished Ballad. ‘In the breeding cage I cops her, With her stays off, all a’blowin’!—Three parts sprung.’—

4. (parliamentary).—The Ladies’ Gallery in the House of Commons; sometimes called the chamber of horrors, which appertains more properly to the Peeresses’ Gallery in the Upper House.

1870. London Figaro, 10 June. ‘The Angels in the House.’ Mr. Crauford’s Motion for the expulsion of strangers (during the debate on The Contagious (Women’s) Diseases Act) had reference to the cage and not to the Reporters’ Gallery.

Cagg, verb (old military).—Grose says ‘a military term used by the private soldiers, signifying a solemn vow or resolution not to get drunk for a certain time; or, as the term is, till their cagg is out, which vow is commonly observed with the strictest exactness: e.g., “I have cagg’d myself for six months. Excuse me this time, and I will cagg myself for a year.” Common in Scotland, where the vow is performed with divers ceremonies.’

Cag-Mag, subs. (vulgar).—Primarily a provincialism for a tough old goose; now a vulgarism for refuse, or rubbish, or scraps and ends. The transferred sense is older than given in the N.E.D. Cf., Keg-meg. [Brewer derives it, ‘from the Gaelic and Welsh,’ cag magu, whilst others consider it as originally a University slang term for a bad cook, κακὸς μάγειρος. The Latin magma (Pliny), = dregs or dross.] Also a plain or dirty woman.

1769. Pennant, Tour in Scotland, 1774, p. 10. Vast numbers [of geese] are driven annually to London; among them, all the superannuated geese and ganders (called here [Lincoln] cag-mags).

1839.—Comic Almanack, Sept., p. 188, But here’s the greatest grief, and sure it makes one choke to put on A libel to one’s neck, just like cheap cag-mag-scrag of mutton.

1851–61.—H. Mayhew, London Lab. and Lon. Poor, vol. I., p. 133. ‘Do I ever eat my own game if it’s high? No, sir, never, I couldn’t stand such cag-mag.’

1864.—Temple Bar, vol. X., p. 185. No kag-mag wares are sold, no cheap articles are retailed.

Cain. To raise cain, phr. (American).—To proceed to extreme measures; to be quarrelsome; to make a disturbance. Of Western origin; primarily applied to men who would have shown no hesitation in shooting or stabbing; generally = merely disputatious or quarrelsome. Variants are to raise hate, hell, or hell and tommy, and to raise ned (q.v.). [An allusion to the anger of the first fratricide.]

1849.—Ruxton, Scenes in the Far West, p. 117. He had been knocking around all day in every grog-shop and bar-room in town, and when evening came he was seen swaggering down Main Street, his head bare, his eyes bloodshot, and his revolver in hand, shouting: ‘Who’ll hinder this child? I am going to raise Cain! Who’s got anything to say agin it?’

1869.—Mrs. Beecher Stowe, Old Town Folks, p. 116. ‘I’ll tell you what, Solomon Peters,’ said Miss Asphyxia, ‘I’d jest as soon have the red dragon in the Revelation a comin’ down on my house as a boy! If I don’t work hard enough now, I’d like to know, without having a boy around raisin’ gineral Cain.’

Cain and Abel, subs. phr. (rhyming slang).—A table.

Cainsham-Smoke, subs. phr. (old).—The tears of a wife-beaten husband.—Dunton. Ladies’ Dictionary [1694].

Cake or Cakey, subs. (popular).—1. A fool or dullard. Quoted by Grose in his Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue [1785], in various provincial glossaries, and generally colloquial in the lower strata of society. [In punning allusion, some have thought, to the doughy softness of a cake, a name given at first to any ‘flat’ kind of sweetened breadstuff. Hence variants, such, for example, as ‘flat,’ ‘soft,’ and ‘muff.’ Others, however, trace it to the Greek κακὸς, bad, and point out that in University slang a clever man is called a good man and the opposite a bad one, or a cake.] For synonyms, see Buffle and Cabbage-head.

1841. Comic Almanack, ‘Twelfth Night,’ p. 256. And ever since, on fair Twelfth Night, A wand’ring form is seen: A female form, and this its cry:—‘Vy vot a cake I’ve been!’

1842. J. R. Planché, The White Cat, II., iv. Your resignation proves that you must be The greatest cake he in his land could see!

1862. Mrs. H. Wood, Channings, ch. xxix. If Pye does not get called to order now, he may lapse into the habit of passing over hardworking fellows with brains to exalt some good-for-nothing cake with none, because he happens to have a Dutchman for his mother.

2. (American thieves’).—A stupid policeman.

3. subs. (Christ’s Hospital).—A stroke with a cane.

Verb (Christ’s Hospital).—To cane.

To take the cake, phr. (common).—To rank the highest; to carry off the honours; to be the best of a kind; ‘to fill the bill’ (theatrical). [Cake has long been employed symbolically in this connection; in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, ‘to get one’s share of the cake’ was a common colloquialism. The special application has been popularised in the U.S.A. In certain sections of the country ‘cake walks’ are in vogue among the coloured people. The young bucks get themselves up most elaborately, and walk from one end of the hall to the other, under the gaze of beauty and the critical glance of the judges. The marking is done on a scale of numbers, and the ties are walked off with the utmost finish and a rare attention to style. The prize is a cake and the winner takes it.] Whimsical variations are to take or yank the bun; to slide away with the banbury; to annex the whole confectioner’s shop. Cf., to take the kettle = to take the prize for lying.

1885. San Francisco News Letter, Between you ’n me, red stockings ain’t becomin’ to all—ahem—limbs, ’n for cool cheek ’n dash. I back some o’em against any saleslady ’t makes a livin’ by it, the way ’t some o’ those girls ’d pin on a boutonnière took the cake.

Hurry up the cakes! phr. (American) = Look sharp! Buckwheat and other hot cakes form a staple dish at many American tables, but the phrase has now become pure slang.

Like hot cakes, phr. (American).—Quickly; with energy; a variant of like winking, or like one o’clock (q.v.).

1888. Punch’s Library, p. 15. ‘Will go like hot cakes.’ Book Seller (to Clerk). ‘Haven’t we an overstock of “Jack, the Giant Killer,” on hand, James?’ Clerk. ‘Yes, sir.’ Book Seller. ‘Well, take ’m up to the Polo Grounds this afternoon; they’ll sell fast enough there.’

Cakey-Pannum Fencer.—See Pannum fencer.

Calaboose, subs. (American and nautical).—The common gaol. [This word comes into popular use from the Spanish calabozo through the French calabouse.] So also to calaboose = to imprison.

1840. R. H. Dana, Two Years before the Mast, ch. xxi. A few weeks afterwards I saw the poor wretch sitting on the bare ground, in front of the calabozo, with his feet chained to a stake, and handcuffs about his wrists.

1888. Santa Ana Blade. Charley Read struck an old tramp in the calaboose the other day, who looked disgusted at his headquarters and remarked ‘Well I’ve been in every jail from Portland to Santa Ana, but this is the d—nest snide of a calaboose I ever struck yet.’

Calculate, verb (U.S. colloquial).—To think; expect; believe; intend; indeed, almost any sense save the legitimate, which is ‘to estimate by calculation.’ It belongs to the same class of colloquialisms as guess and reckon. Calculate is sometimes, especially in New England, corrupted into cal’late.

1830.—Galt, Lawrie, T., II., v. (1849), 56. I calculate, that ain’t no thing to make nobody afeard.

1848.—J. R. Lowell, Biglow Papers. The Sarjunt he thout Hosea hedn’t gut his i teeth cos he looked a kindo’s though he’d jest come down, so he cal’lated to hook him in, but Hosy woodn’t take none of his sarse.

1851.—Miss Wetherell, Queechy, ch. xix. ‘Your aunt sets two tables, I calculate, don’t she?’

Caleys, subs. (Stock Exchange).—Caledonian Railway Ordinary Stock.

1881.—Atkin, House Scraps. ‘If anything tickles our fancy We buy them, Brums, Caleys or Apes.’

Calf, subs. (colloquial).—An ignoramus; a dolt; a weakling. Cf., Calf lolly. For synonyms, see Buffle and Cabbage-head.

1553.—Udall, Royster D., II., iv., in Hazl. Dodsley, III., 94. You great calf, ye should have more wit, so ye should.

1627.—Drayton, Nymphid (1631), 171. Some silly doting brainless calfe.

1872. Hamilton Aïdé, Morals and Mysteries, p. 60. She had a girlish fancy for the good-looking young calf who had so signally disgraced himself.

To eat the calf in the cow’s belly, phr. (common).—A variant of ‘to count one’s chickens before they are hatched.’

1748. Richardson, Clarissa Harlowe [ed. 1811], III., 135. I ever made shift to avoid anticipations: I never would eat the calf in the cow’s belly, as Lord M’s phrase is.

Calf-Clingers, subs. (common).—Pantaloons; i.e., close-fitting trousers. [Derivation obvious.] For synonyms, see Bags and Kicks.

1884.—J. Greenwood, Little Ragamuffins. Knee-breeches were just going out of fashion when I was a little boy, and calf-clingers (that is, trousers made to fit the leg as tight as a worsted stocking) were ‘coming in.’

Calf, Cow, and Bull Week, subs. phr. (operatives’).—Before the passing of the Factory Acts it was customary in manufacturing districts, especially for men, women, and children, to indulge in the practice of working very long hours for a period of three weeks before the Christmas holidays. In the first, which was called ‘calf week,’ the ordinary hours of work were but slightly exceeded; in the second, or ‘cow week,’ they were considerably augmented; and in the third, or ‘bull week,’ it was common for operatives to spend the greater portion of the twenty-four of each day in their workshops. The practice resulted in extreme exhaustion and—naturally—indulgence to excess in stimulants.

1871.—Echo, 4 Dec. Calf, cow, and bull week. We find a good illustration of the beneficial influence of the Factory Acts in the reports of the Government Inspectors just issued. The district inspector expresses the hope that the measures which he took against some offenders in bull week last year will extinguish for good and all this absurd and illogical custom.

Calf’s Head, subs. (common).—A stupid, witless individual. For synonyms, see Buffle and Cabbage-head.

1600.—Shakspeare, Much Ado about Nothing, V., i., Claudio: ‘I’ faith, I thank him; he hath bid me to a calf’s head and a capon; the which if I do not carve most curiously, say my knife’s naught.’

Calf-Lick.—See Cow-lick.

Calf-Lolly, subs. (old).—An idle simpleton; a general term of reproach.

1653. Urquhart, Rabelais, bk. I., ch. xxv. Jobbinol goosecaps, foolish loggerheads, flutch calf-lollies.

1708. Motteux, Rabelais, iv., xvii. I was a Calf-lolly, a doddipole.

Calf-Love, subs. (common).—A youthful, romantic fancy. [A sarcastic allusion to the blind unreasoning character of boy and girl attachments.]

1823. Galt, Entail, I., xxxii., 284. I made a calf-love marriage. [m.]

1863. Mrs. Gaskell, Sylvia’s Lovers, II., 104. It’s a girl’s fancy—just a kind o’ calf-love—let it go by.

1884. Longman’s Mag., IV., 50. I was still at the early and agonising stage of the passion which is popularly known as calf-love.

Calfskin-Fiddle, subs. (old).—A drum.

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

Calf-Sticking, subs. (thieves’).—Explained by quotation. [Cf., Calf and Stick].

1883. Daily Telegraph, 25 July, p. 2, col. 1. The venerable oarsman grinned, and set me right by explaining that what was called calf-sticking by those who practised it was the putting off of worthless rubbish, on the pretence that it was smuggled goods, on any foolish or unscrupulous person who could be inveigled into treating for the same.

Calibogus, subs. (American).—A very old name for a mixture of rum and spruce beer, being quoted by Grose in 1785 as ‘an American beverage.’ The last two syllables of the word are thought to be derived from the French bagasse, the refuse of the sugar cane. This view would seem to be supported by the fact that rum is itself a product of the sugar cane.

1861. L. de Boileau, Recoll. Labrador Life, p. 162. Callibogus, a mixture of Rum and Spruce-beer, more of the former and less of the latter.

Calico, adj. (old).—Thin; wasted; attenuated. [Calicut is the name of the Indian city whence the material of the comparison was brought. The earliest reference for original signification given by Murray is 1505; but he omits the cant meaning.]

1733. Nathaniel Bailey, Colloquies of Erasmus (translated), p. 37. In such a place as that your callico body (tenui corpusculo) had need have a good fire to keep it warm.

1861. Sala, Seven Sons of Mammon. A shrewd, down-east Yankee once questioned a simple Dutchman out of his well-fed steed, and left him instead a vile calico mare in exchange.

Calico-Bally, adj. (common).—Somewhat ‘fast’; applied to one always on the look out for amusement. [Primarily used of frequenters of calico-balls.]

18(?). Broadside Ballad, ‘The Flipperty-Flop Young Man.’ I once was a cabby and hack young man, And a little bit calico-bally; A picture card out of the pack young man, And frequently music hally.

California.—See Californian, sense 2.

Californian, subs. (common).—1. A red or hard-dried herring. Further explained by quotations. Also Soldier, Atlantic ranger and Glasgow Magistrate.

1873.—Cassell’s Mag., Jan., p. 245, Very large quantities of cured herrings came from North Britain at that time, and, excepting those from the Firth of Forth, they were more cured, dryer and salter than those from Norfolk. Some were sent very dry indeed, as hard as a stick, and of a very deep red colour; such were used, as similar fish now are, for exportation. About the time of the gold discoveries, some one applied the term Californian to these. The word was appropriate, and Californians such highly-coloured herrings are called to this day.

2. [Generally used in the plural—Californians.] Generic for gold pieces.

California Widow, subs. phr. (American).—A married woman whose husband is away from her for any extended period; a grass widow (q.v.) in the least offensive sense. The expression dates from the period of the Californian gold fever, when so many men went West, leaving their wives and families behind them.

Calk, verb (Eton College).—To throw.

Call, subs. (Eton College).—The time when the masters do not call absence (q.v.).

To have or get a call upon, phr. (American).—To have a preference, or the first chance.

1888.—Puck’s Library, May, p. 23, Picture Dealer (to Professional’s Husband): ‘No, sir; I can’t sell no more of your wife’s pictures unless she gets down some of that flesh, and looks kinder æstheticker. The ethereal and intellectual has got the call on the old style of beauty now-a-days.’

To call a go, verbal phr. (vagrants’ and street patterers’).—To change one’s stand; to alter one’s tactics; to give in at any game or business. [From the go ‘call’ in cribbage.]

1851–61.—H. Mayhew, London Lab. and Lon. Poor, vol. I., p. 252. To call a go, signifies to remove to another spot, or adopt some other patter, or, in short, to resort to some change or other in consequence of a failure.

To call a spade a spade.—See Spade.

To call over the coals.—See Wigging.

Put and call.—See Put.

Calle, subs. (old and American thieves’).—A cloak or gown. Quoted by Grose [1785], and still in use in the U.S.A. amongst the criminal classes. For synonyms, see Caster.

Calp or Kelp, subs. (old).—A hat. [Origin unknown.] For synonyms, see Golgotha.

Calvert’s Entire.—The Fourteenth Foot. [Called Calvert from their colonel, Sir Harry Calvert (1806–1826), and entire, because three entire battalions were kept up for the good of Sir Harry, when adjutant-general. A play upon words in reference to Calvert’s malt liquors.] This regiment was also called the Old and Bold.

1780. R. Tomlinson, Slang Pastoral, canto viii. Gin! What is become of thy heart-chearing fire, And where is the beauty of Calvert’s Intire?

1871. Chambers’ Journal, 23 Dec., p. 803, col. 1. The 14th Foot, Calvert’s Entire.

1886. Tinsley’s Magazine, April, p. 322. A very curious name, Calvert’s Entire, used to be attached to the 14th, but this as well as the circumstances which gave rise to it are forgotten.

Calves. Calves gone to grass, subs. phr. (old).—Said of spindle shanks; i.e., slender, undeveloped legs, with lack of calves.

There are many ways of dressing calves’ heads, phr. (old).—Many ways of saying or doing a foolish thing; a simpleton has many ways of showing his folly; or, generally, if one way won’t do, we must try another.

Calves’ heads are best hot, phr. (common).—A sarcastic apology for one sitting down to eat with his hat on.—See Stand-up.

Calx, subs. (Eton College).—The goal line at football. [From a Latin sense of calx = a goal, anciently marked with lime or chalk.] At Eton calx is a space so marked off at each end of wall; good calx is the end at which there is a door for a goal; bad calx the end where part of an elm tree serves the purpose.

1864. Daily Telegraph, Dec. 1. The Collegers were over-weighted … and the Oppidans managed to get the ball down into their calx several times. [m.]

Cambridge Oak, subs. (old).—A willow. [An allusion to the abundance of this tree in the county in question, which is situate in the Fen District.] Formerly many analogous sayings were in vogue; e.g., ‘A Cotswold lion’ for ‘a sheep,’ etc.—See also Cambridgeshire nightingale.

Cambridgeshire or Fen Nightingale, subs. phr. (common).—A frog. [The county is scored with canals and dykes; the allusion is to the natural preponderance of the croaking of frogs over the singing of nightingales.] Cf. Cambridge oak and Cape nightingale.

1875. Chambers’ Journal, No. 581, p. 107, col. 2. The male of the eatable frog is distinguished … by … a pouch.… These pouches increase the volume of the croak, and render it so powerful that the possessors have, from the county in which they are particularly plentiful, received the nickname of Cambridgeshire nightingales.

Camden-Town, subs. (rhyming slang).—A halfpenny, or ‘brown.’ For synonyms, see Mag.

Camel’s Complaint, subs. phr. (common).—Low spirits; the hump (q.v.).

Camesa, subs. (thieves’).—A shirt chemise, or ‘shimmy.’ [From the Spanish camisa, or Italian camicia.] The word appears in various forms from the beginning of the seventeenth century, e.g., ‘camisa,’ ‘camiscia,’ ‘kemesa,’ ‘camise,’ and in a more genuinely English dress as ‘commission’ (q.v.), which in turn is shortened into mish (q.v.). For synonyms, see Flesh-bag.

1690.—B. E., Dict. Cant. Crew. Camesa: a shirt or shift.

1785.—Grose, Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue. Camesa (cant, Spanish): a shirt or shift.

1812.—Byron, Childe Harold II., Tambourgi ii. Oh! who is more brave than a dark Suliote, In his snowy camese and his shaggy capote?

1834.—H. Ainsworth, Rookwood, bk. III., ch. v. With my fawnied famms, and my onions gay, my thimble of ridge, and my driz (laced) kemesa.

Camister, subs. (thieves’).—A preacher or clergyman. From the white gown or surplice. [From Latin camisia, a linen tunic, alb, or shirt, + (probably) a termination suggested by ‘minister.’] For synonyms, see Devil-dodger.

1851–61. H. Mayhew, London Lab. and Lon. Poor, vol. I., p. 231. [List of patterer’s words.] Camister = Minister.

Camp. To go to camp, phr. (Australian).—To go to bed; to take rest. [From the practice in the early settlers’ days of forming a camp whenever a halt for the night was called.]

1887. All the Year Round, 30 July, p. 66, col. 2. To go to camp, by a transference of its original meaning, now signifies, in the mouth of a dweller in houses, simply ‘to lie down,’ ‘to go to bed.’

To take into camp, phr. (Common).—To kill.

1878. S. L. Clemens (‘Mark Twain’) Some Rambling Notes of an Idle Excursion, p. 66. Sure enough one night the trap took Mrs. Jones’s principal tomcat into camp, and finished him up.

To camp, phr. (Australian).—To surpass; to ‘floor.’

18(?) H. Kendall, Billy Vickers. At punching oxen you may guess There’s nothing out can camp him; He has, in fact, the slouch and dress Which bullock-driver stamp him.

Campbell’s Academy, subs. phr. (old).—The hulks, or lighters, on board of which felons were condemned to hard labour. Mr. Campbell was the first director.—Grose.—See Academy and Floating academy. For synonyms, see Cage.

1781. G. Parker, View of Society, II., 11. He was tried at Guildhall, Westminster, and sentenced to improve as a pupil in Mr. Duncan Campbell’s Floating Academy for five years.

Camp-Candlestick, subs. (military)—An empty bottle, or a bayonet. Quoted in the Lexicon Balatronicum [1811]. For synonyms in the sense of ‘an empty bottle,’ see Dead-man.

Camp-Stool Brigade, subs. phr. (common).—Said in the first place of people who wait outside a place of entertainment to secure the best seats, and bring camp-stools with them to rest themselves.

1889. Pall Mall Gazette, 23 Sept., p. 5, col. 2. The first night of the Gaiety Wanderers will not be forgotten in a hurry. Seats for the occasion were booked a year ago last April! Can you wonder that the camp-stool brigade besieged the pit door as early as 10 a.m.?

Can, subs. (American).—1. A dollar piece.

2. (Scots).—A ‘slavey.’

Canack, Canuck, Kanuck, K’nuck, subs. (American).—A Canadian, usually a K’nuck. [Obscure, and limited in its application within the Canadian frontier. There, a Canuck is understood to be a French Canadian, just as within the limits of the Union only New Englanders are termed Yankees; whereas elsewhere that appellation is given indiscriminately to natives of all the States. It is by some supposed that Canuck is a corruption of Connaught, the name applied by French-Canadians to the Irish, from which it would follow that, by a process of inversion, a nickname given by one section of a nation to another has, in course of time, been applied to the whole. Others, however, think the first syllable of ‘Canada’ has been joined to the Algonkin Indian substantive termination uc or uq.]

Canary or Canary-Bird, subs. (thieves’).—1. A prisoner; a very old cant term for habitual offenders; or, as Grose says [1785], ‘a person used to be kept in a cage’ (q.v.). The same idea occurs in some foreign equivalents, e.g., the French, oiseau de cage, and the German, Kastener, from Kasten, a chest or case. For synonyms, see Wrong ’un.

1673.—Head, Canting Academy, p. 157. Newgate is a cage of canary-birds.

1725.—New Canting Dictionary. Canary-bird, a little, arch, or knavish boy; a rogue or whore taken and clapped into the cage or roundhouse.

1839.—Harrison Ainsworth, Jack Sheppard [1889], p. 55. Now for the cage, my pretty canary-bird. Before we start I’ll accommodate you with a pair of ruffles.

2. (general).—A mistress. [See preceding quot. (1725): the term is still in use.] For synonyms, see Tart.

3. (common).—Formerly a guinea, but now applied to a sovereign [From similarity of colour.]

English Synonyms. Yellow boy; goldfinch; yellow hammer; shiner; gingleboy; monarch; couter; bean foont; James (from Jacobus); poona; portrait; quid; thick ’un; skin; skiv; dragon; goblin. A guinea was also called a ‘ned.’

French Synonyms for the equivalent twenty franc piece are, un jaunet (popular: literally ‘butter-cup’ or ‘yellow-boy’); une sigue, sigle, sigolle or cig (thieves’); un bonnet jaune (popular: literally ‘yellow-cap’ or ‘bonnet’); un bouton (i.e., ‘a master-key’); une maltaise (old cant; according to Victor Hugo this gold coin was used on board the convict galleys at Malta); un moule à boutons (popular); une médaille d’or (popular: = a gold medal).

German Synonyms. Gelbling (gelb = yellow); Fuchs (a gold piece; literally ‘a fox’).

For synonyms of money generally, see Actual and Gilt.

1785. Grose, Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue. Canary-Birds in a canting sense, guineas.

1822. Scott, Fortunes of Nigel, ch. xvi. Fifty as fair yellow canary-birds as e’er chirped in the bottom of a green silk purse.

1842. Punch, p. 168. ‘Prolusiones etymologicæ,’ 13. Goldfinches—Canaries.—Singing birds; the which whose possesseth needeth never to pine for lack of notes.

4. (thieves’).—A female watcher or stall; a mollisher (q.v.). Cf. Crow = a male watcher. Fr. une marque franche.

1862. H. Mayhew, Lon. Lab. and Lond. Poor, IV., 337. Sometimes a woman, called a ‘canary,’ carries the tools [of burglars], and watches outside.

5. (Salvation Army).—A written promise of a donation or subscription. At some of the meetings of the ‘Army’ instead of sending round the plate, the ‘officers’ distribute slips of paper on which those present are invited to record their benevolent intentions. The original colour of the slips was yellow—hence the nickname.

Cancer. To catch or capture a cancer, phr. (common).—See Crab.

1857. Hood, Pen and Pencil Pictures p. 141. He had another way of capturing cancers, namely, by never putting his oar into the water at all.

Candle-Keepers, subs. (Winchester College).—The eight seniors in college by election who are not præfects. They enjoy most of the privileges of præfects without their powers.

1870. Mansfield, School-Life at Winchester College, p. 30. The Seven Candle-keepers (why so-called, I have no idea, nor have I ever heard any interpretation of the appellation). These were the seven inferiors who had been longest in the school, quite independently of their position in it; they were generally old and tough. Of these, the senior had almost as much power as a præfect; he had a ‘valet’ in chambers, one or two ‘breakfast fags,’ and the power of fagging the twenty juniors when in school, or in meads. The junior candle keeper was called ‘the Deputy,’ and had also some slight privileges besides that of having a valet and breakfast fag, which was common to all of them.

1878. Adams, Wykehamica, p. 278. Presided over by a candle-keeper.

Candlestick, subs. 1. (Winchester College).—A humorous corruption of the word ‘candidate.’

1870. Mansfield, School-Life at Winchester College, p. 175. Each of these [the Electors] had in turn the privilege of nominating a boy for admission into Winchester till all vacancies were filled, of which there were generally about twelve, but always many more ‘Candidates’ (or Candlesticks, as they were often called).

1878. H. C. Adams, Wykehamica, p. 418. Candlestick, merely a facetious version of ‘candidate.’

2 pl. (London).—The fountains in Trafalgar Square.

1851. Mayhew, London Labour and Lon. Poor, I., p. 529. There was his (Nelson’s) pillar at Charing Cross, just by the candlesticks (fountains).

Candy, adj. (old).—Given by Grose in 1785, and by the Lexicon Balatronicum, in 1811, as ‘drunk—an Irish term.’

Candyman, subs. (northern).—A bailiff or process server. Originally a seller of candy. [In October, 1863, there was a great strike of miners at the collieries of Messrs. Strakers and Love, in the county of Durham. As no adjustment of the difference was possible, the owners determined to eject the miners from their cottages. For this purpose, an army of rascals were engaged, including at least one whose ordinary occupation was that of hawking candy and sweetmeats. The man was recognised and was chaffed; and candyman, which rapidly became a term of reproach, was soon applied to the whole class; and since that time is come into general use over the two northern counties whenever ejectments take place.]

1863. Newcastle Chronicle, Oct. 31. The colliery carts and waggons stood at the doors, and the furniture was handed out, and piled quickly but carefully upon them. It was evident that the candymen had warmed to their work. The name of candyman has been given to the loaders because of their avocations of ‘candy’ hawking, from which they are supposed to have been taken to be put to this work.

1876. Notes and Queries, 5 S., v., 405. A term in the North for men employed to carry out evictions against cottage occupiers.

1886. Notes and Queries, 7 S., i., p. 445.

Canister, subs. (general).—1. The head. [A transference of the original meaning, ‘a box or case for holding things.’] For synonyms, see Crumpet.

1811. Lexicon Balatronicum. To mill his cannister; to break his head.

1821. Moncrieff, Tom and Jerry, Act ii., Sc. 4. Tom. I’ve nobb’d him on the canister.

1885. Bell’s Life, Jan. 3, p. 8, col. 4. Once more did the star of Australia rise, but to set from additional raps on the canister. He fell on his knees, and his head droped on his breast.

2. (common).—A hat. [Formerly canister-cap (see sense 1); subsequently shortened to canister.] For synonyms, see Golgotha.

1887. Atkin, House Scraps. Turning round, I saw my unfortunate beaver, or canister, as it was called by the gentry who had it in their keeping, bounding backwards and forwards.

Cank, adj. (old).—Dumb; silent. [Curiously enough, cank also signifies ‘to chatter,’ or ‘cackle as a goose’; it only survives in this latter sense.]

1673. R. Head, Canting Acad., 36. Cank: dumb.

1785. Grose, Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue. Cank: dumb.

Cannibal, subs. (Cambridge University).—In the bumping races at Cambridge, a college may be represented by more than one boat. The best talent is put into the first, but it has sometimes happened that the crew of the second have got so well together that it has disappointed the prophets and bumped the first of its own college. In this case it is termed a cannibal, it having eaten up its own kind, and a fine is enacted from it by the University Boat Club.

Cannikin or Canniken, subs. (old).—The plague. [Grose includes it in his dictionary under the sense of ‘a small can,’ but this was not a slang usage.]

1688. R. Holme, Armoury. III., iii., § 68. Cannikin, the Plague. [m.]

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

Cannis-Cove, subs. (American).—A dog-fancier. [Either from Latin canis, a dog, or the Fr. caniche, poodle + cove, a man.]

Cannon.—See Canon.

Cannon-Balls, subs. (political).—1. A nickname, now obsolete, given to the irreconcileable opponents of free trade in England.

1858. Saturday Review, 30 Oct., p. 413, col. 2. The amendment … which sealed for ever the fate of Protection, was carried [in 1852] with only fifty dissentient voices—the celebrated cannon-balls. [m.]

2. (venery).—The testicles. For synonyms see Cods.

Canoe. To paddle one’s own canoe, phr. (American).—To make one’s own way in life; to exhibit skill and energy; to succeed unaided; a slang phrase of Western American origin, but now universal. [Extremely careful and clever manipulation is required in the management of canoes, especially in shooting rapids; otherwise the surging body of water might swamp the boat, or sunken rocks strike and seriously damage it. Hence the adoption of such an expression to signify skill, close attention, and energy.] A variant is to bail one’s own boat; and the French have a proverbial saying, il conduit or il mène bien sa barque.

1845. Harper’s Magazine, May. Voyager upon life’s sea, to yourself be true; And, where’er your lot may be, Paddle your own canoe.

1868. Broadside Ballad, sung by Harry Clifton. My wants are small, I care not at all, If my debts are paid when due. And to drive away strife on the ocean of life, I paddle my own canoe.

1870. C. H. Spurgeon. At Metropolitan Tabernacle [speaking of Mr. John Magregor said]—He puts his trust in God and paddles his own canoe.

1871. De Vere, English of the New World, p. 343. The familiarity with boating, which the unsurpassed number of watercourses all over the country naturally produces everywhere, has led to the use, not only of paddling one’s own canoe, … but also of ‘bailing one’s own boat,’ in the sense of ‘minding one’s own business,’ independently and without waiting for help from others.

Canon or Cannon, adj. (thieves’).—Drunk. [The origin of this term is very obscure, although many guesses have been hazarded. Amongst these may be mentioned (1) From the ‘can’ having been used freely. Rather less absurd is (2) its derivation from the French slang expressions un canon, a glass drunk at the bar of a wine-shop; canonner, to drink wine at a wine-shop, or to be a habitual tippler; se canonner, to get drunk; and un canonneur, a tippler, wine-bibber, or drunkard. Yet another suggested origin is (3) from the German cannon, a drinking cup, from which is obtained canonised, = ‘shot’ or ‘drunk.’ A German proverb runs er ist geschossen, and Barrère points out that canon becomes naturally confused with can, German Kaune, a tankard, and Canonenstiefel, or ‘canon’ (i.e., long boots), a common pattern of tankard.] For synonyms, see Screwed.

1879. J. W. Horsley, in Macm. Mag., XL., 502. One night I was with the mob, I got canon (drunk), this being the first time.

Canoodle, verb (American).—1. To fondle; bill and coo; indulge in endearments.—See Canoodling. [There are two suggested derivations—(1) from cannie in the sense of gentle, and (2) that the primary signification may have been ‘to act as a noodle,’ i.e., to play the fool.] For synonyms, see Firkytoodle.

1864. G. A. Sala, Temple Bar, Dec., p. 40. He is an adept in that branch of persuasive dialectics known as conoodling. He will conoodle the ladies (bless their dear hearts! and how sharp they think themselves at making a bargain!) into the acquisition of whole packages of gimcrack merchandise.

1879. Punch, March 15, p. 117, col. 2. ‘Our Representative Man.’ Then he and the matchless one struggle, snuggle, and generally conoodle together rapturously. Then the matchless Ecstacy being the wife, not of the Chevalier, but of Charles VI., King of France, she, this impulsive, loving, beautiful, hugging, conoodling young Ecstacy, has the cool impudence to declare that theirs is a ‘guiltless love.’

2. (Oxford University).—To paddle or propel a canoe.

1879. E. H. Marshall, in Notes and Queries, 5 S., xi., 375. When I was an undergraduate at Oxford, to canoodle was the slang expression for paddling one’s own canoe on the bosom of the Cherwell or the Isis.

3. (American theatrical).—To share profits.

18(?). Green Room Jokes. ‘Pray, good sir, what is a canoodler?’ ‘Tell you, mum, queer business, mum, but prosperous, money—heaps of it, mum, for you and me’—and he winked significantly, jerked up a chair, and squatted in it, all in a breath.… Undeterred, he rattled on: ‘I’m an original thinker, mum. Invent business opportunities. Share ’m with actors, and then we canoodle—divvy the profits. Me and Sheridan made a big thing on the Japanese advertising screen in “School for Scandal!” Big thing.’

4. (common).—To coax.

Canoodler.—See Canoodle.

Canoodling, verbal subs. (American).—Endearments.

1859. Sala, Twice Round the Clock, 11 a.m., par. 8. A sly kiss, and a squeeze, and a pressure of the foot or so, and a variety of harmless endearing blandishments, known to our American cousins (who are great adepts at sweet-hearting) under the generic name of conoodling.

1864 and 1879. [See quots. under Canoodle, sense 1.]

Cant, subs. and verb.—[As regards derivation (whether noun or verb), to signify the speech, phraseology, or whine peculiar to thieves, beggars, and vagrants, authorities differ among and with themselves: the word occurs as early as 1540, and has long since achieved respectability. Grose was probably wrong in thinking it a corruption of chaunting, and it was certainly in use long prior to the two Scotch clergymen, Oliver and Andrew Cant, who are said to have preached with such a voice and such a manner as to give their name to all speaking of the same kind. A correspondent of Notes and Queries (2 S., vii., 158) suggests as a possible source the ordinary word mendicant (fr. Lat. mendico), but this is historically improbable, and the weight of evidence is in favour of the Latin cantus, singing or song, though it must be observed that neither the ancient nor the modern usage implies a mere sing-song, but rather the whine of one bent on deceit. There is a consciousness of hypocrisy by the canting in connection with religion, politics, begging, or anything else; and this principle is recognized in the attempt on the part of The Scots Observer to substitute Bleat (subs. and verb) for the cant of æstheticism, the cant which deals with art in the language of sentiment and emotion. It has been further suggested that if the word meant singing, the A.S. cantere is a much more probable source of origin than the Latin canto or cantus; but there is an argument which seems to lend additional weight to the claim of the latter language: the French chanter, to sing, is sometimes used in the sense of cant. In answer to a whining, lying tale (in reply indeed to anything incredible whether whining or brazen), a Frenchman would say, ‘Qu’est-ce que vous chantez là.’ Whatever the derivation, however, there is little doubt that Andrew Cant has little to do with it; indeed, Pennant in his Tour in Scotland, vol. I., p. 122, says that ‘Andrew canted no more than the rest of his brethren, for he lived in a whining age.’]

Subs.—1. The secret speech or jargon of the vagrant classes—gipsies, thieves, beggars, etc.; hence, contemptuously, the peculiar phraseology of a particular class or subject. Identical with Thieves’ Latin, St. Giles’ Greek, Peddlar’s French, etc. (q.v.); but for synonyms, see Flash.

1706. In Phillips. [m.]

1748. T. Dyche, Dictionary (5 ed.) Cant (s.): a barbarous broken sort of speech made use of by gypsies.

1856. C. Reade, Never too Late, ch. xlv. All this not in English, but in thieves’ cant.

Here follow specimens of ancient and modern jargon. Further illustrations will be found in the canting songs in the Appendix.

[ancient cant.]

1567. Harman, Caveat (E.E.T. Soc., extra series, IX., 1869), p. 84–86. The vpright Cofe canteth to the Roge. Vpright-man.—Bene Lightmans to thy quarromes, in what lipken hast thou lypped in this darkemans, whether in a lybbege, or in the strummell? Roge.—I couched a hogshead in a Skypper this darkemans. Vpright-man.—I towre the strummel trine vpon thy nabchet and Togman. Roge.—I saye by the Salomon I will lage it of with a gage of benebouse; then cut to my nose watch. Man.—Why, hast thou any lowre in thy bonge to bouse? Roge.—But a flagge, a wyn, and a make, etc., etc., etc.

[modern thieves’ lingo.]

1881. New York Slang Dictionary. ‘Oh! I’m fly. You mean jumping Jack, who was done last week for heaving a peter from a drag. But you talked of padding the hoof. Why, sure, Jack had a rattler and a prad?’ ‘Yes, but they were spotted by the harmans, and so we walked Spanish.’ ‘Was he nabbed on the scent?’ ‘No; his pal grew leaky and cackled.’ ‘Well, Bell, here’s the bingo—sluice your gob! But who was the cull that peached?’ ‘A slubber de gullion named Harry Long, who wanted to pass for an out-and-out cracksman, though he was merely a diver.’ ‘Whew! I know the kiddy like a copper, and saved him once from lumping the lighter by putting in buck. Why, he scarcely knows a jimmy from a round robin, and Jack deserved the tippet for making a law with him, as all coves of his kidney blow the gab. But how did you hare it to Romeville, Bell for I suppose the jets cleaned you out?’ ‘I kidded a swell in a snoozing-ken, and shook him of his dummy and thimble.’ ‘Ah! Bell! you were always the blowen for a rum bing.’

2. (pugilistic)—a blow or toss. [In Mem. Capt. P. Drake, II., xiv., 244 (1755), occurs this passage, ‘To give me such a cant as I never had before or since, which was the whole length of the coffee-room; he pitched me on my head and shoulders under a large table at the further end.’ Transition from the nautical sense of heeling over to that embodied in ‘cant on the chops,’ is easy.] For synonyms, see Bang, Dig, and Wipe.

3. (tramps’).—Food. Also Kant, but Cf., sense 4.

1851–61. H. Mayhew, London Labour and London Poor, vol. III., p. 415. The house was good for a cant—that’s some food—bread or meat.

1877. Besant and Rice, Son of Vulcan, pt. I., ch. ix. The slavey’s been always good for a kant, and the cove for a bob.

4. (tramps’).—A gift. [Possibly connected with cant, sense 3, a share or portion.]

1857. Snowden. Mag. Assistant, 3 ed., p. 444. Gift of Clothes—Cant of Togs.

Verb.—1. To speak with the beggar’s whine.

1567. Harman, Caveat (1869), 34. ‘It shall be lawefull for the to Cant’—that is, to aske or begge—‘for thy living in al places.’

1610. Rowlands, Martin Mark-all, p. 17 (B. Club’s Repr., 1874). According to the saying that you [thieves and cadgers] haue among your selues (If you can Cant, you will neuer worke) shewing that if they haue beene rogues so long, that they can Cant, they will neuer settle themselues to labour againe.

2. To speak the jargon of gipsies, beggars, and other vagrants.—See Canting.

1592. Defence of Conny-catching, in Greene’s Works, XI., 45. At these wordes Conny-catcher and Setter, I was driven into as great a maze, as if one had dropt out of the clowds, to heare a peasant cant the wordes of art belonging to our trade.

1609. Dekker, English Villainies (1638), And as these people are strange, both in names and in their conditions, so do they speake a language (proper only to themselves) called Canting, which is more strange. This word canting, seemes to be derived from the Latine Verbe (Canto) which signifies in English to sing, or to make a sounde with words, that is to say, to speake. And very aptly may Canting take its derivation, à cantando, from singing, because amongst these beggerly consorts that can play on no better instruments, the language of canting is a kinde of Musicke, and he that in such assemblies can cant best, is counted the best musician.

1639. Ford, Lady’s Trial, V., 1. One can man a gulan, and cant, and pick a pocket.

1748. T. Dyche, Dictionary (5 ed.) Cant (v.): to talk gibberish like gypsies.

3. To speak; to talk.

1567. Harman, Caveat (1814), p. 66. To Cante, to speake.

1881. New York Slang Dictionary. ‘On the trail.’ ‘But cant us the cues. What was the job?’ ‘A pinch for an emperor’s slang. We touched his leather too, but it was very lathy.’

Cantab, subs. (colloquial).—A student at Cambridge. [An abbreviation of ‘Cantabrigian.’]

1750. Coventry, Pompey Litt. II., x. (1785), p. 18, col. 1. The young cantab … had come up to London. [m.]

1821. Byron, Don Juan, c. iii., st. 126. And I grown out of many ‘wooden spoons’ Of verse (the name with which we cantabs please To dub the last of honours in degrees).

Cantabank, subs. (old).—A common ballad singer. [From Latin cantare, to sing, + banco, bench; i.e., a singer on a stage or platform.]

1589. Puttenham, Eng. Poesie (Arb.), 96. Small and popular Musickes song by these Cantabanqui vpon benches and barrels heads. [m.]

1834. Taylor, Ph. van Art, pt. I., iii., 2. He was no tavern cantabank that made it, But a Squire minstrel of your Highness’ court.

Cantankerous, adj. (colloquial).—Cross-grained; ill-humoured; self-willed; productive of strife. See also quot. 1773. [Thought to be derived from the M. E. contak, conteke, contention or quarrelling.] So also cantankerously and cantankerousness. For synonyms, see Crusty.

1773. Goldsmith, She Stoops to Conquer, II. There’s not a more bitter cantankerous road in all Christendom.

1775. Sheridan, Rivals, Act v., Sc. 3. But I hope Mr. Faulkland, as there are three of us come on purpose for the game, you wont be so cantankerous as to spoil the party by sitting out.

1876. M. E. Braddon, Joshua Haggard, ch. xvi. And who was to nurse this peevish, cantankerous old man.

Hence the American verb, to cantankerate, and adjective, cantankersome.

1835. Haliburton (‘Sam Slick’), The Clockmaker, 1 S., ch. xxiv. You may [by contentious writing] happify your inimies [and] cantankerate your opponents. Ibid. 3 S., ch. xii. Plato Frisk, a jumpin’ Quaker, a terrible cross-grained cantankersome critter.

Cante.—See Canter.

Canteen Medal, subs. phr. (military).—A good conduct stripe for the consumption of liquor.

Canter, subs. (old).—A vagrant or beggar; one who cants (q.v.) or uses the secret language otherwise called Peddlars’ French, St. Giles’ Greek, etc. The form has varied, Greene using cante, whilst many writers speak of the fraternity as the canting crew.—See Appendix. [From cant, verb, sense 1, + er.]

1592. Greene, Quip for Upst. Courtiers, Harl. Misc. V., 396. I fell into a great laughter, to see certain Italianate cantes, humourous cavaliers, youthful gentlemen, etc.

1625. Ben Jonson, Staple of News, Act ii. A rogue, a very canter I, sir, one that maunds upon the pad.

1630. Taylor, (‘Water Poet’), wks. II., 239, i. Two leash of oyster-wives hyred a coach on a Thursday after Whitsontide … they were so be-madam’d, be-mistrist, and ladified by the beggars, that the foolish women began to swell with a proud supposition or imaginary greatness, and gave all their mony to the mendicanting canters.

1878. Charles Hindley, Life and Times of James Catnach. ‘Song of the Young Prig.’ My mother she dwelt in Dyot’s Isle, One of the canting crew, sirs.

Canticle, subs. (old).—A parish clerk. [From canticle, a song or psalm; one of the duties of a parish clerk being to lead the congregational singing.] So given in Grose [1785], and in the Lexicon Balatronicum [1811]. Also called an amen curler (q.v.).

Canting, verbal subs. (old).—The jargon used by beggars, thieves, gipsies, and vagrants. The same as Cant, subs., sense 1, which seems to be an abbreviated and later form of canting; Cf. ‘cab’ from ‘cabriolet’ and ‘bus’ from ‘omnibus.’

1567. Harman, Caveat (1814), p. 6, Their language which they terms peddelers Frenche or canting.

1610. Jonson, Alchemist, II. Supr. What a brave language here is! next to canting.

1688. Shadwell, Sq. of Alsatia. I., in wks. (1720) IV., 27. A particular language which such rogues have made to themselves, called canting, as beggars, gipsies, thieves, and jail-birds do.

1742. Johnson, Highwayman and Pyrates, p. 57. All the canting language (which comprehends a parcel of invented words, such as thieves very well know, and by which they can distinguish one another from the other classes of mankind.)

Ppl. adj.—Belonging to the jargon of thieves and beggars.

1592. Groundwork of Conny-Catching, 99. The manner of their canting speech [m.]

1871. London Figaro, 13 May, p. 3, col. 2. ‘Bill’s dead on for a lark with the canting bloke,’ whispered a lean and hungry-looking ‘casual’ to a no less half-starved neighbour.

Canting Crew.—See Canter.

Can’t Say National Intelligencer, phr. (American).—A euphemistic expression equivalent to ‘drunk.’ [The National Intelligencer is an old Washington newspaper.] For synonyms, see Screwed.

Can’t see a Hole in a Ladder, phr. (American).—Referring to a superlative form of intoxication. For synonyms, see Screwed.

Canuck.—See Canack.

Canvass. To receive the canvass, phr. (old).—A seventeenth century colloquialism for ‘to be dismissed’; in modern slang ‘to get the sack.’—See Bag, sense 2, and Sack.

1652. Shirley, The Brothers, Act. ii. As much as marriage comes to, and I lose My honor, if the Don receives the canvas.

Canvasseens, subs. (nautical).—Sailors’ canvas trousers. For synonyms, see Bags and Kicks.

Canvass-Town, subs. (general).—The Volunteer Encampment at Wimbledon or Bisley when the National Rifle Association meets; also any camp or ‘baby’-city. Cf., Bull’s-eye Villas.

Cap, subs. (thieves’).—1. A false cover to a tossing coin, called a cover-down. The cap showed either head or tail as it was left on or taken off. Obsolete.

2. (old).—The proceeds of an improvised collection. [Cf., ‘to send round the cap or hat.’]

1851. Eureka; Sequel Ld. Russell’s Post Bag, 21. What amount of cap is realised out of an average field? [m.]

3. (Westminster School).—The amount of the collection at Play and Election dinners. [From the College cap being passed round on the last night of Play for contributions. Cf., ‘to send round the cap.’]

Verb (thieves’).—1. To stand by a friend; to take part in any undertaking; to lend a hand. Grose has ‘to take one’s oath.’

1785. Grose, Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue. I will cap downright; I will swear home.

2. (public schools’ and University).—To take off or touch one’s hat in salutation; also to cap to and to cap it.

1593. H. Smith, Serm. (1871) I., 203. How would they cap me were I in velvets. [m.]

1803. Gradus ad Cantabrigiam p. 23. s.v. bore. Other bores are to attend a sermon at St. Mary’s on Sunday … to cap a fellow.

Cap one’s lucky, verbal phr. (American thieves’).—To run away. For synonyms, see Amputate.

Cap or cast one’s skin, verbal phr. (thieves’).—To strip naked. For synonyms, see Peel.

To set one’s cap at, phr. (colloquial).—To set oneself to gain the affections. Said only of women.

1773. Graves, Spiritual Quixote, bk. III., ch. xi. I know several young ladies who would be very happy in such an opportunity of setting their caps at him.

1773. O. Goldsmith, She Stoops to Conquer, Act i., Sc. 1. ‘Well, if he refuses … I’ll only break my glass for its flattery, set my cap to some newer fashion, and look out for some less difficult admirer.’

1846. Thackeray, V. Fair, ch. iii. The wily old fellow said to his son, ‘Have a care, Joe; that girl is setting her cap at you.’

To cap a quotation, anecdote, proverb, &c., phr. (colloquial).—To fit with a second from the same, or another, author; to ‘go one better’ in the way of anecdote or legend.

1584. Peele, Arraignm. Paris, iv., ii. (1829) 48. Sh’ath capt his answer in the cue. [m.]

1856. Vaughan, Mystics (1860) I., i. v. Now you come to Shakspeare, I must cap your quotation with another. [m.]

To pull caps, phr. (colloquial).—To wrangle in an unseemly way.—Said only of women.

1763. Colman, Deuce is in Him, I., in wks. (1777) IV., 120. A man that half the women in town would pull caps for.

1771. Smollet, Humphry Clinker, line 19. At length, they fairly proceeded to pulling caps, and everything seemed to presage a general battle.

17(?). Wolcot, P. Pindar, p. 140. Behold our lofty duchesses pull caps, And give each other’s reputation raps, As freely as the drabs of Drury’s school.