1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue eBook

Francis Grose
This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 343 pages of information about 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue.

1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue eBook

Francis Grose
This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 343 pages of information about 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue.

CAFFAN.  Cheese.  Cant.

CAGG.  To cagg; 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.  Ex.  I have cagg’d myself for six months. 
  Excuse me this time, and I will cagg myself for
  a year.  This term is also used in the same sense among
  the common people of Scotland, where it is performed
  with divers ceremonies.

CAG.  To be cagged.  To be sulky or out of humour.  The
  cove carries the cag; the man is vexed or sullen.

CAG Magg.  Bits and scraps of provisions.  Bad meat.

CAGG Maggs.  Old Lincolnshire geese, which having been
  plucked ten or twelve years, are sent up to London to
  feast the cockneys.

Cake, or CAKEY.  A foolish fellow.

Calf-skin fiddle.  A drum.  To smack calf’s skin; to
  kiss the book in taking an oath.  It is held by the St.
  Giles’s casuists, that by kissing one’s thumb instead of
  smacking calf’s skin, the guilt of taking a false oath is
  avoided.

Calves.  His calves are gone to grass; a saying of a man
  with slender legs without calves.  Veal will be cheap,
  calves fall; said of a man whose calves fall away.

Calves head club.  A club instituted by the Independents
  and Presbyterians, to commemorate the decapitation
  of King Charles I. Their chief fare was calves heads; and
  they drank their wine and ale out of calves skulls.

CALIBOGUS.  Rum and spruce beer, American beverage.

Calle.  A cloak or gown.  Cant.

Cambridge fortune.  A wind-mill and a water-mill,
  used to signify a woman without any but personal endowments.

Cambridge oak.  A willow.

CAMBRADE.  A chamber fellow; a Spanish military term. 
  Soldiers were in that country divided into chambers, five
  men making a chamber, whence it was generally used to
  signify companion.

CAMESA.  A shirt or shift.  CantSpanish.

Camp candlestick.  A bottle, or soldier’s bayonet.

Campbell’s academy.  The hulks or lighters, on
  board of which felons are condemned to hard labour. 
  Mr. Campbell was the first director of them.  See
  academy and floating academy.

Canary bird.  A jail bird, a person used to be kept in
  a cage; also, in the canting sense, guineas.

Candlesticks.  Bad, small, or untunable bells.  Hark!
  how the candlesticks rattle.

Candy.  Drunk.  Irish.

Cane.  To lay Cane upon Abel; to beat any one with a
  cane or stick.

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1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.