Clerked. Soothed, funned, imposed on. The
cull will
not be clerked; i.e. the fellow will
not be imposed on by
fair words.
CLEYMES. Artificial sores, made by beggars to
excite
charity.
Click. A blow. A click in the muns;
a blow or knock
in the face. Cant.
To click. To snatch. To click
a nab; to snatch a hat.
Cant.
Clicker. A salesman’s servant; also,
one who proportions
out the different shares of the booty
among thieves.
CLICKET. Copulation of foxes; and thence used,
in a
canting sense, for that of men and women:
as, The cull
and the mort are at clicket in the dyke;
the man and
woman are copulating in the ditch.
Climb. To climb the three trees with a ladder;
to ascend
the gallows.
Clinch. A pun or quibble. To clinch,
or to clinch the
nail; to confirm an improbable story by
another: as, A
man swore he drove a tenpenny nail through
the moon;
a bystander said it was true, for he was
on the other side
and clinched it.
Clink. A place in the Borough of Southwark,
formerly
privileged from arrests; and inhabited
by lawless vagabonds
of every denomination, called, from the
place of
their residence, clinkers. Also a
gaol, from the clinking
of the prisoners’ chains or fetters:
he is gone to clink.
Clinkers. A kind of small Dutch bricks;
also irons worn
by prisoners; a crafty fellow.
To clip. To hug or embrace: to
clip and cling. To clip
the coin; to diminish the current coin.
To clip the king’s
English; to be unable to speak plain through
drunkenness.
Cloak TWITCHERS. Rogues who lurk about the
entrances
into dark alleys, and bye-lanes, to snatch
cloaks from the
shoulders of passengers.
Clod hopper. A country farmer, or ploughman.
Clod pate. A dull, heavy booby.
Clod pole. The same.
Close. As close as God’s curse to
a whore’s a-se: close as
shirt and shitten a-se.
Close-fisted. Covetous or stingy.
CLOSH. A general name given by the mobility to
Dutch
seamen, being a corruption of Claus,
the abbreviation of
Nicholas, a name very common among the
men of that
nation.
Cloth market. He is just come from
the cloth market,
i.e. from between the sheets, he
is just risen from bed.
Cloud. Tobacco. Under a cloud; in adversity.
Cloven, cleave, or Cleft. A term
used for a woman
who passes for a maid, but is not one.
Cloven foot. To spy the cloven foot
in any business; to
discover some roguery or something bad
in it: a saying
that alludes to a piece of vulgar superstition,
which is,
that, let the Devil transform himself
into what shape he
will, he cannot hide his cloven foot


