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.

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

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