Damper.  A luncheon, or snap before dinner:  so called
  from its damping, or allaying, the appetite; eating and
  drinking, being, as the proverb wisely observes, apt to take
  away the appetite.

Dance upon nothing.  To be hanged.

Dancers.  Stairs.

Dandy.  That’s the dandy; i.e. the ton, the clever thing;
  an expression of similar import to “That’s the barber.” 
  See barber.

Dandy grey russet.  A dirty brown.  His coat’s dandy
  grey russet, the colour of the Devil’s nutting bag.

Dandy Prat.  An insignificant or trifling fellow.

To dangle.  To follow a woman without asking the question. 
  Also, to be hanged:  I shall see you dangle in the
  sheriff’s picture frame; I shall see you hanging on the
  gallows.

Dangler.  One who follows women in general, without
  any particular attachment

Dapper fellow.  A smart, well-made, little man.

Darbies.  Fetters.  Cant.

Darby.  Ready money.  Cant.

Dark cully.  A married man that keeps a mistress, whom
  he visits only at night, for fear of discovery.

DARKEE.  A dark lanthorn used by housebreakers.  Stow
  the darkee, and bolt, the cove of the crib is fly; hide the
  dark lanthorn, and run away, the master of the house
  knows that we are here.

DARKMANS.  The night.  Cant.

DARKMAN’S budge.  One that slides into a house in the
  dark of the evening, and hides himself, in order to let some
  of the gang in at night to rob it.

Dart.  A straight-armed blow in boxing.

Dash.  A tavern drawer.  To cut a dash:  to make a figure.

David Jones.  The devil, the spirit of the sea:  called
  Necken in the north countries, such as Norway, Denmark,
  and Sweden.

David JONES’S Locker.  The sea.

David’s sow.  As drunk as David’s sow; a common
  saying, which took its rise from the following circumstance: 
  One David Lloyd, a Welchman, who kept an alehouse at
  Hereford, had a living sow with six legs, which was greatly
  resorted to by the curious; he had also a wife much
  addicted to drunkenness, for which he used sometimes
  to give her due correction.  One day David’s wife having
  taken a cup too much, and being fearful of the
  consequences, turned out the sow, and lay down to sleep herself
  sober in the stye.  A company coming in to see the sow,
  David ushered them into the stye, exclaiming, there is a
  sow for you! did any of you ever see such another? all
  the while supposing the sow had really been there; to
  which some of the company, seeing the state the woman
  was in, replied, it was the drunkenest sow they had ever
  beheld; whence the woman was ever after called David’s
  sow.