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.

Fantastically dressed, with more rags than ribands.

Fart.  He has let a brewer’s fart, grains and all; said of
  one who has bewrayed his breeches.

      Piss and fart. 
      Sound at heart. 
      Mingere cum bumbis,
      Res saluberrima est lumbis.

  I dare not trust my a-se with a fart:  said by a person troubled
  with a looseness.

Fart catcher.  A valet or footman from his walking
  behind his master or mistress.

Farting crackers.  Breeches.

FARTLEBERRIES.  Excrement hanging about the anus.

FASTNER.  A warrant.

FASTNESSES.  Bogs.

Fat.  The last landed, inned, or stowed, of any sort of
  merchandise:  so called by the water-side porters, carmen, &c. 
  All the fat is in the fire; that is, it is all over with us:  a
  saying used in case of any miscarriage or disappointment
  in an undertaking; an allusion to overturning the
  frying pan into the fire.  Fat, among printers, means void
  spaces.

As fat as A hen in the forehead.  A saying of a meagre person.

Fat cull.  A rich fellow.

Fat headed. Stupid.

Faulkner.  A tumbler, juggler, or shewer of tricks; perhaps
  because they lure the people, as a faulconer does his
  hawks.  Cant.

FAYTORS, or FATORS.  Fortune tellers.

FAWNEY rig.  A common fraud, thus practised:  A fellow
  drops a brass ring, double gilt, which he picks up before
  the party meant to be cheated, and to whom he disposes
  of it for less than its supposed, and ten times more than
  its real, value.  See money dropper.

FAWNEY.  A ring.

Feague.  To feague a horse; to put ginger up a horse’s
  fundament, and formerly, as it is said, a live eel, to make
  him lively and carry his tail well; it is said, a forfeit is
  incurred by any horse-dealer’s servant, who shall shew a
  horse without first feaguing him.  Feague is used,
  figuratively, for encouraging or spiriting one up.

FEAK.  The fundament.

To feather one’s nest. To enrich one’s self.

Feather-bed lane.  A rough or stony lane.

Fee, faw, fum.  Nonsensical words, supposed in childish
  story-books to be spoken by giants.  I am not to be frighted
  by fee, faw, fum; I am not to be scared by nonsense.

Feeder.  A spoon.  To nab the feeder; to steal a spoon.

Feet.  To make feet for children’s stockings; to beget
  children.  An officer of feet; a jocular title for an officer
  of infantry.

Feint.  A sham attack on one part, when a real one is meant
  at another.

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