Donne-moi ta ----, “tip us your daddle.” Ergot de la ----,
_fingernail_. Avoir de la ----, _to be strong_; _energetic_.
POIGNÉE, _f._ (popular), foutre une ---- de viande par la figure à
quelqu’un, _to box one’s ears_, “to warm the wax of one’s ears.”
POIGNEUX, _adj._ (popular), _strong_, _vigorous_, “spry.”
De vieux pêcheurs venus à l’âge
Où la poigne n’est plus poigneuse aux avirons;
Mais, tout de même, encor larges des palerons,
Ayant toujours un peu de sève sous l’écorce,
Râblés, et, s’il le faut, bons pour un coup de force.
=RICHEPIN=, _La Mer_.
POIGNON, _m._ (popular), _money_, “tin.”
Dis donc, l’enflé, si t’as du poignon, remuche-moi la môme.
Elle est rien gironde.--=RICHEPIN.=
POIL, _m._ (popular), avoir un ---- dans la main, _to be lazy_; _to
feel disinclined for work_, or “Mondayish.”
Gervaise s’amusa à suivre trois ouvriers, ... qui se
retournaient tous les dix pas ... ah! bien! murmura-t-elle,
en voilà trois qui ont un fameux poil dans la
main.--=ZOLA=, _L’Assommoir_.
Avoir du ---- au cul, _to have courage_, “spunk.” Faire le ----, _to
surpass_. Flanquer un ----, _to reprimand_, _to give a_ “wigging.”
Tomber sur le ----, _to thrash_, “to wallop.” See VOIE. Un bougre à
poils, _a sturdy fellow_, _a_ “game” _one_. (Sailors’) Un cachalot bon
----, _a good sailor_. Un terrien à trois poils, _a swell landsman_.
(Picture dealers’) Cuir et poils, _at a high price_.
Il vend son Corot très cher, “cuir et poils,” comme on dit
dans ce joli commerce; et c’est son droit; car ta valeur
d’un objet d’art est facultative.--=A. DAUDET.=
(Familiar and popular) Prendre du ---- de la bête, _to take a_ “modest
quencher” _on the morning following a debauch_, “to take a hair of the
dog.” When a man has tried too many “hairs of the dog that bit him,”
he is said to be “stale drunk.” If this state of things is too long
continued, it is often called, “same old drunk,” from a well-known
nigger story. The nigger was cautioned by his master for being too
often drunk within a given period, when the “cullud pusson” replied,
“Same old drunk, massa, same old drunk.” (Students’) Le faste en ----,
_the garden of the Palace of Luxembourg_, by synonyms on the words luxe
en bourre. Faire son petit ourson au faste en ----, _to stroll in the
Luxembourg garden_.
POINS (Breton cant), _theft_.
POINSA (Breton cant), _to steal_.
POINSER (Breton cant), _thief_.
POINT, _m._ (popular), _one franc_; ---- de côté, _a nuisance_.
Properly _a stitch in the side_; _creditor_, or “dun;” _police-officer
whose functions are to watch prostitutes_. (Ecole Polytechnique) Point
gamma, _yearly examination_. See PIPO. Jusqu’au ---- M, _up to a
certain point_; _in a certain degree_. Le ---- Q, _breech_. Tangente au
---- Q, _sword_.
POINTE, _f._ (familiar), avoir sa ----, _to be slightly in drink_, or
“elevated.” See POMPETTE.
POINTEAU, _m._ (popular), _clerk who keeps a record of the working
hours in manufactories_.
POINTER (popular), _to thrash_, “to give a walloping.” See VOIE.
Si ta Dédèle est gironde, faut la gober, si elle est rosse,
faut la pointer ferme.--_Le Cri du Peuple_, Feb., 1886.
(_If your little woman is a nice one you must love her, if
she is a shrew you must thrash her well._)
POINTU, _m._ (popular), or bouillon ----, _clyster_; _bishop_.
(Military) Un ---- carré, _a slow fellow_, “stick in the mud.”
Eh bien! et les “bleus,” ils ne descendent pas? Ils
n’ont donc pas entendu sonner le demi-appel, ces
“pointus-carrés!” Tas de carapatas, va!
--=C. DUBOIS DE GENNES.=
POINTUE, _f._ (thieves’), _the Préfecture de Police_. Ballonné à la
----, _imprisoned in the lock-up of the Préfecture_.
POIRE, _f._ (cads’ and thieves’), _head_, or “tibby.” See TRONCHE.
Tambouriner la ---- à quelqu’un, _to slap one’s face_, “to fetch one
a wipe in the mug,” or “to give a biff in the jaw” (Americanism).
(Familiar and popular) Faire sa ----, _to give oneself airs_; _to have
an air of self-conceit_, _to look_ “gumptious.” Synonymous of “faire sa
tête,” and, in the elegant language of cads, “faire sa merde.”
POIREAU, _m._ (popular). Properly _leek_. Faire le ----, _to be kept
waiting at an appointed time or place_, “to cool, or to kick one’s
heels.” Surtout ne me fais pas faire le ----, _mind you don’t_ “stick
me up.”
Il est comme les poireaux, _he is ever young and_ “spry.” The
expression is old.
Tu me reproches mon poil grisonnant et ne consydere point
comment il est de la nature des pourreaux esquels nous
voyons la teste blanche et la queue verte, droicte et
vigoureuse.--=RABELAIS.=
(Familiar and popular) Un ----, _a rogue who extorts money from
Sodomites under threats of disclosures_.
Par malheur le poireau, le chanteur, connaît aussi ce signe
de reconnaissance. Si ces deux antiphysiques ont derrière
eux cette araignée, toujours prête à tendre sa toile pour
les surprendre c’en est fait du douillard.--_Mémoires de
Monsieur Claude._
POIREAUTER (popular), _to wait a long while at an appointed place_, “to
cool, or to kick one’s heels.” Fielding uses the latter expression in
his _Amelia_:--
In this parlour Amelia cooled her heels, as the phrase is,
near a quarter of an hour.
POIRETTE, _f._ (thieves’), _face_, or “mug.” Laver la ----, _to kiss_.
POIRIER, _m._ (dancing halls’), _a variety of pas seul included in the
cancan_, a rather questionable sort of choregraphy.
L’orchestre joue et l’on répète le “canard qui barbote,”
la “tulipe orageuse,” le “poirier” avec un ensemble
parfait.--_Gil Blas_, Janvier, 1887.
POIROTÉ, _m._ (police and thieves’), _rogue who is being watched by the
police_.
POIROTER (police and thieves’), _to watch_, “to give a roasting,” or
“to dick.”
POIS, _f. pl._ (popular), coucher dans le lit aux ---- verts, _to sleep
in the fields_.
POISON, _f._ (familiar and popular). _insulting epithet applied to a
woman_.
POISSE, _f._ (popular and thieves’), _thief_, “prig.” For synonyms see
GRINCHE.
Voilà comment on devient grinche, l’homme pauvre
devient gouêpeur, on l’envoie à la Lorcefé, il en sort
poisse.--=VIDOCQ.= (_That is how one takes to thieving; a
poor man becomes a vagrant, he is sent to La Force, when he
leaves he is a thief._)
Une ---- à la détourne, _a shoplifter_, or “sneaksman,” termed formerly
“buttock-and-file.” “Robbing a shop by pairs is termed ‘palming’--one
thief bargaining with apparent intent to purchase,” says the _Slang
Dictionary_, “whilst the other watches his opportunity to steal. The
following anecdote will give an idea of their _modus operandi_. A man
once entered a ‘ready-made’ boot and shoe shop, and desired to be shown
a pair of boots, his companion staying outside and amusing himself by
looking in at the window. The one who required to be fresh shod was
apparently of a humble and deferential turn, for he placed his hat on
the floor directly he stepped into the shop. Boot after boot was tried
on until at last a fit was obtained, when in rushed a man, snatched
up the customer’s hat left near the door, and ran down the street as
fast as his legs could carry him. Away went the customer after his hat,
and Crispin, standing at the door, clapped his hands, and shouted,
‘Go it, you’ll catch him?’ little thinking that it was a concerted
trick, and that neither his boots nor the customer would ever return.”
Detectives occasionally learn something from thieves, as appears from
the stratagem resorted to by a French member of the _Sûreté_ some time
ago, who, himself a small man, and having a warrant for the arrest of
an herculean and desperate scoundrel, proceeded as follows. He dogged
his man, who pretended to hawk chains and watches, and, watching his
opportunity, when the man had laid down his merchandise on the table
of a wine-shop, he suddenly caught up one of the articles, and made
off in the direction of the police station, followed thither by his
quarry in hot pursuit, and crying out, “Stop thief!” Needless to say
that the result was quite the reverse of that anticipated by the
burly malefactor. (Dandies’) La ----, _the world of cads_, of “rank
outsiders.”
POISSÉ, _adj._ (thieves’), _stolen_; _caught_. Au bout d’un an ----
avec une pesée de gigot que j’allais fourguer. _After one year nabbed
with some leg of mutton which I was taking away to sell._
POISSER (popular and thieves’), _to catch_; _to steal_, “to cop, to
clift, or to claim;” ---- les philippes, or l’auber, _to steal money_.
See GRINCHIR.
Il fait nuit, le ciel s’opaque.
Viens-tu? J’vas poisser l’auber...
Au bagn’ j’aurai eun’ casaque!
C’est pas rigolo, l’hiver.
=RICHEPIN.=
Se ----, _to get drunk_. See SCULPTER. Se faire ---- la gerce, _to be
guilty of unnatural offences_.
POISSEUR, _m._ (popular and thieves’), _thief_, or “prig.” See GRINCHE.
POISSEUSE, _f._ (familiar), _dressy, stylish woman_, a “blooming tart.”
POISSEUX, _m._ (familiar), _dandy_, or “masher.” For list of synonyms
see GOMMEUX.
Les petits jeunes gens, les poisseux, les boudinés ...
étaient à leur poste.--=A. SIRVEN=, _Au Pays des Roublards_.
Dandies used to apply the epithet to a cad, a “rank outsider.”
POISSON, _m._ (familiar and popular), _one who lives on the earnings
of a prostitute, whom he terms “sa marmite,” as providing him with his
daily bread_.
Seulement ... tout souteneur qui ne venge pas sa largue est
considéré comme un fainéant. Il est condamné par la bande
des poissons.--_Mémoires de Monsieur Claude._
Bullies frequent all parts of Paris, but principally the outer
Boulevards and Quartier Montmartre. Those of the lower sort are
recognizable by their vigorous appearance, kiss-curls, tight
light-coloured trousers, and tall silk cap. These degraded creatures,
who are the bane of the outer quarters, readily turn murderers when
“business” is slack. Léo Taxil says: “Every day the newspapers are
full of the exploits of these wretches, who ply the knife as jugglers
do their balls. The police are powerless against them.” In a curious
pamphlet, written in 1830, as a protest of the Paris bullies against a
police order, forbidding prostitutes from plying their trade in public
places, we have a marlou’s portrait painted by himself:--
Un marlou, monsieur le Préfet, c’est un beau jeune homme,
fort, solide, sachant tirer la savate, se mettant fort
bien, dansant le chahut et le cancan avec élégance, aimable
auprès des filles dévouées au culte de Vénus, les soutenant
dans les dangers éminents (_sic_), sachant les faire
respecter et les forcer à se conduire avec décence ...
vous voyez bien qu’un marlou est un être moral, utile à la
société.--_Le beau Théodore Cancan._
The synonyms of “poisson” are the following: “Alphonse,
baigne-dans-le-beurre, barbise, barbe, barbillon, barbeau, marlou,
benoît, brochet, dos, dos vert, casquette à trois ponts, chevalier
du bidet, chevalier de la guiche, chiqueur de blanc, bouffeur de
blanc, costel, cravate verte, guiche, dessous, écaillé, fish, foulard
rouge, gentilhomme sous-marin, ambassadeur, gonce à écailles, goujon,
lacromuche, retrousseur, dos d’azur, dauphin, macchoux, machabée,
macque, macquet, macrottin, maq, maquereau, poisson frayeur, releveur
de fumeuse, maquignon à bidoche, mangeur de blanc, tête de patère,
marloupatte, marloupin, marlousier, marquant, mec, mec de la guiche,
monsieur à nageoires, monsieur à rouflaquettes, nég en viande chaude,
patenté, porte-nageoires, roi de la mer, rouflaquette, roule-en-cul,
soixante-six, un qui va aux épinards, valet de cœur, visqueux, bibi,
and formerly bras de fer.” The English slang has “Sunday-man, petticoat
pensioner, pensioner with an obscene prefix, ponce, prosser,” &c.
(Popular) Poisson, _large glass of brandy_.
Tous les matins, quand je m’lève,
J’ai l’cœur sens sus d’sous;
J’l’envoi’ chercher contr’ la Grève
Un poisson d’ quatr’ sous.
Il rest’ trois quarts d’heure en route,
Et puis en r’montant,
I’m’lich’ la moitié d’ma goutte
Qué cochon d’enfant!
_Popular Song._
POITOU, _m._ (thieves’), _the public_. Epargner le ----, _to take one’s
precautions_. Poitou, or poiton, _no_; _nothing_. As-tu vingt ronds? Du
poiton. _Have you a franc? No._
POITRINAIRE, _f._ (popular), _woman with opulent breasts_. Properly
_consumptive person_.
POITRINE, _f._ (military), d’acier, _cuirassier_; ---- de velours,
_officer of the engineers_, or “sapper.” An allusion to the velvet
front of his tunic. (Popular) Du casse ----, _brandy_. Un casse
----. The celebrated physician Tardieu, in his _Etude Médico-Légale
sur les Attentats aux Mœurs_, says: “Qui manu stupro dediti sunt,
casse-poitrine appellantur.”
POITRINER (players’), _to hold cards close to one so as to conceal
one’s game_.
POIVRADE, _f._ (popular), _syphilis, or other kind of venereal
disease_, one of which the English slang terms “French gout, or ladies’
fever.”
POIVRE, _m. and adj._ (thieves’), POISON. Flasquer du ---- à la rousse,
_to keep out of the way of the police_, _to be in_ “lavender.” (Popular
and thieves’) Poivre, _brandy_; _glass of brandy_.