To blow the gaff, or gab (q.v.), verb. phr. (common). To give
information; to let out a secret. For synonyms, see Peach.
1785. Grose, Vulg. Tongue. To blow the gab (cant), to confess, or
impeach a confederate.
1833. Marryat, Peter Simple, ch. xliii. One of the French officers,
after he was taken prisoner, axed me how we had managed to get the
gun up there; but I wasn’t going to blow the gaff.
1877. Five Years’ Penal Servitude, ch. ii., p. 122. The prisoner,
burning for revenge, quietly bides his time till the chief warder
comes round, then asks to speak to him, and blows the gaff.
1891. Referee, 8 Mar. Under sacred promise not to blow the gaff I
was put up to the method.
Gaffer, subs. (old).—1. An old man; the masculine of Gammer (q.v.).
Also a title of address: e.g., ‘Good day, gaffer!’ Cf., Uncle and
Daddy. Also (see quot. 1710), a husband.
1710. Dame Hurdle’s Letter (quoted by Nares). My gaffer only said
he would inform himself as well as he could against next election,
and keep a good conscience.
1714. Gay, Shepherd’s Week. For Gaffer Treadwell told us,
by-the-bye, Excessive sorrow is exceeding dry.
1842. Tennyson, The Goose. Ran Gaffer, stumbled Gammer.
2. (common).—A master; an employer; a boss (q.v.); (athletic) a
pedestrian trainer and ‘farmer’; and (navvies’) a gang-master or ganger
(q.v.).
1719. Durfey, Pills, etc., iv., 123. In comes our gaffer Underwood,
And sits him on the bench.
1748. T. Dyche, Dict. (5th ed.) Gaffer (S.) a familiar word mostly
used in the country for master.
1885. Daily News, 24 Jan., p. 3, c. 1. They go and work at
fivepence, and some on ’em as low as threepence halfpenny, an hour;
that’s just half what we get, and the gaffers keep ’em on and sack
us.
1888. Sportsman, 20 Dec. Comic enough were some of the stories
‘Jemmy’ told of his relations with ‘the gaffer.’
1889. Broadside Ballad, ‘The Gaffers of the Gang.’ We are the boys
that can do the excavations, We are the lads for the ’atin’ and the
dhrinkin’, With the ladies we are so fascinatin’, Because we are
the gaffers of the gang.