1690. B. E., A New Dict. Gallant a very fine man; also a Man of
Metal, or a brave Fellow; also one that Courts, or keeps, or is
Kept by, a Mistress.
1719. Durfey, Pills, etc., iv., 110 There’s never a gallant but sat
at her hand.
1751–4. Jortin, Eccles. Hist. (quoted in Encyclopædic Dict.). As to
Theodora, they who had been her gallants when she was an actress,
related that dæmons, or nocturnal spirits, had often driven them
away to lie with her themselves.
Adj. (old).—(1). Valiant (2) showy; (3) amorous.
1719. Durfey, Pills, etc., i., 40. O London is a fine town, and a
gallant city.
Verb. (old).—To sweetheart; to squire; to escort; to pursue or to
enjoy.
To Gallant a Fan. verb. phr. (old).—To break with design, to afford an
opportunity of presenting a better.—B. E. (1690).
Gallant Fiftieth, subs. phr. (military).—The Fiftieth Foot. [For its
share in Vimiera, 1808.] Also, blind half hundred (q.v.); and dirty
half hundred (q.v.).
Gallantry, subs. (1). Sparkishness (q.v.); dandyism; (2) the habit, or
pursuit, of the sexual favour. A life of gallantry = a life devoted to
the other sex.
Gallery, subs. (Winchester College).—A commoner bedroom. [From a
tradition of galleries in Commoners.] See gallery-nymphs.
To play to the Gallery, verb. phr. (colloquial).—To act so as to win
the applause of the vulgar: i.e., to abandon distinction and art for
coarseness of means and cheapness of effect. Said indifferently of
anyone in any profession who exerts himself to win the suffrages of the
mob; as a political demagogue, a ‘popular’ preacher, a ‘fashionable’
painter, and so on.
1872. Standard, 23 Oct. ‘New York Correspondence.’ His dispatches
were, indeed, too long and too swelling in phrase; for herein he
was always playing to the galleries.
Hence, Gallery-hit, shot, stroke, etc. = a touch designed for, and
exclusively addressed to, the non-critical.
To play the Gallery, verb. phr. (colloquial).—To make an audience; to
applaud.
1870. Echo, 23 July, p. 5, c. 4. He seemed altogether a jovial,
amusing sort of fellow, and as we were close by him, and constantly
called in to play the gallery to his witty remarks, we asked him,
when his friends left him, to join our party.
Gallery Nymph, subs. phr. (Winchester College).—A housemaid. See
Gallery.
Galley—put a brass galley down your back, verb. phr. (printers’).—An
admonition to appear before a principal; implying that the galley will
serve as a screen.
Galley-foist, subs. (old).—The state barge, used by the Lord Mayor when
he was sworn in at Westminster.
1609. Ben Jonson, Silent Woman, iv., 2. Out of my doores, you sons
of noise and tumult, begot on an ill May day, or when the
galleyfoist is afloate to Westminster.
1785. Grose, Vulg. Tongue, s.v.
1811. Lexicon Balatronicum, s.v.
Galley-growler or -stoker, subs. (nautical).—A loafer; a malingerer
(q.v.); a grumble-guts (q.v.).
Galley-halfpenny, subs. (old).—A base coin, tempus Henry IV. [So called
because it was commonly imported in the Genoese galleys. See Leake,
English Money, p. 129; Ruding, Annals of Coinage, i., 250; and Stow,
Survey (ed. 1842) p. 50.]
Galley-Slave, subs. (printers’).—A compositor. [From the oblong tray
whereon the matter from the composing stick is arranged in column or
page.] For synonyms, see Donkey.
1683. Moxon, s.v.
Galleywest, adj. or adv. (American).—An indefinite superlative. Cf.,
About-east.
1884. Clemens, (M. Twain) Huck. Finn, xxxvii., 382. Then she
grabbed up the basket and slammed it across the house, and knocked
the cat galleywest.
1887. Francis, Saddle and Mocassin (quoted in Slang, Jargon, and
Cant). I’ll be darned if this establishment of yours, Hunse, don’t
knock any one of them galley-west!—galleywest, sir, that’s what it
does.
Galley-yarn (or news), subs. phr. (nautical).—A lying story; a swindle
or take-in (q.v.). Frequently abbreviated to ‘G.Y.’
1884. Henley and Stevenson, Admiral Guinea, iii., 4. What? lantern
and cutlass yours; you the one that knew the house; you the one
that saw; you the one overtaken and denounced; and you spin me a
galley-yarn like that.
Gallied, ppl. adj. (old).—‘Harried; vexed; over-fatigued; perhaps like
a galley-slave’ (Grose, Vulg. Tongue, s.v.). In Australia, frightened.
Gallinipper, subs. (West Indian).—A large mosquito.
1847. Porter, Big Bear, etc., p. 119. In the summer time the lakes
and snakes ... musketoes and gallinippers, buffalo gnats and
sandflies ... prevented the Injins from gwine through the country.
1888. Lippincott’s Magazine. I thought the gallinippers would fly
away with me before the seed ticks had sucked all my blood.
Gallipot, subs. (common).—An apothecary.
1785. Grose, Vulg. Tongue, s.v.
1836. M. Scott, Cringle’s Log, ch. xiv. In truth, sir, I thought
our surgeon would be of more use than any outlandish gallipot that
you could carry back.
1848. Thackeray, Book of Snobs, ch. xxvii. ‘Half a-dozen little
gallipots,’ interposed Miss Wirt.
English Synonyms.—Bolus; bum-tender; clyster-giver; clyster-pipe;
croaker; crocus; drugs; Ollapod (from a creation of the Younger
Coleman’s); gage-monger; Galen (from the great physician);
jakes-provider; pill-box; pill-merchant; pills; squirt;
salts-and-senna; squire of the pot.
French Synonyms.—Un mirancu (obsolete: a play on mire en cul,
respecting which cf., Béralde, in Molière, Malade Imaginaire: ‘On voit
bien que vous n’avez pas accoutumé de parler à des visages’); un
limonadier de postérieurs (popular: cf., ‘bum-tender’); un flûtencul
(common); un insinuant (popular: one who ‘insinuates’ the
clyster-pipe).
German Synonyms.—Rokeach, Raukeach, or Raukack (from the Hebrew).
Gallivant, verb. (colloquial).—1. To gad about with, or after, one of
the other sex; to play the gallant; to ‘do the agreeable.’
1838. Dickens, Nicholas Nickleby, ch. lxiv. You were out all day
yesterday, and gallivanting somewhere, I know.
1862. H. Beecher Stowe, in The Independent, 27 Feb. What business
had he to flirt and gallivant all summer with Sally Kittridge?
1886. Hawley Smart, Struck Down, xi. The ramparts is a great place
for gallivanting.
1863. H. Kingsley, Austin Elliot, i., 112. It’s them gals, Mr.
Austin. Come in afore she sees you, else she’ll not be at home. She
is gallivanting in the paddock with Captain Hertford.