To get through, verb. phr. (colloquial).—To pass an examination; to
accomplish.
1853. Bradley, Verd. Green, II. ch. xii. So you see, Giglamps, I’m
safe to get through.
To get up and dust, verb. phr. (American).—To depart hastily. For
synonyms, see Skedaddle and Amputate.
To get up behind (or get behind) a man, verb. phr. (common).—To endorse
or back a bill.
1880. Life in a Debtor’s Prison, p. 87. In other cases he figured
as the drawer, or simply as endorser. This, Mr. Whipper described
as getting up behind.
To get up the mail, verb. phr. (thieves’).—To find money (as counsels’
fees, etc.) for defence.
1889. Clarkson and Richardson, Police, 322, s.v.
[Get enters into many other combinations. See back teeth; bag or
sack; bead; beans; beat; big bird and goose; big head; billet; bit;
boat; bolt; books; bulge; bullet; bull’s feather; crocketts; dander
and monkey; dark; drop; eye; flannels; flint; game; grand bounce;
gravel-rash; grind; grindstone; hand; hang; hat; head; hip or hop;
home; horn; hot; jack; keen; length of one’s foot; measure; mitten;
needle; religion; rise; run; scot, swot, or scrape; set; shut of;
silk; snuff; straight; sun; ticket of leave; wool; wrong box.]
Getaway, subs. (American thieves’).—A locomotive or train; a puffer
(q.v.).
Getter. A sure getter, subs. phr. (Scots).—A procreant male with a
great capacity for fertilization.
Get-up, subs. (colloquial).—1. Dress; constitution and appearance;
disguise. See Get-up, verb, sense 1.
1856. Whyte Melville, Kate Coventry, ch. xiv. Is that killing get
up entirely for your benefit, John? I asked.
1865. G. A. Sala, Trip to Barbary, ch. x. Altogether the get up of
a Mauresque en promenade is livelier and smarter than that of a
Turkish woman.
1866. G. Eliot, Felix Holt, ch. xii. The graceful, well-appointed
Mr. Christian, who sneered at Scales about his get up, having to
walk back to the house with only one tail to his coat.
1882. Graphic, 9 Dec., p. 643, c. 2. Comic gets up, which will make
the house roar presently, are elaborated with the business air of a
judge in banc, or a water-rate collector.
1889. Mirror, 26 Aug., p. 2, c. 1. I cannot, however, congratulate
F. C. G. on his sketch of Blowitz; it isn’t much like the great
man, and the get up is quite too absurd.
1890. Daily Telegraph, 25 Feb., p. 7. col. 7. Dressed as a
copurchic, and, giving himself out as an Italian count—thinking to
entrap some Transatlantic heiress by his title, fascinating
appearance, and gorgeous get up.
Verb. phr. (colloquial).—(1). To prepare (a part, a paper, a case); (2)
to arrange (a concert); (3) to dress (as got up regardless, to the
nines, to the knocker, to kill, within an inch of one’s life); (4) to
disguise (as a sailor, a soldier, Henry VIII., a butcher, a nun). See
also Get into.
1828. L. Hunt, Essays (Camelot ed.), p. 13. The pocket-books that
now contain any literature are got up, as the phrase is, in the
most unambitious style.
1856. Whyte Melville, Kate Coventry, ch. xviii. Three very
gentleman-like, good-looking men, got up to the utmost extent of
hunting splendour.
1864. Eton School Days, ch. xviii., p. 207. He felt confident in
his power of getting up so that no one would recognise him.
1866. New York Home Journal, Jan. While that admirable old dame,
Nature, has been strangely neglectful of much which might be
conducive to our comfort, she has gotten up, regardless of expense,
a few articles which are good for some purposes, as the witty Hood
has told us.
1871. London Figaro, 11 Mar. It is got up very much in the style of
the Paris journals, and is very inferior compared with any
respectable journal in England.
1889. Polytechnic Magazine, 24 Oct., p. 261. He came specially got
up in piebald trousers.
1892. Chevalier. ‘The Little Nipper.’ I’ve knowed ’im take a girl
on six feet tall; ’E’d git ’imself up dossy, Say ‘I’m goin’ out wi’
Flossie.’
G.H. See George Horne.
Ghastly, adj. and adv. (colloquial).—Very: a popular intensitive; Cf.,
Awful, Bloody, Fucking.
Ghost, subs. (common).—One who secretly does artistic or literary work
for another person taking the credit and receiving the price. [The term
was frequently used during the trial of Lawes v. Belt in 188(?).] Cf.,
devil.
1890. Daily Telegraph, 8 Feb. The sculptor’s ghost is conjured up
from the vasty deep of byegone lawsuits.
1892. National Observer, vii., 327. Would not the unkind describe
your ‘practical man’ as a ghost?
Verb. (common).—To prowl; to spy upon; to shadow (q.v.).
The ghost walks (or does not walk) phr. (theatrical).—There is (or is
not) money in the treasury.
1853. Household Words, No. 183. When no salaries are forthcoming
the ghost doesn’t walk.
1883. Referee, 24 June, p. 3, c. 2. An Actor’s Benevolent Fund box
placed on the treasurer’s desk every day when the ghost walks would
get many an odd shilling or sixpence put into it.
1885. The Stage, p. 112. The rogues seldom appear at a loss for a
plausible story when it is time for the ghost to walk. Ibid. The
next day the ghost declines to walk.
1889. J. C. Colman (in Slang, Jargon, and Cant), p. 405.
Ghost-walking, a term originally applied by an impecunious stroller
in a sharing company to the operation of ‘holding the treasury,’ or
paying the salaries, which has become a stock facetiæ among all
kinds and descriptions of actors. Instead of enquiring whether the
treasury is open, they generally say—‘Has the ghost walked?’ or
‘What, has this thing appeared again?’ (Shakspeare).
1890. Illustrated Bits, 29 Mar., p. 11, c. 1. And a few nights with
empty benches laid the ghost completely. It could not even walk to
the tune of quarter salaries.
The ghost of a chance, subs. phr. (colloquial).—The faintest
likelihood, or the slightest trace: e.g., He hasn’t the ghost of a
chance.
1891. Sportsman, 26 Mar. He did not give the ghost of a chance.
Ghoul, subs. (American.)—1. A spy; specifically a man who preys on such
married women as addict themselves to assignation houses.
2. (journalistic).—A newspaper chronicler of the smallest private
tittle-tattle.
Gib, subs. (colloquial).—1. Gibraltar. Once a penal station: whence—2.
A gaol.
1877. Five Years’ Penal Servitude, ch. iii., p. 221. I did a
lagging of seven, and was at the gib three out of it.
1892. Pall Mall Gazette, 23 Mar., p. 6, c. 1. ‘Stormy Weather at
gib.’ The weather here has been fearful; 51 inches of rain have
been registered, and the land for miles round Gibraltar is
submerged.
To hang one’s gib, verb. phr. (colloquial).—To pout. See Jib.
Gibberish (or Gebberish, Gibberidge, Gibrige, etc.), subs. (old: now
recognised).—Originally the lingo of gipsies, beggars, etc. Now, any
kind of inarticulate nonsense. [From gibber, a variant of Jabber.] See
Cant, Slang, Pedlar’s French, etc.
1594. Nashe, Unf. Traveller, in wks., v., 68. That all cried out
upon him mightily in their gibrige, lyke a companie of beggers.
1598. Florio, Worlde of Wordes. Gergare, to speak fustian, pedlers
french, or rogues language, or gibbrish.
1611. Cotgrave, Dictionarie. Jargon, gibridge fustian language,
pedler’s French, a barbarus jangling.
1638. H. Shirley, Martyr’d Souldier, Act iii., Sc. 4. Feele my
pulse once again and tell me, Doctor, Tell me in tearmes that I may
understand,—I doe not love your gibberish,—tell me honestly Where
the Cause lies, and give a Remedy.
1659. Torriano, Vocabolario, s.v.
1748. T. Dyche, Dictionary (5th ed.). Gibberish (s.) an
unintelligible jargon, or confused way of speaking, used by the
gipsies, beggars, etc., to disguise their wicked designs; also any
discourse where words abound more than sense.
1748. Smollett, Rod. Random, ch. xxx. He repeated some gibberish
which by the sound seemed to be Irish.
1817. Scott, Rob Roy, ch. viii. Since that d——d clerk of mine has
taken his gibberish elsewhere.
1850. D. Jerrold, The Catspaw, Act i. Odds and ends ... writ down
in such a kind of gibberish that I can’t make out one of ’em.
1858. G. Eliot, Mr. Gilfit’s Love Story, ch. iv. It’ll learn to
speak summat better nor gibberish, an’ be brought up i’ the true
religion.
1892. R. L. Stevenson and L. Osbourne, The Wrecker, p. 129. It was
Fo’c’s’le Jack that piped and drawled his ungrammatical gibberish.
Gibble-Gabble, subs. (colloquial).—Nonsense; gibberish (q.v.). [A
reduplication of gabble (q.v.).]
1600. Dekker, Shoemaker’s Holiday, in wks. (1873) i., 21. Hee’s
some uplandish workeman, hire him good master, That I may learne
some gibble gabble, ’twill make us worke the faster.
1659. Torriano, Vocabolario, s.v.
1748. T. Dyche, Dictionary (5th ed.). Gibble-gabble (s), silly,
foolish, idle talk.
Gib-cat, subs. (old).—A tom-cat. [An abbreviation of Gilbert = O. Fr.:
Tibert, the cat in the fable of Reynard the Fox.]
1360. Chaucer, Romaunt of the Rose, 6204 (Thibert le Cas is
rendered by gibbe, our cat).
1598. Shakspeare, 1 Henry IV., Act i., Sc. 2. I am as melancholy as
a gib-cat.
1614. Jonson, Bartholomew Fair, i., 1. Before I endure such another
day with him, I’ll be drawn with a good gib-cat through the great
pond at home.
1663. Rump Songs. ‘Rump Carbonadoed,’ ii., 71. As if they had less
wit and grace than gib-cats.
1785. Grose, Vulg. Tongue, s.v.
Gibe, verb. (American).—To go well with; to be acceptable. See Gee.
Gibel, verb. (thieves’).—To bring.
1837. Disraeli, Venetia, bk. i., ch. xiv. Gibel the chive, bring
the knife.
Gib-face, subs. (colloquial).—A heavy jowl; an ugly-mug (q.v.). Cf., to
hang one’s gib.
Giblets, subs. (common).—1. The intestines generally; the manifold
(q.v.). Cf. trouble-giblets.
1864. Browning, Dramatis Personæ, ‘Flight of the Duchess.’ Is
pumped up briskly through the main ventricle, And floats me
genially round the giblets.