Gobbling, subs. (vulgar).—Gorging.
1846–48. Thackeray, Vanity Fair, ch. iii., vol. 1. His mouth was
full of it, his face quite red with the delightful exercise of
gobbling ‘Mother, it’s as good as my own curries in India.’
Go-between, subs. (old).—A pimp or bawd. Now an intermediary of any
kind.
1596. Shakspeare, Merry Wives of Windsor, Act ii., sc. 2. Even as
you came into me, her assistant, or go-between, parted from me.
1785. Grose, Vulg. Tongue, s.v.
Goblin, subs. (old).—A sovereign. For synonyms, see Canary.
1887. W. E. Henley, Villon’s Straight Tip. Your merry goblins soon
stravag: Boose and the blowens cop the lot.
Gob-box, subs. (common).—The mouth. [From gob, subs.] For synonyms, see
Potato-trap.
1773. Forster, Goldsmith, Bk. IV., ch. xiv., p. 414 (5th ed.).
Shuter protesting in his vehement odd way that ‘the boy could
patter,’ and ‘use the gob-box as quick and smart as any of them.’
1819. Scott, Bride of Lammermoor, ch. i. Your characters ... made
too much use of the gob-box; they patter too much.
Gob-stick, subs. (old).—A silver table-spoon. (In use in America =
either spoon or fork); (nautical), a horn or wooden spoon.
1789. Parker, Life’s Painter, s.v.
1859. Matsell, Vocabulum, s.v.
Gob-string (or Gab-string), subs. (old).—A bridle.
1785. Grose, Vulg. Tongue, s.v.
1811. Lexicon Balatronicum, s.v.
Go-by, subs. (colloquial).—The act of passing; an evasion; a deception.
To give one the go-by = to cut; to leave in the lurch. Cf., Cut (subs.
sense 2, verb. sense 2).
1876. Hindley, Cheap Jack, p. 214. When we came in contact with a
travelling bookseller we could give him the go-by with our library.
1892. R. L. Stevenson, Kidnapped, ch. ix. She gave us the go-by in
the fog—as I wish from the heart that ye had done yoursel’!
1892. Sala’s Journal, 25 June, p. 194. Now can you understand how
it is possible, and, I think, expedient, to give politics the
go-by, so far as one conveniently can?
Go-by-the-Ground, subs. (old).—A dumpy man or woman.—Grose.
God, subs. (common).—1. in. pl., the occupants of the gallery at a
theatre. [Said to have been first used by Garrick because they were
seated on high, and close to the sky-painted ceiling.] Fr., paradis =
gallery; also poulailler. In feminine, Goddess.
1772. Cumberland, Fashionable Lover [probably spoken by printer’s
devil]. ’Tis odds For one poor devil to face so many gods.
1812. J. and H. Smith, Rejected Addresses, p. 128 [ed. 1869]. Each
one shilling god within reach of a nod is, And plain are the charms
of each gallery goddess.
1843. Thackeray, Irish Sketch Book, ch. xxvii. The gallery was
quite full ... one young god, between the acts, favoured the public
with a song.
1872. M. E. Braddon, Dead Sea Fruit, ch. xiv. There come
occasionally actors and actresses of higher repute, eager to gather
new laurels in these untrodden regions, and not ill pleased to find
themselves received with noisy rapture and outspoken admiration by
the ruder gods and homelier goddesses of a threepenny gallery.
1890. Globe, 7 Apr., p. 2, c. 2. The gods, or a portion of them,
hooted and hissed while the National Anthem was being performed.
1892. Sydney Watson, Wops the Waif, iii., iv. It is only when we
have paid our ‘tuppence’ and ascended to the gallery just under the
roof, known as ‘among the gods,’ that we begin to understand what
is meant by the lowest classes, the ‘great unwashed.’
1892. Pall Mall Gaz., 20 Apr., p. 2, c. 3. If theatre managers
would only give the public the chance of as good a seat as can be
got at the Trocadero or the Pavilion, at the same price, and manage
the ventilation of their houses so as not to bake the gods and
freeze the ‘pitites,’ I venture to think that fewer people would go
to the music halls.