To have, get, or give one’s greens, verb. phr. (venery).—To enjoy,
procure, or confer the sexual favour. Said indifferently of both sexes.
Hence, also, on for one’s greens = amorous and willing; after one’s
greens = in quest of the favour; green-grove = the pubes; green-grocery
= the female pudendum; the price of greens = the cost of an embrace;
fresh greens = a new piece (q.v.). [Derived by some from the old Scots’
grene = to pine, to long for, to desire with insistence: whence greens
= longings, desires; which words may in their turn be referred,
perhaps, to Mid. Eng., zernen, A.S., gyrnan, Icelandic, girna = to
desire, and Gothic, gairns = desirous. Mod. Ger., begehren = to desire.
See Dalziel, Darker Superstitions of Scotland, 1835, p. 106:—‘He
answered that he wald gif the sum Spanyie fleis callit cantarides,
quhilk, gif thou suld move the said Elizabeth to drynk of, it wold mak
hir out of all question to grene eftir the.’ Trial of Peter Hay, of
Kirklands, and others, for Witchcraft, 25th May, 1601. But in truth,
the expression is a late and vulgar coinage. It would seem, indeed, to
be a reminiscence of garden (q.v.), and the set of metaphors—as kail,
cauliflower, parsley bed, and so forth (all which see)—suggested
thereby.]
English Synonyms.—To be all there but the most of you; in Abraham’s
bosom; up one’s petticoats (or among one’s frills); there; on the spot;
into; up; up to one’s balls; where uncle’s doodle goes; among the
cabbages.
To dance the blanket hornpipe; the buttock jig; the cushion dance (see
Monosyllable.); the goat’s jig; the mattress jig; the married man’s
cotillion; the matrimonial polka; the reels o’ Bogie (Scots’); the
reels of Stumpie (Scots’); to the tune of the shaking of the sheets;
with your arse to the ceiling, or the kipples (Scots’).
To go ballocking; beard-splitting; bed-pressing (Marston);
belly-bumping (Urquhart); bitching (Marston); bum-fighting;
bum-working; bum-tickling; bum-faking; bush-ranging; buttock-stirring
(Urquhart); bird’s-nesting; buttocking; cock-fighting; cunny-catching;
doodling; drabbing; fleshing it; flesh-mongering; goosing; to
Hairyfordshire; jock-hunting; jottling; jumming (Urquhart);
leather-stretching; on the loose; motting; molrowing; pile-driving;
prick-scouring; quim-sticking; rumping; rump-splitting; strumming;
twatting; twat-faking; vaulting (Marston, etc.); wenching; womanizing;
working the dumb (or double, or hairy) oracle; twat-raking;
tummy-tickling; tromboning; quim-wedging; tail-twitching; button-hole
working; under-petticoating.
To have, or do, a bit of beef (of women); business (Shakspeare);
bum-dancing; cauliflower; cock; cock-fighting; cunt; curly greens;
fish; on a fork; fun; off the chump end; flat; front-door work; giblet
pie; the gut- (or cream- or sugar-) stick (of women); jam; ladies’
tailoring; meat; mutton; pork; quimsy; rough; sharp-and-blunt (rhyming
slang); stuff; split-mutton; skirt; summer cabbage.
To have, or do, or perform, the act of androgynation (Urquhart); a
ballocking; a bit; a lassie’s by-job (Burns); a bedward bit (Durfey); a
beanfeast in bed; a belly-warmer; a blindfold bit; a bottom-wetter (of
women); a bout; a brush with the cue; a dive in the dark; a drop-in; a
double fight; an ejectment in Love-lane; a four-legged frolic; a fuck;
a futter; a game in the cock-loft; a goose-and-duck (rhyming); the
culbatizing exercise (Urquhart); a grind; a hoist-in; a jottle; a
jumble-giblets; a jumble-up; an inside worry; a leap; a leap up the
ladder; a little of one with t’other (Durfey); a mount; a mow (David
Lyndsay, Burns, etc.); a nibble; a plaster of warm guts (Grose); a
poke; a put; a put-in; a random push (Burns); a rasp; a ride; a roger;
a rootle; a rush up the straight; a shot at the bull’s eye; a slide up
the board; a squirt-and-a squeeze; a touch-off; a touch-up; a
tumble-in; a wet-’un; a wipe at the place; a wollop-in.
Specific.—To have, or do, a back-scuttle, (q.v.); a buttered bun
(q.v.); a dog’s marriage (q.v.); a knee-trembler, perpendicular, or
upright (q.v.); a matrimonial (q.v.); spoon-fashion (q.v.); a st.
george (q.v.).
To play at, All-fours; Adam-and-Eve; belly-to-belly (Urquhart);
brangle-buttock (Urquhart); buttock-and-leave-her; cherry-pit
(Herrick); couple-your-navels; cuddle-my-cuddie (Durfey); Hey Gammer
Cook (C. Johnson); fathers-and-mothers; the first-game-ever-played;
Handie-Dandie; Hooper’s Hide (q.v.); grapple-my-belly (Urquhart);
horses-and-mares (schoolboys’); the close-buttock-game (Urquhart);
cock-in-cover; houghmagandie (Burns); in-and-in; in-and-out;
Irish-whist (where-the-jack (q.v.)-takes-the ace [see Monosyllable.]);
the-loose-coat-game (Urquhart); Molly’s hole (schoolboys’);
pickle-me-tickle-me (Urquhart); mumble-peg; prick-the-garter;
pully-hauly (Grose); put-in-all; the-same-old-game; squeezem-close;
stable-my-naggie; thread-the-needle; tops-and-bottoms; two-handed-put
(Grose); up-tails-all.
General.—To Adam and Eve it; to blow the groundsels; to engage three to
one; to chuck a tread; to do (Jonson); to do it; to do ‘the act of
darkness’ (Shakspeare), the act of love, the deed of kind, the work of
increase, ‘the divine work of fatherhood’ (Whitman); to feed the
dumb-glutton; to get one’s hair cut; to slip in Daintie Davie (Scots’),
or Willie Wallace (idem); to get Jack in the orchard; to get on top of;
to give a lesson in simple arithmetic (i.e., addition, division,
multiplication and subtraction); to give a green gown (q.v.); to go
‘groping for trout in a peculiar river’ (Shakspeare); to go
face-making; to go to Durham (North Country); to go to see a sick
friend; to have it; to join faces (Durfey); to join giblets; to make
ends meet; to make the beast with two backs (Shakspeare and Urquhart);
to make a settlement in tail; to play top-sawyer; to put it in and
break it; to post a letter; to go on the stitch; to labor lea (Scots);
to tether one’s nags on (idem); to nail twa wames thegither (idem); to
lift a leg on (Burns); to ride a post (Cotton); to peel one’s end in;
to put the devil into hell (Boccaccio); to rub bacons (Urquhart); to
strop one’s beak; to strip one’s tarse in; to grind one’s tool; to
grease the wheel; to take on a split-arsed mechanic; to take a turn in
Bushey-park, Cock-alley, Cock-lane, Cupid’s-alley, Cupid’s-corner,
Hair-court, ‘the lists of love’ (Shakspeare), Love-lane, on Mount
Pleasant, among the parsley, on Shooter’s-hill, through the stubble; to
whack it up; to wollop it in; to labour leather; to wind up the clock
(Sterne).
Of women only.—To get an arselins coup (Burns); to catch an oyster; to
do the naughty; to do a spread, a tumble, a back-fall, what mother did
before me; a turn on one’s back, what Eve did with Adam; to hold, or
turn up one’s tail (Burns and Durfey); to get one’s leg lifted, one’s
kettle mended, one’s chimney swept out, one’s leather stretched; to
lift one’s leg; to open up to; to get shot in the tail; to get a shove
in one’s blind eye; to get a wet bottom; what Harry gave Doll (Durfey);
to suck the sugar-stick; to take in beef; to take Nebuchadnezzar out to
grass; to look at the ceiling over a man’s shoulder; to get outside it;
to play one’s ace; to rub one’s arse on (Rochester); to spread to; to
take in and do for; to give standing room for one; to get hulled
between wind and water; to get a pair of balls against one’s butt; to
take in cream; to show (or give) a bit; to skin the live rabbit; to
feed (or trot out) one’s pussy (q.v.); to lose the match and pocket the
stakes; to get a bellyful of marrow pudding; to supple both ends of it
(Scots); to draw a cork; to get hilt and hair (Burns); to draw a man’s
fireworks; to wag one’s tail (Pope); to take the starch out of; to go
star-gazing (or studying astronomy) on one’s back; to get a green gown
(Herrick and Durfey); to have a hot pudding (or live sausage) for
supper; to grant the favour; to give mutton for beef, juice for jelly,
soft for hard, a bit of snug for a bit of stiff, a hole to hide it in,
a cure for the horn (q.v.), a hot poultice for the Irish toothache; to
pull up one’s petticoats to; to get the best and plenty of it; to lie
under; to stand the push; to get stabbed in the thigh; to take off
one’s stays; to get touched up, a bit of the goose’s-neck, a go at the
creamstick, a handle for the broom.
Conventionalisms.—To have connection; to have carnal, improper, or
sexual intercourse; to know carnally; to have carnal knowledge of; to
indulge in sexual commerce; to go to bed with; to lie with; to go in
unto (Biblical); to be intimate, improperly intimate, familiar, on
terms of familiarity with; to have one’s will of; to lavish one’s
favours on; to enjoy the pleasures of love, or the conjugal embrace; to
embrace; to have one’s way with; to perform connubial rites; to scale
the heights of connubial bliss; to yield one’s favours (of women); to
surrender, or give one the enjoyment of one’s person (of women); to use
benevolence to; to possess. For other synonyms, see Ride.
To send to dr. green, verb. phr. (old).—To put out to grass.
1811. Lexicon Balatronicum, s.v. My horse is not well, I shall send
him to Doctor Green.
S’elp me greens! (or taturs!) intj. (common).—A veiled oath of an
obscene origin; see Greens. For synonyms, see Oaths.
1851–61. H. Mayhew, Lond. Lab. and Lond. Poor, vol. iii., p. 144.
They’ll say, too, s’elp my greens! and ‘Upon my word and say so!’
1891. Licensed Vict. Gaz., 23 Jan. ‘Well, s’elp me greens,’ he
cried, wiping his eyes and panting for breath, ‘if you arn’t the
greatest treat I ever did meet; you’ll be the death o’ me, Juggins,
you will. Why, you bloomin’ idiot, d’ye think if they had’nt been
rogues we should have been able to bribe ’em?’
Just for greens, adv. phr. (American).—See quot.
1848. Jones, Sketches of Travel, p. 7. I’ve made up my mind to make
a tower of travel to the big North this summer, jest for greens, as
we say in Georgia, when we hain’t got no very pertickeler reason
for anything, or hain’t got time to tell the real one.
Green-apron, subs. (old).—A lay preacher. Also adjectively. For
synonyms, see Devil-Dodger and Sky-Pilot.
1654. Warren, Unbelievers, 145. It more befits a green-apron
preacher, than such a Gamaliel.
1705. Hickeringill, Priestcraft, I. (1721) 21. Unbeneficed Noncons.
(that live by Alms and no Paternoster, no Penny, say the
green-aprons).
1765. Tucker, Lt. Nat., II., 451. The gifted priestess amongst the
Quaker is known by her green apron.
Green-back, subs. (common).—1. A frog.
2. (University).—One of Todhunter’s series of mathematical text-books.
(Because bound in green cloth. Cf., Blue-ruin.)
3. (American).—The paper issue of the Treasury of the United States;
first sent out in 1862 during the civil war. [From the backs being
printed in green.] Hence green-backer = an advocate for an unlimited
issue or paper money.
1873. Echo, 8 May. This was accomplished by the issue of legal
tender notes, popularly known as greenbacks.
1877. Clemens, Life on the Mississippi, ch. lvii., p. 499. Anything
in the semblance of a town lot, no matter how situated, was
saleable, and at a figure which would still have been high if the
ground had been sodded with greenbacks.
1891. Gunter, Miss Nobody of Nowhere, p. 228. Gussie can hear the
crinkle of the greenbacks as he folds them up.
Green Bag, subs. (old).—A lawyer. [From the green bag in which robes
and briefs were carried. The colour is now blue, or, in cases of
presentation from seniors to juniors, red.]
1690. B. E., Dict. Cant. Crew, s.v.
1785. Grose, Vulg. Tongue, s.v.
English Synonyms.—Black box; bramble (provincial); devil’s own;
gentleman of the long robe; land-shark; limb of the law; mouth-piece;
Philadelphia lawyer (q.v.); quitam; six-and-eightpence; snipe; sublime
rascal.
French Synonyms. Un bavard (pop. = a talker or mouthpiece); un
blanchisseur (= whitewasher); un brodancheur à la plaque, aux macarons,
or à la cymbale (thieves’: a notary-public); un gerbier (thieves’); un
grippemini (obsolete: grippeminaud = thief); un inutile (thieves’: a
notary-public); une éponge d’or (= a sucker-up of gold: in allusion to
the long bills); un macaron huissier (popular).
Italian Synonyms.—Dragon del gran soprano; dragonetto (= a dragon, or
suck-all).
Spanish Synonyms.—Remedio (= a remedy); la letraderia (= a body or
society of lawyers); cataribera (jocular).
Green-Bonnet, to have (or wear) a green bonnet, verb. phr. (common).—To
fail in business; to go bankrupt. [From the green cloth cap once worn
by bankrupts.]
Green Cheese. See Cream Cheese and Moon.
Green Cloth. See Board of Green Cloth.
Green Dragoons, subs. (military).—The fifth Dragoon Guards; also known
as the Green Horse. [From their green facings.]
Greener, subs. (common).—A new, or raw hand; specifically employed of
inexperienced workmen introduced to fill the place of strikers; Dung
(q.v.). Cf., Flint. For synonyms, see Snooker.
1889. Pall Mall Gaz., 14 Oct., p. 6, c. 3. A howling mob of Hebrew
men and women ... in their own Yiddish jargon criticised the new
arrivals, or greeners, in language that was anything but
complimentary.
Green-Goods, subs. (American).—1. Counterfeit greenbacks.
1891. Gunter, Miss Nobody of Nowhere, p. 223. In his opinion
Stillman Myth, and Co., were in the green goods business.