Transcriber’s Note:
Superscript text is preceded by a caret symbol, e.g. ^4.
Symbols in the printed text have been represented by characters which
may not display correctly in all fonts.
Italics are indicated by _underscores_, and bold text by ~tildes~. Small
capitals have been converted to upper case.
[Illustration: A CADGER’S MAP OF A BEGGING DISTRICT.
EXPLANATION OF THE HIEROGLYPHICS.
☓ ~No good~; too poor, and know too much.
◠+ ~Stop~,—if you have what they want, they will buy. They are pretty
“_fly_” (knowing).
⊃— ~Go in this direction~, it is better than the other road. Nothing
that way.
◇ ~Bone~ (good). Safe for a “cold tatur,” if for nothing else. “_Cheese
your patter_” (don’t talk much) here.
▽ ~Cooper’d~ (spoilt) by too many tramps calling there.
□ ~Gammy~ (unfavourable), likely to have you taken up. Mind the dog.
⦿ ~Flummuxed~ (dangerous), sure of a month in “_quod_,” prison.
⊕ ~Religious~, but tidy on the whole. ]
THE
SLANG DICTIONARY
ETYMOLOGICAL
HISTORICAL AND ANECDOTAL
[Illustration: “THE WEDGE” AND THE “WOODEN SPOON.”]
A NEW IMPRESSION
LONDON
CHATTO & WINDUS
1913
PREFACE.
Slang, like everything else, changes much in the course of time; and
though but fifteen years have elapsed since this Dictionary was first
introduced to the public, alterations have since then been many and
frequent in the subject of which it treats. The first issue of a work of
this kind is, too, ever beset with difficulties, and the compiler was
always aware that, though under the circumstances of its production the
book was an undoubted success, it necessarily lacked many of the
elements which would make that success lasting, and cause the “Slang
Dictionary” to be regarded as an authority and a work of reference not
merely among the uneducated, but among people of cultivated tastes and
inquiring minds. For though the vulgar use of the word Slang applies to
those words only which are used by the dangerous classes and the lowest
grades of society, the term has in reality, and should have—as every
one who has ever studied the subject knows—a much wider significance.
Bearing this in mind, the original publisher of this Dictionary lost no
opportunity of obtaining information of a useful kind, which could
hardly find place in any other book of reference, with the intention of
eventually bringing out an entirely new edition, in which all former
errors should be corrected and all fresh meanings and new words find a
place. His intention always was to give those words which are familiar
to all conversant with our colloquialisms and locutions, but which have
hitherto been connected with an unwritten tongue, a local habitation,
and to produce a book which, in its way, would be as useful to students
of philology, as well as to lovers of human nature in all its phases,
as any standard work in the English language. The squeamishness which
tries to ignore the existence of slang fails signally, for not only in
the streets and the prisons, but at the bar, on the bench, in the
pulpit, and in the Houses of Parliament, does slang make itself heard,
and, as the shortest and safest means to an end, understood too.
My predecessor, the original compiler, did not live to see his wish
become an actual fact; and, failing him, it devolved upon me to
undertake the task of revision and addition. How far this has been
accomplished, the curious reader who is possessed of a copy of each
edition can best judge for himself by comparing any couple of pages he
may select. Of my own share in the work I wish to say nothing, as I have
mainly benefited by the labours of others; but I may say that, when I
undertook the position of editor of what, with the smallest possible
stretch of fancy, may now be called a new book, I had no idea that the
alteration would be nearly so large or so manifest. However, as the work
is now done, it will best speak for itself, and, as good wine needs no
bush, I will leave it, in all hope of their tenderness, to those readers
who are best qualified to say how the task has been consummated.
In conclusion, it is but fair for me to thank, as strongly as weak words
will permit, those gentlemen who have in various ways assisted me. To
two of them, who are well known in the world of literature, and who have
not only aided me with advice, but have placed many new words and
etymologies at my service, I am under particular obligation. With this I
beg to subscribe myself, the reader’s most obedient servant,
The Editor.
_December 20, 1873._
NOTE.—The reader will bear in mind that this is a Dictionary of
_modern_ Slang,—a list of colloquial words and phrases in _present_
use,—whether of ancient or modern formation. Whenever _Ancient_ is
appended to a word, it means that the expression was in respectable
use in or previous to the reign of Queen Elizabeth. _Old_ or _Old
English_, affixed to a word, signifies that it was in general use as
a proper expression in or previous to the reign of Charles II. _Old
Cant_ indicates that the term was in use as a Cant word during or
before the same reign.
_The Publishers will be much obliged by the receipt of any cant, slang,
or vulgar words not mentioned in the Dictionary. The probable origin, or
etymology, of any fashionable or unfashionable vulgarism, will also be
received with thanks._
CONTENTS.
PAGE
THE HISTORY OF CANT, OR THE SECRET LANGUAGE OF VAGABONDS 1
ACCOUNT OF THE HIEROGLYPHICS USED BY VAGABONDS 27
A SHORT HISTORY OF SLANG, OR THE VULGAR LANGUAGE OF FAST LIFE 34
DICTIONARY OF MODERN SLANG, CANT, AND VULGAR WORDS 71
SOME ACCOUNT OF THE BACK SLANG 347
GLOSSARY OF THE BACK SLANG 353
SOME ACCOUNT OF THE RHYMING SLANG 358
GLOSSARY OF THE RHYMING SLANG 365
CENTRE SLANG 369
THE BIBLIOGRAPHY OF SLANG 371
“_All ridiculous words make their first entry into a language by
familiar phrases; I dare not answer for these that they will not in time
be looked upon as a part of our tongue._”—SPECTATOR.
“_Rabble-charming words, which carry so much wild fire wrapt up in
them._”—SOUTH.
“_Slang derivations are generally indirect, turning upon metaphor and
fanciful allusions, and other than direct etymological connexion. Such
allusions and fancies are essentially temporary or local; they rapidly
pass out of the public mind: the word remains, while the key to its
origin is lost._”
“_Many of these [slang] words and phrases are but serving their
apprenticeship, and will eventually become the active strength of our
language._”—H. T. BUCKLE.
THE HISTORY OF CANT,
OR THE
SECRET LANGUAGE OF VAGABONDS.
Cant and Slang are universal and world-wide. By their means is often
said in a sentence what would otherwise take an hour to express. Nearly
every nation on the face of the globe, polite and barbarous, has its
divisions and subdivisions of various ranks of society. These are
necessarily of many kinds, stationary and wandering, civilized and
uncivilized, respectable and disreputable,—those who have fixed abodes
and avail themselves of the refinements of civilization, and those who
go from place to place picking up a precarious livelihood by petty
sales, begging, or theft. This peculiarity is to be observed amongst the
heathen tribes of the southern hemisphere, as well as in the oldest and
most refined countries of Europe. In South Africa, the naked and
miserable Hottentots are pestered by the still more abject _Sonquas_;
and it may be some satisfaction for us to know that our old enemies at
the Cape, the Kaffirs, are troubled with a tribe of rascals called
_Fingoes_,—the former term, we are informed by travellers, signifying
beggars, and the latter wanderers and outcasts. In South America, and
among the islands of the Pacific, matters are pretty much the same.
Sleek rascals, without much inclination towards honesty, fatten, or
rather fasten, like the insects in the famous epigram, upon other
rascals, who would be equally sleek and fat but for their vagabond
dependents. Luckily for respectable persons, however, vagabonds, both at
home and abroad, generally show certain outward peculiarities which
distinguish them from the great mass of law-abiding people on whom they
subsist. Observation shows that the wandering races are remarkable for
an abnormal development of the bones of the face, as the jaws,
cheek-bones, &c., for high-crowned, stubborn-shaped heads, quick,
restless eyes,[1] and hands nervously itching to be doing; for their
love of gambling; for sensuality of all kinds; and for their use of a
CANT language with which to conceal their designs and plunderings.
The secret jargon, or rude speech, of the vagabonds who hang upon the
Hottentots is termed Cuze-cat. In Finland, the fellows who steal
seal-skins, pick the pockets of bear-skin overcoats, and talk cant, are
termed Lappes. In France, the secret language of highwaymen,
housebreakers, and pickpockets, is named Argot. The brigands and more
romantic rascals of Spain term their private tongue Germania,[2] or
Robbers’ Language. Rothwälsch,[3] or foreign-beggar-talk, is synonymous
with cant and thieves’ talk in Germany. The vulgar dialect of Malta, and
the Scala towns of the Levant—imported into this country and
incorporated with English cant—is known as the Lingua Franca, or
bastard Italian. And the crowds of lazy beggars that infest the streets
of Naples and Rome, as well as the brigands of Pompeii, use a secret
language termed Gergo. In England, as we all know, it is called
Cant—often improperly Slang.
Most nations, then, possess each a tongue, or series of tongues maybe,
each based on the national language, by which not only thieves, beggars,
and other outcasts communicate, but which is used more or less by all
classes. There is hardly any community in this country, hardly any
profession, but has its slang, and proficiency in this is the greatest
desideratum of an aspirant to the pleasures of Society, or the honours
of literature and art. The formation of these secret tongues varies, of
course, with the circumstances surrounding the speakers. A writer in
_Notes and Queries_ has well remarked that “the investigation of the
origin and principles of cant and slang language opens a curious field
of inquiry, replete with considerable interest to the philologist and
the philosopher. It affords a remarkable instance of lingual
contrivance, which, without the introduction of much arbitrary matter,
has developed a system of communicating ideas, having all the advantages
of a foreign language.”
“The terms Cant and Canting were probably derived from chaunt and
chaunting,—the whining tone, or modulation of voice adopted by
beggars, with intent to coax, wheedle, or cajole by pretensions of
wretchedness.”[4] For the origin of the other application of the word
Cant, pulpit hypocrisy, we are indebted to the _Spectator_—“Cant is by
some people derived from one Andrew Cant, who, they say, was a
Presbyterian minister in some illiterate part of Scotland, who, by
exercise and use, had obtained the faculty, alias gift, of talking in
the pulpit in such a dialect that ’tis said he was understood by none
but his own congregation,—and not by all of them. Since Master Cant’s
time it has been understood in a larger sense, and signifies all
exclamations, whinings, unusual tones, and, in fine, all praying and
preaching like the unlearned of the Presbyterians.” This anecdote is
curious, though it is but fair to assume that the preacher’s name was
taken from his practice, rather than that the practice was called after
the preacher. As far as we are concerned, however, in the present
inquiry, Cant was derived from chaunt, a beggar’s whine; “chaunting”
being the recognised term amongst beggars to this day for begging
orations and street whinings; and “chaunter,” a street talker and tramp,
is still the term used by strollers and patterers. This race is,
however, nearly obsolete. The use of the word Cant, amongst beggars,
must certainly have commenced at a very early date, for we find “To
cante, to speake,” in Harman’s list of Rogues’ Words in the year 1566;
and Harrison about the same time,[5] in speaking of beggars and
Gipsies, says, “they have devised a language among themselves which they
name Canting, but others Pedlars’ Frenche.”
Now, the word Cant in its old sense, and Slang[6] in its modern
application, although used by good writers and persons of education as
synonyms, are in reality quite distinct and separate terms. Cant, apart
from religious hypocrisy, refers to the old secret language of Gipsies,
thieves, tramps, and beggars. Slang represents that evanescent language,
ever changing with fashion and taste, which has principally come into
vogue during the last seventy or eighty years, spoken by persons in
every grade of life, rich and poor, honest and dishonest.[7] Cant is
old; Slang is always modern and ever changing. To illustrate the
difference: a thief in Cant language would term a horse a “prancer” or a
“prad;” while in Slang, a man of fashion would speak of it as a “bit of
blood,” a “spanker,” or a “neat tit.” A handkerchief, too, would be a
“billy,” a “fogle,” or a “Kent rag,” in the secret language of low
characters; whilst amongst the modern folk who affect Slang, it would be
called a “stook,” a “wipe,” a “fogle,” or a “clout.” Cant was formed for
purposes of secrecy. Slang, though it has a tendency the same way, is
still often indulged in from a mild desire to appear familiar with life,
gaiety, town-humour, and the transient nicknames and street jokes of the
day. Both Cant and Slang, we have before said, are often huddled
together as synonyms; but they are most certainly distinct, and as such
should be used.
To the Gipsies, beggars and thieves are in great measure indebted for
their Cant language. It is supposed that the Gipsies originally landed
in this country early in the reign of Henry VIII. They were at first
treated as conjurors and magicians,—indeed, they were hailed by the
populace with as much applause as a company of English performers
usually receives on arriving in a distant colony. They came here with
all their old Eastern arts of palmistry and second-sight, with their
factitious power of doubling money by incantation and burial,—shreds of
pagan idolatry; and they brought with them, also, the dishonesty of the
lower-caste Orientals, and the nomadic tastes they had acquired through
centuries of wandering over nearly the whole of the then known globe.
They possessed also a language quite distinct from anything that had
been heard in England up till their advent; they claimed the title of
Egyptians, and as such, when their thievish propensities became a public
nuisance, were cautioned and proscribed in a royal proclamation by Henry
VIII.[8] The Gipsies were not long in the country before they found
native imitators; and indeed the imitation is much more frequently found
nowadays, in the ranks of the so-called Gipsies, than is the genuine
article. Vagabondism is peculiarly catching, and the idle, the vagrant,
and the criminal soon caught the idea from the Gipsies, and learned from
them to tramp, sleep under hedges and trees, tell fortunes, and find
lost property for a consideration—frequently, as the saying runs,
having found it themselves before it was lost. They also learned the
value and application of a secret tongue; indeed, with the Gipsies came
in all the accompaniments of maunding and imposture, except thieving and
begging, which were well known in this country, and perhaps in every
other, long before visitors had an opportunity of teaching them.
Harman, in 1566, wrote a singular, not to say droll, book, entitled, _A
Caveat for commen Cvrsetors, vulgarly called Vagabones, newly augmented
and inlarged_, wherein the history and various descriptions of rogues
and vagabonds are given, together with their canting tongue. This book,
the earliest of the kind, gives the singular fact that within a dozen
years after the landing of the Gipsies, companies of English vagrants
were formed, places of meeting appointed, districts for plunder and
begging operations marked out, and rules agreed to for their common
management. In some cases Gipsies joined the English gangs; in others,
English vagrants joined the Gipsies. The fellowship was found convenient
and profitable, as both parties were aliens to the laws and customs of
the country, living in a great measure in the open air, apart from the
lawful public, and often meeting each other on the same by-path, or in
the same retired valley; but seldom intermarrying or entirely adopting
each other’s habits. The common people, too, soon began to consider them
as of one family,—all rogues, and from Egypt. This superstition must
have been very firmly imbedded, for it is still current. The secret
language spoken by the Gipsies, principally Hindoo, and extremely
barbarous to English ears, was found incomprehensible and very difficult
to learn. The Gipsies naturally found a similar difficulty with the
English language. A rude, rough, and singular, but under the
circumstances not unnatural, compromise was made, and a mixture of
Gipsy, old English, newly-coined words, and cribbings from any foreign,
and therefore secret, language, mixed and jumbled together, formed what
has ever since been known as the Canting Language, or Pedlar’s French;
or, during the past century, St. Giles’s Greek.
Such was the origin of Cant; and in illustration of its blending with
the Gipsy or Cingari tongue, we are enabled to give the accompanying
list of Gipsy, and often Hindoo, words, with, in many instances, their
English representatives:—
_Gipsy._ _English._
~Bamboozle~, to perplex or mislead ~Bamboozle~, to delude, cheat,
by hiding. _Modern Gipsy._ or make a fool of any one.
~Bosh~, rubbish, nonsense, offal. ~Bosh~, stupidity, foolishness.
_Gipsy and Persian._
~Cheese~, thing or article, “That’s ~Cheese~, or CHEESY, a
the CHEESE,” or thing. _Gipsy and first-rate or very good
Hindoo._ article.
~Chive~, the tongue. _Gipsy._ ~Chive~, or CHIVEY, a shout. To
CHIVEY, to hunt down with
shouts.
~Cuta~, a gold coin. _Danubian_ ~Couter~, a sovereign, twenty
_Gipsy._ shillings.
~Dade~, or DADI, a father. _Gipsy._ ~Daddy~, nursery term for
father.(*)
~Distarabin~, a prison. _Gipsy._ ~Sturabin~, a prison.
~Gad~, or GADSI, a wife. _Gipsy._ ~Gad~, a female scold; a woman
who tramps over the country
with a beggar or hawker.
~Gibberish~, the language of ~Gibberish~, rapid and unmeaning
Gipsies, synonymous with SLANG. speech.
_Gipsy._
~Ischur~, SCHUR, or CHUR, a thief. ~Cur~, a mean or dishonest
_Gipsy and Hindoo._ man.(*)
~Lab~, a word. _Gipsy._ ~Lobs~, words.
~Lowe~, or LOWR, money. _Gipsy ~Lowre~, money. _Ancient Cant._
and Wallachian._
~Mami~, a grandmother. _Gipsy._ ~Mammy~, or MAMMA, a mother,
formerly sometimes used for
grandmother.(*)
~Mang~, or MAUNG, to beg. _Gipsy ~Maund~, to beg.
and Hindoo._
~Mort~, a free woman,—one for ~Mot~, a prostitute.
common use amongst the male
Gipsies, so appointed by Gipsy
custom. _Gipsy._
~Mu~, the mouth. _Gipsy and Hindoo._ ~Moo~, or MUN, the mouth.
~Mull~, to spoil or destroy. _Gipsy._ ~Mull~, to spoil, or bungle.(*)
~Pal~, a brother. _Gipsy._ ~Pal~, a partner, or relation.
~Pané~, water. _Gipsy._ _Hindoo_, ~Parney~, rain.
PAWNEE.
~Rig~, a performance. _Gipsy._ ~Rig~, a frolic, or “spree.”
~Romany~, speech or language. ~Romany~, the Gipsy language.
_Spanish Gipsy._
~Rome~, or ROMM, a man. _Gipsy ~Rum~, a good man, or thing. In
and Coptic._ the Robbers’ language of Spain
(partly Gipsy), RUM signifies
a harlot.
~Romee~, a woman. _Gipsy._ ~Rumy~, a good woman or girl.
~Slang~, the language spoken by ~Slang~, low, vulgar,
Gipsies. _Gipsy._ unauthorized language.
~Tawno~, little. _Gipsy._ ~Tanny~, TEENY, little.
~Tschib~, or JIBB, the tongue. ~Jibb~, the tongue; JABBER,[9]
_Gipsy and Hindoo._ quick-tongued, or fast talk.
[In those instances indicated by a (*), it is doubtful whether we are
indebted to the Gipsies for the terms. Dad, in Welsh, also signifies a
father. Cur is stated to be a mere term of reproach, like Dog, which in
all European languages has been applied in an abusive sense. Objections
may also be raised against Gad, Maund, and many other of these
parallels. We have, however, no wish to present them as infallible; our
idea is merely to call the reader’s attention to the undoubted
similarity between both the sound and the sense in most examples.]
Here, then, we have the remarkable fact of at least a few words of pure
Gipsy origin going the round of Europe, passing into this country before
the Reformation, and coming down to us through numerous generations
purely by the mouths of the people. They have seldom been written or
used in books, and it is simply as vulgarisms that they have reached us.
Only a few are now Cant, and some are household words. The word jockey,
as applied to a dealer or rider of horses, came from the Gipsy, and
means in that language a whip. The word, used as a verb, is an instance
of modern slang grown out of the ancient. Our standard dictionaries
give, of course, none but conjectural etymologies. Another word,
bamboozle, has been a sore difficulty with lexicographers. It is not in
the old dictionaries, although it is extensively used in familiar or
popular language for the last two centuries; and is, in fact, the very
kind of word that such writers as Swift, Butler, L’Estrange, and
Arbuthnot would pick out at once as a telling and most serviceable term.
It is, as we have seen, from the Gipsy; and here we must state that it
was Boucher who first drew attention to the fact, although in his
remarks on the dusky tongue he has made an evident mistake by concluding
it to be identical with its offspring, Cant. Other parallel instances,
with but slight variations from the old Gipsy meanings, might be
mentioned; but sufficient examples have been adduced to show that
Marsden, a great Oriental scholar in the last century, when he declared
before the Society of Antiquaries that the Cant of English thieves and
beggars had nothing to do with the language spoken by the despised
Gipsies, was in error. Had the Gipsy tongue been analysed and committed
to writing three centuries ago, there is every probability that many
scores of words now in common use could be at once traced to its source,
having been adopted as our language has developed towards its present
shape through many varied paths. Instances continually occur nowadays of
street vulgarisms ascending to the drawing-rooms of respectable society.
Who, then, can doubt that the Gipsy-vagabond alliance of three centuries
ago has contributed its quota of common words to popular speech?
Thomas Moore, in a humorous little book, _Tom Crib’s Memorial to
Congress_, 1819, says, “The Gipsy language, with the exception of such
terms as relate to their own peculiar customs, differs but little from
the regular Flash or Cant language.” But this was magnifying the
importance of the alliance. Moore, we should think, knew nothing of the
Gipsy tongue other than the few Cant words put into the mouths of the
beggars in Beaumont and Fletcher’s _Comedy of the Beggar’s Bush_, and
Ben Jonson’s _Masque of the Gipsies Metamorphosed_,—hence his
confounding Cant with Gipsy speech, and appealing to the Glossary of
Cant for so-called “Gipsy” words at the end of the _Life of Bamfylde
Moore Carew_, to bear him out in his assertion. Still his remark bears
much truth, and proof of this would have been found long ago if any
scholar had taken the trouble to examine the “barbarous jargon of Cant,”
and to have compared it with Gipsy speech. George Borrow, in his
_Account of the Gipsies in Spain_, thus eloquently concludes his second
volume; speaking of the connexion of the Gipsies with Europeans, he
says:—“Yet from this temporary association were produced two results;
European fraud became sharpened by coming into contact with Asiatic
craft; whilst European tongues, by imperceptible degrees, became
recruited with various words (some of them wonderfully expressive), many
of which have long been stumbling-blocks to the philologist, who, whilst
stigmatizing them as words of mere vulgar invention, or of unknown
origin, has been far from dreaming that a little more research or
reflection would have proved their affinity to the Sclavonic, Persian,
or Romaic, or perhaps to the mysterious object of his veneration, the
Sanscrit, the sacred tongue of the palm-covered regions of Ind; words
originally introduced into Europe by objects too miserable to occupy for
a moment his lettered attention—the despised denizens of the tents of
Roma.” These words might with very little alteration be ascribed to the
subject of which this volume is supposed—indeed hoped—to be a
handbook.
But the Gipsies, their speech, their character—bad enough, as all the
world testifies, but yet not devoid of redeeming qualities—their
history, and their religious belief, have been totally disregarded, and
their poor persons buffeted and jostled about until it is a wonder that
any trace of origin or national speech remains. On the Continent they
received better attention at the hands of learned men. Their language
was taken down in writing and examined, their history was traced, and
their extraordinary customs and practice of living in the open air, and
eating raw, and often putrid meat, were explained. They ate reptiles and
told fortunes because they had learnt to do so through their forefathers
centuries back in Hindostan; and they devoured carrion because the
Hindoo proverb—“That which God kills is better than that killed by
man”[10]—was still in their remembrance. This is the sort of proverb,
we should imagine, that would hardly commend itself to any one who had
not an unnatural and ghoule-like tendency anxious for full development.
Grellman, a learned German, was their principal historian, and to him,
and those who have followed him, we are almost entirely indebted for the
little we know of their language. The first European settlement of the
Gipsies was in the provinces adjoining the Danube, Moldau and
Theiss, where M. Cogalniceano, in his _Essai sur les Cigains de la
Moldo-Valachie_, estimates them at 200,000. Not a few of our ancient and
modern Cant and Slang terms are Wallachian and Greek words, picked up by
these wanderers from the East, and added to their common stock.
Gipsy, then, started, and was partially merged into Cant; and the old
story told by Harrison and others, that the first inventor of canting
was hanged for his pains, would seem to be a humorous invention, for
jargon as it is, it was doubtless of gradual formation, like all other
languages or systems of speech. Most of the modern Gipsies know the old
Cant words as well as their own tongue—or rather what remains of it. As
Borrow says, “The dialect of the English Gipsies is mixed with English
words.”[11] Those of the tribe who frequent fairs, and mix with English
tramps, readily learn the new words, as they are adopted by what Harman
calls “the fraternity of vagabonds.” Indeed, the old Cant is a common
language to the vagrants of many descriptions and every possible origin
who are scattered over the British Isles.
English Cant has its mutabilities like every other system of speech, and
is considerably altered since the first dictionary was compiled by
Harman in 1566. A great many words are unknown in the present tramps’
and thieves’ vernacular. Some of them, however, still bear their old
definitions, while others have adopted fresh meanings. “Abraham-man” is
yet seen in our modern “sham Abraham,” or “play the old
soldier”—_i.e._, to feign sickness or distress. “Autum” is still a
church or chapel amongst Gipsies; and “beck,” a constable, is our modern
Cant and Slang “beak,” once a policeman, but now a magistrate. “Bene,”
or “bone,” stands for good in Seven Dials and the back streets of
Westminster; and “bowse” is our modern “booze,” to drink or fuddle. A
“bowsing ken” was the old Cant term for a public-house; and “boozing
ken,” in modern Cant, has precisely the same meaning. There is little
doubt, though, that the pronunciations were always as they are now, so
far at least as these two instances are concerned. “Cassan” is both old
and modern Cant for cheese; the same may be said of “chattes,” or
“chatts,” the gallows. “Cofe,” or “cove,” is still a vulgar synonym for
a man. “Dudes” was Cant for clothes; we now say “duds.” “Flag” is still
a fourpenny-piece; and “fylche” means to rob. “Ken” is a house, and
“lick” means to thrash; “prancer” is yet known amongst rogues as a
horse; and to “prig,” amongst high and low, is to steal. Three centuries
ago, if one beggar said anything disagreeable to another, the person
annoyed would say, “Stow you,” or hold your peace; low people now say,
“Stow it,” equivalent to “Be quiet.” There is, so far as the Slang goes,
no actual difference in the use of these phrases, the variation being in
the pronouns—in fact, in the direction. “Trine” is still to hang; “wyn”
yet stands for a penny. And many other words, as will be seen in the
Dictionary, still retain their ancient meaning.
As specimens of those words which have altered their original Cant
signification, may be instanced “chete,” now written cheat. “Chete” was
in ancient Cant what _chop_ is in the Canton-Chinese—an almost
inseparable adjunct. Everything was termed a “chete,” and qualified by a
substantive-adjective, which showed what kind of a “chete” was meant;
for instance, “crashing-chetes” were teeth; a “moffling-chete,” was a
napkin; a “topping-chete,” was the gallows, and a “grunting-chete,” was
a pig. Cheat nowadays means to cozen or defraud, and lexicographers have
tortured etymology for an original—but without success. _Escheats_ and
_escheatours_ have been named, but with great doubts; indeed, Stevens,
the learned commentator on Shakspeare, acknowledged that he “did not
recollect to have met with the word cheat in our ancient writers.”[12]
Cheat, to defraud, then, is no other than an old Cant term somewhat
altered in its meaning,[13] and as such it should be described in the
next etymological dictionary. Another instance of a change in the
meaning of the old Cant, but the retention of the word, is seen in
“cly,” formerly to take or steal, now a pocket; and with the remembrance
of a certain class of low characters, a curious connexion between the
two meanings is discovered. “Make” was a halfpenny: we now say
“mag,”—“make” being modern Cant for getting money by any possible
means, their apophthegm being—“Get money the best way you can, but
_make_ it somehow.” “Milling” stood for stealing; it ultimately became a
pugilistic term, and then faded into nothingness, “the cove wot loves a
mill,” being a thing of the past. “Nab” was a head,—low people now say
“nob,” the former meaning, in modern Cant, to steal or seize. “Pek” was
meat,—we still say “peckish,” when hungry. “Peckish” is though more
likely to be derived from the action of birds when eating, as all slang
has its origin in metaphor. “Prygges, dronken Tinkers or beastly
people,” as old Harman wrote, would scarcely be understood now; a
“prig,” in the 19th century, is a pickpocket or thief. He is also a
mean, contemptible little “cuss,” who is not, as a rule, found in low
life, but who could be very well spared from that of the middle and
upper classes. “Quier,” or “queer,” like cheat, was a very common
prefix, and meant bad or wicked,—it now means odd, curious, or strange;
but to the ancient Cant we are possibly indebted for the word, which
etymologists should remember.[14] “Rome,” or “rum,” formerly meant good,
or of the first quality, and was extensively used like cheat and
queer,—indeed as an adjective it was the opposite of the latter. “Rum”
now means curious, and is synonymous with queer; thus,—“rummy old
bloke,” or a “queer old man.” Here again we see the origin of an
every-day word, scouted by lexicographers and snubbed by respectable
persons, but still a word of frequent and popular use. “Yannam” meant
bread; “pannum” is the word now. Other instances could be pointed out,
but they will be observed in the Dictionary.
Several words are entirely obsolete. “Alybbeg” no longer means a bed,
nor “askew” a cup. “Booget,”[15] nowadays, would not be understood for a
basket; neither would “gan” pass current for mouth. “Fullams” was the
old Cant term for false or loaded dice, and although used by Shakspeare
in this sense, is now unknown and obsolete. Indeed, as Moore somewhere
remarks, the present Greeks of St. Giles’s themselves would be
thoroughly puzzled by many of the ancient canting songs,—taking, for
example, the first verse of an old favourite—
“Bing out, bien Morts, and toure and toure,
Bing out, bien Morts, and toure;
For all your duds are bing’d awast;
The bien cove hath the loure.”[16]
But perhaps we cannot do better than present to the reader at once an
entire copy of the first Canting Dictionary ever compiled. As before
mentioned, it was the work of one Thomas Harman, who lived in the days
of Queen Elizabeth. Some writers have remarked that Decker[17] was the
first to compile a dictionary of the vagabonds’ tongue; whilst
Borrow[18] and Moore stated that Richard Head performed that service in
his _Life of an English Rogue_, published in the year 1680. All these
statements are equally incorrect, for the first attempt was made more
than a century before the latter work was issued. The quaint spelling
and old-fashioned phraseology are preserved, and the initiated will
quickly recognise many vulgar street words as old acquaintances dressed
in antique garb.[19]
~Abraham-men~ be those that fayn themselves to have beene mad, and
have bene kept either in Bethelem, or in some other pryson a good
time.
~Alybbeg~, a bedde.
~Askew~, a cuppe.
~Autem~, a churche.
~Autem mortes~, married women as chaste as a cowe.
~Baudye baskets~ bee women who goe with baskets and capcases on
their armes, wherein they have laces, pinnes, nedles, whyte inkel,
and round sylke gyrdels of all colours.
~Beck~ [Beak, a magistrate], a constable.
~Belly-chete~, apron.
~Bene~, good. _Benar_, better.
~Benship~, very good.
~Bleting chete~, a calfe or sheepe.
~Booget~, a travelling tinker’s baskete.
~Borde~, a shilling.
~Boung~, a purse. [_Friesic_, pong; _Wallachian_, punga.] The oldest
form of this word is in Ulphilas, puggs; it exists also in the
_Greek_, πουγγὴ.
~Bowse~, drink.
~Bowsing ken~, an alehouse.
~Bufe~ [Buffer, a man], a dogge.
~Bynge a waste~ [Avast, get out of the way] go you hence.
~Cackling chete~, a coke [cock], or capon.
~Cassan~ [Cassam], cheese.
~Casters~ [Castor, a hat], a cloake.
~Cateth~, “the vpright Cofe _cateth_ to the Roge” [probably a
shortening or misprint of _Canteth_].
~Chattes~, the gallowes.
~Chete~ [see what has been previously said about this word.]
~Cly~ [a pocket], to take, receive, or have.
~Cofe~ [cove], a person.
~Commission~ [mish], a shirt.
~Counterfet cranke~, these that do counterfet the Cranke be yong
knaves and yonge harlots, that deeply dissemble the falling
sickness.
~Cranke~ [cranky, foolish], falling evil [or wasting sickness].
~Crashing chetes~, teeth.
~Cuffen~, a manne. [A _cuif_ in Northumberland and Scotland
signifies a lout or awkward fellow.]
~Darkemans~, the night.
~Dell~, a yonge wench.
~Dewse a vyle~, the countrey.
~Dock~, to deflower.
~Doxes~, harlots.
~Drawers~, hosen.
~Dudes~ [or duds], clothes.
~Fambles~, handes.
~Fambling chete~, a ring on one’s hand.
~Flagg~, a groat.
~Frater~, a beggar wyth a false paper.
~Freshe water mariners~, these kind of caterpillers counterfet great
losses on the sea:—their shippes were drowned in the playne of
Salisbury.
~Fylche~, to robbe: Fylch-man, a robber.
~Gage~, a quart pot.
~Gan~, a mouth.
~Gentry cofe~, a noble or gentle man.
~Gentry cofes ken~, a noble or gentle man’s house.
~Gentry mort~, a noble or gentle woman.
~Gerry~, excrement.
~Glasyers~, eyes.
~Glymmar~, fyer.
~Grannam~, corne.
~Grunting chete~, a pygge.
~Gyb~, a writing.
~Gyger~ [jigger], a dore.
~Hearing chetes~, eares.
~Jarke~, a seale.
~Jarkeman~, one who makes writings and sets seales for [counterfeit]
licences and passports.
~Ken~, a house.
~Kynchen co~ [or cove], a young boye trained up like a “Kynching
Morte.” [From the German diminutive, _Kindschen_.]
~Kynching morte~, is a little gyrle, carried at their mother’s backe
in a slate, or sheete, who brings them up sauagely.
~Lag~, water.
~Lag of dudes~, a bucke [or basket] of clothes.
~Lage~, to washe.
~Lap~, butter mylke, or whey.
~Lightmans~, the day.
~Lowing chete~, a cowe.
~Lowre~, money. [From the Wallachian Gipsy word LOWE, coined money.
_See_ M. Cogalniceano’s _Essai sur les Cigains de la
Moldo-Valachie_.]
~Lubbares~,—“sturdy Lubbares,” country bumpkins, or men of a low
degree.
~Lyb-beg~, a bed.
~Lycke~ [lick], to beate.
~Lyp~, to lie down.
~Lypken~, a house to lye in.
~Make~ [mag], a halfpenny.
~Margeri prater~, a hen.
~Milling~, to steale [by sending a child in at a window].
~Moffling chete~, a napkin.
~Mortes~ [mots], harlots.
~Myll~, to robbe.
~Mynt~, gold.
~Nab~ [nob], a heade.
~Nabchet~, a hat or cap.
~Nase~, dronken.
~Nosegent~, a nunne.
~Pallyard~, a borne beggar [who counterfeits sickness, or incurable
sores. They are mostly Welshmen, Harman says.]
~Param~, mylke.
~Patrico~, a priest.
~Patricos kinchen~, a pygge. [A satirical hit at the church, PATRICO
meaning a parson or priest, and KINCHEN his little boy or girl.]
~Pek~, meat.
~Poppelars~, porrage.
~Prat~, a buttocke. [This word has its equivalent in modern slang.]
~Pratling chete~, a toung.
~Prauncer~, a horse.
~Prigger of prauncers~ be horse-stealers, for to prigge signifieth
in their language to steale, and a PRAUNCER is a horse, so being put
together, the matter was playn. [Thus writes old Thomas Harman, who
concludes his description of this order of “pryggers,” by very
quietly saying, “I had the best gelding stolen out of my pasture,
that I had amongst others, whyle this book was first a-printing.”]
~Prygges~, dronken tinkers, or beastly people.
~Quacking chete~, a drake or duck.
~Quaromes~, a body.
~Quier~ [queer], badde. [_See ante_.]
~Quier cuffin~, the justice of peace.
~Quyer crampringes~, boltes or fetters.
~Quyer kyn~, a pryson house.
~Red shanke~, a drake or ducke.
~Roger~, a goose.
~Rome~, goode [now curious, noted, or remarkable in any way. _Rum_
is the modern orthography].
~Rome bouse~ [rum booze], wyne. [A name probably applied by canters
coming on it for the first time, and tasting it suddenly.]
~Rome mort~, the Queene [Elizabeth].
~Rome vyle~ [Rum-ville], London.
~Ruff peck~, baken [short bread, common in old times at
farm-houses].
~Ruffmans~, the wood or bushes.
~Salomon~, an alter or masse.
~Skypper~, a barne.
~Slate~, a sheete or shetes.
~Smelling chete~, a nose.
~Smelling chete~, a garden or orchard.
~Snowt fayre~ [said of a woman who has a pretty face or is comely].
~Stall~ [to initiate a beggar or rogue into the rights and
privileges of the canting order. Harman relates that when an upright
man, or initiated first-class rogue, “mete any beggar, whether he be
sturdy or impotent, he will demand of him whether ever he was
‘stalled to the roge,’ or no. If he say he was, he will know of
whom, and his name yt stalled him. And if he be not learnedly able
to shew him the whole circumstance thereof, he will spoyle him of
his money, either of his best garment, if it be worth any money, and
haue him to the bowsing-ken: which is, to some typling house next
adjoyninge, and layth there to gage the best thing that he hath for
twenty pence or two shillings: this man obeyeth for feare of
beatinge. Then dooth this upright man call for a gage of bowse,
which is a quarte potte of drink, and powres the same vpon his peld
pate, adding these words,—I, _G.P._, do stalle thee, _W.T._, to
the Roge, and that from henceforth it shall be lawfull for thee to
cant, that is, to aske or begge for thi liuing in al places.”]
~Stampers~, shoes.
~Stampes~, legges.
~Stauling ken~, a house that will receyue stollen wares.
~Stawlinge kens~, tippling-houses.
~Stow you~ [stow it], hold your peace.
~Strike~, to steale.
~Strommell~, strawe.
~Swadder~, or PEDLER [a man who hawks goods].
~The high pad~, the highway.
~The ruffian cly thee~, the devil take thee.
~Togemans~ [tog], cloake.
~Togman~, a coate.
~To bowse~, to drinke.
~To cant~, to speake.
~To cly the gerke~, to be whipped.
~To couch a hogshead~, to lie down and slepe.
~To cut bene whyddes~, to speake or give good words.
~To cut benle~, to speak gentle.
~To cutte~, to say.
~To cutte quyer whyddes~, to giue euil words or euil language.
~To dup ye gyger~ [jigger], to open the dore.
~To fylche~, to robbe.
~To heue a bough~, to robbe or rifle a boweth [booth].
~To maunde~, to aske or require.
~To mill a ken~, to robbe a house.
~Tonygle~ [coition].
~To nyp a boung~, [nip, to steal], to cut a purse.
~To skower the crampringes~, to weare boltes or fetters.
~To stall~, to make or ordain.
~To the ruffian~, to the Devil.
~To towre~, to see.
~Tryning~, hanging.
~Tyb of the butery~, a goose.
~Walking morte~, womene [who pass for widows].
~Wapping~ [coition].
~Whyddes~, wordes.
~Wyn~, a penny. [A correspondent of _Notes and Queries_ suggests the
connexion of this word with the Welsh, GWYN, white—_i.e._, the
white silver penny. _See_ other examples under BLUNT, in the
Dictionary; cf. also the Armorican, “GWENNEK,” a penny.]
~Yannam~, bread.
Turning attention more to the Cant of modern times, in connexion with
the old, it will be found that words have been drawn into the thieves’
vocabulary from every conceivable source. Hard or infrequent words,
vulgarly termed “crack-jaw,” or “jaw-breakers,” were very often used and
considered as Cant terms. And here it should be mentioned that at the
present day the most inconsistent and far-fetched terms are often used
for secret purposes, when they are known to be caviare to the million.
It is strange that such words as incongruous, insipid, interloper,
intriguing, indecorum, forestall, equip, hush, grapple, &c., &c., were
current Cant words a century and a half ago, if we are to judge by the
Dictionary of Canting Words at the end of _Bacchus and Venus_,[20] 1737.
It is but fair, however, to assume that the compiler of the dictionary
was but trading on the demand for Cant phrases, and was humbugging his
readers. The terms are inserted not as jokes or squibs, but as
selections from the veritable pocket dictionaries of the Jack Sheppards
and Dick Turpins of the day. If they were safely used as unknown and
cabalistic terms amongst the commonalty, the fact would form a very
curious illustration of the ignorance of our poor ancestors; but it
would be unfair and, indeed, idiotic to assume this without much
stronger proof than the book in question gives of itself.
Amongst those Cant words which have either altered their meanings, or
have become extinct, may be cited lady, formerly the Cant for “a very
crooked, deformed, and ill-shapen woman;”[21] and Harman, “a pair of
stocks, or a constable.” The former is a pleasant piece of sarcasm,
whilst the latter indicates a singular method of revenge, or else of
satire. Harman was the first author who specially wrote against English
vagabonds, and for his trouble his name, we are told, became synonymous
with a pair of stocks, or a policeman of the olden time.
Apart from the Gipsy element, we find that Cant abounds in terms from
foreign languages, and that it exhibits signs of a growth similar to
that of most recognised and completely-formed tongues,—the gathering of
words from foreign sources. In the reign of Elizabeth and of King James
I., several Dutch, Flemish, and Spanish words were introduced by
soldiers who had served in the Low Countries and sailors who had
returned from the Spanish Main, who, like “mine ancient Pistol,” were
fond of garnishing their speech with outlandish phrases. Many of these
were soon picked up and adopted by vagabonds and tramps in their Cant
language. The Anglo-Norman and the Anglo-Saxon, the Scotch, the French,
the Italian, and even the classic languages of ancient Italy and Greece,
besides the various provincial dialects of England, have contributed to
its list of words. Indeed, as has been remarked, English Cant seems to
be formed on the same basis as the Argot of the French and the
Roth-Sprach of the Germans—partly metaphorical, and partly by the
introduction of such corrupted foreign terms as are likely to be unknown
to the society amid which the Cant speakers exist. Argot is the London
thieves’ word for their secret language; it is, of course, from the
French, but that matters not, so long as it is incomprehensible to the
police and the mob. “Booze,” or “bouse,” is supposed to come from the
Dutch _buysen_, though the word has been in use in England for some
hundreds of years. “Domine,” a parson, is from the Spanish. “Donna and
feeles,” a woman and children, is from the Latin; and “don,” a clever
fellow, has been filched from the Lingua Franca, or bastard Italian,
although it sounds like an odd mixture of Spanish and French; whilst
“duds,” the vulgar term for clothes, may have been pilfered either from
the Gaelic or the Dutch. “Feele,” a daughter, from the French; and
“frow,” a girl or wife, from the German—are common tramps’ terms. So
are “gent,” silver, from the French _argent_; and “vial,” a country
town, also from the French. “Horrid-horn,” a fool, is believed to be
from the Erse; and “gloak,” a man, from the Scotch. As stated before,
the dictionary will supply numerous other instances.
The Celtic languages have contributed many Cant and vulgar words to our
popular vocabulary. These have come to us through the Gaelic and Irish
languages, so closely allied in their material as to be merely dialects
of a primitive common tongue. This element may arise from the Celtic
portion of our population, which, from its position as slaves or
servants to its ancient conquerors, has contributed so largely to the
lowest class of the community, therefore to our Slang, provincial, or
colloquial words; or it may be an importation from Irish immigrants, who
have contributed their fair proportion to our criminal stock.
There is one source, however, of secret street terms which in the first
edition of this work was entirely overlooked,—indeed, it was unknown to
the original compiler until pointed out by a correspondent,—the Lingua
Franca, or bastard Italian, spoken at Genoa, Trieste, Malta,
Constantinople, Smyrna, Alexandria, and all Mediterranean seaport towns.
The ingredients of this imported Cant are, as its name denotes, many.
Its foundation is Italian, with a mixture of modern Greek, German (from
the Austrian ports), Spanish, Turkish, and French. It has been
introduced to the notice of the London wandering tribes by the sailors,
foreign and English, who trade to and from the Mediterranean seaports,
but it must not be confounded with the mixture of Irish, English, and
Italian spoken in neighbourhoods like Saffron Hill and Leather Lane,
which are thronged with swarms of organ-grinders from all parts of
Italy, and makers of images from Rome and Florence,—all of whom, in
these dense thoroughfares, mingle with our lower orders. It would occupy
too much space here to give a list of the words used in either of these
Babel-like tongues, especially as the principal of them are noted in the
dictionary.