4. = The shreds and pieces appropriated by tailors and others as
perquisites.
There is no evidence in support of such guesses as those in, for
example, the quotations dated 1853 and 1886.
1638. Randolph, Hey for Honestey (Old Play). Tailor. Nay, he has
made me sharper than my needle; makes me eat my own cabbage.
1648. Herrick, Hesperides (Hazl.), I., 79. Upon some women, Pieces,
patches, ropes of haire, In-laid garbage ev’rywhere.
1648. Herrick, Hesperides (Hazl.). II., 325. Eupez for the outside
of his suite has paide; But for his heart, he cannot have it made;
The reason is, his credit cannot get The inward carbage for his
cloathes as yet.
1663. Hudibras, II., 56. For as tailors preserve their cabbage, So
squires take care of bag and baggage.
1742. Charles Johnson, Highwaymen and Pyrates, p. 343. She takes
him into Pissing Alley, in Hollywell Street, otherwise called the
backside of St. Clement’s in the Strand, so eminently noted for
Taylors selling there their cabbage.
1748. T. Dyche, Dictionary (5 ed.). Cabbage (s.) ... also a cant
word to express anything that is pilfered privately, as pieces of
cloth or silk retained by taylors, mantua-makers, or others.
1821. Cobbett, Weekly Register 28 April, col. 219. Taylor, of
Charing Cross, will allow of no thumb-piece and of no cabbage.
1853. Notes and Queries, 1 S., viii., 315, col. 2. The term
cabbage, by which tailors designate the cribbed pieces of cloth, is
said to be derived from an old word ‘cablesh,’ i.e., wind-fallen
wood. And their ‘hell’ where they store the cabbage, from helan, to
hide.
1886. G. A. Sala, in Ill. Lon. News, 16 Oct., 394, 1. My
correspondent’s derivation of cabbage from caboged [caboged =
‘cabossed’ or ‘caboched’ in heraldry, in Fr. cabochée. See Littré]
is good; but there is another one, namely, cabas, a basket in which
the pickings and stealings of cloth might be hoarded.
The place where cabbage is stored is termed hell (q.v.) or one’s eye
(q.v.); these terms, as also goose (q.v.), a smoothing iron, are
responsible for much cheap wit. Cf., Makings and Pickings. The Spanish
has sisa = ‘a petty theft.’
2. (old).—A tailor; sometimes cabbager, and formerly cabbage-contractor
(q.v.). For synonyms, see Button-catcher and Snip.
1690. B. E., Dict. Cant. Crew. Cabbage: a Taylor, and what they
pinch from the Cloaths they make up.
1725. New Cant. Dict. Cabbage: Taylors are so called, because of
their ... Love of that Vegetable. The cloth they steal and purloin
... is also called cabbage.
3. (old).—A style of dressing the hair similar to the modern chignon.
[For suggested derivation, see sense 1.] Fr. un kilo.
1690. Mundus Muliebris. Behind the noddle every baggage, Wears
bundle ‘choux,’ in English cabbage.
4. (schoolboys’).—A translation or ‘crib’; sometimes shortened to cab
(q.v., sense 2).
1868. Brewer, Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, p. 129. Cabbage is
also a common schoolboy term for a literary crib, or other petty
theft.
5. (common).—A cigar. The French have une feuille de platane = a
plane-tree leaf; also un crapulos or crapulados, a Hispanization of
crapule = filth. For synonyms, see Weed.
1843. Punch’s Almanack, August 12. The cigar dealers, objecting to
their lands being cribbed, have made us pay for the cabbage ever
since.
1848. Punch, vol. XIV., p. 298. q. Are cigars an English invention?
a. No! the cigar is a Spanish article, that has been merely
cabbaged by the British manufacturer.
1853. C. S. Calverley, Verses and Translations, p. 141 [ed. 1881],
Carmen Sæcularæ. O fumose puer nimuim ne crede Baconi Manillas
vocat, hoc prætexit nomine caules.
1889. Ally Sloper’s Half-Holiday, July 6. Last week he offered me a
weed—A worse one no man’s lips e’er soiled. ‘No, thanks,’ said, ‘I,
know the breed; I much prefer my cabbage boiled.’
6. (venery).—The female pudendum. Cf., Greens. For synonyms, see
Monosyllable.
Verb (old).—1. To purloin or pilfer pieces.
1712. Arbuthnot, History of John Bull, pt. I., ch. x. Your tailor,
instead of shreds, cabbages whole yards of cloth.
1870. New York Evening Sun, May 24. Report of Speech of Mr
Chandler. Let us knock the British crown to flinders; let us
arrange for some one or two hundred thousand British graves
forthwith, and cabbage the whole boundless continent without any
further procrastination.
1882. Notes and Queries, 6 S., vi., 210. But he said, If I cabbage
that ring to-night, I shall be all the richer to-morrow.
2. (schoolboys’).—To use a translation or other adventitious aid in
preparing exercises; to ‘crib.’
1837. Gen. P. Thompson, Exerc. (1842), IV., 234. A speech, which
... had been what schoolboys call cabbaged, from some of the forms
of oration ... published by way of caricature [m.]
1862. H. Marryat, Year in Sweden, II., 387. Steelyards ... sent by
Gustaf Wasa as checks upon country dealers, who cabbaged, giving
short weight. [m.]
So also cabbaged, ppl. adj., pilfered, or stolen; and cabbaging, verbal
subs., pilfering, purloining.
Cabbage-Contractor, subs. (old).—A tailor. [From cabbage (q.v., subs.,
sense 1) = contractor, a trader.] For synonyms, see Button-catcher and
Snip.
Cabbage-Gelder, subs. (old).—A greengrocer or market gardener.—A.B.C.
of a New Dictionary of Flash, Cant, and Slang [1866].
Cabbage-Head, subs. (popular).—A fool; a soft-head; a ‘go-along.’ For
synonyms generally, see Buffle, and more particularly infra.
English Synonyms. Blockhead; chuckle-head; chowder-head; cod’s-head;
chump or chump of wood; dunderhead; flat; go-along; goosecap;
green-lander; gulpin; juggins; thick-head; lights; loony; looby;
lubber; mooney; mug; muggins; muff; ninny-hammer; nincompoop; nizzie;
pigeon; sawney; Simon, or Simple Simon; slow-coach; soft-horn; sop; Tom
Tug. To which may be added ‘cupboard-headed,’ ‘half-boiled,’ ‘not all
there,’ and ‘off one’s chump,’ used also of one not compos mentis; a
thick (Winchester College).
French Synonyms. Une tête de pioche (popular: pioche = pickaxe or
mattock); un poulet d’Inde (popular: poule d’Inde = turkey-hen); un
couillé (popular); un paroissien de Saint Pierre aux bœufs (popular);
un noc (popular = a ‘juggins’); un loffiat (popular: this is formed
from a species of French back slang, lof = fol reversed. On the same
lines we get la loffitude = ‘stupidity’ or ‘nonsense’; bonisseur de
loffitudes = ‘a nonsense monger’; also solliceur de loffitudes = ‘a
journalist’); un Jean-bête (common: Cf., English ‘Johnnie’ and ‘Jack’);
barré (= cabbage-headed); une vieille bouillote (popular); une
bourriche (popular: ‘a hamper’); une badouille (popular: also = ‘a
hen-pecked husband’); être déboulonné (popular: literally = ‘unpinned’
or ‘unbolted’); un fifilolo (popular); un daim (popular); être de la
tribu des Bênicoco (military); être du 14 bénédictins (popular); une
bestiasse (this term has passed into the language); bête comme chou (=
‘extremely stupid’); bête comme un pôt (= a perfect ass); bête comme
ses pieds (= an arrant fool); un abruti or ahuri de Chaillot (popular:
Chaillot, in the suburbs of Paris, is a common butt, much as are
Hanwell, Colney Hatch, etc.; abrutir = ‘to stupify, to besot, to
imbrute’); une tête de boche (common: = a wooden head; also a German);
un bidon de zinc (military = ‘a can’ or ‘flask’); un cul or cul d’âne
(popular: cul d’âne = ‘the rump of an ass’; Cf., English ‘ass’); un
cantaloup (popular: literally a melon); un cube (a ‘regular idiot’); un
canarie; être un c (a euphemistic phrase); un busard or buson or une
buse (an allusion to the stupidity of the buzzard); une couenne
(popular: = ‘pig-skin.’ ‘Est-il couenne!’ ‘What an ass!’); un
coquardeau; un couillon (popular: a cullion, used in friendly
jocularity = abashed, crestfallen, and above all idiotic); un espèce de
cafouilleux (popular = ‘a bally bounder’); un arguche (thieves’);
battre comtois (thieves’ = to play the fool); un baveux (a driveller:
one who does not know what he is talking about); un boniface (popular);
n’avoir pas cassé la patte à coco (thieves’ = ‘as big a bloody mug as
they make ’em’).
Spanish Synonyms. Asnazo (m; properly ‘a big jackass’); asno (m);
bambarria (m; also = an accidental but successful stroke at billiards,
‘a fluke’); bobalias (m; a colloquialism for ‘a very stupid fellow’);
borro (m; properly a wether not two years old); echacantos (m); gentil
hombre de placer (= ‘a buffoon’ or ‘clown’); guillote (m; literally a
husbandman, one who enjoys the produce of a farm. Cf., ‘joskin’); Juan
lanas (vulgar); mamacallos or mamaluco (m); naranjo (m; properly the
citrus aurantium); pandero (m; also ‘a timbrel’); pinchauvas (m = a
despicable person); porra (f); es un solemne bobo (‘he is a downright
booby’); zamacuco.
Portuguese Synonyms.—Bamburrio; macacada; tauso; pãosinho.
1682. Mrs. Behn, False Count (1724), III., 146. Thou foul, filthy
cabbage-head. [m.]
1862. Lowell, Biglow Papers, II., 228. For take my word for ’t,
when all’s come and past, The Cabbage-heads ’ll cair the day at
last.
c. 1880. Broadside Ballad, ‘Right before the missis too.’ I’ve had
a dreadful row All through a chum named Tommy Sheen, I ought to
call him cabbage-head, He is so very green.
Cabbage-Leaf, subs. (common).—A bad cigar; usually contracted into
cabbage (q.v., subs., sense 5). [From a popular theory of material.] In
French un infectados by a play upon words in two languages, infect, Fr.
= more than common, vile, and infectar, Sp. = ‘to infect’ or ‘be
infected’. For synonyms, see Weed.
Cabbage Plant, subs. (old).—An umbrella; gamp (q.v.); or brolly.
Cabbager, subs. (common).—A tailor. [From cabbage (q.v., subs., sense
1) + er.] For synonyms, see Button-catcher and Snip.
Cabbage-Stumps, subs. (common).—The legs. For synonyms, see Drumsticks.
Cabbage-Tree Mob, subs. (Australian). Old for what are now called
Larrikins (q.v.). [Derived from the low-crowned cabbage-palm hat
affected by this section of Australian society.] Cabbagites was an
alternative.
18(?). Lieut.-Col. Munday, Our Antipodes. Loafers known as the
cabbage-tree mob, a class whom, in the spirit of the ancient
tyrant, one might excusably wish had but one nose in order to make
it a bloody one. Ibid. Unaware of the propensities of the
cabbagites, he was by them furiously assailed.
Cabby, subs. (colloquial).—A cabman. [From cab + y.] Amongst French
equivalents are une hirondelle (properly = ‘a swallow’); un maraudeur
(i.e., ‘a marauder,’ one who plies without a license; Cf., Pirate
(q.v.), as applied to omnibuses.)
1852. F. E. Smedley, Lewis Arundel, ch. xxxiii. I was forced to
offer him a seat in the cab, but he coolly replied, ‘No, thank ye
... I’ll sit beside cabby.’
1864–5. Yates, Broken to Harness, II., p. 41. Easy, cabby; we don’t
want to be thrown into the very midst of the aristocracy.
1890. Standard, Feb. 11, p. 3, col. 1. There was a Vienna cabby
with his jolly red face and his professional impudence.
Cable, verb (popular).—To send a telegram by ocean (submarine) wire.
To slip or cut one’s cable, subs. phr. (nautical).—To die. For
exhaustive lists of synonymous terms, see Aloft and Hop the twig.
Cable-Hanger, subs. (nautical).—Explained by quotations.
1724–7. Defoe, Tour thro’ G. Britain (ed. 1748), I., 150. Persons
who dredge or fish for oysters, not being free of the fishery, are
called cable-hangers, and are prosecuted and punished by the Court.
1867. Smyth, Sailors’ Word Book. Cable-hanger, a person catching
oysters, in the River Medway, not free of the fishery.
Cab-Moll, subs. (old).—A prostitute addicted professionally to cabs and
trains. [From cab (q.v., sense 2) + moll (q.v.), a strumpet.] For
synonyms, see Barrack-hack and Tart.
Cabobbled, ppl. adj. (nautical).—Confused; puzzled; perplexed.
Caboodle, subs. (American).—A crowd; generally ‘the whole caboodle.’
[Thought to be an enlarged form of boodle which is frequently used in
the same sense, and which is supposed by some to be derived from the
old English bottel, a bundle (Fr. botel, boteau. Ger. beutel.). See,
however, Boodle, subs., sense 1. Another derivation is from the Spanish
cabildo, a provincialism for the corporation of a town.] Caboodle is
general throughout the States, and has now almost completely supplanted
boodle (q.v.), which is usually applied in a different sense. Sometimes
caboose (q.v.)
1858. New Orleans Picayune, 23 Feb. The whole caboodle came out and
fell upon me, till I was as soft as a squash, and then they took me
up for fighting.
1887. Scribner’s Magazine. Ye’ve got ter have faith in
Goddie-mighty then, sure, a-swingin’ up an’ down them
mount’n-sides, dark nights or bright, when a rock on the track f’om
a landslide ’ud fling the whole caboodle down the mount’n an inter
kingdom come afo’ you’d know it.
Caboose, subs. (American).—Generally applied to convivial quarters;
also to a bachelor’s snuggery—a den (q.v.) or diggings (q.v.).
[Properly a ship’s cook-house or galley; and in the United States, a
car on a freight train for workmen, or for a special purpose.]
The whole caboose, phr. (nonce expression).—Obviously a variation of
caboodle (q.v.).
1870. London Figaro, 19 Oct. ‘After the Fire.’ In this room, sir,
said my gallant conductor, lived a bricklayer with his wife and two
kids. He made that hole in the wall, and got ’em safe through—the
whole caboose on ’em; and a jolly good job he did.
Cacafuego, subs. (old).—A spitfire; braggart; bully. [From the Latin
cacare through the Spanish cagar, ‘to void excrement,’ + Spanish fuego,
fire.] This word, once literary, has long fallen into desuetude. It was
regarded as vulgar after the middle of the last century, and thereafter
was only included in slang dictionaries.
1625. Fletcher, Fair Maid, III., i. She will be ravisht before our
faces, by rascalls and cacafugos, wife, cacafugoes. [m.]
1696. Phillips. Cacafuego, a Spanish word signifying Shitéfire; and
it is used for a bragging, vapouring fellow. [m.]