1835. T. Hook, Gilbert Gurney, ch. vii. I will appear to know more
of you than one of the cads of the thimble-rig knows of the
pea-holder.
1839. T. Hood, Miss Kilmansegg, p. 230. Not to forget that saucy
lad (Ostentation’s favourite cad), The page, who looked so
splendidly clad.
1843. J. Hewlett, College Life, I., p. 115. Webb’s boy, who went as
cad with the dog.
6. (University and public schools’).—A contemptuous term applied to
non-school or non-University men. At Cambridge snob, the word Thackeray
used, has long been a common term for a townsman; now the undergrad
says Townee or Towner (q.v.). The German analogue is Philister. Dr.
Günther (Jena and its Environs) tells that of the old towers and gates
which formed the entrance to Jena, the square one to the west alone
remains; and is remarkable not only for its prison, called ‘The
Cheese-Basket,’ but for four images of monkeys’ heads carved at the
several corners of the gate itself. In a quarrel between students and
townsfolk in the vicinity of the Johannis-Thor, the former dubbed the
watchmen there ‘the monkey watchmen.’ The guard vowed vengeance, and
one evening killed a student who had taken no part in the disturbance.
The ecclesiastical superintendent, Götz, preached a sermon at the boy’s
funeral from Judges xvi. 20, ‘The Philistines be upon thee, Samson!’
and that night his text was heard in the street, Philister über dir
Samson! ‘Henceforward the citizens were called ‘Philister’ by the
students; and, the name being exported to the other Universities, it
came at length to be applied to burgher folk throughout Germany.’
According to some this fight occurred in 1693. For synonyms, see Rank
outsider.
1831. Hone, Year Book, 670. Preceded by one or two bands of music
in two boats, rowed by cads.
1856. Rev. E. Bradley (‘Cuthbert Bede’), Adventures of Verdant
Green, I., p. 117. And I can chaff a cad.
1860. Macmillan’s Mag., March p. 327. You don’t think a gentleman
can lick a cad, unless he is the biggest and strongest of the two.
1873. Saturday Review, September, p. 305. At Oxford the population
of the University and city is divided into ‘Dons, men and cads.’
7. (general).—A vulgar, ill-mannered person; a blackguard, i.e., a
person incapable of moral decency. For synonyms, see Snide.
1849. Charles Kingsley, Alton Locke. ‘The cads,’ ‘the snobs,’ ‘the
blackguards,’ looked on with a dislike, contempt, and fear which
they were not backward to return.
1860. Thackeray, Lovell the Widower, p. 245. There’s a set of cads
in that club that will say anything.
1880. Punch’s Almanack, 12. Lor’ if I’d the ochre, make no doubt I
could cut no end of big-pots out. Call me a cad? When moneys in the
game, cad and swell are pooty much the same.
1882. F. Anstey, Vice Versâ, ch. vii. Perhaps your old governor has
been making a cad of himself then, and you’re out of sorts with
him.
1889. Answers, Feb. 23, p. 205, col. 3. You wouldn’t care to know
Goodfellow, Miss Smart; he’s awfully bad form—a regular cad, you
know.
Cadator, subs. (old).—A beggar in the character of a decayed gentleman.
1703. Ward, London Spy, pt. I., p. 7. He is one of those gentile [?
genteel] Mumpers, we call Cadators; he goes a Circuit round England
once a year, and under Pretence of a decay’d gentleman, gets both
Money and Entertainment at every good House he comes at.
ed. 1760. T. Brown, Works, II., 179. You ... sot away your time in
Mongo’s fumitory, among a parcel of old smoak-dry cadators.
Caddie, subs. (Scots).—An attendant at golf.
1889. Scots Observer, Feb. Oh, my Caddie, my Caddie ye’re a vera
intelligent laddie. But I dinna like yer grinnin When I’m no
exactly winnin’.
Caddish, adj. (popular).—Vulgar; offensively ill-bred. [From Cad (q.v.,
sense 7) + ish.]
1869. Shirley Brooks, Sooner or Later, II., p. 31. ‘Well I don’t
care about walking on Sundays. Religious scruples, perhaps.’ ‘I
should think not. But it seems so caddish—like snobs who can go out
on no other day.’
1872. Civilian, Aug. 10. There are many sorts of Ministerial
insolence at present ‘on view’ in the House of Commons. Mr.
Ayrton’s is coarse and caddish, the Attorney-General’s
contemptuously courteous, and Mr. Lowe’s cynically and facetiously
insulting.
1874. E. L. Linton, Patricia Kemball, ch. xx. ‘However, I have
brought you here to reason, not to wrangle,’ he continued more
quietly; ‘and wrangling is caddish.’
Cade, subs. (society).—The Burlington Arcade. [An abbreviated form of
‘Arcade.’] Cf., The Zoo for ‘the Zoological gardens,’ The Proms. for
‘the Promenade Concerts,’ The Pops. for ‘the Monday Popular Concerts,’
and The Cri. for the ‘Criterion Bar.’ Somewhat older examples are The
Lane (q.v.) and The House (q.v.).
Cadge, subs. (vulgar).—The profession of cadging or begging.—See verbal
sense.
1812. J. H. Vaux, Flash Dictionary. The cadge is the game or
profession of begging.
1832–53. Whistle-Binkie (Sc. Songs), Ser. II., 68. He could ‘lay on
the cadge’ better than ony walleteer that e’er cost a pock o’er his
shouther.
Verb tr. and intr.—To obtain by begging; to beg. Now applied to
vagrants and others who solicit in an artful wheedling manner. [A
comparatively modern derivative. Cadger (Scots) a pedlar or carrier,
i.e., one who strolls the country with his stock-in-trade in a cadge,
i.e., a panier or basket for the carriage of small wares. Cf., ‘to
beg,’ from ‘bag.’] Hence said of anyone who lives by sponging on
another, or who gets a livelihood without giving a proper quid pro quo.
For example, a waiter when hanging about for ‘a tip’ is said to be
cadging or ‘on the cadge.’ Among intimates To Cadge a dinner or supper
is now often used without implied reproach.
1811. Lexicon Balatronicum. Cadge the swells, beg of the gentlemen.
1846. Lytton, Lucretia, II., xii. ‘I be’s good for nothin’ now, but
to cadge about the streets and steal and filch. [m.]
1848. E. Farmer, Scrap Book (ed. 6), 115. Let each cadge a trifle.
1866. G. A. Sala, Trip to Barbary. ch. xiv. Thumping the tom-tom,
and cadging for coppers.
1833. Daily Telegraph, Feb. 8, p. 3, col. 1. ‘It’s as bad a’ most
as drawing peoples’ teeth to cadge a trifle off them in such winter
months as we’ve had since the Autumn broke.’
English Synonyms. To mump; to pike; to mouch; to stand the pad; to
maund; to tramp; to mike.
French Synonyms. Bettander (thieves’); aller à la chasse avec un fusil
de toile (popular: literally ‘to go hunting with a canvas gun,’ an
allusion to the necessary wallet or bag); bellander (tramps’; Cf.,
bettander; possibly some confusion has arisen between these two terms);
balauder (tramps’); truquer de la pogne (tramps’); trucher (Old Cant,
from truc, any kind of open air small trade or artifice. The word
appears in various French, Italian and Spanish dialects, whilst Méril
in his Dictionnaire du pâtois Normand allies it with the English
‘trick’); tendre la demi-aune (popular: demi-aune = the arm); cameloter
(popular: meaning also to sell, cheapen, or tramp); faire le coup de
manche, or faire la manche (to call at people’s houses); mendigoter
(popular).
German Synonyms. Abgeilen (to get by begging. From the O.H.G. gil);
abschnurren (to beg through a lane, town, or province; also = to take
to one’s heels; M.H.G. snurren, schnurren (q.v., infra) and Schnurrant,
a beggar musician); bimmeln (Bimmler, Bummler, a beggar or vagrant);
benschen (a corruption of the Latin benedicere = to say grace after
meat; from praying to begging is but a step); paternellen (perhaps,
like the foregoing, a formation, from the Latin pater noster,
signifying to say much pater); noppeln (vagrants’); Schnurren,
schnorren, snurren, (from the O.H.G. snurren, to grind, to grind out
music on a hurdy-gurdy [q.v.], or to grind out prayers. A beggar or
vagrant is termed Schnurrer, Schnorrer, or Snurrer = a grinder. Auf die
Pille schnurren = to beg by feigning epileptic fits; auf Serffleppe
schnurren = to beg on the pretence of having been ‘burnt out’;
Schnurrpilsel, Schnurrscheye, Scenurrschicksel, Schurrkeibelche, and
Schnurrmädchen, are epithets for very young girls who are beggars or
strumpets as occasion fits; the dual occupation being known as
Kommistarchenen and Hemdenschnurren); tarchenen, targenen, dörgen,
dorchen (‘to beg’ or ‘to hawk.’ The derivation is obscure, but it is
possibly to be found in the Hebrew tirgel, ‘to teach to walk’ or ‘to
guide the foot.’ Others trace it to the O.H.G. Turg, ‘uncertain’ or to
storgen from Störger, ‘a wandering quack.’ The Fiesellange, or Viennese
thieves’ lingo, has Tarchener as equivalent to Kegler, a kitchen
thief); linkstappeln (to beg or collect money under false pretences;
see Linkstappler under cadger); prachern (probably from the Hebrew
berocha, a blessing: wandering beggars generally introducing themselves
with some sort of a benediction); Schnallendrücken gehen, or auf
Schnallen, drücken gehen (these terms also signify to walk the streets
as a prostitute. Schnalle = untruth, cheating, deception, and the
female pudendum); stabeln, stappeln, and stapeln (the first of these
forms is peculiar to Vienna, and all are traceable to Stiban or Stap,
the Anglo-Saxon staff. The meaning is to go with a begging staff,
generally with a pretence of having seen better days); dalfen and
dalfern (the corresponding noun Dalfon = a poor fellow, is supposed to
be derived from Dalfon, the only one of the ten sons of Haman, whose
name had not the letter aleph either at the beginning or end of it
[Esther ix. 7–9]. The story goes that because of this he was not only
hanged, but mocked into the bargain: the feast in commemoration of
Haman’s fall being essentially a merrymaking. Thenceforth, a poor man
became a Dalfon); deufen gehen = to go begging with the intention of
committing a robbery. Cf., O.H.G. Diufa, Deube = theft; fechten,
Viennese thieves’ lingo).
Italian Synonyms. Truccare (identical with the French truquer q.v.);
Santocchiare (also = ‘to say one’s prayers’); calcheggiare (also = to
steal).
Cadge-Cloak or Gloak, subs. (old).—A beggar. For synonyms, see Cadger.
1791. Carew, Life and Adventures of Bamphylde-Moore Carew.
Cadge-cloak, curtal, or curmudgeon; no Whip-Jack, palliard, patrico
... nor any other will I suffer.
Cadger, subs. (common).—Primarily a carrier, pedlar, or itinerant
dealer; now mainly applied to a whining beggar; also, occasionally, a
‘sponger,’ snide (q.v.), or ‘mean man’ (see quots.). [From cadge (q.v.)
+ er.]
English Synonyms. Abram man; croaker, Abraham cove; Tom of Bedlam;
Bedlam beggar; maunderer, moucher; pikey; traveller; turnpike, or dry
land sailor; scoldrum; shyster; Shivering James; silver beggar;
skipper-bird; mumper; paper-worker; goose-shearer; master of the black
art; durrynacker.
French Synonyms. Un trucheur, or un trucheux (Old Cant, from truc,
which see under Cadge); un marcandier or une marcandière (thieves’; a
variety of the mendicant tribe which is described in le Jargon de
l’Argot as ‘those who journey with a great purse by their side, with a
pretty good coat, and a cloak on their shoulders, pretending they have
met with robbers who have stolen all their money’); les millards. (Old
Cant); un bêcheur; une comète (popular: ‘a comet’—one here and there);
les callots; un enfant de la loupe (thieves’); un loupiat (popular); un
mendigot (thieves’); un lartin (Old Cant).
German Synonyms. Dalfon (see Cadge); Techtbrud (Viennese thieves’);
Gomol (from the Hebrew, and used only as a nickname); Hochstappler (a
beggar cheat who has seen better days. Cf., Stappler and Linkstappler);
Linkstappler (a beggar by means of false papers; a dealer in sham
lottery tickets; or a ‘snide’ collector for purposes of charity);
Pracher (possibly from the Hebrew berocha, ‘a blessing,’ in allusion to
the mumper’s benediction); Schnallendrücker (from Schnalle = ‘an
untruth,’ ‘cheating,’ or ‘deception,’ + Trecker, one who pulls);
Schnurrer (see under Cadge); Stabeler (see under Cadge); Standjunge (a
beggar frequenting markets, fairs, and public processions).
Italian Synonyms. Campagno di calca (campagno = companion or comrade,
calca = ‘crowd’); calco (see preceding); corteggiano or cortigiano
(literally ‘a courtier’); cavorante di scarpe (literally ‘working
shoes’; specially applied to a beggar who is also a pickpocket);
granchetto (especially one who patters in flash (q.v.); truccante (also
= a thief); guido or guidone (literally ‘a guide’; also = a ‘dog’ or a
‘companion’); incatenato an old and decrepit beggar’s boy-leader.
Literally one put up or hung up in chains).
Spanish Synonym. Chita (a nickname for a deformed vagrant or beggar).
1821.—W. T. Moncrieff, Tom and Jerry, Act ii., Sc. 6. Cadgers make
holiday, Hey, for the maunder’s joys, Let pious ones fast and pray,
They save us the trouble, my boys.
1851.—Mayhew, Lon. Lab. and Lon. Poor, I., 339. A street seller
nowadays is looked upon as a ‘cadger,’ and treated as one.
1882.—Daily Telegraph, 5 Oct., p. 3. col. 1. See on a Saturday
night, in Whitechapel, the rank hypocritical cadger, whose coarse
disguise of cleanness and respectability would scarcely deceive the
most foolish persons at the West-end.
1884.—Jas. Greenwood, The Little Ragamuffins. I may here remark
that amongst people of my born grade no one is so contemptuously
regarded as he who is known as a cadger. The meaning they set on
the word is not the dictionary meaning. The cadger with them is the
whining beggar, the cowardly impostor, who being driven or finding
it convenient to subsist on charity, goes about his business with
an affectation of profoundest humility, and a consciousness of his
own unworthiness; a sneaking, abject wretch, aiming to crop a meal
out of the despising and disgust he excites in his
fellow-creatures.
Cadging, verbal subs. (common).—Begging, frequently eked out by petty
pilfering. [From cadge (q.v.) + ing.]
1859. H. Kingsley, Geoffrey Hamlyn, ch. xv. I’ve got my living by
casting fortins, and begging, and cadging, and such like.
1873. Jas. Greenwood, In Strange Company. But what one in vain
looked for was the ‘jolly beggar,’ the oft-quoted and steadfastly
believed in personage who scorns work because he can ‘make’ in a
day three times the wages of an honest mechanic by the simple
process of cadging.
Cady, subs. (common).—A hat. [Derivation unknown.] Sometimes written
cadey and caddy. For synonyms, see Golgotha.
1886. The A.B.C. of New Dictionary of Flash, Cant, Slang, etc., p.
85. Caddy: a man’s hat.
1887. Walford’s Antiquarian, April, p. 251. Sixpence I gave for my
cadey A penny I gave for my stick.
Caffan.—See Cassan.
Caffre’s Lightener, subs. (South African).—A full meal. Fr. une
lichance (from licher = lécher, ‘to lick’).
1864. Lady Duff Gordon. Letters from the Cape. I asked him [a young
black shepherd at the Cape] to sing; and he flung himself at my
feet, in an attitude that would make Watts crazy with delight, and
crooned queer little mournful ditties. I gave him sixpence and told
him not to get drunk. He said, ‘Oh, no! I will buy bread enough to
make my belly stiff; I almost never had my belly stiff.’ He
likewise informed me that he had just been in the tronk [Cape Dutch
slang for a prison, answering to the English stone jug], and, on my
asking why, replied, ‘Oh, for fighting and telling lies.’
Cage, subs. (old).—1. A minor kind of prison for petty malefactors; a
country ‘lock-up.’ [From cage, a place of confinement for birds,
beasts, and, formerly, human beings.] Once in literary use; now
thieves’ slang.
1500. Lancelot, 2767. As cowart thut schamfully to ly Excludit in
to cage from chewalry. [m.]
1593. Shakspeare, II. Henry VI., iv., 2. Dick. Ay, by my faith, the
field is honorable, and there he was born, under a hedge; for his
father had never a house but the cage.
1748. T. Dyche, Dictionary (5 ed). Cage (s): a place of confinement
for thieves or vagrants that are taken up by the watch in the
night-time, to secure them till the proper officer can carry them
before a magistrate.
1815. Scott, Guy Mannering, ch. liii. I was doomed—still I kept my
purpose in the cage and in the stocks.
1839. Harrison Ainsworth, Jack Sheppard [1882], p. 78. The cage at
Willesden was, and is—for it is still standing—a small round
building about eight feet high, with a pointed tiled roof, to which
a number of boards inscribed with the names of the parish officers,
and charged with a multitude of admonitory notices to vagrants and
other disorderly persons, are attached.
1841. Punch, vol. I., p. 3. ‘A synopsis of voting.’ He who is
incited into an assault, that he may be put into the cage.
English Synonyms. For a prison generally, academy; boat;
boarding-house; bower; block-house; bastille; bladhunk; stone-jug; jug;
calaboose; cooler; coop; downs; clink; jigger; Irish theatre; quod;
shop; stir; clinch; steel; sturrabin; mill; toll shop; floating hell;
floating academy; dry room; House that Jack Built; choakee.
Among special names for particular prisons may be mentioned Bates’s
Farm or Garden (Cold Bath Fields); Akerman’s Hotel (Newgate); Castieu’s
Hotel (Melbourne Gaol); Burdon’s Hotel (White Cross Street Prison);
Ellenborough Lodge, Spike or Park (the King’s Bench Prison, to which,
as a matter of fact, every Chief Justice stood god-father); Campbell’s
Academy (the Hulks); City College and Whittington’s College (Newgate);
Tench; Pen; and Smith’s Hotel (Edinburgh).
French Synonyms. Le castue (thieves’); la caruche (thieves’); la boîte
aux cailloux (thieves’); cailloux = stones; Cf., ‘stone jug’; le
collège (thieves’: Newgate at one time was called the City College); la
cage (popular); le château (thieves’: literally a castle, château de
l’ombre = a convict settlement); la chambre de sûreté (the parish
prison of the Conciergerie); le chetard (thieves’); le canton
(thieves’: according to Ménage in his Dictionnaire Etymologique, the
original sense of this word is the same as coin. From canton has been
derived the verb, cantonner, a military term signifying the billetting
of troops in one or more villages); en ballon (popular: in prison); la
grosse boîte (thieves’: literally the big box); la bonde (thieves’: a
central prison); la Biscaye (thieves’); l’abbaye de sots bougres
(thieves’: obsolete = The Silly Bugger’s Arms); le bloc (a military
prison or cell, Cf., block-house); la dure (thieves’: a central prison,
dur is properly hard, merciless, obdurate); la femme de l’adjudant (a
military lock-up, jigger, or Irish theatre; literally the adjutant’s
wife); la bagnole (popular: a diminutive of bagne, of the same
meaning); la motte (thieves’: a central prison or house of correction);
l’hôpital (thieves’: a man in durance is un malade = a patient); la
mitre (thieves’: a corruption of mithridate, the name of a certain
ointment; mitre formerly meant ‘itch’); le jetar (military; the same as
chetar); l’ours (common: a term given to a prison, guard-room, or
cell); la boîte à violon (a lock-up at a police-station; violon itself
signifies a prison, the barred windows being compared to the strings of
that instrument. Argot and Slang says:—The lingo terms jouer de la
harpe, to be in prison, and jouer du violon, to file through the window
bars of a cell, seem to bear out this explanation. Some philologists,
however, think that the stocks being termed psaltérion, mettre an
psaltérion, to put in the stocks, became synonymous with ‘to imprison,’
the expression being superseded in time by mettre au violon when that
instrument itself superseded the psaltérion); la tuneçon (Old Cant);
l’austo (a military prison); le lycée (thieves’: = ‘academy’); l’école
préparatoire (pop.: a preparatory school for young thieves); le lazaro
(military: = lazar-house, or ‘spike’); le mazaro (military: = cells);
la matatane (military: ‘a guard room’ or the cells); le loustaud
(thieves’); la lorcefé (thieves’: the old prison of La Force); le loir
(thieves’ = ‘dormouse’); l’hosto (soldiers’ and thieves’: also
popularly, ‘a house or crib’); la grotte (thieves’: the hulks. Properly
a grotto or crypt); l’hôtel des haricots (familiar: from the staple of
diet, Cf., Ger. Erbsien and Graupenpalais); la morte paye sur mer
(obsolete: the hulks); l’ombre (popular: = ‘shade,’ Cf., Ger. Kühle);
la maze (abbreviation of Mazas, a central prison in Paris); là-bas
(prostitutes: St. Lazare; thieves’: the convict settlement at New
Caledonia, or in Cayenne); la malle (military: Cf., English ‘box’).
German Synonyms. Antoniklosterl (Viennese thieves’ = a prison in
Vienna); Drillbajis or Drillhaus (a house of drill or correction);
Echetel (Viennese thieves’); Erbsien (Viennese thieves’: from the
staple of diet—Erbsen = peas. Cf., Graupenpalais); Graupenpalais (a
prison in Berlin, from the staple of diet—barley); Grannigebais
(Granigire Marochum = a fortress); Gymnasium (Cf., college, academy,
lycée); Kaan or Kân (from the Hebrew; im Kaan scheften, to be in
prison); Kue or Kuh (in die Kue sperren; to imprison); Kitt or Kittchen
(from the Hebrew Kisse = a chair, throne, roof, common lodging-house,
brothel, workhouse, and prison); Kille (literally an assembly); Kühle
(im Kühlen sitzen, literally to sit in the ‘cooler’ or in the shade;
Cf., être à l’ombre, and ‘to be under a cloud’); Leck (Viennese
thieves’ M.H.G., luken, to lock up); Mifzer (Hebrew pozar, a fortress
or prison); Schofelbajis (from the Hebrew schophal, bad, common, low,
or unfortunate. Also a brothel); Stube (this, according to Zimmermann,
signifies a prison); Tallesmasky (Hanoverian: from tallo, gallows, +
masky from Maskopei, society, i.e., gallows-birds); T’fise (from the
Hebrew tophas).
Italian Synonyms. Basta; casa (a house. The forms casaccia and cazanza
are also used); cavagna; travagliosa (literally laborious); sentina
(properly a sink of vice); viscola or visco losa.
Spanish Synonyms. Madrastra; angustias or ansias (literally grief or
anguish); banasto (literally a large round basket); banco (properly a
bench); temor (i.e., fear); trena (f).
Portuguese Synonyms. Estarim or xelro; limoeiro (a cant name for a
prison in Lisbon).