1875. W. E. Henley, Unpublished Ballad. ‘In the breeding cage I
cops her, With her stays off, all a’blowin’!—Three parts sprung.’—
4. (parliamentary).—The Ladies’ Gallery in the House of Commons;
sometimes called the chamber of horrors, which appertains more properly
to the Peeresses’ Gallery in the Upper House.
1870. London Figaro, 10 June. ‘The Angels in the House.’ Mr.
Crauford’s Motion for the expulsion of strangers (during the debate
on The Contagious (Women’s) Diseases Act) had reference to the cage
and not to the Reporters’ Gallery.
Cagg, verb (old military).—Grose says ‘a military term used by the
private soldiers, signifying a solemn vow or resolution not to get
drunk for a certain time; or, as the term is, till their cagg is out,
which vow is commonly observed with the strictest exactness: e.g., “I
have cagg’d myself for six months. Excuse me this time, and I will cagg
myself for a year.” Common in Scotland, where the vow is performed with
divers ceremonies.’
Cag-Mag, subs. (vulgar).—Primarily a provincialism for a tough old
goose; now a vulgarism for refuse, or rubbish, or scraps and ends. The
transferred sense is older than given in the N.E.D. Cf., Keg-meg.
[Brewer derives it, ‘from the Gaelic and Welsh,’ cag magu, whilst
others consider it as originally a University slang term for a bad
cook, κακὸς μάγειρος. The Latin magma (Pliny), = dregs or dross.] Also
a plain or dirty woman.
1769. Pennant, Tour in Scotland, 1774, p. 10. Vast numbers [of
geese] are driven annually to London; among them, all the
superannuated geese and ganders (called here [Lincoln] cag-mags).
1839.—Comic Almanack, Sept., p. 188, But here’s the greatest grief,
and sure it makes one choke to put on A libel to one’s neck, just
like cheap cag-mag-scrag of mutton.
1851–61.—H. Mayhew, London Lab. and Lon. Poor, vol. I., p. 133. ‘Do
I ever eat my own game if it’s high? No, sir, never, I couldn’t
stand such cag-mag.’
1864.—Temple Bar, vol. X., p. 185. No kag-mag wares are sold, no
cheap articles are retailed.
Cain. To raise cain, phr. (American).—To proceed to extreme measures;
to be quarrelsome; to make a disturbance. Of Western origin; primarily
applied to men who would have shown no hesitation in shooting or
stabbing; generally = merely disputatious or quarrelsome. Variants are
to raise hate, hell, or hell and tommy, and to raise ned (q.v.). [An
allusion to the anger of the first fratricide.]
1849.—Ruxton, Scenes in the Far West, p. 117. He had been knocking
around all day in every grog-shop and bar-room in town, and when
evening came he was seen swaggering down Main Street, his head
bare, his eyes bloodshot, and his revolver in hand, shouting:
‘Who’ll hinder this child? I am going to raise Cain! Who’s got
anything to say agin it?’
1869.—Mrs. Beecher Stowe, Old Town Folks, p. 116. ‘I’ll tell you
what, Solomon Peters,’ said Miss Asphyxia, ‘I’d jest as soon have
the red dragon in the Revelation a comin’ down on my house as a
boy! If I don’t work hard enough now, I’d like to know, without
having a boy around raisin’ gineral Cain.’
Cain and Abel, subs. phr. (rhyming slang).—A table.
Cainsham-Smoke, subs. phr. (old).—The tears of a wife-beaten
husband.—Dunton. Ladies’ Dictionary [1694].
Cake or Cakey, subs. (popular).—1. A fool or dullard. Quoted by Grose
in his Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue [1785], in various provincial
glossaries, and generally colloquial in the lower strata of society.
[In punning allusion, some have thought, to the doughy softness of a
cake, a name given at first to any ‘flat’ kind of sweetened breadstuff.
Hence variants, such, for example, as ‘flat,’ ‘soft,’ and ‘muff.’
Others, however, trace it to the Greek κακὸς, bad, and point out that
in University slang a clever man is called a good man and the opposite
a bad one, or a cake.] For synonyms, see Buffle and Cabbage-head.
1841. Comic Almanack, ‘Twelfth Night,’ p. 256. And ever since, on
fair Twelfth Night, A wand’ring form is seen: A female form, and
this its cry:—‘Vy vot a cake I’ve been!’
1842. J. R. Planché, The White Cat, II., iv. Your resignation
proves that you must be The greatest cake he in his land could see!
1862. Mrs. H. Wood, Channings, ch. xxix. If Pye does not get called
to order now, he may lapse into the habit of passing over
hardworking fellows with brains to exalt some good-for-nothing cake
with none, because he happens to have a Dutchman for his mother.