1748. T. Dyche, Dictionary (5 ed.) Cant (s.): a barbarous broken
sort of speech made use of by gypsies.
1856. C. Reade, Never too Late, ch. xlv. All this not in English,
but in thieves’ cant.
Here follow specimens of ancient and modern jargon. Further
illustrations will be found in the canting songs in the Appendix.
[ancient cant.]
1567. Harman, Caveat (E.E.T. Soc., extra series, IX., 1869), p.
84–86. The vpright Cofe canteth to the Roge. Vpright-man.—Bene
Lightmans to thy quarromes, in what lipken hast thou lypped in this
darkemans, whether in a lybbege, or in the strummell? Roge.—I
couched a hogshead in a Skypper this darkemans. Vpright-man.—I
towre the strummel trine vpon thy nabchet and Togman. Roge.—I saye
by the Salomon I will lage it of with a gage of benebouse; then cut
to my nose watch. Man.—Why, hast thou any lowre in thy bonge to
bouse? Roge.—But a flagge, a wyn, and a make, etc., etc., etc.
[modern thieves’ lingo.]
1881. New York Slang Dictionary. ‘Oh! I’m fly. You mean jumping
Jack, who was done last week for heaving a peter from a drag. But
you talked of padding the hoof. Why, sure, Jack had a rattler and a
prad?’ ‘Yes, but they were spotted by the harmans, and so we walked
Spanish.’ ‘Was he nabbed on the scent?’ ‘No; his pal grew leaky and
cackled.’ ‘Well, Bell, here’s the bingo—sluice your gob! But who
was the cull that peached?’ ‘A slubber de gullion named Harry Long,
who wanted to pass for an out-and-out cracksman, though he was
merely a diver.’ ‘Whew! I know the kiddy like a copper, and saved
him once from lumping the lighter by putting in buck. Why, he
scarcely knows a jimmy from a round robin, and Jack deserved the
tippet for making a law with him, as all coves of his kidney blow
the gab. But how did you hare it to Romeville, Bell for I suppose
the jets cleaned you out?’ ‘I kidded a swell in a snoozing-ken, and
shook him of his dummy and thimble.’ ‘Ah! Bell! you were always the
blowen for a rum bing.’
2. (pugilistic)—a blow or toss. [In Mem. Capt. P. Drake, II., xiv., 244
(1755), occurs this passage, ‘To give me such a cant as I never had
before or since, which was the whole length of the coffee-room; he
pitched me on my head and shoulders under a large table at the further
end.’ Transition from the nautical sense of heeling over to that
embodied in ‘cant on the chops,’ is easy.] For synonyms, see Bang, Dig,
and Wipe.