1884. St. James’s Gazette, Jan. 4, p. 12, col. He preferred to go
to choker.
5. (thieves’).—The hangman’s rope or ‘squeezer’; a halter. For
synonyms, see Horse’s nightcap.
White-choker, subs. (common).—A clergyman. [In allusion to the white
ties worn by ‘the cloth.’] For synonyms, see Devil-dodger.
1849. Punch’s Almanack. The Swell Mobsman’s Almanack. Plant about
Exeter ’All, in May take old ladies on way to ’All, as they
generally hempties into the plate. The vite chokers may be fingured
on their way ’ome as they mostly brings hoff a pocketful.
1852. Comic Almanack. ‘Modes of addressing persons of various
ranks.’ The Clergy as a body, you will speak of as the
white-chokers, The lay aristocracy are simply styled The Nobs.
Chokered, ppl. adj. (common).—Wearing a choker (q.v.).
1866. London Review, 7 April, p. 388, col. 1. A whitebait waiter is
admirably chokered.
Chokey, Choky, Chokee or Choker, subs. (common).—1. A prison. [Indian:
from Hindī chaukī, a shed, station, or lock-up. In use from 1698
onwards and transferred to English slang early in the present century.]
The Queen’s Bench prison has been called the Queen’s chokey. For
synonyms, see Cage.
1836. Michael Scott, Cruise of the Midge (ed. 18), p. 107. Lord,
but it’s chokey!
1866. London Miscellany, March 3, p. 58, col. 1. I’ve jist crept
out o’ chokey. This is the twenty-ninth time I’ve been took that
way, and I’m jist gone twenty.
1877. Five Years’ Penal Servitude, ch. ii., p. 131. Both were
marched off to chokee, and I have no doubt got punished.
1877. Besant and Rice, This Son of Vulcan, II., ch. vi., p. 223.
Find out this stranger, and, by God, I’m a justice of the peace,
and I’ll cool his heels in chokee for a month.
1884. Daily News, Sept. 24, p. 3, col. 1. Wright ... would get two
or three days’ choky (i.e., bread and water).
2. (prison).—A cell, specially a punishment cell. For synonyms, see
Clinch.
1889. Answers, 30 March, p. 280, col. 2. But I am reminded that I
have not yet described that horrible institution known as the dark
cell—chokey, we convicts called it.
Chonkeys, subs. (common).—See quot.
1851–61. H. Mayhew, London Lab. and Lon. Poor, vol. I., p. 208.
Chonkeys, or a kind of mincemeat baked in crust.
Chop, subs. (old).—1. A blow. Once (in the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries) literary; and still respectable in a ‘chopping’—i.e., a
beating ‘sea.’