3. (commercial travellers’).—The ‘empty returns’ sent back by rail to
wholesale houses.
Cold Shivers, subs. phr. (common).—A figure of speech describing the
effect of illness, intense fear or any violent emotion. An American
equivalent is a ‘cold shake,’ which may refer alike to a period of cold
weather, and an attack of fever and ague.
1864. Derby Day, p. 50. ‘There’s our friend the Littl’un,’ he
resumed; ‘he’s all shivery shakey as if he got the staggers or the
cold shivers, and was going wurra, wurra, wurra, between his teeth,
as if he couldn’t help himself.’
Cold Shoulder. To give, show, or turn the cold shoulder, verbal phr.
(colloquial).—To treat a person with studied coldness, neglect, or
contempt; to ‘cut,’ in a modified form. The phrase appears to have been
first used by Scott in the Antiquary, in the glossary to which it is
explained as ‘to appear cold and reserved.’ Jamieson localizes it in
the South of Scotland.
1816. Scott, Antiquary, ch. xxxiii. The countess’s dislike didna
gang farther at first than just showing o’ the cauld shouther.
1840. Dickens, Old Curiosity Shop, ch. lxvi. He gives me the cold
shoulder on this very matter, as if he had had nothing to do with
it, instead of being the first to propose it.
1880. G. R. Sims, Three Brass Balls, pledge iii. They were not
received everywhere with open arms. He was, of course, but the wife
was occasionally cold shouldered.
c. 1882. Broadside Ballad, ‘Where’s the Cat?’ She gave him the cold
shoulder, and quickly told him to depart.
Cold Slaw.—See Cabbage, sense 1.
Cold Tea, subs. (common).—Brandy—a seventeenth and eighteenth century
colloquialism. For synonyms, see Drinks.
1690. Dict. Cant. Crew. Cold tea: brandy.
1693. Remonstrance of the Batchelors, in Harl. Misc. (ed. Park),
IV., 505. Since their sex has been so familiar with brandy
(blasphemed by the name of cold tea).
1857. Notes and Queries, 2 S., iii., p. 59, s.v.
1888. C. J. Dunphie, The Chameleon, p. 235. It is worthy of remark
that cold tea was a slang name for Brandy in the 18th century.
Cold Water Army, subs. phr. (colloquial).—The general body of total
abstainers.
Cold Without, subs. phr. (common).—Spirits and cold water without
sugar. Cf., Cider and; also Hot with.
1837. R. H. Barham, Ingoldsby Legends, p. 156 (ed. 1862). On the
fire, too, she pops some nice mutton-chops, And she mixes a stiff
glass of cold without.
1853. Bulwer Lytton, My Novel. I laugh at fame. Fame, sir! not
worth a glass of cold without.
Cole or Coal, subs. (popular).—Money. For synonyms, see Actual and
Gilt.
1671. R. Head, English Rogue, pt. I., ch. v., p. 52 (1874). Tip the
cole to Adam Tyler, give what money you pocket-pickt to the next
party, presently.
1676. A Warning for Housekeepers (canting song). But when that we
come not agen, As we walk along the street, We bite the Culley of
his cole.
1688. Shadwell, Sq. of Alsatia, I., in wks. (1720) IV., 16. Cheat.
My lusty rustick, learn, and be instructed. Cole is, in the
language of the witty, money; the ready, the rhino.
16(?). Song of Seventeenth Century, (quoted in Halliwell and Wright’s
ed. of Nares’ Glossary). The twelfth a trapan, if a cull he doth meet,
He naps all his cole, and turns him i’ th’ street.
1741. Walpole, ballad in Letters to Mann, i., 22. This our captain
no sooner had finger’d the cole, But he hies him aboard with his
good Madam Vole.
1837. R. H. Barham, The Ingoldsby Legends (ed. 1862), p. 398.
Moreover—the whole Of the said cash or cole; Shall be spent for the
good of the said Old Woman’s soul!
1844. Puck, p. 146. Thank you for the offer of your bill; but I can
wait until you can finger the cole, when I shan’t stand on ceremony
about taking a cool hundred or two....
To post or tip the cole, phr. (common).—To hand over money; to ‘shell’
or ‘fork out.’—See 1671 quot., subs. sense.
1839. Harrison Ainsworth, Jack Sheppard [1889], p. 13. ‘Will he
post the cole? Will he come down with the dues? Ask him that,’
cried Blueskin. Ibid. If he don’t tip the cole without more ado,
give him a taste of the pump, that’s all.
1883. G. A. S[ala], in Ill. L. News, Nov. 10, p. 451, col. 3. The
lamented J. B. Buckstone, at a Theatrical Fund Dinner, once
entreated the guests present to post the cole, i.e., to be prompt
with their subscriptions and donations.
Colfabias or Colfabis.—See quot.
1864. Hotten, Slang Dict. Colfabias, a Latinized Irish phrase
signifying the closet of decency, applied as a slang term to a
place of resort in Trinity College, Dublin.
Coliander or Coliander-Seeds, subs. (old).—Money.—Grose [1785]. For
synonyms, see Actual and Gilt.
Collar, verb (common).—To seize: appropriate; steal; e.g., ‘collar his
dragons,’ i.e., steal his sovereigns. [Properly ‘to seize by the
collar’; hence, by transition, ‘to lay hold of anything forcibly.’] For
synonyms, see Nab and Prig.
1841. Leman Rede, Song, ‘Kit Clayton,’ in Sixteen-String Jack, Act
i., Sc. 3. Ve collar’d the blunt, started off for town, With the
dashy, splashy, leary, little stringer, Horses knock’d up, men
knocked down—Phililoo!
1852. Dickens, Bleak House, ch. lvii., p. 476. Look well after your
own money, for they are dead certain to collar it, if they can.
1866. London Miscellany, March 3, p. 58. I slept in Holborn
Workhouse. While I was asleep the other coves tore every rag up and
collar’d my toke.
1866. Hindley, Life and Adventures of a Cheap Jack, p. 242. Old Sir
John Collywobbles had six black horses, six white horses, and six
pied horses. So I recommended my father-which-is-in-law to collar
the lot.
1884. W. Besant, Julia, ch. iv. Your grandmother tells me you’ve
plucked up spirit at last and won’t let her collar more than half
the wages.
To Collar the Bun, Cake, Banbury, or Confectioner’s Shop, verb. phr.
(common).—To be easily first; to surpass.—See Cake.
Out of Collar, adv. phr. (colloquial).—Out of work; out of cash; not in
training. Conversely, in collar = in work; in comfortable
circumstances; and, as regards training, ‘fit’ or ‘in form.’ [Simile
taken from the stable, in allusion to a horse, i.e., with his collar on
or off.]
French Synonyms. Balloter (tailors’ = ‘to be out of work’); caler
(popular and nautical = ‘to sink’); envoyer à la comédie (popular: to
dismiss a workman for want of work to give him. Cf., remporter une
veste); être à la comédie (‘to be out of work’); un panas (popular:
‘one out of work’); un inspecteur des pavés (literally ‘an inspector of
the pavement’); avoir de la laine (to be in work).
1857. Ducange Anglicus, The Vulgar Tongue. A decent allowance made
to seedy swells, head robbers, and flunkeys out of collar.
1867. Scottish Journal, p. 39, col. 1. There is nothing that so
materially and frequently effects the well-being and social
position of a working man as the circumstances arising from being,
in his own phrase, ‘out of collar’—that is, his being unable to
obtain work when he is able to do it and anxious to get it to do.
Ibid. A workman on tramp will, if he is tolerably well known in the
trade, and if he have, when in collar, shown a disposition to
assist those who were out, often be kept among his former
shopmates.
1880. Millikin, Punch’s Almanack. Now October! Back again to
collar, Funds run low, reduced to last ’alf dollar.
c. 1880. Broadside Ballad, ‘Why Did She Leave her Jeremiah?’ When I
was in collar I loved a fair maid, With eyes of a sweet dark blue.
Against collar, adv. phr. (common).—Uphill; working against
difficulties, or against the grain.
To be put to the pin of the collar, verbal phr. (common).—To be driven
to extremities; to come to the end of one’s resources.
To wear the collar, verbal phr. (colloquial).—To be subject to control
not altogether to one’s liking. The antithesis of ‘to have the whip
hand’ and ‘to wear the breeches’; etc.
Collar and Elbow, subs. phr. (wrestling).—A term for a peculiar style
of wrestling—the Cornwall and Devon style.
Collar-Day, subs. (old).—Hanging day. [In allusion to the hangman’s
noose.] Also Wry-neck-day (q.v.); Fr., jour de la St. Jean Baptiste.
Collared. To be collared, verbal phr. (gaming).—To be unable to play
one’s usual game owing to temper, ‘funk,’ or other causes.
Collared Up, ppl. adj. (colloquial).—Kept close to business. Cf., Out
of collar.
Collar or Get the Big Bird.—See Big Bird, and for synonyms, Goosed.
Collar Work, subs. phr. (colloquial). Laborious work.—See Against
Collar.
1883. Daily Telegraph, July 3, p. 2, col. 1. The bald patches on
their shoulders testified to their intimate acquaintance with
collar work and tugging on stoney roads with heavy loads behind
them.
1888. Ant. Trollope, What I Remember. And when Lucca was reached
there were still fourteen miles, nearly all collar work, between
that and the baths.
Collector, subs. (old).—A highwayman or footpad.
College, subs. (thieves’).—A prison; the inmates are called collegians
or collegiates (q.v.); Newgate was formerly called ‘the City College.’
The Spanish Germania has colegio and collège is found in the argot of
French thieves.
1703. Title, ‘The History of Whittington’s Colledge otherwise
(vulgarly) called Newgate. London, Printed in the Year 1703.’
1785. Grose, Dict. Vulg. Tongue. College, Newgate, or any other
prison.
1836. Dickens, Pickwick Papers (about 1827), p. 370 (ed. 1857).
‘Mornin’, gen’l’mem’, said Sam, entering at the moment with the
shoes and gaiters; ‘avay vith melancholly, as the little boy said
ven his schoolmissus died. Velcome to the college, gen’l’mem.’
1859. Matsell, Vacabulum, or Rogue’s Lexicon, p. 20. College: a
State prison.
1889. Answers, 8 June, p. 25. I have since met several men whom I
knew in prison at one time or other, and most of them have
recognised me; but only one other has stopped me to remind me that
we were at ‘college’ together.
College Chum.—See Collegiate.
Colleger, subs. (University and public schools’).—A square cap,
otherwise known as a mortar-board. For general synonyms, see Golgotha.
Collegian.—See Collegiate.
Collegiate, Collegian or College Chum, subs. (thieves’).—The inmate of
a prison.—[See College.]
1743. North, Life of Lord Guildford, I., 123. His beginnings were
debauched, and his study and first practice in the gaol. For having
been one of the fiercest town-rakes and spent more than he had of
his own, his case forced him upon that expedient for a lodging, and
there he ... busied himself with the cases of his
fellow-collegiates.
1785. Grose, Dict. Vulg. Tongue, s.v.
1836. Dickens, Pickwick Papers (about 1827), p. 369 (ed. 1857). ‘I
say—do you expect anybody this morning? Three men—devilish
gentlemanly fellows—have been asking after you downstairs, and
knocking at every door on the hall flight: for which they’ve been
most infernally blown up by the collegians that had the trouble of
opening ’em.’
1859. G. W. Matsell, Vocabulum, or the Rogues Lexicon, College
Chum: a fellow-prisoner.
1884. Dickens. [Quoted in Supplement to Annandale’s ed. of
Ogilvie’s Imperial Dict.] It became a not unusual circumstance for
letters to be put under his door at night enclosing half-a-crown
... for the father of the Marshalsea, ‘with the compliments of a
collegian taking leave.’
Ladies’ College, subs. (general).—A brothel. For synonyms, see
Nanny-shop.
Collogue, verb (colloquial).—To confer confidentially and secretly; to
conspire; to wheedle; or flatter. The term is also used in a humorous
sense. [From Lat. col, together + Lat. loquor, to speak, influenced
probably by ‘colleague’ and ‘colloquy.’]
1596. Nashe, Saffron Walden, in wks. III., 136. For once before I
had bin so cousend by his colloging, though personally we neuer met
face to face.
1676. Earl of Rochester, Hist. of Insipids, st. 9. When to give
Money he can’t cologue ’um, He doth with Scorn prorogue, prorogue
’um.
1748. T. Dyche, Dictionary (5 ed.). collogue (v.): to treat with a
person underhandedly, to cheat, flatter, coax, or sooth a person in
order to get a secret out of him.
1818. Scott, Rob Roy, ch. xxxvii. It was hardly possible two such
d—d rascals should collogue together without mischief to honest
people.
1857. Barham, I. L. (House-warming). Miss Alice, in short, was
supposed to collogue—I Don’t much like the word—with the subtle old
rogue, I’ve heard call’d by so many names,—one of them’s Bogy.
1858. G. Eliot, Mr. Gilfil’s Love-Story, ch. iv. ‘We shall be
poisoned wi’ lime an’ plaster, and hev the house full o’ workmen
collogeing wi’ the maids, an’ makin’ no end o’ mischief.’
1861. G. Eliot, Silas Marner, ch. ix. ‘And how long have you been
so thick with Dunsey that you must collogue with him to embezzle my
money?’
Colly-Molly, adj. and adv. (old).—Melancholy. [A jocular corruption of
the word. Cf., Solemoncholy and (in Dr. Marigold’s Prescriptions)
lemon-jolly.]
17(?). Decl. of Pop. Imp. sign. Q. 3. (quoted in Nares). The devil
was a little colli-mollie and would not come off.
Colly Wobbles, subs. (common).—The stomach-ache; also the rumblings of
flatulency; figuratively, the stomach.
English Synonyms. Wiffle-waffles; gripes; mulligrubs.
French Synonyms. Mal au bréchet; also gargouillade.
1853. Cuthbert Bede, Verdant Green, pt. I., ch. viii. ‘Peakyish you
feel, don’t you, now, with a touch of the mulligrubs in your
collywobbles?’
c. 1880. Broadside Ballad, ‘Complaints’ or ‘The Ills of Life.’ Then
I’ve had the colic, spasms, dizziness, and swimmings, Mullygrubs
and collywobbles, with delicious trimmings.
Colour, subs. (sporting).—1. The handkerchief worn as a badge by
prize-fighters and other professional athletes. Each man chooses his
own, and it was once a practice to sell them to backers to be worn at
the ring-side. The present rules of the Ring provide as follows:—‘That
every man shall be provided with a handkerchief of a colour suitable to
his own fancy, and that the seconds proceed to entwine these
handkerchiefs at the upper end of one of the centre stakes of the ring;
that these handkerchiefs shall be called the colours, and that the
winner of the battle at its conclusion shall be entitled to their
possession as the trophy of victory.’ For a description of various
‘fancies,’ see Billy. In racing circles the colours are the owner’s and
are shown in the jockeys’ caps and jackets.
1818. P. Egan, Boxiana, vol. I., p. 170. The Chicken now sported
the blue-spotted silk handkerchief, as the champion’s colour.
1858. A. Mayhew, Paved with Gold, bk. II., ch. xii., p. 189. Each
of the men had, previous to the fight, done a little profitable
business by selling pocket-handkerchiefs, which they called their
colours.
2. (popular).—Used of money; e.g., ‘I have not seen the colour of his
money’ = I have not received payment.—See quots.
1736. Fielding, Don Quixote, I., iii. If I have seen the colour of
gold this fortnight, may I never see Teresa Pancha again.
1836. Marryat, Midshipman Easy, ch. xix. The padrone informed them
that he should like to see the colour of their money before they
went on board.
Coloured on the card, phr. (racing).—Having the colours in which a
jockey is to ride inserted on the card of the race.
Off colour, adv. phr. (common).—Exhausted; run down; ‘seedy.’
c. 1876. Broadside Ballad, ‘That’s Where The Money Goes.’ London’s
Police will be made up of men, Cold Rabbit Pie will be off colour
then.
Colour One’s Meerschaum, verbal phr. (common).—To get brandy-faced; to
drink one’s nose into a state of pimples and scarlet.
Colquarron, subs. (old)—The neck. For synonyms, see Scrag.
1785. Grose, Dict. Vulg. Tongue. colquarron: a man’s neck (cant),
his colquarron is just about to be twisted, he is just going to be
hanged.
1830. Sir E. B. Lytton, Paul Clifford, p. 5 (ed. 1854). ‘’Tis a rum
business, and puzzles I! but mum’s the word, for my own little
colquarren.’
Colt, subs. (popular).—1. A person new to office, or, to the exercise
of any art; e.g., a professional cricketer during his first season; a
first-time juryman; a thief in his novitiate. [Properly a colt is a
young male horse.]
1785. Grose, Dict. Vulg. Tongue, s.v.
1885. Daily News, 28 August, p. 3, col. 7. A match arranged for the
benefit of the young players of the county was commenced yesterday
at Manchester, when the Lancashire Eleven were opposed to
Twenty-six colts.