Easy as damn it, (or as my eye), adj. phr. (popular).—Excessively easy:
‘easy as lying’ [Shakspeare].
Easy does it! verb. phr. (popular).—An exclamation of encouragement and
counsel = ‘Take your time and keep your coat on.’
Easy over the pimples, (or over the stones), verb. phr. (popular).—An
injunction = ‘go slow,’ or ‘mind what you’re about.’
Easy Virtue.—See Lady of Easy Virtue.
Eat, verb (American).—To provision: e.g., a steamer is said to be able
to eat 400 passengers and sleep about half that number.
ante 1871. Pickings from the Picayune, p. 47. Hoosier—‘Squire, what
pay do you give?’ Contractor—‘Ten bits a day.’ Hoosier—‘Why,
Squire, I was told you’d give us two dollars a-day and eat us.’
1887. R. A. Procter, on ‘Americanisms’ in Knowledge, s.v. Sometimes
a host may eat his guests in another sense. I once, when staying at
an hotel, found a finely coloured motto rather unfortunately spelt;
it ran, ‘Watch and Prey.’ Its owner carried out the idea.
Eat coke.—See Coke.
Eat crow.—See Crow.
Eat a fig, verb. phr. (rhyming slang).—To ‘crack a crib’; to break a
house.
To eat one’s head off, verb. phr. (colloquial).—To be retained for
service and stand idle; also (quot., 1850) to cost more in ‘keep’ than
one is worth.
1850. F. E. Smedley, Frank Fairleigh, ch. xiv. I’d rather keep her
for a week than a fortnight, I can tell you; she’d eat her head off
in a month, and no mistake.
1872. Times, 27 Aug. ‘The Autumn Manœuvres.’ The country never
would stand the maintenance all the year round of some 1,500 horses
which would have nothing to do for nine months out of the twelve
but eat their heads off.
1874. Mrs. H. Wood, Johnny Ludlow, 1 S., No. xxv., p. 446. And I
fit to eat my head off with having nothing to do.
Eat one’s head, hat, boots, etc., verb. phr. (common).—A locution of
emphatic asseveration. [Probably Dickensonian, influenced by the
proverbial saying, ‘To eat one’s heart out’—to undergo intense
struggle, and also To eat one’s head off (q.v.).]—See Notes and
Queries, 7 S., iii., 7, 94, 197, 352, 433.
1836. Dickens, Pickwick, xlii., 367. ‘Well, if I knew as little of
life as that, I’D eat my hat and swallow the buckle whole,’ said
the clerical gentleman.
1837. Dickens, Oliver Twist, ch. xiv. This was the handsome offer
with which Mr. Grimwig backed and confirmed nearly every assertion
he made; and it was the more singular in his case because, even
admitting, for the sake of argument, the possibility of scientific
improvements being ever brought to that pass which will enable a
man to eat his own head in the event of his being so disposed, Mr.
Grimwig’s head was such a particularly large one that the most
sanguine man alive could hardly entertain a hope of being able to
get through it at a sitting, to put entirely out of the question a
very thick coating of powder.
1887. E. E. Money, Little Dutch Maiden, II., viii., 148. And if you
don’t run up against him next day in Bond Street, you may eat your
hat!
To eat one’s terms, verb. phr. (legal).—To go through the prescribed
course of study for admission to the bar. [In allusion to the dinners a
student has to attend in the public hall of his inn.]
To eat one’s words, verb. phr. (colloquial).—To retract a statement; to
own a lie.
To eat up, verb. phr. (colloquial).—To vanquish; to ruin. [Originally
Zulu.]
1890. National Observer, 13 Dec, p. 88, col. 2. But buttons
tarnish, hot gospelling palls, the eating-up of white men is in
strictest consonance with regal tradition and the regal habit.
Eaves, subs. (American).—A hen-roost.
1859. Matsell, Vocabulum, or Rogue’s Lexicon, s.v.
Eavesdropper, subs. (American).—A chicken thief; also generally, any
petty pilferer.
1859. Matsell, Vocabulum, or Rogue’s Lexicon, s.v.
Ebenezer, subs. (Winchester College).—A stroke at fives: when the ball
hits ‘line’ at such an angle as to rise perpendicularly into the air.
Ebony, subs. (common).—1. A negro; otherwise Blackbird (q.v.) and Black
Ivory. Thomas Fuller (1608–1661) spoke of the negro race as ‘God’s
images cut in ebony.’ For synonyms, see Snowball.
2. The publisher of Maga.: i.e., Blackwood.—(See Noctes Ambrosianæ
passim.)
Ebony-optics, subs. (old).—Black eyes. Ebony-optics albonized = black
eyes painted white.
Edgabac, subs. (back slang).—Cabbage.
Edge. Stitched off the edge, phr. (tailors’).—Said of a glass not
filled to the top.
Side-edge, subs. (tailors’).—Whiskers.
Short top edge, subs. phr. (tailors’).—A turn-up nose or celestial
(q.v.).
Edge in, verb. phr. (colloquial).—To slip in; insinuate: e.g., To edge
in a word (or a remark).
Edge off (or out of), verb. phr. (colloquial).—To slink away; to
gradually desist. To take the edge off [a thing, or person, or idea] =
to become acquainted with; to enjoy to satiety. Cf., Hamlet, iii., 2.
‘It would cost you a groaning to take off my edge.’
Edgenaro, subs. (back slang).—An orange.
Edge-ways. Not able to get a word in edge-ways, phr.
(colloquial).—Having but the barest opportunity of taking part in a
discussion.
Eel-Skins, subs. (old).—Tight trousers. For synonyms, see Bags and
Kicks.
1827. Bulwer Lytton, Pelham, ch. xlix., p. 190. He only filched a
twopenny halfpenny gilt chain out of his master, Levy, the
pawnbroker’s window, and stuck it in his eel-skin to make a show.
E-fink, subs. (back slang).—A knife.
Efter, subs. (thieves’).—A theatre thief.
Egg.—See Bad Egg.
Egg on, verb. phr. (colloquial).—To encourage.
Eggs. Sure as eggs is eggs, phr. (popular).—Of a certainty; without
doubt. [From the formula, ‘x is x.’]
To teach one’s grandmother to roast or suck eggs, verb. phr.
(colloquial).—To lecture elders and superiors; Fr., les oisons veulent
mener les oies paître = the goslings want to drive the geese to
pasture.
Egham, Staines, and Windsor, subs. phr. (common).—See quot.
1886. G. A. Sala, in Ill. Lon. News, 23 Oct., 418, 2. Is not the
three-cornered hat of an English gentleman’s coachman in gala
livery known as an ‘Egham, Staines, and Windsor’?
Egyptian-Hall, subs. (rhyming slang).—A ball.
Eighter, subs. (prison).—An eight-ounce loaf.
Ekame, subs. (back slang).—A make (q.v.), or swindle.
Ekom, subs. (back slang).—A moke (q.v.), or donkey.
Elbow, verb (American thieves’).—To turn a corner; to get out of sight.
1859. Matsell, Vocabulum, or Rogue’s Lexicon, s.v.
To shake the elbow, verb. phr.—To play dice. [From the motion of the
arm in ‘casting.’]
1680. Cotton, Compleat Gamester [gaming is compared to] a
paralytical distemper which, seizing the arm the man cannot chuse
but shake his elbow.
1705. Vanbrugh, Confederacy, Act i. He’s always shaking his heels
with the ladies and his elbows with the lords.
1709. Mrs. Centlivre, Gamester, I. (1872), i., 134. He is at
shaking his elbows over a table ... courting the dice like a
mistress, and cursing them when he is disappointed.
1713. Guardian, No. 120. But what would you say, should you see the
Sparkler shaking her elbow for a whole night together, and thumping
the table with a dice-box?
1822. Scott, Fortunes of Nigel, ch. xvii. To eke out your living By
the wag of your elbows.
To crook the elbow, verb. phr. (common).—To drink.—See Elbow-crooker.
[From the action of the arm.] For synonyms, see Lush.
Elbow-Crooker, subs. (common).—A hard drinker. See infra and Drinks.
English Synonyms.—Borachio; boozington; brewer’s horse; bubber; budger;
mop; lushington; worker of the cannon; wet-quaker; soaker; lapper;
pegger; angel altogether; bloat; ensign-bearer; fiddle-cup; sponge;
tun; toss-pot; swill-pot; wet subject; shifter; potster; swallower;
pot-walloper; wetster; dramster; drinkster; beer-barrel; ginnums;
lowerer; moist ’un; drainist; boozer; mopper-up; piss-maker;
thirstington.
French Synonyms.—Un louave (thieves’); un litronneur (popular: litre =
1·760 pint); une grosse culotte (popular = big-breeches or fat-arse);
un gavé (thieves’: gaver = to stuff); une lampe à mort (pop.: a
confirmed drunkard; = a death-lamp); un zingueur (popular); un boyau
rouge (pop. = red-guts); un marquant (thieves’: = conspicuous,
striking, etc.); un canonneur (pop.: canon = a glass of wine; cf.,
English cannon); un camphrier (pop.: a dram-drinker; also = a
camphor-tree); un fioleur (pop.: fiole = phial: cf., toss-pot and
swill-pot); une éponge (pop.: = a sponge; also a paramour, a fool, an
attorney); un bibard (thieves’: biberon = sucking-bottle); un buvard
(popular: = blotting book); un pochard (colloquial); adroit du coude
(pop. = artful elbowed); un artilleur (pop.: = a cannoneer; cf.,
cannon); un boissonneur (pop.: boisson = drink); un buvailleur or
buvaillon (pop.: a man easily drunk); un chocaillon (pop.: a female
drunkard); un poivrot (familiar); un sac à vin (pop. = a wine butt).
German Synonym.—Mattobolo (matto balo = a drunken pig: from the gypsy
matto = drunk).
Italian Synonyms.—Fransoso (= a Frenchman); chiaritore; chiaristante.
Spanish Synonyms.—Cuero (= a goat-skin bag for wine or oil); coladra (=
a wooden pail in which wine is measured and retailed); cuba (= a
measure for wine); difunto de taberna (lit., a public-house corpse);
odre (= a wine-skin); pellejo (= a liquor skin dressed and pitched);
peneque; potista; odrina (= an ox-hide bottle).