Barnet! intj. (Christ’s Hospital).—Nonsense! humbug! Now obsolete.
Barnet Fair, subs. (thieves’).—The hair; part of the rhyming slang
(q.v.). For synonyms see Top dressing.
Barney, subs. (popular).—1. A word which varies in sense according to
the predelictions of the person using it. Generally speaking it means a
jollification; ‘lark’; pleasurable outing; picnic. The ’Arries and
roughs of London, however, always associate it with a certain amount of
rowdyism. Its derivation is unknown, although Barrère gives a long
dissertation concerning its origin in the Yiddish. As, however, this is
founded mainly upon a misreading of a quotation from Punch, it is
somewhat beside the mark.
2. Humbug; cheating; a hoax; something pre-arranged—not genuine. In
sporting circles it signifies an unfair race of any kind.
1865. B. Brierley, Irkdale, II., 19. I won thee i’ fair powell one
toss an’ no barney.
1882. Evening News, 2 Sept., p. 1, col. 6. Blackguardly barneys
called boxing competitions. [M.]
Murray gives this last in illustration of the secondary sense which he
applies to the word, viz., a prize-fight. Barney, it is true, does
signify a prize-fight, but it means more than that. A fair contest
would not be so named; there must be an element of chicanery in the
matter. Besides which, barney is applied to unfair sporting
competitions of any kind. A comparison of the different quotations
given under this heading will clearly prove that point.
1884. Referee, April 13, p. 7, col. 4. Who would believe that Mr.
Gladstone shammed being ill, and that Sir Andrew Clark issued false
bulletins, and that the whole thing was a barney from beginning to
end.
1885. Bell’s Life, Jan. 3, p. 3, col. 4. Few genuine matches have
taken place this season on the Transatlantic waters, though
exhibitions and barney contests have been plentiful.
3. (American.)—At Harvard College, about the year 1810, this word was
used to designate a bad recitation. To barney was to recite
badly.—Hall’s College Words and Customs.
Barn-Mouse. To be bitten by a barn-mouse, phr. (old).—To be tipsy;
‘screwed.’ The Lexicon Balatronicum says ‘it is probably an allusion to
barley,’ presumably as the source of malt liquor. Cf., ‘To have on’ Or
‘wear a barley-cap,’ to be tipsy; also barley-cap = a tippler.
Barn-stormer, subs. (theatrical).—A deprecatory epithet applied to
strolling players.
1884. Pall Mall Gazette, 6 June, p. 5, col. 1. If this be
barn-storming, Betterton and Garrick were barn-stormers.
1886. Graphic, 10 April, p. 399. Travelling players who acted short
and highly tragic pieces to audiences of clodpoles in any barn or
shed they could get, used to be known as barn-stormers, and a
ranting, noisy style of acting and speaking is still called
‘barn-storming.’
1887. Referee, 21 August, p. 3, col. 1. Mr. Edward Terry has again
been elected at the head of the poll as trustee of the charities of
Barnes. He is not the first clever actor who has been known as a
Barnes-stormer.
The French term for one of such a troupe is cabotin.
Barnumese, subs. (American).—Barnum, the proprietor of ‘the greatest
show upon earth,’ has at any rate one claim to immortal fame in having,
like Boycot, Burke, and Balfour, added a new word to the English
tongue. The ‘high falutin,’ bombastic style of the great man’s
announcements are notorious; as much so, in fact, as is the diction of
the great London newspaper which claims ‘the largest circulation in the
world.’ From such circumstances we get words like barnumese and
telegraphese, to signify exaggeration of style—what in slang parlance
is known as the ‘putting on of side.’
Verb.—To Barnumize is to talk or assert oneself in the style popularly
attributed to Barnum.
Baronet, subs. (old).—A humorous variation for sirloin [of beef].
1749. Fielding, Tom Jones, bk. IV., ch. x. The sight of the roast
beef struck him dumb, permitting him only to say grace, and to
declare he must pay his respects to the baronet, for so he called
the sirloin.
Barrack-Hack, subs. (familiar).—1. In an inoffensive sense applied to
young women who attend garrison balls year after year. So used there is
no such imputation of lax morals as occurs in sense 2.
2. A soldier’s prostitute. There are but few classes of persons to whom
a greater number of slang epithets have been applied than to the poor
wretched creatures, who from choice, bad-treatment, or as a means of
subsistence abandon themselves to a life of prostitution. These names
are to be found in plenty for all grades of semi-public or public
women. They run the gauntlet from the gilded courtezan to the veriest
drab in the last stages of destitution and disease. The list of
synonyms is both long and grim; the names in many cases speaking
volumes on a subject which it would be painful as well as needless to
pursue farther in this place, inasmuch as the epithets both in French
and English, and, it must be added, those of other languages as well,
speak with a brutal cynicism to which it would be out of place to add a
comment.
English Synonyms. Ladies of accommodating morals; ladies of more
complaisance than virtue; anonyma; pretty horsebreaker; artichoke;
columbine; common Jack; convenient; cow; crack; aunt; ladies of easy
virtue; bangster; blowen; garrison-hack; bat; bawdy-basket; bed-fagot;
fireship; bit o’ muslin; laced mutton; mot; bobtail; bona roba; brevet
wife; grass widow; brimstone; black Bess; brown Bessy; bulker; bunter;
burick; buttock; cab moll; cat; chauvering donna; chauvering moll;
barber’s chair; demi-rep; tartlet; trollop; shake; poll; dolly-mop; gay
woman; unfortunate; dress-lodger; mauks; quædam (obsolete); woman;
bitch; perfect lady; public ledger; necessary; warming-pan; nun.
French Synonyms. Une persilleuse (familiar); une mal peignée (popular:
‘a dirty ill-dressed woman; drab; or draggletail’); une moellonneuse (a
prostitute who frequents builders’ yards); hirondelle de goguenot
(military: ‘a barrack-hack’; in French soldiers’ slang un goguenot is a
tin can used for making coffee or soup); un chausson (literally ‘a
sock’ or ‘stocking’); almanach de trente six mille adresses (popular:
literally ‘a directory.’ Cf., English ‘public-ledger’); une génisse
(popular: literally ‘a heifer.’ Cf., English ‘cow’); une raccrocheuse
(popular: raccrocher, ‘to hook’); une vache à lait (popular: literally
‘a milch cow’); une fleur de macadam (popular: ‘a roadside flower’; ‘a
street walker’); une roulante (popular: in old French slang un roulant
= a vehicle. Cf., English ‘cab’); une camelote (popular: a prostitute
of the lowest class; a draggletail); une morue (popular: literally ‘a
cod-fish’); une marcheuse (popular: properly ‘a walker’; in theatrical
parlance, a female super); une piqueuse de trains (popular: one who
prowls about railway stations. Piqueuse = needlewoman); un pigeon
voyageur (familiar: a girl who travels up and down a railway seeking
clients; literally ‘a carrier pigeon’); une pieuvre (familiar: a kept
woman; properly ‘an octopus’); un carcan à crinoline (popular: carcan,
applied to either sex is an opprobrious epithet; the phrase also
signifies ‘a gaunt-woman’); un omnibus (popular: i.e., ‘one who may be
ridden by all’); un cul crotté (low: properly ‘a dirty bottom’); une
trychine (popular: an allusion to trichina spiralis, the disease-germ
in bad pork); une fenêtrière (popular: an allusion to the custom of
this class to watch at windows and invite passers-by to visit them);
une traîneuse (familiar: a prostitute who plies her trade at railway
stations); un trumeau (popular: literally ‘a leg of beef’); une
crevette (popular: ‘a prawn’ or ‘shrimp’); une boulonnaise (a girl who
‘walks’ the Bois de Boulogne); un matelas ambulant (popular: properly
‘a walking mattress.’ Cf., English ‘bed-fagot’); une demoiselle du
Pont-Neuf (popular: this kind haunt the bridge of the name over the
Seine); un demi-castor (popular: a woman of the demi-monde); une
laqueuse (familiar: a prostitute frequenting the lake in the Bois de
Boulogne); une pailletée (common: properly ‘spangled’); un pelican
(familiar: a dressy courtesan); une ningle (a literary term); une
maquillée (popular: ‘one with painted face’); une gueuse (popular:
gueuse = beggarly, wretched); une fille or femme du trottoir (popular:
‘a girl’ or ‘woman of the pavement’); une vieille garde (familiar: an
old worn-out prostitute); une biche (popular: ‘a hind’ or ‘roe’); une
déhanchée (popular: ‘a waddler’); une demi-mondaine (general: a woman
of the demi-monde; a fashionable prostitute); une portion (military:
literally ‘a share’ or ‘portion’; one who is shared by many); une
limace (popular: properly ‘a slug’); une terrinière (the lowest sort of
prostitute; terrine = earthen pan); une terreuse (a woman who prowls
about lonely spots); une terrière (popular); une fille à parties
(popular); une rivette; une voirie (popular: ‘a common sewer’); une
boule rouge (familiar: a frequenter of the Quartier de la Boule Rouge,
Fanbourg Montmartre); une vessie (popular: a very low prostitute;
vessie applied to either sex is an offensive epithet); une demoiselle
de bitume (familiar); un pont d’Avignon (popular); une pontonnière
(popular: a prostitute who plies her trade under the arches of bridges;
ponton = pontoon, ‘a bridge of boats’; pontonnier = ‘a toll gatherer’);
une polisseuse de tuyaux de pipe (literally ‘a polisher of pipe
stems’); une pompe funèbre (familiar: properly ‘funeral pomp’); une
polisseuse de mâts de cocagne en chambre (popular: an extremely
degraded variety of prostitute; literally ‘a polisher of greasy poles
in a room’); une punaise (general: ‘a bug’—a public woman of the lowest
grade); une dessalée (popular: literally ‘a knowing woman’); une
mangeuse de viande crue (popular: ‘a devourer of raw meat’); une cité
d’amour (literally ‘a city of love’); autel de besoin (popular: ‘an
altar of necessity’; Cf., English ‘necessary’); une vésuvienne
(familiar: literally ‘a vesuvian,’ either in allusion to the volcano or
the well-known brand of matches; in either case the epithet comes very
close to the old English slang ‘fireship,’ an old and diseased
prostitute); peau, or peau de chien (popular: literally ‘dog’s skin’);
un grenier à coups de sabre (a soldiers’ term: grenier, a granary;
coups de sabre, thrusts with a broad sword); une rempardeuse (a woman
who frequents the ramparts); une femme de terrain (a draggletailed
woman; femme, woman, terrain, ground); une saucisse (popular: i.e., ‘a
small sausage’); une trainée (familiar); une baleine (popular: ‘a
whale’); une lésé-bombe (popular); une fille en brème (a registered
prostitute; la brème is the card given to such women by the police);
une fille en carte (a registered woman: see preceding); une boutonnière
à pantalons (familiar: a kind of semi-prostitute; a sempstress who
walks the streets at night; in their own words, they ‘work for their
living, but do the naughty for their clothes’); une fille de maison or
une fille à numéro (familiar: these names are given to girls in
brothels; Cf., English ‘dress-lodgers’); une fille de tournure
(familiar: this also is applied to the inmate of a brothel; literally
‘a girl of figure’); une poupée (popular: ‘a doll’); une mouquette
(popular); des poules (popular: the inmates of a brothel are so called;
literally ‘hens’); une galvaudeuse (popular: galvauder, ‘to scold’);
une planche à boudin (familiar: literally ‘a slice of pudding’; in
English harlotry ‘to take one’s pudding’ or ‘greens’ is to have sexual
connection); une blanchisseuse en chemise (blanchisseuse = laundress;
être dans la chemise de quelqu’un is to be constantly with one); un
lard (literally ‘bacon’ or body); une gadoue (properly ‘street refuse’
or ‘mud’); un sommier de caserne (military: sommier means
‘hair-mattress,’ and caserne = ‘barracks’; applied to girls who prowl
about barracks); une grivoise (this term is now obsolete, but was
formerly applied to a garrison town prostitute. It means, literally, ‘a
jolly canteen woman’); une paillasse à soldats (a barrack-hack;
literally ‘a straw mattress for soldiers’); un passe-lacet (properly ‘a
bodkin’—i.e., ‘something to be threaded’); un chameau (the term was
originally applied to a gaunt, ungainly woman; it now signifies a
prostitute also); un membre de la caravane (a euphemism for un chameau,
q.v.); un lolo (popular); une grue (popular: a kept woman; faire le
pied de grue, ‘to dance attendance’); une soupeuse (literally ‘one who
takes supper’; an allusion to the ‘cabinets particuliers’ of French
restaurants); une belle petite (a young and pretty prostitute of the
superior class; literally ‘a pretty darling’); une pêche à quinze sous
(a literary term); une boulevardière (a superior class of prostitute
frequenting the boulevards); un camélia (a kept woman; a reference to
the heroine of La Dame aux camélias by A. Dumas fils); une lorette (a
variety of prostitute named after the Quartier Notre Dame de Lorette,
the Paris Pimlico); une petite dame (literally ‘a little lady’); une
impure (a kept woman; properly ‘an unchaste one’); une agenouillée
(journalistic); une verticale; une horizontale de grande marque (a
fashionable courtezan); une cocotte (a generic term); une pierreuse (a
public woman of the lowest grade who plies her hideous trade in houses
in course of building, etc.); une chamègue; un bourdon (thieves’:
literally ‘a drone’); une lipète (popular); une magneuse (popular: a
woman who depraves herself with members of her own sex. The name is
said to be in allusion to a religious community who derived their
cognomen from that of their founder, Jeanne Canart, the daughter of
Nicholas Colbert, who was the Seigneur de Magneux); une vielle lanterne
(popular: an old prostitute; lanterne = ‘window’); une feuille
(literally ‘a leaf’; the term is one used at the Saumur School of
Cavalry); un blanc (literally ‘blank’ or ‘white’; the derivation is
somewhat obscure, but the term is a very ancient one for a public
woman. Mangeur de blanc is a man who lives upon the earnings of
prostitutes and ruins them. Formerly, the expression mettre à blanc was
used in the sense of ‘to ruin’); une vache (this term in its popular
signification merely means ‘a woman of indifferent character’; if a
prostitute is intended, the expression is une vache à lait, a milch
cow); un veau (literally ‘a calf’; the phrase is applied to a young
prostitute. Cf., ‘vache à lait’); une retapeuse (popular); un wagon
(popular: a dirty prostitute. Cf., wagon, ‘a railway carriage’ and un
omnibus); une taupe (familiar: literally a mole, an animal that works
in the dark; also ‘a cunning fox’); une Jeanneton (popular: a
chambermaid at an inn); une andre (an old word; see Fourbesque landra);
une roulure (popular: a public woman of the lowest description. Rouler
signifies ‘to roll,’ ‘to wander,’ ‘to stroll,’ ‘to keep going’); une
fille de barrière (popular: a prostitute plying her trade at the
barriers or gates of the city); une dossière (thieves’: literally ‘a
back’); une rouleuse (familiar: an abandoned woman; literally the name
of a species of caterpillar); une paillasse à troufion (a soldier’s
woman); une paillasse de corps de garde (military: literally ‘a
guard-room mattress’); une marneuse (popular: a variety of low class
prostitute frequenting the river-side; literally ‘clayey’); une Louis
(a bully’s mistress; the allusion is to the fancy which women in
brothels often have of powdering and dressing the hair in the fashion
of the times of Louis XV.); une ouvrière (also a ‘bully’s’ mistress.
The term signifies, literally, ‘a workwoman.’ These wretched creatures
support their companions who live and batten on what the woman earns in
the sale of her person); une fesse (popular: properly ‘a breech’); une
marmite (harlotry: ‘a flesh pot’); un torchon (a low class of woman;
torchon = ‘a dish clout’); une sauterelle (familiar: ‘a grass-hopper’);
un prat; une femme de cavoisi (thieves’: a well dressed prostitute of
the boulevards); une louille; une larque (a registered woman; a
corruption of largue); une menesse (a thieves’ term); une larguèpe; une
magnuce (see une magneuse); une casserole (thieves’: literally ‘a
saucepan’); une goipeuse (thieves’: a name given to prostitutes who
wander about the country); une ronfle; une ronfle à grippart; un
ronfleur (thieves’: ronfler is properly ‘to snore’); un grippeur
(gripper = ‘to nab’; crib; clutch); une panterne; une bourre de soie (a
kept woman; bourre = floss + soie = silk); un asticot (a bully’s or
thief’s mistress; literally ‘a maggot’; it may be stated that asticot
is also used for both the membrum virile, and for vermicelli); une
panuche (thieves’: a term applied to showily dressed women who live in
brothels); une calège (thieves’: a kept woman; cale, a kind of
head-dress); une ponante (thieves’: a low-class prostitute); une môme
or mômeresse (thieves’); une lutainpem (thieves’); une laissée
(thieves’ and roughs’); une galupe (popular: a street walking
prostitute); une ponife, poniffe, or poniffle (thieves’).
For German Synonyms, see Tart.
Italian Synonyms. Una sbriso (this term has another cant signification,
viz., ‘to be naked’; hence, probably, its attributive usage for a
prostitute); una losena (this, like other Fourbesque terms for a woman,
also means ‘a woman of the town’; indeed in most argots there seems to
be little, if any distinction drawn between women of easy virtue, and
the sex as a whole); una guagnastra (i.e., one who acts as a sheath;
the allusion is obvious. Cf., English ‘broom’ and ‘broom-handle’ for
the female pudenda and the male penis respectively); una marcona (said
to be an allusion to a certain incident in the history of the Papal
States); una landra (curiously enough this term signifying, in orthodox
Italian, a prostitute is, in the Fourbesque, synonymous also with
‘woman.’ The French andre, a woman of the town, dates back to the
sixteenth century); una brocca (literally a jug, pitcher, or stupid
person); una brocchiera (from Italian brocchiere, ‘a buckler’ or
‘shield’); una baia (i.e., a mistress); una farfoia (also a nun, in
which connection compare with English abbess); una chierlera (this term
likewise is also used in the sense of a female devotee. Both the
English and French slang have ‘nun’ as an equivalent for a prostitute);
una carniera or carnifica (cant terms for a ‘sister,’ and ‘fox’ also);
una cara (literally ‘dear.’ Cf., French belle petite, ‘little
darling.’)
The Spanish Germania has gaya to signify a prostitute. This is an exact
equivalent of the French fille de joie or ‘gay girl’; gaya in Spanish
signifies ‘gay.’ Another name is found in germana, in explanation of
which it may be briefly explained that the Spanish argot or Germania
took its name from a band or brotherhood of thieves and robbers; and it
would thus appear that germana, the name for a female member of the
band was also used generically for a prostitute! Marca, or marquida and
marquisa are also all used in the sense of a public woman. It may be
noted that in the Italian marchesata stands for a woman when under
menstruation, the physiological fact itself being called marchese;
mercenario, a street walker, also signifies a nun of the religious
order of La Merced.
Barracking, subs. (Australian).—Banter; chaff. Cf., Barrikin.
Barrel-Boarder, subs. (American).—A loafer in low drinking-saloons.
Barrel-Campaign, subs. (American).—Political contests in which bribery
and corruption go hand-in-hand with canvassing and voting. A wealthy
candidate for office is said to have originated the phrase by
remarking, ‘Let the boys know that there’s a bar’l o’ money ready for
’em,’ or words to that effect. The use of the term in this sense became
general about 1876.—See Boodle.
1884. Boston (Mass.) Journal, 1 Nov., 1. We are accustomed to
barrel-campaigns here. Nobody supposes this district to be
Democratic, but the Democrats depend upon carrying it with money.
1888. Florida Times Union, Feb. 11, p. 4. It will be remembered
that Mr. Flower was the nominal candidate of the anti-Cleveland men
four years ago, and with the aid of his barrel they really did
achieve some show of success.
Barrel-Fever, subs. (popular).—An indisposition caused by excessive
drinking. ‘He died of barrel-fever’; i.e., ‘he killed himself through
drink.’ For synonyms, see Gallon distemper.
Barrel-House, subs. (American).—A low groggery.
1888. Missouri Republican, Feb. 11. The West-Side police are still
arresting barrel-house loafers in the hope of catching an expert
cracksman among them.
Barrell’s Blues, subs. phr. (military).—A nickname given to the Fourth
Foot. [From its facings and Colonel’s name from 1734 to 1739.] They are
also called ‘the Lions,’ from the ancient badge of the regiment.
Barres, subs. (gaming).—Money lost at play, but not paid. The term is
an old one, and has long been obsolete. A corrupt form of ‘barrace,’ an
obsolete plural of ‘bar.’
Barrikin, subs. (common).—Gibberish; jargon; a jumble of words. For
usage, see quotation.
1851–61. H. Mayhew, London Lab. and Lon. Poor, vol. I., p. 15. ‘The
high words in a tragedy we call jaw-breakers, and say we can’t
tumble to that barrikin.’ Ibid, p. 25. Can’t tumble to your
barrikin [i.e., can’t understand you]. Ibid, p. 27. The rich has
all that barrikin to themselves.
Barring.—See To bar.
Barring Out, subs. phr. (old).—Exclusion from a place by means of locks
and bars. More particularly applied to a half serious but oftentimes
jocular rebellion of schoolboys against the schoolmaster.
1728. Swift, Journal of a Modern Lady.
Not schoolboys at a barring-out,
Raised ever such incessant rout.
1847. Tennyson, Princess, conclusion.
Revolts, republics, revolutions, most,
No graver than a schoolboys’ barring-out.
Barrow-Bunter, subs. (old).—A barrow-woman; a female costermonger.
1771. Smollett, Humphry Clinker, i., 140. I saw a dirty
barrow-bunter in the street cleaning her dusty fruit with her own
spittle.
Barrow-Man, subs. (old).—1. A man who hawks his wares on a barrow; a
costermonger. The term dates back to the middle of the seventeenth
century. Un marottier is the French equivalent for one species of the
fraternity, better known in England as a dudsman (q.v.).