1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue

T

TABBY. An old maid; either from Tabitha, a formal antiquated name; or else from a tabby cat, old maids being often compared to cats. To drive Tab; to go out on a party of pleasure with a wife and family.

TACE. Silence, hold your tongue. TACE is Latin for a candle; a jocular admonition to be silent on any subject.

TACKLE. A mistress; also good clothes. The cull has tipt his tackle rum gigging; the fellow has given his mistress good clothes. A man's tackle: the genitals.

TAFFY, i.e. Davy. A general name for a Welchman, St. David being the tutelar saint of Wales. Taffy's day; the first of March, St. David's day.

TAG-RAG AND BOBTAIL. An expression meaning an assemblage of low people, the mobility of all sorts. To tag after one like a tantony pig: to follow one wherever one goes, just as St. Anthony is followed by his pig.

TAIL. A prostitute. Also, a sword.

TAKEN IN. Imposed on, cheated.

TALE TELLERS. Persons said to have been formerly hired to tell wonderful stories of giants and fairies, to lull their hearers to sleep. Talesman; the author of a story or report: I'll tell you my tale, and my talesman. Tale bearers; mischief makers, incendiaries in families.

TALL BOY. A bottle, or two-quart pot.

TALLY MEN. Brokers that let out clothes to the women of the town. See RABBIT SUCKERS.

TALLYWAGS, or TARRYWAGS. A man's testicles.

TAME. To run tame about a house; to live familiarly in a family with which one is upon a visit. Tame army; the city trained bands.

TANDEM. A two-wheeled chaise, buggy, or noddy, drawn by two horses, one before the other: that is, AT LENGTH.

TANGIER. A room in Newgate, where debtors were confined, hence called Tangerines.

TANNER. A sixpence. The kiddey tipped the rattling cove a tanner for luck; the lad gave the coachman sixpence for drink.

TANTADLIN TART. A sirreverence, human excrement.

TANTRUMS. Pet, or passion: madam was in her tantrums.

TANTWIVY. Away they went tantwivy; away they went full speed. Tantwivy was the sound of the hunting horn in full cry, or that of a post horn.

TAP. A gentle blow. A tap on the shoulder;-an-arrest. To tap a girl; to be the first seducer: in allusion to a beer barrel. To tap a guinea; to get it changed.

TAPPERS. Shoulder tappers: bailiffs.

TAPE. Red tape; brandy. Blue or white tape; gin.

TAPLASH. Thick and bad beer.

TAR. Don't lose a sheep for a halfpennyworth of tar: tar is used to mark sheep. A jack tar; a sailor.

TARADIDDLE. A fib, or falsity.

TARPAWLIN. A coarse cloth tarred over: also, figuratively, a sailor.

TARRING AND FEATHERING. A punishment lately inflicted by the good people of Boston on any person convicted, or suspected, of loyalty: such delinquents being "stripped naked", were daubed all over wilh tar, and afterwards put into a hogshead of feathers.

TART. Sour, sharp, quick, pert.

TARTAR. To catch a Tartar; to attack one of superior strength or abilities. This saying originated from a story of an Irish-soldier in the Imperial service, who, in a battle against the Turks, called out to his comrade that he had caught a Tartar. 'Bring him along then,' said he. 'He won't come,' answered Paddy. 'Then come along yourself,' replied his comrade. 'Arrah,' cried he, 'but he won't let me.'—A Tartar is also an adept at any feat, or game: he is quite a Tartar at cricket, or billiards.

TAT. Tit for tat; an equivalent.

TATS. False dice.

TATLER. A watch. To flash a tatler: to wear a watch.

TAT MONGER. One that uses false dice.

TATTERDEMALION. A ragged fellow, whose clothes hang all in tatters.

TATTOO. A beat of the drum, of signal for soldiers to go to their quarters, and a direction to the sutlers to close the tap, and draw no more liquor for them; it is generally beat at nine in summer and eight in winter. The devil's tattoo; beating with one's foot against the ground, as done by persons in low spirits.

TAW. A schoolboy's game, played with small round balls made of stone dust, catted marbles. I'll be one upon your taw presently; a species of threat.

TAWDRY. Garish, gawdy, with lace or staring and discordant colours: a term said to be derived from the shrine and altar of St. Audrey (an Isle of Ely saintess), which for finery exceeded all others thereabouts, so as to become proverbial; whence any fine dressed man or woman said to be all St Audrey, and by contraction, all tawdry.

TAWED. Beaten.

TAYLE. See TAIL.

TAYLE DRAWERS. Thieves who snatch gentlemens swords from their sides. He drew the cull's tayle rumly; he snatched away the gentleman's sword cleverly.

TAYLOR. Nine taylors make a man; an ancient and common saying, originating from the effeminacy of their employment; or, as some have it, from nine taylors having been robbed by one man; according to others, from the speech of a woollendraper, meaning that the custom of nine, taylors would make or enrich one man—A London taylor, rated to furnish half a man to the Trained Bands, asking how that could possibly be done? was answered, By sending four, journeymen and and apprentice.—Puta taylor, a weaver, and a miller into a sack, shake them well, And the first that, puts out his head is certainly a thief.—A taylor is frequently styled pricklouse, assaults on those vermin with their needles.

TAYLORS GOOSE. An iron with which, when heated, press down the seams of clothes.

TEA VOIDER. A chamber pot.

TEA GUELAND. Ireland. Teaguelanders; Irishmen.

TEARS OF THE TANKARD. The drippings of liquor on a man's waistcoat.

TEDDY MY GODSON. An address to a supposed simple fellow, or nysey.

TEIZE. To-nap the teize; to receive a whipping. CANT.

TEMPLE PICKLING. Pumping a bailiff; a punishment formerly administered to any of that fraternity caught exercising their functions within the limits of Temple.

TEN TOES. See BAYARD OF TEN TOES.

TEN IN THE HUNDRED. An usurer; more than five in the hundred being deemed usurious interest.

TENANT AT WILL, One whose wife usually fetches him from the alehouse.

TENANT FOR LIFE. A married man; i.e. possessed of a woman for life.

TENDER PARNELL. A tender creature, fearful of the least puff of wind or drop of rain. As tender as Parnell, who broke her finger in a posset drink.

TERMAGANT. An outrageous scold from Termagantes, a cruel Pagan, formerly represented in diners shows and entertainments, where being dressed a la Turque, in long clothes, he was mistaken for a furious woman.

TERRA FIRMA. An estate in land.

TESTER. A sixpence: from TESTON, a coin with a head on it.

TETBURY PORTION. A **** and a clap.

THAMES. He will not find out a way to set the Thames on fire; he will not make any wonderful discoveries, he is no conjuror.

THATCH-GALLOWS. A rogue, or man of bad character.

THICK. Intimate. They are as thick as two inkle-weavers.

THIEF. You are a thief and a murderer, you have killed a baboon and stole his face; vulgar abuse.

THIEF IN A CANDLE. Part of the wick or snuff, which falling on the tallow, burns and melts it, and causing it to gutter, thus steals it away.

THIEF TAKERS. Fellows who associate with all kinds of villains, in order to betray them, when they have committed any of those crimes which entitle the persons taking them to a handsome reward, called blood money. It is the business of these thief takers to furnish subjects for a handsome execution, at the end of every sessions.

THIMBLE. A watch. The swell flashes a rum thimble; the gentleman sports a fine watch.

THINGSTABLE. Mr. Thingstable; Mr. Constable: a ludicrous affectation of delicacy in avoiding the pronunciation of the first syllable in the title of that officer, which in sound has some similarity to an indecent monosyllable.

THINGUMBOB. Mr. Thingumbob; a vulgar address or nomination to any person whose name is unknown, the same as Mr. What-d'ye-cal'em. Thingumbobs; testicles.

THIRDING. A custom practised at the universities, where two thirds of the original price is allowed by the upholsterers to the students for household goods returned to them within the year.

THIRTEENER. A shilling in Ireland, which there passes for thirteen pence.

THOMOND. Like Lord Thomond's cocks, all on one side. Lord Thomond's cock-feeder, an Irishman, being entrusted with some cocks which were matched for a considerable sum, the night before the battle shut them all together in one room, concluding that as they were all on the same side, they would not disagree: the consequence was, they were most of them either killed or lamed before the morning.

THOMAS. Man Thomas; a man's penis.

THORNS. To be or sit upon thorns; to be uneasy, impatient, anxious for an event.

THORNBACK. An old maid.

THOROUGH CHURCHMAN. A person who goes in at one door of a church, and out at the other, without stopping.

THOROUGH-GOOD-NATURED WENCH. One who being asked to sit down, will lie down.

THOROUGH GO NIMBLE. A looseness, a violent purging.

THOROUGH COUGH. Coughing and breaking wind backwards at the same time.

THOROUGH STITCH. To go thorough stitch; to stick at nothing; over shoes, over boots.

THOUGHT. What did thought do? lay'in bed and beshat himself, and thought he was up; reproof to any one who excuses himself for any breach of positive orders, by pleading that he thought to the contrary.

THREE TO ONE. He is playing three to one, though sure to lose; said of one engaged in the amorous congress.

THREE-PENNY UPRIGHT. A retailer of love, who, for the sum mentioned, dispenses her favours standing against a wall.

THREE-LEGGED MARE, or STOOL. The gallows, formerly consisting of three posts, over which were laid three transverse beams. This clumsy machine has lately given place to an elegant contrivance, called the NEW DROP, by which the use of that vulgar vehicle a cart, or mechanical instrument a ladder, is also avoided; the patients being left suspended by the dropping down of that part of the floor on which they stand. This invention was first made use of for a peer. See DROP.

THREE THREADS. Half common ale, mixed with stale and double beer.

THREPS. Threepence.

TO THROTTLE. To strangle.

THROTTLE. The throat, or gullet.

TO THRUM. To play on any instrument stringed with wire. A thrummer of wire; a player on the spinet, harpsichord, of guitar.

THRUMS. Threepence.

THUMB. By rule of thumb: to do any thing by dint of practice. To kiss one's thumb instead of the book; a vulgar expedient to avoid perjury in taking a false oath.

THUMMIKINS. An instrument formerly used in Scotland, like a vice, to pinch the thumbs of persons accused of different crimes, in order to extort confession.

THUMP. A blow. This is better than a thump on the back with a stone; said on giving any one a drink of good liquor on a cold morning. Thatch, thistle, thunder, and thump; words to the Irish, like the Shibboleth of the Hebrews.

THUMPING. Great! a thumping boy.

THWACK. A great blow with a stick across the shoulders.

TIB. A young lass.

TIBBY. A cat.

TIB OF THE BUTTERY. A goose. CANT. Saint Tibb's evening; the evening of the last day, or day of judgment: he will pay you on St. Tibb's eve. IRISH.

TICK. To run o'tick; take up goods upon trust, to run in debt. Tick; a watch. SEE SESSIONS PAPERS.

TICKLE TEXT. A parson.

TICKLE PITCKEB. A thirsty fellow, a sot.

TICKLE TAIL. A rod, or schoolmaster. A man's penis.

TICKRUM. A licence.

TIDY. Neat.

TIFFING. Eating or drinking out of meal time, disputing or falling out; also lying with a wench, A tiff of punch, a small bowl of punch.

TILBUKY. Sixpence; so called from its formerly being the fare for Crossing over from Gravesend to Tilbury Fort.

TILT. To tilt; to fight with a sword. To run full tilt against one; allusion to the ancient tilling with the lance.

TILTER. A sword.

TIM WHISKY. A light one—horse chaise without a head.

TIMBER TOE. A man with a wooden leg.

TINY. Little.

TO TIP. To give or lend. Tip me your daddle; give me your hand. Tip me a hog; give me a shilling. To tip the lion; to flatten a man's nose with the thumb, and, at the same time to extend his mouth, with the fingers, thereby giving him a sort of lion-like countenance. To tip the velvet; tonguing woman. To tip all nine; to knock down all the nine pins at once, at the game of bows or skittles: tipping, at these gaines, is slightly touching the tops of the pins with the bowl. Tip; a draught; don't spoil his tip.

TIP-TOP. The best: perhaps from fruit, that growing at the top of the tree being generally the best, as partaking most of the sun. A tip-top workman; the best, or most excellent Workman.

TIPPERARY FORTUNE. Two town lands, stream's town, and ballinocack; said of Irish women without fortune.

TIPPLE. Liquor.

TIPPLERS. Sots who are continually sipping.

TIPSEY. Almost drunk.

TIRING. Dressing: perhaps abbreviation of ATTIRING. Tiring women, or tire women: women that used to cut ladies hair, and dress them.

TIT. A horse; a pretty little tit; a smart little girl. a *** or tid bit; a delicate morsel. Tommy tit; a smart lively little fellow.

TIT FOR TAT. An equivalent.

TO TITTER. To suppress a laugh.

TITTER TATTER. One reeling, and ready to fall at the least touch; also the childish amusement of riding upon the two ends of a plank, poised upon the prop underneath its centre, called also see-saw. Perhaps tatter is a rustic pronunciation of totter.

TITTLE-TATTLE. Idle discourse, scandal, women's talk, or small talk.

TITTUP. A gentle hand gallop, or canter.

TIZZY. Sixpence.

TOAD EATER. A poor female relation, and humble companion, or reduced gentlewoman, in a great family, the standing butt, on whom all kinds of practical jokes are played off, and all ill humours vented. This appellation is derived from a mountebank's servant, on whom all experiments used to be made in public by the doctor, his master; among which was the eating of toads, formerly supposed poisonous. Swallowing toads is here figuratively meant for swallowing or putting up with insults, as disagreeable to a person of feeling as toads to the stomach.

TOAD. Toad in a hole; meat baked or boiled in pye-crust. He or she sits like a toad on a chopping-block; a saying of any who sits ill on horseback. As much need of it as a toad of a side-pocket; said of a person who desires any thing for which he has no real occasion. As full of money as a toad is of feathers.

TOAST. A health; also a beautiful woman whose health is often drank by men. The origin of this term (as it is said) was this: a beautiful lady bathing in a cold bath, one of her admirers out of gallantry drank some of the water: whereupon another of her lovers observed, he never drank in the morning, but he would kiss the toast, and immediately saluted the lady.

TOASTING IRON, or CHEESE TOASTER. A sword.

TOBY LAY. The highway. High toby man; a highway-man. Low toby man; a footpad.

TOBACCO. A plant, once in great estimation as a medicine:

TODDY. Originally the juice of the cocoa tree, and afterwards rum, water, sugar, and nutmeg.

TODDLE. To walk away. The cove was touting, but stagging the traps he toddled; be was looking out, and feeing the officers he walked away.

TODGE. Beat all to a todge: said of anything beat to mash.

TOGE. A coat. Cant.

TOGEMANS. The same. CANT.

TOGS. Clothes. The swell is rum-togged. The gentleman is handsomely dressed.

TOKEN. The plague: also the venereal disease. She tipped him the token; she gave him a clap or pox.

TOL, or TOLEDO. A sword: from Spanish swords made at Toledo, which place was famous for sword blades of an extraordinary temper.

TOLLIBAN RIG. A species of cheat carried on by a woman, assuming the character of a dumb and deaf conjuror.

TOM T—DMAN. A night man, one who empties necessary houses.

TOMBOY. A romping girl, who prefers the amusement used by boys to those of her own sex.

TOM OF BEDLAM. The same as Abram man.

TOM CONY. A simple fellow.

TOM LONG. A tiresome story teller. It is coming by Tom Long, the carrier; said of any thing that has been long expected.

TOM THUMB. A dwarf, a little hop-o'my-thumb.

TOMMY. Soft Tommy, or white Tommy; bread is so called by sailors, to distinguish it from biscuit. Brown Tommy: ammunition bread for soldiers; or brown bread given to convicts at the hulks.

TO-MORROW COME NEVER. When two Sundays come together; never.

TONGUE. Tongue enough for two sets of teeth: said of a talkative person. As old as my tongue, and a little older than my teeth; a dovetail in answer to the question, How old are you? Tongue pad; a scold, or nimble-tongued person.

TONY. A silly fellow, or ninny. A mere tony: a simpleton.

TOOLS. The private parts of a man.

TOOL. The instrument of any person or faction, a cat's paw. See CATS PAW.

TOOTH Music. Chewing.

TOOTH-PICK. A large stick. An ironical expression.

TOPPER. A violent blow on the head.

TOP ROPES. To sway away on all top ropes; to live riotously or extravagantly.

TO TOP. To cheat, or trick: also to insult: he thought to have topped upon me. Top; the signal among taylors for snuffing the candles: he who last pronounces that word word, is obliged to get up and perform the operation.—to be topped; to be hanged. The cove was topped for smashing queerscreens; he was hanged for uttering forged bank notes.

TOP DIVER. A lover of women. An old top diver; one who has loved old hat in his time.

TOP HEAVY. Drunk.

TOP LIGHTS. The eyes. Blast your top lights. See CURSE.

Top SAIL. He paid his debts at Portsmouth with the topsail; i.e. he went to sea and left them unpaid. SCT soldiers are said to pay off their scores with the drum; that is, by marching away.

TOPER. One that loves his bottle, a soaker. SEE TO SOAK.

TOPPING FELLOW. One at the top or head of his profession.

TOPPING CHEAT. The gallows. CANT.

TOPPING COVE. The hangman. CANT.

TOPPING MAN. A rich man.

TOFSY-TURVY. The top side the other way; i.e. the wrong side upwards; some explain it, the top side turf ways, turf being always laid the wrong side upwards.

TORCHECUL. Bumfodder.

TORMENTER OF SHEEP SKIN. A drummer.

TORMENTER OF CATGUT. A fiddler.

TORY. An advocate for absolute monarchy and church power; also an Irish vagabond, robber, Or rapparee.

TOSS POT. A drunkard.

TOSS OFF. Manual pollution.

TOTTY-HEADED. Giddy, hare-brained.

TOUCH. To touch; to get money from any one; also to arrest. Touched in the wind; broken winded. Touched in the head; insane, crazy. To touch up a woman; to have carnal knowledge of her. Touch bone and whistle; any one having broken wind backwards, according to the vulgar law, may be pinched by any of the company till he has touched bone (i.e. his teeth) and whistled.

TOUCH BUN FOR LUCK. See BUN.

TOVT. A look-out house, or eminence.

TOUTING. (From TUERI, to look about) Publicans fore-stalling guests, or meeting them on the road, and begging their custom; also thieves or smugglers looking out to see that the coast is clear. Touting ken; the bar of a public house.

TOW ROW. A grenadier. The tow row club; a club or society of the grenadier officers of the line.

TOWEL. An oaken towel, a cudgel. To rub one down with an oaken towel; to beat or cudgel him.

TOWER. Clipped money: they have been round the tower with it. CANT.

TO TOWER. To overlook, to rise aloft as in a high tower.

TOWER HILL PLAY. A slap on the face, and a kick on the breech.

TOWN. A woman of the town; a prostitute. To be on the town: to live by prostitution.

TOWN BULL. A common whoremaster. To roar like a town bull; to cry or bellow aloud.

TO TRACK. To go. Track up the dancers; go up stairs. CANT.

TRADING JUSTICES. Broken mechanics, discharged footmen, and other low fellows, smuggled into the commission of the peace, who subsist by fomenting disputes, granting warrants, and otherwise retailing justice; to the honour of the present times, these nuisances are by no means, so common as formerly.

TRADESMEN. Thieves. Clever tradesmen; good thieves.

TRANSLATORS. Sellers of old mended shoes and boots, between coblers and shoemakers.

TO TRANSMOGRAPHY, or TRANSMIGRIFY. To patch up vamp, or alter.

TO TRANSNEAR. To come up with any body.

TRANTER. See CROCKER.

TRAP. To understand trap; to know one's own interest.

TRAP STICKS. Thin legs, gambs: from the sticks with which boys play at trap-ball.

TRAPS. Constables and thief-takers. CANT.

TO TRAPAN. To inveigle, or ensnare.

TRAPES. A slatternly woman, a careless sluttish woman.

TRAVELLER. To tip the traveller; to tell wonderful stories, to romance.

TRAVELLING PIQUET. A mode of amusing themselves, practised by two persons riding in a carriage, each reckoning towards his game the persons or animals that pass by on the side next them, according to the following estimation:

A parson riding a grey horse, without furniture; game.

An old woman under a hedge; ditto.

A cat looking out of a window; 60.

A man, woman, and child, in a buggy; 40.

A man with a woman behind him; 30.

A flock of sheep; 20.

A flock of geese; 10.

A post chaise; 5.

A horseman; 2.

A man or woman walking; 1.

TRAY TRIP. An ancient game like Scotch hop, played on a pavement marked out with chalk into different compartments.