1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue eBook

Francis Grose
This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 343 pages of information about 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue.

1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue eBook

Francis Grose
This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 343 pages of information about 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue.

Bean.  A guinea.  Half bean; half a guinea.

Bear.  One who contracts to deliver a certain quantity of
  sum of stock in the public funds, on a future day, and at
  stated price; or, in other words, sells what he has not got,
  like the huntsman in the fable, who sold the bear’s skin
  before the bear was killed.  As the bear sells the stock he
  is not possessed of, so the bull purchases what he has not
  money to pay for; but in case of any alteration in the price
  agreed on, either party pays or receives the difference. 
  Exchange Alley.

Bear-garden jaw or discourse.  Rude, vulgar language,
  such as was used at the bear-gardens.

Bear leader.  A travelling tutor.

Beard splitter.  A man much given to wenching.

Bearings.  I’ll bring him to his bearings; I’ll bring him to
  reason.  Sea term.

Beast. To drink like a beast, i.e. only when thirsty.

Beast with two backs.  A man and woman in the act of
  copulation.  Shakespeare in Othello.

Beater cases.  Boots.  Cant.

Beau-nasty.  A slovenly fop; one finely dressed, but dirty.

Beau trap.  A loose stone in a pavement, under which
  water lodges, and on being trod upon, squirts it up, to the
  great damage of white stockings; also a sharper neatly
  dressed, lying in wait for raw country squires, or ignorant
  fops.

Becalmed. A piece of sea wit, sported in hot weather.  I
  am becalmed, the sail sticks to the mast; that is, my shirt
  sticks to my back.  His prad is becalmed; his horse knocked up.

Beck.  A beadle.  See HERMANBECK.

Bed. Put to bed with a mattock, and tucked up with a
  spade; said of one that is dead and buried.  You will go up
  a ladder to bed, i.e. you will be hanged.  In many country
  places, persons hanged are made to mount up a ladder,
  which is afterwards turned round or taken away, whence the
  term, “Turned off.”

Bedfordshire.  I am for Bedfordshire, i.e. for going to bed.

BEDIZENED. Dressed out, over-dressed, or awkwardly ornamented.

Bed-maker.  Women employed at Cambridge to attend
  on the Students, sweep his room, &c.  They will put their
  hands to any thing, and are generally blest with a pretty
  family of daughters:  who unmake the beds, as fast as they
  are made by their mothers.

Beef.  To cry beef; to give the alarm.  They have cried beef
  on us.  Cant.—­To be in a man’s beef; to wound him with
  a sword.  To be in a woman’s beef; to have carnal
  knowledge of her.  Say you bought your beef of me, a jocular
  request from a butcher to a fat man. implying that he
  credits the butcher who serves him.

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1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.