Slang and its analogues past and present, volume III (of 7)

2. (thieves’).—A finger. The forks = the fore and middle fingers; also cf., (proverbial) ‘Fingers were made before forks.’

English Synonyms.—Claws; cunt-hooks (Grose); daddles (also the hands); divers; feelers; fives; flappers; grapplers; grappling irons; gropers; hooks; nail-bearers; pickers and stealers (Shakspeare); corn-stealers; Ten Commandments; ticklers; pinkies; muck-forks.

French Synonyms.—Les apôtres (thieves’: = the ten Apostles); les fourchettes, or les fourchettes d’Adam (popular: = Adam’s forks); le peigne d’allemand (thieves’: Rabelais).

German Synonyms.—Ezba (= the finger, especially the first or fore-finger. The names of the others are: Godel = the thumb; Ammo = the middle-finger; Kemizo = the ring-finger; Seres, i.e., ‘span’ = the little finger); Griffling (= also the hand. From greifen = to seize).

Spanish Synonyms.—Mandamiento (= a commandment: cf., Ten Commandments); tijeras (= the fore- and middle fingers; Minsheu (1599) Dictionarie, tijeras = ‘small sheares, seizers, snuffers.’). [58]

1821. Haggart, Life, p. 121. My forks were equally long, and they never failed me.

1834. Ainsworth, Rookwood. ‘Nix my Dolly.’ No dummy hunter had forks so fly. Ibid. Jack Sheppard (1889), p. 20. I’ll give him the edication of a prig—teach him the use of his forks betimes.

1841. Tait’s Edinburgh Mag., VIII., p. 220. My forks were light and fly, and lightly faked away.

1891. Licensed Victuallers’ Gazette, 9 Feb. Up they came briskly with smiling mugs, shook hands, then stepped back a pace or two, put up their forks, and the spectators were hushed into silence, for they saw that the battle was about to begin.

4. (old).—A gibbet; in the plural = the gallows. [fork is often applied to anything resembling a divarication (as of a tree, river, or road), etc.: Cf., sense 2. Cf., Cicero (de Div., i., 26). Ferens furcam ductus est: a slave so punished was called furcifer.]

6. (tailors’ and venery).—The crutch (q.v.), nockandro (q.v.), or Twist (q.v.). [Thus, a bit on a fork = the female pudendum; a grind (q.v.).] Fr., ‘Fourcheure, that part of the bodie from whence the thighs depart.’—Cotgrave.

Verb (old).—1. To steal; specifically to pick a pocket by inserting the middle and forefinger. Also to put one’s forks down: Fr., vol à la fourchette.

1690. B. E., Dict. of the Canting Crew. Let’s fork him, c. Let us pick that man’s pocket, the newest and most dextrous way; it is to thrust the fingers straight, stiff, open, and very quick into the pocket, and so closing them hook what can be held between them.

1830. Lytton, Paul Clifford, ch. xvi. Yet so keen was his appetite for the sport, that the veteran appropriator absolutely burst into tears at not having ‘forked more.’

1878. C. Hindley, Life and Times of James Catnach. Frisk the Cly and fork the Rag, Draw the fogies plummy.

To fork out, or over (sometimes abbreviated to fork). Verb. phr. (common).—To hand over; to pay; to shell out (q.v.).

1836. Dickens, Sketches by Boz, p. 84. His active mind at once perceived how much might be done in the way of … shoving the old and helpless into the wrong buss, and carrying them off … till they was rig’larly done over, and forked out the stumpy.

1837. Barham, I. L., The Execution. He Pulls up at the door of a gin-shop, and gaily Cries, ‘What must I fork out to night, my trump, For the whole first-floor of the Magpie and Stump?’

1840. Comic Almanack. ‘Tom the Devil,’ p. 214. ‘That’s a nate way of doin’ business, sure enough,’ was the commentary; ‘ounly I can’t larn the sinse of going to a private lodging, where, if you ordher a kidney for breakfast, you’re expected to fork out to the butcher.’

1852. H. B. Stowe, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, ch. viii. You’ve got to fork over fifty dollars, flat down, or this child don’t start a peg.

1864. Dickens, Our Mutual Friend, Bk. III., ch. i. ‘Now,’ said Fledgeby, ‘fork out your balance in hand, and prove by figures how you make it out that it ain’t more.’ [59]

1867. Albany Argus, 5 Sept. Now, sir, you will please fork over that money to me, and pay your bill, or I’ll have the law out of you, as sure as you are born.

1887. Lippincott’s Magazine, Aug., p. 199. Just calculate my percentage of our liabilities, and allow me to fork over.

1888. Detroit Free Press, 9 Sept. The dozen screw-drivers came up C. O. D. and he had to fork over for them.

To eat vinegar with a fork, verb. phr. (common).—A person either over-shrewd or over-snappish is said to have eaten vinegar with a fork. Fr., Avoir mangé de l’oseille. See Nettle.

Forker, subs. (nautical).—A dockyard thief or fence (q.v.). [From fork = to steal + er.]

Forking, subs. (thieves’).—1. Thieving. See Fork.

Forkless, adj. (thieves’).—Clumsy; unworkmanlike; as without forks (q.v.).

1821. Haggart, Life, p. 40. I met George Bagrie, and William Paterson, alias old Hag, two very willing, but poor snibs, accompanying a lushy cove, and going to work in a very forkless manner.

Forloper, subs. (South African).—A teamster guide.

Forlorn Hope, subs. phr. (colloquial).—A gamester’s last stake.—Grose.

Form, subs. (turf.)—1. Condition; training; fitness for a contest.

In or out of form = in or out of condition, i.e., fit or unfit for work. Better or Top form, etc. (in comparison). Cf., Colour.

1861. Walsh, The Horse, ch. vi. If it be supposed that two three-year-olds, carrying the same weight, could run a mile and a-half, and come in abreast, it is said that the form of one is equal to that of the other.

1884. Hawley Smart, Post to Finish, ch. xxxv. When fillies, in racing parlance, lose their form at three years old, they are apt to never recover it.

1868. Whyte Melville, White Rose, ch. xxxiv. That mysterious property racing men call ‘form.’

2. (colloquial).—Behaviour (with a moral significance: as good form, bad form = agreeable to good manners, breeding, principles, taste, etc., or the opposite). This usage, popularised in racing circles, is good literary English, though the word is commonly printed in inverted commas(“ ”): Shakspeare (Two Gentlemen of Verona, 4), says, ‘Can no way change you to a milder form,’ i.e., manner of behaviour.

1871. Orchestra, 13 Jan. This squabble at the Globe may most fitly, perhaps, be characterised by the words ‘bad form.’

1871. The Drawing Room Gazette, Dec. 9, p. 5. It is an open question, whether snubbing be not, like cutting, in the worst possible ‘form.’

1873. Belgravia, Feb. The demeanour and conduct which the ‘golden youth’ of the period call ‘good form’ was known to their fathers as bad manners.

1881. Jas. Payn, Grape from a Thorn, ch. xvii. It would be considered what they call ‘bad form’ in my daughter Ella if she were known to be a contributor—for pay—to the columns of a magazine.

1890. Speaker, 22 Feb, p. 211, col. 2. Still, after all, we doubt very much whether it be fair, or right, or even prudent—it certainly is not ‘good form’—to publish to a world of Gallios a lot of irreverent bar-mess and circuit ‘good stories,’ worked up about living Lord Chancellors, Lord Justices, and other present occupants of the judicial bench. [60]

3. (common).—Habit; game (q.v.): e.g., ‘That’s my form = That’s what I’m in the way of doing’; or ‘That’s the sort of man I am.’

1884. Punch, 11 Oct. ‘’Arry at a Political Picnic.’ Athletics ain’t hardly my form.

Forney, subs. (thieves’).—A ring; a variant of fawney (q.v.).

1871. Egan, Finish of Tom and Jerry, p. 243. He sports a diamond forney on his little finger.

Fornicating-engine (-member; -tool), subs. phr. (venery).—The penis. For synonyms, see Creamstick and Prick.

Fornicator, subs. (venery).—1. The penis. For synonyms, see Creamstick and Prick.

Fornicator’s Hall, subs. phr. (venery).—The female pudendum. For synonyms, see Monosyllable.

Fort, subs. (venery).—The female pudendum. For synonyms, see Monosyllable.

1620. Percy, Folio MSS. [Hales & Furnivall, 1867]. ‘Come, Wanton Wenches.’ When they your ffort beleauger; grant but a touch or a kisse ffor a tast.

Fortune-biter, subs. (obsolete).—A sharper.

1719. Durfey, Pills, etc., ii. ‘Hey! for Richmond Ball’! Fortune-biters, Hags, bum-fighters, Nymphs of the Woods, And stale City goods.

Fortune-teller, subs. (old).—A magistrate.

1690. B. E., Dict. of the Canting Crew. Fortune-tellers, c. the Judges of Life and Death, so-called by the Canting Crew.

1785. Grose, Dict. of the Vulg. Tongue. Fortune-teller, or cunning man; a judge who tells every prisoner his fortune, lot, or doom; to go before the fortune-teller, lambskin man or conjuror, to be tried at an assize.

1871. Egan, Finish of Tom and Jerry, p. 242. He had been werry cruelly used by the fortune-tellers.

Forty. To talk forty (more commonly nineteen) to the dozen, verb. phr. (colloquial).—To chatter incessantly; to gabble. To walk off forty to the dozen = to decamp in quick time.

1891. Farjeon, Mystery of M. Felix, p. 107. He run agin me, he did, and I ased, ‘Who are yer pushing of?’ He didn’t say nothink, but walked off forty to the dozen.

Roaring forties, subs. phr. (nautical).—The Atlantic between the fortieth and fiftieth degrees of latitude; also applied to the same region in southern latitudes.

Forty-faced, adj. (colloquial).—An arrant deceiver: e.g., a forty-faced liar, a forty-faced flirt, and so forth.

Forty-five, subs. (American).—A revolver. For synonyms, see Meat in the pot.

Forty-foot or Forty-guts, subs. (common).—A fat, dumpy man, or woman. In contempt.

English Synonyms.—‘All arse, and no body’; arse-and-corporation; all-belly (Cotgrave); all guts (idem); bacon-belly; barrel-belly; belly-god; bladder-figured; bosse-belly; Bosse of Billingsgate (Florio = a fat woman); chuff (Shakspeare); Christmas beef; double-guts; double-tripe; fat-cock; fat-guts (Shakspeare and Cotgrave); fatico; fattymus or [61]fattyma; fubsy; fat Jack of the bonehouse; fat-lips; flanderkin; fustiluggs (Burton); fussock; gorbelly; grampus; gotch-guts; grand-guts (Florio); gulche (Florio); gullyguts; gundigutts; guts; guts-and-stomach; guts-and-garbage; guts-to-sell; hoddy-doddy; humpty-dumpty; hogshead; hopper-arse; Jack Weight; loppers; lummox; paunch; pod; porpoise; pot-guts; princod; pudding-belly; puff-guts; ribs; ‘short-and-thick-like-a-Welshman’s-cock’; slush-bucket; sow (a fat woman); spud; squab; studgy-guts; tallow-guts; tallow-merchant; thick-in-the-middle; tripes; tripes and trullibubs; tubs; waist; water-butt; walking ninepin; whopper.

French Synonyms. Un gros bajaf (popular); un bout de cul (popular); un bas de plafond, or de cul (popular); un brasset (= a tall, stout man); un berdouillard.

Spanish Synonym. Angelon de retablo (generally applied to a pot-bellied child).

Forty-jawed, adj. (colloquial).—Excessively talkative.

Forty-lunged, adj. (colloquial).—Stentorian; given to shouting; leather-lunged (q.v.).

Forty-rod or Forty-rod Lightning, subs. phr. (American).—Whiskey; specifically, spirit of so fiery a nature that it is calculated to kill at Forty Rods’ distance, i.e., on sight. Cf., Rot-gut. For synonyms, see Drinks and Old man’s milk. Cf., Florio (1598), Catoblepa, ‘a serpent in India so venomous that with his looke he kils a man a mile off.’

1884. M. Twain, Huck. Finn, ch. v., p. 36. He got powerful thirsty and clumb out on to the porch-roof and slid down a stanchion, and traded his new coat for a jug of forty-rod.

Forty-twa, subs. (Scots).—A common jakes, or bogshop (q.v.).—In Edinburgh: ‘so called from its accommodating that number of persons at once’ (Hotten). [Long a thing of the past.]

Forty Winks, subs. phr. (colloquial).—A short sleep or nap. See Dog’s Sleep.

1866. G. Eliot, Felix Holt, ch. xliii. She was prevented by the appearance of old Mr. Transome, who since his walk had been having ‘forty-winks’ on the sofa in the library.

1871. Egan, Finish to Tom and Jerry, p. 87. On uncommanly big gentlemen, told out, taking forty-winks.

[Forty is often used to signify an indefinite number; cf., Shakespeare’s usage, ‘I could beat forty of them’ (Cor. iii., 1); ‘O that the slave had forty thousand lives’ (Othello iii., 1); ‘forty thousand brothers’ (Hamlet, v., 1); ‘The Humour of Forty Fancies’ (Taming of the Shrew); and Jonson ‘Some forty boxes’ (Silent Woman).]

Fossed, ppl. adj. (American thieves’).—Thrown; cf., [foss = a ditch].

Fossick, verb (Australian miners’).—To work an abandoned claim, or to wash old dirt; hence to search persistently. [Halliwell: = to take trouble, but cf., fosse, a ditch or excavation.] Also fossicking = a living got as aforesaid; fossicker = a man that works abandoned claims; fossicking about = (American) shinning around, or in England ferreting (q.v.).

1878. Fraser’s Mag., Oct., p. 449, They are more suited … to plodding, fossicking, persevering industry, than for hard work.

1887. Sala, in Ill. Lond. News, 12 Mar., p. 282, col. 2. ‘To fossick’ in the old digging days was to get a living by extracting gold from the refuse wash-dirt which previous diggers had abandoned as worthless.

1890. Illustrations, Jan., p. 158. After some ‘fossiking’ we discover three or four huts within ‘cooee,’ all diggers, all ‘hatters,’ and mostly good fellows.

Fou, or Fow, adj. (old English and Scots’ colloquial).—Drunk; variants are bitch-fou; greetin’-fou; piper-fou; roaring-fou; fou as barty (Burns); pissing-fou; and so forth. For synonyms, see Drinks and Screwed. Also (Scots’) = full of food or drink, as in quot. under date 1815.

1697. Vanbrugh, Provoked Wife, III., ii. (quoted in). Then sit ye awhile, and tipple a bit, For we’s not very fou, but we’re gayly yet.

1787. Burns, Death and Dr. Hornbook, st. 3. I was na fou, but just had plenty.

1815. Scott, Guy Mannering, ch. xlvi. ‘Are ye fou or fasting?’ ‘Fasting from all but sin.’

1857. J. E. Ritchie, Night Side of London, p. 166. The time admits of a man getting fou between the commencement and the close of the entertainment.

Foul, subs. (nautical and aquatic).—A running into; a running down.

[Foul, adj. and verb. is used in two senses: (1) = dirty, as a foul word, a foul shrew (Dickens), to foul the bed, &c.; and (2) = unfair, as a foul (i.e., a felon) stroke, a foul blow, and so forth.]

1626. Captain John Smith, Accidence for Seamen, in wks. (Arber), p. 796. Boord and boord, or thwart the hawse, we are foule on each other.

1724. E. Coles, Eng. Dict. Foul, hindred or intangled with another ship’s ropes, etc.

1754. Connoisseur, No. 3. Which sailed very heavy, were often a-ground, and continually ran foul on each other.

1861. Hughes, Tom Brown at Oxford, ch. xiii. Their coxswain … had to pull his left hand hard or they would have fouled the Oxfordshire corner.

1885 Illus. London News, March 28, p. 316, col. 1. In 1849 there were two races in the course of the year; Cambridge won the first, Oxford the second, on a foul (the only time the race has been so won).

1889. Licensed Victuallers’ Gaz., 18 Jan. Dick was done out of the stakes on an appeal of foul.

To foul a plate with, verbal phr. (old, colloquial).—To dine or sup with.—Grose.

Foulcher, subs. (thieves’).—A purse.

1877. Five Years’ Penal Servitude, ch. iii., p. 243. ‘A foulcher, with flimsies and couters for a score of quid in it.’

Foul-mouthed, adj. (colloquial).—Obscene or blasphemous in speech.

Found in a Parsley-bed. See Parsley-bed and Gooseberry-bush.

Fountain of Love, subs. phr. (venery).—The female pudendum. For synonyms, see Monosyllable.

Four-and-nine (or Four-and-ninepenny), subs. phr. (old).—A hat. [So-called from the price at which an enterprising Bread Street hatter sold his hats, circa 1844, at which date London was hideous with posters displaying a large black hat and ‘4s. and 9d.’ in white letters.]

1844. Advertisement Couplet. Whene’er to slumber you incline, Take a short nap at four-and-nine. [63]

1846. Thackeray, Yellow Plush Papers, p. 152 (ed. 1887). You may, for instance, call a coronet a coronal (an ‘ancestral coronal,’ p. 74) if you like, as you might call a hat a ‘swart sombrero,’ a ‘glossy four-and-nine,’ ‘a silken helm to storm impermeable, and lightsome as the breezy gossamer;’ but in the long run it is safer to call it a hat.

1847. Thackeray, Mrs. Perkins’s Ball (The Mulligan). The Mulligan has withdrawn his custom from the ‘infernal four-and-ninepenny scoundthrel,’ as he calls him. The hatter has not shut up shop in consequence.

1849. Viator, Oxford Guide. He then did raise his four-and-nine, And scratched his shaggy pate.

1867. Jas. Greenwood, Unsent. Journeys, xxx., 229. Because he wore a four-and-nine, and had a pencil stuck behind his ear.

Four-bones, subs. (thieves’).—The knees.

1857. Punch, 31 Jan. ‘Dear Bill, This Stone-jug.’ For them coves in Guildhall and that blessed Lord Mayor, Prigs on their four bones should chop whiners I swear.

Four-eyes, subs. (common).—A person in spectacles: ‘a chap that can’t believe his own eyes.’

Four-holed Middlings, subs. phr. (Winchester College).—Ordinary walking shoes; cf. beeswaxers. Obsolete.

Four Kings. The history (or book) of the four kings. subs. phr. (old).—A pack of cards; otherwise, a child’s best guide to the gallows, or the devil’s picture books. Fr., Livre des quatre rois.

Four-legged burglar-alarm, subs. phr. (common).—A watch dog.

Four-legged Frolic, subs. phr. (venery).—The act of kind: a reminiscence of the proverb, ‘There goes more to a marriage than four bare legs in a bed.’ For synonyms, see Greens and Ride.

Four-poster, subs. phr. (colloquial).—A four-post bedstead.

1836. Dickens, Pickwick, ch. xliv. ‘Vill you allow me to en-quire vy you make up your bed under that ere deal table?’ said Sam. ‘’Cause I was alvays used to a four-poster afore I came here, and I find the legs of the table answer just as well,’ replied the cobbler.

Four Seams and a Bit of Soap, subs. phr. (tailors’).—A pair of trousers. See Kicks.

Four—(more commonly Three)—Sheets in the Wind, adv. phr. (nautical).—Drunk; cf., half seas over. For synonyms, see Drinks and Screwed.

Fourteen Hundred, … phr. (Stock Exchange).—A warning cry that a stranger is in the ‘House.’

1887. Atkin, House Scraps. So, help me Got, Mo, who is he? Instead of replying in a straightforward way, Mo raised his voice as loud as he could, and shouted with might and main, ‘fourteen hundred new fives!’ A hundred voices repeated the mysterious exclamation.

1890. Cassell’s Saturday Journal, 26 April. The cry of ‘fourteen hundred’ is said to have had its origin in the fact that for a long while the number of members never exceeded 1,399; and it was customary to hail every new comer as the fourteen hundredth. It has, in its primary sense, long since lost significance, for there are now nearly three thousand members of the close corporation which has its home in Capel Court.

Fourteenth Amendment Persuasion, subs. phr. (American).—Negroes. [From the number of the clause amending the Constitution at the abolition of slavery.]

1888. Times Democrat, 5 Feb. To take the law is one of the greatest privileges in the estimation of the colored folk that the fourteenth amendment conferred, and, whether offender or defendant, they take a pride in summonses beyond describing. [64]

Fourth, subs. (Cambridge University).—A rear (q.v.) or jakes. [Origin uncertain; said to have been first used at St. John’s or Trinity, where the closets were situated in the Fourth Court. Whatever its derivation, the term is now the only one in use at Cambridge, and is frequently heard outside the university.] The verbal phrase is to keep a fourth (see Keep).

On his fourth, phr. (common).—Hopelessly drunk. For synonyms, see Drinks and Screwed.

Fourth Estate, subs. phr. (literary).—The body of journalists; the ‘Press.’ [Literally the Fourth Estate of the realm, the other three being Queen, Lords, and Commons.]

1857. J. E. Ritchie, Night Side of London, p. 202. Let me say a word about these exceedingly seedy-looking individuals connected with the fourth estate.

Four-wheeler, subs. (common).—A steak.

1873. Black, Princess of Thule, ch. 10. Having sent an all their luggage by a respectable old four-wheeler.

Fousty, adj. (colloquial).—Stinking [probably derived from foist, sense 3].

Fouter, verb, and Foutering, subs. (common).—To meddle, importune, waste time and tongue; the act of meddling, importunity, wasting time and tongue. E.g., ‘Don’t come foutering here!’ [From the French, foutre: the sense of which is intensified in a vulgarism of still fuller flavour].

Fox, subs. (old).—A sword; specifically, the old English broadsword. [Derivation dubious. Suggestions are: (1) from a maker’s name; (2) from the fox sometimes engraved on the blade; (3) from the Latin falx.] For synonyms, see Cheese-toaster and Poker.

1614. Jonson, Bartholomew Fair, ii. A fellow that knows nothing but a basket-hilt, and an old fox in’t.

c. 1640. [Shirley], Captain Underwit, in Bullen’s Old Plays, ii., 321. Un. An old fox blade made at Hounsloe heath.

1667. Shirley, Love Tricks, Act II., Sc. 1. They say your swords most commonly are foxes, and have notable metal in them.

1700. Congreve, Way of the World, Act V., Sc. 10. Sir, I have an old fox by my thigh shall hack your instrument of ram vellum to shreds, Sir.

1821. Scott, Kenilworth, ch. iv. ‘Come, come, comrade,’ said Lambourne, ‘here is enough done, and more than enough, put up your fox, and let us be jogging.’

Verb (old).—1. To intoxicate. Foxed = drunk; to catch a fox = to be very drunk; while to flay the fox (Urquhart) = to vomit, to shed your liquor, i.e., to get rid of the beast.

1611. Barry, Ram Alley, Act IV. They will bib hard; they will be fine sunburnt, Sufficient fox’d or columber’d now and then.

1633. Heywood, Eng. Travellers, IV., v., p. 266 (Mermaid Series). Rioter. Worthy Reginald. Reig. Will, if he now come off well, fox you all, Go, call for wine.

c. 1640. [Shirley], Captain Underwit, in Bullen’s Old Plays, ii. 375. Then to bee fox’d it is no crime, Since thickest and dull braines It makes sublime.

1661. T. Middleton, Mayor of Quinborough, V., i. Ah, blind as one that had been fox’d a sevennight.

1673. Shadwell, Epsom Wells, IV., in wks. (1720), ii., 248. But here’s my cup. Come on. Udsooks, I begin to be fox’d! [65]

1719. Durfey, Pills, etc., i., 194. Come, let’s trudge it to Kirkham Fair: There’s stout liquor enough to fox me.

1738. Swift, Polite Convers., Dial. 2. Lady Sm. But, Sir John, your ale is terrible strong and heady.… Sir John. Why, indeed, it is apt to fox one.

1748. T. Dyche, Dictionary (5th ed.). Fox (v.) … also to make a person drunk or fuddled.

1891. Sporting Times, 11 April. And so to bed well nigh seven in the morning, and myself as near foxed as of old.

2. (old).—To cheat; to trick; to rob (colloquial at Eton). For synonyms, see Gammon.

1866. Notes and Queries, 3, S. x., 123. Where the tramps … out of their gout are foxed.

3. (common).—To watch closely. Also to fox about. Cf., fox’s sleep. For synonyms, see Nose.

1880. Greenwood, Odd People in Odd Places, p. 61. ‘You keep it going pretty loud here, with a couple of policemen foxing about just outside.’

1880. One and All, 6 Nov., p. 296, ‘Let us look at these vagabons; maybe they’re only foxin’.’ The two men who had received such tangible mementos of the whip-handle and the blackthorn lay perfectly still.

6. (booksellers’).—To stain; to discolour with damp; said of books and engravings. Foxed = stained or discoloured.

1881. C. M. I[ngleby] in Notes and Queries (6th S., iv., 96). Tissue paper harbours damp, and in a damp room will assuredly help to fox the plates which they face.

1885. Austin Dobson, At the Sign of the Lyre, 83. And the Rabelais foxed and flea’d.

To set a fox to keep one’s geese, phr. (common).—To entrust one’s money, or one’s circumstances, to the care of sharpers. Latin, Ovem lupo commisisti.

To make a fox paw, verb. phr. (common).—To make a mistake or a wrong move; specifically (of women) to be seduced. [A corruption of the Fr. faux pas.]

Fox’s Sleep, subs. phr. (common).—A state of feigned yet very vigilant indifference to one’s surroundings. [Foxes were supposed to sleep with one eye open.]

1830. Sir J. Barrington, Personal Sketches, Vol. III., p. 171 (ed. 1832). Mr. Fitzgerald, he supposed, was in a fox’s sleep, and his bravo in another, who, instead of receding at all, on the contrary squeezed the attorney closer and closer.

Foxy, adj. (colloquial).—1. Red-haired; cf., carrotty.

1828. G. Griffin, Collegians, ch. ii. Dunat O’Leary, the hair-cutter, or Foxy Dunat, as he was named in allusion to his red head.

2. (colloquial).—Cunning; vulpine in character and look. Once literary. Jonson (1605) calls his arch-foist volpone, the second title of his play being ‘The Fox;’ and Florio (1598) defines Volpone as ‘an old fox, an old reinard, an old, crafty, sly, subtle companion, sneaking, lurking, wilie deceiver.’ [66]

d. 1536. Tyndale, Workes, p. 148. Oh, foxy Pharisay, that is thy leuen, of which Christ so diligently bad vs beware.

1849. Dickens, David Copperfield, ch. xlix., p. 429. Whatever his state of health may be his appearance is foxy, not to say diabolical.

3. (American cobblers’).—Repaired with new toe-caps. See fox, verb, sense 8.

1877. M. Twain, Life on the Mississippi, ch. lvii., p. 503. It was the scarecrow Dean—in foxy shoes, down at the heels; socks of odd colours, also ‘down.’

4. (booksellers’).—A term applied to prints and books discoloured by damp; see Fox, verb, sense 6.

d. 1792. Sir J. Reynolds, Notes on Dufresnoy. That (style) of Titian, which may be called the Golden manner, when unskilfully managed, becomes what the painters call foxy.

Foy, subs. (old).—A cheat; a swindle.

Foyl-cloy, subs. (old).—A pickpocket; a rogue—B. E. [1690].

Foyst, subs. and verb. See Foist.

Foyster. See Foister.

Fraggle, verb. (Texas).—To rob.

Fragment, subs. (Winchester College).—A dinner for six (served in College Hall, after the ordinary dinner), ordered by a Fellow in favour of a particular boy, who was at liberty to invite five others to join him. Obs. A fragment was supposed to consist of three dishes.—Winchester Word-book [1891].

Framer, subs. (American thieves’).—A shawl.

Frater, subs. (old).—A beggar working with a false petition.

1622. Fletcher, Beggar’s Bush, ii., 1. And these what name or title e’er they bear, Jarkman, or Patrico, Cranke, or Clapper-dudgeon, Frater, or Abramman, I speak to all That stand in fair election for the title Of king of beggars.

1791. Life of Bamfylde Moore-Carew. ‘Oath of Canting Crew.’ Rogue or rascal, frater, maunderer, Irish toyle, or other wanderer.

Fraud, subs. (colloquial).—A failure; anything or body disappointing expectation; e.g., an acquaintance, a picture, a book, a play, a picture, a bottle of wine. Actual dishonesty is not necessarily implied.

Fraze. See Vessel.

Freak, subs. (American showmen’s). A living curiosity: as the Siamese Twins, the Two-headed Nightingale. [Short for ‘freak of nature.’]

Free, adj. (Oxford University).—Impudent; self-possessed.

1864. Tennyson, Northern Farmer, (Old Style), line 25.—But parson a coomes an’ a goos, an’ a says it eäsy an’ freeä.

Verb. (old).—To steal; cf., annex and convey. For synonyms, see Prig. [67]

1857. Snowden, Magistrates’ Assistant, 3rd ed., p. 444. To steal a muff. To free a cat.

Free-fucking, subs. (venery).—General lewdness. Also the favour gratis. Also fidelity to the other sex at large.

Free of Fumbler’s Hall, adv. phr. (venery).—Impotent; unable to do ‘the trick.’ [Fumbler’s Hall = female pudendum.]

1785. Grose, Vulg. Tongue s.v., A saying of one who cannot get his wife with child.

Free, gratis,—for nothing, phr. (common).—A pleonastic vulgarism. Cf., On the dead.

To make free with both ends of the busk, verb. phr. (venery).—To take liberties with a woman. Cf., Both ends of the busk.

Free of the house, adj. phr. (colloquial).—Intimate; privileged to come and go at will.

Free of the bush, adj. phr. (venery).—On terms of extreme intimacy. See Bush.

[For the rest, the commonest sense of free is one of liberality: e.g., free of his foolishness = full of chaff; free-handed = lavish in giving; free-hearted = generously disposed; free of her favours = liberal of her person: free of his patter = full of talk.]

Free-and-Easy, subs. (common).—A social gathering where you smoke, drink, and sing; generally held at a public house.

1796. (In Bee’s Dict. of the Turf, published 1823, s.v.). Twenty seven years ago the cards of invitation to that (free-and-easy) at the ‘Pied Horse,’ in Moorfields, had the notable ‘N.B.—Fighting allowed.’

1810. Crabbe, The Borough, Letter 10. Clubs. Next is the club, where to their friends in town, Our country neighbours once a-month come down; We term it free-and-easy, and yet we Find it no easy matter to be free.

1811. Lexicon Balatronicum. Free-and-easy Johns. A society which meets at the Hole in the Wall, Fleet Street, to tipple porter, and sing bawdry.

1843. Macaulay, Essays: Gladstone on Church and State. Clubs of all ranks, from those which have lined Pall-Mall and St. James’s Street with their palaces, down to the free-and-easy which meets in the shabby parlour of the village inn.

1869. Mrs. H. Wood, Roland Yorke, ch. xii. He tilted himself on to a high stool in the middle of the room, his legs dangling, just as though he had been at a free-and-easy meeting.

1880. Jas. Greenwood, Odd People in Odd Places, p. 64. A roaring trade is done, for instance, on a Saturday evening at the ‘Medley’ in Hoxton, a combination of theatre and music-hall, and serves as a free-and-easy chiefly for boys and girls.

1891. Cassell’s Saturday Journal, Sept., p. 1068, col. 3. The free-and-easy of to-day among us is a species of public-house party, at which much indifferent liquor and tobacco are consumed, songs are sung, and speeches are got rid of.

Freebooker, subs. (journalists’).—A ‘pirate’ bookseller or publisher; a play on the word freebooter.

Free fight, subs. (colloquial).—A general mellay.

1877. W. Mark, Green Past. and Picc., ch. xxx. That vehement German has been insisting on the Irish porters bringing up all our luggage at once; and as there has been a sort of free fight below he comes fuming upstairs. [68]

Free-fishery, subs. phr. (venery).—The female pudendum. For synonyms, see Monosyllable.

Freeholder, subs. (venery).—1. A prostitute’s lover or fancyman. Cf., Free-fishery, and for synonyms, see Joseph.

1690. B. E., Dict. of the Canting Crew, s.v. 1785. Grose, Dict. of the Vulg. Tongue, s.v.

Free-lance, subs. (common).—An habitual adulteress.

c. 1889. (Quoted from Spectator in ‘Slang, Jargon, and Cant’). Sooner than be out of the fashion they will tolerate what should be most galling and shaming to them—the thought that by these they are put down among the free-lances.

Freeman, subs. (venery).—A married woman’s lover.

Freeman of bucks, subs. phr. (old).—A cuckold. [In allusion to the horn.] Grose.

To freeman, or to make a freeman of, verb. phr. (schoolboys’).—To spit on the penis of a new comer. Also To Freemason.

Freeman’s Quay. To drink, or lush, at freeman’s quay, verb. phr. (old).—To drink at another’s expense. [Freeman’s Quay was a celebrated wharf near London Bridge, and the saying arose from the beer that was given to porters, carmen, and others going there on business.]

Freeze, subs. (colloquial).—1. The act or state of freezing; a frost.

Verb. (American).—1. To long for intensely; e.g., ‘to freeze to go back,’ said of the home-sick; ‘to freeze for meat.’

1848. Ruxton, Life in the Far West (1887), p. 129. Threats of vengeance on every Redskin they met were loud and deep; and the wild war songs round their nightly camp-fires, and grotesque scalp-dances, borrowed from the Indians, proved to the initiated that they were, one and all, half-froze for hair.

3. (old).—To adulterate or balderdash (q.v.) wine with freeze (q.v. sense 2).—Grose.

To freeze to (or on to), verb. phr. (American).—To take a strong fancy to; to cling to; to, keep fast hold of; and (of persons) to button-hole or shadow.

1883. Graphic, 17 March, p. 287, col. 1. If there was one institution which the Anglo-Indian froze to more than another, it was his sit-down supper and—its consequences.

1888. Daily Inter-Ocean, 2 March. The competence of a juror was judged by his ability to shake ready-formed opinions and freeze on to new ones.

To Freeze Out, verb. phr. (American).—To compel to withdraw from society by cold and contemptuous treatment; from business by competition or opposition; from the market by depressing prices or rates of exchange.

Freezer, subs. (common).—1. A tailless Eton jacket; cf., Bum-perisher. For synonyms, see Monkey-jacket. [69]

2. (colloquial).—A very cold day. By analogy, a chilling look, address, or retort.

French-elixir (cream, lace, or article), subs. phr. (common).—Brandy. [The custom of taking of brandy with tea and coffee was originally French.—Whence French Cream. Laced tea = tea dashed with spirits].

1815. Scott, Guy Mannering, ch. ix. ‘Get out the gallon punch-bowl, and plenty of lemons. I’ll stand for the French article by the time I come back, and we’ll drink the young Laird’s health.’

French Synonyms.—Le parfait amour du chiffonnier (i.e., ragman’s happiness = coarse brandy); le trois-six (popular: = rot-gut); fil-en-quatre, fil-en-trois, fil-en-six (specifically, old brandy, but applied to spirits generally); le dur (= a drop of hard: common); le raide (popular = a drop of stiff): le chenique or chnic (popular:); le rude (popular: = a drop of rough, i.e., coarse brandy); l’eau d’affe (thieves’); le pissat d’âne (popular: = donkey’s piss; sometimes applied to bad beer, which is likewise called pissat de vache); l’avoine (military = hay, as who should say ‘a nose bag’); le blanc (popular = brandy or white wine); le possédé (thieves’: bingo); le raspail (popular:); le cric (popular: also crik, crique, or cricque = rough brandy:); le schnaps (popular); le schnick (common: = bad brandy); le camphre (popular: = camphor; applied to the coarsest spirit); le sacré-chien or sacré-chien tout pur (common: = the vilest sold); casse-poitrine (common: = brandy heightened with pepper; cf., rot-gut); le jaune (rag-pickers’: = a drop of yellow); tord-boyaux (popular = twist-gut); la consolation (popular = a drop of comfort); requiqui (workmen’s); eau de mort (common: = death-water); le Tripoli (rank brandy); casse-gueule (= ‘kill-the-carter’; applied to all kinds of spirits).

French Fake. subs. phr. (nautical).—The fashion of coiling a rope by taking it backwards and forwards in parallel bands, so that it may run easily.

French Gout (or Disease, Fever, etc.), subs. phr. (common).—Sometimes clap (q.v.), but more generally and correctly syphilis, Morbus Gallicus, especially with older writers. For synonyms, see Ladies Fever. Also The Frenchman. French Pox = a very bad variety of syphilis. The French themselves always refer to the ailment as the mal de Naples, for which see Marston (1598) and his ‘Naples canker,’ and Florio (1598) mal di Napoli = French pocks. Cf., Shakspeare, Henry V., v., 1. News have I that my Nell is dead i’ the spital Of malady of France.

1598. Florio, A Worlde of Wordes. Lue, a plague.… It is also used for the French poxe.

1740. Poor Robin. Some gallants will this month be so penurious that they will not part with a crack’d groat to a poor body, but on their cockatrice or punquetto will bestow half a dozen taffety gowns, who in requittal bestows on him the French pox.

1785. Grose, Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue, s.v. He suffered by a blow over the snout with a French faggot-stick; i.e., he lost his nose by the pox.

Frenchified, adj. (old).—Clapped; more generally and accurately poxed.

1785. Grose, Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue, s.v. Frenchified, infected with the venereal disease; the mort is frenchified = the wench is infected.

French Leave, To take French leave. verb. phr. (colloquial).—(1) To decamp without notice; (2) to do anything without permission; (3) to purloin or steal; (4) to run away (as from an enemy). [Derivation obscure; French, probably traceable to the contempt engendered during the wars with France; the compliment is returned in similar expressions (see Synonyms) + leave = departure or permission to depart. Sense 1 is probably the origin of senses 2, 3, and 4. See Notes and Queries, 1 S. i, 246; 3 S. vi, 17; 5 S. xii, 87; 6 S. v, 347, 496; viii, 514; ix, 133, 213, 279; 7 S. iii, 5, 109, 518.]

English Synonyms.—To retire up (one’s fundament); to slope; to smouge; to do a sneak; to take the Frenchman; to vamoose.

French Synonyms.—S’escarpiner (popular: = to flash one’s pumps); escarpin = a dancing shoe; jouer de l’escarpin = to ply one’s pumps, (16th century); s’échapper, s’esquiver, filer, disparaître, s’éclipser, se dérober, se retirer, and s’en aller à l’anglaise (= to take English leave); pisser à l’anglaise (= to do an English piss, i.e., affect a visit to the urinal); prendre sa permission sous son coude (popular: literally to take one’s leave under one’s arm); ficher or foutre le camp.

German Synonyms.—Französischen Abschied nehmen (= to take French leave: from Gutzkow, R., 4, 88, etc., born 1811); französischer Abschied (Iffland, 1759–1814, 5, 3, 117); auf gut französisch sich empfehlen (Blumauer, 2, 72, 1758–1798: also Gutzkow, R., 4, 88); hinter der Thur urlaub (= to take leave behind [or outside] the door, i.e., after one has got outside it: quoted by Sanders, from Fischart, 1550–1589); hinter der Thüre Abschied nehmen (= to say good-bye outside, to take French leave); also, er beurlaubte sich in aller Stille, explained as er stahl sich, schlich sich davon, and translated ‘he took French leave’; also, sich aus einer Gesellschaft stehlen.—Hilpert’s Dict., 1845.

1771. Smollett, Humphrey Clinker, p. 54. He stole away an Irishman’s bride, and took a French leave of me and his master.

1805. Newspaper (quoted in Notes and Queries, 5 S. xii., 2 Aug., 79, p. 87, col. 2). On Thursday last Monsieur J. F. Desgranche, one of the French prisoners of war on parole at Chesterfield, took French leave of that place, in defiance of his parole engagement.

1854. F. E. Smedley, Harry Coverdale, ch. lviii. ‘I thought I would avoid [71]all the difficulties … by taking French leave, and setting off in disguise and under a feigned name.’

1885 Stevenson, Treasure Island, ch. xxii., p. 178 (1886). My only plan was to take French leave, and slip out when nobody was watching.

1892. Globe, 25 Mar., p. 5, col. 1. They finally resolved to go on French leave to the place.

French- (also American, Spanish, and Italian) Letter, subs. phr. (colloquial).—A sheath—of india-rubber, gold beater’s skin, gutta-percha—worn by a man during coition to prevent infection or fruition. Usually described in print as specialities (q.v.). or circular protectors and (in U.S.A.) as safes (q.v.). See Cundum. Fr., capote anglaise.

French Pigeon, subs. phr. (sportsman’s).—A pheasant killed by mistake in the partridge season. Also moko and oriental (q.v.).

French Pig, subs. phr. (common).—A venereal bubo; a blue boar (q.v.), or Winchester goose (q.v.).

French Prints, subs. (colloquial).—Generic for indecent pictures.

1849–50. Thackeray, Pendennis II., ch. xxxi. Young de Boots of the Blues recognised you as the man who came to barracks, and did business, one-third in money, one-third in eau-de-Cologne, and one third in French prints, you confounded, demure, old sinner.

French Vice, verb. phr. (venery).—A euphemism for all sexual malpractices; Larks (q.v.). First used (in print) in the case of Crawford v. Crawford and Dilke.

Frenchy, subs. (colloquial).—A Frenchman.

Fresh, adj. (University).—1. Said of an undergraduate in his first term.

2. (common).—Slightly intoxicated; elevated. For synonyms see Drinks and Screwed, (Scots’ = sober).

1829. Marryat, Frank Mildmay, ch. xiii. Drinking was not among my vices. I could get fresh, as we call it, when in good company and excited by wit and mirth; but I never went to the length of being drunk.

3. (Old English and modern American).—Inexperienced, but conceited and presumptuous; hence, forward, impudent.

1596. Shakspeare, King John, iii., 4. How green you are and fresh in this old world.

1886. Francis, Saddle and Mocassin. ‘Has Peggy been too fresh?’ Her sunburnt cheeks flushed.

Fresh as paint, as a rose, as a daisy, as a new-born turd, etc., phr. (common).—Full of health, strength, and activity; fit (q.v.).

1864. E. Yates, Broken to Harness, ch. xix. This is his third day’s rest, and the cob will be about as fresh as paint when I get across him again.

Fresh Bit, subs. phr. (venery).—A beginner; also a new mistress. Cf., Bit of fresh = the sexual favour: meat, or mutton, or fish (q.v.), being understood. [72]

Freshen One’s Way, verb. phr. (nautical).—To hurry; to quicken one’s movements. [The wind freshens when it rises.]

Freshen Up, verb. phr. (colloquial). To clean; to vamp; to revive; to smarten.

Fresher, subs. (University).—An undergraduate in his first term.

Freshers. The Freshers, subs. (University).—That part of the Cam which lies between the Mill and Byron’s Pool. So called because it is frequented by freshmen (q.v.).

Freshman (or Fresher), subs. (University).—A University man during his first year. In Dublin University he is a junior freshman during his first year, and a senior freshman the Second year. At Oxford the title lasts for the first term. Ger., Fuchs.

1596. Nashe, Saffron Walden, in wks. iii., 8. When he was but yet a freshman in Cambridge.