Slang and its analogues, 2 | Project Gutenberg

ab, subs. 1. (University and school boys’).—An adventitious aid to study; a ‘crib’; a pony (q.v. for synonyms). [From cabbage (q.v.) = pilferings.]

1853. Rev. E. Bradley (‘Cuthbert Bede’). Adventures of Verdant Green. Those who can’t afford a coach get a cab, alias a crib, alias a translation.

1876. Academy, 4 Nov., p. 448, col. 2. The use or translations, ‘cribs,’ or ‘cabs’ as boys call them, must at some time or other engage the serious attention of schoolmasters. [m.]

2. (old).—A brothel: in use during the early part of the present century; now obsolete. [Probably a contracted form of ‘cabin,’ some of the older senses of which (e.g., a small room, bedroom, or boudoir) are in correspondence. Parallels exist in other languages, and comparison may be made with the Fr. cabane, and Sp. cabaña; also with the Latin taberna = cabin, hut, and brothel. The It. bordello (Eng. bordel) was originally precisely equivalent to taberna and cabaña, being a diminutive of borda = cottage, cabin, shed, house of boards. All these words, and many similar (e.g., Latin cella, cellula, the petite maison of the French) came to be applied in the specifically esoteric sense under discussion, by an obvious euphuism or familiarism, which left the nature of the hut, booth, cell, or cabin to be supplied by those who understood. Further, ‘cabin’ = an Eng. rendering of the Latin cella, cellula = brothel. Also Cab-Moll (q.v.), a prostitute, originally the moll or molly of a cabin, cabane, or brothel, the present meaning being a popular misuse founded on a mistaken analysis.] For all synonyms, see Nanny-shop.

1811. Lexicon Balatronicum. Mother, hew many tails have you in your cab? i.e., how many girls have you in your bawdy house?

Verb (colloquial).—1. To proceed from one place to another by means of a cab; Cf., ‘to foot or hoof it,’ ‘to tram it,’ ‘to train it,’ or ‘to ’bus it.’

1882. Blackwood’s Magazine, Feb., p. 238, col. 1. He … cabs off to take advice.

2. (schoolboys’).—To pilfer; to use a crib. Cf., Cabbage, verb, of which it is an abbreviation.

Cabbage, subs. (old).—1. Generally applied to pieces purloined by tailors; attributively to any small profits in the shape of material. Quoted by Johnson as ‘a canting term,’ but now recognised. There is little chance of cabbage nowadays, save amongst those who ‘make up gentlemen’s own material’; but the expression is well understood by low-class dressmakers. In America a corresponding term is ‘cold-slaw’ (q.v.) which consists of finely-cut cabbage, and represents the small remnants known in other quarters as ‘carpet-rags’ or cabbage. Cf., Pigeon skewings. The derivation is obscure. Murray traces it back to 1663 (Hudibras [spurious]), but points out that Herrick [1648] apparently uses garbage and carbage for ‘shreds and patches used as padding.’ He then goes on to say that ‘if this was a genuine use at the time, carbage may easily have been corrupted to cabbage.’ This difficulty can, I think, be removed. In the seventeenth century, a style of feminine headdress, then in vogue, very similar to the modern chignon, was called a cabbage. Thus in Mundus Muliebris [1690]:

Now, if this usage (omitted from the N.E.D.) be compared with the three quotations first following, it would appear (1) that the word cabbage was in use prior to carbage or garbage for ‘shreds and patches’; (2) that carbage and garbage contain a sarcastic reference to the materials with which a woman’s cabbage, or chignon, was stuffed; and (3) that in every quotation the play upon words appears to confirm these contentions. Hence, if cabbage as a mode of dressing the hair was current during the seventeenth century (I have come across no earlier instance), it is possible that the stages of transition were as follows:—

There is no evidence in support of such guesses as those in, for example, the quotations dated 1853 and 1886.

1638. Randolph, Hey for Honestey (Old Play). Tailor. Nay, he has made me sharper than my needle; makes me eat my own cabbage.

1648. Herrick, Hesperides (Hazl.), I., 79. Upon some women, Pieces, patches, ropes of haire, In-laid garbage ev’rywhere.

1648. Herrick, Hesperides (Hazl.). II., 325. Eupez for the outside of his suite has paide; But for his heart, he cannot have it made; The reason is, his credit cannot get The inward carbage for his cloathes as yet.

1663. Hudibras, II., 56. For as tailors preserve their cabbage, So squires take care of bag and baggage. [3]

1742. Charles Johnson, Highwaymen and Pyrates, p. 343. She takes him into Pissing Alley, in Hollywell Street, otherwise called the backside of St. Clement’s in the Strand, so eminently noted for Taylors selling there their cabbage.

1748. T. Dyche, Dictionary (5 ed.). Cabbage (s.) … also a cant word to express anything that is pilfered privately, as pieces of cloth or silk retained by taylors, mantua-makers, or others.

1821. Cobbett, Weekly Register 28 April, col. 219. Taylor, of Charing Cross, will allow of no thumb-piece and of no cabbage.

1853. Notes and Queries, 1 S., viii., 315, col. 2. The term cabbage, by which tailors designate the cribbed pieces of cloth, is said to be derived from an old word ‘cablesh,’ i.e., wind-fallen wood. And their ‘hell’ where they store the cabbage, from helan, to hide.

1886. G. A. Sala, in Ill. Lon. News, 16 Oct., 394, 1. My correspondent’s derivation of cabbage from caboged [caboged = ‘cabossed’ or ‘caboched’ in heraldry, in Fr. cabochée. See Littré] is good; but there is another one, namely, cabas, a basket in which the pickings and stealings of cloth might be hoarded.

The place where cabbage is stored is termed hell (q.v.) or one’s eye (q.v.); these terms, as also goose (q.v.), a smoothing iron, are responsible for much cheap wit. Cf., Makings and Pickings. The Spanish has sisa = ‘a petty theft.’

2. (old).—A tailor; sometimes cabbager, and formerly cabbage-contractor (q.v.). For synonyms, see Button-catcher and Snip.

1690. B. E., Dict. Cant. Crew. Cabbage: a Taylor, and what they pinch from the Cloaths they make up.

1725. New Cant. Dict. Cabbage: Taylors are so called, because of their … Love of that Vegetable. The cloth they steal and purloin … is also called cabbage.

3. (old).—A style of dressing the hair similar to the modern chignon. [For suggested derivation, see sense 1.] Fr. un kilo.

1690. Mundus Muliebris. Behind the noddle every baggage, Wears bundle ‘choux,’ in English cabbage.

4. (schoolboys’).—A translation or ‘crib’; sometimes shortened to cab (q.v., sense 2).

1868. Brewer, Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, p. 129. Cabbage is also a common schoolboy term for a literary crib, or other petty theft.

5. (common).—A cigar. The French have une feuille de platane = a plane-tree leaf; also un crapulos or crapulados, a Hispanization of crapule = filth. For synonyms, see Weed.

1843. Punch’s Almanack, August 12. The cigar dealers, objecting to their lands being cribbed, have made us pay for the cabbage ever since.

1848. Punch, vol. XIV., p. 298. q. Are cigars an English invention? a. No! the cigar is a Spanish article, that has been merely cabbaged by the British manufacturer.

1853. C. S. Calverley, Verses and Translations, p. 141 [ed. 1881], Carmen Sæcularæ. O fumose puer nimuim ne crede Baconi Manillas vocat, hoc prætexit nomine caules.

1889. Ally Sloper’s Half-Holiday, July 6. Last week he offered me a weed—A worse one no man’s lips e’er soiled. ‘No, thanks,’ said, ‘I, know the breed; I much prefer my cabbage boiled.’

6. (venery).—The female pudendum. Cf., Greens. For synonyms, see Monosyllable.

1712. Arbuthnot, History of John Bull, pt. I., ch. x. Your tailor, instead of shreds, cabbages whole yards of cloth.

1870. New York Evening Sun, May 24. Report of Speech of Mr Chandler. Let us knock the British crown to flinders; let us arrange for some one or two hundred thousand British graves forthwith, and cabbage the whole boundless continent without any further procrastination. [4]

1882. Notes and Queries, 6 S., vi., 210. But he said, If I cabbage that ring to-night, I shall be all the richer to-morrow.

2. (schoolboys’).—To use a translation or other adventitious aid in preparing exercises; to ‘crib.’

1837. Gen. P. Thompson, Exerc. (1842), IV., 234. A speech, which … had been what schoolboys call cabbaged, from some of the forms of oration … published by way of caricature [m.]

1862. H. Marryat, Year in Sweden, II., 387. Steelyards … sent by Gustaf Wasa as checks upon country dealers, who cabbaged, giving short weight. [m.]

So also cabbaged, ppl. adj., pilfered, or stolen; and cabbaging, verbal subs., pilfering, purloining.

Cabbage-Contractor, subs. (old).—A tailor. [From cabbage (q.v., subs., sense 1) = contractor, a trader.] For synonyms, see Button-catcher and Snip.

Cabbage-Gelder, subs. (old).—A greengrocer or market gardener.—A.B.C. of a New Dictionary of Flash, Cant, and Slang [1866].

Cabbage-Head, subs. (popular).—A fool; a soft-head; a ‘go-along.’ For synonyms generally, see Buffle, and more particularly infra.

English Synonyms. Blockhead; chuckle-head; chowder-head; cod’s-head; chump or chump of wood; dunderhead; flat; go-along; goosecap; green-lander; gulpin; juggins; thick-head; lights; loony; looby; lubber; mooney; mug; muggins; muff; ninny-hammer; nincompoop; nizzie; pigeon; sawney; Simon, or Simple Simon; slow-coach; soft-horn; sop; Tom Tug. To which may be added ‘cupboard-headed,’ ‘half-boiled,’ ‘not all there,’ and ‘off one’s chump,’ used also of one not compos mentis; a thick (Winchester College).

French Synonyms. Une tête de pioche (popular: pioche = pickaxe or mattock); un poulet d’Inde (popular: poule d’Inde = turkey-hen); un couillé (popular); un paroissien de Saint Pierre aux bœufs (popular); un noc (popular = a ‘juggins’); un loffiat (popular: this is formed from a species of French back slang, lof = fol reversed. On the same lines we get la loffitude = ‘stupidity’ or ‘nonsense’; bonisseur de loffitudes = ‘a nonsense monger’; also solliceur de loffitudes = ‘a journalist’); un Jean-bête (common: Cf., English ‘Johnnie’ and ‘Jack’); barré (= cabbage-headed); une vieille bouillote (popular); une bourriche (popular: ‘a hamper’); une badouille (popular: also = ‘a hen-pecked husband’); être déboulonné (popular: literally = ‘unpinned’ or ‘unbolted’); un fifilolo (popular); un daim (popular); être de la tribu des Bênicoco (military); être du 14 bénédictins (popular); une bestiasse (this term has passed into the language); bête comme chou (= ‘extremely stupid’); bête comme un pôt (= a perfect ass); bête comme ses pieds (= an arrant fool); un abruti or ahuri de Chaillot (popular: Chaillot, in the suburbs of Paris, is a common butt, much as are Hanwell, Colney Hatch, etc.; abrutir = ‘to stupify, to besot, to imbrute’); une tête de boche (common: = a wooden head; also a German); un bidon de zinc (military = ‘a can’ or ‘flask’); un [5]cul or cul d’âne (popular: cul d’âne = ‘the rump of an ass’; Cf., English ‘ass’); un cantaloup (popular: literally a melon); un cube (a ‘regular idiot’); un canarie; être un c (a euphemistic phrase); un busard or buson or une buse (an allusion to the stupidity of the buzzard); une couenne (popular: = ‘pig-skin.’ ‘Est-il couenne!’ ‘What an ass!’); un coquardeau; un couillon (popular: a cullion, used in friendly jocularity = abashed, crestfallen, and above all idiotic); un espèce de cafouilleux (popular = ‘a bally bounder’); un arguche (thieves’); battre comtois (thieves’ = to play the fool); un baveux (a driveller: one who does not know what he is talking about); un boniface (popular); n’avoir pas cassé la patte à coco (thieves’ = ‘as big a bloody mug as they make ’em’).

Spanish Synonyms. Asnazo (m; properly ‘a big jackass’); asno (m); bambarria (m; also = an accidental but successful stroke at billiards, ‘a fluke’); bobalias (m; a colloquialism for ‘a very stupid fellow’); borro (m; properly a wether not two years old); echacantos (m); gentil hombre de placer (= ‘a buffoon’ or ‘clown’); guillote (m; literally a husbandman, one who enjoys the produce of a farm. Cf., ‘joskin’); Juan lanas (vulgar); mamacallos or mamaluco (m); naranjo (m; properly the citrus aurantium); pandero (m; also ‘a timbrel’); pinchauvas (m = a despicable person); porra (f); es un solemne bobo (‘he is a downright booby’); zamacuco.

1682. Mrs. Behn, False Count (1724), III., 146. Thou foul, filthy cabbage-head. [m.]

1862. Lowell, Biglow Papers, II., 228. For take my word for ’t, when all’s come and past, The Cabbage-heads ’ll cair the day at last.

c. 1880. Broadside Ballad, ‘Right before the missis too.’ I’ve had a dreadful row All through a chum named Tommy Sheen, I ought to call him cabbage-head, He is so very green.

Cabbage-Leaf, subs. (common).—A bad cigar; usually contracted into cabbage (q.v., subs., sense 5). [From a popular theory of material.] In French un infectados by a play upon words in two languages, infect, Fr. = more than common, vile, and infectar, Sp. = ‘to infect’ or ‘be infected’. For synonyms, see Weed.

Cabbage Plant, subs. (old).—An umbrella; gamp (q.v.); or brolly.

Cabbager, subs. (common).—A tailor. [From cabbage (q.v., subs., sense 1) + er.] For synonyms, see Button-catcher and Snip.

Cabbage-Stumps, subs. (common).—The legs. For synonyms, see Drumsticks.

Cabbage-Tree Mob, subs. (Australian). Old for what are now called Larrikins (q.v.). [Derived from the low-crowned cabbage-palm hat affected by this section of Australian society.] Cabbagites was an alternative.

18(?). Lieut.-Col. Munday, Our Antipodes. Loafers known as the cabbage-tree mob, a class whom, in the spirit of the ancient tyrant, one might excusably wish had but one nose in order to make it a bloody one. Ibid. Unaware of the propensities of the cabbagites, he was by them furiously assailed. [6]

Cabby, subs. (colloquial).—A cabman. [From cab + y.] Amongst French equivalents are une hirondelle (properly = ‘a swallow’); un maraudeur (i.e., ‘a marauder,’ one who plies without a license; Cf., Pirate (q.v.), as applied to omnibuses.)

1852. F. E. Smedley, Lewis Arundel, ch. xxxiii. I was forced to offer him a seat in the cab, but he coolly replied, ‘No, thank ye … I’ll sit beside cabby.’

1864–5. Yates, Broken to Harness, II., p. 41. Easy, cabby; we don’t want to be thrown into the very midst of the aristocracy.

1890. Standard, Feb. 11, p. 3, col. 1. There was a Vienna cabby with his jolly red face and his professional impudence.

Cable, verb (popular).—To send a telegram by ocean (submarine) wire.

To slip or cut one’s cable, subs. phr. (nautical).—To die. For exhaustive lists of synonymous terms, see Aloft and Hop the twig.

Cable-Hanger, subs. (nautical).—Explained by quotations.

1724–7. Defoe, Tour thro’ G. Britain (ed. 1748), I., 150. Persons who dredge or fish for oysters, not being free of the fishery, are called cable-hangers, and are prosecuted and punished by the Court.

1867. Smyth, Sailors’ Word Book. Cable-hanger, a person catching oysters, in the River Medway, not free of the fishery.

Cab-Moll, subs. (old).—A prostitute addicted professionally to cabs and trains. [From cab (q.v., sense 2) + moll (q.v.), a strumpet.] For synonyms, see Barrack-hack and Tart.

Cabobbled, ppl. adj. (nautical).—Confused; puzzled; perplexed.

Caboodle, subs. (American).—A crowd; generally ‘the whole caboodle.’ [Thought to be an enlarged form of boodle which is frequently used in the same sense, and which is supposed by some to be derived from the old English bottel, a bundle (Fr. botel, boteau. Ger. beutel.). See, however, Boodle, subs., sense 1. Another derivation is from the Spanish cabildo, a provincialism for the corporation of a town.] Caboodle is general throughout the States, and has now almost completely supplanted boodle (q.v.), which is usually applied in a different sense. Sometimes caboose (q.v.)

1858. New Orleans Picayune, 23 Feb. The whole caboodle came out and fell upon me, till I was as soft as a squash, and then they took me up for fighting.

1887. Scribner’s Magazine. Ye’ve got ter have faith in Goddie-mighty then, sure, a-swingin’ up an’ down them mount’n-sides, dark nights or bright, when a rock on the track f’om a landslide ’ud fling the whole caboodle down the mount’n an inter kingdom come afo’ you’d know it.

Caboose, subs. (American).—Generally applied to convivial quarters; also to a bachelor’s snuggery—a den (q.v.) or diggings (q.v.). [Properly a ship’s cook-house or galley; and in the United States, a car on a freight train for workmen, or for a special purpose.]

The whole caboose, phr. (nonce expression).—Obviously a variation of caboodle (q.v.).

1870. London Figaro, 19 Oct. ‘After the Fire.’ In this room, sir, said my gallant conductor, lived a bricklayer with his wife and two kids. He made that hole in the wall, and got ’em safe through—the whole caboose on ’em; and a jolly good job he did. [7]

Cacafuego, subs. (old).—A spitfire; braggart; bully. [From the Latin cacare through the Spanish cagar, ‘to void excrement,’ + Spanish fuego, fire.] This word, once literary, has long fallen into desuetude. It was regarded as vulgar after the middle of the last century, and thereafter was only included in slang dictionaries.

1625. Fletcher, Fair Maid, III., i. She will be ravisht before our faces, by rascalls and cacafugos, wife, cacafugoes. [m.]

1696. Phillips. Cacafuego, a Spanish word signifying Shitéfire; and it is used for a bragging, vapouring fellow. [m.]

1811. Lexicon Balatronicum. Cacafeugo. A sh-te-fire, a furious braggadocio or bully huff.

Cachunk! intj. (American).—Onomatopœic—the ‘bow-wow’ word of Max Müller—belonging to a class of exclamations intended to convey an imitation of the sound of a falling body. Uncertain as regards orthography they are largely affected in the Southern and Western States. Mainly of recent origin, though two, keswollop and kewhollux rare in the States, are not unfamiliar to English ears. Examples are:—Caswash; Cawhalux; Chewallop; Casouse; Cathump; Kerplunk; Katouse; Katoose; Kelumpus; Kerchunk; Kerplunk; Kerswosh; Kerslosh; Kerswollop; Kerblinkityblunk; and Kerblam.

Cackle, subs. (theatrical).—1. The dialogue of a play; especially used at first, of the patter of clowns, etc., in a circus. [From the figurative usage of cackle, to make a noise as a hen after laying an egg, a usage traceable as far back as 1225.]

1887. Referee, 21 August, p. 2, col. 3. Those [playgoers] who do not insist upon a very high order of literary quality in the cackle.

1676. A. Rivetus, Jun. Mr. Smirke, 18. Bedawb’d with Addle Eggs of the Animadverters own Cackle.

1887. Punch, 10 Sept., p. 111. If a feller would tackle a feminine fair up to Dick, he ’as got to be dabs at the cackle.

Verb (old).—To talk idly, especially in the sense of telling secrets. For synonyms, see Peach.

1785. Grose, Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue. The cull is leaky and cackles; the rogue tells all.

1882. Punch, LXXXII., 177, 2. The old jokers in scarlet and erming who lounge in their red bedroom-chairs, And the cinder-wig’d toffs in alpaca who cackle and give themselves airs.

Cackle-Chucker, subs. (theatrical).—A prompter. [From cackle, the dialogue of a play, + chucker, one who throws out (from the mouth).]

Cackle-Merchant, subs. (theatrical).—A dramatic author. [From cackle, the dialogue of a play, + merchant. Cf., Caper-merchant, a dancing-master.]

Cackler, subs. (old).—1. A fowl. [From cackle (q.v.) + er.]—See also Cackling cheat.

1749. Life of Bamphylde-Moore Carew. Oath of the ‘Canting Crew.’ No dimber damber, angler, dancer, Prig of cackler, prig of prancer.

1854. Dickens, Hard Times, bk. I., ch. vi., p. 14 (H. ed.). ‘He has his points as a Cackler still … a speaker, if the gentleman likes it better.’

Cackler’s-Ken, subs. (old).—A hen-roost; a fowl-house. [From cackler (q.v., subs., sense 1), a fowl, + ken (q.v.), a place or house.] A French thieves’ equivalent is une ornière (from ornie, a hen).

Cackle-Tub, subs. (old).—A pulpit. [From cackle (q.v.) + tub, in allusion to the shape of old-fashioned pulpits.] For synonyms, see Hum-box.

1888. Musgrave, Savage London. I sorter think if yer’ll borrow Lucy’s chair to wheel me, I’ll go and sit under the cackle-tub in Little Bethel next Sunday.

Cackling-Cheat or Chete, subs. (old).—A fowl. [From cackling, that cackles, + cheat, From A.S. ceat, a thing.]—See Cheat.

English Synonyms. Beaker; cackler; margery prater; galeny; partlet; chickabiddy; rooster; chuck-chuck; chuckie.

French Synonyms. Un becquant (a thieves’ term); un ornichon (also a thieves’ term for a chicken); un pique-en-terre (literally ‘a peck-the-ground’); une estable or une estaphle (thieves’); bruantez (Breton slang).

Italian Synonyms. Ruspante or raspante (properly ‘scratching’ or ‘scraping’).

Spanish Synonyms. Capiscol (this, and indeed all the terms here given from the Germania, refer to the cock-bird. Capiscol = Fr. caporal); obispo (properly a bishop); rey (literally king).

1567. Harman, Caveat, p. 86. She has a cackling-chete, a grunting-chete, ruff pecke, cassan, and poplarr of yarum.

1622. Fletcher, Beggar’s Bush, v. 1. Or surprising a boor’s ken for grunting-cheats? Or cackling-cheats?

Cackling-Cove, subs. (theatrical and common).—An actor. [From cackling (see Cackle, subs., sense 1) + cove, an old canting term for a man.]

English Synonyms. Mummery-cove; mug-faker; mummer; mugger (properly an actor who makes free play with his face); tragedy or comedy merchant; pro; stroller; cackle-faker; barn-stormer; surf.

French Synonyms. Un prètre (thieves’: literally ‘a priest’: a curious sidelight on the views concerning religious orders of the criminal classes); un raze or razi pour l’af (thieves’: raze or razi = priest; and affe in old French cant signified ‘life’ or ‘the soul,’ but latterly eau d’affe = [9]‘brandy.’ There seems, however, little connection between either of these readings and the example under consideration); un Egyptien (theatrical: a term applied to a bad or inferior actor); un acteur-guitare (a term specially applied to one who elicits applause in lacrymose scenes only—an actor with only one string to his bow); un enleveur (theatrical: one who plays in such a way as to enlever la salle, i.e., ‘to bring down the house’); une doublure (an understudy); un cab, cabot, or cabotin, (used mainly in contempt, much in the same way as ‘mummer.’ Cabotinage is the life of hardship led by strolling players, and thence, by derivation, the life of the ‘profession’ generally); un brûleur de planches (theatrical: a spirited or restless actor); un acteur brûlé (popular: one that has had his day); un bouch trou (theatrical: an understudy or stop-gap); un bouleur or une bouleuse (a substitute, or understudy); un misloquier or une misloquière (thieves’); un nom (theatrical: ‘a star’).

Cackling-Fart, subs. (old).—An egg. [From cackling (see Cackle) + fart (q.v.) a discharge of wind through the anus.] A variant in English is hen-fruit; Fr. un avergot (thieves’); the Breton cant has bruant, whilst in the German Gaunersprache is found Dickmann (also = the penis and testes); the Fourbesque has arbifi and alberto (the latter from the Italian albo, white).

Cad, subs. (popular).—A term of contempt now generally applied to an offensively ill-bred person, irrespective of social position. Formerly used of underlings and others performing menial offices. [Murray favours its origin in cadet and the popular forms cadee and caddie. See, however, Cadator, the quotations under which appear to suggest a collateral, if an independent origin. Some regard the word as a contraction of ‘cadger’; whilst others trace it to the Scotch ‘cadie’ or ‘caddie,’ an errand boy—now an attendant at golf; or to the slang University sense of the word, a non-member]. The vocable has passed through a variety of meanings.

1836. Dickens, Pickwick, ch. xxxiii., p. 279. He paused, and contemplated, with a face of great calmness and philosophy, the numerous cads and drivers of short stages who assemble near that famous place of resort [the Mansion-House].

1851–61. H. Mayhew, London Lab. and Lon. Poor, vol. III., p. 355. The conductor, who is vulgarly known as the cad, stands on a small projection at the end of the omnibus.

1835. T. Hook, Gilbert Gurney, ch. vii. I will appear to know more of you than one of the cads of the thimble-rig knows of the pea-holder.

1839. T. Hood, Miss Kilmansegg, p. 230. Not to forget that saucy lad (Ostentation’s favourite cad), The page, who looked so splendidly clad. [10]

1843. J. Hewlett, College Life, I., p. 115. Webb’s boy, who went as cad with the dog.

6. (University and public schools’).—A contemptuous term applied to non-school or non-University men. At Cambridge snob, the word Thackeray used, has long been a common term for a townsman; now the undergrad says Townee or Towner (q.v.). The German analogue is Philister. Dr. Günther (Jena and its Environs) tells that of the old towers and gates which formed the entrance to Jena, the square one to the west alone remains; and is remarkable not only for its prison, called ‘The Cheese-Basket,’ but for four images of monkeys’ heads carved at the several corners of the gate itself. In a quarrel between students and townsfolk in the vicinity of the Johannis-Thor, the former dubbed the watchmen there ‘the monkey watchmen.’ The guard vowed vengeance, and one evening killed a student who had taken no part in the disturbance. The ecclesiastical superintendent, Götz, preached a sermon at the boy’s funeral from Judges xvi. 20, ‘The Philistines be upon thee, Samson!’ and that night his text was heard in the street, Philister über dir Samson! ‘Henceforward the citizens were called ‘Philister’ by the students; and, the name being exported to the other Universities, it came at length to be applied to burgher folk throughout Germany.’ According to some this fight occurred in 1693. For synonyms, see Rank outsider.

1831. Hone, Year Book, 670. Preceded by one or two bands of music in two boats, rowed by cads.

1856. Rev. E. Bradley (‘Cuthbert Bede’), Adventures of Verdant Green, I., p. 117. And I can chaff a cad.

1860. Macmillan’s Mag., March p. 327. You don’t think a gentleman can lick a cad, unless he is the biggest and strongest of the two.

1873. Saturday Review, September, p. 305. At Oxford the population of the University and city is divided into ‘Dons, men and cads.’

7. (general).—A vulgar, ill-mannered person; a blackguard, i.e., a person incapable of moral decency. For synonyms, see Snide.

1849. Charles Kingsley, Alton Locke. ‘The cads,’ ‘the snobs,’ ‘the blackguards,’ looked on with a dislike, contempt, and fear which they were not backward to return.

1860. Thackeray, Lovell the Widower, p. 245. There’s a set of cads in that club that will say anything.

1880. Punch’s Almanack, 12. Lor’ if I’d the ochre, make no doubt I could cut no end of big-pots out. Call me a cad? When moneys in the game, cad and swell are pooty much the same.

1882. F. Anstey, Vice Versâ, ch. vii. Perhaps your old governor has been making a cad of himself then, and you’re out of sorts with him.

1889. Answers, Feb. 23, p. 205, col. 3. You wouldn’t care to know Goodfellow, Miss Smart; he’s awfully bad form—a regular cad, you know.

Cadator, subs. (old).—A beggar in the character of a decayed gentleman.

1703. Ward, London Spy, pt. I., p. 7. He is one of those gentile [? genteel] Mumpers, we call Cadators; he goes a Circuit round England once a year, and under Pretence of a decay’d gentleman, gets both Money and Entertainment at every good House he comes at.

ed. 1760. T. Brown, Works, II., 179. You … sot away your time in Mongo’s fumitory, among a parcel of old smoak-dry cadators.

Caddie, subs. (Scots).—An attendant at golf.

1889. Scots Observer, Feb. Oh, my Caddie, my Caddie ye’re a vera intelligent laddie. But I dinna like yer grinnin When I’m no exactly winnin’. [11]

Caddish, adj. (popular).—Vulgar; offensively ill-bred. [From Cad (q.v., sense 7) + ish.]

1869. Shirley Brooks, Sooner or Later, II., p. 31. ‘Well I don’t care about walking on Sundays. Religious scruples, perhaps.’ ‘I should think not. But it seems so caddish—like snobs who can go out on no other day.’

1872. Civilian, Aug. 10. There are many sorts of Ministerial insolence at present ‘on view’ in the House of Commons. Mr. Ayrton’s is coarse and caddish, the Attorney-General’s contemptuously courteous, and Mr. Lowe’s cynically and facetiously insulting.

1874. E. L. Linton, Patricia Kemball, ch. xx. ‘However, I have brought you here to reason, not to wrangle,’ he continued more quietly; ‘and wrangling is caddish.’

Cade, subs. (society).—The Burlington Arcade. [An abbreviated form of ‘Arcade.’] Cf., The Zoo for ‘the Zoological gardens,’ The Proms. for ‘the Promenade Concerts,’ The Pops. for ‘the Monday Popular Concerts,’ and The Cri. for the ‘Criterion Bar.’ Somewhat older examples are The Lane (q.v.) and The House (q.v.).

Cadge, subs. (vulgar).—The profession of cadging or begging.—See verbal sense.

1812. J. H. Vaux, Flash Dictionary. The cadge is the game or profession of begging.

1832–53. Whistle-Binkie (Sc. Songs), Ser. II., 68. He could ‘lay on the cadge’ better than ony walleteer that e’er cost a pock o’er his shouther.

Verb tr. and intr.—To obtain by begging; to beg. Now applied to vagrants and others who solicit in an artful wheedling manner. [A comparatively modern derivative. Cadger (Scots) a pedlar or carrier, i.e., one who strolls the country with his stock-in-trade in a cadge, i.e., a panier or basket for the carriage of small wares. Cf., ‘to beg,’ from ‘bag.’] Hence said of anyone who lives by sponging on another, or who gets a livelihood without giving a proper quid pro quo. For example, a waiter when hanging about for ‘a tip’ is said to be cadging or ‘on the cadge.’ Among intimates To Cadge a dinner or supper is now often used without implied reproach.

1846. Lytton, Lucretia, II., xii. ‘I be’s good for nothin’ now, but to cadge about the streets and steal and filch. [m.]

1866. G. A. Sala, Trip to Barbary. ch. xiv. Thumping the tom-tom, and cadging for coppers.

1833. Daily Telegraph, Feb. 8, p. 3, col. 1. ‘It’s as bad a’ most as drawing peoples’ teeth to cadge a trifle off them in such winter months as we’ve had since the Autumn broke.’

English Synonyms. To mump; to pike; to mouch; to stand the pad; to maund; to tramp; to mike.

French Synonyms. Bettander (thieves’); aller à la chasse avec un fusil de toile (popular: literally ‘to go hunting with a canvas gun,’ an allusion to the necessary wallet or bag); bellander (tramps’; Cf., bettander; possibly some confusion has arisen between these two terms); balauder (tramps’); truquer de la pogne (tramps’); trucher (Old Cant, from truc, any kind of open air small trade or artifice. The word appears in various French, Italian and Spanish dialects, whilst Méril in his Dictionnaire du pâtois Normand allies it with the English ‘trick’); tendre la demi-aune (popular: [12]demi-aune = the arm); cameloter (popular: meaning also to sell, cheapen, or tramp); faire le coup de manche, or faire la manche (to call at people’s houses); mendigoter (popular).

German Synonyms. Abgeilen (to get by begging. From the O.H.G. gil); abschnurren (to beg through a lane, town, or province; also = to take to one’s heels; M.H.G. snurren, schnurren (q.v., infra) and Schnurrant, a beggar musician); bimmeln (Bimmler, Bummler, a beggar or vagrant); benschen (a corruption of the Latin benedicere = to say grace after meat; from praying to begging is but a step); paternellen (perhaps, like the foregoing, a formation, from the Latin pater noster, signifying to say much pater); noppeln (vagrants’); Schnurren, schnorren, snurren, (from the O.H.G. snurren, to grind, to grind out music on a hurdy-gurdy [q.v.], or to grind out prayers. A beggar or vagrant is termed Schnurrer, Schnorrer, or Snurrer = a grinder. Auf die Pille schnurren = to beg by feigning epileptic fits; auf Serffleppe schnurren = to beg on the pretence of having been ‘burnt out’; Schnurrpilsel, Schnurrscheye, Scenurrschicksel, Schurrkeibelche, and Schnurrmädchen, are epithets for very young girls who are beggars or strumpets as occasion fits; the dual occupation being known as Kommistarchenen and Hemdenschnurren); tarchenen, targenen, dörgen, dorchen (‘to beg’ or ‘to hawk.’ The derivation is obscure, but it is possibly to be found in the Hebrew tirgel, ‘to teach to walk’ or ‘to guide the foot.’ Others trace it to the O.H.G. Turg, ‘uncertain’ or to storgen from Störger, ‘a wandering quack.’ The Fiesellange, or Viennese thieves’ lingo, has Tarchener as equivalent to Kegler, a kitchen thief); linkstappeln (to beg or collect money under false pretences; see Linkstappler under cadger); prachern (probably from the Hebrew berocha, a blessing: wandering beggars generally introducing themselves with some sort of a benediction); Schnallendrücken gehen, or auf Schnallen, drücken gehen (these terms also signify to walk the streets as a prostitute. Schnalle = untruth, cheating, deception, and the female pudendum); stabeln, stappeln, and stapeln (the first of these forms is peculiar to Vienna, and all are traceable to Stiban or Stap, the Anglo-Saxon staff. The meaning is to go with a begging staff, generally with a pretence of having seen better days); dalfen and dalfern (the corresponding noun Dalfon = a poor fellow, is supposed to be derived from Dalfon, the only one of the ten sons of Haman, whose name had not the letter aleph either at the beginning or end of it [Esther ix. 7–9]. The story goes that because of this he was not only hanged, but mocked into the bargain: the feast in commemoration of Haman’s fall being essentially a merrymaking. Thenceforth, a poor man became a Dalfon); deufen gehen = to go begging with the intention of committing a robbery. Cf., O.H.G. Diufa, Deube = theft; fechten, Viennese thieves’ lingo).

Italian Synonyms. Truccare (identical with the French truquer q.v.); Santocchiare (also = ‘to [13]say one’s prayers’); calcheggiare (also = to steal).

Cadge-Cloak or Gloak, subs. (old).—A beggar. For synonyms, see Cadger.

1791. Carew, Life and Adventures of Bamphylde-Moore Carew. Cadge-cloak, curtal, or curmudgeon; no Whip-Jack, palliard, patrico … nor any other will I suffer.

Cadger, subs. (common).—Primarily a carrier, pedlar, or itinerant dealer; now mainly applied to a whining beggar; also, occasionally, a ‘sponger,’ snide (q.v.), or ‘mean man’ (see quots.). [From cadge (q.v.) + er.]

English Synonyms. Abram man; croaker, Abraham cove; Tom of Bedlam; Bedlam beggar; maunderer, moucher; pikey; traveller; turnpike, or dry land sailor; scoldrum; shyster; Shivering James; silver beggar; skipper-bird; mumper; paper-worker; goose-shearer; master of the black art; durrynacker.

French Synonyms. Un trucheur, or un trucheux (Old Cant, from truc, which see under Cadge); un marcandier or une marcandière (thieves’; a variety of the mendicant tribe which is described in le Jargon de l’Argot as ‘those who journey with a great purse by their side, with a pretty good coat, and a cloak on their shoulders, pretending they have met with robbers who have stolen all their money’); les millards. (Old Cant); un bêcheur; une comète (popular: ‘a comet’—one here and there); les callots; un enfant de la loupe (thieves’); un loupiat (popular); un mendigot (thieves’); un lartin (Old Cant).

German Synonyms. Dalfon (see Cadge); Techtbrud (Viennese thieves’); Gomol (from the Hebrew, and used only as a nickname); Hochstappler (a beggar cheat who has seen better days. Cf., Stappler and Linkstappler); Linkstappler (a beggar by means of false papers; a dealer in sham lottery tickets; or a ‘snide’ collector for purposes of charity); Pracher (possibly from the Hebrew berocha, ‘a blessing,’ in allusion to the mumper’s benediction); Schnallendrücker (from Schnalle = ‘an untruth,’ ‘cheating,’ or ‘deception,’ + Trecker, one who pulls); Schnurrer (see under Cadge); Stabeler (see under Cadge); Standjunge (a beggar frequenting markets, fairs, and public processions).

Italian Synonyms. Campagno di calca (campagno = companion or comrade, calca = ‘crowd’); calco (see preceding); corteggiano or cortigiano (literally ‘a courtier’); cavorante di scarpe (literally ‘working shoes’; specially applied to a beggar who is also a pickpocket); granchetto (especially one who patters in flash (q.v.); truccante (also = a thief); guido or guidone (literally ‘a guide’; also = a ‘dog’ or a ‘companion’); incatenato an old and decrepit beggar’s boy-leader. Literally one put up or hung up in chains).

1821.—W. T. Moncrieff, Tom and Jerry, Act ii., Sc. 6. Cadgers make holiday, Hey, for the maunder’s joys, Let pious ones fast and pray, They save us the trouble, my boys.

1851.—Mayhew, Lon. Lab. and Lon. Poor, I., 339. A street seller nowadays is [14]looked upon as a ‘cadger,’ and treated as one.

1882.—Daily Telegraph, 5 Oct., p. 3. col. 1. See on a Saturday night, in Whitechapel, the rank hypocritical cadger, whose coarse disguise of cleanness and respectability would scarcely deceive the most foolish persons at the West-end.

1884.—Jas. Greenwood, The Little Ragamuffins. I may here remark that amongst people of my born grade no one is so contemptuously regarded as he who is known as a cadger. The meaning they set on the word is not the dictionary meaning. The cadger with them is the whining beggar, the cowardly impostor, who being driven or finding it convenient to subsist on charity, goes about his business with an affectation of profoundest humility, and a consciousness of his own unworthiness; a sneaking, abject wretch, aiming to crop a meal out of the despising and disgust he excites in his fellow-creatures.

Cadging, verbal subs. (common).—Begging, frequently eked out by petty pilfering. [From cadge (q.v.) + ing.]

1859. H. Kingsley, Geoffrey Hamlyn, ch. xv. I’ve got my living by casting fortins, and begging, and cadging, and such like.

1873. Jas. Greenwood, In Strange Company. But what one in vain looked for was the ‘jolly beggar,’ the oft-quoted and steadfastly believed in personage who scorns work because he can ‘make’ in a day three times the wages of an honest mechanic by the simple process of cadging.

Cady, subs. (common).—A hat. [Derivation unknown.] Sometimes written cadey and caddy. For synonyms, see Golgotha.

1886. The A.B.C. of New Dictionary of Flash, Cant, Slang, etc., p. 85. Caddy: a man’s hat.

1887. Walford’s Antiquarian, April, p. 251. Sixpence I gave for my cadey A penny I gave for my stick.

Caffan.—See Cassan.

Caffre’s Lightener, subs. (South African).—A full meal. Fr. une lichance (from licher = lécher, ‘to lick’).

1864. Lady Duff Gordon. Letters from the Cape. I asked him [a young black shepherd at the Cape] to sing; and he flung himself at my feet, in an attitude that would make Watts crazy with delight, and crooned queer little mournful ditties. I gave him sixpence and told him not to get drunk. He said, ‘Oh, no! I will buy bread enough to make my belly stiff; I almost never had my belly stiff.’ He likewise informed me that he had just been in the tronk [Cape Dutch slang for a prison, answering to the English stone jug], and, on my asking why, replied, ‘Oh, for fighting and telling lies.’

Cage, subs. (old).—1. A minor kind of prison for petty malefactors; a country ‘lock-up.’ [From cage, a place of confinement for birds, beasts, and, formerly, human beings.] Once in literary use; now thieves’ slang.

1500. Lancelot, 2767. As cowart thut schamfully to ly Excludit in to cage from chewalry. [m.]

1593. Shakspeare, II. Henry VI., iv., 2. Dick. Ay, by my faith, the field is honorable, and there he was born, under a hedge; for his father had never a house but the cage.

1748. T. Dyche, Dictionary (5 ed). Cage (s): a place of confinement for thieves or vagrants that are taken up by the watch in the night-time, to secure them till the proper officer can carry them before a magistrate.

1815. Scott, Guy Mannering, ch. liii. I was doomed—still I kept my purpose in the cage and in the stocks.

1839. Harrison Ainsworth, Jack Sheppard [1882], p. 78. The cage at Willesden was, and is—for it is still standing—a small round building about eight feet high, with a pointed tiled roof, to which a number of boards inscribed with the names of the parish officers, and charged with a multitude of admonitory notices to vagrants and other disorderly persons, are attached. [15]

1841. Punch, vol. I., p. 3. ‘A synopsis of voting.’ He who is incited into an assault, that he may be put into the cage.

English Synonyms. For a prison generally, academy; boat; boarding-house; bower; block-house; bastille; bladhunk; stone-jug; jug; calaboose; cooler; coop; downs; clink; jigger; Irish theatre; quod; shop; stir; clinch; steel; sturrabin; mill; toll shop; floating hell; floating academy; dry room; House that Jack Built; choakee.

Among special names for particular prisons may be mentioned Bates’s Farm or Garden (Cold Bath Fields); Akerman’s Hotel (Newgate); Castieu’s Hotel (Melbourne Gaol); Burdon’s Hotel (White Cross Street Prison); Ellenborough Lodge, Spike or Park (the King’s Bench Prison, to which, as a matter of fact, every Chief Justice stood god-father); Campbell’s Academy (the Hulks); City College and Whittington’s College (Newgate); Tench; Pen; and Smith’s Hotel (Edinburgh).

French Synonyms. Le castue (thieves’); la caruche (thieves’); la boîte aux cailloux (thieves’); cailloux = stones; Cf., ‘stone jug’; le collège (thieves’: Newgate at one time was called the City College); la cage (popular); le château (thieves’: literally a castle, château de l’ombre = a convict settlement); la chambre de sûreté (the parish prison of the Conciergerie); le chetard (thieves’); le canton (thieves’: according to Ménage in his Dictionnaire Etymologique, the original sense of this word is the same as coin. From canton has been derived the verb, cantonner, a military term signifying the billetting of troops in one or more villages); en ballon (popular: in prison); la grosse boîte (thieves’: literally the big box); la bonde (thieves’: a central prison); la Biscaye (thieves’); l’abbaye de sots bougres (thieves’: obsolete = The Silly Bugger’s Arms); le bloc (a military prison or cell, Cf., block-house); la dure (thieves’: a central prison, dur is properly hard, merciless, obdurate); la femme de l’adjudant (a military lock-up, jigger, or Irish theatre; literally the adjutant’s wife); la bagnole (popular: a diminutive of bagne, of the same meaning); la motte (thieves’: a central prison or house of correction); l’hôpital (thieves’: a man in durance is un malade = a patient); la mitre (thieves’: a corruption of mithridate, the name of a certain ointment; mitre formerly meant ‘itch’); le jetar (military; the same as chetar); l’ours (common: a term given to a prison, guard-room, or cell); la boîte à violon (a lock-up at a police-station; violon itself signifies a prison, the barred windows being compared to the strings of that instrument. Argot and Slang says:—The lingo terms jouer de la harpe, to be in prison, and jouer du violon, to file through the window bars of a cell, seem to bear out this explanation. Some philologists, however, think that the stocks being termed psaltérion, mettre an psaltérion, to put in the stocks, became synonymous with ‘to imprison,’ the expression being superseded in time by mettre au violon when that instrument itself [16]superseded the psaltérion); la tuneçon (Old Cant); l’austo (a military prison); le lycée (thieves’: = ‘academy’); l’école préparatoire (pop.: a preparatory school for young thieves); le lazaro (military: = lazar-house, or ‘spike’); le mazaro (military: = cells); la matatane (military: ‘a guard room’ or the cells); le loustaud (thieves’); la lorcefé (thieves’: the old prison of La Force); le loir (thieves’ = ‘dormouse’); l’hosto (soldiers’ and thieves’: also popularly, ‘a house or crib’); la grotte (thieves’: the hulks. Properly a grotto or crypt); l’hôtel des haricots (familiar: from the staple of diet, Cf., Ger. Erbsien and Graupenpalais); la morte paye sur mer (obsolete: the hulks); l’ombre (popular: = ‘shade,’ Cf., Ger. Kühle); la maze (abbreviation of Mazas, a central prison in Paris); là-bas (prostitutes: St. Lazare; thieves’: the convict settlement at New Caledonia, or in Cayenne); la malle (military: Cf., English ‘box’).

German Synonyms. Antoniklosterl (Viennese thieves’ = a prison in Vienna); Drillbajis or Drillhaus (a house of drill or correction); Echetel (Viennese thieves’); Erbsien (Viennese thieves’: from the staple of diet—Erbsen = peas. Cf., Graupenpalais); Graupenpalais (a prison in Berlin, from the staple of diet—barley); Grannigebais (Granigire Marochum = a fortress); Gymnasium (Cf., college, academy, lycée); Kaan or Kân (from the Hebrew; im Kaan scheften, to be in prison); Kue or Kuh (in die Kue sperren; to imprison); Kitt or Kittchen (from the Hebrew Kisse = a chair, throne, roof, common lodging-house, brothel, workhouse, and prison); Kille (literally an assembly); Kühle (im Kühlen sitzen, literally to sit in the ‘cooler’ or in the shade; Cf., être à l’ombre, and ‘to be under a cloud’); Leck (Viennese thieves’ M.H.G., luken, to lock up); Mifzer (Hebrew pozar, a fortress or prison); Schofelbajis (from the Hebrew schophal, bad, common, low, or unfortunate. Also a brothel); Stube (this, according to Zimmermann, signifies a prison); Tallesmasky (Hanoverian: from tallo, gallows, + masky from Maskopei, society, i.e., gallows-birds); T’fise (from the Hebrew tophas).