The Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue dates from 1811 and this is probably the only full, uncensored and searchable version of this dictionary on the internet. All the original crudities have been restored and it offers an interesting perspective on Common English from the time of the Regency and Jane Austen.

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Entries releated to CUR

 

AMEN CURLER		A parish clerk.
AUNT		Mine aunt; a bawd or procuress: a title of eminence for the senior dells, who serve for instructresses, midwives, etc. for the dells. See DELLS.
BAWD		A female procuress.
BELL, BOOK, AND CANDLE		They cursed him with bell, book, and candle; an allusion to the popish form of excommunicating and anathematizing persons who had offended the church.
BELLY PLEA		The plea of pregnancy, generally adduced by female felons capitally convicted, which they take care to provide for, previous to their trials; every gaol having, as the Beggar's Opera informs us, one or more child getters, who qualify the ladies for that expedient to procure a respite.
BLAST		To curse.
BLIND EXCUSE		A poor or insufficient excuse. A blind ale-house, lane, or alley; an obscure, or little known or frequented ale-house, lane, or alley.
CHEEKS		Ask cheeks near cunnyborough; the repartee of a St. Gilse's fair one, who bids you ask her backside, anglice her arse. A like answer is current in France: any one asking the road or distance to Macon, a city near Lyons, would be answered by a French lady of easy virtue, 'Mettez votre nez dans mon cul, & vous serrez dans les Fauxbourgs.'
CLOSE		As close as God's curse to a whore's arse: close as shirt and shitten arse.
CODS		The scrotum. Also a nick name for a curate: a rude fellow meeting a curate, mistook him for the rector, and accosted him with the vulgar appellation of Bol - ks the rector, No, Sir, answered he; only Cods the curate, at your service.
COG		To cheat with dice; also to coax or wheedle, To cog a die; to conceal or secure a die. To cog a dinner; to wheedle one out of a dinner.
CRIMP		A broker or factor, as a coal crimp, who disposes of the cargoes of the Newcastle coal ships; also persons employed to trapan or kidnap recruits for the East Indian and African companies. To crimp, or play crimp; to play foul or booty: also a cruel manner of cutting up fish alive, practised by the London fishmongers, in order to make it eat firm; cod, and other crimped fish, being a favourite dish among voluptuaries and epicures.
CUR		A cut or curtailed dog. According to the forest laws, a man who had no right to the privilege of the chase, was obliged to cut or law his dog: among other modes of disabling him from disturbing the game, one was by depriving him of his tail: a dog so cut was called a cut or curtailed dog, and by contraction a cur. A cur is figuratively used to signify a surly fellow.
CURBING LAW		The act of hooking goods out of windows: the curber is the thief, the curb the hook.
CURE ARSE		A dyachilon plaister, applied to the parts galled by riding.
CURLE		Clippings of money, which curls up in the operation.
CURMUDGEON		A covetous old fellow, derived, according to some, from the French term coeur mechant.
CURRY		To curry favour; to obtain the favour of a person be coaxing or servility. To curry any one's hide; to beat him.
CURSE OF GOD		A cockade.
CURSE OF SCOTLAND		The nine of diamonds; diamonds, it is said, imply royalty, being ornaments to the imperial crown; and every ninth king of Scotland has been observed for many ages, to be a tyrant and a curse to that country. Others say it is from its similarity to the arms of Argyle; the Duke of Argyle having been very instrumental in bringing about the union, which, by some Scotch patriots, has been considered as detrimental to their country.
CURSITORS		Broken petty-fogging attornies, or Newgate solicitors.
CURTAILS		Thieves who cut off pieces of stuff hanging out of shop windows, the tails of women's gowns, etc.; also, thieves wearing short jackets.
CURTAIN LECTURE		A woman who scolds her husband when in bed, is said to read him a curtain lecture.
CURTEZAN		A prostitute.
DAVID'S SOW		As drunk as David's sow; a common saying, which took its rise from the following circumstance: One David Lloyd, a Welchman, who kept an alehouse at Hereford, had a living sow with six legs, which was greatly resorted to by the curious; he had also a wife much addicted to drunkenness, for which he used sometimes to give her due correction. One day David's wife having taken a cup too much, and being fearful of the consequences, turned out the sow, and lay down to sleep herself sober in the stye. A company coming in to see the sow, David ushered them into the stye, exclaiming, there is a sow for you! did any of you ever see such another? all the while supposing the sow had really been there; to which some of the company, seeing the state the woman was in, replied, it was the drunkenest sow they had ever beheld; whence the woman was ever after called David's sow.
DEVIL		A printer's errand-boy. Also a small thread in the king's ropes and cables, whereby they may be distinguished from all others. The Devil himself; a small streak of blue thread in the king's sails. The Devil may dance in his pocket; i.e. he has no money: the cross on our ancient coins being jocularly supposed to prevent him from visiting that place, for fear, as it is said, of breaking his shins against it. To hold a candle to the Devil; to be civil to any one out of fear: in allusion to the story of the old woman, who set a wax taper before the image of St. Michael, and another before the Devil, whom that saint is commonly represented as trampling under his feet: being reproved for paying such honour to Satan, she answered, as it was uncertain which place she should go to, heaven or hell, she chose to secure a friend in both places. That will be when the Devil is blind, and he has not got sore eyes yet; said of any thing unlikely to happen. It rains whilst the sun shines, the Devil is beating his wife with a shoulder of mutton: this phenomenon is also said to denote that cuckolds are going to heaven; on being informed of this, a loving wife cried out with great vehemence, 'Run, husband, run!'The Devil was sick, the Devil a monk would be; The Devil was well, the Devil a monk was he.a proverb signifying that we are apt to forget promises made in time of distress. To pull the Devil by the tail, to be reduced to one's shifts. The Devil go with you and sixpence, and then you will have both money and company.
DUFFERS		Cheats who ply in different parts of the town, particularly about Water-lane, opposite St. Clement's church, in the Strand, and pretend to deal in smuggled goods, stopping all country people, or such as they think they can impose on; which they frequently do, by selling them Spital-fields goods at double their current price.
FEAGUE		To feague a horse; to put ginger up a horse's fundament, and formerly, as it is said, a live eel, to make him lively and carry his tail well; it is said, a forfeit is incurred by any horse-dealer's servant, who shall shew a horse without first feaguing him. Feague is used, figuratively, for encouraging or spiriting one up.
FLUX		To cheat, cozen, or over-reach; also to salivate. To flux a wig; to put it up in curl, and bake it.
FLY-BY-NIGHT		You old fly-by-night; an ancient term of reproach to an old woman, signifying that she was a witch, and alluding to the nocturnal excursions attributed to witches, who were supposed to fly abroad to their meetings, mounted on brooms.
FUNK		To smoke; figuratively, to smoke or stink through fear. I was in a cursed funk. To funk the cobler; a schoolboy's trick, performed with assafoettida and cotton, which are stuffed into a pipe: the cotton being lighted, and the bowl of the pipe covered with a coarse handkerchief, the smoke is blown out at the small end, through the crannies of a cobler's stall.
GREEN		Doctor Green; i.e. grass: a physician, or rather medicine, found very successful in curing most disorders to which horses are liable. My horse is not well, I shall send him to Doctor Green.
GUTS		My great guts are ready to eat my little ones; my guts begin to think my throat's cut; my guts curse my teeth: all expressions signifying the party is extremely hungry.
HEDGE		To make a hedge; to secure a bet, or wager, laid on one side, by taking the odds on the other, so that, let what will happen, a certain gain is secured, or hedged in, by the person who takes this precaution; who is then said to be on velvet.HEDGE ALEHOUSE. A small obscure alehouse.
HEDGE PRIEST		An illiterate unbeneficed curate, a patrico.
KERRY SECURITY		Bond, pledge, oath, and keep the money.
LEG		To make a leg; to bow. To give leg-bail and land security; to run away. To fight at the leg; to take unfair advantages: it being held unfair by back-sword players to strike at the leg. To break a leg; a woman who has had a bastard, is said to have broken a leg.
LION		To tip the lion; to squeeze the nose of the party tipped, flat to his face with the thumb. To shew the lions and tombs; to point out the particular curiosities of any place, to act the ciceroni: an allusion to Westminster Abbey, and the Tower, where the tombs and lions are shewn. A lion is also a name given by the gownsmen of Oxford to an inhabitant or visitor. It is a standing joke among the city wits to send boys and country folks, on the first of April, to the Tower-ditch, to see the lions washed.
MOONCURSER		A link-boy: link-boys are said to curse the moon, because it renders their assistance unnecessary; these gentry frequently, under colour of lighting passengers over kennels, or through dark passages, assist in robbing them.
NAILED		Secured, fixed. He offered me a decus, and I nailed him; he offered me a crown, and I struck or fixed him.
NAP		To cheat at dice by securing one chance. Also to catch the venereal disease. You've napt it; you are infected.
NICKNACKS		Toys, baubles, or curiosities.
NIMGIMMER		A physician or surgeon, particularly those who cure the venereal disease.
ONION		A seal. Onion hunters, a class of young thieves who are on the look out for gentlemen who wear their seals suspended on a ribbon, which they cut, and thus secure the seals or other trinkets suspended to the watch.
PARSON'S JOURNEYMAN		A curate.
PEEPING TOM		A nick name for a curious prying fellow; derived from an old legendary tale, told of a taylor of Coventry, who, when Godiva countess of Chester rode at noon quite naked through that town, in order to procure certain immunities for the inhabitants, (notwithstanding the rest of the people shut up their houses) shly peeped out of his window, for which he was miraculously struck blind. His figure, peeping out of a window, is still kept up in remembrance of the transaction.
PIMP		A male procurer, or cock bawd; also a small faggot used about London for lighting fires, named from introducing the fire to the coals.
PLUMP CURRANT		I am not plump currant; I am out of sorts.
PRY		To examine minutely into a matter or business. A prying fellow; a man of impertinent curiosity, apt to peep and inquire into other men's secrets.
RAP		To take a false oath; also to curse. He rapped out a volley; i.e. he swore a whole volley of oaths. To rap, means also to exchange or barter: a rap is likewise an Irish halfpenny. Rap on the knuckles; a reprimand.
RATTLE-TRAPS		A contemptuous name for any curious portable piece of machinery, or philosophical apparatus.
RING		Money procured by begging: beggars so called it from its ringing when thrown to them. Also a circle formed for boxers, wrestlers, and cudgel-players, by a man styled Vinegar; who, with his hat before his eyes, goes round the circle, striking at random with his whip to prevent the populace from crowding in.
RUG		It is all rug; it is all right and safe, the game is secure.
RUMFORD		To ride to Rumford to have one's backside new bottomed: i.e. to have a pair of new leather breeches. Rumford was formerly a famous place for leather breeches. A like saying is current in Norfolk and Suffolk, of Bungay, and for the same reason. - Rumford lion; a calf. See ESSEX LION.
SCOLD'S CURE		A coffin. The blowen has napped the scold's cure; the bitch is in her coffin.
SHANNON		A river in Ireland: persons dipped in that river are perfectly and for ever cured of bashfulness.
SHIT SACK		A dastardly fellow: also a non-conformist. This appellation is said to have originated from the following story: - After the restoration, the laws against the non-conformists were extremely severe. They sometimes met in very obscure places: and there is a tradition that one of their congregations were assembled in a barn, the rendezvous of beggars and other vagrants, where the preacher, for want of a ladder or tub, was suspended in a sack fixed to the beam. His discourse that day being on the last judgment, he particularly attempted to describe the terrors of the wicked at the sounding of the trumpet, on which a trumpeter to a puppet-show, who had taken refuge in that barn, and lay hid under the straw, sounded a charge. The congregation, struck with the utmost consternation, fled in an instant from the place, leaving their affrighted teacher to shift for himself. The effects of his terror are said to have appeared at the bottom of the sack, and to have occasioned that opprobrious appellation by which the non-conformists were vulgarly distinguished.
SICK AS A HORSE		Horses are said to be extremely sick at their stomachs, from being unable to relieve themselves by vomiting. Bracken, indeed, in his Farriery, gives an instance of that evacuation being procured, but by a means which he says would make the Devil vomit. Such as may have occasion to administer an emetic either to the animal or the fiend, may consult his book for the recipe.
SMOKY		Curious, suspicious, inquisitive.
SNEAKSBY		A mean-spirited fellow, a sneaking cur.
SPANISH PADLOCK		A kind of girdle contrived by jealous husbands of that nation, to secure the chastity of their wives.
SQUEEZE WAX		A good-natured foolish fellow, ready to become security for another, under hand and seal.
SWELLED HEAD		A disorder to which horses are extremely liable, particularly those of the subalterns of the army. This disorder is generally occasioned by remaining too long in one livery-stable or inn, and often arises to that height that it prevents their coming out at the stable door. The most certain cure is the unguentum aureum - not applied to the horse, but to the palm of the master of the inn or stable. N. B. Neither this disorder, nor its remedy, is mentioned by either Bracken, Bartlet, or any of the modern writers on farriery.
TOP LIGHTS		The eyes. Blast your top lights. See CURSE.
UPRIGHT MAN		An upright man signifies the chief or principal of a crew. The vilest, stoutest rogue in the pack is generally chosen to this post, and has the sole right to the first night's lodging with the dells, who afterwards are used in common among the whole fraternity. He carries a short truncheon in his hand, which he calls his filchman, and has a larger share than ordinary in whatsoever is gotten in the society. He often travels in company with thirty or forty males and females, abram men, and others, over whom he presides arbitrarily. Sometimes the women and children who are unable to travel, or fatigued, are by turns carried in panniers by an ass, or two, or by some poor jades procured for that purpose.
VENUS'S CURSE		The venereal disease.
VOWEL		A gamester who does not immediately pay his losings, is said to vowel the winner, by repeating the vowels I. O. U. or perhaps from giving his note for the money according to the Irish form, where the acknowledgment of the debt is expressed by the letters I. O. U. which, the sum and name of the debtor being added, is deemed a sufficient security among gentlemen.
WARREN		One that is security for goods taken up on credit by extravagant young gentlemen. Cunny warren; a girl's boarding-school, also a bawdy-house.
WHIFFLERS		Ancient name for fifers; also persons at the universities who examine candidates for degrees. A whiffling cur, a small yelping cur.
WHORE'S CURSE		A piece of gold coin, value five shillings and three pence, frequently given to women of the town by such as professed always to give gold, and who before the introduction of those pieces always gave half a guinea.
WIND		To raise the wind; to procure money.
YARMOUTH CAPON		A red herring: Yarmouth is a famous place for curing herrings.