Share on Facebook
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.
Select a letter or type a word and click Find. Searches are automatically wild-carded and clicking on words in the first column will look for all occurrences of that word, or related word.
Example:You click A and one of the results is ARSE. If you now click on ARSE the full list of related content will be displayed.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
Select a letter or type a word and click Find. Searches are automatically wild-carded and clicking on words in the first column will look for all occurrences of that word, or related word.
Example:You click A and one of the results is ARSE. If you now click on ARSE the full list of related content will be displayed.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
Entries releated to DOUBLE
| An hypocrite, a double-tongue palavering fellow | See PALAVER. | |
| APPLE-PYE BED | A bed made apple-pye fashion, like what is called a turnover apple-pye, where the sheets are so doubled as to prevent any one from getting at his length between them: a common trick played by frolicsome country lasses on their sweethearts, male relations, or visitors. | |
| APRIL FOOL | Any one imposed on, or sent on a bootless errand, on the first of April; which day it is the custom among the lower people, children, and servants, by dropping empty papers carefully doubled up, sending persons on absurd messages, and such like contrivances, to impose on every one they can, and then to salute them with the title of April Fool. This is also practised in Scotland under the title of Hunting the Gowke. | |
| CUNNY-THUMBED | To double one's fist with the thumb inwards, like a woman. | |
| DILIGENT | Double diligent, like the Devil's apothecary; said of one affectedly diligent. | |
| DOG IN A DOUBLET | A daring, resolute fellow. In Germany and Flanders the boldest dogs used to hunt the boar, having a kind of buff doublet buttoned on their bodies, Rubens has represented several so equipped, so has Sneyders. | |
| DOUBLE | To tip any one the double; to run away in his or her debt. | |
| DOUBLE JUGG | A man's backside. Cotton's Virgil. | |
| DRAGOONING IT | A man who occupies two branches of one profession, is said to dragoon it; because, like the soldier of that denomination, he serves in a double capacity. Such is a physician who furnishes the medicines, and compounds his own prescriptions. | |
| 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. | |
| FAWNEY RIG | A common fraud, thus practised: A fellow drops a brass ring, double gilt, which he picks up before the party meant to be cheated, and to whom he disposes of it for less than its supposed, and ten times more than its real, value. See MONEY DROPPER. | |
| GALLOPER | A blood horse. A hunter. The toby gill clapped his bleeders to his galloper and tipped the straps the double. The highwayman spurred his horse and got away from the officers. | |
| HUMMING LIQUOR | Double ale, stout pharaoh. See PHARAOH. | |
| IRON | Money in general. To polish the king's iron with one's eyebrows; to look out of grated or prison windows, or, as the Irishman expresses them, the iron glass windows. Iron doublet; a prison. See STONE DOUBLET. | |
| JUG | See DOUBLE JUG. | |
| LOGGERHEAD | A blockhead, or stupid fellow. We three loggerheads be: a sentence frequently written under two heads, and the reader by repeating it makes himself the third. A loggerhead is also a double-headed, or bar shot of iron. To go to loggerheads; to fall to fighting. | |
| PASSAGE | A camp game with three dice: doublets, making up ten or more, to pass or win; any other chances lose. | |
| SLANG | A fetter. Double slanged; double ironed. Now double slanged into the cells for a crop he is knocked down; he is double ironed in the condemned cells, and ordered to be hanged. | |
| STONE | Two stone under weight, or wanting; an eunuch. Stone doublet; a prison. Stone dead; dead as a stone. | |
| THREE THREADS | Half common ale, mixed with stale and double beer. | |
| TRIPE | The belly, or guts. Mr. Double Tripe; a fat man. Tripes and trullibubs; the entrails: also a jeering appellation for a fat man. | |