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.

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Entries releated to GAN

 

ARCH ROGUE, DIMBER DAMBER UPRIGHT MAN		The chief of a gang of thieves or gypsies.
BANG UP		Quite the thing, hellish fine. Well done. Compleat. Dashing. In a handsome stile. A bang up cove; a dashing fellow who spends his money freely. To bang up prime: to bring your horses up in a dashing or fine style: as the swell's rattler and prads are bang up prime; the gentleman sports an elegant carriage and fine horses.
BANKRUPT CART		A one-horse chaise, said to be so called by a Lord Chief Justice, from their being so frequently used on Sunday jaunts by extravagant shop-keepers and tradesmen.
BAYARD OF TEN TOES		To ride bayard of ten toes, is to walk on foot. Bayard was a horse famous in old romances, BEAK. A justice of-peace, or magistrate. Also a judge or chairman who presides in court. I clapp'd my peepers full of tears, and so the old beak set me free; I began to weep, and the judge set me free.
BEGGAR'S BULLETS		Stones. The beggar's bullets began to fly, i.e. they began to throw stones.
BIRDS OF A FEATHER		Rogues of the same gang.
BROGANIER		One who has a strong Irish pronunciation or accent.
BUCK BAIL		Bail given by a sharper for one of the gang.
CARRIERS		A set of rogues who are employed to look out and watch upon the roads, at inns, etc. in order to carry information to their respective gangs, of a booty in prospect.
CREW		A knot or gang; also a boat or ship's company. The canting crew are thus divided into twenty-three orders, which see under the different words: MEN. 1 Rufflers 2 Upright Men 3 Hookers or Anglers 4 Rogues 5 Wild Rogues 6 Priggers of Prancers 7 Palliardes 8 Fraters 9 Jarkmen, or Patricoes 10 Fresh Water Mariners, or Whip Jackets 11 Drummerers 12 Drunken Tinkers 13 Swadders, or Pedlars 14 Abrams. WOMEN. 1 Demanders for Glimmer or Fire 2 Bawdy Baskets 3 Morts 4 Autem Morts 5 Walking Morts 6 Doxies 7 Delles 8 Kinching Morts 9 Kinching Coes
DARKMAN'S BUDGE		One that slides into a house in the dark of the evening, and hides himself, in order to let some of the gang in at night to rob it.
DEVIL'S DAUGHTER		It is said of one who has a termagant for his wife, that he has married the Devil's daughter, and lives with the old folks.
DIE HARD, or GAME		To die hard, is to shew no signs of fear or contrition at the gallows; not to whiddle or squeak. This advice is frequently given to felons going to suffer the law, by their old comrades, anxious for the honour of the gang.
DILLY		An abbreviation of the word DILIGENCE. A public voiture or stage, commonly a post chaise, carrying three persons; the name is taken from the public stage vehicles in France and Flanders. The dillies first began to run in England about the year 1779.
DIMBER DAMBER		A top man, or prince, among the canting crew: also the chief rogue of the gang, or the completest cheat.
DONE UP		Ruined by gaming and extravagances. Modern Term.
DUNEGAN		A privy. A water closet.
FOYST		A pickpocket, cheat, or rogue. See WOTTON'S GANG.
GAN		The mouth or lips.
GANDER MONTH		That month in which a man's wife-lies in: wherefore, during that time, husbands plead a sort of indulgence in matters of gallantry.
GANG		A company of men, a body of sailors, a knot of thieves, pickpockets, etc. A gang of sheep trotters; the four feet of a sheep.
HEAD CULLY OF THE PASS, or PASSAGE BANK		The top tilter of that gang throughout the whole army, who demands and receives contribution from all the pass banks in the camp.
HELL CAT		A termagant, a vixen, a furious scolding woman. See TERMAGANT and VIXEN.
KING OF THE GYPSIES		The captain, chief, or ringleader of the gang of misrule: in the cant language called also the upright man.
KNOT		A crew, gang, or fraternity. He has tied a knot with his tongue, that he cannot untie with his teeth: i.e. he is married.
LARRY DUGAN'S EYE WATER		Blacking: Larry Dugan was a famous shoe-black at Dublin.
ORGAN		A pipe. Will you cock your organ? will you smoke your pipe?
PAY		To smear over. To pay the bottom of a ship or boat; to smear it over with pitch: The devil to pay, and no pitch hot or ready. SEA TERM. - Also to beat: as, I will pay you as Paul paid the Ephesians, over the face and eyes, and all your d - -d jaws. To pay away; to fight manfully, also to eat voraciously. To pay through the nose: to pay an extravagant price.
PENNY-WISE AND POUND FOOLISH		Saving in small matters, and extravagant in great.
PIGEONS		Sharpers, who, during the drawing of the lottery, wait ready mounted near Guildhall, and, as soon as the first two or three numbers are drawn, which they receive from a confederate on a card, ride with them full speed to some distant insurance office, before fixed on, where there is another of the gang, commonly a decent looking woman, who takes care to be at the office before the hour of drawing: to her he secretly gives the number, which she insures for a considerable sum: thus biting the biter.
SIZAR		Formerly students who came to Cambridge University for purposes of study and emolument. But at present they are just as gay and dissipated as their fellow collegians. About fifty years ago they were on a footing with the servitors at Oxford, but by the exertions of the present Bishop of Llandaff, who was himself a sizar, they were absolved from all marks of inferiority or of degradation. The chief difference at present between them and the pensioners, consists in the less amount of their college fees. The saving thus made induces many extravagant fellows to become sizars, that they may have more money to lavish on their dogs, pieces, etc.
SQUEAKER		A bar-boy; also a bastard or any other child. To stifle the squeaker; to murder a bastard, or throw It into the necessary house. - Organ pipes are likewise called squeakers. The squeakers are meltable; the small pipes are silver.
TERMAGANT		An outrageous scold from Termagantes, a cruel Pagan, formerly represented in diners shows and entertainments, where being dressed a la Turque, in long clothes, he was mistaken for a furious woman.
THREE-LEGGED MARE, or STOOL		The gallows, formerly consisting of three posts, over which were laid three transverse beams. This clumsy machine has lately given place to an elegant contrivance, called the NEW DROP, by which the use of that vulgar vehicle a cart, or mechanical instrument a ladder, is also avoided; the patients being left suspended by the dropping down of that part of the floor on which they stand. This invention was first made use of for a peer. See DROP.
TOP ROPES		To sway away on all top ropes; to live riotously or extravagantly.
VIXEN		A termagant; also a she fox, who, when she has cubs, is remarkably fierce.
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.
WHIDDLER		An informer, or one that betrays the secrets of the gang.
WIGANNOWNS		A man wearing a large wig.
YELLOW		To look yellow; to be jealous. I happened to call on Mr. Green, who was out: on coming home, and finding me with his wife, he began to look confounded blue, and was, I thought, a little yellow.