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 GENTLE CRAFT

 

CRISPIN		A shoemaker: from a romance, wherein a prince of that name is said to have exercised the art and mystery of a shoemaker, thence called the gentle craft: or rather from the saints Crispinus and Crispianus, who according to the legend, were brethren born at Rome, from whence they travelled to Soissons in France, about the year 303, to propagate the Christian religion; but, because they would not be chargeable to others for their maintenance, they exercised the trade of shoemakers: the governor of the town discovering them to be Christians, ordered them to be beheaded, about the year 303; from which time they have been the tutelar saints of the shoemakers.
GENTLE CRAFT		The art of shoeniaking. One of the gentle craft: a shoemaker: so called because once practised by St. Crispin.
SAINT MONDAY		A holiday most religiously observed by journeymen shoemakers, and other inferior mechanics. a profanation of that day, by working, is punishable by a line, particularly among the gentle craft. An Irishman observed, that this saint's anniversary happened every week.