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 HARP

 

BEAU TRAP		A loose stone in a pavement, under which water lodges, and on being trod upon, squirts it up, to the great damage of white stockings; also a sharper neatly dressed, lying in wait for raw country squires, or ignorant fops.
BLACKLEGS		A gambler or sharper on the turf or in the cockpit: so called, perhaps, from their appearing generally in boots; or else from game-cocks whose legs are always black.
BLIND HARPERS		Beggars counterfeiting blindness, playing on fiddles, etc.
BUCK BAIL		Bail given by a sharper for one of the gang.
CAPTAIN SHARP		A cheating bully, or one in a set of gamblers, whose office is to bully any pigeon, who, suspecting roguery, refuses to pay what he has lost.
CAT HARPING FASHION		Drinking cross-ways, and not, as usual, over the left thumb. SEA TERM.
CROSS BITE		One who combines with a sharper to draw in a friend; also, to counteract or disappoint. - This is peculiarly used to signify entrapping a man so as to obtain CRIM. COM. money, in which the wife, real or supposed, conspires with the husband.
CUCKOLD		The husband of an incontinent wife: cuckolds, however, are Christians, as we learn by the following story: An old woman hearing a man call his dog Cuckold, reproved him sharply, saying, 'Sirrah, are not you ashamed to call a dog by a Christian's name ?' To cuckold the parson; to bed with one's wife before she has been churched.
CUNNING SHAVER		A sharp fellow, one that trims close, i.e. cheats ingeniously.
DING BOY		A rogue, a hector, a bully, or sharper.
FOX		A sharp, cunning fellow. Also an old term for a sword, probably a rusty one, or else from its being dyed red with blood; some say this name alluded to certain swords of remarkable good temper, or metal, marked with the figure of a fox, probably the sign, or rebus, of the maker.
FULHAMS		Loaded dice are called high and lowmen, or high and low fulhams, by Ben Jonson and other writers of his time; either because they were made at Fulham, or from that place being the resort of sharpers.
GAMBLER		A sharper, of tricking, gamester.
GOLD DROPPERS		Sharpers who drop a piece of gold, which they pick up in the presence of some unexperienced person, for whom the trap is laid, this they pretend to have found, and, as he saw them pick it up, they invite him to a public house to partake of it: when there, two or three of their comrades drop in, as if by accident, and propose cards, or some other game, when they seldom fail of stripping their prey.
GREEN		Young, inexperienced, unacquainted; ignorant. How green the cull was not to stag how the old file planted the books. How ignorant the booby was not to perceive how the old sharper placed the cards in such a manner as to insure the game.
HARP		To harp upon; to dwell upon a subject. Have among you, my blind harpers; an expression used in throwing or shooting at random among the crowd. Harp is also the Irish expression for woman, or tail, used in tossing up in Ireland: from Hibernia, being represented with a harp on the reverse of the copper coins of that country; for which it is, in hoisting the copper, i.e. tossing up, sometimes likewise called music.
HAWK		Ware hawk; the word to look sharp, a bye-word when a bailiff passes. Hawk also signifies a sharper, in opposition to pigeon. See PIGEON. See WARE HAWK.
JACK IN A BOX, A sharper, or cheat		A child in the mother's womb.
JEW		An over-reaching dealer, or hard, sharp fellow; an extortioner: the brokers formerly behind St. Clement's church in the Strand were called Jews by their brethren the taylors.
MACE COVE		A swindler, a sharper, a cheat. On the mace; to live by swindling.
MUSIC		The watch-word among highwaymen, signifying the person is a friend, and must pass unmolested. Music is also an Irish term, in tossing up, to express the harp side, or reverse, of a farthing or halfpenny, opposed to the head.
NEEDLE POINT		A sharper.
NEWGATE BIRD		A thief or sharper, frequently caged in Newgate.
PICAROON		A pirate; also a sharper.
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.
QUEER BAIL		Insolvent sharpers, who make a profession of bailing persons arrested: they are generally styled Jew bail, from that branch of business being chiefly carried on by the sons of Judah. The lowest sort of these, who borrow or hire clothes to appear in, are called Mounters, from their mounting particular dresses suitable to the occasion.
QUEER BLUFFER		The master of a public-house the resort of rogues and sharpers, a cut-throat inn or alehouse keeper.
ROSE		Under the rose: privately or secretly. The rose was, it is said, sacred to Harpocrates, the God of silence, and therefore frequently placed in the ceilings of rooms destined for the receiving of guests; implying, that whatever was transacted there, should not be made public.
RUM BOB		A young apprentice; also a sharp trick.
RUM FUN		A sharp trick.
SCRATCH		Old Scratch; the Devil: probably from the long and sharp claws with which he is frequently delineated.
SHARK		A sharper: perhaps from his preying upon any one he can lay hold of. Also a custom-house officer, or tide-waiter. Sharks; the first order of pickpockets. BOW- STREET TERM, A.D. 1785.
SHARP		Subtle, acute, quick-witted; also a sharper or cheat, in opposition to a flat, dupe, or gull. Sharp's the word and quick's the motion with him; said of any one very attentive to his own interest, and apt to take all advantages. Sharp set; hungry.
SHARPER		A cheat, one that lives by his wits. Sharpers tools; a fool and false dice.
STRUM		To have carnal knowledge of a woman; also to play badly on the harpsichord; or any other stringed instrument. A strummer of wire, a player on any instrument strung with wire.
SWEETNESS		Guinea droppers, cheats, sharpers. To sweeten to decoy, or draw in. To be sweet upon; to coax, wheedle, court, or allure. He seemed sweet upon that wench; he seemed to court that girl.
TART		Sour, sharp, quick, pert.
THRUM		To play on any instrument sttfnged with wire. A thrummer of wire; a player on the spinet, harpsichord, of guitar.
TUMBLER		A cart; also a sharper employed to draw in pigeons to game; likewise a posture-master, or rope-dancer. To shove the tumbler, or perhaps tumbril; to-be whipt at the cart's tail.
WEASEL-FACED		Thin, meagre-faced. Weasel-gutted; thin-bodied; a weasel is a thin long slender animal with a sharp face.
WHEEDLE		A sharper. To cut a wheedle; to decoy by fawning or insinuation.
WHET		A morning's draught, commonly white wine, supposed to whet or sharpen the appetite.
WHIPSTER		A sharp or subtle fellow.
WOODEN HORSE		To fide the wooden horse was a military punishment formerly in use. This horse consisted of two or more planks about eight feet long, fixed together so as to form a sharp ridge or angle, which answered to the body of the horse. It was supported by four posts, about six feet long, for legs. A head, neck, and tail, rudely cut in wood, were added, which completed the appearance of a horse. On this sharp ridge delinquents were mounted, with their hands tied behind them; and to steady them (as it was said), and lest the horse should kick them off, one or more firelocks were tied to each leg. In this situation they were sometimes condemned to sit an hour or two; but at length it having been found to injure the soldiers materially, and sometimes to rupture them, it was left off about the time of the accession of King George I. A wooden horse was standing in the Parade at Portsmouth as late as the year 1750.