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  

 

IDEA POT		The knowledge box, the head. See KNOWLEDGE BOX.
IMPOST TAKERS		Usurers who attend the gaming-tables, and lend money at great premiums.
IMPUDENT STEALING		Cutting out the backs of coaches, and robbing the seats.
IMPURE		A modern term for a lady of easy virtue.
IN TWIG		Handsome; stilish. The cove is togged in twig; the fellow is dressed in the fashion.
INCHING		Encroaching.
INDIA WIPE		A silk handkerchief.
INDIES		Black Indies; Newcastle.
INDORSER		A sodomite. To indorse with a cudgel; to drub or beat a man over the back with a stick, to lay CANE upon Abel.
INEXPRESSIBLES		Breeches.
INKLE WEAVERS		Supposed to be a very brotherly set of people; 'as great as two inkle weavers' being a proverbial saying.
INLAID		Well inlaid; in easy circumstances, rich or well to pass.
INNOCENTS		One of the innocents; a weak or simple person, man or woman.
INSIDE AND OUTSIDE		The inside of a cunt and the outside of a gaol.
IRISH APRICOTS		Potatoes. It is a common joke against the Irish vessels, to say they are loaded with fruit and timber, that is, potatoes and broomsticks. Irish assurance; a bold forward behaviour: as being dipt in the river Styx was formerly supposed to render persons invulnerable, so it is said that a dipping in the river Shannon totally annihilates bashfulness; whence arises the saying of an impudent Irishman, that he has been dipt in the Shannon.
IRISH BEAUTY		A woman with two black eyes.
IRISH EVIDENCE		A false witness.
IRISH LEGS		Thick legs, jocularly styled the Irish arms. It is said of the Irish women, that they have a dispensation from the pope to wear the thick end of their legs downwards.
IRISH TOYLES		Thieves who carry about pins, laces, and other pedlars wares, and under the pretence of offering their goods to sale, rob houses, or pilfer any thing they can lay hold of.
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.
IRONMONGER'S SHOP		To keep an ironmonger's shop by the side of a common, where the sheriff sets one up; to be hanged in chains. Iron-bound; laced. An iron-bound hat; a silver-laced hat.
ISLAND		He drank out of the bottle till he saw the island; the island is the rising bottom of a wine bottle, which appears like an island in the centre, before the bottle is quite empty.
ITCHLAND, or SCRATCHLAND		Scotland.
IVORIES		Teeth. How the swell flashed his ivories; how the gentleman shewed his teeth.
IVY BUSH		Like an owl in an ivy bush; a simile for a meagre or weasel-faced man, with a large wig, or very bushy hair.