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  

 

LACED MUTTON		A prostitute.
LACING		Beating. I'll lace your jacket handsomely.
LADDER		To go up the ladder to rest; to be hanged.
LADY		A crooked or hump-backed woman.
LADY DACRE'S WINE		Gin.
LADY OF EASY VIRTUE		A woman of the town, an impure, a prostitute.
LADYBIRDS		Light or lewd women.
LAG		A man transported. The cove was lagged for a drag. The man was transported for stealing something out of a waggon.
LAG		To drop behind, to keep back. Lag last; the last of a company.
LAG FEVER		A term of ridicule applied to men who being under sentence of transportation, pretend illness, to avoid being sent from gaol to the hulks.
LAGE		Water.
LAGE OF DUDS		A buck of linen.
LAID ON THE SHELF, or LAID UP IN LAVENDER		Pawned.
LAMB'S WOOL		Apples roasted and put into strong ale.
LAMB, or LAMBASTE		To beat. Lamb pye; a beating: from lambo.
LAMBSKIN MEN		The judges: from their robes lined and bordered with ermine.
LAMP		An eye. The cove has a queer lamp. The man has a blind or squinting eye.
LAND		How lies the land? How stands the reckoning? Who has any land in Appleby? a question asked the man at whose door the glass stands long, or who does not ciculate it in due time.
LAND LOPERS, or LAND LUBBERS		Vagabonds lurking about the country who subsist by pilfering.
LAND PIRATES		Highwaymen.
LANK SLEEVE		The empty sleeve of a one armed man. A fellow with a lank sleeve; a man who has lost an arm.
LANSPRISADO		One who has only two-pence in his pocket. Also a lance, or deputy corporal; that is, one doing the duty without the pay of a corporal. Formerly a lancier, or horseman, who being dismounted by the death of his horse, served in the foot, by the title of lansprisado, or lancepesato, a broken lance.
LANTHORN-JAWED		Thin-visaged: from their cheeksbeing almost transparent. Or else, lenten jawed; i.e. having the jaws of one emaciated by a too rigid observation of Lent. Dark lanthorn; a servant or agent at court, who receives a bribe for his principal or master.
LAP		Butter-milk or whey.
LARK		A boat.
LARK		A piece of merriment. People playing together jocosely.
LARRY DUGAN'S EYE WATER		Blacking: Larry Dugan was a famous shoe-black at Dublin.
LATCH		Let in.
LATHY		Thin, slender. A lathy wench; a girl almost as slender as a lath.
LATITAT		A nick-name for an attorney; from the name of a writ.
LAUGH		To laugh on the wrong side of the mouth; to cry. I'll make him laugh on the wrong (or t'other) side of his mouth.
LAUNCH		The delivery, or labour, of a pregnant woman; a crying out or groaning.
LAVENDER		Laid up in lavender; pawned.
LAW		To give law to a hare; a sporting term, signifying to give the animal a chance of escaping, by not setting on the dogs till the hare is at some distance; it is also more figuratively used for giving any one a chance of succeeding in a scheme or project.
LAWFUL BLANKET		A wife.
LAY		Enterprize, pursuit, or attempt: to be sick of the lay. It also means a hazard or chance: he stands a queer lay; i.e. he is in danger.
LAYSTALL		A dunghill about London, on which the soil brought from necessary houses is emptied; or, in more technical terms, where the old gold collected at weddings by the Tom t - d man, is stored.
LAZY		As lazy as Ludman's dog, who leaned against the wall to bark. As lazy as the tinker, who laid down his budget to f - t.
LAZY MAN'S LOAD		Lazy people frequently take up more than they can safely carry, to save the trouble of coming a second time.
LAZYBONES		An instrument like a pair of tongs, for old or very fat people to take any thing from the ground without stooping.
LEAF		To go off with the fall of the leaf; to be hanged: criminals in Dublin being turned off from the outside of the prison by the falling of a board, propped up, and moving on a hinge, like the leaf of a table. IRISH TERM.
LEAK		To make water.
LEAKY		Apt to blab; one who cannot keep a secret is said to be leaky.
LEAPING OVER THE SWORD		An ancient ceremonial said to constitute a military marriage. A sword being laid down on the ground, the parties to be married joined hands.
LEAST IN SIGHT		To play least in sight; to hide, keep out of the way, or make one's self scarce.
LEATHER		To lose leather; to be galled with riding on horseback, or, as the Scotch express it, to be saddle sick. To leather also meant to beat, perhaps originally with a strap: I'll leather you to your heart's content. Leather-headed; stupid. Leathern conveniency; term used by quakers for a stage-coach.
LEERY		On one's guard. See PEERY.
LEFT-HANDED WIFE		A concubine; an allusion to an ancient German custom, according to which, when a man married his concubine, or a woman greatly his inferior, he gave her his left hand.
LEG		To make a leg; to bow. To give leg-bail and land security; to run away. To fight at the leg; to take unfair advantages: it being held unfair by back-sword players to strike at the leg. To break a leg; a woman who has had a bastard, is said to have broken a leg.
LEGGERS		Sham leggers; cheats who pretend to sell smuggled goods, but in reality only deal in old shop-keepers or damaged goods.
LENTEN FARE		Spare diet.
LETCH		A whim of the amorous kind, out of the common way.
LEVITE		A priest or parson.
LIB		To lie together.
LIBBEGE		A bed.
LIBBEN		A private dwelling-house.
LIBKEN		A house to lie in.
LICK		To beat; also to wash, or to paint slightly over. I'll give you a good lick o' the chops; I'll give you a good stroke or blow on the face. Jack tumbled into a cow t - d, and nastied his best clothes, for which his father stept up, and licked him neatly. - I'll lick you! the dovetail to which is, If you lick me all over, you won't miss - .
LICKSPITTLE		A parasite, or talebearer.
LIFT		To give one a lift; to assist. A good hand at a dead lift; a good hand upon an emergency. To lift one's hand to one's head; to drink to excess, or to drink drams. To lift or raise one's elbow; the same.
LIFT		See SHOPLIFTER, etc.
LIFTER		A crutch.
LIG		A bed. See LIB.
LIGHT BOB		A soldier of the light infantry company.
LIGHT HOUSE		A man with a red fiery nose.
LIGHT TROOPS		Lice; the light troops are in full march; the lice are crawling about.
LIGHT-FINGERED		Thievish, apt to pilfer.
LIGHT-HEELED		Swift in running. A light-heeled wench; one who is apt, by the flying up of her heels, to fall flat on her back, a willing wench.
LIGHTMANS		The day.
LIGHTNING		Gin. A flash of lightning; a glass of gin.
LIKENESS		A phrase used by thieves when the officers or turnkeys are examining their countenance. As the traps are taking our likeness; the officers are attentively observing us.
LILIPUTIAN		A diminutive man or woman: from Gulliver's Travels, written by Dean Swift, where an imaginary kingdom of dwarfs of that name is described.
LILY SHALLOW		A white driving hat.
LILY WHITE		A chimney-sweeper.
LIMB OF THE LAW		An inferior or pettyfogging attorney.
LIMBO		A prison, confinement.
LIMBS		Duke of limbs; a tall awkward fellow.
LINE		A term for the act of coition between dog and bitch.
LINE		To get a man into a line, i.e. to divert his attention by a ridiculous or absurd story. To humbug.
LINE OF THE OLD AUTHOR		A dram of brandy.
LINEN ARMOURERS		Taylors.
LINGO		Language. An outlandish lingo; a foreign tongue. The parlezvous lingo; the French language.
LION		To tip the lion; to squeeze the nose of the party tipped, flat to his face with the thumb. To shew the lions and tombs; to point out the particular curiosities of any place, to act the ciceroni: an allusion to Westminster Abbey, and the Tower, where the tombs and lions are shewn. A lion is also a name given by the gownsmen of Oxford to an inhabitant or visitor. It is a standing joke among the city wits to send boys and country folks, on the first of April, to the Tower-ditch, to see the lions washed.
LIQUOR		To liquor one's boots; to drink before a journey: among Roman Catholics, to administer the extreme unction.
LITTLE BARBARY		Wapping.
LITTLE BREECHES		A familiar appellation used to a little boy.
LITTLE CLERGYMAN		A young chimney-sweeper.
LITTLE EASE		A small dark cell in Guildhall, London, where disorderly apprentices are confined by the city chamberlain: it is called Little Ease from its being so low that a lad cannot stand upright in it.
LITTLE SNAKESMAN		A little boy who gets into a house through the sink-hole, and then opens the door for his accomplices: he is so called, from writhing and twisting like a snake, in order to work himself through the narrow passage.
LIVE LUMBER		A term used by sailors, to signify all landsmen on board their ships.
LIVE STOCK		Lice or fleas.
LOAF		To be in bad loaf, to be in a disagreeable situation, or in trouble.
LOB		A till in a tradesman's shop. To frisk a lob; to rob a till. See FLASH PANNEY.
LOB		Going on the lob; going into a shop to get change for gold, and secreting some of the change.
LOB'S POUND		A prison. Dr. Grey, in his notes on Hudibras, explains it to allude to one Doctor Lob, a dissenting preacher, who used to hold forth when conventicles were prohibited, and had made himself a retreat by means of a trap door at the bottom of his pulpit. Once being pursued by the officers of justice, they followed him through divers subterraneous passages, till they got into a dark cell, from whence they could not find their way out, but calling to some of their companions, swore they had got into Lob's Pound.
LOBCOCK		A large relaxed penis: also a dull inanimate fellow.
LOBKIN		A house to lie in: also a lodging.
LOBLOLLEY BOY		A nick name for the surgeon's servant on board a man of war, sometimes for the surgeon himself: from the water gruel prescribed to the sick, which is called loblolley.
LOBONIAN SOCIETY		A society which met at Lob Hall, at the King and Queen, Norton Falgate, by order of Lob the great.
LOBSCOUSE		A dish much eaten at sea, composed of salt beef, biscuit and onions, well peppered, and stewed together.
LOBSTER		A nick name for a soldier, from the colour of his clothes. To boil one's lobster, for a churchman to become a soldier: lobsters, which are of a bluish black, being made red by boiling. I will not make a lobster kettle of my cunt, a reply frequently made by the nymphs of the Point at Portsmouth, when requested by a soldier to grant him a favour.
LOCK		A scheme, a mode. I must fight that lock; I must try that scheme.
LOCK		Character. He stood a queer lock; he bore but an indifferent character. A lock is also a buyer of stolen goods, as well as the receptacle for them.
LOCK HOSPITAL		An hospital for venereal patients.
LOCK UP HOUSE		A spunging house; a public house kept by sheriff's officers, to which they convey the persons they have arrested, where they practise every species of imposition and extortion with impunity. Also houses kept by agents or crimps, who enlist, or rather trepan, men to serve the East India or African company as soldiers.
LOCKERAM-JAWED		Thin-faced, or lanthorn-jawed. See LANTHORN JAWED.
LOCKSMITH'S DAUGHTER		A key.
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.
LOLL		Mother's loll; a favourite child, the mother's darling,
LOLL TONGUE		He has been playing a game at loll tongue; he has been salivated.
LOLLIPOPS		Sweet lozenges purchased by children.
LOLLOP		To lean with one's elbows on a table.
LOLLPOOP		A lazy, idle drone.
LOMBARD FEVER		Sick of the lombard fever; i.e. of the idles.
LONG		Great. A long price; a great price.
LONG GALLERY		Throwing, or rather trundling, the dice the whole length of the board.
LONG MEG		A jeering name for a very tall woman: from one famous in story, called Long Meg of Westminster.
LONG ONE		A hare; a term used by poachers.
LONG SHANKS		A long-legged person.
LONG STOMACH		A voracious appetite.
LONG TONGUED		Loquacious, not able to keep a secret. He is as long-tongued as Granny: Granny was an idiot who could lick her own eye. See GRANNY.
LONG-WINDED		A long-winded parson; one who preached long, tedious sermons. A long-winded paymaster; one who takes long credit.
LOO		For the good of the loo; for the benefit of the company or community.
LOOBY		An awkward, ignorant fellow.
LOOKING AS IF ONE COULD NOT HELP IT		Looking like a simpleton, or as if one could not say boh! to a goose.
LOOKING-GLASS		A chamber pot, jordan, or member mug.
LOON, or LOUT		A country bumkin, or clown.
LOONSLATE		Thirteen pence halfpenny.
LOOPHOLE		An opening, or means of escape. To find a loophole in an act of parliament; i.e. a method of evading it,
LOP-SIDED		Uneven, having one side larger or heavier than the other: boys' paper kites are often said to be lop-sided.
LOPE		To leap, to run away. He loped down the dancers; he ran down stairs.
LORD		A crooked or hump-backed man. These unhappy people afford great scope for vulgar raillery; such as, 'Did you come straight from home? if so, you have got confoundedly bent by the way.'
LOUNGE		A loitering place, or gossiping shop.
LOUSE		A gentleman's companion. He will never louse a grey head of his own; he will never live to be old.
LOUSE BAG		A black bag worn to the hair or wig.
LOUSE HOUSE		The round house, cage, or any other place of confinement.
LOUSE LADDER		A stitch fallen in a stocking.
LOUSE LAND		Scotland.
LOUSE TRAP		A small toothed comb.
LOUT		A clumsy stupid fellow.
LOVE BEGOTTEN CHILD		A bastard.
LOW PAD		A footpad.
LOW TIDE, or LOW WATER		When there is no money in a man's pocket.
LOWING RIG		Stealing oxen or cows.
LOWRE		Money.
LUBBER		An awkward fellow: a name given by sailors to landsmen.
LUCK, or GOOD LUCK		To tread in a surreverence, to be bewrayed: an allusion to the proverb, Shitten luck is good luck.
LUD'S BULWARK		Ludgate prison.
LUGS		Ears or wattles. See WATTLES.
LULLABY CHEAT		An infant.
LULLIES		Wet linen.
LULLY TRIGGERS		Thieves who steal wet linen.
LUMB		Too much.
LUMBER		Live lumber; soldiers or passengers on board a ship are so called by the sailors.
LUMBER HOUSE		A house appropriated by thieves for the reception of their stolen property.
LUMBER TROOP		A club or society of citizens of London.
LUMP		To beat; also to include a number of articles under one head.
LUMP THE LIGHTER		To be transported.
LUMPERS		Persons who contract to unload ships; also thieves who lurk about wharfs to pilfer goods from ships, lighters, etc.
LUMPING		Great. A lumping penny worth; a great quantity for the money, a bargain. He has'got a lumping penny-worth; frequently said of a man who marries a fat woman.
LUN		Harlequin.
LURCH		To be left in the lurch; to be abandoned by one's confederates or party, to be left in a scrape.
LURCHED		Those who lose a game of whist, without scoring five, are said to be lurched.
LURCHER		A lurcher of the law; a bum bailiff, or his setter.
LURRIES		Money, watches, rings, or other moveablcs.
LUSH		Strong beer.
LUSH		To drink.
LUSHEY		Drunk. The rolling kiddeys hud a spree, and got bloody lushey; the dashing lads went on a party of pleasure, and got very drunk.
LYE		Chamber lye; urine.