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 LAY

 

ABEL-WACKETS		Blows given on the palm of the hand with a twisted handkerchief, instead of a ferula; a jocular punishment among seamen, who sometimes play at cards for wackets, the loser suffering as many strokes as he has lost games.
AMBASSADOR		A trick to duck some ignorant fellow or landsman, frequently played on board ships in the warm latitudes. It is thus managed: A large tub is filled with water, and two stools placed on each side of it. Over the whole is thrown a tarpaulin, or old sail: this is kept tight by two persons, who are to represent the king and queen of a foreign country, and are seated on the stools. The person intended to be ducked plays the Ambassador, and after repeating a ridiculous speech dictated to him, is led in great form up to the throne, and seated between the king and queen, who rising suddenly as soon as he is seated, he falls backwards into the tub of water.
APPLE-PYE BED		A bed made apple-pye fashion, like what is called a turnover apple-pye, where the sheets are so doubled as to prevent any one from getting at his length between them: a common trick played by frolicsome country lasses on their sweethearts, male relations, or visitors.
AVOIR DU POIS LAY		Stealing brass weights off the counters of shops.
BACK GAMMON PLAYER		A sodomite.
BANKS'S HORSE		A horse famous for playing tricks, the property of one Banks. It is mentioned in Sir Walter Raleigh's Hist. of the World, p. 178; also by Sir Kenelm Digby and Ben Jonson.
BAR THE BUBBLE		To except against the general rule, that he who lays the odds must always be adjudged the loser: this is restricted to betts laid for liquor.
BET		A wager. - TO BET. To lay a wager.
BILBOA		A sword. Bilboa in Spain was once famous for well-tempered blades: these are quoted by Falstaff, where he describes the manner in which he lay in the buck-basket. Bilboes, the stock; prison.
BLIND HARPERS		Beggars counterfeiting blindness, playing on fiddles, etc.
BLINDMAN'S BUFF		A play used by children, where one being blinded by a handkerchief bound over his eyes, attempts to seize any one of the company, who all endeavour to avoid him; the person caught, must be blinded in his stead.
BO-PEEP		One who sometimes hides himself, and sometimes appears publicly abroad, is said to-play at bo-peep. Also one who lies perdue, or on the watch.
BOB TAIL		A lewd woman, or one that plays with her tail; also an impotent man, or an eunuch. Tag, rag, and bobtail; a mob of all sorts of low people. To shift one's bob; to move off, or go away. To bear a bob; to join in chorus with any singers. Also a term used by the sellers of game, for a partridge.
BOOKS		Cards to play with. To plant the books; to place the cards in the pack in an unfair manner.
BOOTY		To play booty; cheating play, where the player purposely avoids winning.
BRIDGE		To make a bridge of any one's nose; to push the bottle past him, so as to deprive him of his turn of filling his glass; to pass one over. Also to play booty, or purposely to avoid winning.
BUSKIN		A player.
BUTT		A dependant, poor relation, or simpleton, on whom all kinds of practical jokes are played off; and who serves as a butt for all the shafts of wit and ridicule.
CABBAGE		Cloth, stuff, or silkpurloined by laylors from their employers, which they deposit in a place called HELL, or their EYE: from the first, when taxed, with their knavery, they equivocally swear, that if they have taken any, they wish they may find it in HELL; or, alluding to the second, protest, that what they have over and above is not more than they could put in their EYE. - When the scrotum is relaxed or whiffled, it is said they will not cabbage.
CANE		To lay Cane upon Abel; to beat any one with a cane or stick.
CAT STICKS		Thin legs, compared to sticks with which boys play at cat. See TRAPSTICKS.
CAT WHIPPING, or WHIPPING THE CAT		A trick often practised on ignorant country fellows, vain of their strength, by laying a wager with them that they may be pulled through a pond by a cat. The bet being made, a rope is fixed round the waist of the party to be catted, and the end thrown across the pond, to which the cat is also fastened by a packthread, and three or four sturdy fellows are appointed to lead and whip the cat; these on a signal given, seize the end of the cord, and pretending to whip the cat, haul the astonished booby through the water. - To whip the cat, is also a term among tailors for working jobs at private houses, as practised in the country.
CHIVING LAY		Cutting the braces of coaches behind, on which the coachman quitting the box, an accomplice robs the boot; also, formerly, cutting the back of the coach to steal the fine large wigs then worn.
CHOUDER		A sea-dish, composed of fresh fish, salt pork, herbs, and sea-biscuits, laid in different layers, and stewed together.
CLOUTING LAY		Picking pockets of handkerchiefs.
COKES		The fool in the play of Bartholomew Fair: perhaps a contraction of the word COXCOMB.
COW ITCH		The product of a sort of bean, which excites an insufferable itching, used chiefly for playing tricks.
CRIMP		A broker or factor, as a coal crimp, who disposes of the cargoes of the Newcastle coal ships; also persons employed to trapan or kidnap recruits for the East Indian and African companies. To crimp, or play crimp; to play foul or booty: also a cruel manner of cutting up fish alive, practised by the London fishmongers, in order to make it eat firm; cod, and other crimped fish, being a favourite dish among voluptuaries and epicures.
CROWN OFFICE		The head. I fired into her keel upwards; my eyes and limbs Jack, the crown office was full; I fucked a woman with her arse upwards, she was so drunk, that her head lay on the ground.
DAMPER		A luncheon, or snap before dinner: so called from its damping, or allaying, the appetite; eating and drinking, being, as the proverb wisely observes, apt to take away the appetite.
DAVID'S SOW		As drunk as David's sow; a common saying, which took its rise from the following circumstance: One David Lloyd, a Welchman, who kept an alehouse at Hereford, had a living sow with six legs, which was greatly resorted to by the curious; he had also a wife much addicted to drunkenness, for which he used sometimes to give her due correction. One day David's wife having taken a cup too much, and being fearful of the consequences, turned out the sow, and lay down to sleep herself sober in the stye. A company coming in to see the sow, David ushered them into the stye, exclaiming, there is a sow for you! did any of you ever see such another? all the while supposing the sow had really been there; to which some of the company, seeing the state the woman was in, replied, it was the drunkenest sow they had ever beheld; whence the woman was ever after called David's sow.
DILDO		From the Italian DILETTO, a woman's delight; or from our word DALLY, a thing to play withal. Penis-succedaneus, called in Lombardy Passo Tempo. Bailey.
DRAG LAY		Waiting in the streets to rob carts or waggons.
DUB LAY		Robbing houses by picking the locks.
DUTCH CONCERT		Where every one plays or signs a different tune.
FAM LAY		Going into a goldsmith's shop, under pretence of buying a wedding ring, and palming one or two, by daubing the hand with some viscous matter.
FERRARA		Andrea Ferrara; the name of a famous sword- cutler: most of the Highland broad-swords are marked with his name; whence an Andrea Ferrara has become the common name for the glaymore or Highland broad- sword. See GLAYMORE.
FLAY, or FLEA, THE FOX		To vomit.
FLAYBOTTOMIST		A bum-brusher, or schoolmaster.
GALLEY		Building the galley; a game formerly used at sea, in order to put a trick upon a landsman, or fresh- water sailor. It being agreed to play at that game, one sailor personates the builder, and another the merchant or contractor: the builder first begins by laying the keel, which consists of a number of men laid all along on their backs, one after another, that is, head to foot; he next puts in the ribs or knees, by making a number of men sit feet to feet, at right angles to, and on each side of, the keel: he now fixing on the person intended to be the object of the joke, observes he is a fierce-looking fellow, and fit for the lion; he accordingly places him at the head, his arms being held or locked in by the two persons next to him, representing the ribs. After several other dispositions, the builder delivers over the galley to the contractor as complete: but he, among other faults and objections, observes the lion is not gilt, on which the builder or one of his assistants, runs to the head, and dipping a mop in the excrement, thrusts it into the face of the lion.
GLAYMORE		A Highland broad-sword; from the Erse GLAY, or GLAIVE, a sword; and MORE, great.
GO SHOP		The Queen's Head in Duke's court, Bow street, Covent Garden; frequented by the under players: where gin and water was sold in three-halfpenny bowls, called Goes; the gin was called Arrack. The go, the fashion; as, large hats are all the go.
GOOSEBERRY		He played up old gooseberry among them; said of a person who. by force or threats, suddenly puts an end to a riot or disturbance.
GREY BEARD		Earthen jugs formerly used in public house for drawing ale: they had the figure of a man with a large beard stamped on them; whence probably they took the name: see BEN JONSON'S PLAYS, BARTHOLOMEW FAIR, etc. etc. Dutch earthen jugs, used for smuggling gin on the coasts of Essex and Suffolk, are at this time called grey beards.
HIDE AND SEEK		A childish game. He plays at hide and seek; a saying of one who is in fear of being arrested for debt, or apprehended for some crime, and therefore does not chuse to appear in public, but secretly skulks up and down. See SKULK.
HISTORY OF THE FOUR KINGS, or CHILD'S BEST GUIDE T		A pack of cards. He studies the history of the four kings assiduously; he plays much at cards.
HOD		Brother Hod; a familiar name for a bricklayer's labourer: from the hod which is used for carrying bricks and mortar.
HOISTING		A ludicrous ceremony formerly performed on every soldier, the first time he appeared in the field after being married; it was thus managed: As soon as the regiment, or company, had grounded their arms to rest a while, three or four men of the same company to which the bridegroom belonged, seized upon him, and putting a couple of bayonets out of the two corners of his hat, to represent horns, it was placed on his head, the back part foremost. He was then hoisted on the shoulders of two strong fellows, and carried round the arms, a drum and fife beating and playing the pioneers call, named Round Heads and Cuckolds, but on this occasion styled the Cuckold's March; in passing the colours, he was to take off his hat: this, in some regiments, was practised by the officers on their brethren, Hoisting, among pickpockets, is, setting a man on his head, that his money, watch, etc. may fall out of his pockets; these they pick up, and hold to be no robbery. See REVERSED.
HOOP		To run the hoop; an ancient marine custom. Four or more boys having their left hands tied fast to an iron hoop, and each of them a rope, called a nettle, in their right, being naked to the waist, wait the signal to begin: this being made by a stroke with a cat of nine tails, given by the boatswain to one of the boys, he strikes the boy before him, and every one does the same: at first the blows are but gently administered; but each irritated by the strokes from the boy behind him, at length lays it on in earnest. This was anciently practised when a ship was wind-bound.
HUM TRUM		A musical instrument made of a mopstick, a bladder, and some packthread, thence also called a bladder and string, and hurdy gurdy; it is played on like a violin, which is sometimes ludicrously called a humstrum; sometimes, instead of a bladder, a tin canister is used.
HUM, or HUMBUG		To deceive, or impose on one by some story or device. A humbug; a jocular imposition, or deception. To hum and haw; to hesitate in speech, also to delay, or be with difficulty brought to consent to any matter or business.
HUNTING		Drawing in unwary persons to play or game.
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.
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.
JERRY SNEAK		A henpecked husband: from a celebrated character in one of Mr. Foote's plays, representing a man governed by his wife.
KID LAY		Rogues who make it their business to defraud young apprentices, or errand-boys, of goods committed to their charge, by prevailing on them to execute some trifling message, pretending to take care of their parcels till they come back; these are, in cant terms, said to be on the kid lay.
KIT		A dancing-master, so called from his kit or cittern, a small fiddle, which dancing-masters always carry about with them, to play to their scholars. The kit is likewise the whole of a soldier's necessaries, the contents of his knapsack: and is used also to express the whole of different commodities: as, Here, take the whole kit; i.e. take all.
LARK		A piece of merriment. People playing together jocosely.
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.
LEAST IN SIGHT		To play least in sight; to hide, keep out of the way, or make one's self scarce.
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.
LOLL TONGUE		He has been playing a game at loll tongue; he has been salivated.
MILL LAY		To force open the doors of houses in order to rob them.
MISS LAYCOCK		The monosyllable.
MUMCHANCE		An ancient game like hazard, played with dice: probably so named from the silence observed in playing at it.
PASS BANK		The place for playing at passage, cut into the ground almost like a cock-pit. Also the stock or fund.
PETER LAY		The department of stealing portmanteaus, trunks, etc.
PINCHERS		Rogues who, in changing money, by dexterity of hand frequently secrete two or three shillings out of the change of a guinea. This species of roguery is called the pinch, or pinching lay.
PIT		To lay pit and boxes into one; an operation in midwifery or copulation, whereby the division between the anus and vagina is cut through, broken, and demolished: a simile borrowed from the playhouse, when, for the benefit of some favourite player, the pit and boxes are laid together. The pit is also the hole under the gallows, where poor rogues unable to pay the fees are buried.
PLANT		To lay, place, or hide. Plant your wids and stow them; be careful what you say, or let slip. Also to bury, as, he was planted by the parson.
PLAY		To play booty; to play with an intention to lose. To play the whole game; to cheat. To play least in sight; to hide, or keep out of the way. To play the devil; to be guilty of some great irregularity or mismanagement.
PONEY		Money. Post the poney; lay down the money.
PRAD LAY		Cutting bags from behind horses.
QUEER CHECKERS		Among strolling players, door-keepers who defraud the company, by falsely checking the number of people in the house.
QUIBBLE		To make subtle distinctions; also to play upon words.
RAINY DAY		To lay up something for a rainy day; to provide against a time of necessity or distress.
RANTUM SM		Playing at rantum scantum; making the beast with two backs.
RIDING SKIMMINGTON		A ludicrous cavalcade, in ridicule of a man beaten by his wife. It consists of a man riding behind a woman, with his face to the horse's tail, holding a distaff in his hand, at which he seems to work, the woman all the while beating him with a ladle; a smock displayed on a staff is carried before them as an emblematical standard, denoting female superiority: they are accompanied by what is called the ROUGH MUSIC, that is, frying-pans, bulls horns, marrow-bones and cleavers, etc. A procession of this kind is admirably described by Butler in his Hudibras. He rode private, i.e. was a private trooper.
RING		Money procured by begging: beggars so called it from its ringing when thrown to them. Also a circle formed for boxers, wrestlers, and cudgel-players, by a man styled Vinegar; who, with his hat before his eyes, goes round the circle, striking at random with his whip to prevent the populace from crowding in.
ROOK		A cheat: probably from the thievish disposition of the birds of that name. Also the cant name for a crow used in house-breaking. To rook; to cheat, particularly at play.
ROOST LAY		Stealing poultry.
RUMP		To rump any one; to turn the back to him: an evolution sometimes used at court. Rump and a dozen; a rump of beef and a dozen of claret; an Irish wager, called also buttock and trimmings. Rump and kidney men; fiddlers that play at feasts, fairs, weddings, etc. and live chiefly on the remnants.
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.
SHIT SACK		A dastardly fellow: also a non-conformist. This appellation is said to have originated from the following story: - After the restoration, the laws against the non-conformists were extremely severe. They sometimes met in very obscure places: and there is a tradition that one of their congregations were assembled in a barn, the rendezvous of beggars and other vagrants, where the preacher, for want of a ladder or tub, was suspended in a sack fixed to the beam. His discourse that day being on the last judgment, he particularly attempted to describe the terrors of the wicked at the sounding of the trumpet, on which a trumpeter to a puppet-show, who had taken refuge in that barn, and lay hid under the straw, sounded a charge. The congregation, struck with the utmost consternation, fled in an instant from the place, leaving their affrighted teacher to shift for himself. The effects of his terror are said to have appeared at the bottom of the sack, and to have occasioned that opprobrious appellation by which the non-conformists were vulgarly distinguished.
SKIP JACKS		Youngsters that ride horses on sale, horse- dealers boys. Also a plaything made for children with the breast bone of a goose.
SMUG LAY		Persons who pretend to be smugglers of lace and valuable articles; these men borrow money of publicans by depositing these goods in their hands; they shortly decamp, and the publican discovers too late that he has been duped; and on opening the pretended treasure, he finds trifling articles of no value.
SOAK		To drink. An old soaker; a drunkard, one that moistens his clay to make it stick together.
SOLO PLAYER		A miserable performer on any instrument, who always plays alone, because no one will stay in the room to hear him.
SPOUTING CLUB		A meeting of apprentices and mechanics to rehearse different characters in plays: thus forming recruits for the strolling companies.
STRONG MAN		To play the part of the strong man, i.e. to push the cart and horses too; to be whipt at the cart's tail.
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.
SWEATING		A mode of diminishing the gold coin, practiced chiefly by the Jews, who corrode it with aqua regia. Sweating was also a diversion practised by the bloods of the last century, who styled themselves Mohocks: these gentlemen lay in wait to surprise some person late in the night, when surrouding him, they with their swords pricked him in the posteriors, which obliged him to be constantly turning round; this they continued till they thought him sufficiently sweated.
TAW		A schoolboy's game, played with small round balls made of stone dust, catted marbles. I'll be one upon your taw presently; a species of threat.
THOUGHT		What did thought do? lay'in bed and beshat himself, and thought he was up; reproof to any one who excuses himself for any breach of positive orders, by pleading that he thought to the contrary.
THREE TO ONE		He is playing three to one, though sure to lose; said of one engaged in the amorous congress.
THRUM		To play on any instrument sttfnged with wire. A thrummer of wire; a player on the spinet, harpsichord, of guitar.
TOAD EATER		A poor female relation, and humble companion, or reduced gentlewoman, in a great family, the standing butt, on whom all kinds of practical jokes are played off, and all ill humours vented. This appellation is derived from a mountebank's servant, on whom all experiments used to be made in public by the doctor, his master; among which was the eating of toads, formerly supposed poisonous. Swallowing toads is here figuratively meant for swallowing or putting up with insults, as disagreeable to a person of feeling as toads to the stomach.
TOBY LAY		The highway. High toby man; a highway-man. Low toby man; a footpad.
TOWER HILL PLAY		A slap on the face, and a kick on the breech.
TRAP STICKS		Thin legs, gambs: from the sticks with which boys play at trap-ball.
TRAY TRIP		An ancient game like Scotch hop, played on a pavement marked out with chalk into different compartments.
TRENCHER MAN		A stout trencher man; one who has a good appetite, or, as the term is, plays a good knife and fork.
TRIG IT		To play truant. To lay a man trigging; to knock him down.
VINCENT'S LAW		The art of cheating at cards, composed of the following associates: bankers, those who play booty; the gripe, he that betteth; and the person cheated, who is styled the vincent; the gains acquired, termage.
VINEGAR		A name given to the person who with a whip in his hand, and a hat held before his eye, keeps the ring clear, at boxing-matches and cudgel-playing; also, in cant terms, a cloak.
WAITS		Musicians of the lower order, who in most towns play under the windows of the chief inhabitants at midnight, a short time before Christmas, for which they collect a christmas-box from house to house. They are said to derive their name of waits from being always in waiting to celebrate weddings and other joyous events happening within their district.
WET PARSON		One who moistens his clay freely, in order to make it stick together.
WHITECHAPEL		Whitechapel portion; two smocks, and what nature gave. Whitechapel breed; fat, ragged, and saucy: see ST. GILES'S BREED. Whitechapel beau; one who dresses with a needle and thread, and undresses with a knife. To play at whist Whitechapel fashion; i.e. aces and kings first.
WOOD PECKER		A bystander, who bets whilst another plays.
WORD PECKER		A punster, one who plays upon words.