Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue
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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 LOCK

 

BALLOCKS  The testicles of a man or beast; also a vulgar nick name for a parson. His brains are in his ballocks, a cant saying to designate a fool.
 
BELLWETHER  The chief or leader of a mob; an idea taken from a flock of sheep, where the wether has a bell about his neck.
 
BLACK ART  The art of picking a lock.
 
BLOCK HOUSES  Prisons, houses of correction, etc.
 
BLOCKED AT BOTH ENDS  Finished. The game is blocked at both ends; the game is ended.
 
BLUE PLUMB  A bullet. - Surfeited with a blue plumb; wounded with a bullet. A sortment of George R - 's blue plumbs; a volley of ball, shot from soldiers' firelocks.
 
BROWN BESS  A soldier's firelock. To hug brown Bess; to carry a firelock, or serve as a private soldier.
 
CHARM  A picklock.
 
CHIP  A child. A chip of the old block; a child who either in person or sentiments resembles its father or mother.
 
COCK-SURE  Certain: a metaphor borrowed front the cock of a firelock, as being much more certain to fire than the match.
 
CORNISH HUG  A particular lock in wrestling, peculiar to the people of that county.
 
CROSS BUTTOCK  A particular lock or fall in the Broughtonian art, which, as Mr. Fielding observes, conveyed more pleasant sensations to the spectators than the patient.
 
CULLY  A fog or fool: also, a dupe to women: from the Italian word coglione, a blockhead.
 
DAVID JONES'S LOCKER  The sea.
 
DUB  A picklock, or master-key.
 
DUB LAY  Robbing houses by picking the locks.
 
DUBBER  A picker of locks.
 
FLYING HOUSE  A lock in wrestling, by which he who uses it throws his adversary over his head.
 
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.
 
GIGG  A nose. Snitchel his gigg; fillip his nose. Grunter's gigg; a hog's snout. Gigg is also a high one-horse chaise, and a woman's privities. To gigg a Smithfield hank; to hamstring an over-drove ox, vulgarly called a mad bullock.
 
GILT, or RUM DUBBER  A thief who picks locks, so called from the gilt or picklock key: many of them are so expert, that, from the lock of a church door to that of the smallest cabinet, they will find means to open it; these go into reputable public houses, where, pretending business, they contrive to get into private rooms, up stairs, where they open any bureaus or trunks they happen to find there.
 
GOG AND MAGOG  Two giants, whose effigies stand on each side of the clock in Guildhall, London; of whom there is a tradition, that, when they hear the clock strike one, on the first of April, they will walk down from their places.
 
GOING UPON THE DUB  Going out to break open, or pick the locks of, houses.
 
HUG  To hug brown bess; to carry a firelock, or serve as a private soldier. He hugs it as the Devil hugs a witch: said of one who holds any thing as if he was afraid of losing it.
 
JIG  A trick. A pleasant jig; a witty arch trick. Also a lock or door. The feather-bed jig; copulation.
 
KATE  A picklock. 'Tis a rum kate; it is a clever picklock.
 
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.
 
PANNY  A house. To do a panny: to rob a house. See the Sessions Papers. Probably, panny originally meant the butler's pantry, where the knives and forks, spoons, etc. are usually kept The pigs frisked my panney, and nailed my screws; the officers searched my house, and seized my picklock keys.
 
REPOSITORY  A lock-up or spunging-house, a gaol. Also livery stables where horses and carriages are sold by auction.
 
ROYAL STAG SOCIETY  Was held every Monday evening, at seven o'clock, at the Three tuns, near the Hospital Gate, Newgate-street.
 
RUM DUBBER  An expert picklock.
 
SCREW  A skeleton key used by housebreakers to open a lock. To stand on the screw signifies that a door is not bolted, but merely locked.
 
SHITTING THROUGH THE TEETH  Vomiting. Hark ye, friend, have you got a padlock on your arse, that you shite through your teeth? Vulgar address to one vomiting.
 
SPANISH PADLOCK  A kind of girdle contrived by jealous husbands of that nation, to secure the chastity of their wives.
 
SPUNGE  A thirsty fellow, a great drinker. To spunge; to eat and drink at another's cost. Spunging-house: a bailiff's lock-up-house, or repository, to which persons arrested are taken, till they find bail, or have spent all their money: a house where every species of fraud and extortion is practised under the protection of the law.
 
STOCK  A good stock; i.e. of impudence. Stock and block; the whole: he has lost stock and block.
 
TOAD  Toad in a hole; meat baked or boiled in pye-crust. He or she sits like a toad on a chopping-block; a saying of any who sits ill on horseback. As much need of it as a toad of a side-pocket; said of a person who desires any thing for which he has no real occasion. As full of money as a toad is of feathers.
 
TRAVELLING PIQUET  A mode of amusing themselves, practised by two persons riding in a carriage, each reckoning towards his game the persons or animals that pass by on the side next them, according to the following estimation: A parson riding a grey horse, witholue furniture; game. An old woman under a hedge; ditto. A cat looking out of a window; 60. A man, woman, and child, in a buggy; 40. A man with a woman behind him; 30. A flock of sheep; 20. A flock of geese; 10. A post chaise; 5. A horseman; 2. A man or woman walking; 1.
 
UPPING BLOCK  Called in some counties a leaping stock, in others a jossing block. Steps for mounting a horse. He sits like a toad on a jossing block; said of one who sits ungracefully on horseback.
 
WILD-GOOSE CHASE  A tedious uncertain pursuit, like the following a flock of wild geese, who are remarkably shy.
 
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.