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 NAB

 

AEGROTAT		A certificate from the apothecary that you are INDISPOSED, (ie:) to go to chapel. He sports an Aegrotat, he is sick, and unable to attend Chapel. or Hall. It does not follow, however, but that he can STRUM A PIECE, or sport a pair of oars.
ANABAPTIST		A pickpocket caught in the fact, and punished with the discipline of the pump or horse-pond.
AUTEM DIPPERS		Anabaptists.
BARNABY		An old dance to a quick movement. See Cotton, in his Virgil Travesti; where, speaking of Eolus he has these lines, Bounce cry the port-holes, out they fly, And make the world dance Barnaby.
BASKET		An exclamation frequently made use of in cock-pits, at cock-fightings, where persons refusing or unable to pay their losings, are adjudged by that respectable assembly to be put into a basket suspended over the pit, there to remain during that day's diversion: on the least demur to pay a bet, Basket is vociferated in terrorem. He grins like a basket of chips: a saying of one who is on the broad grin.
BUFE NABBER		A dog stealer.
CANDLESTICKS		Bad, small, or untunable bells. Hark! how the candlesticks rattle.
CAPTAIN QUEERNABS		A shabby ill-dressed fellow.
CHICKEN NABOB		One returned from the East Indies with but a moderate fortune of fifty or sixty thousand pounds, a diminutive nabob: a term borrowed from the chicken turtle.
COCKNEY		A nick name given to the citizens of London, or persons born within the sound of Bow bell, derived from the following story: A citizen of London, being in the country, and hearing a horse neigh, exclaimed, Lord! how that horse laughs! A by-stander telling him that noise was called NEIGHING, the next morning, when the cock crowed, the citizen to shew he had not forgot what was told him, cried out, Do you hear how the COCK NEIGHS? The king of the cockneys is mentioned among the regulations for the sports and shows formerly held in the Middle Temple on Childermas Day, where he had his officers, a marshal, constable, butler, etc. See DUGDALE'S ORIGINES JURIDICIALES, p. 247. - Ray says, the interpretation of the word Cockney, is, a young person coaxed or conquered, made wanton; or a nestle cock, delicately bred and brought up, so as, when arrived a man's estate, to be unable to bear the least hardship. Whatever may be the origin of this appellation, we learn from the following verses, attributed to Hugh Bigot, Earl of Norfolk, that it was in use. in the time of king Henry II. Was I in my castle at Bungay, Fast by the river Waveney, I would not care for the king of Cockney; ie: the king of London.
DIPPERS		Anabaptists.
DRIBBLE		A method of pouring out, as it were, the dice from the box, gently, by which an old practitioner is enabled to cog one of them with his fore-finger.
FEEDER		A spoon. To nab the feeder; to steal a spoon.
GLAZIER		One who breaks windows and shew-glasses, to steal goods exposed for sale. Glaziers; eyes. - Is your father a glazier; a question asked of a lad or young man, who stands between the speaker and the candle, or fire. If it is answered in the negative, the rejoinder is - I wish he was, that he might make a window through your body, to enable us to see the fire or light.
HELL FIRE DICK		The Cambridge driver of the Telegraph. The favorite companion of the University fashionables, and the only tutor to whose precepts they attend.
HOOK AND SNIVEY, WITH NIX THE BUFFER		This rig consists in feeding a man and a dog for nothing, and is carried on thus: Three men, one of who pretends to be sick and unable to eat, go to a public house: the two well men make a bargain with the landlord for their dinner, and when he is out of sight, feed their pretended sick companion and dog gratis.
HUMP		To hump; once a fashionable word for copulation.
NAB		To seize, or catch unawares. To nab the teaze; to be privately whipped. To nab the stoop; to stand in the pillory. To nab the rust; a jockey term for a horse that becomes restive. To nab the snow: to steal linen left out to bleach or dry.
NAB GIRDER, or NOB GIRDER		A bridle.
NAB, or NAB CHEAT		A hat. Penthouse nab; a large hat.
NAZY		Drunken. Nazy cove or mort; a drunken rogue or harlot. Nazy nabs; drunken coxcombs.
PENTHOUSE NAB		A broad brimmed hat.
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.
PRANCER		A horse. Prancer's nab.; a horse's head, used as a seal to a counterfeit pass. At the sign of the prancer's poll, i.e. the nag's head.
QUEER NAB		A felt hat, or other bad hat.
RUFFIAN		The devil. - May the ruffian nab the cuffin queer, and let the harmanbeck trine with his kinchins about his colquarren; may the Devil take the justice, and let the constable be hanged with his children about his neck. The ruffian cly thee; the Devil take thee. Ruffian cook ruffian, who scalded the Devil in his feathers; a saying of a bad cook. Ruffian sometimes also means, a justice.
RUM NAB		A good hat.
RUSTY		Out of use, To nab the rust; to be refractory; properly applied to a restive horse, and figuratively to the human species. To ride rusty; to be sullen; called also to ride grub.
SICK AS A HORSE		Horses are said to be extremely sick at their stomachs, from being unable to relieve themselves by vomiting. Bracken, indeed, in his Farriery, gives an instance of that evacuation being procured, but by a means which he says would make the Devil vomit. Such as may have occasion to administer an emetic either to the animal or the fiend, may consult his book for the recipe.
SMABBLED, or SNABBLED		Killed in battle.
SNABBLE		To rifle or plunder; also to kill.
STAGGERING BOB, WITH HIS YELLOW PUMPS		A calf just dropped, and unable to stand, killed for veal in Scotland: the hoofs of a young calf are yellow.
TWADDLE		Perplexity, confusion, or any thing else: a fashionable term that for a while succeeded that of BORE. See BORE.
UPRIGHT MAN		An upright man signifies the chief or principal of a crew. The vilest, stoutest rogue in the pack is generally chosen to this post, and has the sole right to the first night's lodging with the dells, who afterwards are used in common among the whole fraternity. He carries a short truncheon in his hand, which he calls his filchman, and has a larger share than ordinary in whatsoever is gotten in the society. He often travels in company with thirty or forty males and females, abram men, and others, over whom he presides arbitrarily. Sometimes the women and children who are unable to travel, or fatigued, are by turns carried in panniers by an ass, or two, or by some poor jades procured for that purpose.