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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.
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
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
Entries releated to NIM
| BACK UP | His back is up, i.e. he is offended or angry; an expression or idea taken from a cat; that animal, when angry, always raising its back. An allusion also sometimes used to jeer a crooked man; as, So, Sir, I see somebody has offended you, for your back is up. | |
| BRANDY | Brandy is Latin for a goose; a memento to prevent the animal from rising in the stomach by a glass of the good creature. | |
| CAW-HANDED, or CAW-PAWED | Awkward, not dextrous, ready, or nimble. | |
| DEGEN, or DAGEN | A sword. Nim the degen; steal the sword. Dagen is Dutch for a sword. | |
| DONKEY, DONKEY DICK | A he, or jack ass: called donkey, perhaps, from the Spanish or don-like gravity of that animal, intitled also the king of Spain's trumpeter. | |
| GAB, or GOB | The mouth. Gift of the gab; a facility of speech, nimble tongued eloquence. To blow the gab; to confess, or peach. | |
| GIB CAT | A northern name for a he cat, there commonly called Gilbert. As melancholy as a gib cat; as melancholy as a he cat who has been caterwauling, whence they always return scratched, hungry, and out of spirits. Aristotle says, Omne animal post coitum est triste; to which an anonymous author has given the following exception, preter gallum gallinaceum, et sucerdotem gratis fornicantem. | |
| GO, THE | The dash. The mode. He is quite the go, he is quite varment, he is prime, he is bang up, are synonimous expressions. | |
| HOG | A shilling. To drive one's hogs; to snore: the noise made by some persons in snoring, being not much unlike the notes of that animal. He has brought his hogs to a fine market; a saying of any one who has been remarkably successful in his affairs, and is spoken ironically to signify the contrary. A hog in armour; an awkward or mean looking man or woman, finely dressed, is said to look like a hog in armour. To hog a horse's mane; to cut it short, so that the ends of the hair stick up like hog's bristles. Jonian hogs; an appellation given to the members of St. John's College, Cambridge. | |
| 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. | |
| LOBCOCK | A large relaxed penis: also a dull inanimate fellow. | |
| NIM | To steal or pilfer: from the German nemen, to take. Nim a togeman; steal a cloak. | |
| NIMGIMMER | A physician or surgeon, particularly those who cure the venereal disease. | |
| PANTER | A hart: that animal is, in the Psalms, said to pant after the fresh water-brooks. Also the human heart, which frequently pants in time of danger. | |
| QUICK AND NIMBLE | More like a bear than a squirrel. Jeeringly said to any one moving sluggishly on a business or errand that requires dispatch. | |
| ROMP | A forward wanton girl, a tomrig. Grey, in his notes to Shakespeare, derives it from arompo, an animal found in South Guinea, that is a man eater. See HOYDEN. | |
| SEVEN-SIDED ANIMAL | A one-eyed man or woman, each having a right side and a left side, a fore side and a back side, an outside, an inside, and a blind side. | |
| 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. | |
| SOOTERKIN | A joke upon the Dutch women, supposing that, by their constant use of stoves, which they place under their petticoats, they breed a kind of small animal in their bodies, called a sooterkin, of the size of a mouse, which when mature slips out. | |
| SQUIRREL | A prostitute: because she like that animal, covers her back with her tail. Meretrix corpore corpus alit. Menagiana, ii. 128. | |
| THOROUGH GO NIMBLE | A looseness, a violent purging. | |
| TONGUE | Tongue enough for two sets of teeth: said of a talkative person. As old as my tongue, and a little older than my teeth; a dovetail in answer to the question, How old are you? Tongue pad; a scold, or nimble-tongued person. | |
| 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. | |
| WEASEL-FACED | Thin, meagre-faced. Weasel-gutted; thin-bodied; a weasel is a thin long slender animal with a sharp face. | |
| WOLF IN THE BREAST | An extraordinary mode of imposition, sometimes practised in the country by strolling women, who have the knack of counterfeiting extreme pain, pretending to have a small animal called a wolf in their breasts, which is continually gnawing them. | |