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 OAK

 

ARTHUR, KING ARTHUR		A game used at sea, when near the line, or in a hot latitude. It is performed thus: A man who is to represent king Arthur, ridiculously dressed, having a large wig made out of oakum, or some old swabs, is seated on the side, or over a large vessel of water. Every person in his turn is to be ceremoniously introduced to him, and to pour a bucket of water over him, crying, hail, king Arthur! if during this ceremony the person introduced laughs or smiles (to which his majesty endeavours to excite him, by all sorts of ridiculous gesticulations), he changes place with, and then becomes, king Arthur, till relieved by some brother tar, who has as little command over his muscles as himself.
BUDGE, or SNEAKING BUDGE		One that slips into houses in the dark, to steal cloaks or other clothes. Also lambs' fur formerly used for doctors' robes, whence they were called budge doctors. Standing budge; a thief's scout or spy.
BUTTER AND EGGS TROT		A kind of short jogg trot, such as is used by women going to market, with butter and eggs. - he looks as if butter would not melt in her mouth, yet I warrant you cheese would not choak her; a saying of a demure looking woman, of suspected character. Don't make butter dear; a gird at the patient angler.
CALLE		A cloak or gown.
CAMBRIDGE OAK		A willow.
CARDINAL		A cloak in fashion about the year 1760.
CASTER		A cloak.
CHOAK		Choak away, the churchyard's near; a jocular saying to a person taken with a violent fit of coughing, or who has swallowed any thing, as it is called the wrong way; Choak, chicken, more are hatching: a like consolation.
CHOAK PEAR		Figuratively, an unanswerable objection: also a machine formerly used in Holland by robbers; it was of iron, shaped like a pear; this they forced into the mouths of persons from whom they intended to extort money; and on turning a key, certain interior springs thrust forth a number of points, in all directions, which so enlarged it, that it could not be taken out of the mouth: and the iron, being case-hardened, could not be filed: the only methods of getting rid of it, were either by cutting the mouth, or advertizing a reward for the key, These pears were also called pears of agony.
CHOAKING PYE, or COLD PYE		A punishment inflicted on any person sleeping in company: it consists in wrapping up cotton in a case or tube of paper, setting it on fire, and directing the smoke up the nostrils of the sleeper. See HOWELL'S COTGRAVE.
CLOAK TWITCHERS		Rogues who lurk about the entrances into dark alleys, and bye-lanes, to snatch cloaks from the shoulders of passengers.
CLUB LAW		Argumentum bacculinum, in which an oaken stick is a better plea than an act of parliament.
CROAKER		One who is always foretelling some accident or misfortune: an allusion to the croaking of a raven, supposed ominous.
CROAKERS		Forestallers, called also Kidders and Tranters.
CROAKUMSHIRE		Northumberland, from the particular croaking the pronunciation of the people of that county, especially about Newcastle and Morpeth, where they are said to be born with a burr in their throats, which prevents their pronouncing the letter r.
DOASH		A cloak.
ELBOW GREASE		Labour. Elbow grease will make an oak table shine.
FLICKING		Cutting. Flick me some panam and caffan; cut me some bread and cheese. Flick the peter; cut off the cloak-bag, or portmanteau.
FRUMMAGEMMED		Choaked, strangled, suffocated, or hanged.
GRUNTER'S GIG		A smoaked hog's face.
HEARTY CHOAK		He will have a hearty choak and caper sauce for breakfast; i.e. he will be hanged.
HICKENBOTHOM		Mr. Hickenbothom; a ludicrous name for an unknown person, similar to that of Mr. Thingambob. Hickenbothom, i.e. a corruption of the German word ickenbaum, i.e. oak tree.
HUBBLE-BUBBLE		Confusion. A hubble-bubble fellow; a man of confused ideas, or one thick of speech, whose words sound like water bubbling out of a bottle. Also an instrument used for smoaking through water in the East Indies, called likewise a caloon, and hooker.
NIM		To steal or pilfer: from the German nemen, to take. Nim a togeman; steal a cloak.
OAK		A rich man, a man of good substance and credit. To sport oak; to shut the outward door of a student's room at college. An oaken towel; an oaken cudgel. To rub a man down with an oaken towel; to beat him.
SCOTCH MIST		A sober soaking rain; a Scotch mist will wet an Englishman to the skin.
SHILLALEY		An oaken sapling, or cudgel: from a wood of that name famous for its oaks. IRISH.
SOAK		To drink. An old soaker; a drunkard, one that moistens his clay to make it stick together.
TOPER		One that loves his bottle, a soaker. SEE TO SOAK.
TOWEL		An oaken towel, a cudgel. To rub one down with an oaken towel; to beat or cudgel him.
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.
WRAP RASCAL		A red cloak, called also a roquelaire.