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 OAR

 

ACADEMY, or PUSHING SCHOOL		A brothel. The Floating Academy; the lighters on board of which those persons are confined, who by a late regulation are condemned to hard labour, instead of transportation. Campbell's Academy; the same, from a gentleman of that name, who had the contract for victualling the hulks or lighters.
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.
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.
ARK RUFFIANS		Rogues who, in conjunction with watermen, robbed, and sometimes murdered, on the water, by picking a quarrel with the passengers in a boat, boarding it, plundering, stripping, and throwing them overboard, etc. A species of badger.
BEEF EATER		A yeoman of the guards, instituted by Henry VII. Their office was to stand near the bouffet, or cupboard, thence called Bouffetiers, since corrupted to Beef Eaters. Others suppose they obtained this name from the size of their persons, and the easiness of their duty, as having scarce more to do than to eat the king's beef.
BLUE BOAR		A venereal bubo.
BOARDING SCHOOL		Bridewell, Newgate, or any other prison, or house of correction.
CAMPBELL'S ACADEMY		The hulks or lighters, on board of which felons are condemned to hard labour. Mr. Campbell was the first director of them. See ACADEMY and FLOATING ACADEMY.
CAT CALL		A kind of whistle, chiefly used at theatres, to interrupt the actors, and damn a new piece. It derives its name from one of its sounds, which greatly resembles the modulation of an intriguing boar cat.
COLT VEAL		Coarse red veal, more like the flesh of a colt than that of a calf.
CRIBBAGE-FACED		Marked with the small pox, the pits bearing a kind of resemblance to the holes in a cribbage-board.
CUPBOARD LOVE		Pretended love to the cook, or any other person, for the sake of a meal. My guts cry cupboard; i.e. I am hungry
DAMME BOY		A roaring, mad, blustering fellow, a scourer of the streets, or kicker up of a breeze.
DOG IN A DOUBLET		A daring, resolute fellow. In Germany and Flanders the boldest dogs used to hunt the boar, having a kind of buff doublet buttoned on their bodies, Rubens has represented several so equipped, so has Sneyders.
DOWDY		A coarse, vulgar-looking woman.
DUCK FUCKER		The man who has the care of the poultry on board a ship of war.
FUNK		To smoke; figuratively, to smoke or stink through fear. I was in a cursed funk. To funk the cobler; a schoolboy's trick, performed with assafoettida and cotton, which are stuffed into a pipe: the cotton being lighted, and the bowl of the pipe covered with a coarse handkerchief, the smoke is blown out at the small end, through the crannies of a cobler's stall.
GINGERBREAD WORK		Gilding and carving: these terms are particularly applied by seamen on board Newcastle colliers, to the decorations of the sterns and quarters of West-Indiamen, which they have the greatest joy in defacing.
GRANNUM'S GOLD		Hoarded money: supposed to have belonged to the grandmother of the possessor.
GUNNER'S DAUGHTER		To kiss the gunner's daughter; to be tied to a gun and flogged on the posteriors; a mode of punishing boys on board a ship of war.
HEN HOUSE		A house where the woman rules; called also a SHE HOUSE, and HEN FRIGATE: the latter a sea phrase, originally applied to a ship, the captain of which had his wife on board, supposed to command him.
KIDDY NIPPERS		Taylors out of work, who cut off the waistcoat pockets of their brethren, when cross-legged on their board, thereby grabbling their bit.
LEAF		To go off with the fall of the leaf; to be hanged: criminals in Dublin being turned off from the outside of the prison by the falling of a board, propped up, and moving on a hinge, like the leaf of a table. IRISH TERM.
LIVE LUMBER		A term used by sailors, to signify all landsmen on board their ships.
LOBLOLLEY BOY		A nick name for the surgeon's servant on board a man of war, sometimes for the surgeon himself: from the water gruel prescribed to the sick, which is called loblolley.
LONG GALLERY		Throwing, or rather trundling, the dice the whole length of the board.
LUMBER		Live lumber; soldiers or passengers on board a ship are so called by the sailors.
MARRIED		Persons chained or handcuffed together, in order to be conveyed to gaol, or on board the lighters for transportation, are in the cant language said to be married together.
OAR		To put in one's oar; to intermeddle, or give an opinion unasked: as, To be sure, you must put in your oar!
PAIR OF WINGS		Oars.
PENANCE BOARD		The pillory.
POWDER MONKEY		A boy on board a ship of war, whose business is to fetch powder from the magazine.
PRINKING		Dressing over nicely: prinked up as if he came out of a bandbox, or fit to sit upon a cupboard's head.
ROARATORIOS AND UPROARS		Oratorios and operas.
ROARER		A broken-winded horse.
ROARING BOY		A noisy, riotous fellow.
ROARING TRADE		A quick trade.
ROUND ROBIN		A mode of signing remonstrances practised by sailors on board the king's ships, wherein their names are written in a circle, so that it cannot be discovered who first signed it, or was, in other words, the ringleader.
SCULL, or SCULLER		A boat rowed by one man with a light kind of oar, called a scull; also a one-horse chaise or buggy.
SHIFTING BALLAST		A term used by sailors, to signify soldiers, passengers, or any landsmen on board.
SPANISH WORM		A nail: so called by carpenters when they meet with one in a board they are sawing.
STAMMEL, or STRAMMEL		A coarse brawny wench.
SWIMMER		A ship. I shall have a swimmer; a cant phrase used by thieves to signify that they will be sent on board the tender.
SWIPES		Purser's swipes; small beer: so termed on board the king's ships, where it is furnished by the purser.
TARPAWLIN		A coarse cloth tarred over: also, figuratively, a sailor.
TOWN BULL		A common whoremaster. To roar like a town bull; to cry or bellow aloud.
TROLLOP		A lusty coarse sluttish woman.
TROLLY LOLLY		Coarse lace once much in fashion.
WALKING THE PLANK		A mode of destroying devoted persons or officers in a mutiny or ship-board, by blindfolding them, and obliging them to walk on a plank laid over the ship's side; by this means, as the mutineers suppose, avoiding the penalty of murder.
WARREN		One that is security for goods taken up on credit by extravagant young gentlemen. Cunny warren; a girl's boarding-school, also a bawdy-house.