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 PARISH

 

AMEN CURLER		A parish clerk.
BADGE-COVES		Parish Pensioners.
BARBER'S CHAIR		She is as common as a barber's chair, in which a whole parish sit to be trimmed; said of a prostitute.
BUMPING		A ceremony performed on boys perambulating the bounds of the parish on Whit-monday, when they have their posteriors bumped against the stones marking the boundaries, in order to fix them in their memory.
CHILD		To eat a child; to partake of a treat given to the parish officers, in part of commutation for a bastard child the common price was formerly ten pounds and a greasy chin. See GREASY CHIN.
CHUCK FARTHING		A parish clerk.
CLE		A parish clerk.
FOUNDLING		A child dropped in the streets, and found, and educated at the parish expence.
GILES'S or ST GILES'S BREED		Fat, ragged, and saucy; Newton and Dyot streets, the grand head-quarters-of most of the thieves and pickpockets about London, are in St. Giles's Giles's parish. St. Giles's Greek; the cant language, called also Slang, Pedlars' French, and Flash.
GREASE		To bribe. To grease a man in the fist; to bribe him. To grease a fat sow in the arse; to give to a rich man. Greasy chin; a treat given to parish officers in part of commutation for a bastard: called also, Eating a child.
JACK ADAMS		A fool. Jack Adams's parish; Clerkenwell.
MOSES		To stand Moses: a man is said to stand Moses when he has another man's bastard child fathered upon him, and he is obliged by the parish to maintain it.
PADDINGTON FAIR DAY		An execution day, Tyburn being in the parish or neighbourhood of Paddington. To dance the Paddington frisk; to be hanged.
PARISH		His stockings are of two parishes; i.e. they are not fellows.
PARISH BULL		A parson.
PARISH SOLDIER		A jeering name for a militiaman: from substitutes being frequently hired by the parish from which one of its inhabitants is drawn.
RENDEZVOUS		A place of meeting. The rendezvous of the beggars were, about the year 1638, according to the Bellman, St, Quinton's, the Three Crowns in the Vintry, St. Tybs, and at Knapsbury: there were four barns within a mile of London. In Middlesex were four other harbours, called Draw the Pudding out of the Fire, the Cross Keys in Craneford parish, St. Julian's in Isleworth parish, and the house of Pettie in Northall parish. In Kent, the King's Barn near Dartford, and Ketbrooke near Blackheath.
SOLFA		A parish clerk.
UNTRUSS		To untruss a point; to let down one's breeches in order to ease one's self. Breeches were formerly tied with points, which till lately were distributed to the boys every Whit Monday by the churchwardens of most of the parishes in London, under the denomination of tags: these tags were worsteds of different colours twisted up to a size somewhat thicker than packthread, and tagged at both ends with tin. Laces were at the same given to the girls.
WAKE		A country feast, commonly on the anniversary of the tutelar saint of the village, that is, the saint to whom the parish church is dedicated. Also a custom of watching the dead, called Late Wake, in use both in Ireland and Wales, where the corpse being deposited under a table, with a plate of salt on its breast, the table is covered with liquor of all sorts; and the guests, particularly, the younger part of them, amuse themselves with all kinds of pastimes and recreations: the consequence is generally more than replacing the departed friend.
WHORE-MONGER		A man that keeps more than one mistress. A country gentleman, who kept a female friend, being reproved by the parson of the parish, and styled a whore-monger, asked the parson whether he had a cheese in his house; and being answered in the affirmative, 'Pray,' says he, 'does that one cheese make you a cheese-monger?'