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  

 

Entries releated to PED

 

AGROUND		Stuck fast, stopped, at a loss, ruined; like a boat or vessel aground.
AIR AND EXERCISE		He has had air and exercise, i.e. he has been whipped at the cart's tail; or, as it is generally, though more vulgarly, expressed, at the cart's arse.
APOTHECARY		To talk like an apothecary; to use hard or gallipot words: from the assumed gravity and affectation of knowledge generally put on by the gentlemen of this profession, who are commonly as superficial in their learning as they are pedantic in their language.
BACON		He has saved his bacon; he has escaped. He has a good voice to beg bacon; a saying in ridicule of a bad voice.
BELLY PLEA		The plea of pregnancy, generally adduced by female felons capitally convicted, which they take care to provide for, previous to their trials; every gaol having, as the Beggar's Opera informs us, one or more child getters, who qualify the ladies for that expedient to procure a respite.
BISHOPED, or TO BISHOP		A term used among horse-dealers, for burning the mark into a horse's tooth, after he has lost it by age; by bishoping, a horse is made to appear younger than he is. It is a common saying of milk that is burnt too, that the bishop has set his foot in it. Formerly, when a bishop passed through a village, all the inhabitants ran out of their houses to solicit his blessing, even leaving their milk, etc. on the fire, to take its chance: which, went burnt to, was said to be bishoped.
BLEEDERS		Spurs. He clapped his bleeders to his prad; be put spurs to his horse.
BLUBBER		The mouth. - I have stopped the cull's blubber; I have stopped the fellow's mouth, meant either by gagging or murdering him.
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.
BUNDLING		A man and woman sleeping in the same bed, he with his small clothes, and she with her petticoats on; an expedient practised in America on a scarcity of beds, where, on such an occasion, husbands and parents frequently permitted travellers to bundle with their wives and daughters. This custom is now abolished. See Duke of Rochefoucalt's Travels in America.
BURNER		A clap. The blowen tipped the swell a burner; the girl gave the gentleman a clap.
BURNT		Poxed or clapped. He was sent out a sacrifice, and came home a burnt offering; a saying of seamen who have caught the venereal disease abroad. He has burnt his fingers; he has suffered by meddling.
CART		To put the cart before the horse; to mention the last part of a story first. To be flogged at the cart's arse or tail; persons guilty of petty larceny are frequently sentenced to be tied to the tail of a cart, and whipped by the common executioner, for a certain distance: the degree of severity in the execution is left to the discretion of the executioner, who, it is said, has cats of nine tails of all prices.
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.
CLARET		French red wine; figuratively, blood. I tapped his claret; I broke his head, and made the blood run. Claret-faced; red-faced.
CLAWED OFF		Severely beaten or whipped; also smartly poxed or clapped.
CLOUTED SHOON		Shoes tipped with iron.
CLY THE JERK		To be whipped.
COOPED UP		Imprisoned, confined like a fowl in a coop.
CRACKMANS		Hedges. The cull thought to have loped by breaking through the crackmans, but we fetched him back by a nope on the costard, which stopped his jaw; the man thought to have escaped by breaking through the hedge, but we brought him back by a great blow on the head, which laid him speechless.
CREW		A knot or gang; also a boat or ship's company. The canting crew are thus divided into twenty-three orders, which see under the different words: MEN. 1 Rufflers 2 Upright Men 3 Hookers or Anglers 4 Rogues 5 Wild Rogues 6 Priggers of Prancers 7 Palliardes 8 Fraters 9 Jarkmen, or Patricoes 10 Fresh Water Mariners, or Whip Jackets 11 Drummerers 12 Drunken Tinkers 13 Swadders, or Pedlars 14 Abrams. WOMEN. 1 Demanders for Glimmer or Fire 2 Bawdy Baskets 3 Morts 4 Autem Morts 5 Walking Morts 6 Doxies 7 Delles 8 Kinching Morts 9 Kinching Coes
CRIMP		A broker or factor, as a coal crimp, who disposes of the cargoes of the Newcastle coal ships; also persons employed to trapan or kidnap recruits for the East Indian and African companies. To crimp, or play crimp; to play foul or booty: also a cruel manner of cutting up fish alive, practised by the London fishmongers, in order to make it eat firm; cod, and other crimped fish, being a favourite dish among voluptuaries and epicures.
CROP		To be knocked down for a crop; to be condemned to be hanged. Cropped, hanged.
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.
DROP A COG		To let fall, with design, a piece of gold or silver, in order to draw in and cheat the person who sees it picked up; the piece so dropped is called a dropt cog.
DROP DOWN		To be dispirited. This expression is used by thieves to signify that their companion did not die game, as the kiddy dropped down when he went to be twisted; the young fellow was very low spirited when he walked out to be hanged.
EQUIPT		Rich; also, having new clothes. Well equipt; full of money, or well dressed. The cull equipped me with a brace of meggs; the gentleman furnished me with. a couple of guineas.
FID OF TOBACCO		A quid, from the small pieces of tow with which the vent or touch hole of a cannon is stopped. SEA TERM.
FLY-FLAPPED		Whipt in the stocks, or at the cart's tail.
FLYING PASTY		Shit wrapped in paper and thrown over a neighbour's wall.
FOUNDLING		A child dropped in the streets, and found, and educated at the parish expence.
GALLOPER		A blood horse. A hunter. The toby gill clapped his bleeders to his galloper and tipped the straps the double. The highwayman spurred his horse and got away from the officers.
GAMES		Thin, ill-shapped legs: a corruption of the French word jambes. Fancy gambs; sore or swelled legs.
GIBBERISH		The cant language of thieves and gypsies, called Pedlars' French, and St. Giles's Greek: see ST. GILES'S GREEK. Also the mystic language of Geber, used by chymists. Gibberish likewise means a sort of disguised language, formed by inserting any consonant between each syllable of an English word; in which case it is called the gibberish of the letter inserted: if F, it is the F gibberish; if G, the G gibberish; as in the sentence How do you do? Howg dog youg dog.
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.
GREY BEARD		Earthen jugs formerly used in public house for drawing ale: they had the figure of a man with a large beard stamped on them; whence probably they took the name: see BEN JONSON'S PLAYS, BARTHOLOMEW FAIR, etc. etc. Dutch earthen jugs, used for smuggling gin on the coasts of Essex and Suffolk, are at this time called grey beards.
HAWKERS		Licensed itinerant retailers of different commodities, called also pedlars; likewise the sellers of news-papers. Hawking; an effort to spit up the thick phlegm, called OYSTERS: whence it is wit upon record, to ask the person so doing whether he has a licence; a punning allusion to the Act of hawkers and pedlars.
HIGHGATE		Sworn at Highgate - a ridiculous custom formerly prevailed at the public-houses in Highgate, to administer a ludicrous oath to all travellers of the middling rank who stopped there. The party was sworn on a pair of horns, fastened on a stick: the substance of the oath was, never to kiss the maid when he could kiss the mistress, never to drink small beer when he could get strong, with many other injunctions of the like kind; to all which was added the saving cause of "unless you like it best." The person administering the oath was always to be called father by the juror; and he, in return, was to style him son, under the penalty of a bottle.
HOBBLED		Impeded, interrupted, puzzled. To hobble; to walk lamely.
HOBNAIL		A country clodhopper: from the shoes of country farmers and ploughmen being commonly stuck full of hob-nails, and even often clouted, or tipped with iron. The Devil ran over his face with hobnails in his shoes; said of one pitted With the small pox.
HUNT'S DOG		He is like Hunt's dog, will neither go to church nor stay at home. One Hunt, a labouring man at a small town in Shropshire, kept a mastiff, who on being shut up on Sundays, whilst his master went to church, howled so terribly as to disturb the whole village; wherefore his master resolved to take him to church with him: but when he came to the church door, the dog having perhaps formerly been whipped out by the sexton, refused to enter; whereupon Hunt exclaimed loudly against his dog's obstinacy, who would neither go to church nor stay at home. This shortly became a bye-word for discontented and whimsical persons.
HYP		The hypochondriac: low spirits. He is hypped; he has got the blue devils, etc.
IRISH TOYLES		Thieves who carry about pins, laces, and other pedlars wares, and under the pretence of offering their goods to sale, rob houses, or pilfer any thing they can lay hold of.
JINGLE BOXES		Leathern jacks tipped with silver, and hung with bells, formerly in use among fuddle caps.
KID		A little dapper fellow. A child. The blowen has napped the kid. The girl is with child.
KITTLE PITCHERING		A jocular method of hobbling or bothering a troublesome teller of long stories: this is done by contradicting some very immaterial circumstance at the beginning of the narration, the objections to which being settled, others are immediately started to some new particular of like consequence; thus impeding, or rather not suffering him to enter into, the main story. Kittle pitchering is often practised in confederacy, one relieving the other, by which the design is rendered less obvious.
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.
LION		To tip the lion; to squeeze the nose of the party tipped, flat to his face with the thumb. To shew the lions and tombs; to point out the particular curiosities of any place, to act the ciceroni: an allusion to Westminster Abbey, and the Tower, where the tombs and lions are shewn. A lion is also a name given by the gownsmen of Oxford to an inhabitant or visitor. It is a standing joke among the city wits to send boys and country folks, on the first of April, to the Tower-ditch, to see the lions washed.
LOPE		To leap, to run away. He loped down the dancers; he ran down stairs.
MOPED		Stupid, melancholy for want of society.
MORNING DROP		The gallows. He napped the king's pardon and escaped the morning drop; he was pardoned, and was not hanged.
MOUTH		A silly fellow. A dupe. To stand mouth; i.e. to be duped.
MULLIGRUBS		Sick of the mulligrubs with eating chopped hay: low-spirited, having an imaginary sickness.
MUMBLE A SPARROW		A cruel sport practised at wakes and fairs, in the following manner: A cock sparrow whose wings are clipped, is put into the crown of a hat; a man having his arms tied behind him, attempts to bite off the sparrow's head, but is generally obliged to desist, by the many pecks and pinches he receives from the enraged bird.
MUZZLER		A violent blow on the mouth. The milling cove tipped the cull a muzzler; the boxer gave the fellow a blow on the mouth.
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.
NUTCRACKERS		The pillory: as, The cull peeped through the nutcrackers.
ODDS PLUT AND HER NAILS		A Welch oath, frequently mentioned in a jocular manner by persons, it is hoped, ignorant of its meaning; which is, By God's blood, and the nails with which he was nailed to the cross.
PED		A basket.
PEDLAR'S FRENCH		The cant language. Pedlar's pony; a walking-stick.
PEEPING TOM		A nick name for a curious prying fellow; derived from an old legendary tale, told of a taylor of Coventry, who, when Godiva countess of Chester rode at noon quite naked through that town, in order to procure certain immunities for the inhabitants, (notwithstanding the rest of the people shut up their houses) shly peeped out of his window, for which he was miraculously struck blind. His figure, peeping out of a window, is still kept up in remembrance of the transaction.
PERSUADERS		Spurs. The kiddey clapped his persuaders to his prad but the traps boned him; the highwayman spurred his horse hard, but the officers seized him.
PIDDLE		To make water: a childish expression; as, Mammy, I want to piddle. Piddling also means trifling, or doing any thing in a small degree: perhaps from peddling.
PIG RUNNING		A piece of game frequently practised at fairs, wakes, etc. A large pig, whose tail is cut short, and both soaped and greased, being turned out, is hunted by the young men and boys, and becomes the property of him who can catch and hold him by the tail, abpve the height of his head.
PLAISTER OF WARM GUTS		One warm belly'dapped to another; a receipt frequently prescribed for different disorders.
PLUMP		Fat, full, fleshy. Plump in the pocket; full in the pocket. To plump; to strike, or shoot. I'll give you a plump in the bread basket, or the victualling office: I'll give you a blow in the stomach. Plump his peepers, or day-lights; give him a blow in the eyes. He pulled out his pops and plumped him; he drew out his pistols and shot him. A plumper; a single vote at an election. Plump also means directly, or exactly; as, it fell plump upon him: it fell directly upon him.
POPS		Pistols. Popshop: a pawnbroker's shop. To pop; to pawn: also to shoot. I popped my tatler; I pawned my watch. I popt the cull; I shot the man. His means are two pops and a galloper; that is, he is a highwayman.
POSEY, or POESY		A nosegay. I shall see you ride backwards up Holborn-hill, with a book in one hand, and a posey in t'other; i.e. I shall see you go to be hanged. Malefactors who piqued themselves on being properly equipped for that occasion, had always a nosegay to smell to, and a prayer book, although they could not read.
POULTERER		A person that guts letters; i.e. opens them and secretes the money. The kiddey was topped for the poultry rig; the young fellow was hanged for secreting a letter and taking out the contents.
QUID		The quantity of tobacco put into the mouth at one time. To quid tobacco; to chew tobacco. Quid est hoc? hoc est quid; a guinea. Half a quid; half a guinea. The swell tipped me fifty quid for the prad; the gentleman gave fifty pounds for the horse.
RAP		To take a false oath; also to curse. He rapped out a volley; i.e. he swore a whole volley of oaths. To rap, means also to exchange or barter: a rap is likewise an Irish halfpenny. Rap on the knuckles; a reprimand.
REGULARS		Share of the booty. The coves cracked the swell's crib, fenced the swag, and each cracksman napped his regular; some fellows broke open a gentleman's house, and after selling the property which they had stolen, they divided the money between them.
ROULEAU		A number of guineas, from twenty to fifty or more, wrapped up in paper, for the more ready circulation at gaming-tables: sometimes they are inclosed in ivory boxes, made to hold exactly 20, 50, or 100 guineas.
RUB		To run away. Don't rub us to the whit; don't send us to Newgate. - To rub up; to refresh: to rub up one's memory. A rub: an impediment. A rubber; the best two out of three. To win a rubber: to win two games out of three.
SCALDER		A clap. The cull has napped a scalder; the fellow has got a clap.
SCAPEGALLOWS		One who deserves and has narrowly escaped the gallows, a slip-gibbet, one for whom the gallows is said to groan.
SCOLD'S CURE		A coffin. The blowen has napped the scold's cure; the bitch is in her coffin.
SCOTCH BAIT		A halt and a resting on a stick, as practised by pedlars.
SEEDY		Poor, pennyless, stiver-cramped, exhausted.
SHANNON		A river in Ireland: persons dipped in that river are perfectly and for ever cured of bashfulness.
SHOP		A prison. Shopped; confined, imprisoned.
SHOT		To pay one's shot; to pay one's share of a reckoning. Shot betwixt wind and water; poxed or clapped.
SHOULDER CLAPPER		A bailiff, or member of the catch club. Shoulder-clapped; arrested.
SHOVE THE TUMBLER		To be whipped at the cart's tail.
SMART		Spruce, fine: as smart as a carrot new scraped.
SMUG LAY		Persons who pretend to be smugglers of lace and valuable articles; these men borrow money of publicans by depositing these goods in their hands; they shortly decamp, and the publican discovers too late that he has been duped; and on opening the pretended treasure, he finds trifling articles of no value.
SPREAD EAGLE		A soldier tied to the halberts in order to be whipped; his attitude bearing some likeness to that figure, as painted on signs.
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.
STASH		To stop. To finish. To end. The cove tipped the prosecutor fifty quid to stash the business; he gave the prosecutor fifty guineas to stop the prosecution.
STIFF-RUMPED		Proud, stately.
STIVER-CRAMPED		Needy, wanting money. A stiver is a Dutch coin, worth somewhat more than a penny sterling.
STROLLERS		Itinerants of different kinds. Strolling morts; beggars or pedlars pretending to be widows.
SUNBURNT		Clapped; also haying many male children.
TANNER		A sixpence. The kiddey tipped the rattling cove a tanner for luck; the lad gave the coachman sixpence for drink.
TARRING AND FEATHERING		A punishment lately infliced by the good people of Boston on any person convicted, or suspected, of loyalty: such delinquents being "stripped naked", were daubed all over wilh tar, and afterwards put into a hogshead of feathers.
THUMB		By rule of thumb: to do any thing by dint of practice. To kiss one's thumb instead of the book; a vulgar expedient to avoid perjury in taking a false oath.
TO TOP		To cheat, or trick: also to insult: he thought to have topped upon me. Top; the signal among taylors for snuffing the candles: he who last pronounces that word word, is obliged to get up and perform the operation. - to be topped; to be hanged. The cove was topped for smashing queerscreens; he was hanged for uttering forged bank notes.
TOKEN		The plague: also the venereal disease. She tipped him the token; she gave him a clap or pox.
TOWER		Clipped money: they have been round the tower with it.
TUP RUNNING		A rural sport practised at wakes and fairs in Derbyshire; a ram, whose tail is well soaped and greased, is turned out to the multitude; any one that can take him by the tail, and hold him fast, is to have him for his own.
UNRIGGED		Undressed, or stripped. Unrig the drab; strip the wench.
USED UP		Killed: a military saying, originating from a message sent by the late General Guise, on the expedition at Carthagena, where he desired the commander in chief to order him some more grenadiers, for those he had were all used up.
WHIP OFF		To run away, to drink off greedily, to snatch. He whipped away from home, went to the alehouse, where he whipped off a full tankard, and coming back whipped off a fellow's hat from his head.
WINDER		Transportation for life. The blowen has napped a winder for a lift; the wench is transported for life for stealing in a shop.