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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 PIECE
| 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. | |
| ARTICLE | A wench. A prime article. A handsome girl. She's a prime article (WHIP SLANG), she's a devilish good piece, a hell of a GOER. | |
| BECALMED | A piece of sea wit, sported in hot weather. I am becalmed, the sail sticks to the mast; that is, my shirt sticks to my back. His prad is becalmed; his horse knocked up. | |
| BULL | A crown piece. A half bull; half a crown. | |
| BULL'S EYE | A crown-piece. | |
| BUSK | A piece of whalebone or ivory, formerly worn by women, to stiffen the forepart of their stays: hence the toast - Both ends of the busk. | |
| 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. | |
| CLOVEN FOOT | To spy the cloven foot in any business; to discover some roguery or something bad in it: a saying that alludes to a piece of vulgar superstition, which is, that, let the Devil transform himself into what shape he will, he cannot hide his cloven foot | |
| COACH WHEEL | A half crown piece is a fore coach wheel, and a crown piece a hind coach wheel; the fore wheels of a coach being less than the hind ones. | |
| COB, or COBBING | A punishment used by the seamen for petty offences, or irregularities, among themselves: it consists in bastonadoing the offender on the posteriors with a cobbing stick, or pipe staff; the number usually inflicted is a dozen. At the first stroke the executioner repeats the word WATCH, on which all persons present are to take off their hats, on pain of like punishment: the last stroke is always given as hard as possible, and is called THE PURSE. Ashore, among soldiers, where this punishment is sometimes adopted, WATCH and THE PURSE are not included in the number, but given over and above, or, in the vulgar phrase, free gratis for nothing. This piece of discipline is also inflicted in Ireland, by the school-boys, on persons coming into the school without taking off their hats; it is there called school butter. | |
| COD PIECE | The fore flap of a man's breeches. Do they bite, master? where, in the cod piece or collar? - a jocular attack on a patient angler by watermen, etc. | |
| COXCOMB | Anciently, a fool. Fools, in great families, wore a cap with bells, on the top of which was a piece of red cloth, in the shape of a cock's comb. At present, coxcomb signifies a fop, or vain self-conceited fellow. | |
| CRIPPLE | Sixpence; that piece being commonly much bent and distorted. | |
| CURTAILS | Thieves who cut off pieces of stuff hanging out of shop windows, the tails of women's gowns, etc.; also, thieves wearing short jackets. | |
| DEWITTED | Torn to pieces by a mob, as that great statesman John de Wit was in Holland, anno 1672. | |
| DILBERRIES | Small pieces of excrement adhering to the hairs near the fundament. | |
| 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. | |
| DUCKS AND DRAKES | To make ducks and drakes: a school-boy's amusement, practised with pieces of tile, oyster-shells, or flattish stones, which being skimmed along the surface of a pond, or still river, rebound many times. To make ducks and drakes of one's money; to throw it idly away. | |
| DUMPS | Down in the dumps; low-spirited, melancholy: jocularly said to be derived from Dumpos, a king of Egypt, who died of melancholy. Dumps are also small pieces of lead, cast by schoolboys in the shape of money. | |
| 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. | |
| GOLD DROPPERS | Sharpers who drop a piece of gold, which they pick up in the presence of some unexperienced person, for whom the trap is laid, this they pretend to have found, and, as he saw them pick it up, they invite him to a public house to partake of it: when there, two or three of their comrades drop in, as if by accident, and propose cards, or some other game, when they seldom fail of stripping their prey. | |
| HANGMAN'S WAGES | Thirteen pence halfpenny; which, according to the vulgar tradition, was thus allotted: one shilling for the executioner, and three halfpence for the rope, - N. B. This refers to former times; the hangmen of the present day having, like other artificers, raised their prices. The true state of this matter is, that a Scottish mark was the fee allowed for an execution, and the value of that piece was settled by a proclamation of James I. at thirteen pence halfpenny. | |
| HOCKING, or HOUGHING | A piece of cruelty practised by the butchers of Dublin, on soldiers, by cutting the tendon of Achilles; this has been by law made felony. | |
| HORSE LADDER | A piece of Wiltshire wit, which consists in sending some raw lad, or simpleton, to a neighbouring farm house, to borrow a horse ladder, in order to get up the horses, to finish a hay-mow. | |
| HYP, or HIP | A mode of calling to one passing by. Hip, Michael, your head's on fire; a piece of vulgar wit to a red haired man. | |
| KONOBLIN RIG | Stealing large pieces of coal from coalsheds. | |
| LARK | A piece of merriment. People playing together jocosely. | |
| MOTHER, or THE MOTHER | A bawd. Mother abbess: the same. Mother midnight; a midwife. Mother in law's bit; a small piece, mothers in law being supposed not apt to overload the stomachs of their husband's children. | |
| OLD MR | GORY. A piece of gold. | |
| PETER GUNNER | Will kill all the birds that died last summer. A piece of wit commonly thrown out at a person walking through a street or village near London, with a gun in his hand. | |
| PIECE | A wench. A damned good or bad piece; a girl who is more or less active and skilful in the amorous congress. Hence the (CAMBRIDGE) toast, May we never have a PIECE (peace) that will injure the constitution. Piece likewise means at Cambridge a close or spot of ground adjacent to any of the colleges, as Clare-hall Piece, etc. The spot of ground before King's College formerly belonged to Clare-hall. While Clare Piece belonged to King's, the master of Clare-hall proposed a swop, which being refused by the provost of King's, he erected before their gates a temple of CLOACINA. It will be unnecessary to say that his arguments were soon acceded to. | |
| 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. | |
| PRIME | Bang up. Quite the thing. Excellent. Well done. She's a prime piece; she is very skilful in the venereal act. Prime post. She's a prime article. | |
| PUMP | A thin shoe. To pump; to endeavour to draw a secret from any one without his perceiving it. Your pump is good, but your sucker is dry; said by one to a person who is attempting to pump him. Pumping was also a punishment for bailiffs who attempted to act in privileged places, such as the Mint, Temple, etc. It is also a piece of discipline administered to a pickpocket caught in the fact, when there is no pond at hand. To pump ship; to make water, and sometimes to vomit. SEA PHRASE. | |
| QUIM | The private parts of a woman: perhaps from the Spanish quemar, to burn. A piece's furbelow. | |
| RANTALLION | One whose scrotum is so relaxed as to be longer than his penis, i.e. whose shot pouch is longer that the barrel of his piece. | |
| RATTLE-TRAPS | A contemptuous name for any curious portable piece of machinery, or philosophical apparatus. | |
| ROUND ABOUT | An instrument used in housebreaking. This instrument has not been long in use. It will cut a round piece about five inches in diameter out of a shutter or door. | |
| SAINT | A piece of spoilt timber in a coach-maker's shop, like a saint, devoted to the flames. | |
| SIZAR | Formerly students who came to Cambridge University for purposes of study and emolument. But at present they are just as gay and dissipated as their fellow collegians. About fifty years ago they were on a footing with the servitors at Oxford, but by the exertions of the present Bishop of Llandaff, who was himself a sizar, they were absolved from all marks of inferiority or of degradation. The chief difference at present between them and the pensioners, consists in the less amount of their college fees. The saving thus made induces many extravagant fellows to become sizars, that they may have more money to lavish on their dogs, pieces, etc. | |
| SLUG | A piece of lead of any shape, to be fired from a blunderbuss. To fire a slug; to drink a dram. | |
| SOLDIER'S POMATUM | A piece of tallow candle. | |
| SPANGLE | A seven shilling piece. | |
| SPOONEY | Thin, haggard, like the shank of a spoon; also delicate, craving for something, longing for sweets. Avaricious. That tit is damned spooney. She's a spooney piece of goods. He's a spooney old fellow. | |
| STEWED QUAKER | Burnt rum, with a piece of butter: an American remedy for a cold. | |
| STRUM | A perriwig. Rum strum: a fine large wig. (CAMBRIDGE) To do a piece. Foeminam subagitare. | |
| WELCH RABBIT | Welch rare-bit. Bread and cheese toasted. See RABBIT. - The Welch are said to be so remarkably fond of cheese, that in cases of difficulty their midwives apply a piece of toasted cheese to the janua vita to attract and entice the young Taffy, who on smelling it makes most vigorous efforts to come forth. | |
| WHIP THE COCK | A piece of sport practised at wakes, horse-races, and fairs in Leicestershire: a cock being tied or fastened into a hat or basket, half a dozen carters blindfolded, and armed with their cart whips, are placed round it, who, after being turned thrice about, begin to whip the cock, which if any one strikes so as to make it cry out, it becomes his property; the joke is, that instead of whipping the cock they flog each other heartily. | |
| WHORE'S CURSE | A piece of gold coin, value five shillings and three pence, frequently given to women of the town by such as professed always to give gold, and who before the introduction of those pieces always gave half a guinea. | |
| WRINKLE | A wrinkle-bellied whore; one who has had a number of bastards: child-bearing leaves wrinkles in a woman's belly. To take the wrinkles out of any one's belly; to fill it out by a hearty meal. You have one wrinkle more in your arse; i.e. you have one piece of knowledge more than you had, every fresh piece of knowledge being supposed by the vulgar naturalists to add a wrinkle to that part. | |