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 RAG

 

BAWDY-HOUSE BOTTLE		A very small bottle; short measure being among the many means used by the keepers of those houses, to gain what they call an honest livelihood: indeed this is one of the least reprehensible; the less they give a man of their infernal beverages for his money, the kinder they behave to him.
BEVERAGE		Garnish money, or money for drink, demanded of any one having a new suit of clothes.
BLARNEY		He has licked the blarney stone; he deals in the wonderful, or tips us the traveller. The blarney stone is a triangular stone on the very top of an ancient castle of that name in the county of Cork in Ireland, extremely difficult of access; so that to have ascended to it, was considered as a proof of perseverance, courage, and agility, whereof many are supposed to claim the honour, who never atchieved the adventure: and to tip the blarney, is figuratively used telling a marvellous story, or falsity; and also sometimes to express flattery. Irish.
BOB TAIL		A lewd woman, or one that plays with her tail; also an impotent man, or an eunuch. Tag, rag, and bobtail; a mob of all sorts of low people. To shift one's bob; to move off, or go away. To bear a bob; to join in chorus with any singers. Also a term used by the sellers of game, for a partridge.
BRAGGADOCIA		vain-glorious fellow, a boaster.
BRAGGET		Mead and ale sweetened with honey.
CACAFEOGO		A shite-fire, a furious braggadocio or bully huff.
CALIBOGUS		Rum and spruce beer, American beverage.
CATAMARAN		An old scraggy woman; from a kind of float made of spars and yards lashed together, for saving ship-wrecked persons.
COLTAGE		A fine or beverage paid by colts on their first entering into their offices.
COOL TANKARD		Wine and water, with lemon, sugar, and burrage.
CRAG		The neck.
DAWB		To bribe. The cull was scragged because he could not dawb; the rogue was hanged because he could not bribe. All bedawbed with lace; all over lace.
DRAG		To go on the drag; to follow a cart or waggon, in order to rob it.
DRAG LAY		Waiting in the streets to rob carts or waggons.
DRAGGLETAIL or DAGGLETAIL		One whose garments are bespattered with dag or dew: generally applied to the female sex, to signify a slattern.
DRAGOONING IT		A man who occupies two branches of one profession, is said to dragoon it; because, like the soldier of that denomination, he serves in a double capacity. Such is a physician who furnishes the medicines, and compounds his own prescriptions.
FANTASTICALLY DRESSED		With more rags than ribands.
FEAGUE		To feague a horse; to put ginger up a horse's fundament, and formerly, as it is said, a live eel, to make him lively and carry his tail well; it is said, a forfeit is incurred by any horse-dealer's servant, who shall shew a horse without first feaguing him. Feague is used, figuratively, for encouraging or spiriting one up.
FLAP DRAGON		A clap, or pox.
GARRET ELECTION		A ludicrous ceremony, practised every new parliament: it consists of a mock election of two members to represent the borough of Garret (a few straggling cottages near Wandsworth in Surry); the qualification of a voter is, having enjoyed a woman in the open air within that district: the candidates are commonly fellows of low humour, who dress themselves up in a ridiculous manner. As this brings a prodigious concourse of people to Wandsworth, the publicans of that place jointly contribute to the expence, which is sometimes considerable.
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.
HARRIDAN		A hagged old woman; a miserable, scraggy, worn-out harlot, fit to take her bawd's degree: derived from the French word HARIDELLE, a worn-out jade of a horse or mare.
JILT		A tricking woman, who encourages the addresses of a man whom she means to deceive and abandon.
JILTED		Rejected by a woman who has encouraged one's advances.
LAG		A man transported. The cove was lagged for a drag. The man was transported for stealing something out of a waggon.
MALKIN, or MAULKIN		A general name for a cat; also a parcel of rags fastened to the end of a stick, to clean an oven; also a figure set up in a garden to scare the birds; likewise an awkward woman. The cove's so scaly, he'd spice a malkin of his jazey: the fellow is so mean, that he would rob a scare-crow of his old wig.
METTLE		The semen. To fetch mettle; the act of self pollution. Mettle is also figuratively used for courage.
METTLESOME		Bold, courageous.
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.
OTTOMISED		To be ottomised; to be dissected. You'll be scragged, ottomised, and grin in a glass case: you'll be hanged, anatomised, and your skeleton kept in a glass case at Surgeons' Hall.
PLUCK		Courage. He wants pluck: he is a coward. Against the pluck; against the inclination. Pluck the Ribbon; ring the bell. To pluck a crow with one; to settle a dispute, to reprove one for some past transgression. To pluck a rose; an expression said to be used by women for going to the necessary house, which in the country usually stands in the garden. To pluck also signifies to deny a degree to a candidate at one of the universities, on account of insufficiency.
POT HUNTER		One who hunts more tor the sake of the prey than the sport. Pot valiant; courageous from drink. Potwallopers: persons entitled to vote in certain boroughs by having boiled a pot there.
PROG		Provision. Rum prog; choice provision. To prog; to be on the hunt for provision: called in the military term to forage.
RAG		To abuse, and tear to rags the characters of the persons abused. She gave him a good ragging, or ragged him off heartily.
RAG		A farthing.
RAG		Bank notes. Money in general. The cove has no rag; the fellow has no money.
RAG CARRIER		An ensign.
RAG FAIR		An inspection of the linen and necessaries of a company of soldiers, commonly made by their officers on Mondays or Saturdays.
RAG WATER		Gin, or any other common dram: these liquors seldom failing to reduce those that drink them to rags.
RAGAMUFFIN		A ragged fellow, one all in tatters, a tatterdemallion.
RAMMISH		Rank. Rammish woman; a sturdy virago.
RED RAG		The tongue. Shut your potatoe trap, and give your red rag a holiday; i.e. shut your mouth, and let your tongue rest. Too much of the red rag (too much tongue).
RIDING ST GEORGE		The woman uppermost in the amorous congress, that is, the dragon upon St. George. This is said to be the way to get a bishop.
RIFF RAFF		Low vulgar persons, mob, tag-rag and bob-tail.
ROGUM POGUM, or DRAGRUM POGRAM		Goat's beard, eaten for asparagus; so called by the ladies who gather cresses, etc. who also deal in this plant.
SCRAGG'EM FAIR		A public execution.
SCRAGGED		Hanged.
SCRAGGY		Lean, bony.
SCRATCH PLATTER, or TAYLOR'S RAGOUT		Bread sopt in the oil and vinegar in which cucumbers have been sliced.
SCUM		The riff-raff, tag-rag, and bob-tail, or lowest order of people.
SERAGLIO		A bawdy-house; the name of that part of the Great Turk's palace where the women are kept.
SLIPSLOPS		Tea, water-gruel, or any innocent beverage taken medicinally.
SNAP DRAGON		A Christmas gambol: raisins and almonds being put into a bowl of brandy, and the candles extinguished, the spirit is set on fire, and the company scramble for the raisins.
SPUNK		Rotten touchwood, or a kind of fungus prepared for tinder; figuratively, spirit, courage.
STRAIT WAISTCOAT		A tight waistcoat, with long sleeves coming over the hand, having strings for binding them behind the back of the wearer: these waistcoats are used in madhouses for the management of lunatics when outrageous.
STRETCH		A yard. The cove was lagged for prigging a peter with several stretch of dobbin from a drag; the fellow was transported for stealing a trunk, containing several yards of ribband, from a waggon.
SWAGGER		To bully, brag, or boast, also to strut.
TAG-RAG AND BOBTAIL		An expression meaning an assemblage of low people, the mobility of all sorts. To tag after one like a tantony pig: to follow one wherever one goes, just as St. Anthony is followed by his pig.
TATTERDEMALION		A ragged fellow, whose clothes hang all in tatters.
TERMAGANT		An outrageous scold from Termagantes, a cruel Pagan, formerly represented in diners shows and entertainments, where being dressed a la Turque, in long clothes, he was mistaken for a furious woman.
UNFORTUNATE GENTLEMEN		The horse guards, who thus named themselves in Germany, where a general officer seeing them very awkward in bundling up their forage, asked what the devil they were; to which some of them answered, unfortunate gentlemen.
WHITECHAPEL		Whitechapel portion; two smocks, and what nature gave. Whitechapel breed; fat, ragged, and saucy: see ST. GILES'S BREED. Whitechapel beau; one who dresses with a needle and thread, and undresses with a knife. To play at whist Whitechapel fashion; i.e. aces and kings first.