Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue
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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.

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Entries releated to ROGUES

 

AMUSERS  Rogues who carried snuff or dust in their pockets, which they threw into the eyes of any person they intended to rob; and running away, their accomplices (pretending to assist and pity the half-blinded person) took that opportunity of plundering him.
 
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.
 
BIRDS OF A FEATHER  Rogues of the same gang.
 
CARRIERS  A set of rogues who are employed to look out and watch upon the roads, at inns, etc. in order to carry information to their respective gangs, of a booty in prospect.
 
CLOAK TWITCHERS  Rogues who lurk about the entrances into dark alleys, and bye-lanes, to snatch cloaks from the shoulders of passengers.
 
CLOWES  Rogues.
 
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
 
CRUISERS  Beggars, or highway spies, who traverse the road, to give intelligence of a booty; also rogues ready to snap up any booty that may offer, like privateers or pirates on a cruise.
 
DINING ROOM POST  A mode of stealing in houses that let lodgings, by rogues pretending to be postmen, who send up sham letters to the lodgers, and, whilst waiting in the entry for the postage, go into the first room they see open, and rob it.
 
FOOT PADS, or LOW PADS  Rogues who rob on foot.
 
KID LAY  Rogues who make it their business to defraud young apprentices, or errand-boys, of goods committed to their charge, by prevailing on them to execute some trifling message, pretending to take care of their parcels till they come back; these are, in cant terms, said to be on the kid lay.
 
OLLI COMPOLLI  The name of one of the principal rogues of the canting crew.
 
PINCHERS  Rogues who, in changing money, by dexterity of hand frequently secrete two or three shillings out of the change of a guinea. This species of roguery is called the pinch, or pinching lay.
 
PIT  To lay pit and boxes into one; an operation in midwifery or copulation, whereby the division between the anus and vagina is cut through, broken, and demolished: a simile borrowed from the playhouse, when, for the benefit of some favourite player, the pit and boxes are laid together. The pit is also the hole under the gallows, where poor rogues unable to pay the fees are buried.
 
QUEER BIRDS  Rogues relieved from prison, and returned to their old trade.
 
QUEER BLUFFER  The master of a public-house the resort of rogues and sharpers, a cut-throat inn or alehouse keeper.
 
ROGUES  The fourth order of canters. A rogue in grain; a great rogue, also a corn chandler. A rogue in spirit; a distiller or brandy merchant.
 
RUFFLERS  The first rank of canters; also notorious rogues pretending to be maimed soldiers or sailors.
 
STALLING  Making or ordaining. Stalling to the rogue; an ancient ceremony of instituting a candidate into the society of rogues, somewhat similar to the creation of a herald at arms. It is thus described by Harman: the upright man taking a gage of bowse, i.e. a pot of strong drink, pours it on the head of the rogue to be admitted; saying, - I, A.B. do stall thee B.C. to the rogue; and from henceforth it shall be lawful for thee to cant for thy living in all places.
 
VARLETS  Now rogues and rascals, formerly yeoman's servants.
 
WHIP JACKS  The tenth order of the canting crew, rogues who having learned a few sea terms, beg with counterfeit passes, pretending to be sailors shipwrecked on the neighbouring coast, and on their way to the port from whence they sailed.
 
WILD ROGUES  Rogues trained up to stealing from their cradles.