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.

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.

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Entries releated to SCOUR

 

BEAR-GARDEN JAW or DISCOURSE  Rude, vulgar language, such as was used at the bear-gardens.
 
CAT OF NINE TAILS  A scourge composed of nine strings of whip-cord, each string having nine knots.
 
CHEESE IT Be silent, be quiet, don't do it. Cheese it, the coves are fly; be silent, the people understand our discourse.
 
DAMME BOY  A roaring, mad, blustering fellow, a scourer of the streets, or kicker up of a breeze.
 
FIDDLE FADDLE  Trifling discourse, nonsense. A mere fiddle faddle fellow; a trifier.
 
FILE, FILE CLOY, or BUNGNIPPER  A pick pocket. To file; to rob or cheat. The file, or bungnipper, goes generally in company with two assistants, the adam tiler, and another called the bulk or bulker, Whose business it is to jostle the person they intend to rob, and push him against the wall, while the file picks his pocket, and gives'the booty to the adam tiler, who scours off with it.
 
JAW  Speech, discourse. Give us none of your jaw; let us have none of your discourse. A jaw-me-dead; a talkative fellow. Jaw work; a cry used in fairs by the sellers of nuts.
 
RIGGING  Clothing. I'll unrig the bloss; I'll strip the wench. Rum Rigging; fine clothes. The cull has rum rigging, let's ding him and mill him, and pike; the fellow has good clothes, let's knock him down, rob him, and scour off, i.e. run away.
 
SCOUR  To scour or score off; to run away: perhaps from SCORE; i.e. full speed, or as fast as legs would carry one. Also to wear: chiefly applied to irons, fetters, or handcuffs, because wearing scours them. He will scour the darbies; he will be in fetters. To scour the cramp ring; to wear bolts or fetters, from which, as well as from coffin hinges, rings supposed to prevent the cramp are made.
 
SCOURERS  Riotous bucks, who amuse themselves with breaking windows, beating the watch, and assaulting every person they meet: called scouring the streets.
 
SHIT SACK  A dastardly fellow: also a non-conformist. This appellation is said to have originated from the following story: - After the restoration, the laws against the non-conformists were extremely severe. They sometimes met in very obscure places: and there is a tradition that one of their congregations were assembled in a barn, the rendezvous of beggars and other vagrants, where the preacher, for want of a ladder or tub, was suspended in a sack fixed to the beam. His discourse that day being on the last judgment, he particularly attempted to describe the terrors of the wicked at the sounding of the trumpet, on which a trumpeter to a puppet-show, who had taken refuge in that barn, and lay hid under the straw, sounded a charge. The congregation, struck with the utmost consternation, fled in an instant from the place, leaving their affrighted teacher to shift for himself. The effects of his terror are said to have appeared at the bottom of the sack, and to have occasioned that opprobrious appellation by which the non-conformists were vulgarly distinguished.
 
TITTLE-TATTLE  Idle discourse, scandal, women's talk, or small talk.
 
WHIPT SYLLABUB  A flimsy, frothy discourse or treatise, without solidity.
 
WIREDRAW  To lengthen out or extend any book, letter, or discourse.
 
WORD GRUBBERS  Verbal critics, and also persons who use hard words in common discourse.