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 SHAM

 

BAY FEVER  A term of ridicule applied to convicts, who sham illness, to avoid being sent to Botany Bay.
 
BRAZEN-FACED  Bold-faced, shameless, impudent.
 
BURNING SHAME  A lighted candle stuck into the parts of a woman, certainly not intended by nature for a candlestick.
 
BUTTOCK AND TWANG, or DOWN BUTTOCK AND SHAM FILE  A common whore, but no pickpocket.
 
CHEATS  Sham sleeves to put over a dirty shift or shirt. See SHAMS.
 
CUCKOLD  The husband of an incontinent wife: cuckolds, however, are Christians, as we learn by the following story: An old woman hearing a man call his dog Cuckold, reproved him sharply, saying, 'Sirrah, are not you ashamed to call a dog by a Christian's name ?' To cuckold the parson; to bed with one's wife before she has been churched.
 
DEVIL'S DAUGHTER'S PORTION  Deal, Dover, and Harwich, The Devil gave with his daughter in marriage; And, by a codicil to his will, He added Helvoet and the Brill; a saying occasioned by the shameful impositions practised by the inhabitants of those places, on sailors and travellers.
 
DICKEY  A sham shirt.
 
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.
 
FEINT  A sham attack on one part, when a real one is meant at another.
 
FERMERDY BEGGARS  All those who have not the sham sores or clymes.
 
FIGHT A CRIB  To make a sham fight. BEAR GARDEN TERM.
 
FLAM  A lie, or sham story: also a single stroke on a drum. To flam; to hum, to amuse, to deceive. Flim flams; idle stories.
 
FRATERS  Vagabonds who beg with sham patents, or briefs, for hospitals, fires, inundations, etc.
 
GAGGERS  High and Low. Cheats, who by sham pretences, and wonderful stories of their sufferings, impose on the credulity of well meaning people. See RUM GAGGER.
 
GLIMMERERS  Persons begging with sham licences, pretending losses by fire.
 
JACOBITES  Sham or collar shirts. Also partizans for the Stuart family: from the name of the abdicated king, i.e. James or Jacobus. It is said by the whigs, that God changed Jacob's name to Israel, lest the descendants of that patriarch should be called Jacobites.
 
JUMP  The jump, or dining-room jump; a species of robbery effected by ascending a ladder placed by a sham lamp- lighter, against the house intended to be robbed. It is so called, because, should the lamp-lighter be put to flight, the thief who ascended the ladder has no means of escaping but that of jumping down.
 
LEGGERS  Sham leggers; cheats who pretend to sell smuggled goods, but in reality only deal in old shop-keepers or damaged goods.
 
MASON'S MAUND  A sham sore above the elbow, to counterfeit a broken arm by a fall from a scaffold.
 
NUMMS  A sham collar, to be worn over a dirty shirt.
 
RAKE, RAKEHELL, or RAKESHAME  A lewd, debauched fellow.
 
SCANDAL PROOF  One who has eaten shame and drank after it, or would blush at being ashamed.
 
SHAM  A cheat, or trick. To cut a sham; to cheat or deceive. Shams; false sleeves to put on over a dirty shirt, or false sleeves with ruffles to put over a plain one. To sham Abram; to counterfeit sickness.
 
SHAMBLE  To walk awkwardly. Shamble-legged: one that walks wide, and shuffles about his feet.
 
SHEEPISH  Bashful. A sheepish fellow; a bashful or shamefaced fellow. To cast a sheep's eye at any thing; to look wishfully at it.
 
SHOULDER SHAM  A partner to a file. See FILE.
 
WISEACRE'S HALL  Gresham college.