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.

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Entries releated to TAR

 

ACORN		You will ride a horse foaled by an acorn, i.e. the gallows, called also the Wooden and Three-legged Mare. You will be hanged. - See THREE-LEGGED MARE. ACT OF PARLIAMENT. A military term for small beer, five pints of which, by an act of parliament, a landlord was formerly obliged to give to each soldier gratis.
AMBASSADOR		A trick to duck some ignorant fellow or landsman, frequently played on board ships in the warm latitudes. It is thus managed: A large tub is filled with water, and two stools placed on each side of it. Over the whole is thrown a tarpaulin, or old sail: this is kept tight by two persons, who are to represent the king and queen of a foreign country, and are seated on the stools. The person intended to be ducked plays the Ambassador, and after repeating a ridiculous speech dictated to him, is led in great form up to the throne, and seated between the king and queen, who rising suddenly as soon as he is seated, he falls backwards into the tub of water.
ARTHUR, KING ARTHUR		A game used at sea, when near the line, or in a hot latitude. It is performed thus: A man who is to represent king Arthur, ridiculously dressed, having a large wig made out of oakum, or some old swabs, is seated on the side, or over a large vessel of water. Every person in his turn is to be ceremoniously introduced to him, and to pour a bucket of water over him, crying, hail, king Arthur! if during this ceremony the person introduced laughs or smiles (to which his majesty endeavours to excite him, by all sorts of ridiculous gesticulations), he changes place with, and then becomes, king Arthur, till relieved by some brother tar, who has as little command over his muscles as himself.
BASTARD		The child of an unmarried woman.
BASTARDLY GULLION		A bastard's bastard.
BATCHELOR'S SON		A bastard.
BIRTH-DAY SUIT		He was in his birth-day suit, that is, stark naked.
BITCH BOOBY		A country wench. Military term.
BLACK STRAP		Bene Carlo wine; also port. A task of labour imposed on soldiers at Gibraltar, as a punishment for small offences.
BLUE SKIN		A person begotten on a black woman by a white man. One of the blue squadron; any one having a cross of the black breed, or, as it is termed, a lick of the tar brush.
BROTHER STARLING		One who lies with the same woman, that is, builds in the same nest.
BUFF		All in buff; stript to the skin, stark naked.
BYE BLOW		A bastard.
CAGG		To cagg; a military term used by the private soldiers, signifying a solemn vow or resolution not to get drunk for a certain time; or, as the term is, till their cagg is out: which vow is commonly observed with the strictest exactness. Ex. I have cagg'd myself for six months. Excuse me this time, and I will cagg myself for a year. This term is also used in the same sense among the common people of Scotland, where it is performed with divers ceremonies.
CAMBRADE		A chamber fellow; a Spanish military term. Soldiers were in that country divided into chambers, five men making a chamber, whence it was generally used to signify companion.
CAPTAIN LIEUTENANT		Meat between veal and beef, the flesh of an old calf; a military simile, drawn from the officer of that denomination, who has only the pay of a lieutenant, with the rank of captain; and so is not entirely one or the other, but between both.
CHELSEA		A village near London, famous for the military hospital. To get Chelsea; to obtain the benefit of that hospital. Dead Chelsea, by God! an exclamation uttered by a grenadier at Fontenoy, on having his leg carried away by a cannon-ball.
CHILD		To eat a child; to partake of a treat given to the parish officers, in part of commutation for a bastard child the common price was formerly ten pounds and a greasy chin. See GREASY CHIN.
CHOCOLATE		To give chocolate without sugar; to reprove. MILITARY TERM.
CLAMMED		Starved.
COLCANNON		Potatoes and cabbage pounded together in a mortar, and then stewed with butter: an Irish dish.
COSTARD		The head. I'll smite your costard; I'll give you a knock on the head.
COSTARD MONGER		A dealer in fruit, particularly apples.
CRACKMANS		Hedges. The cull thought to have loped by breaking through the crackmans, but we fetched him back by a nope on the costard, which stopped his jaw; the man thought to have escaped by breaking through the hedge, but we brought him back by a great blow on the head, which laid him speechless.
CUSTARD CAP		The cap worn by the sword-bearer of the city of London, made hollow at the top like a custard.
CUT		To renounce acquaintance with any one is to CUT him. There are several species of the CUT. Such as the cut direct, the cut indirect, the cut sublime, the cut infernal, etc. The cut direct, is to start across the street, at the approach of the obnoxious person in order to avoid him. The cut indirect, is to look another way, and pass without appearing to observe him. The cut sublime, is to admire the top of King's College Chapel, or the beauty of the passing clouds, till he is out of sight. The cut infernal, is to analyze the arrangement of your shoe-strings, for the same purpose.
DINGEY CHRISTIAN		A mulatto; or any one who has, as the West-Indian term is, a lick of the tar-brush, that is, some negro blood in him.
DURHAM MAN		Knocker kneed, he grinds mustard with his knees: Durham is famous for its mustard.
FISH		A seaman. A scaly fish; a rough, blunt tar. To have other fish to fry; to have other matters to mind, something else to do.
GOGGLES		Eyes: see OGLES. Goggle eyes; large prominent eyes. To goggle; to stare.
GREASE		To bribe. To grease a man in the fist; to bribe him. To grease a fat sow in the arse; to give to a rich man. Greasy chin; a treat given to parish officers in part of commutation for a bastard: called also, Eating a child.
HOD		Brother Hod; a familiar name for a bricklayer's labourer: from the hod which is used for carrying bricks and mortar.
HUBBLE DE SHUFF		Confusedly. To fire hubble de shuff, to fire quick and irregularly. OLD MILITARY TERM.
HUZZA		Said to have been originally the cry of the huzzars or Hungarian light horse; but now the national shout of the English, both civil and military, in the sea phrase termed a cheer; to give three cheers being to huzza thrice.
JACK TAR		A sailor.
KITTLE PITCHERING		A jocular method of hobbling or bothering a troublesome teller of long stories: this is done by contradicting some very immaterial circumstance at the beginning of the narration, the objections to which being settled, others are immediately started to some new particular of like consequence; thus impeding, or rather not suffering him to enter into, the main story. Kittle pitchering is often practised in confederacy, one relieving the other, by which the design is rendered less obvious.
LEAPING OVER THE SWORD		An ancient ceremonial said to constitute a military marriage. A sword being laid down on the ground, the parties to be married joined hands.
LEG		To make a leg; to bow. To give leg-bail and land security; to run away. To fight at the leg; to take unfair advantages: it being held unfair by back-sword players to strike at the leg. To break a leg; a woman who has had a bastard, is said to have broken a leg.
LOVE BEGOTTEN CHILD		A bastard.
MALINGEROR		A military term for one who, under pretence of sickness, evades his duty.
MARTINET		A military term for a strict disciplinarian: from the name of a French general, famous for restoring military discipline to the French army. He first disciplined the French infantry, and regulated their method of encampment: he was killed at the siege of Doesbourg in the year 1672.
MERRY-BEGOTTEN		A bastard.
MOHAIR		A man in the civil line, a townsman, or tradesman: a military term, from the mohair buttons worn by persons of those descriptions, or any others not in the army, the buttons of military men being always of metal: this is generally used as a term of contempt, meaning a bourgeois, tradesman, or mechanic.
MOSES		To stand Moses: a man is said to stand Moses when he has another man's bastard child fathered upon him, and he is obliged by the parish to maintain it.
MOUTH		A noisy fellow. Mouth half cocked; one gaping and staring at every thing he sees. To make any one laugh on the wrong, or t'other side of his mouth; to make him cry or grieve.
MUSHROOM		A person or family suddenly raised to riches and eminence: an allusion to that fungus, which starts up in a night.
NATURAL		A mistress, a child; also an idiot. A natural son or daughter; a love or merry-begotten child, a bastard.
NOPE		A blow: as, I took him a nope on the costard.
PEG		Old Peg; poor hard Suffolk or Yorkshire cheese. A peg is also a blow with a straightarm: a term used by the professors of gymnastic arts. A peg in the day-light, the victualling office, or the haltering-place; a blow in the eye, stomach, or under the ear.
PRIGSTAR		A rival in love.
PROG		Provision. Rum prog; choice provision. To prog; to be on the hunt for provision: called in the military term to forage.
ROUT		A modern card meeting at a private house; also an order from the Secretary at War, directing the march and quartering of soldiers.
SCONCE		The head, probably as being the fort and citadel of a man: from SCONCE, an old name for a fort, derived from a Dutch word of the same signification; To build a sconce: a military term for bilking one's quarters. To sconce or skonce; to impose a fine.
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.
SKINK		To skink, is to wait on the company, ring the bell, stir the fire, and snuff the candles; the duty of the youngest officer in the military mess. See BOOTS.
SQUEAKER		A bar-boy; also a bastard or any other child. To stifle the squeaker; to murder a bastard, or throw It into the necessary house. - Organ pipes are likewise called squeakers. The squeakers are meltable; the small pipes are silver.
STALL WHIMPER		A bastard.
STAR GAZER		A horse who throws up his head; also a hedge whore.
STAR LAG		Breaking shop-windows, and stealing some article thereout.
STAR THE GLAZE		To break and rob a jeweller's show glass.
STARCHED		Stiff, prim, formal, affected.
STARING QUARTER		An ox cheek.
START, or THE OLD START		Newgate: he is gone to the start, or the old start.
STARTER		One who leaves a jolly company, a milksop; he is no starter, he will sit longer than a hen.
STARVE'EM, ROB'EM, AND CHEAT'EM		Stroud, Rochester, and Chatham; so called by soldiers and sailors, and not without good reason.
STRUM		A perriwig. Rum strum: a fine large wig. (CAMBRIDGE) To do a piece. Foeminam subagitare.
TALLYWAGS, or TARRYWAGS		A man's testicles.
TANTADLIN TART		A sirreverence, human excrement.
TAR		Don't lose a sheep for a halfpennyworth of tar: tar is used to mark sheep. A jack tar; a sailor.
TARADIDDLE		A fib, or falsity.
TARPAWLIN		A coarse cloth tarred over: also, figuratively, a sailor.
TARRING AND FEATHERING		A punishment lately infliced by the good people of Boston on any person convicted, or suspected, of loyalty: such delinquents being "stripped naked", were daubed all over wilh tar, and afterwards put into a hogshead of feathers.
TART		Sour, sharp, quick, pert.
TARTAR		To catch a Tartar; to attack one of superior strength or abilities. This saying originated from a story of an Irish-soldier in the Imperial service, who, in a battle against the Turks, called out to his comrade that he had caught a Tartar. 'Bring him along then,' said he. 'He won't come,' answered Paddy. 'Then come along yourself,' replied his comrade. 'Arrah,' cried he, 'but he won't let me.' - A Tartar is also an adept at any feat, or game: he is quite a Tartar at cricket, or billiards.
TAWDRY		Garish, gawdy, with lace or staring and discordant colours: a term said to be derived from the shrine and altar of St. Audrey (an Isle of Ely saintess), which for finery exceeded all others thereabouts, so as to become proverbial; whence any fine dressed man or woman said to be all St Audrey, and by contraction, all tawdry.
THRUM		To play on any instrument sttfnged with wire. A thrummer of wire; a player on the spinet, harpsichord, of guitar.
TRIP		A short voyage or journey, a false step or stumble, an error in the tongue, a bastard. She has made a trip; she has had a bastard.
TURD		There were four turds for dinner: stir turd, hold turd, tread turd, and mus-turd: to wit, a hog's face, feet and chitterlings, with mustard. He will never shite a seaman's turd; i.e. he will never make a good seaman.
UPSTARTS		Persons lately raised to honours and riches from mean stations.
USED UP		Killed: a military saying, originating from a message sent by the late General Guise, on the expedition at Carthagena, where he desired the commander in chief to order him some more grenadiers, for those he had were all used up.
WHORE'S KITLING, or WHORE'S SON		A bastard.
WOODEN HORSE		To fide the wooden horse was a military punishment formerly in use. This horse consisted of two or more planks about eight feet long, fixed together so as to form a sharp ridge or angle, which answered to the body of the horse. It was supported by four posts, about six feet long, for legs. A head, neck, and tail, rudely cut in wood, were added, which completed the appearance of a horse. On this sharp ridge delinquents were mounted, with their hands tied behind them; and to steady them (as it was said), and lest the horse should kick them off, one or more firelocks were tied to each leg. In this situation they were sometimes condemned to sit an hour or two; but at length it having been found to injure the soldiers materially, and sometimes to rupture them, it was left off about the time of the accession of King George I. A wooden horse was standing in the Parade at Portsmouth as late as the year 1750.
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.