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 TRAP

 

BEAU TRAP  A loose stone in a pavement, under which water lodges, and on being trod upon, squirts it up, to the great damage of white stockings; also a sharper neatly dressed, lying in wait for raw country squires, or ignorant fops.
 
BLACK STRAP  Bene Carlo wine; also port. A task of labour imposed on soldiers at Gibraltar, as a punishment for small offences.
 
BULLY TRAP  A brave man with a mild or effeminate appearance, by whom bullies are frequently taken in.
 
BUM TRAP  A sheriff's officer who arrests debtors. Ware hawke! the bum traps are fly to our panney; keep a good look out, the bailiffs know where our house is situated.
 
CADDEE  A helper. An under-strapper.
 
CAT STICKS  Thin legs, compared to sticks with which boys play at cat. See TRAPSTICKS.
 
CRIMP  A broker or factor, as a coal crimp, who disposes of the cargoes of the Newcastle coal ships; also persons employed to trapan or kidnap recruits for the East Indian and African companies. To crimp, or play crimp; to play foul or booty: also a cruel manner of cutting up fish alive, practised by the London fishmongers, in order to make it eat firm; cod, and other crimped fish, being a favourite dish among voluptuaries and epicures.
 
CROSS BITE  One who combines with a sharper to draw in a friend; also, to counteract or disappoint. - This is peculiarly used to signify entrapping a man so as to obtain CRIM. COM. money, in which the wife, real or supposed, conspires with the husband.
 
FLASH  To shew ostentatiously. To flash one's ivory; to laugh and shew one's teeth. Don't flash your ivory, but shut your potatoe trap, and keep your guts warm; the Devil loves hot tripes.
 
GALLOPER  A blood horse. A hunter. The toby gill clapped his bleeders to his galloper and tipped the straps the double. The highwayman spurred his horse and got away from the officers.
 
GOLD DROPPERS  Sharpers who drop a piece of gold, which they pick up in the presence of some unexperienced person, for whom the trap is laid, this they pretend to have found, and, as he saw them pick it up, they invite him to a public house to partake of it: when there, two or three of their comrades drop in, as if by accident, and propose cards, or some other game, when they seldom fail of stripping their prey.
 
GUDGEON  One easily imposed on. To gudgeon; to swallow the bait, or fall into a trap: from the fish of that name, which is easily taken.
 
HANG OUT  The traps scavey where we hang out; the officers know where we live.
 
LEATHER  To lose leather; to be galled with riding on horseback, or, as the Scotch express it, to be saddle sick. To leather also meant to beat, perhaps originally with a strap: I'll leather you to your heart's content. Leather-headed; stupid. Leathern conveniency; term used by quakers for a stage-coach.
 
LIKENESS  A phrase used by thieves when the officers or turnkeys are examining their countenance. As the traps are taking our likeness; the officers are attentively observing us.
 
LOB'S POUND  A prison. Dr. Grey, in his notes on Hudibras, explains it to allude to one Doctor Lob, a dissenting preacher, who used to hold forth when conventicles were prohibited, and had made himself a retreat by means of a trap door at the bottom of his pulpit. Once being pursued by the officers of justice, they followed him through divers subterraneous passages, till they got into a dark cell, from whence they could not find their way out, but calling to some of their companions, swore they had got into Lob's Pound.
 
LOUSE TRAP  A small toothed comb.
 
MAN TRAP  A woman's commodity.
 
MOUSETRAP  The parson's mousetrap; the state of matrimony.
 
PERSUADERS  Spurs. The kiddey clapped his persuaders to his prad but the traps boned him; the highwayman spurred his horse hard, but the officers seized him.
 
POTATOE TRAP  The mouth. Shut your potatoe trap and give your tongue a holiday; i.e. be silent. IRISH WIT.
 
RATTLE-TRAPS  A contemptuous name for any curious portable piece of machinery, or philosophical apparatus.
 
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).
 
SLAMKIN  A female sloven, one whose clothes seem hung on with a pitch-fork, a careless trapes.
 
STRAP  To work. The kiddy would not strap, so he went on the scamp: the lad would not work, and therefore robbed on the highway.
 
STRAPPER  A large man or woman.
 
STRAPPING  Lying with a woman.
 
TODDLE  To walk away. The cove was touting, but stagging the traps he toddled; be was looking out, and feeing the officers he walked away.
 
TRAP  To understand trap; to know one's own interest.
 
TRAP STICKS  Thin legs, gambs: from the sticks with which boys play at trap-ball.
 
TRAPAN  To inveigle, or ensnare.
 
TRAPES  A slatternly woman, a careless sluttish woman.
 
TRAPS  Constables and thief-takers.
 
TWO-HANDED  Great. A two-handed fellow or wench; a great strapping man orwoman,
 
UNDERSTRAPPER  An inferior in any office, or department.