Share on Facebook
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.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
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.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
Entries releated to WALL
| BOLT | To run suddenly out of one's house, or hiding place, through fear; a term borrowed from a rabbit-warren, where the rabbits are made to bolt, by sending ferrets into their burrows: we set the house on fire, and made him bolt. To bolt, also means to swallow meat without chewing: the farmer's servants in Kent are famous for bolting large quantities of pickled pork. | |
| BUDGET | A wallet. To open the budget; a term used to signify the notification of the taxes required by the minister for the expences of the ensuing year; as To-morrow the minister will go to the house, and open the budget. | |
| CHOAK | Choak away, the churchyard's near; a jocular saying to a person taken with a violent fit of coughing, or who has swallowed any thing, as it is called the wrong way; Choak, chicken, more are hatching: a like consolation. | |
| COLD BURNING | A punishment inflicted by private soldiers on their comrades for trifling offences, or breach of their mess laws; it is administered in the following manner: The prisoner is set against the wall, with the arm which is to be burned tied as high above his head as possible. The executioner then ascends a stool, and having a bottle of cold water, pours it slowly down the sleeve of the delinquent, patting him, and leading the water gently down his body, till it runs out at his breeches knees: this is repeated to the other arm, if he is sentenced to be burned in both. | |
| ELLENBOROUGH LODGE | The King's Bench Prison. Lord Ellenborough's teeth; the chevaux de frize round the top of the wall of that prison. | |
| 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. | |
| FLYING PASTY | Shit wrapped in paper and thrown over a neighbour's wall. | |
| FREE AND EASY JOHNS | A society which meet at the Hole in the Wall, Fleet-street, to tipple porter, and sing bawdry. | |
| 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. | |
| GUTTER LANE | The throat, the swallow, the red lane. See RED LANE. | |
| HARE | He has swallowed a hare; he is drunk; more probably a HAIR, which requires washing down, | |
| HELL | A taylor's repository for his stolen goods, called cabbage: see CABBAGE. Little hell; a small dark covered passage, leading from London-wall to Bell-alley. | |
| HOIST | To go upon the hoist; to get into windows accidentally left open: this is done by the assistance of a confederate, called the hoist, who leans his head against the wall, making his back a kind of step or ascent. | |
| LAZY | As lazy as Ludman's dog, who leaned against the wall to bark. As lazy as the tinker, who laid down his budget to f - t. | |
| MAW-WALLOP | A filthy composition, sufficient to provoke vomiting. | |
| PIN | In or to a merry pin; almost drunk: an allusion to a sort of tankard, formerly used in the north, having silver pegs or pins set at equal distances from the top to the bottom: by the rules of good fellowship, every person drinking out of one of these tankards, was to swallow the quantity contained between two pins; if he drank more or less, he was to continue drinking till he ended at a pin: by this means persons unaccustomed to measure their draughts were obliged to drink the whole tankard. Hence when a person was a little elevated with liquor, he was said to have drunk to a merry pin. | |
| PISS | He will piss when he can't whistle; he will be hanged. He shall not piss my money against the wall; he shall not have my money to spend in liquor. He who once a good name gets, May piss a bed, and say he sweats. | |
| POT HUNTER | One who hunts more tor the sake of the prey than the sport. Pot valiant; courageous from drink. Potwallopers: persons entitled to vote in certain boroughs by having boiled a pot there. | |
| RED LANE | The throat. Gone down the red lane; swallowed. | |
| THREE-PENNY UPRIGHT | A retailer of love, who, for the sum mentioned, dispenses her favours standing against a wall. | |
| TOAD EATER | A poor female relation, and humble companion, or reduced gentlewoman, in a great family, the standing butt, on whom all kinds of practical jokes are played off, and all ill humours vented. This appellation is derived from a mountebank's servant, on whom all experiments used to be made in public by the doctor, his master; among which was the eating of toads, formerly supposed poisonous. Swallowing toads is here figuratively meant for swallowing or putting up with insults, as disagreeable to a person of feeling as toads to the stomach. | |
| WALKING UP AGAINST THE WALL | To run up a score, which in alehouses is commonly recorded with chalk on the walls of the bar. | |
| WALL | To walk or crawl up the wall; to be scored up at a public-house. Wall-eyed, having an eye with little or no sight, all white like a plaistered wall. | |