part II
., p. 41. After the drinking a Kan of Phlip or a Bowl of Punch.
1705. Ward, Hudibras Redivivus, vol. I., pt. 4, p. 8. So have I seen on board of ship, Some knawing beeff, some spewing flip.
1748. Smollett, Rod. Random, ch. xxiv. He ... sent for a can of beer, of which he made excellent flip to crown the banquet.
1810. Crabbe, The Borough, Letter 16. Nay, with the seamen working in the ship, At their request, he’d share the grog and flip.
1875. C. D. Warner, Backlog Studies, p. 18. It was thought best to heat the poker red-hot before plunging it into the mugs of flip.
2. (popular).—A bribe or douceur.
3. (common).—A light blow, or snatch.
1821. Haggart, Life, p. 23. Barney made a very unceremonious flip at the bit.
Verb (thieves’).—To shoot.
1819. Vaux, Flash Dict., s.v.
1834. Ainsworth, Rookwood (ed. 1864), p. 273. Flip him, Dick; fire, or I’m taken.
To flip up, verb. phr. (American).—To spin a coin.
1879. New York Tribune, 4 Oct. The two great men could flip up to see which should have the second place.
Flip-Flap, subs. 1 (old).—A flighty creature.
1702. Vanbrugh, False Friend. 1. The light airy flip-flap, she kills him with her motions.
2. (popular). A step-dance; a cellar-flap (q.v.). Also (acrobats’); a kind of somersault, in which the performer throws himself over on his hands and feet alternately.
1727. Gay, Fables, ‘Two Monkies.’ The tumbler whirls the flip-flap round. With sommersets he shakes the ground.
1872. Braddon, Dead Sea Fruit, ch. xiv. There ain’t nothing you can’t do, Morty, from Shylock to a flip-flap.
1889. Pall Mall Gazette, 12 Nov., p. 6, col. 2. There were the clowns who danced, turned somersaults, flip-flaps, and contorted themselves.
3. (American). A kind of tea-cake.
1876. Besant and Rice, Golden Butterfly, ch. xviii. The first evening I took tea with Mrs. Scrimmager. ‘It must be more than a mite lonely for you,’ she said, as we sat over her dough-nuts and flip-flaps.
4. (nautical). The arm. For synonyms, see Bender.
5. (venery). The penis.
1653. Urquhart, Rabelais, I., 20. I might have cleft her water-gap And joined it close with my flip-flap.
Flipper, subs. (nautical and common). 1. The hand. Tip us your flipper = give me your hand. [From the flipper or paddle of a turtle.] For synonyms, see Daddle and Mauley.
1837. Barham, Ingoldsby Legends. ‘Lay of St. Gengulphus.’ With those great sugar-nippers they nipp’d off his flippers, As the clerk, very flippantly, termed his fists.
1884. Punch, 11 Oct. ‘’Arry at a Political Picnic.’ Old Bluebottle tipped me his flipper, and ’oped I’d ‘refreshed,’ and all that.
2. (common). See Flapper.
3. (theatrical). Part of a scene, hinged and painted on both sides, used in trick changes.
Flirtatious, adj. (American).—Flighty.
1881, W. D. Howells, D. Breen’s Practice, ch. i., “Oh, you needn’t look after her, Mr. Libby! There’s nothing flirtatious about Grace,” said Mrs. Maynard.
Flirt-gill, Flirtgillian, or Gill-flirt, subs. (old). A wanton; a chopping girl (q.v.); specifically a strumpet. For synonyms, see Barrack-hack and Tart.
1595. Shakspeare, Romeo and Juliet, ii., 4. Scurvy knave! I am none of his flirt-gills.
1713. Guardian, No. 26. We are invested with a parcel of flirt-gills, who are not capable of being mothers of brave men.
1729. Gay, Polly, ii. 4. While a man is grappling with these gill-flirts, pardon the expression, Captain, he runs his reason aground.
1822. Scott, Fort. of Nigel, ch. v. She is a dutiful girl to her god-father, though I sometimes call her a jill-flirt.
Flirtina Cop-all, subs. phr. (common). A wanton, young or old; a men’s woman (q.v.).
Float, subs. (theatrical).—The footlights: before the invention of gas they were oil-pans with floating wicks. Cf., Ark-floater.
1886. Saturday Review, 24 July, p. 108. To an actor the float is not what it is to a fisherman.
1889. Answers, 8 June, p. 24. He slapped me on the back, put me in a hansom, and cried, ‘We’ll have you behind the float (footlights) in a week.’
If that’s the way the stick floats. See Stick.
Floater, subs. (Stock Exchange).—An Exchequer bill; applied also to other unfunded stock.
1871. Temple Bar, XXXI., 320. On the Stock Exchange, where slang abounds, floaters is a term which would puzzle outsiders. Floaters are Exchequer bills and their unfunded stock.
2. (common).—A suet dumpling in soup.
3. (political).—A vendible voter.
1883. Graphic, 17 Mar., p. 279, col. 3. ‘How many voters are there?’ asked a candidate in one of these pure-blooded Yankee townships. ‘Four hundred.’ ‘And how many floaters, i.e., purchasable?’ ‘Four hundred.’
1888. New York Herald, 4 Nov. The Building Materials Exchange people were in line to the number of about 200, with a band, and were followed by a sixteen-horse stage of the ‘Long Tom’ shape containing a lot of floaters and some fifers and drummers.
4. (Western American).—A candidate representing several counties, and therefore not considered directly responsible to any one of them.
1853. Texas State Gazette, 16 July. J. W. Lawrence, Esq., requests us to withdraw his name as a candidate for floater in the district composed of the counties of Fayette, Bastrop, and Travis.
5. (venery).—The penis. For synonyms, see Creamstick and Prick.
Floating Academy, subs. phr. (old).—The hulks; also Campbell’s academy (q.v.), and floating hell (q.v.). For synonyms, see Cage.
Floating Batteries, subs. phr. (military).—1. Broken bread in tea; also slingers (q.v.).
2. (American).—The Confederate bread rations during the Secession.
Floating Coffin, subs. phr. (nautical).—A rotten ship.
Floating Hell, or Hell Afloat, subs. phr. (nautical).—A ship commanded by (1) a brutal savage, or (2) a ruthless disciplinarian. See also Floating Academy.
Flock, subs. (colloquial).—A clergyman’s congregation. Also any body of people with a common haunt or interest: e.g., a family of children, a company of soldiers, a school of girls or boys, ‘a cabful of molls,’ and such like.
To fire into the wrong flock, verb. phr. (American pioneers’).—To blunder. A variant is to bark up the wrong tree.
1858. New York Herald, 9 Nov. When Mr. Saulsbury rose and called the Speaker’s attention to the alleged blunder in the Secretary’s report, his own friends jumped up in great excitement and pulled him down; he soon found out that he had fired into the wrong flock.
Flock of Sheep, subs. phr.—1. (gaming). A hand at dominoes set out on the table.
2. (colloquial).—White waves on the sea: White horses (q.v.).
Flog, subs. (American thieves’).—1. A whip. A contraction of Flogger (q.v.). To flog (now recognised), is cited by B. E. (1690), Grose, and the author of Bacchus and Venus as Cant.
To be flogged at the tumbler, verb. phr. (old).—To be whipped at the cart’s tail. See Tumbler.
1690. B. E., New Dict. of the Canting Crew.
To flog the dead horse, verb. phr. (common).—1. To work up an interest in a bygone subject; to try against heart; to do with no will nor liking for the job. [Bright said that Earl Russell’s Reform Bill was a dead horse (q.v.), and every attempt to create enthusiasm in its favour was flogging the dead horse.]
2. (nautical).—To work off an advance of wages.
To flog a willing horse, verb. phr. (common).—To urge on one who is already putting forth his best energies.
Flogger, subs. (old).—1. A whip; cf., Flog. Grose gives the word as Cant. Fr., un bouis.
1789. Geo. Parker, Life’s Painter, p. 173, s.v.
2. (theatrical).—A mop (i.e., a bunch of slips of cloth on a handle) used in the painting room to whisk the charcoal dust from a sketch.
Flogging, ppl. adj. (old).—Careful; penurious.
Flogging-cove, subs. phr. (prison)—1. An official who administers the cat (q.v.).
1690. B. E., New Dict. of the Canting Crew. Flogging cove, c. the Beadle, or Whipper in Bridewell, or any such place.
1785. Grose, Dict. Vulg. Tongue, s.v. Flogging-cove, the beadle, or whipper, in Bridewell.
2. See Flogging Cully.
Flogging Cully, subs. phr. (venery).—A man addicted, whether from necessity or choice, to flagellation; a whipster (q.v.).
1690. B. E., New Dict. of the Canting Crew. Flogging, c. a Naked Woman’s whipping (with rods) an Old (usually) and (sometimes) a young Lecher.
Flogging Stake, subs. phr. (old).—A whipping post.
1690. B. E., New Dict. of the Canting Crew, s.v.
1785. Grose, Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue, s.v.
Flogster, subs. (old).—One addicted to flogging. Specifically (naval), a nickname applied to the Duke of Clarence (afterwards William IV).
Floor, verb. (colloquial).—1. To knock down. Hence to vanquish in argument; to make an end of; to defeat; to confound. See Floored and Dead-beat.
1785. Grose, Dict. Vulg. Tongue. Floor the pig, knock down the officer.
1821. Haggart, Life, p. 15. That moment the farmer let fly at the drover, which floored him.
1857. G. A. Lawrence, Guy Livingstone, ch. xxi. ‘When I saw him so floored as not to be able to come to time, I knew there had been some hard hitting going on thereabouts, so I kept clear.’
1821. Egan, Tom and Jerry, p. 10. Then (apostrophising ‘Maga’) floor me not. Ibid., p. 60, The Corinthian, being no novice in these matters, floored two or three in a twinkling.
1835. Coleridge, Table Talk (published posthumously). The other day I was what you may called floored by a Jew.
1836. C. Dickens, Pickwick Papers, p. 425 (Ed. 1857). Even Mr. Bob Sawyer ... was floored.
1862. Mrs. H. Wood, The Channings, ch. v. ‘So if the master is directing his suspicions to the seniors, he’ll get floored.’
1870. L. Oliphant, Piccadilly, Pt. V., p. 196. ‘Whenever the mammas object to asking her on account of that horrid Lady Wylde,’ I floor all opposition by saying, ‘Oh, Lady Jane Helter will bring her.’
1888. Sportsman, 28 Nov. Pope, who was the fresher, started at a terrific pace and drove his man all over the ring, ending by flooring him.
To floor the odds (betting men’s).—Said of a low-priced horse that pulls off the event in face of the betting.
1882. Daily Telegraph, 16 Nov. The odds were, nevertheless, floored from an unexpected quarter.
1889. Echo, 24 Jan. As the odds betted on Miss Jessie II. were easily floored by Marsden.
2. (drunkards’).—To finish; to get outside of. E.g., ‘I floored three half-pints and a nip before breakfast.’
1837. Punch, 31 Jan. Dear Bill, this stone jug.... Is still the same snug, Free-and-easy old hole, Where Macheath met his blowens, and Wylde floored his bowl.
18(?). Macmillan’s Magazine (quoted in Century Dict.). I have a few bottles of old wine left: we may as well floor them.
3. (university).—To pluck; to plough (q.v.).
To floor a paper, lesson, examination, examiner, etc., verb. phr. (university).—To answer every question; to master; to prove oneself superior to the occasion.
1852. Bristed, Five Years in an English University, p. 12. Somehow I nearly floored the paper.
1861. Hughes, Tom Brown at Oxford. I’ve floored my Little Go.
To floor one’s licks, verb. phr. (common).—To surpass one’s self; to cut-around (q.v.).
1844. Puck, p. 14. Now slowly rising, raised his pewter and floored his licks.
To have, hold, or take the floor, verb. phr. (colloquial).—To rise to address a public meeting; in Ireland, to stand up to dance; and, in America, ‘to be in possession of the House.’
1882. McCabe, New York, xxi., p. 342. A member making a bid below or an offer above the one which has the floor.
1888. St. Louis Globe-Democrat. After a half hour’s recess Mr. Glover took the floor.
1889. Pall Mall Gazette, 11 Nov., p. 6, col. 1. The Duke of Rutland, however, who ‘took the floor’ non-politically at the end of the evening, was really ‘felicitous’ in his few remarks.
Floored, ppl. adj. (colloquial).—1. Vanquished; brought under; ruined. For synonyms, see Dead-beat and infra.
English Synonyms.—Basketted; bitched; bitched-up; bowled out; broken up; buggered up; busted; caved in; choked-off; cornered; cooked; coopered up; dead-beat; done brown; done for; done on toast; doubled up; flattened-out; fluffed; flummoxed; frummagemmed; gapped; gone through St. Peter’s needle; gone under; gravelled; gruelled; hoofed out; in the last of pea-time, or last run of shad; jacked-up; knocked out of time; knocked silly; looed; mucked-out; petered out; pocketed; potted; put in his little bed; queered in his pitch; rantanned; sat upon; sewn up; shut-up; smashed to smithereens; snashed; snuffed out; spread-eagled; struck of a heap; stumped; tied up; timbered; treed; trumped; up a tree.
French Synonyms.—Mon linge est lavé (pop.: = I have thrown up the sponge); coller sous bande (= to put in a hole: at billiards, bande = cushion); avoir son affaire (pop: = to have got a ‘settler’); aplatir (fam: = to flatten out); aplomber (thieves’: = to brazen down; to bluff); être pris dans la balancine (pop.: = to be in a fix); se faire coller (familiar); envoyer quelqu’un s’asseoir, or s’asseoir sur quelqu’un (popular).
Italian Synonym.—Traboccare (= to overturn).
Spanish Synonyms.—Pesado (doubled-up: from peso = weight); aculado (from acular = to corner); arrollar (= to sweep away, as a torrent); aturrullar (= to shut up); cogite! (= ‘I’ve got you.’ or, ‘there I have you!’)
2. (common).—Drunk; in Shakspearean ‘put down’: as Sir Andrew Aguecheek, ‘Never in your life, I think, unless you see Canary put me down.’ (Twelfth Night, i., 3). For synonyms, see Screwed.
3. (painters’).—Hung low at an exhibition; in contradistinction to skyed (q.v.), and on the line (q.v.).
Floorer, subs. (common).—1. An auctioneer (q.v.); or knock-down blow; cf., Dig, Bang, and Wipe. Hence, sudden or unpleasant news; a decisive argument; an unanswerable retort; a decisive check. Sp., peso.
1819. T. Moore, Tom Crib’s Memorial, p. 20. For in these fancy times, ’tis your hits in the muns, And your choppers and floorers that govern the funds.
1839. Swinton, Trial of Wm. Humphreys, p. 297. It is a downright floorer to the Grown.
1856. Bradley (‘Cuthbert Bede’), Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green. The Putney Pet stared.... The inquiry for his college was, in the language of his profession, a ‘regular floorers.’
1861. H. C. Pennell, Puck on Pegasus, p. 20. What a floorers to my hopes is this performance on the ropes! Miss Marianne suspensa scalis—(Would twere sus. per coll instead).
1868. Cassell’s Magazine, 4 Jan., p. 213. ‘Ah, she hasn’t told you of the strokes I have had, one arter the other—clean floorers, and left like a log of wood in my bed.’
2. (schools’).—A question, or a paper, too hard to master.
3. (bowling alley).—A ball that brings down all the pins.
4. (thieves’).—A thief who trips his man, and robs in picking him up; a Ramper (q.v.).
1809. G. Andrews, Dict. of the Slang and Cant Languages, s.v.
Flooring, subs. (pugilists’).—Knocking down. Hence, to vanquish in all senses.
1819. Moore, Tom Crib’s Memorial, p. xii. Cross-buttocking ... being as indispensable an ingredient, as nobbing, flooring, etc.
Floor-walker, subs. (American).—A shop-walker.
Flop, subs. and verb. (American university).—1. A bite (q.v.); a successful dodge.
1856. Hall, College Words and Customs. Any ‘cute’ performance by which a man is sold is a good flop, and by a phrase borrowed from the base-ball ground is ‘rightly played.’ The discomfited individual declares that they ‘are all on a side,’ and gives up, or ‘rolls over,’ by giving his opponent ‘gowdy.’ A man writes cards during examinations to ‘feeze the profs’; said cards are ‘gumming cards,’ and he flops the examination if he gets a good mark by the means. One usually flops his marks by feigning sickness.
2. (common)—A sudden fall or ‘flop’ down.
3. (common).—A collapse or breakdown.
4. (For flap or flip, old).—A light blow.
1662. Rump Songs, ii., 3. The good the Rump will do, when they prevail, Is to give us a flop with a fox’s tail, Which nobody can deny.
Verb. (colloquial).—1. To fall, or flap down suddenly. A variant of ‘flap.’ Fr., prendre un billet de parterre.
1742. Fielding, Joseph Andrews, bk. iv. ch. v. She had flopped her hat over her eyes.
1859. Dickens, Tale of Two Cities, bk. ii. ch. i. If you must go flopping yourself down.
1870. Public Opinion, 12 Feb. But even if they were more numerous and greater than they are, we should hold aloof from the crowd that flops in his presence with love and awe, as the dismal wife of Jerry Cruncher flopped in pious misery.
1883. The Theatre, Feb., p. 93. She is able to call in tumbling to the aid of tragedy, and bring the plastic arts to the portrayal of the passions; to flop through four such acts as these night after night, and finish with a death-scene warranted correct, to the very last kick and quiver.
1891. Hume Nisbet, Bail Up! p. 118. He cursed under his breath each time he rose to follow, and smothered a yell of pain and horror each time he flopped down.
2. (pugilists’).—To knock down; to Floor (q.v.).
1888. Sporting Life, 15 Dec. ’E carnt flop a bloke.
Adv. (colloquial).—An onomatopœia expressive of the noise of a sudden and sounding fall. Often used expletively, as slap (q.v.) is, and the American right (q.v.)
1726. Vanbrugh, Journey to London, Act I., Sc. 2. That down came I flop o’ my feace all along in the channel.
1860. Punch, v. 38, p. 255. ’Twixt two stools, flop, he let me drop, The fall it was my murther.
1881. Jas. Payn, Grape from a Thorn, ch. vi. ‘She’ll roll down, papa, and come flop.’
To flop over, verb. phr. (colloquial).—To turn heavily; hence (in America), to make a sudden change of sides, association, or allegiance.
Flop-Up, subs. (American).—A day’s tramp, as opposed to a sot-down = half a day’s travel.
1888. Detroit Free Press, 15 Sept. ‘Stranger, did ye lope it?’ (come on foot). ‘Yes.’ ‘A mile or a sot down?’ ‘More’n that. About a dozen flop-ups.’
Flop-up-time = Bedtime.
[Flop, too, is something of a vocable of all-work. Thus to flop in = (venery) to effect intromission; to flop round = to loaf; to dangle; to flop a judy = to lay out, or ‘spread’ (q.v.), a girl; to do a flop = (colloquial) to sit, or to fall, down, and (venery) to lie down to a man; to flop out = to leave the water noisily and awkwardly; belly-flopping = belly-bumping, coition; a flop in the gills = a smack in the mouth.]
Florence, subs. (old)—‘A wench that has been touzed and ruffled.’
1690. B. E., New Dict. of the Canting Crew, and (1785) Grose, s.v.
Floster, subs. (common).—A mixed drink: sherry, noyau, peach-leaves, lemon, sugar, ice, and soda-water. Cf., Flesh-and-blood.
Flouch. To fall (or go), flouch (or floush), verb. phr. (colloquial).—To come to pieces; to sag suddenly on the removal of a restraining influence: as a pair of stays.
1819. Moore, Tom Crib, p. 13. Old Georgy went floush, and his backers look’d shy.
Flounce, verb. (colloquial).—To move with violence, and (generally) in anger. Said of women, for whom such motion is, or rather was, inseparable from a great flourishing of flounces.
Flounder, subs. (riverside thieves’).—1. A drowned corpse. Cf., Dab, and for synonyms, see Stiff.
2. (Stock Exchange).—To sell, and afterwards re-purchase a stock, or vice versâ.
1889. Echo, 1 Feb. A third expedient offers itself—namely, to turn round and buy; but this operation goes by the name of ‘floundering’ especially when the speculator loses both ways.
Flounder-and-Dab, subs. phr. (rhyming).—A cab. For synonyms, see Growler.
Flour, subs. (American).—Money. For synonyms, see Actual and Gilt.
Flourish, subs. (venery).—Coition in a hurry; flyer (q.v.); a fast-fuck (q.v.). Also verbally. For synonyms see Greens and Ride.
1796. Grose, Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue (3rd ed.), s.v. To enjoy a woman with her clothes on or without going to bed.
Verb (colloquial.).—To be in luck: e.g., ‘I flourish’ = ‘I am well off’; ‘Do you flourish,’ or ‘Are you flourishing?’ = ‘Have you got any money?’
Flourishing, adj. (colloquial).—A retort to the enquiry, ‘How are you?’ The equivalent of ‘Pretty well, thank you?’
To flourish it, verb. phr. (venery).—To expose the person.
Flower, subs. (venery).—1. The female pudendum. Also Flower-pot. For synonyms, see Monosyllable.
2. In pl. (conventional).—The menstrual flux. Cf., Flag, sense 3.
1598. Florio, A Worlde of Wordes. Biancure, the monthly flowers that women have.
1611. Cotgrave, Dictionarie. Le fourrier de la lune a marqué le logis, applicable to a woman that hath her flowers.
Flower-Fancier, subs. phr. (venery).—A whore-master.
Flowery, subs. (thieves’).—Lodging; entertainment; ‘square the omee for the flowery’ = pay the landlord for the lodging. [Lingua Franca.]
Flowery Language, subs. phr. (colloquial).—A euphemism for blasphemous and obscene speech.
Flower of Chivalry, subs. phr. (venery).—The female pudendum. For synonyms, see Monosyllable.
Flowing-hope, subs. (military).—A forlorn hope.
Flub-dub-and-Guff, subs. phr. (American).—Rhetorical embellishment; high-falutin’ (q.v.).
1888. Detroit Free Press, August. Rev. Mr. Selah (to desk editor of the Daily Roarer)—‘Mr. Seezars, are you going to publish my prayer in full?’ Desk Editor—‘In full? Well, I guess not.’ (Changing his tone)—‘However, we’ll do what we can for you. By swiping out the flub-dub-and-guff, I guess we’ll have room to put in the points.’
Flue, subs. (old). 1. The Recorder of London or any large town. Bamfylde Moore-Carew.
2. (colloquial).—The filth, part fluff, part hair, part dust, which collects under ill-kept beds, and at the junctures of sofas and chairs; Beggar’s Velvet (q.v.).
1860. Dickens, Uncommercial Traveller. ‘Arcadian London.’ A power they possess of converting everything into flue. Such broken victuals as they take by stealth appear (whatever the nature of the viands) to generate flue.... Ibid. ‘Refreshment for Travellers.’ Take the old established Bull’s Head ... with its old-established flue under its old established four-post bedsteads.
3. (common).—A contraction of ‘influenza.’
Verb (common).—To put in pawn.
In (or up) the flue, phr. (common).—Pawned. For synonyms, see Pop.
1821. Real Life, etc., I., p. 566.
1851. Mayhew, Lond. Lab. and Lond. Poor, II., p. 250. I’ve had sometimes to leave half my stock in flue with a deputy for a night’s rest.
Up the flue (or spout), adj. phr. (colloquial).—Dead; collapsed, mentally or physically.
To be up one’s flue, verb. phr. (colloquial).—To be awkward for one. That’s up your flue = That’s a ‘facer,’ or that’s up against you.
Flue-Faker (or Scraper), subs. (common).—A chimney-sweep. [From Flue + Faker (q.v.).] Minor clergy = young chimney sweeps. For synonyms, see Clergyman.
1821. Egan, Tom and Jerry, p. 60. The ‘office’ has been given to ‘shove’ the poor flue-faker against Tom’s light drab coat.
1859. Matsell, Vocabulum, or Rogue’s Lexicon, s.v.
1882. Punch. LXXXII., p. 185, col. 2.
Fluff (or Fluffings), subs. (railway clerks’).—1. Short change given by
## booking-clerks. The practice is known as Fluffing. Cf., Menavelings.
Fr., des fruges (= more or less unlawful profits of any sort).
1890. Star, 27 Jan. Many porters on this line are but getting 15s. per week, and with regard to ‘tips,’ or, as we say, ‘fluff’—well, would you not think it mean to tell your servant when you engaged him that such were strictly forbidden by punishment with dismissal, and then proclaim to the world that with good wages and tips your servant was well paid.
2. (theatrical).—‘Lines’ half learned and imperfectly delivered. Hence, To do a fluff = to forget one’s part.
1891. W. Archer, The World, p. 28, col. 1, line 34. But even as seen through a cloud of fluff the burlesque is irresistibly amusing.
3. (venery).—The female pubic hair. For synonyms, see Fleece.
Verb. (railway clerks’).—1. To give short change.
2. (common).—To disconcert, to Floor (q.v.). Cf., Fluff in the Pan = a failure.
3. (theatrical).—To forget one’s part. Also To do a fluff.
Fluff it! Intj. (common).—An interjection of disapproval: ‘Be off!’ ‘Take it away!’
Fluffer, subs. (common).—1. A drunkard. Cf., Fluffiness.
2. (theatrical).—A player ‘rocky on his lines’; i.e., given to forgetting his part.
3. (old).—A term of contempt.
Fluffiness, subs. (common).—1. Drunkenness. Cf., Fluffy and Fluffer.
1886. Fun, 4 August, p. 44. A sullen-faced, clerical-looking young man, charged with fluffiness in a public conveyance, said he was sober as a judge when taken into custody.
2. (theatrical).—The trick, or habit, of forgetting words.
Fluffy, adj. (common and theatrical).—Unsteady; of uncertain memory. Cf., Fluffer (sense 2), and Fluffiness (sense 2).
1885. Referee, July 26, p. 3, col. 2. In the last act Groves and one or two others were either what actors call fluffy in their lines, or else Mr. Cross was guilty of irritating tautology.
Fluke, subs. (common).—In billiards, an accidental winning hazard; in all games a result not played for; a crow (q.v.). In yachting an effect of chance; a result in which seamanship has had no part. Hence, a stroke of luck. Sp., bambarria.
1857. Notes and Queries, 2 S. IV., p. 208, col. 1. In playing at billiards, if a player makes a hazard, etc., which he did not play for, it is often said that he made a crow.... Another term is, ‘He made a flook (or fluke).’
1869. Whyte Melville, M or N, p. 100. ‘Only lost a pony on the whole meeting,’ answered Dick triumphantly. ‘And even that was a fluke, because Bearwarden’s Bacchante filly was left at the post.’
1873. Black, Princess of Thule, ch. xix. ‘These conditions are not often fulfilled—it is a happy fluke when they are.’
1880. Hawley Smart, Social Sinners, ch. xxxii. ‘I suppose, by your asking the question, you have become acquainted with Mr. Solamo’s past.’ ‘That’s just it, Mr. Prossiter; by an odd fluke I have.’
1891. Hume Nisbet, Bail Up! p. 144. He was now being cured only to be hanged, most likely, unless by some happy fluke he got off with imprisonment for life.
Verb (common and billiards).—1. To effect by accident.
1888. Sportsman, 20 Dec. Fortune once more assisted Mitchell, who, in trying to make a red loser, fluked a cannon, from which he got on the spot, and made forty-three winners in a break of 161.
2. (schoolboys’).—To shirk.
1864. Eton School Days, ch. xvi., p. 203. ‘By Jove! I think I shall fluke doing Verses; I should like to see Paddy drive tandem through College,’ said Butler Burke.
To cut flukes out, verb. phr. (nautical).—To mutiny; to turn sulky and disobedient.
To turn flukes, verb. phr. (nautical).—To go to bed; i.e., to bunk (q.v.), or turn in.
Fluky, or Flukey, adj. (common).—Of the nature of a fluke (q.v.); i.e., achieved more by good luck than good guidance.
1882. Standard, 3 Sept. Bonnor got a Flukey three to square leg.
1891. Licensed Vict. Gazette, 20 March. Now, Grady was a smart young Irishman who had thrashed Stevens twice in days gone by, and had won a somewhat flukey victory over Young Norley.
Hence Flukiness = abounding in flukes.
1886. Ill. Sport. and Dram. News, 20 Feb., p. 579. There is no flukiness about him: he makes his runs because he is an excellent batsman, and takes his wickets because he is an excellent bowler.
Flummadiddle, subs. (American).—1. Nonsense; flummery (q.v.).
2. (nautical).—A sea-dainty.
1884. G. A. Sala, in Ill. London News, July 19, p. 51, col. 2. I suppose that when the friendly skippers gam [q.v.], they feast on flummadiddle, a dish composed, I am given to understand, of stale bread, pork fat, molasses, cinnamon, allspice, and cloves.
Flummergasted, ppl. adj. (colloquial).—Astonished; confounded. A variant of flabbergasted (q.v.).
1849. New South Wales: Past and Present, ch. i., p. 14. This coolness so completely flummergasted the fellow, that he kept talking until Mr. Day shot him through the shoulder.
Flummery, subs. (colloquial). 1. Nonsense; gammon (q.v.); flattery.
1785. Grose, Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue, s.v. Oatmeal and water boiled to a jelly; also compliments: neither ... over-nourishing.
1836. M. Scott, Tom Cringle’s Log, ch. i. I shall ... blow off as much of the froth as I can, in order to present the residuum free of flummery.
1846. Thackeray, Yellow Plush Papers. She swallowed Lord Crabs’ flumery just as she would so many musheruims.
1854. Whyte Melville, General Bounce, ch. xii. None of the dubious, half-expressed, sentimental flummery.
2. (American nautical).—A kind of bread pudding.—Nordhoff.
3. (old).—Oatmeal and water boiled to a jelly.—Grose (1785).
Flummox, Flummocks, or Flummux, verb. (colloquial).—1. To perplex, dodge, abash, or silence; to victimize; to best (q.v.); to disappoint. Also conflummox. To flummox (or conflummox) by the lip = to outslang (q.v.), or talk down; to flummox the coppers = to dodge the police; to flummox the old Dutch = to cheat one’s wife, etc. For synonyms, see Flabbergast.
2. (theatrical).—To confuse, to queer (q.v.). Cf., Corpse.
3. (American).—Used in the passive sense = to abandon a purpose; to give in; to die.
Subs. (American University).—A bad recitation; a failure.
Flummoxed, ppl. adj. (thieves’ and general).—1. Spoilt; ruined; drunk; sent down (q.v.); boshed (q.v.); defeated; disappointed; silenced; floored (q.v.).
1836. Dickens, Pickwick, ch. xxxiii., p. 283. ‘And my ’pinion is, Sammy, that if your governor don’t prove an alleybi, he’ll be what the Italians call reg’larly flummoxed, and that’s all about it.’
1840. Whibley, Cap and Gown, p. 170. So many of the men I know Were flummoxed at the last great go.
1861. H. C. Pennell, Puck on Pegasus, p. 17. I felt flummox’d in a brown (study understood) old fellow.
1864. Cornhill Magazine, Dec., p. 742. ‘I say, Tom.’ ‘Yes, mate.’ ‘If I should have a fit heave a bucket of water over me.’ Tom was too astonished, or, as he expressed it, conflummoxed to make any reply.
1883. Daily Telegraph, 25 July, p. 2, col. 1. I’ll give Tom his due, and say of him that for flummoxing a cuss (Custom House Officer) or working the weed, I don’t know any one he couldn’t give a chalk to and beat ’em.
1890. Punch, 30 Aug., p. 97. I’m fair flummoxed, and singing, ‘Oh, what a surprise!’
Flummocky, adj. (colloquial).—Out of place; in bad taste.
1891. F. H. Groome. Blackwood’s Mag., March, p. 319. ‘It is a nice solemn dress,’ she said, as she lifted a piece to examine it more closely; ‘there’s nothing flummocky about it.’
Flummut, subs. (vagrants’).—A month in prison. See flummoxed. For synonyms, see Dose.
1889. Answers, 20th July, p. 121, col. 2. If you want to get rid of an importunate tramp tell him to ‘stow his patter,’ or you will get him a flummut.
1851–61. H. Mayhew, Lond. Lab. and Lond. Poor, vol. I., p. 232. He [patterer] mostly chalks a signal on or near the door. I give one or two instances.... ‘Flummut,’ sure of a month in quod.
Flump, verb. (colloquial).—To fall, put, or be set, down with violence or a thumping noise. Onomatopœic. Also to come down with a Flump. Cf., Plump and Cachunk.
1840. Thackeray, Paris Sketch Book, ch. v. Chairs were flumped down on the floor.
1865. H. Kingsley, The Hillyars and the Burtons, ch. lxii. Before my mother had been a week in the partly-erected slab-house, the women began to come in, to flump down into a seat and tell her all about it.
Flunk, subs. (American colloquial).—1. An idler, a Loafer (q.v.) or Lawrence (q.v.).
2. (Also Flunk-out).—A failure, especially (at college) in recitations; a backing out of undertakings.
1853. Songs of Yale. In moody meditation sunk, Reflecting on my future flunk.
1877. Brunonian, 24th Feb. A flunk is a complete fizzle; and a dead flunk is where one refuses to get out of his seat.
1888. Missouri Republican, 11th Feb. Riddleberger forced the presidential possibilities of the senate to a complete flunk.
Verb. (American).—To retire through fear; to fail (as in a lesson); to cause to fail. Cf., Funk.
1838. Neal, Charcoal Sketches, IV. Why, little ’un, you must be cracked, if you flunk out before we begin.
1847. The Yale Banger, 22 Oct. My dignity is outraged at beholding those who fizzle and flunk in my presence tower above me.
1853. Amherst Indicator, p. 253. They know that a man who has flunked, because too much of a genius to get his lesson, is not in a state to appreciate joking.
1871. John Hay, ‘Jim Bludso of the Prairie Bell,’ in New York Tribune, Jan. But he never flunked, and he never lied, I reckon he never know’d how.
Flunkey, subs. (nautical).—1. A ship’s steward.
2. (American.)—An ignorant dabbler in stock; an inexperienced jobber.
1862. A Week in Wall St., p. 90. A broker, who had met with heavy losses, exclaimed: ‘I’m in a bear-trap,—this won’t do. The dogs will come over me. I shall be mulct in a loss. But I’ve got time; I’ll turn the scale; I’ll help the bulls operate for a rise, and draw in the flunkies.’
3. (American University.)—One that makes a complete failure in a recitation; one who flunks (q.v.).
1859. Yale Lit. Magazine. I bore him safe through Horace, Saved him from the flunkey’s doom.
4. (colloquial).—A man-servant, especially one in livery. Hence, by implication, a parasite or Toady (q.v.). Fr., un larbin.
1848. Thackeray, Book of Snobs; ch. v. You who have no toadies; you whom no cringing flunkeys or shopmen bow out of doors.
Whence, Flunkeyism = Blind worship of rank, birth, or riches. Fr., la larbinerie.
1857. J. E. Ritchie, Night Side of London, p. 23. Our trading classes, becoming richer and more sunk in flunkeyism every day.
Flurryment, subs. (common.)—Agitation; bustle; confusion; nervous excitement. [Pleonastic, from Flurry.]
1848. Jones, Sketches of Travel, p. II. Mary and all on em was in a monstrous flurryment.
Flurry One’s Milk, verb. phr. (common).—To be worried, angry, or upset; To fret one’s kidneys (q.v.); To tear one’s shirt, or one’s hair (q.v.).
Flush, subs. (gamesters’).—A hand of one suit.
Adj. (colloquial).—1. With plenty of money; the reverse of hard up (q.v.); warm (q.v.). Also abounding in anything: e.g. flush of his patter = full of his talk; flush of the lotion = liberal with the drink; flush of his notions = prodigal of ideas; flush of her charms = lavish of her person; and so forth.
1603. Dekker, Batchelor’s Banquet, ch. viii. Some dames of the company, which are more flush in crownes than her good man.
1605. The Play of Stucley, l. 538. They know he hath received His marriage money: they perceive he’s flush And mean to share with him ere all be gone.
1663. Dryden, Wild Gallant, Act II. Con. Since you are so flush, sir, you shall give me a locket of diamonds of three hundred pounds.
1690. B. E., New Dict. of the Canting Crew. Flush in the pocket c. full of money. The cull is flush in the fob, the Spark’s pocket is well lined with money.
1767. O’Hara, Two Misers, Act I. What stops many an hopeful project? lack of cash—[looking archly at him]. Are you flush, Sir?
1785. Grose, Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue, s.v.
1846. Thackeray, V. F., vol. I. ch. xxviii. The expenses were borne by Jos and Osborne, who was flush of money and full of kind attentions to his wife.
1861. A. Trollope, Framley Parsonage, ch. viii. Allow me to draw on you for that amount at three months. Long before that time I shall be flush enough.
1864. Economist, 29 Oct. The world was then, if such a very colloquial expression could be pardoned, ‘flush of cash,’ and it sent in that cash rapidly and at once.
2. (common).—Intoxicated (i.e., full to the brim); also flushed. For synonyms, see Drinks and Screwed.
3. (colloquial).—Level: e.g., flush with the top, with the water, with the road, with the boat’s edge, etc.
Verb. (common).—1. To whip.
English Synonyms.—To bludgeon; to bumbaste; to breech (Cotgrave); to brush; to club; to curry; to dress with an oaken towel; to drub; to drybeat; to dry-bob; to drum; to fib; to flap; to flick; to flop; to jerk; to give one ballast; to hide; to lamm; to larrup; to paste; to punch; to rub down; to swinge; to swish; to switch; to trounce; to thump; to tund (Winchester); to wallop. See also Tan.
French Synonyms.—Donner l’avoine (pop. = to give a feed of hay); allumer (popular); bouiser (thieves’: un bouis = a whip).
Italian Synonyms.—Smanegrare; cotillare; corillare; cerire.
2. (colloquial).—To clean by filling full, and emptying, of water: e.g., to flush a sewer; to wash, swill, or sluice away. Also to fill with water: e.g., to flush a lock.
1884. Henley and Stevenson, Admiral Guinea, i., 8. Pray for a new heart; flush out your sins with tears.
3. (shooting).—To start or raise a bird from covert: e.g., to flush a snipe, or a covey of partridges. Hence (venery) to flush a wild duck = to single out a woman for grousing (q.v.).
To come flush on one, verb. phr. (colloquial).—To come suddenly and unexpectedly (Marvell); to overwhelm (as by a sudden rush of water).
Flushed on the Horse, phr. (prison).—Privately whipped in gaol.
Flush-hit, subs. phr. (pugilistic).—A clean blow; a hit full on the mark and straight from the shoulder. For synonyms, see Dig.
1891. Lic. Vict. Mirror, 30 Jan., p. 7, col. 2. Landed a very heavy flush hit on the mouth.
Adv. (colloquial).—Full; straight; right on (q.v.).
1888. Sporting Life, 15 Dec. Both cautious, Wilson with marked frequency leading off, and getting the left flush on the face.
Fluster, verb. (old).—To excite; to confuse, abash, or flummox (q.v.); to upset, or be upset, with drink.
1602. Shakspeare, Othello, I., 3. The very elements of this warlike isle,—Have I to-night fluster’d with flowing cups.
1711. Spectator, No. 87. It is very common for such as are too low in constitution to ogle the idol upon the strength of tea, to fluster themselves with warmer liquors.
1719. Durfey, Pills, etc., ii., 261. When I vext proud Celia just come from my glass, She tells me I’m flustered, and look like an ass.
1731. Fielding, Letter Writers. Act II., Sc. 5. Who hath taken me to the tavern, and, I protest, almost fluster’d me.
Flustered (or Flustrated), ppl. adj. (old).—Excited by drink, circumstances, another person’s impudence, etc.; also mildly drunk. Cf., Flusticated. For synonyms, see Screwed.
1686. Common. of Women, Prol. Another to compleat his daily task, fluster’d with claret, seizes on a mask.
1690. B. E., New Dict. of the Canting Crew. flustered, drunk.
1709. Steele, Tatler, No. 3. I ... therefore take this public occasion to admonish a young Nobleman, who came flustered into the box last night.
1748. T. Dyche, Dict. (5th ed.) Flustered (a) ... somewhat intoxicated with liquor.
1750. Fielding, Tom Jones, bk. XIV., ch. ix. This latter, though not drunk, began to be somewhat flustered.
1779. The Mirror, No. 57. All of them flustered, some of them perfectly intoxicated.
1785. Grose, Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue, s.v.
Flusticated, or Flustrated, ppl. adj. (old and colloquial).—Confused; in a state of heat or excitement. Cf., Flustered.
1712. Spectator, No. 493. We were coming down Essex Street one night a little flustrated.
1766. Colman, Cland. Marriage V., in works (1777) i. 271. Your mind is too much flustrated, and you can neither eat nor drink.
1843. Maj. Jones’ Courtship, I. Somehow I was so flustrated that I tuk the rong way.
1847. Porter, Big Bear, &c., p. 98. I sot down, being sorter flusticated like, thinkin’ of that skrape, last time I was there.
Flustration, subs. (old and colloquial).—Heat; excitement; bustle; confusion; flurry (q.v.).
1771. Smollet, Humphrey Clinker, I., 126. Being I was in such a flustration.
1843. Major Jones’ Courtship, viii. The old woman’s been in a monstrous flustration ’bout the comet.
1847. Porter, Quarter Race, etc., p. 177. My wife is in a delicut way, and the frite might cause a flustration.
1848. Jones, Studies of Travel, p. 21. The old woman was in such a flustration she didn’t know her lips from anything else.
1872. Mortimer Collins, Two Plunges for a Pearl, vol. II., ch. vii. Then was this pretty little actress whom he admired in a great state of flustration.
Flute, subs. (old).—1. The recorder of a corporation.
1598. Florio, A Worlde of Wordes. Tibia, a flute, a recorder, a pipe.
1690. B. E., New Dict. of the Canting Crew. Flute, c. The recorder of London or of any other town.
1785. Grose, Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue, s.v.
1825. Kent, Modern Flash Dict. Flute—the recorder of any town.
2. (venery).—The penis. Also the one-holed, the living, or the silent flute. To play a tune on the one-holed flute = to have connection. Cf., Dryden (Sixth Juvenal, line 107). ‘And stretch his quail-pipe till they crack his voice.’ For synonyms, see Creamstick and Prick.
1720. Durfey, Pills, etc., vi., 31. He took her by the middle, And taught her by the flute.
1736. Cupid, p. 163. The Flute is good that’s made of Wood, And is, I own, the neatest; Yet ne’ertheless I must confess, The silent flute’s the sweetest.
Flutter, subs. (common).—1. An attempt, or shy (q.v.), at anything; a venture in earnest; a spree; a state of expectancy (as in betting). Hence gambling.
1883. Echo, 26 Feb. p. 4, col. 2. I have no stable tip, but I fancy the animal named will at any rate afford backers a flutter for their money.
1889. Licensed Vict. Gazette, 8 Feb. Of course he told her he only went in for a little flutter occasionally.
1890. Saturday Review, 1 Feb., p. 134, col. 1. They find out the addresses of people whom they see at the races—people whom they suspect to be fond of a flutter, and then an invitation is sent to a little soirée intime.
1887. Henley, Culture in the Slums, iii. I likes a merry little flutter, I keeps a Dado on the sly, In fact my form’s the blooming Utter.
2. (common).—The act of spinning a coin.
3. (venery).—Connection defloration. To have had a flutter = (1) to have been there (cf., greens); and (2) to have lost one’s maidenhead.
Verb. (common).—1. To spin a coin (for drinks); also to gamble.
2. (common).—To go in for a bout of pleasure.
To flutter the ribbons, verb. phr. (common).—To drive.
1864. Eton School Days, chap. 1, p. 11. As I was going to be saying, I used to flutter the ribands of the London Croydon and South Coast coach.
[Flutter, if not a word of all-work, is a word with plenty to do. Thus, to have (or do) a flutter = to have a look in (q.v.), to go on the spree, and (of both sexes) to have carnal connection; to be on the flutter = to be on the spree, and also (venery) to be all there (q.v.) or on the spot (q.v.); to flutter a judy—both to pursue and to possess a girl; to flutter a brown = to spin a coin; to flutter (or fret) one’s kidneys = to agitate, to exasperate; to flutter a skirt = to walk the streets; and so forth.]
Flux, verb. (old).—1. To cheat; to cozen; to overreach. For synonyms, see Stick.
1785. Grose, Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue, s.v.
2. (old.)—To salivate. Grose, (1785).
Fly, subs. (old).—A familiar; hence, by implication, a parasite or sucker (q.v.). [In the sixteenth and seventeenth century it was held that familiar spirits, in the guise of flies, lice, fleas, etc., attended witches, who for a price professed to dispose of the power for evil thus imparted.]
1596. Lodge, Incarnate Devils. This divel prefers an Ephimerides before a Bible; and his Ptolemey and Hali before Ambrose, golden Chrisostome, or S. Augustine: promise him a familiar, and he will take a flie in a box for good paiment.
1610. Ben Jonson, Alchemist i. You are mistaken, doctor, Why he does ask one but for cups and horses, A rifling fly, none of your great familiars.
1622. Massinger, Virgin Martyr, ii., 2. Courtiers have flies That buzz all news unto them.
2. (old).—A printer’s devil; specifically a boy who lifted the printed sheets from the press. [Now the vibrating frame used for the same purpose.]
1688. R. Holme, Academy of Armory. These boys do in a printing-house commonly black and bedaub themselves, when the workmen do jocosely call them devils, and sometimes spirits, and sometimes flies.
3. (trade).—A customer.
4. (common).—The act of spinning a coin. Cf., Flutter.
5. (old).—A public wagon: afterwards (colloquial) a four-wheel hackney coach. Fr., mouche (fly) = a public boat on the Seine.
1714. Memoirs of John Hall, s.v.
6. (common).—A policeman. For synonyms, see Beak and Copper.
1857. Snowden, Magistrates’ Assistant, 3rd ed., p. 446. A policeman; a fly.
Adj. (common).—1. Knowing; artful (q.v.); up to every move; cute. Also fly to, a-fly, fly to the game, and fly to what’s what. Cf., Awake, and, for synonyms, see Knowing; fly dog (q.v.).
1811. Lexicon Balatronicum, Cheese it, the coves are fly = be silent, the people understand our discourse.
1823. W. T. Moncrieff, Tom and Jerry, Act II., Sc. 2. Jerry. Charlies’ fiddles?—I’m not fly, Doctor. Log. Rattles, Jerry, rattles! Jerry rattles! you’re fly now, I see.
1838. Glascock, Land Sharks and Sea Gulls, II., 4. That’s right; I see you’re fly to every fakement.
1850. Lloyd’s Weekly, 3 Feb. ‘Low Lodging Houses of London.’ They say the fliest is easy to take in sometimes—that’s the artfullest; but I could do no good there.
1851–61. H. Mayhew, Lond. Lab. and Lond. Poor, vol. I., p. 260. ‘We were too fly to send anybody to market but ourselves.’
1861. H. Kingsley, Ravenshoe, ch. xxxv. [Chas. Ravenshoe to Shoeblack]. ‘On the cross?’ said Charles. ‘Ah,’ the boy said, ‘he goes out cly-faking and such. He’s a prig, and a smart one, too. He’s fly, is Harry.’
1876. Miss Braddon, Dead Men’s Shoes, ch. lii. ‘Go and fetch the cleverest police officer in Liverpool, and let him wait outside this door till I want him.’ ‘I’m fly,’ answers the youth, brightening at the prospect of excitement and remuneration. ‘Case of ’bezzlement, I suppose, Sir?’
1877. Five Years’ Penal Servitude, ch. ii., p. 125. A certain prisoner, who was what is termed a very fly man, i.e., a clever, scheming fellow ... sounded him as to getting tobacco and other matters.
188(?). Jenny Hill, Broadside Ballad. I’ve cut my wisdom teeth, some at top, some underneath.... So you needn’t try it on; I’m fly.
1890. Punch, 30 Aug., p. 9. Briggs, Junior, a lobsculler called me; I wasn’t quite fly to his lay.
1891. Licensed Victuallers’ Gazette, 9 Jan. If you get among a fly lot, why they’d skin you in less than no time.
2. (common).—Dextrous.
1834. Ainsworth, Rookwood, bk. III., ch. v. No dummy hunter had forks so fly.
1839. Reynolds, Pickwick Abroad, p. 223. We’ll knap a fogle with fingers fly.
3. (venery).—Wanton. Fly-girl, -woman, or -dame = a prostitute.
1888. San Francisco News Letter, 4 Feb. ‘I’m just gettin’ sick’n tired o’ the way ’t them fly dames go on, ’n the way ’t the fellahs hang round ’em ’n dance with ’em ’n so forth.’
Verb. (thieves’).—1. To toss; to raise; to fly the mags = to toss up half-pence (cf., subs., sense 4).
1857. Snowden, Magistrates’ Assistant, 3rd ed., p. 447. To lift a window, to fly a window.
2. (pugilistic).—To give way: as, china flies in the baking.
1865. G. F. Berkeley, My Life, II. 296. Heenan ... told me his right hand was worth nothing to him, and we have since seen that his left flies, or, in other words, becomes puffed, softened, or severely damaged by the force of his own blows.
To fly around, verb. phr. (American).—To bestir oneself; to make haste. Also to fly around and tear one’s shirt.
1851. Hooper, Widow Rugby’s Husband, p. 44. Old ’ooman, fly around, git somethin’ for the Squire and Dick to eat.
To fly the flag, verb. phr. (colloquial).—1. To walk the streets.
2. (vulgar).—To experience the menstrual flux.
See also Flag.
To fly high (or rather high).—1. verb. phr. (common).—To get, or be drunk. For synonyms, see Drinks and Screwed.
2. (colloquial).—To keep the best company, maintain the best appearances, and affect the best aims: i.e., to be a High-flier (q.v.). Also, to venture for the biggest stakes in the biggest way.
To fly low, verb. phr. (colloquial).—To make as little of oneself as possible; to sing small (q.v.); and (among thieves) to keep out of the way when wanted (q.v.).
To fly off the handle, verb. phr. (American pioneer).—To lose temper; to fail of a promise; to jilt; to die; also to slip off the handle (q.v.); to disappoint in any way. [In pioneer life for an axe to part company with its handle is a serious trial to temper and patience.]
1843–4. Haliburton, The Attaché. You never see such a crotchical old critter as he is. He flies right off the handle for nothing.
1867. Home Journal (New York), 21 July (speaking of a man who had succeeded to a large fortune it says) he went off the handle in England rather unexpectedly.
1871. De Vere, Americanisms, p. 195. If a fair lady loses her temper, or worst of all, if she breaks the tender promise, she is said to fly off the handle, and the disappointment is as serious to the unlucky lover as a lost axe to many a settler.
1888. Pittsburg Chronicle. ‘I can’t say that I’am stuck on Sue Fitzpercy,’ remarked Amy. ‘She is liable to fly off the handle.’
To fly out, verb. phr. (colloquial).—To get angry; to scold.
1612. Chapman, Widow’s Tears, Act II., p. 317 (Plays, 1874). For wherefore rage wives at their husbands so when they fly out? for zeal against the sin?
1665–6. Pepys, Diary, 17 Jan. It is to be feared that the Parliament will fly out against him and particular men, the next Session.
1712. Spectator, No. 479. He (Socrates) has said, My dear friend, you are beholden to Xantippe, that I bear so well your flying out in a dispute.
1855. Thackeray, Newcomes, ch. xx. ‘And then the Colonel flies out about his boy, and says that my wife insulted him!’
To make the fur (or feathers) fly, verb. phr. (common).—To attack effectively; to make a disturbance; to quarrel noisily like two tom cats on the tiles, who are said (in American) to pull fur, or to pull wool.
1847. Porter, Big Bear, etc., p. 132. Thar, they’ve got him agin, and now the fur flies.
1888. Denver Republican, 29 Feb. ‘Wait until the National Committee assembles on February 22,’ said the organizer, ‘and you will see the fur fly from the Cleveland hide.’
To take on the fly, verb. phr. (vagrants’).—To beg in the streets; a specific usage of adverbial sense.
1851–61. Mayhew, Lond. Lab. and Lond. Poor, II., p. 59. The ‘first move’ in his mendicant career was taking them on the fly, which means meeting the gentry on their walks, and beseeching or at times menacing them till something is given.
To fly a kite, verb. phr. (common).—To raise money by means of accommodation bills; to raise the wind (q.v.).
1812. From an old Dublin Jester. [The story, however, with slight variations, is told of other judges. See N. and Q., S. ix., 6 326–394.] In a case before the Lord Chancellor of Ireland Mr. Curran, on behalf of the suitor, prayed to be relieved from the payment of some bills for which he had not received consideration, but only lent his name as an accommodation. Mr. Curran, in the course of his pleadings, mentioned the terms kite and raising the wind several times, when his lordship requested to know the meaning of the words. ‘My lord,’ Mr. Curran replied, ‘in your country (meaning England) the wind generally raises the kite, but with us, significantly looking at the gentlemen of the bar, the kite raises the wind.’
1848. Punch, XIV., p. 226. ‘The Model Gentleman.’ He never does ‘a little discounting’ nor lends his hand to ‘flying a kite.’
1849. Perils of Pearl Street, p. 82. Flying the kite is rather a perilous adventure.
1880. G. R. Sims, Ballads of Babylon (Little Worries). You have a kite you cannot fly, and creditors are pressing.
1891. Licensed Victuallers’ Gazette, 23 Jan. Prince Alexis Soltykoff, who has been flying kites, and getting into trouble thereby, is the only son of Prince Soltykoff, the steward of the Jockey Club.
2. (thieves’).—To go out by the window.
3. (lodging-house).—To evacuate from a window.
4. (colloquial).—To attempt; to set one’s cap at.
1863. H. Kingsley, Austin Elliot, ch. xii. ‘They say that you flew your kite at that girl of George Cecil’s who has married that prig, Lord Mewstone.’
To fly the blue pigeon, verb. phr. (thieves’).—To steal lead from roofs. See Blue-pigeon. Fr., faire la mastar au gras-double, or la faire au mastar.
1785. Grose, Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue, s.v.
1789. Geo. Parker, Life’s Painter. Thieves who fly the blue pigeon, that is, who steal lead off houses, or cut pipes away ... cut a hundredweight of lead, which they wrap round their bodies next to the skin. This they call a bible (q.v.), and what they steal and put in their pockets, they call a testament (q.v.).
1887. Judy, 27 April, p. 200. A burglar whose particular lay was flying the blue pigeon, i.e., stealing lead.
To let fly, verb. phr. (colloquial).—To hit out. [From cock-fighting.]
1859. Punch, vol. XXXVII., p. 54. ‘Essence of Parliament.’ Monday, 25 July. Lord Lyndhurst let fly and caught him what (if pugilistic terms be not out of place when one is alluding to so pacific a personage) may be designated an extremely neat one on the conk.
Not a feather to fly with, adv. phr. (common).—Penniless and ruined; dead-broke (q.v. for synonyms).
To break a fly on a wheel, verb. phr. (colloquial). To make a mountain of a molehill. Cf., To crack a nut with a Nasmyth hammer = to lavish force or energy.
The fly on the wheel, subs. phr. (colloquial).—One who fancies himself of mighty importance. [From the fable.]
I don’t rise to that fly, phr. (common) = I don’t believe you; you won’t catch me with such bait as that. [From fly-fishing.]
Off the fly, adv. phr. (colloquial).—On the quiet; laid up in dock; doing nothing: said of a strumpet retired from business, or a man (or woman) who has given over the pursuit of pleasure.
On the fly, adv. phr. (popular).—1. Walking the streets; out for a lark (q.v.); off work (q.v.); out on the spree (q.v.).
2. (thieves’).—In motion: e.g., ‘I got in one on the fly’ = I landed a blow while I was running.
1868. Temple Bar, xxiv., p. 538. I prigged an old woman’s poke on the fly.
Fly-blow, subs. (common).—A bastard; cf., Bye-blow. A nonce word.
1875. Ouida, Signa, vol. I., ch. viii., p. 140. No doubt that little fly-blow is his own.
Fly-blown, adj. (common).—1. Intoxicated. For synonyms, see Drinks and Screwed.
1877. Judy, 18 May, p. 236. The officer assisted the pastor out, and hinted that he was slightly ‘fly-blown.’
2. (Australian).—Cleaned-out; without a rap; Hard-up (q.v. for synonyms).
1889. Star, 3 Jan. Our diggers go into Castlemaine to get their hair cut, and once there, they get on the spree, and come back fly-blown.
3. (common).—Used, or done-up; washed-out (q.v.).
4. (venery).—Deflowered. Also stale (q.v.); ‘known for a wanton.’ Also suspected of disease.
Fly-by-Night, subs. (old).—1. A sedan chair on wheels; a usage of the Regency days.
2. (common).—A defaulting debtor; one who shoots the moon (q.v.). Also applied to the act.
3. (venery).—A prostitute. See Bat, and for synonyms, Barrack-hack and Tart.
4. (common).—A noctambulist for business or for pleasure: i.e., a burglar or a common spreester (q.v.).
5. (obsolete).—A term of opprobrium.
1796. Grose, Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue (3rd ed.), s.v. An ancient term of reproach to an old woman, signifying that she was a witch, and alluding to the nocturnal excursions attributed to witches who were supposed to fly abroad to their meetings mounted on brooms.
6. (venery).—The female pudendum. For synonyms, see Monosyllable.
Fly-cage, subs. (venery).—The female pudendum. For synonyms, see Monosyllable.
Fly-catcher, subs. (venery).—1. The female pudendum. For synonyms, see Monosyllable.
2. (common).—An open-mouthed ignoramus; a Gapeseed (q.v.)—Sydney Smith. Fr., gobe-mouche.
Flycop, subs. (American).—A sharp officer; one well broken in to the tricks of trade. [From fly = knowing + cop, a policeman.]
1859. Matsell, Vocabulum, or Rogue’s Lexicon, s.v.
Fly-disperser Soup, subs. phr. (common).—Oxtail.
Flyer.—1. See Flier in all senses.
2. (old).—A shoe. For synonyms, see Trotter-case.
1690. B. E., New Dict. of Terms, etc., s.v.
1785. Grose, Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue, s.v.
1791. Life and Adventures of Bamfylde Moore Carew, s.v.
1851. Mayhew, Lond. Lab. and Lond. Poor, vol. II., p. 34. There is another article called a flyer, that is, a shoe sold without being welted.
3. (Winchester).—A half-volley at football. A made-flyer is when the bound of the ball is gained from a previous kick, by the same side, against canvas or any other obstacle, or is dropped, as in a ‘drop-kick.’ This is now confused with a ‘kick-up.’
Fly-flapped, adj. (obsolete).—Whipped in the stocks, or at the cart’s tail.—Grose.
Fly-Flapper, subs. (old).—A heavy bludgeon.
Fly-flat, subs. (turf).—A would-be connoisseur and authority. [From fly = knowing + flat = a fool.]
Flying.—To look as if the Devil had shit him (or her) flying (common and proverbial).—Said in derision of one odd-looking, filthy, or deformed.
Flying-angel.—See Angel.
Flying Bricklayers, subs. phr. (military).—The mounted Royal Engineers.
Flying Camps, subs. phr. (old).—Couples or gangs of beggars.
1699. B. E., Dict. of the Canting Crew. Beggars plying in flying camps. Beggars plying in bodies at funerals.
1785. Grose, Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue, s.v.
Flying-caper, subs. (thieves’).—An escape from prison; leg-bail (q.v.).
1864. Daily Paper, ‘Police Report.’ The blues are always ready to spot a fellow who has tried on the flying-caper with them, and given them leg-bail.
Flying-cat.—See Cat.
Flying Country, subs. phr. (hunting).—A country where the going (q.v.) is fast and good.
1856. Whyte Melville, Kate Coventry, ch. xii. The heavy-top hounds are an establishment such as, I am given to understand, is not usually kept in Leicestershire, Northamptonshire, and other so-called ‘flying counties.’
Flying Cove, subs. phr. (American thieves’).—An impostor who gets, or tries to get, money from persons who have been robbed by pretending to give such information as will lead to recovery. Formerly, Flying-porter (Grose).
1859. Matsell, Vocabulum, or Rogues’ Lexicon, s.v.
Flying-dustman.—See Stiff-un.
Flying-dutchman, subs. (common).—The London and Exeter express (G. W. R.). See also Flying Scotchman and Wild Irishman. Cf., Dead-meat train and Larky subaltern’s coach.
Flying-horse (or Mare), subs. (wrestling).—The throw by which an opponent is sent over the head. Introduced, says Bee, by Parkins.
1754. Foote, Knights, Act I. But we don’t wrestle after your fashion; we ha’ no tripping; fath and soul! we all go upon close hugs or the flying-mare.
1884. Referee, 23 March, p. 1., col. 1. In the third and last bout, Klein brought his man clean over his head—holding him by his own—with a sort of flying-mare, and elicited thunders of applause.
1886. Pall Mall Gazette, 5 July, p. 4. On a Mississippi steamer he astonished a rowdy who was shocked at his unnatural objection to whisky, by performing upon him the feat known to British wrestlers as ‘the flying mare.’
Flying-jigger or Gygger, subs. (thieves’).—A turnpike gate. [Jigger = a door or gate.]
1785. Grose, Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue, s.v.
1859. Matsell, Vocabulum, or Rogue’s Lexicon, s.v.
Flying-man, subs. (football).—A skirmisher good at taking, and running with, the ball.
1864. Eton School Days, ch. 23, p. 255. He possessed good wind, and was a very good ‘kick-off,’ and he could ‘bully’ a ball as well as any one. He was a little too heavy for ‘flying-man,’ but he made a decent ‘sidepost,’ and now and then he officiated as ‘corner.’
Flying-mare. See Flying-horse.
Flying Pasty, subs. phr. (obsolete).—Excrement wrapped in paper and thrown over a neighbour’s wall. [Grose.]
Flying-porter. See Flying cove.
Flying-stationer, subs. (street).—A hawker of street ballads; a paperworker (q.v.), or running patterer (q.v.). Cf., croak. ‘Printed for the flying-stationer’ is the imprimatur on hundreds of broadsheets from the last century onwards.
1785. Grose, Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue, s.v. Ballad singers and hawkers of penny histories.
1851–61. H. Mayhew, Lond. Lab. and Lond. Poor, Vol. I, p. 228. That order or species of the pattering genus known as flying stationers, from the fact of their being continually on the move while describing the attractions of the ‘papers’ they have to sell.
1886. Athenæum, 31 July, p. 139. Scores of tracts were issued in the Newgate region, from Giltspur Street to Blowbladder Street, whence numbers of flying stationers drew their supplies long before either of the Catnachs were born.
Flymy. Adj. (streets).—Knowing, fast (q.v.); roguish; sprightly. From Fly (q.v.).
1887. W. E. Henley, Villon’s Good Night. You flymy titters fond of flam.
Fly-my-kite, subs. phr. (rhyming).—A light.
Flymy-mess, to be in a flymy-mess, verb. phr. (military).—To be hungry and have nothing to eat. For synonyms, see peckish.
Fly-slicer, subs. (common).—A cavalry-man: cf., Mudcrusher. French lancers are allumeurs de gaz, their weapons being likened to a lamplighter’s rod.
1785. Grose, Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue, s.v. Fly-slicers: Life-guardmen, from their sitting on horseback, under an arch, where they are frequently observed to drive away flies with their swords.
Fly the Garter, subs. phr. (schoolboys’).—Leap-frog.
1863. G. A. Sala, Breakfast in Bed, Essay VIII., p. 187 (1864). He has very probably been playing fly-the-garter in the gutter instead of waiting his turn at the office.
Fly-trap, subs. (common).—1. The mouth. For synonyms, see Potato trap.
2. (venery).—The female pudendum. For synonyms, see Monosyllable.
Foaled, adj. (hunting).—Thrown from a horse. Fr., faire parache.
Fob, or Fub, subs. (old).—1. A cheat; a trick; a swindle. To come the fob = to impose upon; to swindle; cf., come over.
1690. B. E., Dict. of the Canting Crew. Fob, c., a cheat trick.
1785. Grose, Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue, Fob, s.v.
1852. Judson, Mysteries of New York, ch. vii. He come ze fob on some of ze nobilitie, and zey invite him to go to Amerique.
2. (old: now recognised).—A breeches pocket; a watch pocket.
1678. Butler, Hudibras, III., i., 107. Had rifled all his pokes and fobs Of gimcrack whims and gingumbobs.
1690. B. E., Dict. of the Canting Crew. Fob, c., also a little pocket.
1703. Marvell, Poems on Affairs of State. ‘Royal Revolutions.’ When plate was in pawn and fob at an ebb. Ibid. ‘Last Instructions,’ etc. More gold in’s fob, more lace upon his coat.
1785. Grose, Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue, s.v.
3. (common).—A watch chain or ribbon, with buckle and seals, worn hanging from the fob.
Verb. (old).—1. To rob; to cheat; to pocket; also to fob off.
1700. Congreve, Way of the World, i., 9. There were items of such a treaty in embrio; and if it shou’d come to life poor Mirabell wou’d be in some sort unfortunately fobb’d, i’faith.
1703. Mrs. Centlivre, Stolen Heiress, III., iv., wks. (1872), i., 358. I shall be fobbed of my mistress by and by. Why, Frank, why, thou wilt not fob me, wilt thou?
1731. Fielding, Grub Street Opera, i., 5. While ev’ry one else he is fobbing, He still may be honest to me.
1789. Wolcot [P. Pinder], Rowland for an Oliver, in wks. (Dublin, 1795), Vol. II., p. 159. To use a cant phrase, we’ve been finely fobb’d, Indeed, have very dext’rously been robb’d.
1840. Howitt, Visits to Remarkable Places, p. 170. Very pretty sums he has fobbed now and then.
1842. Punch, III., p. 239, col. 2. The world turns its back on you, and neither by cards nor dice can you fob your brother mortal out of a single guinea.
2. (old).—To deceive; trifle with; disappoint; to put off dishonestly or unfairly.
1598. Shakspeare, 2 Henry IV., ii., 1. A hundred mark is a long loan for a poor lone woman to bear, and I have borne, and borne, and borne, and have been fubbed off and fubbed off.
1602. Shakspeare, Othello, IV., 2. I think it is scurvy, and begin to find myself fobbed in it.
1610. Shakspeare, Coriolanus, I., 1. You must not think to fob off our disgrace with a tale.
1884. Fortnightly Review, XXXVI., p. 75. In nothing are amateur backers of horses fobbed off by professionals with less than the legitimate odds than in backing double and triple events.
1864. The Tramp Exposed, p. 7. A miserable, a job lot of humanity as had ever been fobbed off on a defrauded universe.
To gut a fob, verb. phr. (old).—To pick pockets. Cf., Fob, verbal sense 1. For synonyms, see Prig.
1819. Moore, Tom Crib’s Memorial, 1. Diddling your subjects, and gutting their fobs.
Fobus, subs. (old).—An opprobrious epithet.
1677. Wycherley, Plain Dealer, II., 1. Ay, you old fobus.
2. (venery).—The female pudendum. For synonyms, see Monosyllable.
Fodder, subs. (common).—Paper for the closet, bum-fodder (q.v.).
Fœtus. To tap the fœtus, verb. phr. (medical).—To procure abortion.
Fog, subs. (old).—Smoke.—Grose. [1785]; Modern Flash Dict. [1823]; Matsell [1859]. [Cf., Fogus.]
In a Fog, subs. phr. (colloquial).—In a condition of perplexity, doubt, difficulty, or mystification: as, ‘I’m quite in a fog as to wha you mean.’
Verb (old).—1. To smoke.
2. (colloquial).—To mystify; to perplex; to obscure.
1836. W. H. Smith, ‘The Thieves’ Chaunt.’ There’s a nook in the boozing-ken, Where many a mug I fog.
1883. Punch, May, p. 210, col. 1. So large a picture, treated so ideally—Not that that means stricture—Fogs us to find room for it.
1883. Daily Telegraph, 29 Sept. We turns what we say into tangle talk so as to fog them.
Fogey, or Fogy, Fogay, or Foggi, subs. (old).—An invalid or garrison soldier or sailor. Whence the present colloquial usages: (1) a person advanced in life, and (2) an old-fashioned or eccentric person; generally old fogey. [Derivation doubtful; suggestions are (1) from Su. G. fogde and (2) from Eng. folk. See Notes and Queries, 1 S. vii., 354, 559, 632; viii., 64, 154, 256, 455, 652; 6 S. ix., 10, 195.]
1785. Grose, Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue, s.v.
1812. Letter quoted in Notes and Queries, 6 S., ix., 10. My company is now forming into an invalid company. Tell your grandmother we will be like the Castle foggies.
1855. Thackeray, The Ballad of Bouillabaisse. When first I saw ye, cari luoghi, I’d scarce a beard upon my face, And now, a grizzled, grim old fogy, I sit and wait for Bouillabaisse.
1864. Tangled Talk, p. 104. An old fogey, who particularly hated being ‘done.’
1867. Nesmith, ‘Reminiscences of Dr. Anthon,’ in The Galaxy, Sept., p. 611. The adherents of ‘progress’ mostly regard classics as old fogey, and ‘see no use’ in the laborious years which youth spend upon them.
1883. James Payn, The Canon’s Ward, ch. xv. ‘He would have preferred some bookish sneak like Adair, or some old fogey like Mavors.’
1888. Sporting Life, 10 Dec. So it is with the sister art of music, for I (myself something of an old fogey in such matters).
So also fogeyish = old-fashioned; eccentric. Fogeydom = the state of fogeyishness; and fogeyism = a characteristic of Fogeydom.
1877. Besant and Rice, Golden Butterfly, ch. i. They repaired arm-in-arm to their club—the Renaissance, now past its prime, and a little fogyish.
1883. Saturday Review, 31 March, p. 403, col. 1. Not the least among the pleasures of fogeydom, so ably depicted by Thackeray, is the confidence that it inspires in the hearts of the fairer sex.
Foggage, subs. (colloquial).—Fodder, especially green-meat.
1785. Burns, To a Mouse. And naething now to bigg a new ane o’foggage green.
Fogged, ppl. adj. (common).—1. Drunk. Cf., foggy. For synonyms, see Drinks and Screwed.
2. (common).—Perplexed; bewildered; at a loss. [From fog (q.v.), to perplex]. For synonyms, see Flabbergasted.
1883. Illust. London News, 6 Jan., p. 6, col. 3. They were all treading on one another’s heels, trying to do their best, but hopelessly fogged.
1887. All the Year Round, 30 July, 30, p. 68. An Australian says that he is bushed just as an Englishman, equally characteristically, declares that he is fogged.
Fogger, subs. (old).—1. A huckster; a cringing, whining beggar; a pettifogger.
1614. Terence in English. I shall be exclaimed upon to be a beggarly fogger, greedily hunting after heritage.
2. (old).—A farm servant whose duty is to feed the cattle; i.e., to supply them with foggage (q.v.).
Foggy, adj. (common).—1. Drunk; i.e., clinched or hazy (q.v.). For synonyms, see Drinks and Screwed.
2. (colloquial).—Dull; fatwitted; thick (q.v.).
Fogle, subs. (thieves’).—A silk handkerchief; also generic. [Cf., Ital., foglia = a pocket, a purse; Fr., fouille = a pocket]. A cotton handkerchief is called a clout.
English Synonyms.—Bandanna; belcher; billy; clout; conch-clout; fam-cloth; flag; kent-rag; madam; muckender; mucketer (Florio); nose-wipe; pen-wiper; rag; sneezer; snottinger or snot-rag; stook; wipe. See Billy.
French Synonyms.—Un cachemire (popular); un blave or blavin (thieves’; from O.F., blave = blue); une fassolette (thieves’: It., fazzoletto); un chiffon or chiffonnion (popular = a rag); un moufion (popular); les mouchettes (popular = wipes).
German Synonyms.—Schneitzlingsschneiche (cf., Snot-rag); Flammert or Flamme (also a neckerchief and an apron); Wisch (= also clothing of any kind).
1785. Grose, Dict. of the Vulg. Tongue, s.v.
1821. Egan, Tom and Jerry (1890), p. 74, Jerry’s sneezer was touched with some convulsive efforts so that his fogle was continually at work.
1834. Ainsworth, Rookwood bk. iii., ch. 5. Fogles and fawnies soon went their way.
1837. Dickens, Oliver Twist, ch. xviii. ‘If you don’t take fogles and tickers——’ ‘What’s the good of talking in that way?’ interposed Master Bates: ‘he don’t know what you mean.’ ‘If you don’t take pocket-handkerchiefs and watches,’ said the Dodger.
1841. Tait’s Edinburgh Mag., viii., p. 220. Fawnies or fogles, onions gay, all were the same to me.
1849. Punch’s Almanack, ‘The Swell Mobsman’s Almanack.’ Their fogles fetch next to nothing.
1858. A. Mayhew, Paved with Gold, bk. II., ch. i., p. 60. They’re just made for hooking a fogle [handkerchief] out of a clye.
Fogle-hunter, subs. (thieves’).—A thief whose speciality is fogles (q.v.). Fr. un blaviniste or un chiffonier, but for synonyms, see Stookhauler.
1827. Maginn, in Blackwood’s Mag. ... the fogle hunters doing Their morning fake in the prigging lay.
1830. Lytton, Paul Clifford, ch. xvi. Who’s here so base as would be a fogle-hunter?
1837. Dickens, Oliver Twist, p. 44. ‘What’s the matter now?’ said the man, carelessly. ‘A young fogle-hunter,’ replied the man who had Oliver in charge.
1843. Punch, IV., p. 129. Rich charities the chapel throng. The swell mob they are there, The Bishop’s sermon is not long, The fogle-hunter ware!
Fogle-hunting (or drawing), subs. phr. (thieves’).—Stealing pocket-handkerchiefs; i.e., ‘prigging of wipes.’
1823. Bee, Dict. of the Turf, etc., p. 82. Q. ‘Where’s Teddy?’ A. ‘He’s out a fogle-hunting.’ Sometimes ’tis said ‘drawing fogles,’ and ‘fogle-drawing.’
Fogram, or Fogrum, subs. (old).—A fussy old man. [Cf., colloquial sense of Fogey.]
1785. Grose, Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue, s.v.
1793. Butt, Poems. We teach old maxims, neither less nor more, Than Locke, or humble Hooker taught before, Those fogrums, quizzes, treats, and bores, and gigs. Were held in some account with ancient prigs.
1798. O’Keefe, Fontainbleau, II., 3. Never mind, old fogrum, run away with me.
1859. Matsell, Vocabulum, or Rogue’s Lexicon, s.v.
Adj. (old).—Fogeyish; stupid.
1777. Foote, Trip to Calais, i, Father and mother are but a couple of fogrum old fools.
Hence Fogramity = (1) Fogeyism (q.v.), and (2) the state of Fogeyishness.
1796. D’Arblay, Camilla, ii., 5. Nobody’s civil now, you know, it is a fogramity quite out of date.
Fogue, adj. (American thieves’).—Fierce; fiery.
1859. Matsell, Vocabulum, or Rogue’s Lexicon, s.v.
Fogus, subs. (old).—Tobacco. [Cf., Fogus.] For synonyms, see Weed.
1671. Head, English Rogue, I., v., p. 49 (1874), s.v. 1724. Coles, English Dict., s.v. 1785. Grose, Dict. of the Vulg. Tongue. Tip me a gage of fogus.
1821. Haggart, Life, p. 133. A hole in the roof of my cell, through which I handed her plenty of fogus.
1834. H. Ainsworth, Rookwood, bk. III., ch. v. Troll us a stave, my antediluvian file, and in the meantime tip me a gage [pipe] of fogus, Jerry.
1859. Matsell, Vocabulum, or Rogue’s Lexicon, s.v.
Foiler, subs. (old).—A thief.
1669. Nicker Nicked, in Harl. Misc. [ed. Park], ii., 108. Given in list of names of thieves.
Foin, verb. (obsolete).—To copulate, i.e., to thrust, to poke (q.v.). Also subs.
1598. Florio, A Worlde of Wordes. Scazzata: A thrust, a push, a foyne, or the serving to a woman of a man’s pricke.
1598. Shakspeare, 2 Henry IV., ii., 4. Thou whoreson little tidy Bartholomew boar pig, when wilt thou leave fighting o’days, and foining o’nights, and begin to patch up thine old body for heaven?
Foist, Foyst, or Fyst, subs. (old).—1. A cheat; a swindler; a sharper.
1592. John Day, Blind Beggar (Bullen), p. 21. Your nipper, your foyst, your rogue, your cheat.
1596. Ben Jonson, Every Man in His Humour iv., 7. Prate again, as you like this, you whoreson foist you.
1607. Dekker, Jests to Make you Merie in wks. (Grosart) II., 326. Now to our foysts, alias pickpocket, alias cutpurse.
1609. Dekker, Lanthorne and Candelight, in wks. (Grosart) III., 212. A foyst nor a Nip shall not walke into a Fayre or a Play-house.
1611. Middleton, Roaring Girl, O. Pl., vi., 113. This brave fellow is no better than a foist. Foist! what is that? A diver with two fingers; a pickpocket; all his train study the figging law, that’s to say cutting of purses and foisting.
2. (old).—A trick; a swindle; an imposture. Also Foyster and Foister.
1605. Ben Jonson, Volpone or the Fox, iii., 9. Put not your foists upon me. I shall scent ’em.
3. (old).—A silent emission of wind through the anus (see quot., sense 2); a cheeser. See Fart and Fousty. [Coles has to fyst, vissio; which in his Latin part he renders to fizzle. Also fysting cur; and in Sherwood’s English Dictionary, subjoined to Cotgrave, fysting curs, and other offenders of the same class, are fully illustrated.]
1598. Florio, A Worlde of Wordes. Loffa, a fizle, a fiste, a close fart.
1605. Jonson, Eastward Hoe, pl. iv., 270. Marry, fyst o’ your Ruidess. I thought as much.
1662. Rump Songs, II., 3. That a reason be enacted (if there be not one), Why a fart hath a voice, and a fyst hath none, Which nobody can deny.
1690. B. E., Dict. of the Canting Crew. Foyst ... also a close strong stink, without noise or report.
1785. Grose. Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue, s.v. Fice or Foyse.
Verb. (old).—1. To trick; to swindle; to pick pockets.
1607. Dekker, Jests to Make You Merie, in wks. (Grosart) II., 332. But now to the manner of the foysting of a pocket, the sharing of the money, and how honest men may avoide them.
1610. Rowlands, Martin Mark-all, p. 38 (H. Club’s Rept., 1874). To foyst, to picke a pocket.
1653. Middleton, Spanish Gipsy, ii., 1. I mean fitching, foisting, nimming.
2. (old).—To fart. Also to copulate (Urquhart).
1539. David Lyndsay, Thrie Estaitis (Works, Laing, 1879), ii., 109. Ane fistand flag.
1598. Florio, A Worlde of Wordes. Loffare, s.v.
1611. Cotgrave, Dictionarie, Vessir, s.v.
Foister, or Foyster, subs. (old).—A pick-pocket; a cheat.
1598. Florio, A Worlde of Wordes. Barattiere, a barterer, a trucker, a marter, an exchanger, a briber, a cheater, a false gamester, a cousener, a broker, a fripper, a chaffrer, a cogger, a foyster, a deceiuer, a coni-catcher, a bareter, a prowler.
(?). Mirrour for Magistrates, p. 483, When facing foisters, fit for Tiburn. fraies, Are food-sick faint.
Follower, subs. (colloquial).—A maid-servant’s sweetheart; a beau. For synonyms, see Jomer.
1838. Dickens, Nicholas Nickleby, ch. xv. Five servants kept. No man. No followers.
1860. Chambers’ Journal, XIII., p. 32. No followers allowed.
1870. Spectator, 15 Jan. It is safer, unkind as it may seem, to forbid the presence of a ‘follower’ in the house. A girl is less likely to get into mischief when she is walking with her friend in the street or talking with him over the area gate, than when she receives him alone in the kitchen.
1872. The Ladies, 29 June, p. 335. If you take into consideration that ‘followers’ are in most houses strictly forbidden, what wonder is it that girls are now and then caught flirting with the butcher and the baker at the area railings?
Follow-me-lads, subs. phr. (common).—Curls or ribands hanging over the shoulder; cf., Fr., suivez-moi-jeune-homme = ribbons flying behind a lady’s dress. Also Followers.
1872. Spectator. ‘Follow-me-lads’ are not in themselves very pretty, though, like any other fashion, they become the Princess, and they are exceedingly costly.
Follow on, subs. phr. and verb (cricket).—A team eighty runs behind the other in the first innings is obliged to follow on; i.e., to take to the wickets a second time. A run more, and it saves the follow on.
1891. Pall Mall Gazette, 5 Aug. ‘Notts. v. Surrey.’ The game, with a possible prospect of the follow-on, being saved.
Follow your nose! intj. phr. (streets’).—A retort on asking the way. The full phrase is, ‘Follow your nose, and you are sure to go straight.’
1620. Percy, Folio MSS., p. 462. He went to the sea syde, and ffollowed his nose.
1854. Notes and Queries, x., p. 66. In what collection of tales published in 1834 shall I find the tale entitled follow your nose?
Foo-foo, subs. (American).—A person of no account; an insignificant idiot; a poop (q.v.).
1837. A Glance at New York (in Bartlett). Don’t know what a foo-foo is? Well, as you’re a greenhorn, I’ll enlighten you. A foo-foo, or an outsider, is a chap that can’t come the big figure.
Fool, subs. (colloquial.)—A dish of gooseberries, boiled with sugar and milk. [Fr., groseilles en foule.] Also, a gull (q.v.).
1719. Durfey, Pills, etc., III., 9. ‘Praise of the Dairy Maid.’ A lady, I heard tell, Not far off did dwell, Made her husband a fool, and it pleased him quite well.
1774. Goldsmith, Retaliation. And by the same rule, Magnanimous Goldsmith’s a gooseberry fool.
No Fool, subs. phr. (American colloquial).—A phrase laudatory, applied to neuter nouns. Cf., No Slouch.
1848. Jones, Sketches of Travel, p. 33. I tell you what, Charlston ain’t no fool of a city.
To make a fool of, verb. phr. (colloquial).—To delude. Specifically (venery), to cuckold, or to seduce under promise of marriage.
To fool about (or around), verb. phr. (American).—To dawdle; to trifle with; to be infatuated with; to hang about; to defraud.
1837. A Glance at New York. Mose—Now look a-here, Liz,—I go in for Bill Sykes, ’cause he runs wid our machine; but he musn’t come foolin’ round my gal, or I’ll give him fits.
1884. Hawley Smart, Post to Finish, ch. xvii. From what I hear, you came to Riddleton, fooling after my daughter. Now, I’ll have no caterwauling of that sort.
1891. Gunter, Miss Nobody of Nowhere, p. 124. I should think you had too much ed-u-cash to fool about such a going on.
Fool-finder, subs. (obsolete).—A bum-bailiff.—Grose.
Foolish, adj. (prostitutes’).—Said of a man that pays. ‘Is he flash (q.v.) or foolish = Is he the cully or the other.’—Grose.
Fool-monger, subs. (colloquial).—A person, male or female, living by their wits, e.g., a promoter (q.v.); a betting-man; a swindler. Also Fool-catcher and Fool-trap (q.v.).
Foolometer, subs. (colloquial).—A standard, positive or neuter, whereby to gauge the public taste.
Fool’s Father, subs. phr. (theatrical).—The pantaloon or old ’un. (q.v.)
Fool-sticker, subs. phr. (venery).—The penis. For synonyms, see Creamstick and Prick. Also Fool-maker.
Fool’s Wedding, subs. phr. (common).—A party of women. For synonyms, see Hen Party.
Fool-trap, subs. (colloquial).—1. A fool-monger (q.v.).
2. (venery).—The female pudendum. For synonyms, see Monosyllable.
3. (colloquial).—A high-class harlot.
Foont, subs. (thieves’)—A sovereign [Probably a corruption of Ger. Pfund.] For synonyms, see Canary.
1879. J. W. Horsley, in Macm. Mag., XL., 502. The mob got me up a break (collection), and I got between five or six foont (sovereigns).
Foot, verb. (common).—1. To acknowledge payment; e.g., to foot a bill; cf., Foot-up.
1848. Durivage, Stray Subjects, p. 183. If our plan succeeded the landlord was to foot the bill, and stand treat.
2. (football and colloquial).—To kick; to hoof (q.v.). Cf., Merchant of Venice, I., 3, You, that did void your rheum upon my beard, And foot me, as you spurn a stranger cur.
1852. Bristed, Upper Ten Thousand, p. 223. Both teams were footing their very best.
To foot it, verb. phr. (colloquial).—To walk. For synonyms, see Pad the Hoof.
1892. Price, From Arctic Ocean to Yellow Sea. The discomfort of having to foot it.
To foot-up, verb. phr. (American colloquial).—To sum up the total (of a bill); to tot up (q.v.). Hence, to pay; to discharge one’s obligations; to reckon up (q.v.); to summarize both merits and defects, and strike a balance. Footing-up = the reckoning, the sum total. Fr., gamberger.
1865. Sala, A Trip to Barbary. The Arab abhors statistics. He won’t be tabulated if he could help it, and were you to go to Algeria, Doctor Colenso, you would find a deeply rooted objection among the people to the reckoning, or footing-up, as the Americans call it, of anything animate or inanimate.
1871. De Vere, Americanisms, p. 310. To foot a bill, by paying the amount at the bottom of the account, is a phrase equally well known abroad and with us.
1882. McCabe, New York, XXI., 333. The transactions of ‘the Street’ foot up an almost fabulous sum daily.
1884. G. A. S[ala], in Ill. Lon. News, 29 March, p. 294, col. 3. They foot up (American English) to an almost alarming amount in thousands of dollars.
To put one’s best foot (or leg) foremost, verb. phr. (colloquial).—To use all possible despatch; to exert oneself to the utmost.
1596. Shakspeare, King John, iv., 2. Nay, but make haste; the better foot before.
To put one’s foot into anything, verb. phr. (colloquial).—To make a mess of it; to get into a scrape. The bishop (i.e., the Devil) has put his foot in it (Old English proverb) is said of burned porridge or over-roasted meat.—Grose. Fr., faire une gaffe.
1823. Bee, Dict. of the Turf, s.v.
1888. Daily Telegraph, 7 May. Faire une gaffe, in modern Parisian slang, may be best rendered as to put your foot in it.
To have one foot (or leg) in the grave, verb. phr. (common).—On one’s last legs; measured for a funeral sermon. Also as adj.
1825. English Spy, i., pp. 199–200. With one leg in the grave he’ll laugh.
1890. Globe, 15 May, p. 5, col. 2. One-foot-in-the-grave paralytic sort of people.
To pull foot, verb. phr. (American).—To make haste. Variants are to take one’s foot in one’s hand, and to make tracks; but for synonyms, see Absquatulate and Skedaddle.
1825. Neal, Brother Jonathan, Bk. I., ch. iv., How they pulled foot when they seed us commin.
1836. Michael Scott, Tom Cringle’s Log, ch. viii. ‘Why, pull foot, captain,’ promptly replied Paul.
1843–4. Haliburton, Sam Slick in England. I look’d up; it was another shower, by gosh. I pulls foot for dear life.
To take Mr. Foot’s horse, verb. phr. (old).—To walk; to go by Shank’s mare (q.v.) For synonyms, see Pad the hoof.
To know the length of one’s foot, verb. phr. (old).—To be well acquainted with one’s character.
1581. Lilly, Euphues, etc. But you shall not know the length of my foot, untill by your cunning you get commendation.
1614. Terence in English. He measures an other man’s foote by his owne last. Hee considers an other mans meaning by his owne intent.
Footer, subs. (Harrow: once common).—1. Short for ‘football.’
2. (University).—A player of football according to Rugby rules.
Foot-hot, adv. (Old English).—In hot haste; hot-foot (q.v.)
1848. Burton, Waggeries, etc., p. 65. I’m darned if I don’t streak it to the Squire’s foot-hot.
Footing, subs. (common).—Money paid on entering upon new duties, or on being received into a workshop or society: as at sea when a comrade first goes aloft. Formerly foot-ale: cf., Garnish. Fr., arroser ses galons = to christen one’s uniform.
1777. Howard, State of Prisons in England and Wales, quoted in J. Ashton’s The Fleet, p. 295. A cruel custom obtains in most of our Gaols, which is that of the prisoners demanding of a new comer garnish, footing, or (as it is called in some London Gaols) chummage.
1781. G. Parker, View of Society, I., 48; I must instantly pay down two shillings for my footing.
1788. G. A. Stevens, Adv. of a Speculist, i., 211. I was drove from street to street by women of my own profession, who swore I should not come in their beats until I had paid my footing.
1830. Carleton, Collegian’s Colleen Bawn, 94. ‘Pay your footing now, Master Kyrle Daly, before you go farther,’ said one.
1840. Haliburton, Clockmaker, 3 S., ch. iii. ‘Waiter, half-a-dozen of iced champagne here, to pay for Mr. Slick’s footin’.’
1891. Clark Russell, An Ocean Tragedy, p. 86. I was going aloft and wished to pay my footing.
Footle, verb., and Footling, adj. (colloquial).—To dawdle, trifle, potter; dawdling, trifling, pottering; messing about (q.v.).
Footlicker, subs. (old).—A servant: a lickspittle.
1609. Shakspeare, The Tempest, IV., 1. Do that good mischief which may make this island Thine for ever, and I, thy Caliban, For aye thy foot-licker.
Footlights. To smell the footlights, verb. phr. (theatrical).—To acquire a taste for theatricals. [Footlights = the float (q.v.); the row of burners in front of the stage.]
To smell of the footlights. To carry theatrical concerns and phraseology into private life; to talk shop (q.v.).
Footman’s Inn, subs. phr. (old).—A poor lodging; a jail. Fr., Hôtel de la modestie = the Poor Man’s Arms.
1608. Penniles Parliament of Threedbare Poets. Those that depend on destiny, and not on God, may chance look through a narrow lattice at Footman’s Inn.
1612. Rowland, Knave of Hearts. Which at the heeles so hants his frighted ghost, That he at last in Footman’s-inne must host, Some castle dolorous compos’d of stone, Like (let me see) Newgate is such a one.
Footman’s Maund, subs. phr. (old).—An artificial sore, as from a horse’s bite or kick. The fox’s bite of schoolboys. Also the Scaldrum Dodge, or Maund (q.v.). Maund = a cadger’s sale-basket. Cf., Masons’ Maund.
1690. B. E., Dict. of the Canting Crew, s.v. An artificial sore made with unslacked lime, soap, and the rust of old iron, on the back of a beggar’s hand, as if hurt by the bite or kick of a horse.
1785. Grose, Dict. of the Vulg. Tongue, s.v.
Foot-riding, subs. (cyclists’).—Walking and wheeling one’s machine instead of riding it.
1887. T. Stevens, Round the World on a Bicycle. Already I realise that there is going to be as much foot-riding as anything for the first part of my journey.
Foot-scamp, subs. (old).—A foot-pad.—G. Parker.
Footstool. See Angels’ Footstool.
Foot-wobbler, subs. (old, soldier’s’).—An infantryman. For synonyms, see Mudcrusher.
1785. Grose, Dict. of the Vulg. Tongue, s.v.
Footy, adj. (old).—Contemptible; worthless. Fr., foutu.—Grose.
1836. Michael Scott, Tom Cringle’s Log, ch. v. My eye, Captain, no use to dodge from her; it is only dat footy little King’s cutter on de Jamaica station.
Foozle, subs. (common and sporting).—1. A boggle; a miss.
2. (common).—A bore; a fogey; and (in America) a fool; a green ’un. For synonyms, see Buffle, Cabbage-head, and Sammy soft.
1867. Rhoda Broughton, Cometh up as a Flower, ch. xxvi. Frumps and foozles in Eaton Square.
Verb. (common).—To miss; to boggle; to muff (q.v.).
1888. Field, 25 Feb. Park foozled his second stroke.
Foozled (or Foozley), adj. (colloquial).—Blurred in appearance and effect; fuzzy; muffed (q.v.). Often said of badly painted pictures, or parts of pictures.
Fop-doodle, subs. (old).—An insignificant man; a fool.
1689. Shadwell, Bury Fair. Come come, you brace of fop-doodle.
Fop’s Alley, subs. phr. (old).—See quot. 1883.
1782. D’Arblay, Cecilia, bk. II., ch. iv. Sir Robert Floyer, sauntering down fop’s alley.
1883. Sala, Echoes of the Year, p. 369. Fop’s alley was the gangway running parallel to the footlights, between the last row of the stalls and the first row of the pit in Her Majesty’s Theatre, and in its palmiest days it was always graced by the presence of a subaltern of the Guards in full uniform, daintily swinging his bearskin.
Forakers, subs. (Winchester College).—The water-closet. [Formerly spelt foricus and probably a corruption of foricas, an English plural of the Latin forica.] For synonyms, see Mrs. Jones.
Foraminate, verb. (venery).—To copulate. For synonyms, see Greens and Ride.
Force, subs. (colloquial).—The police; properly a body of men trained for action. For synonyms, see Beak and Copper.
1868. Braddon, Trail of the Serpent, bk. IV., ch. vi. ‘I should like to ... bring a child up from the very cradle to the police detective line, to see whether I couldn’t make that ’ere child a ornament to the force.’
1883. Daily Telegraph, 5 April, p. 2, col. 1. But in all my experience of the force, I think I never saw a policeman’s eyes so expressive of gratitude.
To force the voucher, verb. phr. (turf).—It is customary for sporting tricksters to advertise selections and enclose vouchers (similar to those sent out by respectable commission agents) for double or treble the current odds. The correspondent is informed that, in consequence of early investments, the extra odds can be laid; a remittance is requested; the voucher is forced; and then the firm ‘dries up,’ and changes its name and address.
Forcemeat Ball, subs. phr. (old)—Something endured from compulsion: as (1) a rape: (2) going to prison; (3) transportation; (4) an affiliation order; (5) abstention (from drink, pleasure, etc.) through impecuniosity.
Forceps, subs. (old).—The hands. [Properly a pair of surgeon’s pincers.]—For synonyms, see Daddle.
Fore-and-Aft, verb. (venery).—To copulate. See Greens and Ride.
Fore-and-after, subs. phr. (American).—1. See quot.
1840. Haliburton, Clockmaker, 3 S., ch. xi. ‘The way she walks her chalks ain’t no matter. She is a regular fore-and-after.’
2. (venery).—A double-barrelled (q.v.) harlot. [As in the song attributed to an eminent living man of letters: “Sing whore, sing whore, Behind and before, Her price is a shilling—She never gets more.”]
Fore-buttocks, subs. (old).—The paps.—For synonyms, see Dairy.
a. 1745. Swift, Pope, and Arbuthnot, Misc. iv., 222. Now her fore-buttocks to the navel bare.
Forecaster, subs. (venery). The female pudendum. For synonyms, see Monosyllable.
Fore-coach-wheel, subs. (common).—A half-crown. For synonyms, see Caroon.
Fore-court, subs. phr. (venery).—The female pudendum. Also Fore-hatch, Fore-castle, and Fore-room. For synonyms, see Monosyllable.
Forefoot, subs. (old).—The hand.
1599. Shakspeare, Henry V., II., 1. Give me thy fist; thy forefoot to me give.
1785. Grose, Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.
Foregather, verb. (old).—To share the sexual embrace. For synonyms, see Ride.
Forehatch, subs. (venery).—The female pudendum. For synonyms, see Monosyllable. Also Forecastle.
Foreman, subs. (old).—1. The penis. For synonyms, see Creamstick and Prick. [Cf., Forewoman.]
1647. Ladies’ Parliament (q.v.).
Foreman of the jury, subs. phr. (old).—A babbler; one with the gift of the gab (q.v.).
1690. B. E., Dict. of the Canting Crew. Foreman of the jury, he that engrosses all the talk to himself.
1785. Grose, Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue, s.v.
Foreskin Hunter, subs. phr. (venery).—A harlot. For synonyms, see Barrack-hack and Tart.
Forest, subs. (venery).—The female pubic hair. For synonyms, see Fleece.
1573–1631. Donne, Elegies, xviii. Yet ere thou be where thou would’st be embayed, Thou must upon another forest set, Where many shipwreck and no further get.
1720. Durfey, Pills, etc., vi., 146. Give me the Country lass, That trips it o’er the field, And opes her forest to the first.
Fore-stall, subs. (thieves’).—In garotting, a look-out in front of the operator, or ugly-man (q.v.); the watch behind is the back-stall (q.v.). [From fore + stall (q.v.).]
Forewoman, subs. (old).—The female pudendum. For synonyms, see Monosyllable.
Fork, subs. (old). 1. A pickpocket. Fr., ‘Avoir les mains crochues = to be a light-fingered or lime-fingered filcher; every finger of his hand as good as a lime-twig.’—Cotgrave.
1690. B. E., Dict. of the Canting Crew, s.v.
1785. Grose, Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.
2. (thieves’).—A finger. The forks = the fore and middle fingers; also cf., (proverbial) ‘Fingers were made before forks.’
English Synonyms.—Claws; cunt-hooks (Grose); daddles (also the hands); divers; feelers; fives; flappers; grapplers; grappling irons; gropers; hooks; nail-bearers; pickers and stealers (Shakspeare); corn-stealers; Ten Commandments; ticklers; pinkies; muck-forks.
French Synonyms.—Les apôtres (thieves’: = the ten Apostles); les fourchettes, or les fourchettes d’Adam (popular: = Adam’s forks); le peigne d’allemand (thieves’: Rabelais).
German Synonyms.—Ezba (= the finger, especially the first or fore-finger. The names of the others are: Godel = the thumb; Ammo = the middle-finger; Kemizo = the ring-finger; Seres, i.e., ‘span’ = the little finger); Griffling (= also the hand. From greifen = to seize).
Spanish Synonyms.—Mandamiento (= a commandment: cf., Ten Commandments); tijeras (= the fore- and middle fingers; Minsheu (1599) Dictionarie, tijeras = ‘small sheares, seizers, snuffers.’).
Portuguese Synonym.—Medunhos.
1821. Haggart, Life, p. 121. My forks were equally long, and they never failed me.
1834. Ainsworth, Rookwood. ‘Nix my Dolly.’ No dummy hunter had forks so fly. Ibid. Jack Sheppard (1889), p. 20. I’ll give him the edication of a prig—teach him the use of his forks betimes.
1841. Tait’s Edinburgh Mag., VIII., p. 220. My forks were light and fly, and lightly faked away.
1891. Licensed Victuallers’ Gazette, 9 Feb. Up they came briskly with smiling mugs, shook hands, then stepped back a pace or two, put up their forks, and the spectators were hushed into silence, for they saw that the battle was about to begin.
3. In plural (common).—The hands.
4. (old).—A gibbet; in the plural = the gallows. [fork is often applied to anything resembling a divarication (as of a tree, river, or road), etc.: Cf., sense 2. Cf., Cicero (de Div., i., 26). Ferens furcam ductus est: a slave so punished was called furcifer.]
5. (old).—A spendthrift.
1725. New Canting Dict., s.v.
6. (tailors’ and venery).—The crutch (q.v.), nockandro (q.v.), or Twist (q.v.). [Thus, a bit on a fork = the female pudendum; a grind (q.v.).] Fr., ‘Fourcheure, that part of the bodie from whence the thighs depart.’—Cotgrave.
Verb (old).—1. To steal; specifically to pick a pocket by inserting the middle and forefinger. Also to put one’s forks down: Fr., vol à la fourchette.
1690. B. E., Dict. of the Canting Crew. Let’s fork him, c. Let us pick that man’s pocket, the newest and most dextrous way; it is to thrust the fingers straight, stiff, open, and very quick into the pocket, and so closing them hook what can be held between them.
1785. Grose, Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue. Let us fork him.
1830. Lytton, Paul Clifford, ch. xvi. Yet so keen was his appetite for the sport, that the veteran appropriator absolutely burst into tears at not having ‘forked more.’
1878. C. Hindley, Life and Times of James Catnach. Frisk the Cly and fork the Rag, Draw the fogies plummy.
2. (venery).—To open up, or spread (q.v.).
To fork out, or over (sometimes abbreviated to fork). Verb. phr. (common).—To hand over; to pay; to shell out (q.v.).
1830. Lytton, Paul Clifford, ch. xxxi. The person fork him out ten shiners.
1836. Dickens, Sketches by Boz, p. 84. His active mind at once perceived how much might be done in the way of ... shoving the old and helpless into the wrong buss, and carrying them off ... till they was rig’larly done over, and forked out the stumpy.
1837. Barham, I. L., The Execution. He Pulls up at the door of a gin-shop, and gaily Cries, ‘What must I fork out to night, my trump, For the whole first-floor of the Magpie and Stump?’
1840. Comic Almanack. ‘Tom the Devil,’ p. 214. ‘That’s a nate way of doin’ business, sure enough,’ was the commentary; ‘ounly I can’t larn the sinse of going to a private lodging, where, if you ordher a kidney for breakfast, you’re expected to fork out to the butcher.’
1852. H. B. Stowe, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, ch. viii. You’ve got to fork over fifty dollars, flat down, or this child don’t start a peg.
1864. Dickens, Our Mutual Friend, Bk. III., ch. i. ‘Now,’ said Fledgeby, ‘fork out your balance in hand, and prove by figures how you make it out that it ain’t more.’
1867. Albany Argus, 5 Sept. Now, sir, you will please fork over that money to me, and pay your bill, or I’ll have the law out of you, as sure as you are born.
1887. Lippincott’s Magazine, Aug., p. 199. Just calculate my percentage of our liabilities, and allow me to fork over.
1888. Detroit Free Press, 9 Sept. The dozen screw-drivers came up C. O. D. and he had to fork over for them.
To fork on, verb. phr. (American).—To appropriate. Cf., To freeze on to.
To pitch the fork, verb. phr. (popular).—To tell a pitiful tale.
To eat vinegar with a fork, verb. phr. (common).—A person either over-shrewd or over-snappish is said to have eaten vinegar with a fork. Fr., Avoir mangé de l’oseille. See Nettle.
Forker, subs. (nautical).—A dockyard thief or fence (q.v.). [From fork = to steal + er.]
Forking, subs. (thieves’).—1. Thieving. See Fork.
2. (tailors’).—Hurrying and scamping (q.v.).
Forkless, adj. (thieves’).—Clumsy; unworkmanlike; as without forks (q.v.).
1821. Haggart, Life, p. 40. I met George Bagrie, and William Paterson, alias old Hag, two very willing, but poor snibs, accompanying a lushy cove, and going to work in a very forkless manner.
Forloper, subs. (South African).—A teamster guide.
Forlorn Hope, subs. phr. (colloquial).—A gamester’s last stake.—Grose.
Form, subs. (turf.)—1. Condition; training; fitness for a contest.
In or out of form = in or out of condition, i.e., fit or unfit for work. Better or Top form, etc. (in comparison). Cf., Colour.
1861. Walsh, The Horse, ch. vi. If it be supposed that two three-year-olds, carrying the same weight, could run a mile and a-half, and come in abreast, it is said that the form of one is equal to that of the other.
1884. Hawley Smart, Post to Finish, ch. xxxv. When fillies, in racing parlance, lose their form at three years old, they are apt to never recover it.
1868. Whyte Melville, White Rose, ch. xxxiv. That mysterious property racing men call ‘form.’
2. (colloquial).—Behaviour (with a moral significance: as good form, bad form = agreeable to good manners, breeding, principles, taste, etc., or the opposite). This usage, popularised in racing circles, is good literary English, though the word is commonly printed in inverted commas(“ ”): Shakspeare (Two Gentlemen of Verona, 4), says, ‘Can no way change you to a milder form,’ i.e., manner of behaviour.
1871. Orchestra, 13 Jan. This squabble at the Globe may most fitly, perhaps, be characterised by the words ‘bad form.’
1871. The Drawing Room Gazette, Dec. 9, p. 5. It is an open question, whether snubbing be not, like cutting, in the worst possible ‘form.’
1873. Belgravia, Feb. The demeanour and conduct which the ‘golden youth’ of the period call ‘good form’ was known to their fathers as bad manners.
1881. Jas. Payn, Grape from a Thorn, ch. xvii. It would be considered what they call ‘bad form’ in my daughter Ella if she were known to be a contributor—for pay—to the columns of a magazine.
1890. Speaker, 22 Feb, p. 211, col. 2. Still, after all, we doubt very much whether it be fair, or right, or even prudent—it certainly is not ‘good form’—to publish to a world of Gallios a lot of irreverent bar-mess and circuit ‘good stories,’ worked up about living Lord Chancellors, Lord Justices, and other present occupants of the judicial bench.
3. (common).—Habit; game (q.v.): e.g., ‘That’s my form = That’s what I’m in the way of doing’; or ‘That’s the sort of man I am.’
1884. Punch, 11 Oct. ‘’Arry at a Political Picnic.’ Athletics ain’t hardly my form.
Forney, subs. (thieves’).—A ring; a variant of fawney (q.v.).
1871. Egan, Finish of Tom and Jerry, p. 243. He sports a diamond forney on his little finger.
Fornicating-engine (-member; -tool), subs. phr. (venery).—The penis. For synonyms, see Creamstick and Prick.
Fornicator, subs. (venery).—1. The penis. For synonyms, see Creamstick and Prick.
2. In pl. (obsolete),—The old-fashioned flap trousers.
Fornicator’s Hall, subs. phr. (venery).—The female pudendum. For synonyms, see Monosyllable.
Fort, subs. (venery).—The female pudendum. For synonyms, see Monosyllable.
1620. Percy, Folio MSS. [Hales & Furnivall, 1867]. ‘Come, Wanton Wenches.’ When they your ffort beleauger; grant but a touch or a kisse ffor a tast.
Fortune-biter, subs. (obsolete).—A sharper.
1719. Durfey, Pills, etc., ii. ‘Hey! for Richmond Ball’! Fortune-biters, Hags, bum-fighters, Nymphs of the Woods, And stale City goods.
Fortune-teller, subs. (old).—A magistrate.
1690. B. E., Dict. of the Canting Crew. Fortune-tellers, c. the Judges of Life and Death, so-called by the Canting Crew.
1785. Grose, Dict. of the Vulg. Tongue. Fortune-teller, or cunning man; a judge who tells every prisoner his fortune, lot, or doom; to go before the fortune-teller, lambskin man or conjuror, to be tried at an assize.
1871. Egan, Finish of Tom and Jerry, p. 242. He had been werry cruelly used by the fortune-tellers.
Forty. To talk forty (more commonly nineteen) to the dozen, verb. phr. (colloquial).—To chatter incessantly; to gabble. To walk off forty to the dozen = to decamp in quick time.
1891. Farjeon, Mystery of M. Felix, p. 107. He run agin me, he did, and I ased, ‘Who are yer pushing of?’ He didn’t say nothink, but walked off forty to the dozen.
Roaring forties, subs. phr. (nautical).—The Atlantic between the fortieth and fiftieth degrees of latitude; also applied to the same region in southern latitudes.
Forty-faced, adj. (colloquial).—An arrant deceiver: e.g., a forty-faced liar, a forty-faced flirt, and so forth.
Forty-five, subs. (American).—A revolver. For synonyms, see Meat in the pot.
Forty-foot or Forty-guts, subs. (common).—A fat, dumpy man, or woman. In contempt.
English Synonyms.—‘All arse, and no body’; arse-and-corporation; all-belly (Cotgrave); all guts (idem); bacon-belly; barrel-belly; belly-god; bladder-figured; bosse-belly; Bosse of Billingsgate (Florio = a fat woman); chuff (Shakspeare); Christmas beef; double-guts; double-tripe; fat-cock; fat-guts (Shakspeare and Cotgrave); fatico; fattymus or fattyma; fubsy; fat Jack of the bonehouse; fat-lips; flanderkin; fustiluggs (Burton); fussock; gorbelly; grampus; gotch-guts; grand-guts (Florio); gulche (Florio); gullyguts; gundigutts; guts; guts-and-stomach; guts-and-garbage; guts-to-sell; hoddy-doddy; humpty-dumpty; hogshead; hopper-arse; Jack Weight; loppers; lummox; paunch; pod; porpoise; pot-guts; princod; pudding-belly; puff-guts; ribs; ‘short-and-thick-like-a-Welshman’s-cock’; slush-bucket; sow (a fat woman); spud; squab; studgy-guts; tallow-guts; tallow-merchant; thick-in-the-middle; tripes; tripes and trullibubs; tubs; waist; water-butt; walking ninepin; whopper.
French Synonyms. Un gros bajaf (popular); un bout de cul (popular); un bas de plafond, or de cul (popular); un brasset (= a tall, stout man); un berdouillard.
Spanish Synonym. Angelon de retablo (generally applied to a pot-bellied child).
Forty-jawed, adj. (colloquial).—Excessively talkative.
Forty-lunged, adj. (colloquial).—Stentorian; given to shouting; leather-lunged (q.v.).
Forty-rod or Forty-rod Lightning, subs. phr. (American).—Whiskey; specifically, spirit of so fiery a nature that it is calculated to kill at Forty Rods’ distance, i.e., on sight. Cf., Rot-gut. For synonyms, see Drinks and Old man’s milk. Cf., Florio (1598), Catoblepa, ‘a serpent in India so venomous that with his looke he kils a man a mile off.’
1884. M. Twain, Huck. Finn, ch. v., p. 36. He got powerful thirsty and clumb out on to the porch-roof and slid down a stanchion, and traded his new coat for a jug of forty-rod.
Forty-twa, subs. (Scots).—A common jakes, or bogshop (q.v.).—In Edinburgh: ‘so called from its accommodating that number of persons at once’ (Hotten). [Long a thing of the past.]
Forty Winks, subs. phr. (colloquial).—A short sleep or nap. See Dog’s Sleep.
1866. G. Eliot, Felix Holt, ch. xliii. She was prevented by the appearance of old Mr. Transome, who since his walk had been having ‘forty-winks’ on the sofa in the library.
1871. Egan, Finish to Tom and Jerry, p. 87. On uncommanly big gentlemen, told out, taking forty-winks.
[Forty is often used to signify an indefinite number; cf., Shakespeare’s usage, ‘I could beat forty of them’ (Cor. iii., 1); ‘O that the slave had forty thousand lives’ (Othello iii., 1); ‘forty thousand brothers’ (Hamlet, v., 1); ‘The Humour of Forty Fancies’ (Taming of the Shrew); and Jonson ‘Some forty boxes’ (Silent Woman).]
Fossed, ppl. adj. (American thieves’).—Thrown; cf., [foss = a ditch].
Fossick, verb (Australian miners’).—To work an abandoned claim, or to wash old dirt; hence to search persistently. [Halliwell: = to take trouble, but cf., fosse, a ditch or excavation.] Also fossicking = a living got as aforesaid; fossicker = a man that works abandoned claims; fossicking about = (American) shinning around, or in England ferreting (q.v.).
1870. Notes and Queries, 4 S., vi., p. 3.
1878. Fraser’s Mag., Oct., p. 449, They are more suited ... to plodding, fossicking, persevering industry, than for hard work.
1887. Sala, in Ill. Lond. News, 12 Mar., p. 282, col. 2. ‘To fossick’ in the old digging days was to get a living by extracting gold from the refuse wash-dirt which previous diggers had abandoned as worthless.
1890. Illustrations, Jan., p. 158. After some ‘fossiking’ we discover three or four huts within ‘cooee,’ all diggers, all ‘hatters,’ and mostly good fellows.
Fou, or Fow, adj. (old English and Scots’ colloquial).—Drunk; variants are bitch-fou; greetin’-fou; piper-fou; roaring-fou; fou as barty (Burns); pissing-fou; and so forth. For synonyms, see Drinks and Screwed. Also (Scots’) = full of food or drink, as in quot. under date 1815.
1697. Vanbrugh, Provoked Wife, III., ii. (quoted in). Then sit ye awhile, and tipple a bit, For we’s not very fou, but we’re gayly yet.
1787. Burns, Death and Dr. Hornbook, st. 3. I was na fou, but just had plenty.
1815. Scott, Guy Mannering, ch. xlvi. ‘Are ye fou or fasting?’ ‘Fasting from all but sin.’
1857. J. E. Ritchie, Night Side of London, p. 166. The time admits of a man getting fou between the commencement and the close of the entertainment.
Foul, subs. (nautical and aquatic).—A running into; a running down.
Verb. (idem).—To run against; to run down. Also to come (or fall) foul of.
[Foul, adj. and verb. is used in two senses: (1) = dirty, as a foul word, a foul shrew (Dickens), to foul the bed, &c.; and (2) = unfair, as a foul (i.e., a felon) stroke, a foul blow, and so forth.]
1626. Captain John Smith, Accidence for Seamen, in wks. (Arber), p. 796. Boord and boord, or thwart the hawse, we are foule on each other.
1724. E. Coles, Eng. Dict. Foul, hindred or intangled with another ship’s ropes, etc.
1754. Connoisseur, No. 3. Which sailed very heavy, were often a-ground, and continually ran foul on each other.
1861. Hughes, Tom Brown at Oxford, ch. xiii. Their coxswain ... had to pull his left hand hard or they would have fouled the Oxfordshire corner.
1885 Illus. London News, March 28, p. 316, col. 1. In 1849 there were two races in the course of the year; Cambridge won the first, Oxford the second, on a foul (the only time the race has been so won).
1889. Licensed Victuallers’ Gaz., 18 Jan. Dick was done out of the stakes on an appeal of foul.
To foul a plate with, verbal phr. (old, colloquial).—To dine or sup with.—Grose.
Foulcher, subs. (thieves’).—A purse.
1877. Five Years’ Penal Servitude, ch. iii., p. 243. ‘A foulcher, with flimsies and couters for a score of quid in it.’
Foul-mouthed, adj. (colloquial).—Obscene or blasphemous in speech.
Found in a Parsley-bed. See Parsley-bed and Gooseberry-bush.
Fountain of Love, subs. phr. (venery).—The female pudendum. For synonyms, see Monosyllable.
Four-and-nine (or Four-and-ninepenny), subs. phr. (old).—A hat. [So-called from the price at which an enterprising Bread Street hatter sold his hats, circa 1844, at which date London was hideous with posters displaying a large black hat and ‘4s. and 9d.’ in white letters.]
1844. Advertisement Couplet. Whene’er to slumber you incline, Take a short nap at four-and-nine.
1846. Thackeray, Yellow Plush Papers, p. 152 (ed. 1887). You may, for instance, call a coronet a coronal (an ‘ancestral coronal,’ p. 74) if you like, as you might call a hat a ‘swart sombrero,’ a ‘glossy four-and-nine,’ ‘a silken helm to storm impermeable, and lightsome as the breezy gossamer;’ but in the long run it is safer to call it a hat.
1847. Thackeray, Mrs. Perkins’s Ball (The Mulligan). The Mulligan has withdrawn his custom from the ‘infernal four-and-ninepenny scoundthrel,’ as he calls him. The hatter has not shut up shop in consequence.
1849. Viator, Oxford Guide. He then did raise his four-and-nine, And scratched his shaggy pate.
1867. Jas. Greenwood, Unsent. Journeys, xxx., 229. Because he wore a four-and-nine, and had a pencil stuck behind his ear.
Four-bones, subs. (thieves’).—The knees.
1857. Punch, 31 Jan. ‘Dear Bill, This Stone-jug.’ For them coves in Guildhall and that blessed Lord Mayor, Prigs on their four bones should chop whiners I swear.
Four-eyes, subs. (common).—A person in spectacles: ‘a chap that can’t believe his own eyes.’
Four-holed Middlings, subs. phr. (Winchester College).—Ordinary walking shoes; cf. beeswaxers. Obsolete.
Four Kings. The history (or book) of the four kings. subs. phr. (old).—A pack of cards; otherwise, a child’s best guide to the gallows, or the devil’s picture books. Fr., Livre des quatre rois.
Four-legged burglar-alarm, subs. phr. (common).—A watch dog.
Four-legged Frolic, subs. phr. (venery).—The act of kind: a reminiscence of the proverb, ‘There goes more to a marriage than four bare legs in a bed.’ For synonyms, see Greens and Ride.
Four-poster, subs. phr. (colloquial).—A four-post bedstead.
1836. Dickens, Pickwick, ch. xliv. ‘Vill you allow me to en-quire vy you make up your bed under that ere deal table?’ said Sam. ‘’Cause I was alvays used to a four-poster afore I came here, and I find the legs of the table answer just as well,’ replied the cobbler.
Four Seams and a Bit of Soap, subs. phr. (tailors’).—A pair of trousers. See Kicks.
Four—(more commonly Three)—Sheets in the Wind, adv. phr. (nautical).—Drunk; cf., half seas over. For synonyms, see Drinks and Screwed.
Fourteen Hundred, ... phr. (Stock Exchange).—A warning cry that a stranger is in the ‘House.’
1887. Atkin, House Scraps. So, help me Got, Mo, who is he? Instead of replying in a straightforward way, Mo raised his voice as loud as he could, and shouted with might and main, ‘fourteen hundred new fives!’ A hundred voices repeated the mysterious exclamation.
1890. Cassell’s Saturday Journal, 26 April. The cry of ‘fourteen hundred’ is said to have had its origin in the fact that for a long while the number of members never exceeded 1,399; and it was customary to hail every new comer as the fourteen hundredth. It has, in its primary sense, long since lost significance, for there are now nearly three thousand members of the close corporation which has its home in Capel Court.
Fourteenth Amendment Persuasion, subs. phr. (American).—Negroes. [From the number of the clause amending the Constitution at the abolition of slavery.]
1888. Times Democrat, 5 Feb. To take the law is one of the greatest privileges in the estimation of the colored folk that the fourteenth amendment conferred, and, whether offender or defendant, they take a pride in summonses beyond describing.
Fourth, subs. (Cambridge University).—A rear (q.v.) or jakes. [Origin uncertain; said to have been first used at St. John’s or Trinity, where the closets were situated in the Fourth Court. Whatever its derivation, the term is now the only one in use at Cambridge, and is frequently heard outside the university.] The verbal phrase is to keep a fourth (see Keep).
On his fourth, phr. (common).—Hopelessly drunk. For synonyms, see Drinks and Screwed.
Fourth Estate, subs. phr. (literary).—The body of journalists; the ‘Press.’ [Literally the Fourth Estate of the realm, the other three being Queen, Lords, and Commons.]
1855. Notes and Queries. 1 S. xi., p. 452.
1857. J. E. Ritchie, Night Side of London, p. 202. Let me say a word about these exceedingly seedy-looking individuals connected with the fourth estate.
Four-wheeler, subs. (common).—A steak.
2. (colloquial).—A four-wheeled cab; a growler (q.v.).
1873. Black, Princess of Thule, ch. 10. Having sent an all their luggage by a respectable old four-wheeler.
Fousty, adj. (colloquial).—Stinking [probably derived from foist, sense 3].
Fouter, verb, and Foutering, subs. (common).—To meddle, importune, waste time and tongue; the act of meddling, importunity, wasting time and tongue. E.g., ‘Don’t come foutering here!’ [From the French, foutre: the sense of which is intensified in a vulgarism of still fuller flavour].
Fox, subs. (old).—A sword; specifically, the old English broadsword. [Derivation dubious. Suggestions are: (1) from a maker’s name; (2) from the fox sometimes engraved on the blade; (3) from the Latin falx.] For synonyms, see Cheese-toaster and Poker.
1598, Shakspeare, Henry V., 4. O signieur Dew, thou dy’st on point of fox.
1614. Jonson, Bartholomew Fair, ii. A fellow that knows nothing but a basket-hilt, and an old fox in’t.
c. 1640. [Shirley], Captain Underwit, in Bullen’s Old Plays, ii., 321. Un. An old fox blade made at Hounsloe heath.
1667. Shirley, Love Tricks, Act II., Sc. 1. They say your swords most commonly are foxes, and have notable metal in them.
1700. Congreve, Way of the World, Act V., Sc. 10. Sir, I have an old fox by my thigh shall hack your instrument of ram vellum to shreds, Sir.
1821. Scott, Kenilworth, ch. iv. ‘Come, come, comrade,’ said Lambourne, ‘here is enough done, and more than enough, put up your fox, and let us be jogging.’
Verb (old).—1. To intoxicate. Foxed = drunk; to catch a fox = to be very drunk; while to flay the fox (Urquhart) = to vomit, to shed your liquor, i.e., to get rid of the beast.
1611. Barry, Ram Alley, Act IV. They will bib hard; they will be fine sunburnt, Sufficient fox’d or columber’d now and then.
1633. Heywood, Eng. Travellers, IV., v., p. 266 (Mermaid Series). Rioter. Worthy Reginald. Reig. Will, if he now come off well, fox you all, Go, call for wine.
c. 1640. [Shirley], Captain Underwit, in Bullen’s Old Plays, ii. 375. Then to bee fox’d it is no crime, Since thickest and dull braines It makes sublime.
1661. T. Middleton, Mayor of Quinborough, V., i. Ah, blind as one that had been fox’d a sevennight.
1673. Shadwell, Epsom Wells, IV., in wks. (1720), ii., 248. But here’s my cup. Come on. Udsooks, I begin to be fox’d!
1719. Durfey, Pills, etc., i., 194. Come, let’s trudge it to Kirkham Fair: There’s stout liquor enough to fox me.
1738. Swift, Polite Convers., Dial. 2. Lady Sm. But, Sir John, your ale is terrible strong and heady.... Sir John. Why, indeed, it is apt to fox one.
1748. T. Dyche, Dictionary (5th ed.). Fox (v.) ... also to make a person drunk or fuddled.
1891. Sporting Times, 11 April. And so to bed well nigh seven in the morning, and myself as near foxed as of old.
2. (old).—To cheat; to trick; to rob (colloquial at Eton). For synonyms, see Gammon.
1631. Mayne, City Match, iii., 1. Fore Jove, the captain foxed him rarely.
1866. Notes and Queries, 3, S. x., 123. Where the tramps ... out of their gout are foxed.
3. (common).—To watch closely. Also to fox about. Cf., fox’s sleep. For synonyms, see Nose.
1880. Greenwood, Odd People in Odd Places, p. 61. ‘You keep it going pretty loud here, with a couple of policemen foxing about just outside.’
4. (colloquial).—To sham.
1880. One and All, 6 Nov., p. 296, ‘Let us look at these vagabons; maybe they’re only foxin’.’ The two men who had received such tangible mementos of the whip-handle and the blackthorn lay perfectly still.
5. (American).—To play truant.
6. (booksellers’).—To stain; to discolour with damp; said of books and engravings. Foxed = stained or discoloured.
1881. C. M. I[ngleby] in Notes and Queries (6th S., iv., 96). Tissue paper harbours damp, and in a damp room will assuredly help to fox the plates which they face.
1885. Austin Dobson, At the Sign of the Lyre, 83. And the Rabelais foxed and flea’d.
7. (theatrical).—To criticise a ‘brother pro’s’ performance.
8. (common).—To mend a boot by ‘capping’ it.
To set a fox to keep one’s geese, phr. (common).—To entrust one’s money, or one’s circumstances, to the care of sharpers. Latin, Ovem lupo commisisti.
To make a fox paw, verb. phr. (common).—To make a mistake or a wrong move; specifically (of women) to be seduced. [A corruption of the Fr. faux pas.]
1785. Grose, Vulg. Tongue.
Fox’s Sleep, subs. phr. (common).—A state of feigned yet very vigilant indifference to one’s surroundings. [Foxes were supposed to sleep with one eye open.]
1830. Sir J. Barrington, Personal Sketches, Vol. III., p. 171 (ed. 1832). Mr. Fitzgerald, he supposed, was in a fox’s sleep, and his bravo in another, who, instead of receding at all, on the contrary squeezed the attorney closer and closer.
Foxy, adj. (colloquial).—1. Red-haired; cf., carrotty.
1828. G. Griffin, Collegians, ch. ii. Dunat O’Leary, the hair-cutter, or Foxy Dunat, as he was named in allusion to his red head.
2. (colloquial).—Cunning; vulpine in character and look. Once literary. Jonson (1605) calls his arch-foist volpone, the second title of his play being ‘The Fox;’ and Florio (1598) defines Volpone as ‘an old fox, an old reinard, an old, crafty, sly, subtle companion, sneaking, lurking, wilie deceiver.’
d. 1536. Tyndale, Workes, p. 148. Oh, foxy Pharisay, that is thy leuen, of which Christ so diligently bad vs beware.
1849. Dickens, David Copperfield, ch. xlix., p. 429. Whatever his state of health may be his appearance is foxy, not to say diabolical.
3. (American cobblers’).—Repaired with new toe-caps. See fox, verb, sense 8.
1877. M. Twain, Life on the Mississippi, ch. lvii., p. 503. It was the scarecrow Dean—in foxy shoes, down at the heels; socks of odd colours, also ‘down.’
4. (booksellers’).—A term applied to prints and books discoloured by damp; see Fox, verb, sense 6.
5. (painters’: obsolete).—Inclined to reddishness.
d. 1792. Sir J. Reynolds, Notes on Dufresnoy. That (style) of Titian, which may be called the Golden manner, when unskilfully managed, becomes what the painters call foxy.
6. (common).—Strong-smelling. Said of a red-haired man or woman.
Foy, subs. (old).—A cheat; a swindle.
1615. Greene, Thieves Falling Out. You be crossbites, foys, and nips.
Foyl-cloy, subs. (old).—A pickpocket; a rogue—B. E. [1690].
Foyst, subs. and verb. See Foist.
Foyster. See Foister.
Fraggle, verb. (Texas).—To rob.
Fragment, subs. (Winchester College).—A dinner for six (served in College Hall, after the ordinary dinner), ordered by a Fellow in favour of a particular boy, who was at liberty to invite five others to join him. Obs. A fragment was supposed to consist of three dishes.—Winchester Word-book [1891].
Framer, subs. (American thieves’).—A shawl.
1859. Matsell, Vocabulum, or Rogue’s Lexicon, s.v.
Frater, subs. (old).—A beggar working with a false petition.
1567. Harman, Caveat, s.v. Frater, a beggar wyth a false paper.
1622. Fletcher, Beggar’s Bush, ii., 1. And these what name or title e’er they bear, Jarkman, or Patrico, Cranke, or Clapper-dudgeon, Frater, or Abramman, I speak to all That stand in fair election for the title Of king of beggars.
1791. Life of Bamfylde Moore-Carew. ‘Oath of Canting Crew.’ Rogue or rascal, frater, maunderer, Irish toyle, or other wanderer.
Fraud, subs. (colloquial).—A failure; anything or body disappointing expectation; e.g., an acquaintance, a picture, a book, a play, a picture, a bottle of wine. Actual dishonesty is not necessarily implied.
1882. Punch, LXXXII., p. 177, col. 1. A fraud, Charlie!
Fraze. See Vessel.
Freak, subs. (American showmen’s). A living curiosity: as the Siamese Twins, the Two-headed Nightingale. [Short for ‘freak of nature.’]
Free, adj. (Oxford University).—Impudent; self-possessed.
1864. Tennyson, Northern Farmer, (Old Style), line 25.—But parson a coomes an’ a goos, an’ a says it eäsy an’ freeä.
Verb. (old).—To steal; cf., annex and convey. For synonyms, see Prig.
1857. Snowden, Magistrates’ Assistant, 3rd ed., p. 444. To steal a muff. To free a cat.
1859. Matsell, Vocabulum, or Rogue’s Lexicon, s.v.
1882. McCabe, New York, ch. xxxiv., p. 509. (Given in list of slang terms.)
Free-fucking, subs. (venery).—General lewdness. Also the favour gratis. Also fidelity to the other sex at large.
Free of Fumbler’s Hall, adv. phr. (venery).—Impotent; unable to do ‘the trick.’ [Fumbler’s Hall = female pudendum.]
1785. Grose, Vulg. Tongue s.v., A saying of one who cannot get his wife with child.
Free, gratis,—for nothing, phr. (common).—A pleonastic vulgarism. Cf., On the dead.
To make free with both ends of the busk, verb. phr. (venery).—To take liberties with a woman. Cf., Both ends of the busk.
Free of the house, adj. phr. (colloquial).—Intimate; privileged to come and go at will.
Free of the bush, adj. phr. (venery).—On terms of extreme intimacy. See Bush.
[For the rest, the commonest sense of free is one of liberality: e.g., free of his foolishness = full of chaff; free-handed = lavish in giving; free-hearted = generously disposed; free of her favours = liberal of her person: free of his patter = full of talk.]
Free-and-Easy, subs. (common).—A social gathering where you smoke, drink, and sing; generally held at a public house.
1796. (In Bee’s Dict. of the Turf, published 1823, s.v.). Twenty seven years ago the cards of invitation to that (free-and-easy) at the ‘Pied Horse,’ in Moorfields, had the notable ‘N.B.—Fighting allowed.’
1810. Crabbe, The Borough, Letter 10. Clubs. Next is the club, where to their friends in town, Our country neighbours once a-month come down; We term it free-and-easy, and yet we Find it no easy matter to be free.
1811. Lexicon Balatronicum. Free-and-easy Johns. A society which meets at the Hole in the Wall, Fleet Street, to tipple porter, and sing bawdry.
1821. Egan, Tom and Jerry (ed. 1890), p. 91. Blew a cloud at a free-and-easy.
1843. Macaulay, Essays: Gladstone on Church and State. Clubs of all ranks, from those which have lined Pall-Mall and St. James’s Street with their palaces, down to the free-and-easy which meets in the shabby parlour of the village inn.
1869. Mrs. H. Wood, Roland Yorke, ch. xii. He tilted himself on to a high stool in the middle of the room, his legs dangling, just as though he had been at a free-and-easy meeting.
1880. Jas. Greenwood, Odd People in Odd Places, p. 64. A roaring trade is done, for instance, on a Saturday evening at the ‘Medley’ in Hoxton, a combination of theatre and music-hall, and serves as a free-and-easy chiefly for boys and girls.
1891. Cassell’s Saturday Journal, Sept., p. 1068, col. 3. The free-and-easy of to-day among us is a species of public-house party, at which much indifferent liquor and tobacco are consumed, songs are sung, and speeches are got rid of.
Freebooker, subs. (journalists’).—A ‘pirate’ bookseller or publisher; a play on the word freebooter.
Free fight, subs. (colloquial).—A general mellay.
1877. W. Mark, Green Past. and Picc., ch. xxx. That vehement German has been insisting on the Irish porters bringing up all our luggage at once; and as there has been a sort of free fight below he comes fuming upstairs.
Free-fishery, subs. phr. (venery).—The female pudendum. For synonyms, see Monosyllable.
Freeholder, subs. (venery).—1. A prostitute’s lover or fancyman. Cf., Free-fishery, and for synonyms, see Joseph.
2. (old).—A man whose wife insists on accompanying him to a public house.
1690. B. E., Dict. of the Canting Crew, s.v. 1785. Grose, Dict. of the Vulg. Tongue, s.v.
Free-lance, subs. (common).—An habitual adulteress.
c. 1889. (Quoted from Spectator in ‘Slang, Jargon, and Cant’). Sooner than be out of the fashion they will tolerate what should be most galling and shaming to them—the thought that by these they are put down among the free-lances.
Also said of a journalist attached to no particular paper.
Freeman, subs. (venery).—A married woman’s lover.
Freeman of bucks, subs. phr. (old).—A cuckold. [In allusion to the horn.] Grose.
To freeman, or to make a freeman of, verb. phr. (schoolboys’).—To spit on the penis of a new comer. Also To Freemason.
Freeman’s Quay. To drink, or lush, at freeman’s quay, verb. phr. (old).—To drink at another’s expense. [Freeman’s Quay was a celebrated wharf near London Bridge, and the saying arose from the beer that was given to porters, carmen, and others going there on business.]
1811. Lexicon Balatronicum, s.v.
Freeze, subs. (colloquial).—1. The act or state of freezing; a frost.
2. (old).—Hard cider.—Grose.
Verb. (American).—1. To long for intensely; e.g., ‘to freeze to go back,’ said of the home-sick; ‘to freeze for meat.’
1848. Ruxton, Life in the Far West (1887), p. 129. Threats of vengeance on every Redskin they met were loud and deep; and the wild war songs round their nightly camp-fires, and grotesque scalp-dances, borrowed from the Indians, proved to the initiated that they were, one and all, half-froze for hair.
2. (thieves’).—Hence, to appropriate; to steal; ‘to stick to.’
3. (old).—To adulterate or balderdash (q.v.) wine with freeze (q.v. sense 2).—Grose.
To freeze to (or on to), verb. phr. (American).—To take a strong fancy to; to cling to; to, keep fast hold of; and (of persons) to button-hole or shadow.
1883. Graphic, 17 March, p. 287, col. 1. If there was one institution which the Anglo-Indian froze to more than another, it was his sit-down supper and—its consequences.
1888. Daily Inter-Ocean, 2 March. The competence of a juror was judged by his ability to shake ready-formed opinions and freeze on to new ones.
To Freeze Out, verb. phr. (American).—To compel to withdraw from society by cold and contemptuous treatment; from business by competition or opposition; from the market by depressing prices or rates of exchange.
Freezer, subs. (common).—1. A tailless Eton jacket; cf., Bum-perisher. For synonyms, see Monkey-jacket.
2. (colloquial).—A very cold day. By analogy, a chilling look, address, or retort.
French-elixir (cream, lace, or article), subs. phr. (common).—Brandy. [The custom of taking of brandy with tea and coffee was originally French.—Whence French Cream. Laced tea = tea dashed with spirits].
1815. Scott, Guy Mannering, ch. ix. ‘Get out the gallon punch-bowl, and plenty of lemons. I’ll stand for the French article by the time I come back, and we’ll drink the young Laird’s health.’
1821. Real Life, i., p. 606. Not forgetting blue ruin and French lace.
English Synonyms.—Ball-of-fire; bingo; cold tea; cold nantz; red ribbon.
French Synonyms.—Le parfait amour du chiffonnier (i.e., ragman’s happiness = coarse brandy); le trois-six (popular: = rot-gut); fil-en-quatre, fil-en-trois, fil-en-six (specifically, old brandy, but applied to spirits generally); le dur (= a drop of hard: common); le raide (popular = a drop of stiff): le chenique or chnic (popular:); le rude (popular: = a drop of rough, i.e., coarse brandy); l’eau d’affe (thieves’); le pissat d’âne (popular: = donkey’s piss; sometimes applied to bad beer, which is likewise called pissat de vache); l’avoine (military = hay, as who should say ‘a nose bag’); le blanc (popular = brandy or white wine); le possédé (thieves’: bingo); le raspail (popular:); le cric (popular: also crik, crique, or cricque = rough brandy:); le schnaps (popular); le schnick (common: = bad brandy); le camphre (popular: = camphor; applied to the coarsest spirit); le sacré-chien or sacré-chien tout pur (common: = the vilest sold); casse-poitrine (common: = brandy heightened with pepper; cf., rot-gut); le jaune (rag-pickers’: = a drop of yellow); tord-boyaux (popular = twist-gut); la consolation (popular = a drop of comfort); requiqui (workmen’s); eau de mort (common: = death-water); le Tripoli (rank brandy); casse-gueule (= ‘kill-the-carter’; applied to all kinds of spirits).
French Fake. subs. phr. (nautical).—The fashion of coiling a rope by taking it backwards and forwards in parallel bands, so that it may run easily.
French Gout (or Disease, Fever, etc.), subs. phr. (common).—Sometimes clap (q.v.), but more generally and correctly syphilis, Morbus Gallicus, especially with older writers. For synonyms, see Ladies Fever. Also The Frenchman. French Pox = a very bad variety of syphilis. The French themselves always refer to the ailment as the mal de Naples, for which see Marston (1598) and his ‘Naples canker,’ and Florio (1598) mal di Napoli = French pocks. Cf., Shakspeare, Henry V., v., 1. News have I that my Nell is dead i’ the spital Of malady of France.
1598. Florio, A Worlde of Wordes. Lue, a plague.... It is also used for the French poxe.
1611. Cotgrave, Dictionarie. Mal de Naples, the French Pocks.
1690. B. E. Dict. of the Canting Crew. (s.v.).
1740. Poor Robin. Some gallants will this month be so penurious that they will not part with a crack’d groat to a poor body, but on their cockatrice or punquetto will bestow half a dozen taffety gowns, who in requittal bestows on him the French pox.
1785. Grose, Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue, s.v. He suffered by a blow over the snout with a French faggot-stick; i.e., he lost his nose by the pox.
Frenchified, adj. (old).—Clapped; more generally and accurately poxed.
1690. B. E., New Dict. of the Canting Crew, s.v.
1785. Grose, Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue, s.v. Frenchified, infected with the venereal disease; the mort is frenchified = the wench is infected.
French Leave, To take French leave. verb. phr. (colloquial).—(1) To decamp without notice; (2) to do anything without permission; (3) to purloin or steal; (4) to run away (as from an enemy). [Derivation obscure; French, probably traceable to the contempt engendered during the wars with France; the compliment is returned in similar expressions (see Synonyms) + leave = departure or permission to depart. Sense 1 is probably the origin of senses 2, 3, and 4. See Notes and Queries, 1 S. i, 246; 3 S. vi, 17; 5 S. xii, 87; 6 S. v, 347, 496; viii, 514; ix, 133, 213, 279; 7 S. iii, 5, 109, 518.]
English Synonyms.—To retire up (one’s fundament); to slope; to smouge; to do a sneak; to take the Frenchman; to vamoose.
French Synonyms.—S’escarpiner (popular: = to flash one’s pumps); escarpin = a dancing shoe; jouer de l’escarpin = to ply one’s pumps, (16th century); s’échapper, s’esquiver, filer, disparaître, s’éclipser, se dérober, se retirer, and s’en aller à l’anglaise (= to take English leave); pisser à l’anglaise (= to do an English piss, i.e., affect a visit to the urinal); prendre sa permission sous son coude (popular: literally to take one’s leave under one’s arm); ficher or foutre le camp.
German Synonyms.—Französischen Abschied nehmen (= to take French leave: from Gutzkow, R., 4, 88, etc., born 1811); französischer Abschied (Iffland, 1759–1814, 5, 3, 117); auf gut französisch sich empfehlen (Blumauer, 2, 72, 1758–1798: also Gutzkow, R., 4, 88); hinter der Thur urlaub (= to take leave behind [or outside] the door, i.e., after one has got outside it: quoted by Sanders, from Fischart, 1550–1589); hinter der Thüre Abschied nehmen (= to say good-bye outside, to take French leave); also, er beurlaubte sich in aller Stille, explained as er stahl sich, schlich sich davon, and translated ‘he took French leave’; also, sich aus einer Gesellschaft stehlen.—Hilpert’s Dict., 1845.
Spanish Synonym.—Despedirse á la francesa (= to take French leave).
1771. Smollett, Humphrey Clinker, p. 54. He stole away an Irishman’s bride, and took a French leave of me and his master.
1805. Newspaper (quoted in Notes and Queries, 5 S. xii., 2 Aug., 79, p. 87, col. 2). On Thursday last Monsieur J. F. Desgranche, one of the French prisoners of war on parole at Chesterfield, took French leave of that place, in defiance of his parole engagement.
1854. F. E. Smedley, Harry Coverdale, ch. lviii. ‘I thought I would avoid all the difficulties ... by taking French leave, and setting off in disguise and under a feigned name.’
1885 Stevenson, Treasure Island, ch. xxii., p. 178 (1886). My only plan was to take French leave, and slip out when nobody was watching.
1892. Globe, 25 Mar., p. 5, col. 1. They finally resolved to go on French leave to the place.
French- (also American, Spanish, and Italian) Letter, subs. phr. (colloquial).—A sheath—of india-rubber, gold beater’s skin, gutta-percha—worn by a man during coition to prevent infection or fruition. Usually described in print as specialities (q.v.). or circular protectors and (in U.S.A.) as safes (q.v.). See Cundum. Fr., capote anglaise.
French Pigeon, subs. phr. (sportsman’s).—A pheasant killed by mistake in the partridge season. Also moko and oriental (q.v.).
French Pig, subs. phr. (common).—A venereal bubo; a blue boar (q.v.), or Winchester goose (q.v.).
French Prints, subs. (colloquial).—Generic for indecent pictures.
1849–50. Thackeray, Pendennis II., ch. xxxi. Young de Boots of the Blues recognised you as the man who came to barracks, and did business, one-third in money, one-third in eau-de-Cologne, and one third in French prints, you confounded, demure, old sinner.
French Vice, verb. phr. (venery).—A euphemism for all sexual malpractices; Larks (q.v.). First used (in print) in the case of Crawford v. Crawford and Dilke.
Frenchy, subs. (colloquial).—A Frenchman.
Fresh, adj. (University).—1. Said of an undergraduate in his first term.
1803. Gradus ad Cantabrigiam, s.v.
1866. Trevelyan, Horace at Athens. When you and I were fresh.
2. (common).—Slightly intoxicated; elevated. For synonyms see Drinks and Screwed, (Scots’ = sober).
1829. Marryat, Frank Mildmay, ch. xiii. Drinking was not among my vices. I could get fresh, as we call it, when in good company and excited by wit and mirth; but I never went to the length of being drunk.
3. (Old English and modern American).—Inexperienced, but conceited and presumptuous; hence, forward, impudent.
1596. Shakspeare, King John, iii., 4. How green you are and fresh in this old world.
1886. Francis, Saddle and Mocassin. ‘Has Peggy been too fresh?’ Her sunburnt cheeks flushed.
4. (common).—Fasting; opposed to eating or drinking.
Fresh as paint, as a rose, as a daisy, as a new-born turd, etc., phr. (common).—Full of health, strength, and activity; fit (q.v.).
1864. E. Yates, Broken to Harness, ch. xix. This is his third day’s rest, and the cob will be about as fresh as paint when I get across him again.
1880. Punch’s Almanack, p. 12.
Fresh on the graft, adj. phr. (common).—New to the work. Cf., Fresh bit.
Fresh Bit, subs. phr. (venery).—A beginner; also a new mistress. Cf., Bit of fresh = the sexual favour: meat, or mutton, or fish (q.v.), being understood.
Freshen One’s Way, verb. phr. (nautical).—To hurry; to quicken one’s movements. [The wind freshens when it rises.]
Freshen Up, verb. phr. (colloquial). To clean; to vamp; to revive; to smarten.
Fresher, subs. (University).—An undergraduate in his first term.
Freshers. The Freshers, subs. (University).—That part of the Cam which lies between the Mill and Byron’s Pool. So called because it is frequented by freshmen (q.v.).
Freshman (or Fresher), subs. (University).—A University man during his first year. In Dublin University he is a junior freshman during his first year, and a senior freshman the Second year. At Oxford the title lasts for the first term. Ger., Fuchs.
1596. Nashe, Saffron Walden, in wks. iii., 8. When he was but yet a freshman in Cambridge.
1611. Middleton, Roaring Girl, Act iii., Sc. 3. S. Alex. Then he’s a graduate. S. Davy. Say they trust him not. S. Alex. Then is he held a freshman and a sot.
1767. Colman, Oxonian in Town, ii., 3. And now I find you as dull and melancholy as a freshman at college after a jobation.
1841. Lever, Charles O’Malley, ch. xiv. ‘This is his third year,’ said the Doctor, ‘and he is only a freshman, having lost every examination.’
1891. Sporting Life, 20 Mar. The mile, bar accidents, will be a gift to B. C. Allen, of Corpus, who has more than maintained the reputation he gained as a fresher.
Adj. (University).—Of, or pertaining to, a freshman, or a first year student.
Freshmanship, subs. (old).—Of the quality or state of being a freshman.
1605. Jonson, Volpone, or the Fox, iv., 3. Well, wise Sir Pol., since you have practised thus, Upon my freshmanship, I’ll try your salt-head With what proof it is against a counter-plot.
Freshman’s Bible, subs. phr. (University).—The University Calendar.
Freshman’s Church, subs. phr. (University).—The Pitt Press at Cambridge. [From its ecclesiastical architecture.]
Freshman’s Landmark, subs. phr. (University).—King’s College Chapel, Cambridge. [From the situation.]
Freshwater Mariner (or Seaman), subs. phr. (old).—A beggar shamming sailor; a turnpike sailor (q.v.).
1567. Harman, Caveat (1869), p. 48. These freshwater mariners, their shipes were drowned in the playne of Salisbury. These kynde ... counterfet great losses on the sea.
1690. B. E., New Dict. of the Canting Crew. Freshwater seamen, that have never been on the Salt, or made any Voyage, meer Land-Men.
Freshwater Soldier, subs. phr. (old).—A raw recruit.
1598. Florio, A Worlde of Wordes, Biancone. A goodly, great milke-soppe, a fresh water soldier.
1603. Knolles, Hist. of the Turkes. The nobility, as freshwater soldiers, which had never seen but some slight skirmishes, made light account of the Turks.
1696. Nomenclator. Bachelier aux armes, nouveau ou jeune soudard. A freshwater souldier: a young souldier: a novice: one that is trayned up to serve in the field.
Fret, To fret one’s gizzard, guts, giblets, kidneys, cream, etc., verb. phr. (common).—To get harassed and worried about trifles; to tear one’s shirt (q.v.).
Friar, subs. (printers’).—A pale spot in a printed sheet. Fr., un moine (= monk).
Frib, subs. (old).—A stick. For synonyms, see Toko.
1754. Discoveries of John Poulter, p. 43. A Jacob and frib; a ladder and stick.
Fribble, subs. (old).—A trifler; a contemptible fop. [From the character in Garrick’s Miss in her Teens (1747)].
1785. Grose, Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue, s.v.
1860. Thackeray, Four Georges. George IV. That fribble, the leader of such men as Fox and Burke!
Friday-face, subs. (old).—A gloomy, dejected-looking man or woman. [Probably from Friday being, ecclesiastically, the banyan day of the week.] Fr., figure de carême.
1592. Greene, Groatsworth of Wit, in wks. xii., 120. The Foxe made a Friday-face, counterfeiting sorrow.
1785. Grose, Dict. of the Vulg. Tongue, s.v.
1889. Gentleman’s Mag., June, p. 593. Friday-face is a term still occasionally applied to a sour-visaged person; it was formerly in very common use.
Friday-faced, adj. (old).—Mortified; melancholy; ‘sour-featured’ (Scott).
1592. John Day, Blind Beggar, Act iii., Sc. 2, p. 57. Can. No, you Friday-fac’d frying-pan, it was to save us all from whipping or a worse shame.
1606. Wily Beguiled (Hawkins Eng. Dr., iii., 356). Marry, out upon him! What a Friday-fac’d slave it is! I think in my conscience his face never keeps holiday.
Friend (or Little Friend), subs.—The menstrual flux or domestic afflictions (q.v.), whose appearance is sometimes announced by the formula ‘My little friend has come.’ Conventionalisms are queer; poorly; changes (Irish); ‘the Captain’s at home’ (Grose). See Flag.
To go and see a sick friend, verb. phr. (venery).—To go on the loose. See Greens.
Friend Charles. See Charles his friend.
Friendly Lead, subs. phr. (thieves’).—An entertainment (as a sing-song) got up to assist a companion in trouble (q.v.), or to raise money for the wife and children of a ‘quodded pal.’
1871. Daily Telegraph, 4 Dec. This was the secret business, the tremendous conspiracy, to compass which it was deemed necessary to act with infinitely more caution than the friends of Bill Sikes feel called on to exercise when they distribute tickets for a friendly lead for the benefit of Bill, who is ‘just out of his trouble.’
1889. Cassell’s Saturday Journal, 5 Jan. The men frequently club together in a friendly lead to help a brother in distress.
1892. Ally Sloper, 2 Apr., p. 106, col. 3. My father takes the chair at friendly leads.
Friends in Need, subs. phr. (common).—Lice. For synonyms, see Chates.
Frig, verb trans. and refl. (venery).—To masturbate. Also subs. = an act of masturbation. Known sometimes as keeping down the census. [Latin, fricare = to rub.]
English Synonyms.—To bob; to box the Jesuit [‘St. Omer’s lewdness,’ Marston, ‘Scourge’ (1598)]; to chuff; to chuffer; to claw (Florio); to digitate (of women); to eat (or get) cock-roaches; to bring up (or off) by hand; to fight one’s turkey (Texan); to finger or finger-fuck (of women); to friggle (Florio); to fuck one’s fist (of men); to fetch mettle (Grose); to handle; to indorse; to jerk, play, pump, toss, or work off; to lark; to milk; to mount a corporal and four; to mess, or pull about; to play with (schoolboys’), to rub up; to shag; to tickle one’s crack (of women); to dash one’s doodle; to touch up; to play paw-paw tricks (Grose); to wriggle (old). For foreign synonyms, see Wriggle.
1598. Florio, A Worlde of Wordes. Fricciare ... to frig, to wriggle, to tickle.
1611. Cotgrave, Dictionarie. Branler la pique, To Frig.
1728. Bailey, Dict., s.v. Frig, to rub.
c. 1716–1746. Robertson of Struan. Poems, 83. So to a House of office ... a School-Boy does repair, To ... fr—— his P—— there.
1785. Grose, Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue, s.v.
Frigate, subs. (common).—A woman.
1690. B. E., New Dict. of the Canting Crew. Friggat well rigg’d, a woman well drest and gentile.
1785. Grose, Vulg. Tongue. A well-rigg’d frigate, a well-dressed wench.
Frigging, subs. (venery).—1. The act of masturbation; the ‘cynick friction’ (Marston, Scourge); otherwise simple infanticide.
2. (old).—Trifling [Grose, 1785.]
Adj. and adv. (vulgar).—An expletive of intensification. Thus, frigging bad = ‘bloody’ bad; a frigging idiot = an absolute fool. See also Foutering and Fucking.
Frightfully, adv. (colloquial).—Very. An expletive used as are awfully, beastly, bloody, etc. (q.v.).
Frig-pig, subs. (old).—A finnicking trifler.
1785. Grose, Dict. Vulg. Tongue, s.v.
1811. Lexicon Balatronicum, s.v.
Frigster (in fem. Frigstress) subs. (venery).—A masturbator; an indorser (q.v., also = a Sodomite).
Frillery, subs. (common).—Feminine underclothing. For synonyms, see Snowy. To explore one’s frillery (venery) = to grope one’s person.
Frills, subs. (American).—Swagger; conceit; also accomplishments (as music, languages, etc.); and culture; cf., Man with no frills.
1870. Sacramento Paper (quoted in De Vere). ‘I can’t bear his talk, it’s all frills.’
1884. Clemens (‘Mark Twain’), Adventures of Huck Finn. 33. I never see such a son. I bet I’ll take some of these frills out of you before I’m done with you.
To put on one’s frills, verb. phr. (American).—To exaggerate; to chant the poker; to swagger; to put on side (q.v.); to sing it (q.v.). Fr., se gonfler le jabot, and faire son lard.
1890. Rudyard Kipling, National Observer, March, 1890, p. 69. ‘The Oont.’ It’s the commissariat camel putting on his blooming frills.
2. (venery).—To get wanton or prick-proud (q.v.); in a state of must (q.v.).
To have been among one’s frills, verb. phr. (venery).—To have enjoyed the sexual favour. For synonyms, see Greens.
Frint, subs. (old).—A pawnbroker. For synonyms, see Uncle.
1821. Real Life in London, i., p. 566.
Frisco, subs. (American).—Short for San Francisco.
1870. Bret Harte, Poems, ‘Chiquita.’ Busted hisself at White Pine, and blew out his brains down in Frisco.
1890. Sporting Life, 8 Nov. The battle ... took place in the theatre, Market St., Frisco.
Frisk, subs. (old).—1. A frolic; an outing; a lark (q.v.); mischief generally.
1697. Vanbrugh, Provoked Wife, iii., 1. If you have a mind to take a frisk with us, I have an interest with my lord; I can easily introduce you.
1785. Grose, Vulg. Tongue, s.v.
1825. The English Spy, vi., p. 162. Dick’s a trump and no telegraph—up to every frisk, and down to every move of the domini, thoroughbred and no want of courage.
1852. Dickens, Bleak House, ch. xx., p. 171. ‘When you and I had the frisk down in Lincolnshire, Guppy, and drove over to see that house at Castle Wold.’
2. (old).—A dance.
1719. Durfey, Pills, etc., i., 274. Let’s have a neat frisk or so, And then rub on the law.
1782. Cowper, Table Talk, 237. Give him his lass, his fiddle, and his frisk, Is always happy, reign whoever may.
1880. Ouida, Moths, ch. xiv. And her fancy-dress frisks, and her musical breakfasts, were great successes.
3. (venery).—The act of copulation. See Greens and Ride.
Verb (thieves’).—1. To search; to run the rule over (q.v.); Especially applied to the search made, after arrest, for evidence of character, antecedents, or identity. Hence, careful examination of any kind.
1781. Geo. Parker, Life’s Painter, p. 179. They frisk him? That is search him. Ibid., p. 122. Putting a lap-feeder in our sack, that you or your blowen had prig’d yourselves though we should stand the frisk for it.
1828. Jon. Bee, Pict. of London. p. 69. The arms are seized from behind by one, whilst the other frisks the pockets of their contents.
1852. Judson, Mysteries, etc., of New York, ch. vii. Vel sare, the offisare ’ave frisk me: he ’ave not found ze skin or ze dummy, eh?
1859. Matsell, Vocabulum, or Rogue’s Lexicon, p. 21. ‘The knuck was copped to rights, a skin full of honey was found in his kick’s poke by the copper when he frisked him’; [i.e.] the pickpocket was arrested, and when searched by the officer a purse was found in his pantaloons pocket full of money.
2. (thieves’).—To pick pockets; to rob. To frisk a cly = to empty a pocket.
1852. Judson, Mysteries, etc. of New York, ch. iv. You’re as good a knuck as ever frisked a swell.
1883. Daily Telegraph, 13 June, p. 7, col. 3. The ragged little wretches who prowl in gangs about the suburbs, who crawl on their hands and knees into shops in order to ‘frisk the till.’
3. (venery).—To ‘have (q.v.) a woman.’ For synonyms, see Ride.
To dance the Paddington frisk, verb. phr. (old).—To dance on nothing; i.e., to be hanged. [Tyburn Tree was in Paddington.] For synonyms, see Ladder.
Frisker, subs. (old).—A dancer.
1719. Durfey, Pills, etc., ii., 20. At no Whitsun Ale there e’er yet had been Such Fraysters and Friskers as these lads and lasses.
Frivol or Frivvle, verb. (colloquial).—To act frivolously; to trifle. [A resuscitation of an old word used in another sense, viz., to annul, to set aside].
1883. W. Black, Yolande, ch. xx. ‘Mind, I am assuming that you mean business—if you want to frivole, and pick pretty posies, I shut my door on you but, I say, if you mean business, I have told Mrs. Bell you are to have access to my herbarium, whether I am there or not.’
Frog, subs. (common).—1. A policeman. For synonyms, see Beak and Copper.
1881. New York Slang Dict., ‘On the Trail.’ I must amputate like a go-away, or the frogs will nail me.
1886. Graphic, 30 Jan., p. 130, col. 1. A policeman is also called ... a ‘frog,’ the last-named because he is supposed to jump, as it were, suddenly upon guilty parties.
2. (common).—A Frenchman. Also froggy and frog-eater. [Formerly a Parisian; the shield of whose city bore three toads, while the quaggy state of the streets gave point to a jest common at Versailles before 1791: Qu’en disent les grenouilles? i.e., What do the frogs (the people of Paris) say?]
1883. Referee, 15 July, p. 7, col. 3. While Ned from Boulogne says ‘Oui mon brave,’ The Froggies must answer for ‘Tamatave.’
3. (popular).—A foot. For synonyms, see Creepers.
To frog on, verb. phr. (American).—To get on; to prosper frogging-on = success.
Frog-and-Toad, subs. (rhyming).—The main road.
Frog-and-Toe, subs. (American thieves’).—The city of New York.
1859. Matsell, Vocabulum, or Rogue’s Lexicon, p. 35. Coves, let us frog-and-toe, coves, let us go to New York.
Froglander, subs. (old).—A Dutchman. Cf., frog, sense 2.
1690. B. E., New Dict. of the Canting Crew, s.v.
1852. Judson, Mysteries, etc., of New York, ch. xiv. The funny swag which they raised out of the froglander coves.
Frog-salad, subs. (American).—A ballet; i.e., a leg-piece (q.v.).
Frog’s March. To give the frog’s march, verb. phr. (common).—To carry a man face downwards to the station; a device adopted with drunken or turbulent prisoners.
1871. Evening Standard, ‘Clerkenwell Police Report,’ 18 April. In cross-examination the police stated that they did not give the defendant the frog’s march. The frog’s march was described to be carrying the face downwards.
1884. Daily News, Oct. 4, p. 5, col. 2. They had to resort to a mode of carrying him, familiarly known in the force, we believe, as the frog trot, or sometimes as the frog’s march.... The prisoner is carried with his face downwards and his arms drawn behind him.
1888. Daily Telegraph, 22 Dec. Whether the ‘bobbies’ ran the tipsy man in, treating him meanwhile to a taste of the frog’s march, and whether he was fined or imprisoned for assaulting the police, is not upon the record.
1890. Bird o’ Freedom, 19 Mar., p. 1, col. 1. And then he gets the frog’s march to the nearest Tealeaf’s.
Frog’s Wine, subs. phr. (old).—Gin. For synonyms, see Drinks and Satin.
1811. Lexicon Balatronicum, s.v.
Frolic, subs. (common).—A merry-making.
1847. Robb. Squatter Life, p. 133. At all the frolicks round the country, Jess was hangin’ onter that gal.
Frosty-face, subs. (old).—A pox-pitted man. Grose (1785).
Front, verb (thieves’).—To conceal the operations of a pickpocket; to cover (q.v.).
1879. J. W. Horsley in Macmillan’s Mag., XL., 506. So my pal said, ‘Front me (cover me), and I will do him for it.’
Front-attic (or -door, -garden, -parlour, -room, or -window). subs. phr. (venery).—The female pudendum. For synonyms, see Monosyllable. To have (or do) a bit of front-door work = to copulate.
1823. Bee, Dict. of the Turf, s.v. Mrs. Fubb’s front-parlour (vide Tom Rees) is not to be mistaken for any part of any building.
Front-door Mat, subs. phr. (venery).—The female pubic hair. For synonyms, see Fleece.
Front-gut, subs. (venery).—The female pudendum. For synonyms, see Monosyllable.
Frontispiece, subs. (pugilists’).—The face. For synonyms, see Dial.
1818. P. Egan, Boxiana, I., p. 221. Tyne put in right and left upon the Jew’s frontispiece two such severe blows, that Crabbe’s countenance underwent a trifling change.
1845. Buckstone, Green Bushes, i., 1. It’s a marcy my switch didn’t come in contract with your iligant frontispiece.
1860. Chambers’ Journal XIII., p. 368. His forehead is his frontispiece.
1864. A. Trollope, Sm. Ho. at Allington (1884), vol. ii., ch. V., p. 47. He said that he had had an accident—or rather, a row—and that he had come out of it with considerable damage to his frontispiece.
1891. Sporting Life, 28 Mar. It must be confessed that the ludicrous was attained when Griffiths subsequently appeared with a short black pipe in his distorted and battered frontispiece.
Front-windows, subs. (common).—1. The eyes; also the face.
2. In sing. (venery).—The female pudendum. Cf., front-attic; and for synonyms, see Monosyllable.
Frost, subs. (common).—A complete failure. Cf., Fr., un four noir. Also un temps noir = a blank interval; a prolonged silence (as when an actor’s memory fails him).
1885. Saturday Review, 15 Aug., p. 218. He is an absolute and perfect frost.
1885. Bell’s Life, 3 Jan., p. 3, col. 6. We regret we cannot write favorably concerning this matter, the affair being almost as big a frost athletically as it was financially.
1889. Star, 17 Jan. The pantomime was a dead frost.
2. (common).—A dearth of work; to have a frost = to be idle.
Froudacious, Froudacity, adj. and subs. See quots.
1888. Colonies and India, 14 Nov. The word ‘Froudacity,’ invented by Mr. Darnell Davis in his able review of The Bow of Ulysses, recently published, has reached the height of popularity in the Australasian Colonies, where it has come into everyday use. In the Melbourne Assembly the other day an hon. member observed—speaking of some remarks made by a previous speaker—that he never heard such froudacious statements in his life. The colonial papers are beginning, also, to spell the word with a small ‘f,’ which is significant.
1889. Graphic, 16 Feb. By exposing some of Mr. Froude’s manifold errors (the most dangerous is that which assumes the sour Waikato clays to be rich because they grow fern) he justifies the Australian adjective Froudacious.
Froust, subs. (Harrow School).—1. Extra sleep allowed on Sunday mornings and whole holidays. Fr., faire du lard.
2. (common).—A stink; stuffiness (in a room).
Frousty, adj. (common).—Stinking.
Frout, adj. (Winchester College).—Angry; vexed.
Frow (or Froe, or Vroe), subs. (old).—A woman; a wife; a mistress. [From the Dutch.]
1607. Dekker, Westward Ho, Act V., Sc. 1. Eat with ’em as hungerly as soldiers; drink as if we were froes.
1690. B. E., New Dict. of the Canting Crew, V. Brush to your froe and wheedle for crap, c. whip to your mistress and speak her fair to give or lend you some Money.
1754. B. Martin, Eng. Dict. (2 ed.), s.v.
1789. Parker, Life’s Painter, p. 119 A flash of lightning next Bess tipt each cull and frow.
Fruitful Vine, subs. phr. (venery).—The female pudendum. For synonyms, see Monosyllable.
1811. Lexicon Balatronicum, s.v. Fruitful vine. A woman’s private parts, i.e., that has flowers every month, and bears fruit in nine.
Frummagemed, adj. (old).—Choked; strangled; spoilt.
1671. R. Head, English Rogue, Pt. I., ch. v., 49 (1874). Frummagem, Choakt.
1724. E. Coles, Eng. Dict. Frummigam, c. choaked.
1785. Grose, Vulg. Tongue, s.v. Choaked, strangled, or hanged. Cant.
1815. Scott, Guy Mannering, ch. xxviii. ‘If I had not helped you with these very fambles (holding up her hands), Jean Baillie would have frummagem’d you, ye feckless do-little!’
1819. Moore, Tom Crib’s Memorial, p. 21. There he lay, almost frummagem’d.
Frump, subs. (old).—1. A contemptuous speech or piece of conduct; a sneer; a jest.
1553. Wilson, Art of Rhetorique, p. 137. (He) shall be able to abashe a right worthie man, and make him at his witte’s ende, through the sodaine quicke and vnlooked frumpe giuen.
1589. Greene, Menaphon, p. 45. For women’s paines are more pinching if they be girded with a frumpe than if they be galled with a mischiefe.
1598. Florio, A Worlde of Wordes. Bichiacchia, jestes, toyes, frumps, flim-flam tales, etc.
1606. T. Dekker, Seven Deadly Sinnes, p. 44 (ed. Arber). The courtiers gives you an open scoffe, ye clown a secret mock, the cittizen yat dwels at your threshald, a ieery frump.
1630. Taylor, Works. But yet, me thinkes, he gives thee but a frumpe, In telling how thee kist a wenches rumpe.
1662. Rump Songs, ‘Arsy-Varsy,’ etc., ii., 47. As a preface of honor and not as a frump, First with a Sir reverence ushers the Rump.
1668. Dryden, An Evening’s Love, Act IV. Sc. 3. Not to be behindhand with you in your frumps, I give you back your purse of gold.
2. (common).—A slattern; more commonly a prim old lady; the correlative of fogey (q.v.). Fr., un graillon.
1831. J. R. Planché, Olympic Revels, Sc. i. Cheat, you stingy frump! Who wants to cheat?
1837. Barham, Ingoldsby Legends, I., p. 157. Get into the hands of the other old frumps.
1857. Thackeray, Virginians, ch. xxxi. She is changed now, isn’t she? What an old Gorgon it is! She is a great patroness of your book-men, and when that old frump was young they actually made verses about her.
3. (old).—A cheat; a trick.
1602. Rowland, Greene’s Ghost, 37. They come off with their ... frumps.
Verb (old).—To mock; to insult.
1589. Nashe, Month’s Mind, in Works, Vol. I., p. 158. One of them ... maketh a iest of Princes, and ‘the troubling of the State, and offending of her Maiestie,’ hee turneth of with a frumping forsooth, as though it were a toie to think of it.
1593. G. Harvey, Pierces Super, in Works II., 107. That despiseth the graces of God, flowteth the constellations of heaven, frumpeth the operations of nature.
1609. Man in the Moone. Hee ... frumpeth those his mistresse frownes on.
1757. Garrick, Irish Widow, I., i. Yes, he was frumped, and called me old blockhead.
Frumper, subs. (old).—A sturdy man; a good blade.
1825. Kent, Modern Flash Dict., s.v.
Frumpish, adj. (colloquial).—Cross-grained; old-fashioned and severe in dress, manners, morals, and notions; ill-natured; given to frumps. Also Frumpy.
1589. Greene, Tullies Love, in wks. vii., 131. Who were you but as fauourable, as you are frumpish, would soone censure by my talke, how deepe I am reade in loues principles.
1701. Farquhar, Sir Harry Wildair, Act. V., Sc. 5. She got, I don’t know how, a crotchet of jealousy in her head. This made her frumpish, but we had ne’er an angry word.
1757. Foote, Author, Act II. And methought she looked very frumpish and jealous.
1764. O’Hara, Midas, I., 3. La! mother, why so frumpish?
1864. Dickens, Our Mutual Friend, Bk. I., ch. xi. ‘Don’t fancy me a frumpy old married woman, my dear; I was married but the other day, you know.’
1889. Modern Society, 12 Oct., p. 1271, col. 2. Quite an elderly and superannuated look is given to the toilette which is finished off by a woollen cloud or silken shawl, and only invalids and sixty-year-old women should be allowed such frumpish privileges.
Frushee, subs. (Scots’).—An open jam tart.
Fry, verb (common).—To translate into plain English. Cf., boil down.
1881. Jas. Payn, Grape from a Thorn, ch. xxx. ‘I shall repose the greatest confidence in you, my dear girl, which one human being can entrust to another,’ was one of its sentences, which, when it came ‘to be fried,’ meant that she should delegate to her the duties of combing Fido and cutting her canary’s claws.
Go and fry your face, phr. (common).—A retort expressive of incredulity, derision, or contempt.
Frying-pan. To jump from the frying-pan into the fire, verb. phr. (common).—To go from bad to worse. Cf., ‘from the smoke into the smother’ (As You Like it, i., 2.). Fr., tomber de la poêle dans la braise.
1684. Bunyan, Pilgrim’s Progress,