calves head club
A club instituted by the Independents and Presbyterians, to commemorate the decapitation of King Charles I. Their chief fare was calves heads; and they drank their wine and ale out of calves skulls.
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Expressions you’ll hear in Britain and Ireland — distinctly British usage first, then widespread staples.
cambrade
A chamber fellow; a Spanish military term. Soldiers were in that country divided into chambers, five men making a chamber, whence it was generally used to signify companion.
cambridge
Gradus ad Cantabrigiam; or, a Dictionary of Terms, Academical and Colloquial, or Cant, which are used at the University, with Illustrations, 12mo. Camb., 1803.
cambridge fortune
A wind-mill and a water-mill, used to signify a woman without any but personal endowments.
camden-town
A brown,—vulgar term for a halfpenny.
cameronians
THE, the Twenty-sixth Regiment of Foot in the British Army.
camesa
A shirt or shift. CANT. SPANISH.
camesa
Shirt or chemise.—Span. See its abbreviated form, MISH, from the ancient Cant, COMMISSION. Probably re-introduced by the remains of De Lacy Evans’s Spanish Legion on their return. See Somerville’s account of the Span. Leg., for the curious facility with which the lower classes in England adopt foreign words as slang and cant terms. Italian, CAMICIA.
camister
A preacher, clergyman, or master.
camp candlestick
A bottle, or soldier's bayonet.
campbell's academy
The hulks or lighters, on board of which felons are condemned to hard labour. Mr. Campbell was the first director of them. See ACADEMY and FLOATING ACADEMY.
canary
A sovereign. From the colour. Very old slang indeed.
canary bird
A jailbird.
candlesticks
Bad, small, or untunable bells. Hark! how the candlesticks rattle.
cane
To lay Cane upon Abel; to beat any one with a cane or stick.
canister
The head.—Pugilistic.
cannibals
The training boats for the Cambridge freshmen, i.e., "CANNOT-PULLS." The term is applied both to boats and rowers.—See SLOGGERS. Torpids is the usual term for the races in which these men and machines figure.
cannikin
A small can: also, in the canting sense, the plague.
cannikin
A small can, similar to PANNIKIN. "And let the CANNIKIN clink."
cannister
The head. To mill his cannister; to break his head.
cant
An hypocrite, a double-tongue palavering fellow. See PALAVER.
cant
A blow or toss; "a CANT over the kisser," a blow on the mouth; "a CANT over the buttock," a throw or toss in wrestling.
cantab
A student at Cambridge.
cantankerous
Litigious, bad-tempered. An American corruption probably of contentious. A reviewer of an early edition of this book derives it from the Anglo-Norman CONTEK, litigation or strife. Others have suggested "cankerous" as the origin. Bailey has CONTEKE, contention as a Spenserian word, and there is the O.E. CONTEKORS, quarrelsome persons.
canterbury story
A long roundabout tale.
canting
Preaching with a whining, affected tone, perhaps a corruption of chaunting; some derive it from Andrew Cant, a famous Scotch preacher, who used that whining manner of expression. Also a kind of gibberish used by thieves and gypsies, called likewise pedlar's French, the slang, &c. &c.
canting academy
Or, Villanies Discovered, wherein are shown the Mysterious and Villanous Practices of that Wicked Crew—Hectors, Trapanners, Gilts, &c., with several new Catches and Songs; also Compleat Canting Dictionary, 12mo, frontispiece. 1674.
canting dictionary
Comprehending all the Terms, Antient and Modern, used in the several Tribes of Gypsies, Beggars, Shoplifters, Highwaymen, Foot-Pads, and all other Clans of Cheats and Villains, with Proverbs, Phrases, Figurative Speeches, &c., to which is added a complete Collection of Songs in the Canting Dialect, 12mo. 1725.
canting:
A Poem, interspersed with Tales and Additional Scraps, post 8vo. 1814.
canvasseens
Sailors’ canvas trousers.
cap
A false cover to a tossing coin. The term and the instrument are both nearly obsolete. See COVER-DOWN.
cap acquaintance
Persons slightly acquainted, or only so far as mutually to salute with the hat on meeting. A woman who endeavours to attract the notice of any particular man, is said to set her cap at him.
caper-merchant
A dancing-master. Sometimes a hop-merchant.
capers
Dancing, frolicking; "to cut CAPER-SAUCE," i.e., to dance upon nothing—be hanged. Old thieves’ talk.
capon
A castrated cock, also an eunuch.
capper-clawing
Female encounter, where caps are torn and nails freely used. Sometimes it is pronounced CLAPPER-CLAW. The word occurs in Shakspeare, Troilus and Cressida, act v. sc. 4.
capping verses
Repeating Latin Verses in turn, beginning with the letter with which the last speaker left off.
capricornified
Cuckolded, hornified.
capsize
To overturn or reverse. He took his broth till he capsized; he drank till he fell out of his chair. SEA TERM.
captain
Led captain; an humble dependant in a great family, who for a precarious subsistence, and distant hopes of preferment, suffers every kind of indignity, and is the butt of every species of joke or ill-humour. The small provision made for officers of the army and navy in time of peace, obliges many in both services to occupy this wretched station.
captain copperthorne's crew
All officers; a saying of a company where everyone strives to rule.
captain lieutenant
Meat between veal and beef, the flesh of an old calf; a military simile, drawn from the officer of that denomination, who has only the pay of a lieutenant, with the rank of captain; and so is not entirely one or the other, but between both.
captain podd
A celebrated master of a puppet-shew, in Ben Johnson's time, whose name became a common one to signify any of that fraternity.
captain queernabs
A shabby ill-dressed fellow.
captain sharp
A cheating bully, or one in a set of gamblers, whose office is to bully any pigeon, who, suspecting roguery, refuses to pay what he has lost. CANT.
captain tom
The leader of a mob; also the mob itself.
caravan
A large sum of money; also, a person cheated of such sum. CANT.
caravan
A railway train, especially a train expressly chartered to convey people to a prize fight.
caravansera
A railway station. In pugilistic phraseology a tip for the starting point might have been given thus. "The SCRATCH must be TOED at sharp five, so the CARAVAN will start at four from the CARAVANSERA."
carboy
A general term in most parts of the world for a very large glass or earthenware bottle.
carbuncle face
A red face, full of pimples.
card
A character. "A queer CARD," i.e., an odd fish.
cardinal
A cloak in fashion about the year 1760.
cardinal
A lady’s red cloak. A cloak with this name was in fashion in the year 1760. It received its title from its similarity in shape to one of the vestments of a cardinal. Also mulled red wine.
cardwell’s men
Officers promoted in pursuance of the new system of non-purchase.
carew
Life and Adventures of Bamfylde Moore Carew, the King of the Beggars, with Canting Dictionary, portrait, 8vo. 1791.
carney
Soft hypocritical language. Also, to flatter, wheedle, or insinuate oneself.—Prov.
carnish
Meat, from the Ital. CARNE, flesh; a Lingua Franca importation; CARNISH-KEN, a thieves’ eating-house; "cove of the CARNISH-KEN," the keeper thereof.—North Country Cant.
caroon
Five shillings. French, COURONNE; Gipsy, COURNA; Spanish, CORONA.
carpet
"upon the CARPET," any subject or matter that is uppermost for discussion or conversation. Frequently quoted as sur le tapis, or more generally "on the tapis," but it does not seem to be at all known in France. Also servants’ slang. When a domestic is summoned by the master or mistress to receive a warning or reprimand, he or she is said to be CARPETED. The corresponding term in commercial establishments is a WIGGING.