Earl of Cork
The ace of diamonds.
English · UK & Ireland 221
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Where will you be? Anywhere UK & IrelandUnited StatesOnline slangBusiness jargon
Expressions you’ll hear in Britain and Ireland — distinctly British usage first, then widespread staples.
essex lion
A calf (young cow or bull).
earnest
A deposit in part of payment, to bind a bargain.
earwig
A clergyman, also one who prompts another maliciously and privately.
earwigging
A private conversation; a rebuke in private; an attempt to defame another unfairly, and without chance of appeal; a WIGGING is more public.
ease
To rob; "EASING a bloke," robbing a man.
easy
Make the cull easy or quiet; gag or kill him. As easy as pissing the bed.
easy virtue
A lady of easy virtue: an impure or prostitute.
eat
To eat like a beggar man, and wag his under jaw; a jocular reproach to a proud man. To eat one's words; to retract what one has said.
eat a fig
To "crack a crib," to break into a house, or commit a burglary.
eat his head off
A horse who is kept idle in the stable is said to EAT HIS HEAD OFF. Of late the phrase has been applied to servants who have little to do but constantly "dip their noses in the manger."
eavesdropper
A listener. The name is derived from the punishment which, according to Oliver, was directed in the Lectures, at the revival of Masonry in 1717, to be inflicted on a detected Cowan [g. v.], and which was
efter
A thief who frequents theatres.
egan
Grose’s Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue, with the addition of numerous Slang Phrases, edited by Pierce Egan, 8vo. 1823.
egan’s
(Pierce) Life in London, 2 vols. thick 8vo, with coloured plates by Geo. Cruikshank, representing high and low life. 18—.
egg
Or EGG ON, to excite, stimulate, or provoke one person to quarrel with another, &c. From the Anglo-Saxon eggian; or possibly a corruption of EDGE, or EDGE ON, or even from agere, to drive.—Ancient.
egg-flip
Or EGG-HOT, a drink made after the manner of purl and bishop, with beer, eggs, and spirits made hot and sweetened.
eight eyes
I will knock out two of your eight eyes; a common Billingsgate threat from one fish nymph to another: every woman, according to the naturalists of that society, having eight eyes; viz. two seeing eyes, two bub-eyes, a bell-eye, two pope's eyes, and a ***-eye. He has fallen down and trod upon his eye; said of one who has a black eye.
ekame
A "make," or swindle.
ekom
A "moke," or donkey.
elbow
"to shake one’s ELBOW," to play with dice; "to crook one’s ELBOW," to drink.
elbow grease
hard work and effort
elbow room
Sufficient space to act in. Out at elbows; said of an estate that is mortgaged.
elbow shaker
A gamester, one who rattles Saint Hugh's bones, i.e. the dice.
elegant extracts
A Cambridge University title for those students who having failed only slightly in some one subject, and being "plucked" accordingly, were allowed their degrees. This applied to the "Poll" list, as the "Gulf" did to the "Honours."
elephant
"to have seen the ELEPHANT," to be "up to the latest move," or "down to the last new trick;" to be knowing, and not "green," &c. Possibly a metaphor taken from the travelling menageries, where the ELEPHANT is the finale of the exhibition.—Originally an Americanism. Bartlett gives conflicting examples. General now, however.
elevated
Intoxicated. ELEVATION is the name of a drug-mixture much used in the fen-counties for keeping up the spirits and preventing ague. It consists mainly of opium.
elf
A fairy or hobgoblin, a little man or woman.
ellenborough lodge
The King's Bench Prison. Lord Ellenborough's teeth; the chevaux de frize round the top of the wall of that prison.
elwyn’s
(Alfred L.) Glossary of supposed Americanisms—Vulgar and Slang Words used in the United States, small 8vo. 1859.
emag
Game, "I know your little EMAG."
emperor
Drunk as an emperor, i.e. ten times as drunk as a lord.
enemy
Time, a clock, the ruthless enemy and tell-tale of idleness and of mankind generally; "what says the ENEMY?" i.e., how goes the time?
ensign bearer
A drunken man, who looks red in the face, or hoists his colours in his drink.
equipt
Rich; also, having new clothes. Well equipt; full of money, or well dressed. The cull equipped me with a brace of meggs; the gentleman furnished me with. a couple of guineas.
erth sith-noms
Three months,—a term of imprisonment unfortunately very familiar to the lower orders. Generally known as a "drag."
erth-pu
Three-up, a street game, played with three halfpence.
esclop
Police, now used to signify a constable only. ESCLOP is pronounced "slop" simply, but the c was never sounded. A policeman is now and then called, by some purist or stickler for etiquette, an "esclopnam."
esqrs
OF CAMBRIDGE; AND WILLIAM SOAMES, ESQ. OF
essex stile
A ditch.
everlasting shoes
The feet. The barefooted children about the Seven Dials, and other low quarters of London, are said to wear EVERLASTING SHOES and stockings. Another expression in connexion with this want is, "the shoes and stockings their mothers gave them."
everlasting staircase
A never-ending or constantly repetitive task
eves dropper
One that lurks about to rob hen-roosts; also a listener at doors and windows, to hear private conversation.
evif-gen
A crown, or five shillings.
evil
A halter. Cant, Also a wife.
evlenet sith-noms
Twelve months. Generally known as a "stretch."
ewe
A white ewe; a beautiful woman. An old ewe, drest lamb fashion; an old woman, drest like a young girl.
exasperate
To over-aspirate the letter H, or to aspirate it whenever it commences a word, as is commonly done by under-educated people who wish to show off their breeding. EXASPERATION does not refer to an omission of the aspirate.
exes
Expenses. "Just enough to clear our exes."
exis-evif-gen
Six times five shillings, i.e., 30s. All moneys may be reckoned in this manner, either with YANNEPS or GENS. It is, however, rarely or never done.
exis-evif-yanneps
Elevenpence,—literally, "sixpence and fivepence = elevenpence." This mode of reckoning, distinct from the preceding, is only made by special arrangement amongst slangites, who wish to confound their intimates.
expended
Killed: alluding to the gunner's accounts, wherein the articles consumed are charged under the title of expended. Sea phrase.
extensive
Frequently applied in a slang sense to a person’s appearance or talk; "rather EXTENSIVE that!" intimating that the person alluded to is showing off, or "cutting it fat."
extracted
Placed on the list of "ELEGANT EXTRACTS."—Camb. Univ.
eye
It's all my eye and Betty Martin. It's all nonsense, all mere stuff.
eye teeth
Supposed evidences of sharpness. A man is said to have, or have not, cut his EYE TEETH, according to possession or want of shrewdness.
eye water
Gin. Term principally used by printers.
eye-sore
A disagreeable object. It will be an eye-sore as long as she lives, said by a limn whose wife was cut for a fistula in ano.
eager beaver
Enthusiastic hard worker.
early bird
A person who acts early.