haberdasher of pronouns
schoolmaster
English · UK & Ireland 963
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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.
hangman's wages
The sum of thirteenpence halfpenny.
hard lines
Expressed to someone suffering misfortune.
heavy wet
A drink of strong ale and porter mixed together.
Holy Joe
A minister, chaplain, priest or preacher.
Holy Land
The Seven Dials area of London, England.
Hookey Walker
Expressing scornful rejection or disbelief.
hop merchant
A teacher of dancing.
hop the twig
Synonym of run away, (originally) especially from creditors.
horse marine
An awkward, lubberly person.
House of Commons
An outhouse: an outbuilding used as a lavatory.
how much
you what? huh?
husband's tea
Very weak (dilute) tea.
husbands' boat
The Saturday-afternoon packet boat from London to Margate during the summer season.
hackle
Pluck; "to show HACKLE," to be willing to fight. HACKLES are the long feathers on the back of a cock’s neck, which he erects when angry,—hence the metaphor.
hackney writer
One who writes for attornies or booksellers.
hackslaver
To stammer in one’s speech, like a dunce at his lesson.
hackum
Captain Hackum; a bravo, a slasher.
had'em
He has been at Had'em, and came home by Clapham; said of one who has caught the venereal disease.
haggart
Life of David Haggart, alias John Wilson, alias Barney M’Coul, written by himself while under sentence of death, curious frontispiece of the prisoner in irons, intermixed with all the Slang and Cant words of the day, to which is added a Glossary of the same, 12mo. 1821.
hair of the dog
A small amount of alcohol consumed to alleviate a hangover
halbert
A weapon carried by a serjeant of foot. To get a halbert; to be appointed a serjeant. To be brought to the halberts; to be flogged a la militaire: soldiers of the infantry, when flogged, being commonly tied to three halberts, set up in a triangle, with a fourth fastened across them. He carries the halbert in his face; a saying of one promoted from a serjeant to a commission officer.
half-a-bull
Two shillings and sixpence.
half-a-hog
Sixpence; sometimes termed HALF-A-GRUNTER.
half-a-stretch
Six months in prison.
half-and-half
A mixture of ale and porter, much affected by medical students; occasionally Latinized into "dimidium dimidiumque." Cooper is HALF-AND-HALF, made of stout and porter. The term of HALF-AND-HALF is also applied to the issue of marriages between gipsies and "white people."
half-baked
Soft, doughy, half-witted, silly. HALF-ROCKED has a similar meaning.
half-foolish
Ridiculous; means often wholly foolish.
half-mourning
To have a black eye from a blow. As distinguished from "whole-mourning," two black eyes.
half-rocked
Silly, half-witted. Derived from a vulgar idea that in the Westcountry children are nursed in a peculiar manner, which in afterlife affects their wits. They are said to be nursed bottom upwards, so as to sleep without much rocking. If this is inconsequent it is the fault of the saying and not of the dictionary. Compare HALF-BAKED.
half-seas-over
Reeling drunk.—Sea. Used by Swift.
hall
THE, Leadenhall Market, among folk who get their livings there, in the same way as "The Garden" refers to Covent Garden.
halliwell’s
Archaic Dictionary, 2 vols. 8vo. 1855.
hall’s
(B.H.) Collection of College Words and Customs, 12mo. Cambridge (U.S.), 1856.
hamlet
A high constable. Cant.
hand
A sailor. We lost a hand; we lost a sailor. Bear a hand; make haste. Hand to fist; opposite: the same as tete-a-tete, or cheek by joul.
hand
A workman or helper, a person. "A cool HAND," explained by Sir Thomas Overbury to be "one who accounts bashfulness the wickedest thing in the world, and therefore studies impudence."
hand and pocket shop
An eating house, where ready money is paid for what is called for.
hand basket portion
A woman whose husband receives frequent presents from her father, or family, is said to have a hand-basket portion.
hand-me-downs
Second-hand clothes. See REACH-ME-DOWNS.
hand-saw
Or CHIVE FENCER, a man who sells razors and knives in the streets.
hander
A second, or assistant. At some schools blows on the hand administered with a cane are so called.
handicap
An arrangement by which, in any description of sport, every competitor in a race is supposed to have a chance of winning equal to the chances of his opponents. HANDICAPPING, in horse-racing signifies the adjudgment of various weights to horses differing in age, power, and speed, so as to place them as much as possible on an equality. At other sports this equalization is managed by means of starts.
handle
To know how to handle one's fists; to be skilful in the art of boxing. The cove flashes a rare handle to his physog; the fellow has a large nose.
handle
A nose; the title appended to a person’s name; also a term in boxing, "to HANDLE one’s fists," to use them against an adversary.
handling
A method of concealing certain cards in the palm of the hand, or in fashionable long wristbands; one of the many modes of cheating practised by sharpers.
handseller
Or CHEAP JACK, a street or open-air seller, a man who carries goods to his customers, instead of waiting for his customers to visit him.
handsome
He is a handsome-bodied man in the face; a jeering commendation of an ugly fellow. Handsome is that handsome does: a proverb frequently cited by ugly women.
handsome reward
This, in advertisements, means a horse-whipping.
hang gallows look
A thievish, or villainous appearance.
hang in chains
A vile, desperate fellow. Persons guilty of murder, or other atrocious crimes, are frequently, after execution, hanged on a gibbet, to which they are fastened by iron bandages; the gibbet is commonly placed on or near the place where the crime was committed.
hang it up
Score it up: speaking of a reckoning.
hang out
spend time relaxing with someone
hang up
To rob with violence, to garrotte. Most likely from throttling associations in connexion with the practice of garrotting.
hanging
In difficulties. A man who is in great straits, and who is, therefore, prepared to do anything desperate to retrieve his fortunes, is said, among sporting men, to be "a man HANGING," i.e., a man to whom any change must be for the better.
hank
He has a hank on him; i.e. an ascendancy over him, or a hold upon him. A Smithfield hank; an ox, rendered furious by overdriving and barbarous treatment. See BULL HANK.
hanker
To hanker after any thing; to have a longing after or for it.
hannah
"that’s the man as married HANNAH," a Salopian phrase to express a matter begun or ended satisfactorily. Meaning actually, "that’s the thing."
hans in kelder
Jack in the cellar, i.e. the child in the womb: a health frequently drank to breeding women or their husbands.
hansel
Or HANDSEL, the lucky money, or first money taken in the morning by a pedlar.—Cocker’s Dictionary, 1724. "Legs of mutton (street term for sheep’s trotters, or feet) two for a penny; who’ll give me a HANSEL? who’ll give me a HANSEL?" Hence, earnest money, first-fruits, &c. In Norfolk, HANSELLING a thing is using it for the first time, as wearing a new coat, taking seisin of it, as it were. Danish, HANDSEL; Anglo-Saxon, HANDSELEN.