happy-go-lucky
Careless, indifferent as to the favours or reverses of fortune.
English · UK & Ireland 963
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Expressions you’ll hear in Britain and Ireland — distinctly British usage first, then widespread staples.
haramzadeh
A very general Indian term of contempt, signifying base-born.—Anglo-Indian.
hard
Stale beer, nearly sour, is said to be hard. Hard also means severe: as, hard fate, a hard master.
hard mouthed un
Any one difficult to deal with, a sharp bargainer, an obstinate person. Derivation obvious.
hard tack
Ship biscuits. This is a term used by sailors to distinguish their ordinary sea-bread from that obtained on shore, which is called soft TACK, or soft tommy. HARD TACK is also a phrase used by the London lower classes to signify coarse or insufficient food.
hard-up
A cigar-end finder, who collects the refuse pieces of smoked cigars from the gutter, and having dried them, smokes them, or sells them as tobacco to the very poor. See TOPPER.
hare
He has swallowed a hare; he is drunk; more probably a HAIR, which requires washing down,
harebrained
Reckless, unthinking.
hark-ye-ing
Whispering on one side to borrow money.
harlequin
Jack Shepherd, with a Night Scene in Grotesque Characters, 8vo. (About 1736.)
harman’s
(Thomas, Esq.) Caveat or Warening for Common Cursetors, vulgarly called vagabones, set forth for the utilitie and profit of his naturall countrey, augmented and inlarged by the first author thereof; whereunto is added the tale of the second taking of the counterfeit crank, with the true report of his behaviour and also his punishment for his so dissembling, most marvellous to the hearer or reader thereof, newly imprinted, 4to. Imprinted at London, by H. Middleton, 1573.
harp
To harp upon; to dwell upon a subject. Have among you, my blind harpers; an expression used in throwing or shooting at random among the crowd. Harp is also the Irish expression for woman, or tail, used in tossing up in Ireland: from Hibernia, being represented with a harp on the reverse of the copper coins of that country; for which it is, in hoisting the copper, i.e. tossing up, sometimes likewise called music.
harridan
A hagged old woman; a miserable, scraggy, worn-out harlot, fit to take her bawd's degree: derived from the French word HARIDELLE, a worn-out jade of a horse or mare.
harrison’s
(William) Description of the Island of Britain (prefixed to Holinshed’s Chronicle), 2 vols. folio. 1577.
harry
A country fellow. CANT.--Old Harry; the Devil.
harry
Or OLD HARRY, (i.e., Old Hairy?) the Devil; "to play OLD HARRY with one," i.e., ruin or annoy him.
harry-soph
(ἐρίσοφος, very wise indeed), a student of law or physic at Cambridge who, being of the same standing as the students in arts in his year, is allowed to wear a full-sleeved gown when they assume their B.A. gowns, though he does not obtain his actual degree so soon. An undergraduate in his last year is a Senior Soph, in his last term a Questionist.
harum scarum
He was running harum scarum; said of any one running or walking hastily, and in a hurry, after they know not what.
harum-scarum
Wild, dissipated, reckless; four horses driven in a line. This is also called SUICIDE. See TANDEM, RANDEM, UNICORN, &c.
hash
To flash the hash; to vomit. CANT.
hash
A mess, confusion; "a pretty HASH he made of it;" to HASH UP, to jumble together without order or regularity. The term also occurs in the phrase "to settle his HASH," which is equivalent to "give him his gruel," or "cook his goose," i.e., to kill him.
hasty
Precipitate, passionate. He is none of the Hastings sort; a saying of a slow, loitering fellow: an allusion to the Hastings pea, which is the first in season.
hasty pudding
Oatmeal and milk boiled to a moderate thickness, and eaten with sugar and butter. Figuratively, a wet, muddy road: as, The way through Wandsworth is quite a hasty pudding. To eat hot hasty pudding for a laced hat, or some other prize, is a common feat at wakes and fairs.
hat
Old hat; a woman's privities: because frequently felt.
hatches
Under the hatches; in trouble, distress, or debt.
hatchet
"to throw the HATCHET," to tell lies. Same as "to draw the long bow."
havy cavy
Wavering, doubtful, shilly shally.
hawbuck
A vulgar, ignorant, country fellow, but one remove from the clodpole.
hawk
Ware hawk; the word to look sharp, a bye-word when a bailiff passes. Hawk also signifies a sharper, in opposition to pigeon. See PIGEON. See WARE HAWK.
hawkers
Licensed itinerant retailers of different commodities, called also pedlars; likewise the sellers of news-papers. Hawking; an effort to spit up the thick phlegm, called OYSTERS: whence it is wit upon record, to ask the person so doing whether he has a licence; a punning allusion to the Act of hawkers and pedlars.
hawse holes
The apertures in a ship’s bows through which the cables pass; "he has crept in through the HAWSE-HOLES," said of an officer who has risen from the grade of an ordinary seaman, whose original position in the vessel was forward—before the mast.—Navy.
haymarket hectors
Bullies who, in the interest of prostitutes, affect the neighbourhood of Leicester Square and the Haymarket.
haze
To confuse and annoy a subordinate by contradictory, unnecessary, and perplexing orders.
hazlitt’s
(William) Table Talk, 12mo, (vol. ii. contains a chapter on Familiar Style, with a notice on Slang terms.)
hazy
Intoxicated, also dull and stupid.
ha’porth o’ coppers
Habeas Corpus.—Legal slang.
ha’porth o’ liveliness
The music at a low concert, or theatre. Also a dilatory person.
head or tail
"I can’t make HEAD OR TAIL of it," i.e., cannot make it out. Originally a gambling phrase.
head-beetler
The bully of the workshop, who lords it over his fellow-workmen by reason of superior strength, skill in fighting, &c. Sometimes applied to the foreman.
head-serag
A master, overseer, or other important personage; from SERANG, a boatswain.—Bengalee, and Sea.
header
A plunge head foremost into water, or a fall in the same posture from accident. Nowadays a theatrical expression for any supposedly daring jump of hero or heroine in sensational dramas.
head’s
(Richard) English Rogue, described in the Life of Meriton Latroon, a Witty Extravagant, 4 vols. 12mo. Frans. Kirkman, 1671-80.
heap
"a HEAP of people," a crowd; "struck all of a HEAP," suddenly astonished.
hearty choak
He will have a hearty choak and caper sauce for breakfast; i.e. he will be hanged.
heat
A bout, or turn, in horse or foot racing. By means of heats the field is gradually reduced.
heathen philosopher
One whose breech may be seen through his pocket-hole: this saying arose from the old philosophers, many of whom depised the vanity of dress to such a point, as often to fall into the opposite extreme.
heavers
Thieves who make it their business to steal tradesmen's shop-books. CANT.
heavy dragoons
Bugs, in contradistinction from fleas, which are "light infantry."—Oxford University.
hector
Bully, a swaggering coward. To hector; to bully, probably from such persons affecting the valour of Hector, the Trojan hero.
hedge
To make a hedge; to secure a bet, or wager, laid on one side, by taking the odds on the other, so that, let what will happen, a certain gain is secured, or hedged in, by the person who takes this precaution; who is then said to be on velvet.
hedge
To get away from any dangerous spot. "We saw the slop coming, and HEDGED at once."
hedge alehouse
A small obscure alehouse.
hedge priest
An illiterate unbeneficed curate, a patrico.
hedge whore
An itinerant harlot, who bilks the bagnios and bawdy-houses, by disposing of her favours on the wayside, under a hedge; a low beggarly prostitute.
hedge-popping
Shooting small birds about the hedges, as boys do; unsportsmanlike kind of shooting.
heel tap
A peg in the heel of a shoe, taken out when it is finished. A person leaving any liquor in his glass, is frequently called upon by the toast-master to take off his heel-tap.
heel-tap
The small quantity of wine or other beverage left in the bottom of a glass, considered as a sign that the liquor is not liked, and therefore unfriendly and unsocial to the host and the company. See DAY-LIGHT.
heels
To he laid by the heels; to be confined, or put in prison. Out at heels; worn, or diminished: his estate or affairs are out at heels. To turn up his heels; to turn up the knave of trumps at the game of all-fours.
heigh-ho!
A cant term for stolen yarn, from the expression used to apprize the dishonest shopkeeper that the speaker had stolen yarn to sell.—Norwich Cant.
hel-bat
A table. } The aspirate is matter of taste.