kick the bucket
A euphemism for dying or death.
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Expressions you’ll hear in Britain and Ireland — distinctly British usage first, then widespread staples.
knuckle to
Synonym of knuckle under.
kanitseeno
A stinking one. KANITS is a stink.
karibat
Food, literally rice and curry; the staple dish of both natives and Europeans in India.—Anglo-Indian.
kate
A picklock. 'Tis a rum kate; it is a clever picklock. CANT.
keel bullies
Men employed to load and unload the coal vessels.
keel-hauling
A good thrashing or mauling, rough treatment,—from the old nautical custom of punishing offenders by throwing them overboard with a rope attached, and hauling them up from under the ship’s keel. See full description of this barbarous practice in Marryat’s Snarleyyow.
keelhauling
A punishment in use among the Dutch seamen, in which, for certain offences, the delinquent is drawn once, or oftener, under the ship's keel: ludicrously defined, undergoing a great hard-ship.
keep a pig
An Oxford University phrase, which means to have a lodger. A man whose rooms contain two bedchambers has sometimes, when his college is full, to allow the use of one of them to a Freshman, who is called under these circumstances a PIG. The original occupier is then said to KEEP A PIG.
keep it up
continue doing something
keeping cully
One who keeps a mistress, as he supposes, for his own use, but really for that of the public.
kelter
Condition, order. Out of kelter; out of order.
kelter
Coin, money. Probably from GELT.
kemp's morris
William Kemp, said to have been the original Dogberry in Much ado about Nothing, danced a morris from London to Norwich in nine days: of which he printed the account, A. D. 1600, intitled, Kemp's Nine Days Wonder, &c.
kemp's shoes
Would I had Kemp's shoes to throw after you. BEN JONSON. Perhaps Kemp was a man remarkable for his good luck or fortune; throwing an old shoe, or shoes, after any one going on an important business, being by the vulgar deemed lucky.
ken
A house. A bob ken, or a bowman ken; a well-furnished house, also a house that harbours thieves. Biting the ken; robbing the house. CANT.
ken
A house.—Ancient cant. KHAN, Gipsy and Oriental.
kennedy
A poker; to "give KENNEDY" is to strike or kill with a poker. A St. Giles’s term, so given from a man of that name being killed by a poker.
kent rag
Or CLOUT, a cotton handkerchief.
kent-street ejectment
To take away the street door: a method practised by the landlords in Kent-street, Southwark, when their tenants are above a fortnight's rent in arrear.
kent’s
(E.) Modern Flash Dictionary, containing all the Cant words, Slang Terms, and Flash Phrases now in Vogue, 18mo, coloured frontispiece. 1825.
kerry security
Bond, pledge, oath, and keep the money.
kervorten
A Cockneyism for QUARTERN or quarter-pint measure. "KERVORTEN and three houts," a quartern of liquor and glasses, each holding a third of the quantity.
ketch
Jack Ketch; a general name for the finishers of the law, or hangmen, ever since the year 1682, when the office was filled by a famous practitioner of that name, of whom his wife said, that any bungler might put a man to death, but only her husband knew how to make a gentleman die sweetly.
ketch
Or JACK KETCH, the popular name for a public hangman; derived from a person of that name who officiated in the reign of Charles II.—See Macaulay’s History of England.
kettle of fish
A complicated or awkward situation
kettledrums
Cupid's kettle drums; a woman's breasts, called by sailors chest and bedding.
kew
(or more properly KEEU), a week.
kews
SKEW, or SKEEU, weeks.
key of the street
An imaginary instrument said to be possessed by any one locked out of doors.
kibosh
Nonsense, stuff, humbug; "it’s all KIBOSH," i.e., palaver or nonsense; to "put on the KIBOSH," to run down, slander, degrade, &c. To put the KIBOSH on anything is, latterly, to put an effectual end or stop to it.
kick
A moment; "I’ll be there in a KICK," i.e., in a moment.
kick over the traces
To be over-extravagant. Any one who has come to grief by fast living is said to have KICKED OVER THE TRACES.
kick up
A noise or disturbance.
kickeraboo
Dead. A West Indian negro’s phrase. See KICK THE BUCKET, of which phrase it is a corruption.
kicks
Breeches. A high kick; the top of the fashion. It is all the kick; it is the present mode. Tip us your kicks, we'll have them as well as your lour; pull off your breeches, for we must have them as well as your money. A kick; sixpence. Two and a kick; half-a-crown. A kick in the guts; a dram of gin, or any other spirituous liquor. A kick up; a disturbance, also a hop or dance. An odd kick in one's gallop; a strange whim or peculiarity.
kickseys
Or KICKSIES, trousers.
kickshaws
French dishes: corruption of quelque chose.
kickshaws
Trifles; made, or French dishes—not English or substantial. Anything of a fancy description now. Corruption of the French QUELQUES CHOSES.
kicksy
Troublesome, disagreeable. German, KECK, bold.
kid
A little dapper fellow. A child. The blowen has napped the kid. The girl is with child.
kid
An infant, or child. From the German kind; or possibly from the name for the young of a goat. Also, a shallow dish in which sailors receive their portions of food.
kid lay
Rogues who make it their business to defraud young apprentices, or errand-boys, of goods committed to their charge, by prevailing on them to execute some trifling message, pretending to take care of their parcels till they come back; these are, in cant terms, said to be on the kid lay.
kid-on
To entice or incite a person to the perpetration of an act.
kidden
Or KIDKEN, a low lodging-house for boys.
kidder
A forestaller: see CROCKER. Kidders are also persons employed by the gardeners to gather peas.
kiddily
Fashionably or showily; "KIDDILY togg’d," showily dressed.
kiddleywink
A small shop where are retailed the commodities of a village store. Originally KIDDLE-A-WINK, from the offer made, with a wink, to give you something out of the kettle or kiddle. In the west country an alehouse. Also, a woman of unsteady habits.
kiddy
A man, or boy. Formerly a low thief.
kiddy nippers
Taylors out of work, who cut off the waistcoat pockets of their brethren, when cross-legged on their board, thereby grabbling their bit. CANT.
kidment
Humbug, coarse chaff or jocularity.
kidnapper
Originally one who stole or decoyed children or apprentices from their parents or masters, to send them to the colonies; called also spiriting: but now used for all recruiting crimps for the king's troops, or those of the East India company, and agents for indenting servants for the plantations, &c.
kidnapper
Originally one who stole children. Now applied without reference to the age or sex of those stolen. From "kid," a child, and "nab" (corrupted to "nap"), to steal, or seize.
kidney
Disposition, principles, humour. Of a strange kidney; of an odd or unaccountable humour. A man of a different kidney; a man of different principles.
kidney
"of that KIDNEY," of such a stamp; "strange KIDNEY," odd humour; "two of a KIDNEY," two persons of a sort, or as like as two peas, i.e., resembling each other like two kidneys in a bunch.—Old. "Attempt to put their hair out of KIDNEY."—Terræ Filius, 1763.
kidsman
One who trains boys to thieve and pick pockets successfully.
kilkenny cat
A popular simile for a voracious or desperate animal or person, from the story of the two cats in that county, who are said to have fought and bitten each other until a small portion of the tail of one of them alone remained.
kill care club
The members of this club, styled also the Sons of Sound Sense and Satisfaction, met at their fortress, the Castle-tavern, in Paternoster-row.
kill devil
New still-burnt rum.
killing
Bewitching, fascinating. The term is akin to the phrase "dressing to death."