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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.
"to be ON," in public-house or vulgar parlance, is synonymous with getting "tight" or tipsy; "it’s St. Monday with him, I see he’s ON again," i.e., drunk as usual, or on the road to it. "I’m ON" also expresses a person’s acceptance of an offered bet. To GET ON a horse or a man is to make bets on it or him. "Try it ON," a defiant challenge to a person.
Free to move or act without restriction
exactly right or accurate
Unused or postponed, often indefinitely
Out all night "on the spree," or carousing,—in allusion to the London cats on their amatory excursions. See CATERWAULING.
A parson: an allusion to his tithes.
That which stands for ONE, a blow that requires no repeating. In The Old Curiosity Shop, the "Marchioness" tells Dick Swiveller that "her missus is a ONE-ER"—there a variation of "stunner."
A seal. Onion hunters, a class of young thieves who are on the look out for gentlemen who wear their seals suspended on a ribbon, which they cut, and thus secure the seals or other trinkets suspended to the watch.
A medlar. See MEDLAR.
To commence anything.
The senior and junior optimes are the second and last classes of Cambridge honors conferred on taking a degree. That of wranglers is the first. The last junior optime is called the Wooden Spoon.
"to work the ORACLE," to plan, manœuvre, to succeed by a wily stratagem.
An Americanism, which means, to speak in public, or make an oration.
A pipe. Will you cock your organ? will you smoke your pipe?
An itinerant who is supposed to "GRIND" music out of a barrel-organ.
An inventor of plans for the formation of joint-stock companies. The originator submits his schemes to the promoter, who accepts or rejects them.
(pronounced ORINOKER), a poker.
Somebody explained these terms by saying, the first was a man who had a doxy of his own, the second a person who made use of the doxy of another man.
Bone-handled knives. CANT.
Eightpence. Italian, OTTO, eight.—Lingua Franca.
To be ottomised; to be dissected. You'll be scragged, ottomised, and grin in a glass case: you'll be hanged, anatomised, and your skeleton kept in a glass case at Surgeons' Hall.
The vulgar word for a skeleton.
A thin man, a skeleton, a dwarf. Vulgar pronunciation of ANATOMY. Shakspeare has ATOMY.
A dram glass. These glasses are two-OUT (half-quartern), three-OUT, and four-OUT. An habitué of a gin-shop, desirous of treating a brace of friends, calls for "a quartern of gin and three OUTS," by which he means three glasses which will exactly contain the quartern. Really, the word glasses is understood. The man actually means, and one or more three-OUT glasses.
Prime, excellent, of the first quality; beyond measure. OUT-AND-OUTER, one who is of an OUT-AND-OUT description, "up" to anything.
In declining circumstances.
Recognized English idiom; full definition pending editorial review.
"on the spree," in search of adventures. See ON THE LOOSE.
PICARONE is Spanish for a thief, but this phrase does not necessarily mean anything dishonest, but is often used to mean readiness for anything in the way of excitement. It also means to be in search of anything profitable, without much care as to honesty or otherwise.
An auction.—Anglo-Indian.
A day’s holiday. The Oxford and Cambridge boatrace, the Derby, and other events of a like character, are each said to be simply excuses to the Cockneys for a day’s OUTING.
To escape debt or financial obligations
A gentleman of three outs. See GENTLEMAN.
A person who does not habitually bet, or is not admitted to the "ring," a duffer or good-for-nothing fellow. Also, a horse whose name does not appear among the "favourites."—Sporting.
A great mouth; the old woman would never have looked for her daughter in the oven, had she not been there herself.
Generally used in connexion with come, as, "He came it rather strong OVER me," i.e., tried to intimidate or compel me. The same phrase would also be used to imply that an excess of flattery or praise was being employed for a similar purpose, but that the adulation was being "laid on a little too thick" to be considered genuine.
Or OVER THE LEFT, i.e., the left shoulder—a common exclamation of disbelief in what is being narrated,—sometimes implying that the results of a proposed plan will be OVER THE LEFT, i.e., in the wrong direction, loss instead of gain.
The odd money remaining after the daily accounts are made up at a banking-house,—usually divided amongst the clerks. See MENAVELINGS and SHORTS.
A man standing in the pillory, is, from his elevated situation, said to be made an overseer.
To catch the; a trick practised upon ignorant country boobies, who are decoyed into a barn under pretence of catching an owl, where, after divers preliminaries, the joke ends in their having a pail of water poured upon their heads.
He looks like an owl in an ivy bush; frequently said of a person with a large frizzled wig, or a woman whose hair is dressed a-la-blowze.
Those who smuggle wool over to France.
A slang expression used by the ultra-Evangelicals when a popular preacher makes many converts. The converts themselves are called his "seals."
Two shillings. } OWT is pronounced OAT.
He must go through the ox house to bed; a saying of an old fellow who marries a young girl.
Corruption of oyez, proclaimed by the crier of all courts of justice.
A gob of thick phlegm, spit by a consumptive man; in law Latin, UNUM VIRIDUM GOBBUM
"like ONE O’CLOCK," a favourite comparison with the lower orders, implying briskness; otherwise "like winkin’." "To know what’s O’CLOCK" is to be wide-awake, sharp, and experienced.
Crazy, demented, out of one's mind, in a confused or befuddled state of mind, senile.
To escape a situation of responsibility or obligation, or, less frequently, danger.
Having low priority.
Exactly right or punctual.
Faced with a decision involving equally unfavourable alternatives.
Be in agreement.
On the side of what is right.
Very rarely; almost never.
A contest in which one candidate or competitor is clearly superior to all the others.
Out of harmony or balance.
People or things that are absent are soon forgotten.
By surprise.