tow row
A grenadier. The tow row club; a club or society of the grenadier officers of the line.
English · UK & Ireland 1611
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Expressions you’ll hear in Britain and Ireland — distinctly British usage first, then widespread staples.
tow-pows
Grenadiers. From the bearskins, most likely, unless it was originally TALL-POWS, the grenadiers being the tallest men in the company.
towel
An oaken towel, a cudgel. To rub one down with an oaken towel; to beat or cudgel him.
towel
To beat or whip. In old English phraseology a cudgel was termed an oaken TOWEL—whence, perhaps, the verb.
towelling
A rubbing down with an oaken TOWEL, a beating.
tower
Clipped money: they have been round the tower with it. CANT.
tower hill play
A slap on the face, and a kick on the breech.
town
A woman of the town; a prostitute. To be on the town: to live by prostitution.
town and gown
Conflict or difference between a town's residents and its university's students and staff
town bull
A common whoremaster. To roar like a town bull; to cry or bellow aloud.
town-lout
A derogatory title at Rugby School for those pupils who reside with their parents in the town, in contradistinction from those who live in the boarding-houses.
tracks
"to make TRACKS," to run away. See STREAK.
tradesman
One who thoroughly understands his business, whatever it may be. No better compliment can be passed on an individual, whether his profession be housebreaking, prizefighting, or that of a handicraftsman, than the significant "He’s a regular TRADESMAN."
tradesmen
Thieves. Clever tradesmen; good thieves.
trading justices
Broken mechanics, discharged footmen, and other low fellows, smuggled into the commission of the peace, who subsist by fomenting disputes, granting warrants, and otherwise retailing justice; to the honour of the present times, these nuisances are by no means, so common as formerly.
translator
A man who deals in old shoes or clothes, and refits them for cheap wear. These people generally live in or about Dudley Street, Seven Dials.
translators
Sellers of old mended shoes and boots, between coblers and shoemakers.
translators
Second-hand boots mended and polished, and sold at a low price.
trap
To understand trap; to know one's own interest.
trap
A "fast" term for a carriage of any kind. TRAPS, goods and chattels of any kind, but especially luggage and personal effects; in Australia, "swag."
trap sticks
Thin legs, gambs: from the sticks with which boys play at trap-ball.
trapes
A slatternly woman, a careless sluttish woman.
trapesing
Gadding or gossiping about in a slatternly way. Generally applied to girls and women in low neighbourhoods, who wander from public-house to public-house, and whose clothes are carelessly fastened, causing them to trail on the ground.
traps
Constables and thief-takers. CANT.
traveller
To tip the traveller; to tell wonderful stories, to romance.
traveller
Name given by one tramp to another. "A TRAVELLER at her Majesty’s expense," i.e., a transported felon, a convict.
travelling piquet
A mode of amusing themselves, practised by two persons riding in a carriage, each reckoning towards his game the persons or animals that pass by on the side next them, according to the following estimation:
tray trip
An ancient game like Scotch hop, played on a pavement marked out with chalk into different compartments.
tree
"up a TREE," in temporary difficulties,—out of the way. American expression, derived from racoon or bear-hunting. When Bruin is TREED, or is forced up a TREE by the dogs, it means that then the tug of war begins. See ’COON. Hence when an opponent is fairly run to bay, and can by no evasion get off, he is said to be TREED. These expressions originated with Colonel Crockett, of backwoods celebrity.
trencher cap
The square cap worn by the collegians. at the universities of Oxford and Cambridge.
trencher man
A stout trencher man; one who has a good appetite, or, as the term is, plays a good knife and fork.
triangles
A slang term for delirium tremens, during a fit of which everything appears out of the square.
trib
A prison: perhaps from tribulation.
trickum legis
A quirk or quibble in the law.
trig
The point at which schoolboys stand to shoot their marbles at taw; also the spot whence bowlers deliver the bowl.
trigrymate
An idle female companion.
trim
State, dress. In a sad trim; dirty.--Also spruce or fine: a trim fellow.
trim tram
Like master, like man.
trimming
Cheating, changing side, or beating. I'll trim his jacket; I'll thresh him. To be trimmed; to be shaved; I'll just step and get trimmed.
trimmings
The necessary adjuncts to anything cooked, but specially applied to a boiled leg of mutton, as turnips, potatoes, bread, beer, salt, &c. Bets are frequently made for a leg of mutton and TRIMMINGS. Or one person will forfeit the mutton if another will "stand the TRIMMINGS." It is generally a supper feast, held in a public-house, and the rule is for the landlord to charge as TRIMMINGS everything, except the mutton, placed on the table previous to the removal of the cloth.
trine
To hang; also Tyburn.
trinkets
Toys, bawbles, or nicknacks.
trip
A short voyage or journey, a false step or stumble, an error in the tongue, a bastard. She has made a trip; she has had a bastard.
tripe
The belly, or guts. Mr. Double Tripe; a fat man. Tripes and trullibubs; the entrails: also a jeering appellation for a fat man.
trollies
Or TROLLY-CARTS, term given by costermongers to a species of narrow carts, which can either be drawn by a donkey or driven by hand.
trolling
Sauntering or idling, hence TROLL and TROLLOCKS, an idle slut, a "moll," which see.
trollop
A lusty coarse sluttish woman.
trollop
A slatternly woman, a prostitute.
trolly lolly
Coarse lace once much in fashion.
trooper
You will die the death of a trooper's horse, that is, with your shoes-on; a jocular method of telling any one he will be hanged.
trosseno
Literally, "one sort," but professional slangists use it to imply anything that is bad. TROSS, among costermongers, means anything bad. It is probably a corruption of trash. Possibly, however, the constant use of the words "dab-tros" may have led them in their unthinking way to imagine that the latter word will do by itself.
trot
An old trot; a decrepit old woman. A dog trot; a gentle pace.
trot
To "run up," to oppose, to bid against at an auction. Private buyers at auctions know from experience how general is the opposition against them from dealers, "knock-outs," and other habitués of sales, who regard the rooms as their own peculiar domain. "We TROTTED him up nicely, didn’t we?" i.e., we made him (the private buyer) pay dearly for what he bought.
trot out
To introduce or exhibit something familiar or old-fashioned
trotter
A tailor’s man who goes round for orders.—University.
trotters
Feet. To shake one's trotters at Bilby's ball, where the sheriff pays the fiddlers; perhaps the Bilboes ball, i.e. the ball of fetters: fetters and stocks were anciently called the bilboes.
trotters
Feet. Sheep’s TROTTERS, boiled sheep’s feet, a favourite street delicacy.
truck
To exchange, swop, or barter; also a wheel such as ship's guns are placed upon.
truck
A hat—from the cap on the extremity of a mast.—Sea.
trull
A soldier or a tinker's trull; a soldier or tinker's female companion.--Guteli, or trulli, are spirits like women, which shew great kindness to men, and hereof it is that we call light women trulls. RANDLE HOLM'S ACADEMY OF ARMORY.