walk into
To collide with by walking.
English · UK & Ireland 745
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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.
water bewitched
Very weak tea or other highly diluted drink.
whip off
To remove something (especially an item of clothing) with a swift movement.
Wild Irishman
The train between Euston and Holyhead, in connection with the Kingstown mailboats.
wooden surtout
Synonym of wooden coat.
w. p
Or WARMING-PAN. A clergyman who holds a living pro tempore, under a bond of resignation, is styled a W. P., or WARMING-PAN rector, because he keeps the place warm for his successor. WARMING-PAN was a term first popularly applied to a substitute in the reign of James II.
wabble
Or WOBBLE, to move from side to side, to roll about. Johnson terms it "a low, barbarous word."
wabler
Footwabler; a contemptuous term for a foot soldier, frequently used by those of the cavalry.
wag
An arch-frolicsome fellow.
waggish
Arch, gamesome, frolicsome.
waits
Musicians of the lower order, who in most towns play under the windows of the chief inhabitants at midnight, a short time before Christmas, for which they collect a christmas-box from house to house. They are said to derive their name of waits from being always in waiting to celebrate weddings and other joyous events happening within their district.
wake
A country feast, commonly on the anniversary of the tutelar saint of the village, that is, the saint to whom the parish church is dedicated.
walk one's chalks
Recognized English idiom; full definition pending editorial review.
walk-over
A re-election without opposition.—Parliamentary, but derived from the turf, where a horse which has no rivals WALKS OVER the course. See DEAD HEAT.
walker
A letter-carrier or postman. From an old song, called, "Walker, the twopenny postman."
walking poulterer
One who steals fowls, and hawks them from door to door.
walking stationer
A hawker of pamphlets, &c.
walking the pegs
A method of cheating at the game of cribbage, by a species of legerdemain, the sharper either moving his own pegs forward, or those of his antagonist backward, according to the state of the game.
walking the plank
A mode of destroying devoted persons or officers in a mutiny or ship-board, by blindfolding them, and obliging them to walk on a plank laid over the ship's side; by this means, as the mutineers suppose, avoiding the penalty of murder.
walking up against the wall
To run up a score, which in alehouses is commonly recorded with chalk on the walls of the bar.
wall
To walk or crawl up the wall; to be scored up at a public-nouse. Wall-eyed, having an eye with little or no sight, all white like a plaistered wall.
wallabee-track
Colonial slang for the tramp. When a man in Australia is "on the road" looking for employment, he is said to be on the WALLABEE-TRACK.
wallflower
A person who goes to a ball and looks on without dancing, either from choice or through not being able to obtain a partner. From the position.
wallflowers
Left-off and "regenerated" clothes exposed for sale on the bunks and shop-boards of Seven Dials. See REACH-ME-DOWNS.
wallop
To beat, or thrash. John Gough Nichols derives this word from an ancestor of the Earl of Portsmouth, one Sir John Wallop, Knight of the Garter, who in King Henry VIII.’s time distinguished himself by WALLOPING the French; but it is more probably connected with wheal, a livid swelling in the skin after a blow. See POT-WALLOPER.
walloping
A beating or thrashing; sometimes used in an adjective sense, as big, or very large.
wapping
Or WHOPPING, of a large size, great.
war-paint
Evening dress. When people go out in full costume they are often said to have their WAR-PAINT on. Also, military "full-fig."
ware
A woman's ware; her commodity.
ware hawk
An exclamation used by thieves to inform their confederates that some police officers are at hand.
warm
Rich, in good circumstances. To warm, or give a man a warming; to beat him. See CHAFED.
warm
To thrash or beat; "I’ll WARM your jacket." To WARM the wax of one’s ear is to give a severe blow on the side of the head. To WARM is also to rate or abuse roundly. Also varied, as, "to make it hot" for any one.
warming-pan
A large old-fashioned watch. A Scotch warming-pan; a female bedfellow.
warming-pan
A large old-fashioned gold watch. A person placed in an office to hold it for another. See W.P.
warren
One that is security for goods taken up on credit by extravagant young gentlemen. Cunny warren; a girl's boarding-school, also a bawdy-house.
wash
Paint for the face, or cosmetic water. Hog-wash; thick and bad beer.
wash
"It wont WASH," i.e., will not stand investigation, will not "bear the rub," is not genuine, can’t be believed.
wasp
An infected prostitute, who like a wasp carries a sting in her tail.
waste
House of waste; a tavern or alehouse, where idle people waste both their time and money.
waster
A useless, clumsy, or ill-made person.
watch and seals
A sheep’s head and pluck.
watch, chain, and seals
A sheep's head And pluck.
watchmaker
A pickpocket or stealer of watches. Often called "a WATCHMAKER in a crowd."
water
His chops watered at it; he longed earnestly for it. To watch his waters; to keep a strict watch on any one's actions. In hot water: in trouble, engaged in disputes.
water gunner
A marine artilleryman.
water sneaksman
A man who steals from ships or craft on the river.
water the dragon
Or WATER ONE’S NAG, a hint for retiring.
water-bewitched
Very weak tea, the third brew (or the first at some houses). Sometimes very weak tea is called "husband’s tea," in allusion to the wife taking the first brew, and leaving the rest for her husband. Also grog much diluted.
water-mill
A woman's private parts.
waterman
A blue silk handkerchief. The friends of the Oxford and Cambridge boats’ crews always wear these—light blue for Cambridge, and a darker shade for Oxford.
waterpad
One that robs ships in the river Thames.
wax
A rage. "Let’s get him in a WAX." WAXY, cross, ill-tempered.
wayz-goose
A printers’ annual dinner, the funds for which are collected by stewards regularly appointed by "the chapel."
weasel-faced
Thin, meagre-faced. Weasel-gutted; thin-bodied; a weasel is a thin long slender animal with a sharp face.
weather eye
The cautious eye. Any one who is supposed to have an extra good knowledge of things in general, or to be hard to impose on or cheat, is said to have his WEATHER EYE well open.
weather-headed
So written by Sir Walter Scott in his Peveril of the Peak, but it is more probably WETHER-HEADED, as applied to a person having a "sheepish" look.
weaving
A notorious card-sharping trick, done by keeping certain cards on the knee, or between the knee and the under side of the table, and using them when required by changing them for the cards held in the hand.
weaving leather aprons
When a knowing blade is asked what he has been doing lately, and does not choose to tell, his reply is, that he has been very busy WEAVING LEATHER APRONS. (From the reports of a celebrated trial for gold robbery on the South-Western Railway.) Other similar replies are, "I have been making a trundle for a goose’s eye," or a "whim-wham to bridle a goose." Sometimes a man will describe himself as "a doll’s-eye WEAVER."
webster’s
(Noah) Letter to the Hon. John Pickering, on the Subject of his Vocabulary, or Collection of Words and Phrases supposed to be peculiar to the United States, 8vo, pp. 69. Boston, 1817.
wedding
The emptying of a necessary-house, particularly in London. You have been at an Irish wedding, where black eyes are given instead of favours; saying to one who has a black eye.