top diver
A lover of women. An old top diver; one who has loved old hat in his time.
English · UK & Ireland 17968
All languages English Tiếng Việt
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.
top jint
(vulgar pronunciation of joint), a pint—of beer.
top lights
The eyes. Blast your top lights. See CURSE.
top ropes
To sway away on all top ropes; to live riotously or extravagantly.
top up
A finishing drink. "He drank two bottles of claret and one of port, which he TOPPED UP with half a bottle of brandy."
top-dressing
In journalism, is the large-type introduction to a report, generally written by a man of higher literary attainments than the ordinary reporter who follows with the details.
top-sawyer
The principal of a party, or profession. "A TOP-SAWYER signifies a man that is a master-genius in any profession. It is a piece of Norfolk slang, and took its rise from Norfolk being a great timber county, where the TOP SAWYERS get double the wages of those beneath them."—Randall’s Diary, 1820.
toper
One that loves his bottle, a soaker. SEE TO SOAK.
topped
Hanged, or executed.
topper
A violent blow on the head.
topper
Anything or person above the ordinary; a blow on the head. "Give him a TOPPER and chance it," "Let him have a TOPPER for luck."
topping fellow
One at the top or head of his profession.
topsy-turvy
The bottom upwards. Grose gives an ingenious etymology of this once cant term, viz., "top-side turf-ways,"—turf being always laid the wrong side upwards. This is so far ingenious that it creates a fact for the purpose of arguing from it. Turfs are laid with the grass part together during carriage; so, anyhow, the definition could be only half right. In fact, TOPSY-TURVY is but short for "top-side t’other way."
tormentors
The large iron flesh-forks used by cooks at sea.
torpids
The second-class race-boats at Oxford, answering to the Cambridge "sloggers."
torrac
A carrot. "Ekat a TORRAC."
tory
An advocate for absolute monarchy and church power; also an Irish vagabond, robber, Or rapparee.
toshers
Men who steal copper from ships’ bottoms in the Thames.
toss
A measure of sprats.—Billingsgate.
tot
A small glass; a "TOT o’ whisky" is the smallest quantity sold.
tot-up
To add together,—as columns of figures, £ s. d. From TOTAL-UP, through the vulgarism TOTTLE.
totting
Bone-picking, either peripatetically or at the dust-heaps. "TOT" is a bone, but chiffoniers and cinder-hunters generally are called TOT-PICKERS nowadays. TOTTING also has its votaries on the banks of the Thames, where all kinds of flotsam and jetsam, from coals to carrion, are known as TOTS.
totty-headed
Giddy, hare-brained.
touch
To touch; to get money from any one; also to arrest. Touched in the wind; broken winded. Touched in the head; insane, crazy. To touch up a woman; to have carnal knowledge of her. Touch bone and whistle; any one having broken wind backwards, according to the vulgar law, may be pinched by any of the company till he has touched bone (i.e. his teeth) and whistled.
touch
A slang expression in common use in phrases which express the extent to which a person is interested or affected, "as a fourpenny TOUCH," i.e., a thing costing fourpence. See an example in Mr., afterwards Sir Erasmus, Philipps’s Diary, at Oxford, in 1720. "Sept. 22.—At night went to the ball at the Angel, a guinea TOUCH." It is also used at Eton in the sense of a "tip," or present of money; and is sometimes said of a woman to imply her worthlessness, as, "Only a half-crown TOUCH."
touch-and-go
An expression often applied to men with whom business arrangements should be of the lightest possible character. Thus, "He’s a TOUCH-AND-GO sort of fellow. Be careful of him."
toucher
"as near as a TOUCHER," as near as possible without actually touching.—Coaching term. The old Jarveys, to show their skill, used to drive against things so closely as absolutely to touch, yet without injury. This they called a TOUCHER, or TOUCH-AND-GO, which was hence applied to anything which was within an ace of ruin.
touchy
Peevish, irritable. Johnson terms it a low word.
tout
In sporting phraseology a TOUT signifies an agent in the training districts, on the look-out for information as to the condition and capabilities of those horses entering for a coming race. TOUTS often get into trouble through entering private training-grounds. They, however, are very highly paid, some making 40l. or 50l. a week during the season. Now frequently called horse-watchers.
touter
A looker out, one who waits at railway stations and steamboat piers, and touts for customers; a hotel runner. Term in general use.
touting
(From TUERI, to look about) Publicans fore-stalling guests, or meeting them on the road, and begging their custom; also thieves or smugglers looking out to see that the coast is clear. Touting ken; the bar of a public house.
touzle
To romp with or rumple.—Scotch.
tovt
A look-out house, or eminence.
tow row
A grenadier. The tow row club; a club or society of the grenadier officers of the line.
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:
Advertisement
Ad space — ads help keep Idiomer free. Premium will remove them.