dunegan
A privy. A water closet.
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.
dung
An operative who works for an employer who does not give full or "society" wages.
dungaree
Low, common, coarse, vulgar.—Anglo-Indian. DUNGAREE is the name of a disreputable suburb of Bombay, and also of a coarse blue cloth worn by sailors.
dunghill
A coward: a cockpit phrase, all but gamecocks being styled dunghills. To die dunghill; to repent, or shew any signs of contrition at the gallows. Moving dunghill; a dirty, filthy man or woman. Dung, an abbreviation of dunghill, also means a journeyman taylor who submits to the law for regulating journeymen taylors' wages, therefore deemed by the flints a coward. See FLINTS.
dunkhorned
Sneaking, shabby. DUNKHORN in Norfolk is the short, blunt horn of a beast, and the adjective is applied to a cuckold who has not spirit to resist his disgrace.
dunnage
Baggage, clothes. Also, a sea term for wood or loose faggots laid at the bottom of ships, upon which is placed the cargo.
dunnyken
Originally DANNAKEN, a watercloset.—From DANNA and KEN, which see.
dunton’s
Ladies’ Dictionary, 8vo. London, 1694.
durham man
Knocker kneed, he grinds mustard with his knees: Durham is famous for its mustard.
durrynacking
Offering lace or any other article as an introduction to fortune-telling; generally practised by women.
dust
Money. Down with your dust; deposit the money. To raise or kick up a dust; to make a disturbance or riot: see BREEZE. Dust it away; drink about.
dust
Money; "down with the DUST," put down the money.—Ancient. Dean Swift once took for his text, "He who giveth to the poor lendeth to the Lord." His sermon was short. "Now, my brethren," said he, "if you are satisfied with the security, down with the DUST."
dust-hole
Sidney Sussex College at Cambridge.—Univ. Slang.
dustman
A dead man: your father is a dustman.
dustoorie
Commission, douceur, bribe.—Anglo-Indian.
dusty
A phrase used in answering a question where one expects approbation. "What do you think of this?" "Well, it’s not so DUSTY," i.e., not so bad; sometimes varied to "none so DUSTY."
dutch
Or DOUBLE DUTCH, gibberish, or any foreign tongue. "To talk DOUBLE DUTCH backwards on a Sunday" is a humorous locution for extraordinary linguistic facility.
dutch auction
A method of selling goods, adopted by "CHEAP JOHNS," to evade the penalties for selling without a licence. The article is offered all round at a high price, which is then dropped until it is taken. DUTCH AUCTIONS need not be illegitimate transactions, and their economy (as likewise that of puffing) will be found minutely explained in Sugden (Lord St. Leonards) "On Vendors and Purchasers."
dutch comfort
Thank God it is no worse.
dutch consolation
"thank God it is no worse." "It might have been worse," said a man whom the devil was carrying to hell. "How?" asked a neighbour. "Well, he’s carrying me—he might have made me carry him."
dutch feast
Where the entertainer gets drunk before his guest.
dutch uncle
A personage often introduced in conversation, but exceedingly difficult to describe; "I’ll talk to him like a DUTCH UNCLE!" conveys the notion of anything but a desirable relation.
dutchess
A woman enjoyed with her pattens on, or by a man-in boots, is said to be made a dutchess.
earnest
A deposit in part of payment, to bind a bargain.
earwig
A clergyman, also one who prompts another maliciously and privately.
earwigging
A private conversation; a rebuke in private; an attempt to defame another unfairly, and without chance of appeal; a WIGGING is more public.
ease
To rob; "EASING a bloke," robbing a man.
easy
Make the cull easy or quiet; gag or kill him. As easy as pissing the bed.
easy virtue
A lady of easy virtue: an impure or prostitute.
eat
To eat like a beggar man, and wag his under jaw; a jocular reproach to a proud man. To eat one's words; to retract what one has said.
eat a fig
To "crack a crib," to break into a house, or commit a burglary.
eat his head off
A horse who is kept idle in the stable is said to EAT HIS HEAD OFF. Of late the phrase has been applied to servants who have little to do but constantly "dip their noses in the manger."
eavesdropper
A listener. The name is derived from the punishment which, according to Oliver, was directed in the Lectures, at the revival of Masonry in 1717, to be inflicted on a detected Cowan [g. v.], and which was
efter
A thief who frequents theatres.
egan
Grose’s Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue, with the addition of numerous Slang Phrases, edited by Pierce Egan, 8vo. 1823.
egan’s
(Pierce) Life in London, 2 vols. thick 8vo, with coloured plates by Geo. Cruikshank, representing high and low life. 18—.
egg
Or EGG ON, to excite, stimulate, or provoke one person to quarrel with another, &c. From the Anglo-Saxon eggian; or possibly a corruption of EDGE, or EDGE ON, or even from agere, to drive.—Ancient.
egg-flip
Or EGG-HOT, a drink made after the manner of purl and bishop, with beer, eggs, and spirits made hot and sweetened.
eight eyes
I will knock out two of your eight eyes; a common Billingsgate threat from one fish nymph to another: every woman, according to the naturalists of that society, having eight eyes; viz. two seeing eyes, two bub-eyes, a bell-eye, two pope's eyes, and a ***-eye. He has fallen down and trod upon his eye; said of one who has a black eye.
ekame
A "make," or swindle.
ekom
A "moke," or donkey.
elbow
"to shake one’s ELBOW," to play with dice; "to crook one’s ELBOW," to drink.
elbow grease
hard work and effort
elbow room
Sufficient space to act in. Out at elbows; said of an estate that is mortgaged.
elbow shaker
A gamester, one who rattles Saint Hugh's bones, i.e. the dice.
elegant extracts
A Cambridge University title for those students who having failed only slightly in some one subject, and being "plucked" accordingly, were allowed their degrees. This applied to the "Poll" list, as the "Gulf" did to the "Honours."
elephant
"to have seen the ELEPHANT," to be "up to the latest move," or "down to the last new trick;" to be knowing, and not "green," &c. Possibly a metaphor taken from the travelling menageries, where the ELEPHANT is the finale of the exhibition.—Originally an Americanism. Bartlett gives conflicting examples. General now, however.
elevated
Intoxicated. ELEVATION is the name of a drug-mixture much used in the fen-counties for keeping up the spirits and preventing ague. It consists mainly of opium.
elf
A fairy or hobgoblin, a little man or woman.
ellenborough lodge
The King's Bench Prison. Lord Ellenborough's teeth; the chevaux de frize round the top of the wall of that prison.
elwyn’s
(Alfred L.) Glossary of supposed Americanisms—Vulgar and Slang Words used in the United States, small 8vo. 1859.
emag
Game, "I know your little EMAG."
emperor
Drunk as an emperor, i.e. ten times as drunk as a lord.
enemy
Time, a clock, the ruthless enemy and tell-tale of idleness and of mankind generally; "what says the ENEMY?" i.e., how goes the time?
ensign bearer
A drunken man, who looks red in the face, or hoists his colours in his drink.
equipt
Rich; also, having new clothes. Well equipt; full of money, or well dressed. The cull equipped me with a brace of meggs; the gentleman furnished me with. a couple of guineas.
erth sith-noms
Three months,—a term of imprisonment unfortunately very familiar to the lower orders. Generally known as a "drag."
erth-pu
Three-up, a street game, played with three halfpence.
esclop
Police, now used to signify a constable only. ESCLOP is pronounced "slop" simply, but the c was never sounded. A policeman is now and then called, by some purist or stickler for etiquette, an "esclopnam."
esqrs
OF CAMBRIDGE; AND WILLIAM SOAMES, ESQ. OF
Advertisement
Ad space — ads help keep Idiomer free. Premium will remove them.