jow
Be off, be gone immediately. If the word Jehanum be added, it forms a peremptory order to go to a place unmentionable to ears polite.—Anglo-Indian. Our phrase, "Go to Jericho," is probably a modification of the Jehanum business.
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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.
jowl
The cheek. Cheek by jowl; close together, or cheek to cheek. My eyes how the cull sucked the blowen's jowl; he kissed the wench handsomely.
judas
A deceitful person; JUDAS-HAIRED, red-haired, deceitful. It is generally believed that JUDAS ISCARIOT was red-haired. Painters seem to have accepted this idea, with modifications as to the exact amount of colour.
jug
A prison of any kind. Contraction of "stone jug."
juggler's box
The engine for burning culprits in the hand. CANT.
julep
One of a set of drinks peculiar to America. Generally prepared with mint, and called a MINT-JULEP. Originally JULEP was a pleasant liquid, in which nauseous medicines were taken. Its literal meaning is rosewater, and it is derived from the Arabic.
jumblegut lane
A rough road or lane.
jump
The jump, or dining-room jump; a species of robbery effected by ascending a ladder placed by a sham lamp-lighter, against the house intended to be robbed. It is so called, because, should the lamp-lighter be put to flight, the thief who ascended the ladder has no means of escaping but that of jumping down.
jump
To seize, or rob; to "JUMP a man," to pounce upon him, and either rob or maltreat him; "to JUMP a house," to rob it.
jump-up-behind
To endorse an accommodation-bill.
jumped-up
Conceited, arrogant, setting full value on oneself.
jumpers
Persons who rob houses by getting in at the windows. Also a set of Methodists established in South Wales.
juniper
Gin. Derivation obvious.
juniper lecture
A round scolding bout.
junk
Salt beef.—See OLD HORSE.
jury leg
A wooden leg: allusion to a jury mast, which is a temporary substitute for a mast carried away by a storm, or any other accident. SEA PHRASE.
jury mast
A JOURNIERE mast; i.e. a mast for the day or occasion.
just-ass
A punning appellation for a justice.
juwaub
Literally, in Hindostanee, an answer; but in Anglo-Indian slang signifying a refusal. If an officer asks for leave and is refused, he is said to be JUWAUBED; if a gentleman unsuccessfully proposes for the hand of a lady, he is said to have got the JUWAUB.—Anglo-Indian.
kanitseeno
A stinking one. KANITS is a stink.
karibat
Food, literally rice and curry; the staple dish of both natives and Europeans in India.—Anglo-Indian.
kate
A picklock. 'Tis a rum kate; it is a clever picklock. CANT.
keel bullies
Men employed to load and unload the coal vessels.
keel-hauling
A good thrashing or mauling, rough treatment,—from the old nautical custom of punishing offenders by throwing them overboard with a rope attached, and hauling them up from under the ship’s keel. See full description of this barbarous practice in Marryat’s Snarleyyow.
keelhauling
A punishment in use among the Dutch seamen, in which, for certain offences, the delinquent is drawn once, or oftener, under the ship's keel: ludicrously defined, undergoing a great hard-ship.
keep a pig
An Oxford University phrase, which means to have a lodger. A man whose rooms contain two bedchambers has sometimes, when his college is full, to allow the use of one of them to a Freshman, who is called under these circumstances a PIG. The original occupier is then said to KEEP A PIG.
keep it up
continue doing something
keeping cully
One who keeps a mistress, as he supposes, for his own use, but really for that of the public.
kelter
Condition, order. Out of kelter; out of order.
kelter
Coin, money. Probably from GELT.
kemp's morris
William Kemp, said to have been the original Dogberry in Much ado about Nothing, danced a morris from London to Norwich in nine days: of which he printed the account, A. D. 1600, intitled, Kemp's Nine Days Wonder, &c.
kemp's shoes
Would I had Kemp's shoes to throw after you. BEN JONSON. Perhaps Kemp was a man remarkable for his good luck or fortune; throwing an old shoe, or shoes, after any one going on an important business, being by the vulgar deemed lucky.
ken
A house. A bob ken, or a bowman ken; a well-furnished house, also a house that harbours thieves. Biting the ken; robbing the house. CANT.
ken
A house.—Ancient cant. KHAN, Gipsy and Oriental.
kennedy
A poker; to "give KENNEDY" is to strike or kill with a poker. A St. Giles’s term, so given from a man of that name being killed by a poker.
kent rag
Or CLOUT, a cotton handkerchief.
kent-street ejectment
To take away the street door: a method practised by the landlords in Kent-street, Southwark, when their tenants are above a fortnight's rent in arrear.
kent’s
(E.) Modern Flash Dictionary, containing all the Cant words, Slang Terms, and Flash Phrases now in Vogue, 18mo, coloured frontispiece. 1825.
kerry security
Bond, pledge, oath, and keep the money.
kervorten
A Cockneyism for QUARTERN or quarter-pint measure. "KERVORTEN and three houts," a quartern of liquor and glasses, each holding a third of the quantity.
ketch
Jack Ketch; a general name for the finishers of the law, or hangmen, ever since the year 1682, when the office was filled by a famous practitioner of that name, of whom his wife said, that any bungler might put a man to death, but only her husband knew how to make a gentleman die sweetly.
ketch
Or JACK KETCH, the popular name for a public hangman; derived from a person of that name who officiated in the reign of Charles II.—See Macaulay’s History of England.
kettle of fish
A complicated or awkward situation
kettledrums
Cupid's kettle drums; a woman's breasts, called by sailors chest and bedding.
kew
(or more properly KEEU), a week.
kews
SKEW, or SKEEU, weeks.
key of the street
An imaginary instrument said to be possessed by any one locked out of doors.
kibosh
Nonsense, stuff, humbug; "it’s all KIBOSH," i.e., palaver or nonsense; to "put on the KIBOSH," to run down, slander, degrade, &c. To put the KIBOSH on anything is, latterly, to put an effectual end or stop to it.
kick
A moment; "I’ll be there in a KICK," i.e., in a moment.
kick over the traces
To be over-extravagant. Any one who has come to grief by fast living is said to have KICKED OVER THE TRACES.
kick up
A noise or disturbance.
kickeraboo
Dead. A West Indian negro’s phrase. See KICK THE BUCKET, of which phrase it is a corruption.
kicks
Breeches. A high kick; the top of the fashion. It is all the kick; it is the present mode. Tip us your kicks, we'll have them as well as your lour; pull off your breeches, for we must have them as well as your money. A kick; sixpence. Two and a kick; half-a-crown. A kick in the guts; a dram of gin, or any other spirituous liquor. A kick up; a disturbance, also a hop or dance. An odd kick in one's gallop; a strange whim or peculiarity.
kickseys
Or KICKSIES, trousers.
kickshaws
French dishes: corruption of quelque chose.
kickshaws
Trifles; made, or French dishes—not English or substantial. Anything of a fancy description now. Corruption of the French QUELQUES CHOSES.
kicksy
Troublesome, disagreeable. German, KECK, bold.
kid
A little dapper fellow. A child. The blowen has napped the kid. The girl is with child.
kid
An infant, or child. From the German kind; or possibly from the name for the young of a goat. Also, a shallow dish in which sailors receive their portions of food.
kid lay
Rogues who make it their business to defraud young apprentices, or errand-boys, of goods committed to their charge, by prevailing on them to execute some trifling message, pretending to take care of their parcels till they come back; these are, in cant terms, said to be on the kid lay.
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