kid-on
To entice or incite a person to the perpetration of an act.
English · UK & Ireland 17968
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Expressions you’ll hear in Britain and Ireland — distinctly British usage first, then widespread staples.
kidden
Or KIDKEN, a low lodging-house for boys.
kidder
A forestaller: see CROCKER. Kidders are also persons employed by the gardeners to gather peas.
kiddily
Fashionably or showily; "KIDDILY togg’d," showily dressed.
kiddleywink
A small shop where are retailed the commodities of a village store. Originally KIDDLE-A-WINK, from the offer made, with a wink, to give you something out of the kettle or kiddle. In the west country an alehouse. Also, a woman of unsteady habits.
kiddy
A man, or boy. Formerly a low thief.
kiddy nippers
Taylors out of work, who cut off the waistcoat pockets of their brethren, when cross-legged on their board, thereby grabbling their bit. CANT.
kidment
Humbug, coarse chaff or jocularity.
kidnapper
Originally one who stole or decoyed children or apprentices from their parents or masters, to send them to the colonies; called also spiriting: but now used for all recruiting crimps for the king's troops, or those of the East India company, and agents for indenting servants for the plantations, &c.
kidnapper
Originally one who stole children. Now applied without reference to the age or sex of those stolen. From "kid," a child, and "nab" (corrupted to "nap"), to steal, or seize.
kidney
Disposition, principles, humour. Of a strange kidney; of an odd or unaccountable humour. A man of a different kidney; a man of different principles.
kidney
"of that KIDNEY," of such a stamp; "strange KIDNEY," odd humour; "two of a KIDNEY," two persons of a sort, or as like as two peas, i.e., resembling each other like two kidneys in a bunch.—Old. "Attempt to put their hair out of KIDNEY."—Terræ Filius, 1763.
kidsman
One who trains boys to thieve and pick pockets successfully.
kilkenny cat
A popular simile for a voracious or desperate animal or person, from the story of the two cats in that county, who are said to have fought and bitten each other until a small portion of the tail of one of them alone remained.
kill care club
The members of this club, styled also the Sons of Sound Sense and Satisfaction, met at their fortress, the Castle-tavern, in Paternoster-row.
kill devil
New still-burnt rum.
killing
Bewitching, fascinating. The term is akin to the phrase "dressing to death."
kilt
An Irishism for badly beaten, but by no means equivalent with killed.
kimbo
Or A-KIMBO, holding the arms in a bent position from the body, and resting the hands upon the hips, in a bullying attitude. Said to be from A SCHIMBO, bandy-legged, crooked, Italian; but more probably from KIMBAW, the old cant for beating or bullying. See Grose. Celtic, CAM, crooked.
kimmer
A gossip, an acquaintance, same as CUMMER.—Scotch.
kinchin
A little child. Kinchin coes; orphan beggar boys, educated in thieving. Kinchin morts; young girls under the like circumstances and training. Kinchin morts, or coes in slates; beggars' children carried at their mother's backs in sheets. Kinchin cove; a little man. CANT.
kinchin
A child.—Old Cant. From the German diminutive, KINDCHEN, a baby.
kinchin cove
A man who robs children; a little man.—Ancient Cant.
kincob
Uniform, fine clothes, richly embroidered dresses. Really, cloth of gold or silver.—Anglo-Indian.
king john's men
He is one of king John's men, eight score to the hundred: a saying of a little undersized man.
king of the gypsies
The captain, chief, or ringleader of the gang of misrule: in the cant language called also the upright man.
king's bad bargain
One of the king's bad bargains; a malingeror, or soldier who shirks his duty.
king's wood lion
An Ass. Kingswood is famous for the great number of asses kept by the colliers who inhabit that place.
kingdom come
He is gone to kingdom come, he is dead.
king’s pictures
(now, of course, QUEEN’S PICTURES), money.
kip
The skin of a large calf, in the language of the Excise-office.
kiss mine a-se
An offer, as Fielding observes, very frequently made, but never, as he could learn, literally accepted. A kiss mine a-se fellow; a sycophant.
kiss-curl
A small curl twisted on the temple. See BOWCATCHER.
kiss-me-quick
The name given to the very small bonnets which have of late years become fashionable.
kisser
The mouth.—Pugilistic term.
kissing crust
That part where the loaves have touched the oven.
kissing-crust
The soft crust which marks where one loaf has been broken from another.
kit
A dancing-master, so called from his kit or cittern, a small fiddle, which dancing-masters always carry about with them, to play to their scholars. The kit is likewise the whole of a soldier's necessaries, the contents of his knapsack: and is used also to express the whole of different commodities: as, Here, take the whole kit; i.e. take all.
kit
A person’s baggage. Also, a collection of anything, "the whole KIT of ’em," the entire lot. Anglo-Saxon, KYTH.—North.
kit-cat club
A society of gentlemen, eminent for wit and learning, who in the reign of queen Anne and George I. met at a house kept by one Christopher Cat. The portraits of most of the members of this society were painted by Sir Godfrey Kneller, of one size; thence still called the kit-cat size.
kitchen physic
Food, good meat roasted or boiled. A little kitchen physic will set him up; he has more need of a cook than a doctor.
kitmegur
An under-butler, a footman.—Anglo-Indian.
kitna
How much?—Anglo-Indian.
kittle pitchering
A jocular method of hobbling or bothering a troublesome teller of long stories: this is done by contradicting some very immaterial circumstance at the beginning of the narration, the objections to which being settled, others are immediately started to some new particular of like consequence; thus impeding, or rather not suffering him to enter into, the main story. Kittle pitchering is often practised in confederacy, one relieving the other, by which the design is rendered less obvious.
kittys
Effects, furniture; stock in trade. To seize one's kittys; to take his sticks.
knack shop
A toy-shop, a nick-nack-atory.
knacker
An old horse; a horse-slaughterer. Originally Gloucestershire, but now general.
knap
I.q., NAP, to break.—Old English, but nearly obsolete. See Ps. xlvi. 9 (Prayer-book version), "He breaketh the bow, and KNAPPETH the spear in sunder;" probably sibilated into "snap."
knappers poll
A sheep's head. CANT.
knapping-jigger
A turnpike gate; "to dub at the KNAPPING-JIGGER," to pay money at the turnpike.
knark
A hard-hearted or savage person. The word is now usually spelt NARK, and is applied to the lowest class of informers.
knave in grain
A knave of the first rate: a phrase borrowed from the dyehouse, where certain colours are said to be in grain, to denote their superiority, as being dyed with cochineal, called grain. Knave in grain is likewise a pun applied to a cornfactor or miller.
knife
"to KNIFE a person," to stab; an un-English custom, but a very common expression.
knife it
"cut it," cease, stop, don’t proceed.
knife-board
The seat running along the roof of an omnibus.
knight
A common and ironical prefix to a man’s calling—thus, "KNIGHT of the whip," a coachman; "KNIGHT of the thimble," a tailor.
knight of the post
A person who testifies in court for payment
knight of the rainbow
A footman: from the variety of colours in the liveries and trimming of gentlemen of that cloth.
knobstick
A non-society workman. One who takes work under price.
knock
To knock a woman; to have carnal knowledge of her. To knock off; to conclude: phrase borrowed from the blacksmith. To knock under; to submit.
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