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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.
To inform against one’s companions, to tell tales. "To SPLIT with a person," to cease acquaintanceship; to quarrel. Also to divide a bottle of aërated water; as, "two brandies and a soda SPLIT;" in which case "to SPLIT with" a person has a very different meaning from that just given.
The sign of the spread eagle, which being represented with two heads on one neck, gives it somewhat the appearance of being split.
The nick-name for a smith.
to separate or divide into parts
A lout, an awkward countryman.
A bustling busybody is said to be SPOFFY.
A parson who preaches long sermons, keeping his congregation in church till the puddings are overdone.
"to throw up the SPONGE," to submit, to give over the struggle,—from the practice of throwing up the SPONGE used to cleanse a combatant’s face at a prize-fight, as a signal that the side on which that particular SPONGE has been used has had enough—that the SPONGE is no longer required.
Synonymous with SPOONEY. A SPOON has been defined to be "a thing that touches a lady’s lips without kissing them."
(WHIP) Thin, haggard, like the shank of a spoon; also delicate, craving for something, longing for sweets. Avaricious. That tit is damned spooney. She's a spooney piece of goods. He's a spooney old fellow.
A weak-minded and foolish person, effeminate or fond; "to be SPOONEY on a girl," to be foolishly attached to one.
The condition of two persons who SPOON on each other, who are deeply in love. "I see, it’s a case of SPOONS with them," is a common phrase when lovers are mentioned.
To exhibit, to wear, &c.,—a word which is made to do duty in a variety of senses, especially at the Universities.—See the Gradus ad Cantabrigiam. "To SPORT a new tile;" "to SPORT an Ægrotat" (i.e., a permission from the Dons to abstain from lectures, &c., on account of illness); "to SPORT one’s oak," to shut the outer door and exclude the public,—especially duns and boring acquaintances. Common also in the Inns of Court. See Notes and Queries, 2nd series, vol. viii. p.
To mark, to recognise. Originally an Americanism, but now general. "I SPOTTED him (or it) at once."
To be known or marked by the police.
"up the SPOUT," at the pawnbroker’s; SPOUTING, pawning. See POP for origin.
Theatrical declamation.
A meeting of apprentices and mechanics to rehearse different characters in plays: thus forming recruits for the strolling companies.
Butter. Term with workmen and schoolboys. See SCRAPE.
A soldier tied to the halberts in order to be whipped; his attitude bearing some likeness to that figure, as painted on signs.
A frolic. Fun. A drinking bout. A party of pleasure.
A boisterous piece of merriment; "going on the SPREE," starting out with intent to have a frolic. French, ESPRIT. In the Dutch language, SPREEUW is a jester.
Newgate, or any other gaol: IRISH.
A tailor who sells low-priced ready-made clothing, and gives starvation wages to the poor men and women who "make up" for him. The clothes are said to be SPRUNG-UP, or "blown together."
A short-distance race, ran at the topmost speed throughout. SPRINT is in the North synonymous with SPURT, and hence the name.
Inebriated sufficiently to become boisterous.
Active, strong, manly. Much used in America, but originally English.
A seller of bad potatoes. In lower life, a SPUD is a raw potato; and roasted SPUDS are those cooked in the cinders with their skins on.
When a man has failed in his examination at Woolwich, he is said to be SPUN; as at the Universities he is said to be "plucked" or "ploughed."
A thirsty fellow, a great drinker. To spunge; to eat and drink at another's cost. Spunging-house: a bailiff's lock-up-house, or repository, to which persons arrested are taken, till they find bail, or have spent all their money: a house where every species of fraud and extortion is practised under the protection of the law.
A mean, paltry fellow, sometimes called a SPUNGER.
The sheriff’s officer’s house, where prisoners, when arrested for debt, used to be taken. As extortionate charges were made there for accommodation, the name was far from inappropriate.
Rotten touchwood, or a kind of fungus prepared for tinder; figuratively, spirit, courage.
Spirit, fire, courage, mettle, good humour.
A lucifer-match seller.
Lucifer-matches.—Herefordshire; Scotland. SPUNK, says Urry, in his MS. notes to Ray, "is the excrescency of some tree, of which they make a sort of tinder to light their pipes with."
A fat man or woman: from their likeness to a well-stuffed couch, called also a squab. A new-hatched chicken.
Flat, short and thick. From SQUAB, a sofa.
Honest, not roguish. A square cove, i.e. a man who does not steal, or get his living by dishonest means.
Honest; "on the SQUARE," i.e., fair and strictly honest; "to turn SQUARE," to reform, and get one’s living in an honest manner,—the opposite of "cross." The expression is, in all probability, derived from the well-known masonic emblem the SQUARE, the symbol of evenness and rectitude.
An honest man, as distinguished from "cross cove."
An honest woman, one who does not "batter."
An old man: square toed shoes were anciently worn in common, and long retained by old men.
Giving a policeman, or any official, money for an immoral or unlawful purpose. The term HIS NIBS has no reference to any functionary, as the words mean simply "him," and may be applied to any one.
A cobbler’s lapstone.
To crush; "to go SQUASH," to collapse.
A narrow escape, a chance: he had a squeak for his life. To squeak; to confess, peach, or turn stag. They squeak beef upon us; they cry out thieves after us. CANT.
An escape. Generally used with regard to the avoidance of casualties. Among thieves, too, a prisoner acquitted after a hard trial is said to have had "a narrow SQUEAK for it."
To inform against, to peach.
A bar-boy; also a bastard or any other child. To stifle the squeaker; to murder a bastard, or throw It into the necessary house.--Organ pipes are likewise called squeakers. The squeakers are meltable; the small pipes are silver. CANT.
To inform, to peach. A North country variation of squeak; SQUEALER, an informer, also an illegitimate baby.
Silk; also, by a very significant figure, a thief’s term for the neck.
A sour-looking, shrivelled, diminutive fellow.
A good-natured foolish fellow, ready to become security for another, under hand and seal.
A fall. Formerly a bailiff caught in a barrack-yard in Ireland, was liable by custom to have three tosses in a blanket, and a squelch; the squelch was given by letting go the corners of the blanket, and suffering him to fall to the ground. Squelch-gutted; fat, having a prominent belly.
A small satirical or political temporary jeu d'esprit, which, like the firework of that denomination, sparkles, bounces, stinks, and vanishes.
A jeu d’esprit, which, like the firework of that denomination, sparkles, bounces, stinks, and vanishes.—Grose. Generally used in reference to political and electioneering attacks of a smart kind, which sting for a moment and are then forgotten.
Slightly inebriated.
Said of one given to squinting.—Shakspeare.
A squinting man or woman; said to be born in the middle of the week, and looking both ways for Sunday; or born in a hackney coach, and looking out of both windows; fit for a cook, one eye in the pot, and the other up the chimney; looking nine ways at once.