to wake a sleeping dog
See LET SLEEPING DOGS LIE, above. Try it on the dog! A jocular phrase used o medicine that is expected to be unpalatable, or of food that is suspected of being not quite fit for human consumption.
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to walk into
To thrash; also, to partake heartily of, as "to walk into an apple tart.
to walk out with
To court, as a preliminary to marriage. In America a strike is called a -walk out.
To walk Spanish
To walk on tiptoe, being lifted and pushed by a moxe powerful person. From the behaviour of the pirates of the Spanish Main towards their captives. Span New. See SPICK.
to walk the chalk
An ordeal used at police stations, in barracks, on board ship, etc., as a test of sobriety. Two parallel lines are chalked on the floor and the delinquent must walk between them without stepping on either.
to walk the hospitals
To attend the hospitals as a medical student. To walk the plank. See PLANK.
to walk the plank
To be put to the supreme test; also, to be about to die Walking the plank was a mode of disposing of prisoners at sea, much in vogue among pirates in the 17th century.
to walk through one's part
To repeat one's part at rehearsal verbally, but without dressing for it or acting it; to do anything appointed you in a listless, indifferent manner.
to wall in the cuckoo
See COURSE. Cuddy, an abbreviation of Cuthbert, is the North Country and Scottish familiar name for a donkey, as elsewhere he is called Neddy or Jack.
to wap
To copulate, to beat. If she wont wap for a winne, let her trine for a make; if she won't lie with a man for a penny, let her hang for a halfpenny. Mort wap-apace; a woman of experience, or very expert at the sport.
to wash a brick
To engage in an utterly unprofitable enterprise; to do useless work. An old Latin proverbial expression (laterem lavem, Terence's Phormio, I, iv, 9).
to wear the barley cap
To be top-heavy or tipsy with barley-bree.
to wear the king's coat
To be a soldier. Turning one's coat for luck. It was an ancient superstition that this was a charm against evil spirits. See TURNCOAT.
to wear the willow
To go into mourning, especially for a sweetheart or bride. The willow, especially the weeping willow, has from time immemorial been associated with sorrow and taken as an emblem of desolation or desertion.
to weed
To take a part. The kiddey weeded the swell's screens; the youth took some of the gentleman's bank notes.
to weep millstones
Not weep at all. Bid Glos'ter think on this, and he will weep — Aye, millstones, as he lessoned us to weep.
to weigh anchor
To haul in the anchor, that the ship may sail away from its mooring. Figuratively, to begin an enterprise which has hung on hand.
to well
To divide unfairly. To conceal part. A cant phrase used by thieves, where one of the party conceals some of the booty, instead of dividing it fairly amongst his confederates.
to whiddle
To tell or discover. He whiddles; he peaches. He whiddles the whole scrap; he discovers all he knows. The cull whiddled because they would not tip him a snack: the fellow peached because they would not give him a share, They whiddle beef, and we must brush; they cry out thieves, and we must make off. Cant.
to whip the cock
A piece of sport practised at wakes, horse-races, and fairs in Leicestershire: a cock being tied or fastened into a hat or basket, half a dozen carters blindfolded, and armed with their cart whips, are placed round it, who, after being turned thrice about, begin to whip the cock, which if any one strikes so as to make it cry out, it becomes his property; the joke is, that instead of whipping the cock they flog each other heartily.
to whistle for it
It was an old superstition among sailors that when a ship was becalmed a wind could be raised by whistling. By a perversion of sense the phrase "You can whistle for it" now means *'You won't get it.
to win
To steal. The cull has won a couple of rum glimsticks; the fellow has stolen a pair of fine candlesticks.
to win by a short head
Only just to out- distance one's competitors, to win with practically nothing to spare. The phrase is from horse-racing.
to win hands down
To be victor without the slightest difficulty. The allusion is to horse- racing; if the jockey wins with his hands down it shows that he has not had to worry himself — he has had a "walk-over.
to win his spurs
To gain the rank of knighthood. When a man was knighted, the person who dubbed him presented him with a pair of gilt spurs.
to wink at
To connive at, or to affect not to notice. He knows not how to wink at human frailty Or pardon weakness that he never felt.
to wipe one's nose
To affront him; to give him a blow on the nose. Similarly, to wipe a person's eye, to steal a march on him, to fetch one a wipe over the knuckles^ to give him a good rap.
to wiredraw
To lengthen out or extend any book, letter, or discourse.
to wish one farther
To prefer his room to his company; to wish him gone.
to wobble
To boil. Pot wobbler; one who boils a pot.
to work a dead horse
To perform work already paid for; to pay off a debt.
to work double tides
To work extra hard, with all one's might.
to work one's ticket
An army expression meaning to get one's discharge before the contract of service has expired.
to work op to the collar
To work tooth and nail; not to shirk the work in hand. A horse that lets his collar lie loose on his neck without bearing on it does not draw the vehicle at all, but leaves another to do the real work.
to work the oracle
To induce another to favour some plan or to join in some project, generally by manoeuvring behind the scenes. Also — in slang — to raise money.
to worm out information
To elicit informa- tion indirectly and piecemeal. To worm oneself into another's favour.
to write oneself out
To exhaust one's powers of literary production.
to yam
To eat or stuff heartily.
to yelp
To cry out. Yelper; a town cryer, also one apt to make great complaints on trifling occasions.
to yowl
To cry aloud, or howl.
to-do
(pronounced quickly, and as one word), a disturbance, trouble; "here’s a pretty TO-DO," here is an unpleasant difficulty. This exactly tallies with the French, AFFAIRE (à faire).—See Forby’s Vocabulary of East Anglia.
to-morrow come never
When two Sundays come together; never.
to-morrow never comes
Because, when it does come it ceases to be to-morrow and be- comes to-day; a reproof to those who defer till to-morrow what should be done to-day.
to-rights
Excellent, very well, or good.—Low London slang.
toad
Toad in a hole; meat baked or boiled in pye-crust. He or she sits like a toad on a chopping-block; a saying of any who sits ill on horseback. As much need of it as a toad of a side-pocket; said of a person who desires any thing for which he has no real occasion. As full of money as a toad is of feathers.
toad eater
A poor female relation, and humble companion, or reduced gentlewoman, in a great family, the standing butt, on whom all kinds of practical jokes are played off, and all ill humours vented. This appellation is derived from a mountebank's servant, on whom all experiments used to be made in public by the doctor, his master; among which was the eating of toads, formerly supposed poisonous.
toad-in-the-hole
A kind of pudding, consisting of small pieces of meat immersed in batter, and baked. Also, a term applied to perambulating advertising mediums. See SANDWICH.
Toads unknown in Ireland
It is said that St. Patrick cleared the island of all vermin by his malediction.
toast
A health; also a beautiful woman whose health is often drank by men. The origin of this term (as it is said) was this: a beautiful lady bathing in a cold bath, one of her admirers out of gallantry drank some of the water: whereupon another of her lovers observed, he never drank in the morning, but he would kiss the toast, and immediately saluted the lady.
toast of the town
A person who is widely admired and talked about
toasted
Very hot.
toasting-fork
A sword.
toasting-fork
A regulation sword, indicative of the general uselessness of that weapon.
tobacco
A plant, once in great estimation as a medicine:
toby
The road. The highwayman or swell robber was in old days said to be on the high TOBY, from the high or main road, while those meaner fellows, the footpad and the cutpurse, were but "low TOBY-MEN," from their frequenting the by-ways.
toby lay
The highway. High toby man; a highway-man. Low toby man; a footpad.
today is the first day of the rest of your life
English proverb; full definition pending editorial review.
today we are all
shows solidarity with a group affected by a tragedy
toddle
To walk away. The cove was touting, but stagging the traps he toddled; be was looking out, and feeing the officers he walked away.
toddle off
To leave or depart.
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