1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue. Francis Grose
in part of commutation for a bastard child the common price was formerly ten pounds and a greasy chin. See GREASY CHIN.
CHIMNEY CHOPS. An abusive appellation for a negro.
CHINK. Money.
CHIP. A child. A chip of the old block; a child who either in person or sentiments resembles its father or mother.
CHIP. A brother chip; a person of the same trade or calling.
CHIPS, A nick name for a carpenter.
CHIRPING MERRY. Exhilarated with liquor. Chirping glass, a cheerful glass, that makes the company chirp like birds in spring.
CHIT. An infant or baby.
CHITTERLINS. The bowels. There is a rumpus among my bowels, i.e. I have the colic. The frill of a shirt.
CHITTY-FACED. Baby-faced; said of one who has a childish look.
CHIVE, or CHIFF. A knife, file: or saw. To chive the darbies; to file off the irons or fetters. To chive the bouhgs of the frows; to cut off women's pockets.
CHIVEY. I gave him a good chivey; I gave him, a hearty Scolding.
CHIVING LAY. Cutting the braces of coaches behind, on which the coachman quitting the box, an accomplice robs the boot; also, formerly, cutting the back of the coach to steal the fine large wigs then worn.
CHOAK. Choak away, the churchyard's near; a jocular saying to a person taken with a violent fit of coughing, or who has swallowed any thing, as it is called the wrong way; Choak, chicken, more are hatching: a like consolation.
CHOAK PEAR. Figuratively, an unanswerable objection: also a machine formerly used in Holland by robbers; it was of iron, shaped like a pear; this they forced into the mouths of persons from whom they intended to extort money; and on turning a key, certain interior springs thrust forth a number of points, in all directions, which so enlarged it, that it could not be taken out of the mouth: and the iron, being case-hardened, could not be filed: the only methods of getting rid of it, were either by cutting the mouth, or advertizing a reward for the key, These pears were also called pears of agony.
CHOAKING PYE, or COLD PYE, A punishment inflicted on any person sleeping in company: it consists in wrapping up cotton in a case or tube of paper, setting it on fire, and directing the smoke up the nostrils of the sleeper. See HOWELL'S COTGRAVE.
CHOCOLATE. To give chocolate without sugar; to reprove. MILITARY TERM.
CHOICE SPIRIT. A thoughtless, laughing, singing, drunken fellow.
CHOP. A blow. Boxing term.
TO CHOP AND CHANGE. To exchange backwards and forwards. To chop, in the canting sense, means making dispatch, or hurrying over any business: ex. The AUTEM BAWLER will soon quit the HUMS, for he CHOPS UP the WHINERS; the parson will soon quit the pulpit, for he hurries over the prayers. See AUTEM BAWLER, HUMS, and WHINERS.
CHOP CHURCHES. Simoniacal dealers in livings, or other ecclesiastical preferments.
CHOPPING, LUSTY. A chopping boy or girl; a lusty child.
CHOPS. The mouth. I gave him a wherrit, or a souse, across the chops; I gave him a blow over the mouth, See WHERRIT.
CHOP-STICK. A fork.
CHOUDER. A sea-dish, composed of fresh fish, salt pork, herbs, and sea-biscuits, laid in different layers, and stewed together.
TO CHOUSE. To cheat or trick: he choused me out of it. Chouse is also the term for a game like chuck-farthing.
CHRIST-CROSS ROW. The alphabet in a horn-book: called Christ-cross Row, from having, as an Irishman observed, Christ's cross PREFIXED before and AFTER the twenty-four letters.
CHRISTENING. Erasing the name of the true maker from a stolen watch, and engraving a fictitious one in its place.
CHRISTIAN PONEY. A chairman.
CHRISTIAN. A tradesman who has faith, i.e. will give credit.
CHRISTMAS COMPLIMENTS. A cough, kibed heels, and a snotty nose.
CHUB. He is a young chub, or a mere chub; i.e. a foolish fellow, easily imposed on: an illusion to a fish of that name, easily taken.
CHUBBY. Round-faced, plump.
CHUCK. My chuck; a term of endearment.
CHUCK FARTHING. A parish clerk.
CHUCKLE-HEADED. Stupid, thick-headed.
CHUFFY. Round-faced, chubby.
CHUM. A chamber-fellow, particularly at the universities and in prison.
CHUMMAGE. Money paid by the richer sort of prisoners in the Fleet and King's Bench, to the poorer, for their share of a room. When prisons are very full, which is too often the case, particularly on the eve of an insolvent act, two or three persons are obliged to sleep in a room. A prisoner who can pay for being alone, chuses two poor chums, who for a stipulated price, called chummage, give up their share of the room, and sleep on the stairs, or, as the term is, ruff it.
CHUNK. Among printers, a journeyman who refuses to work for legal wages; the same as the flint among taylors. See FLINT.
CHURCH WARDEN. A Sussex name for a shag, or cormorant, probably from its voracity.
CHURCH WORK. Said of any work that advances slowly.
CHURCHYARD COUGH. A cough that is likely to terminate in death.
CHURK. The udder.
CHURL. Originally, a labourer or husbandman: figuratively a rude, surly, boorish fellow. To put a churl upon a gentleman; to drink malt liquor immediately after having drunk wine.
CINDER GARBLER. A servant maid, from her business of sifting the ashes from the cinders. CUSTOM-HOUSE WIT.
CIRCUMBENDIBUS. A roundabout way, or story. He took such a circumbendibus; he took such a circuit.
CIT. A citizen of London.
CITY COLLEGE. Newgate.
CIVILITY MONEY. A reward claimed by bailiffs for executing their office with civility.
CIVIL RECEPTION. A house of civil reception; a bawdy-house, or nanny-house. See NANNY-HOUSE.
CLACK. A tongue, chiefly applied to women; a simile drawn from the clack of a water-mill.
CLACK-LOFT. A pulpit, so called by orator Henley.
CLAMMED. Starved.
CLAN. A family's tribe or brotherhood; a word much used in Scotland. The head of the clan; the chief: an allusion to a story of a Scotchman, who, when a very large louse crept down his arm, put him back again, saying he was the head of the clan, and that, if injured, all the rest would resent it.
CLANK. A silver tankard. CANT.
CLANK NAPPER. A silver tankard stealer. See RUM BUBBER.
CLANKER. A great lie.
CLAP. A venereal taint. He went out by Had'em, and came round by Clapham home; i.e. he went out a wenching, and got a clap.
CLAP ON THE SHOULDER. An arrest for debt; whence a bum bailiff is called a shoulder-clapper.
CLAPPER. The tongue of a bell, and figuratively of a man or woman.
CLAPPER CLAW. To scold, to abuse, or claw off with the tongue.
CLAPPERDOGEON. A beggar born. CANT.
CLARET. French red wine; figuratively, blood. I tapped his claret; I broke his head, and made the blood run. Claret-faced; red-faced.
CLAWED OFF. Severely beaten or whipped; also smartly poxed or clapped.
CLEAR. Very drunk. The cull is clear, let's bite him; the fellow is very drunk, let's cheat him. CANT.
CLEAVER. One that will cleave; used of a forward or wanton woman.
CLEAN. Expert; clever. Amongst the knuckling coves he is reckoned very clean; he is considered very expert as a pickpocket.
CLERKED. Soothed, funned, imposed on. The cull will not be clerked; i.e. the fellow will not be imposed on by fair words.
CLEYMES.