Green’s Dictionary of Slang

daddle n.

also dandle
[dial.]

(UK Und.) the hand; in pl., the fists.

[UK]G. Stevens ‘A Cant Song’ Muses Delight 177: The buznapper’s kenchin my rummer did seize, / I soon right and left daddle tipt him.
[UK] ‘On Newgate Steps Jack Chance was Found’ 🎵 His daddle clean he’d slip between, / In a crowd he’d nap a clout unseen.
[UK]J. Messink Choice of Harlequin I viii: The French, with trotters nimble, could fly from English blows, / And they’ve got nimble daddles, as monsieur plainly shews.
[UK]G. Parker Life’s Painter 133: What, no copper clinking among you, my hearties? What, have you got red-hot heaters in your gropers, that you’re afraid to thrust your daddles in them?
[UK]R. Anderson ‘Nichol the Newsmonger’ Cumberland Ballads (1805) 6: Gi’e us a shek o’ thy daddle.
[UK] ‘A Leary Mot’ in Farmer Musa Pedestris (1896) 78: Mog up with her daddle bang-up to the mark, and she blacked the Bunter’s eye.
[Ire]Spirit of Irish Wit 102: He gives him a dub with his daddle upon de snotter-box and brought de Claret about his mug.
[UK]‘One of the Fancy’ Tom Crib’s Memorial to Congress 13: Having first shaken daddles.
[Ire]‘A Real Paddy’ Real Life in Ireland 92: To see the King’s right daddle fly alternately from his heart to his shamrock in his hat was quite theatrical.
[US]Standard (London) 20 Oct. 1/4: ‘This comes of living so long with kilts and bonnets — men forget the use of their daddles’.
[UK]‘The City Youth’ in Out-and-Outer in Spedding & Watt (eds) Bawdy Songbooks (2011) IV 139: His nob is never idle, or his daddles ever slack.
[Ire] ‘Night Before Larry Was Stretched’ in Dublin Comic Songster 186: Oh! by the holy, you thief, / I’ll scuttle your nob with my daddle.
[US]Whip & Satirist of NY & Brooklyn (NY) 2 Apr. n.p.: With daddles raised high upraised and nob held back.
[Aus]Bell’s Life in Sydney 27 Sept. 3/1: He deliberately walked from his comer, and tipping his dexter mawley into the daddle of his adversary, declared himself incompetent at present to compete further.
[UK]J. Lindridge Sixteen-String Jack 338: Suppose I inform him Mr. John Rann [...] is in private, anxiously anticipating the pleasure of shaking his daddle.
[US]N.Y. Clipper 18 Mar. 3/4: On shaking daddlesmuch manoeuvring was displayed for the first snorter, otherwise, a lick over the beak.
[UK]A. Mayhew Paved with Gold 325: He took her small hand [and] called it ‘an ugly little paw,’ ‘a stupid, useless little daddle’.
[UK]Story of a Lancashire Thief 8: ‘I’ll have a sight of Lucky! Will you go?’ ‘Here’s my daddle on it,’ says I.
[UK]Hotten Sl. Dict.
[UK]London Dly News 20 Mar. 5/5: That gentleman is Professor Jones, the cleverest man with his daddles that ever stood in the ropes.
[UK]Bristol Mercury 16 Jan. 7/4: The ‘old un’ had taught him to ‘handle the daddles,’ as he put it.
[UK](con. 1835–40) P. Herring Bold Bendigo 155: We could do little or no damage to him with stuffed daddles.

In phrases

dummy daddle dodge (n.)

(UK Und.) a specialised form of pickpocketing on public transport, usu. by women, in which she uses a fake hand to appear clasped in her lap with a real one, while her other real hand passes through a slit in her coat to pick a neighbour’s pocket.

North-Eastern Dly Gaz. 13 Sept. 3/3: Asked what he thought of the ‘dummy daddle’ dodge [he] said he rather thought ‘A woman [...] can work with a “dummy daddle” in an omnibus or railway carriage much better than a man [...] because she can wear [a] loose shawl or cloak as concealment for her real hand.
tip someone the daddle (v.)

to hit with the fist.

[UK]‘Nocturnal Sports’ in Universal Songster II 180/1: Tips him the daddle-fives, right an’ left at once.
tip us your daddle (also tip us your dad)

a request that someone shake hands.

[Ire]C. Shadwell Fair Quaker of Deal (rev.) II i: Oh, Jack Hatchway, have I found you; tip us your daddle.
[UK]Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.
[UK]G. Colman Yngr Heir at Law I ii: Tip us your daddle, Zekiel.
[UK]J. Poole Hamlet Travestie III ii: Tip us your daddle.
[Scot]Life and Trial of James Mackcoull 85: Ha! little one, tip us your daddle, we’ve done the job, and cleanly too – all’s bob!
[UK]R. Morley ‘Flashey Joe’ in Farmer Musa Pedestris (1896) 97: ‘Vhy, then,’ says she, ‘come tip’s your dad, / And let us take a drap of gin.’.
[Aus]Currency Lad (Sydney) 3 Nov. 4/2: Tip us your daddle.
[UK](con. 1737–9) W.H. Ainsworth Rookwood (1857) 135: Tip us your daddle, Sir Luke.
[UK]W.N. Glascock Land Sharks and Sea Gulls II 110: I never lushes with no one, till I first shakes him by the fist. Come, tip us yer daddle.
[UK]R.B. Peake Devil in London I iii: Ah, Mr. ---, how are you? Tip us your daddle!
[Aus]Satirist & Sporting Chron. (Sydney) 18 Mar. 1/1: Bill and his Pall have fluked out the ready, tipped us their daddles, lushed a pot of heavy wet, and proclaimed peace.
[UK]C. Kingsley Alton Locke (1850) 456: Tip us your daddle, my boy.
[US] ‘Scene in a London Flash-Panny’ Matsell Vocabulum 98: Why, Bell, is it yourself? Tip us your daddle, my bene mort.
[UK]Hotten Sl. Dict.
[UK]Sl. Dict.
[US]Trumble ‘On the Trail’ in Sl. Dict. (1890) 42: Why, Bell, is it yourself? Tip us your daddle, my bene mort.
[Aus]Crowe Aus. Sl. Dict. 86: ‘[T]ip me your daddle,’ shake hands.
[US]Sun (NY) 10 July 29/4: Here is a genuine letter written in thieves’ slang, recently found by the English police [...] She said, ‘Is that you, my bear cove?’ ‘Tip us your daddle’.