daddle, n. — Green’s Dictionary of Slang

daddle n.

also dandle

[dial.]

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

1754		G. Stevens ‘A Cant Song’ Muses Delight 177: The buznapper’s kenchin my rummer did seize, / I soon right and left daddle tipt him.
c.1780		‘On Newgate Steps Jack Chance was Found’ 🎵 His daddle clean he’d slip between, / In a crowd he’d nap a clout unseen.
1781–2		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.
1789		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?
1802		R. Anderson ‘Nichol the Newsmonger’ Cumberland Ballads (1805) 6: Gi’e us a shek o’ thy daddle.
c.1811		‘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.
1812		Spirit of Irish Wit 102: He gives him a dub with his daddle upon de snotter-box and brought de Claret about his mug.
1819		‘One of the Fancy’ Tom Crib’s Memorial to Congress 13: Having first shaken daddles.
1821		‘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.
1827		Standard (London) 20 Oct. 1/4: ‘This comes of living so long with kilts and bonnets — men forget the use of their daddles’.
1833		‘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.
1841		‘Night Before Larry Was Stretched’ in Dublin Comic Songster 186: Oh! by the holy, you thief, / I’ll scuttle your nob with my daddle.
1842		Whip & Satirist of NY & Brooklyn (NY) 2 Apr. n.p.: With daddles raised high upraised and nob held back.
1845		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.
1845		J. Lindridge Sixteen-String Jack 338: Suppose I inform him Mr. John Rann [...] is in private, anxiously anticipating the pleasure of shaking his daddle.
1854		N.Y. Clipper 18 Mar. 3/4: On shaking daddlesmuch manoeuvring was displayed for the first snorter, otherwise, a lick over the beak.
1858		A. Mayhew Paved with Gold 325: He took her small hand [and] called it ‘an ugly little paw,’ ‘a stupid, useless little daddle’.
1863		Story of a Lancashire Thief 8: ‘I’ll have a sight of Lucky! Will you go?’ ‘Here’s my daddle on it,’ says I.
1864, 1867, 1870		Hotten Sl. Dict.
1872		London Dly News 20 Mar. 5/5: That gentleman is Professor Jones, the cleverest man with his daddles that ever stood in the ropes.
1885		Bristol Mercury 16 Jan. 7/4: The ‘old un’ had taught him to ‘handle the daddles,’ as he put it.
1927		(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.

1884

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.

sling a daddle (v.)

see under sling v.

tip someone the daddle (v.)

to hit with the fist.

1826

‘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.

1773		C. Shadwell Fair Quaker of Deal (rev.) II i: Oh, Jack Hatchway, have I found you; tip us your daddle.
1785, 1788, 1796		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.
1800		G. Colman Yngr Heir at Law I ii: Tip us your daddle, Zekiel.
1811		J. Poole Hamlet Travestie III ii: Tip us your daddle.
1822		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!
1826		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.’.
1832		Currency Lad (Sydney) 3 Nov. 4/2: Tip us your daddle.
1834		(con. 1737–9) W.H. Ainsworth Rookwood (1857) 135: Tip us your daddle, Sir Luke.
1838		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.
1840		R.B. Peake Devil in London I iii: Ah, Mr. ---, how are you? Tip us your daddle!
1843		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.
1849		C. Kingsley Alton Locke (1850) 456: Tip us your daddle, my boy.
1859		‘Scene in a London Flash-Panny’ Matsell Vocabulum 98: Why, Bell, is it yourself? Tip us your daddle, my bene mort.
1864, 1867, 1870		Hotten Sl. Dict.
1873		Sl. Dict.
1881		Trumble ‘On the Trail’ in Sl. Dict. (1890) 42: Why, Bell, is it yourself? Tip us your daddle, my bene mort.
1895		Crowe Aus. Sl. Dict. 86: ‘[T]ip me your daddle,’ shake hands.
1904		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’.