crackmans n.
(UK Und.) a hedge.
Martin Mark-all 41: Cragmans is now used for the hedge. [Ibid.] 43: Budg a beak the Crackmans & tip lowr with thy prat. | ||
Gypsies Metamorphosed 4: ’Tis thought fit he marche in the Infants Equipage With the convoy cheates, and peckage out of the clutch of Harman-beckage, to theire Libkens at the Crackmans or some skipper of the Black-mans. | ||
Crabtree Lectures 193: Mort. If you tower any states [sic] lye upon the Cracke, mill them, and budge a beak. | ||
Eng. Villainies (9th edn). | Canters Dict.||
Eng. Rogue I 48: Crackmans, Hedges. | ||
‘A Wenches complaint for . . . her lusty Rogue’ Canting Academy (1674) 17: When the Darkmans have been wet / Thou the Crackmans down did beat / For Glymmar whilst a quacking cheat / Or Tib o’th Buttery was our meat. | ||
Newgate Calendar I (1926) 291: ‘Now,’ saith he, ‘that thou art entered into our fraternity, thou must not scruple to act any villainies which thou shalt be able to perform, whether it be to nip a bung, bite the Peter Cloy, [...] or to cloy a mish from the crack man’s.’. | in||
Dict. Canting Crew. | ||
Triumph of Wit 200: [as cit. a.1674]. | ||
Lives of Most Notorious Highway-men, etc. (1926) 204: Crackmans, hedges. | ||
New Canting Dict. n.p.: crackmans Hedges; as, The Cull thought to have loap’d, by breaking through the Crackmans; but we fetch’d him back by a Nope on the Costard, which made him silent; i.e. The Gentleman thought to escape, by breaking through the Hedges; but we brought him back by a great Blow on the Head, which laid him for Dead. | ||
, , , | Universal Etym. Eng. Dict. [as cit. 1725]. | |
Life and Adventures. | ||
Scoundrel’s Dict. | ||
, , | Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue n.p.: Crackmans, hedges. The cull thought to have loped, by breaking through the crackmans, but we fetched him back by a nope on the costard, which stopped his jaw; the man thought to have escaped by breaking through the hedge, but we brought him back by a great blow on the head, which laid him speechless. | |
Lex. Balatronicum. | ||
Grose’s Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue. | ||
New and Improved Flash Dict. |
In phrases
to collect firewood from a hedge, lit. to ‘break a hedge’.
Dict. Canting Crew n.p.: mill-a-crackmans c. to break a Hedge. | ||
New Canting Dict. [as cit. c.1698]. | ||
, , , | Universal Etym. Eng. Dict. [as cit. c.1698]. |