Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. a prostitute’s customer.

1653		Mercurius Democritus 9 Nov. 644: The old Lecherous Culle, perceiving himself smoak’d by the Whiddling Drawer, [...] removed his brace of Mobbs to fresh Quarters.
1654		Mercurius Fumigosus 6 5 July 48: Where she soon venter’d on her prey, / And worm’d her Cull at Billyeard play.
1663		Wandring-Whores Complaint title: A full discovery of the whole Trade of [...] Bawds, Whores, Fyles, Culls, Mobs, Budges, Shop-lifts, Glasiers, Mills, Bulkers, [...] and all other Artists, who are, and have been, Students of Whittington Colledge.
1687		C. Sedley Bellamira IV ii: He is the Top Cully of the Town.
1705–07		N. Ward Hudibras Redivivus II:3 8: Cooks winding up their rattling Jacks, / Preparing Food for Culls and Cracks.
1718		C. Hitchin Conduct of Receivers and Thief-Takers 6: He had Impudence and Courage enough, to attack the Cull, until the Buttock had made her escape.
1728		J. Dalton Narrative of Street-Robberies 45: She being overjoy’d at the Booty she thought she had made of her Cull.
1732		Ladies Delight 28: The Dunghill Trapes, trickt up like virtuous Trull, / If by good Chance, she gets a Dupe or Cull.
1744		Machine 11: That queer Practice, by the Cull call’d Barking, / Rather than deal in such unnatural Ways / I’d risk the Pox and naked swive Nan Hayes.
1754		G. Stevens ‘A Cant Song’ Muses Delight 177: We fil’d the rum codger and plumpt the queer cull, / And away we went to the ken boozie.
c.1758		J. F---g Epistle of a Reformed Rake 10: Do not Ladies of Pleasure frequently excite their Culls, when Finances fail, to take an airing (solus) upon Hounslow-Heath?
1768		Gentleman’s Bottle-Companion 55: Has she a better C--- than I, / Of nut-brown hairs more full? / That all mankind with her do lye, / While I have scarce a Cull.
1773		Harris’s List of Covent-Garden Ladies 143: She places this debilitated cull, among the best of her customers.
1781		Belle’s Stratagem 14: Married! — the girl’s ruin’d for ever, she she attempts to be an honest woman — all her culls will withdraw their allegiance.
1788		Morris et al. ‘Collin’s Seven Ages’ Festival of Anacreon (1810) 78: Bawd and trull, pimp and cull, / At his nod, go to quod!
1790		‘The Bowman Prigg’s Farewell’ in Wardroper (1995) 283: Now the bitch pads it in jail / And laughs at the culls she has bit, sir.
1797		M. Leeson Memoirs (1995) III 148: He [...] picked up culls and would have turned bully for us, had he spirit enough.
c.1800		‘Song No. 3’ Papers of Francis Place (1819) n.p.: Come Blowen its past four o Clock [...] And if with a cull you chance to meet / Maul him down to Catherine Street.
1824		‘Sonnets for the Fancy’ Egan Boxiana III 621: A link-boy once, Dick Hellfinch stood the grin, / [...] / ‘Here light, here light! your honours for a win,’ / To every cull and drab he loudly cried.
1833		‘The Blowing In Quod’ Swell!!! or, Slap-Up Chaunter 39: When I was but green on the town, / At fifteen or sixteen years old, / Oh, then I had plenty of culls.

2. a dupe, a silly fellow, a simpleton, a fool.

1648		Dekker Canters Dict. n.p.: Culle A simple fellow.
1654		Mercurius Fumigosus 29 13–20 Dec. 232: A Cloak rescued from the Gallows, and given to a Rum Cull that stood by.
1665		Head Eng. Rogue I 48: Culle A Sap-headed Fellow.
1671		‘L.B.’ New Academy of Complements 204: The twelfth a Trapan, if a Cull he doth meet, / He naps all his Cole, and turns him i’th street.
c.1698		B.E. Dict. Canting Crew n.p.: cull, cully a Man, a Fop, a Rogue, a Fool or silly Creature that is easily drawn in and Cheated by Whores or Rogues.
1718		C. Hitchin Conduct of Receivers and Thief-Takers 11: You will have ten Pounds, and I shall have six Pounds, and the Cull, alias the Fool, will have four Pounds.
1728		Defoe Street Robberies Considered 31: Cull, a Silly Fellow.
1733		Cibber Harlot’s Progress 10: Then take yourself away, / Since I have chous’d you well, you Cull.
1749		Fielding Tom Jones (1959) 223: Thinks I to myself. I’ll nick you there, old cull; the devil a smack of your nonsense shall you ever get into me.
1756		J. Cox Narrative of Thief-takers, alias Thief-makers 66: Somebody called out, hey Jack, where are you going? And the boy Swannick, the Prisoner, replied, that he was going to the Start for nimming a Cull.
1768		(con. 1710–25) Tyburn Chronicle II in Groom (1999) xxvi: A Cove, or Cull A Man – Cull is likewise frequently used to signify a Fool.
1771		R. King New London Spy 27: ‘Why, if you must know, curious cull’ [etc].
1790		J. Freeth ‘A Strolling Ballad Singer’s Ramble to London’ Political Songster 7: At Dunstable ... pick’d up a Cull, / With whom we beat a parley.
1818		W. Scott Heart of Mid-Lothian (1883) 308: If the b--- queers the noose, that silly cull will marry her.
1822		Life and Trial of James Mackcoull 299: The sacrifice which I behoved to make to this seedy cull to shirk the roundbottom, would have gone her way, and done her a good thing.
c.1830		‘Unfortunate Billy’ in Holloway & Black I (1975) 268: They nurs’d the cull, and bon’d his chink.
1906		A. McCormick Tinkler-Gypsies of Galloway 202: Makin’ a cull o’ yer nesis (a fool of you) for mangan (talking) to us.
1929		S. Ornitz Haunch Paunch and Jowl 142: Youse seen what happened to dat spieler, well, culls, look out dat don’t happen to youse.
1935		A.J. Pollock Und. Speaks 28/1: Cull, an argumentative person of low mentality.
1962		S. Longstreet Flesh Peddlers (1964) 182: But failure – not to get the girl [...] have a low car-plate number, a good table up front – and you’re a nobody, a cull.
2019		P. Baker Fabulosa 291/1: cull [...] 2. fool.

3. a constable.

1834

(con. 1737–9) W.H. Ainsworth Rookwood (1857) 61: He was collared by two constable culls.

4. a man, a fellow, a chap.

1724		implied in coffing cull n. (1)
1725		‘When My Dimber Dell I Courted’ in Farmer Musa Pedestris (1896) 49: There was a time no cull could toute her.
1743		Fielding Life of Jonathan Wild (1784) IV 258: If the old cull of a justice had not sent me hither.
1753		J. Poulter Discoveries (1774) 5: He answered on the Scamp, and the Cull does not come above seven Scratches off.
1760		C. Johnston Chrysal ii 17: Your secret, grave, old, rich, culls, just fit to do business with [F&H].
1789		G. Parker Life’s Painter 136: Let each cull’s and doxy’s heart / Be lighter than a feather.
1796		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue (3rd edn).
1808		B. Bradshaw Hist. of Billy Bradshaw 10: A link-boy first I stood the grin, / At Charing-cross I plied, / ‘Come light your honour for a win,’ / To ev’ry cull I cried.
1819		‘One of the Fancy’ Tom Crib’s Memorial to Congress 18: But the cull broke away.
1824		W. Scott St Ronan’s Well III 102: He is a queer auld cull.
1828		Lytton Pelham III 295: Zounds, Bess [...] what cull’s this? Is this a bowsing ken for every cove to shove his trunk in?
1834		(con. 1737–9) W.H. Ainsworth Rookwood (1857) 258: Each cull completely in the dark, / Of vot might be his neighbour’s mark.
1842		Egan ‘The Bould Yeoman’ in Farmer Musa Pedestris (1896) 136: On the road he cut a dash, to him ’twas delight! / And if culls would not surrender, he shewed the kiddies fight!
1859		‘Scene in a London Flash-Panny’ Matsell Vocabulum 98: Well, Bell, here’s the bingo — sluice your gob! But who was the cull that peached?
1860		Hotten Dict. of Modern Sl. etc.
1881		Trumble Sl. Dict. [as cit. 1859].
1886		Stephens & Yardley Little Jack Sheppard 50: 🎵 A little bit of Whitechapel – ‘What cheer, cull? Blow me tight!’.
1893		P.H. Emerson Signor Lippo 11: ‘Well, culls, have a tiddley?,’ they said, going off to a pub.
1905		Sporting Times 15 Apr. 2/3: H’yer, cull, which side for Bond Street?
1908		Salt Lake Herald 24 May 29/4: A beetle-browed footpad crept softly behind him [and] said gently ‘Say, cull, wot’s de score?’.
1930		R. McAlmon ‘Blithe Insecurities’ in Knoll McAlmon and the Lost Generation (1976) 48: Say cull, slip me a jit, can’t juh.
1939		Howsley Argot: Dict. of Und. Sl.
2019		P. Baker Fabulosa 291/1: cull 1. mate.

5. (also cul) a direct term of address, usu. amicable [var. on similar use of SE friend].

1870		London & Provincial Entr’acte 15 Oct. 3/1: They looked upon me as a pal, / And ’gan to call me ‘cull’.
1881		Daily L.A. Herald 13 Aug. 2/3: Cull, you should have seen the frost his jags struck when he went on [i.e. on stage].
1892		Sun (NY) sec. B 11 Sept. 12/1: Well-known men tramps go up to equally celebrated women tramps [and] ask: ‘Cull, have you got a bloke?’.
1904		C. Connors Bowery Life [ebook] Between you an’ me dere's strong arm guys in odder places dan de Bowery, only dey work diffrunt. Stow dis in yer nut, cull, an’ t'ink it over.
1914		H. Hershfield Abie the Agent 31 Mar. [synd. cartoon strip] Nix on that stuff, cul.
1984		Partridge DSUE (8th edn) 277/2: mid-C.19–20.