Covent Garden, adj. — Green’s Dictionary of Slang

Covent Garden adj.

pertaining to sexual excess; usu. in combs. below.

1675		T. Duffet Psyche Debauch’d I 19: No Covent-Garden Tricks are practis’d here.
1675		F. Fane Love in the Dark Epilogue: They cry, Pox o’ these Covent Garden Men, Dam ’em, not one of them, but keeps out Ten. Were they once gone, we for those thundering Blades, Should have an Audience of substantial Trades.
1712		C. Johnson Successful Pyrate n.p.: A Covent-Garden Madona.
[1719		in D’Urfey Pills to Purge Melancholy V 275: Baudy Covent-Garden, That filthy place, where ne’er a Wench was ever worth a Farthing].

In compounds

Covent Garden abbess (n.) [abbess n.]

a procuress.

1785, 1788, 1796		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue .
1811		Lex. Balatronicum.
1823		Egan Grose’s Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.

Covent Garden ague (n.)

venereal disease, esp. gonorrhoea.

1678		J. Ray Proverbs (2nd edn) 88: He hath got a Kentish ague [...] The Covent-garden ague. The Barnwell ague.
1785, 1788, 1796		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue n.p.: Covent Garden ague The venereal disease.
1811		Lex. Balatronicum.
1823		Egan Grose’s Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.

Covent Garden gout (n.) (also common garden gout) [Williams notes 17C use of unqualified gout to mean venereal disease, ‘partly through confusion of symptoms, partly as euphemism’]

venereal disease.

1683		London Jilt pt 1 21: My Mother [...] wished a thousand times rather to have had the Covent-Garden Gout: for she fancied she should be sooner freed from it than these villainous Swellings [i.e. ssmallpox] .
1696		Motteux (trans.) Gargantua and Pantagruel (1927) II Bk V 586: Had it been the rankest Roan-Ague (Anglice, the Covent-garden Gout) it was all one with him.
c.1698		B.E. Dict. Canting Crew n.p.: Common garden-gout, or rather Covent-garden, the Pox.
1700		‘The Country-man’s Delight’ in Playford Pills to Purge Melancholy II 125: We fear no Covent-Garden Gout, / nor Pickadilly Cramp.
1719		in D’Urfey Pills to Purge Melancholy IV 125: We fear no Covent-Garden Gout, / Nor Pickadilly Cramp: / From Scurvy we / Are always free.
1725		Bailey (trans.) Erasmus’ Colloquies 574: When young men by whoring, as it commonly falls out, get the pox, which, by the way of extenuation, they call the Common Garden-gout.
1734		S. Richardson Apprenrtices’ Vade Mecum n.p.: The Hundreds of Drury, the Covent-Garden Gout, are common Observations, in every one’s Mouth, upon the Iniquities of those Places.
1737, 1759, 1760, 1776		Bailey Universal Etym. Eng. Dict. [as cit. c.1698].
1741		J. Douglas Short Dissertation on Gout 19: This patien had both Gouts, viz. the Covent-Garden Gout, and the Joint-Gout.

Covent Garden nun (n.) (also Covent Garden lady) [nun n./SE lady]

a prostitute.

1642		St Hilary’s Tears in Harleian Misc. V (1810) 156: The Covent-Garden Lady of Iniquity.
1785, 1788, 1796		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue n.p.: Covent Garden nun a prostitute.
1811		Lex. Balatronicum.
1823		‘Jon Bee’ Dict. of the Turf, the Ring, the Chase, etc. 57: Covent Garden ladies — Those who frequent the upper boxes or invest the saloon, and show off under the Piazza, were so denominated, and a descriptive list of them published annually, by one Harris.
1999		Roger’s Profanisaurus 3 in Viz 98 Oct. 9: Covent Garden nun n. A fuckstress; a Fulham virgin. A prostitute.