cart n.1
1. the gallows [the cart that takes the prisoner from prison to the gallows, esp. from Newgate to Tyburn].
![[UK]](/static/img/flags/uk.png "United Kingdom") | Euphues and his England (1916) 129: Is it not become a byword amongst the common people that they had rather send their children to the cart than to the university, being induced to say so for the abuse that reigneth in the universities? | |
| Three Ladies of London II: Now thou art so proud with thy filching and cosening art, But I thinke one day thou wilt not be proude of the Rope and the Cart. | |
| Alchemist I i: I care not — welcome pillory or cart. | |
| Witts Recreations Epigram No. 659: Talk till thy strong lines choak thee; if they fail, Commence at Tyburn in a cart, sweet Poet, And there a strong line will for certain do it. | |
| ‘The Hangman’s Last Will & Testament’ Rump Poems and Songs (1662) II 148: All my delight was in a Jayl, / My estate was got at a Carts tayl. | |
| New Academy of Complements 205: All the black Trades of a Gentleman Thief; / Who though a good Workman, is seldom made free, / Till he rides on a Cart to be nooz’d on a Tree. | |
![[Scot]](/static/img/flags/sco.png "Scotland") | Caledonian Mercury 20 Sept. 3/2: Yesterday [...] six Malefactors were executed at Kennington [...] Joanna Sambo was so hardened, that when Mr Ketch was preparing her for the Cart [...] she impudently damn’d him for a Son of a Bitch. | |
| Kentish Gaz. 16 Nov. 3/3: Come with thy cart, thy Ketch, thy noose. | |
| [ | | Paul Periwinkle 167: I know nothing of your plans, your projects, or your person; and from your conversation and appearance, would as soon go in a cart to Tyburn with a pupil of Jonathan Wild’s, as move a single step in any confederation with yourself]. |
| Passing Eng. of the Victorian Era. |
2. the carapace of a crab [resemblance; orig. Norfolk dial.].
| Dict. of Modern Sl. etc. (2nd edn). |
In phrases
1. in trouble, in difficulties; thus drop/put in the cart, to trick, to deceive.
| Sporting Gaz. (London) 1 Apr. 5/1: In the cart — On the road to execution — in a fair way to become a ‘corpse’. | |
 | New Babylon (London) 24 July 5/2: The ‘officers and gentlemen’ on whom they think to dart, / Are far too clever for the Jews, and ‘put them in the cart’. | |
| Post to Finish II 125: The fat’s in the fire, and we’re all ‘in the cart’. | |
| Psmith in the City (1993) 75: Now where am I? In the cart. | |
| Bulldog Drummond 121: You’d land the girl’s father in the cart, along with the rest of them. | |
![[Ire]](/static/img/flags/ire.png "Ireland") | Ulysses 312: - Who won, Mr Lenehan? says Terry. – Throwaway, says he, at twenty to one. A rank outsider. And the rest nowhere. – And Bass’s mare? says Terry. – Still running, says he. We’re all in a cart. Boylan plunged two quid on my tip Sceptre for himself and a lady friend. | |
| Wide Boys Never Work (1938) 189: I know you’re in the cart, and I’m in too. | |
| Mass-Observation Report on Juvenile Drinking 11: Look at those bloody little bitches over there [...] they take the sailors, asking for trouble, and when they’re left in the cart they wail about it, serves them bloody well right if they’re left to stew in their own juice. | |
![[NZ]](/static/img/flags/nz.png "New Zealand") | ‘The Ringer’ Station Days in Maoriland 104: And the hope we fondly cherished that he’d finish in the cart, / Faded like a moral cert that’s also ran. | |
| Chips with Everything II i: Rouse yourself, Smiler, or you’ll get us all in the cart. | |
| Pagan Game (1969) 150: A man’s always in the cart around here. Never appreciated. | |
| Plender [ebook]‘If you’re in the cart, I’m in the cart’. | |
| Plender [ebook] ‘I don’t want him thinking I was the one to drop him in the cart’. | |
| Big Huey 33: When I returned from court that night I had the feeling I was in the cart. |
2. aware, in the know.
| Referee 1 Apr. 1/1: No one, not even the previously most authoritative – and most in the cart – seems at all astonished at the success of the Knight of Burley [F&H]. |
SE in slang uses
In compounds
1. butter; esp. rancid or second-rate.
| [ | ![[Aus]](/static/img/flags/aus.png "Australia") | Maitland Mercury (NSW) 28 July 7/3: The butter was not even fit for cart grease]. |
| (ref. to 1851) Melbourne Punch 15 Oct. 6/1: We recollect a sort of butter that was slangily termed ‘cart grease’ being sold at the gold fields. | |
| Kiama Indep. (NSW) 18 Nov. 2/4: We should have a wholesome and palatable article to place upon our tables, instead of the cart-grease which the grocers retail at a shilling a pound or more, and which [...] they call ‘the best Wollongong butter’. | |
| Port Augusta Dispatch (SA) 24 Oct. 4/4: Defendant had said their butter was only fit for cart grease. | |
| Ovens and Murray Advertiser (Beechworth, Vic.) 4 Sept. 5/3: They save 50 per cent., altho’ the one sample may be wholesome fresh butter, and the other rancid cart-grease. | |
| Goulburn Eve. Penny Post (NSW) 12 Mar. 2/5: The mildly-cured, hastily put up butter contained in those thousands of kegs [...] is now little better than ‘mildly cured’ cart grease, and quite unsaleable. | |
| Queenslander 26 May 991/2: A few years ago butter that was much above cart grease in appearance and flavour was extremely scarce in the Brisbane market. | |
| Sun. Times (Perth) 26 July 4/7: One of the gang called me 'blokie' and requested me to 'pass the cart-grease'. | |
| Eve. Jrnl (Adelaide) 23 Dec. 2/5: For weeks our menu had been ‘tinned dog,’ ‘'tinned cart grease, yclept butter,’ and jam and bread. | |
| DSUE (1984) 186/1: from ca. 1875. |
2. margarine.
| Victorian Exp. (Geraldton, WA) 24 July 5/5: This would make another pleasant addition to his tea table, the leading features of which so far are counter sweepings, sandy sugar, and cart grease or butterine. | |
| (con. 1930s) Muvver Tongue 21: Cart grease : margarine. | |
| DSUE (8th edn) 186/1: C.20. |
In phrases
(Aus.) to bet heavily and successfully against a bookmaker.
| He Who Shoots Last 79: ‘Is dere a local bookie? [...] ‘Yeah, a joker emptied da cart on him. [...] he won’t settle’. |
to sustain a situation.
| Londinismen (2nd edn). |