Green’s Dictionary of Slang

see hedge-tavern

1. a general derog. term esp. for a tramp or vagrant, i.e. one who lives or might as well live in a hedge.

1614		Jonson Bartholomew Fair II v: Out, you rogue, you hedge-bird, you pimp, you pannier-man’s bastard you!
1641		R. Brome Jovial Crew V i: Do not I know the Company? Beggars, Rogues, Vagabonds, and Hedge-birds.
1673		M. Stevenson Norfolk Drollery 58: The Sparrow this for a Hedg-Tavern took: / If any mischief then, you to him do; / You’l prove yourself worse hedg-bird of the two.
1696		Motteux (trans.) Pantagruelian Prognostications (1927) II 692: Those who are under Mars, as hangmen, cut-throats, dead-doing fellows, freebooters, hedge-birds, footpads.
c.1698		B.E. Dict. Canting Crew n.p.: Hedge-bird a Scoundrel or sorry Fellow.
1706		R. Estcourt Fair Example V i: I know there’s some Business a-foot by this Hedge-bird’s cackling.
1725		New Canting Dict. [as cit. c.1698].
1737, 1759, 1760, 1776		Bailey Universal Etym. Eng. Dict. [as cit. c.1698].
a.1790		H.T. Potter New Dict. Cant (1795).
1809		G. Andrewes Dict. Sl. and Cant.
1821		Flash Dict.
1835		G. Kent Modern Flash Dict.
1848		Flash Dict. in Sinks of London Laid Open.
c.1850		Duncombe New and Improved Flash Dict.
1958		D. Reeve Smoke in the Lanes 295: ‘Go on! You foxin’ hedge-mumper!’ he spat.

2. (also hedge-bird trull) a low-grade prostitute who carries on operations in the open air.

1612		Dekker ‘Canting Song’ O per se O O2: I met a Drab, I liked her well [...] To auoid Hue and Cry, to a hedge we crept and under it close were laid. – /Toth’ Broakers then my hedge-bird flyes, For stolen goods bringing coyne.
1640		H. Mill Nights Search I 32: Thou hast undone me! [...] Thou hedge-bird trull!
a.1674		‘Canting Song’ Head Canting Academy (1674) 24: [as cit. 1612] .
1696		J. Dunton Night-Walker Oct. 2: Our ordinary proverb, that a Whoresbird by night will be a Hedgebird by day has often proved true.
1754		Scoundrel’s Dict. 23: [as cit. 1612] The Hue and Cry, to shun, we crept, / in Hedges where we lay’d. / To the Brokers then my Hedge-bird flies.

the lowest rank of prostitute, working outdoors, possibly beneath an actual hedge.

1833		‘The Blowing In Quod’ Swell!!! or, Slap-Up Chaunter 39: My ma’s a hedge and ditch whore.
1984		Partridge DSUE (8th edn) 545/1: C.19–20.

a peasant, a countryman.

1825

Pierce Egan’s Life in London 17 July 197/1: The milling Coves looked blue, but the Johnny Raws—the Hedge Coves—the Hay-makers—Chaw-bacons -the Smock-frock Boys, &c — were outrageous in their manifestations of joy at the success of the countryman.

1. a sneak thief, a general rogue.

c.1535		R. Copland Hye way to the Spyttel House Aiiii: Mychers, hedgecrepers [...] lewtryng and wandryng fro place to place.
1568		Hist. of Jacob and Esau V iv: Ah hypocrite, ah hedgecreeper, ah sembling wretche.
c.1575		Pedder Coffeis in Laing Early Pop. Poetry Scotland II 69: Ane curloreouss coffe, that hege-kraper, He [...] takis a faik, Betwixt his dowblett and his jackett.
1586		Treatise against the Defense of the censure 40: [T]hese friuolous wordes of an obscure hedge-creeper, or boasting bench-whistler.
1594		Nashe Unfortunate Traveller in Works V (1883–4) 29: Call him a sneaking eauesdropper, a scraping hedgecreeper, and a piperley pickthanke.
1609		Dekker Gul’s Horne-Booke 12: Jack-an-apes (being the scum and rascality of all the hedge-creepers) they go in jerkins and mandilions.
1610		Rowlands Martin Mark-all 17: They haue euer after all their daies an vnsauory smacke thereof, and smell still towards day-sleepers and hedge-creepers, purse-cutters, [...] and blood-shedders.
1620		J. Melton Astrologaster 48: A Crew of these Hedgecreepers [came] trooping through Essex, telling Fortunes as they went: but at the last, the Constable [...] apprehended them.
1631		T. Powell Tom of All Trades 35: [T]he hedge-creeper, that goes to seeke custome from shop to shop, with a Cryll under his arme.
1659		R. Heath Paradoxical assertions 6: [D]oth not this Hedge-creeper thrust out his Horns sometimes at his forehead.
1665		Head Eng. Rogue I 391: Then shall this pretended friend seize one of you himself, and my Hedge-creeper turn Hector.

2. a thief who steals laundry from the hedges on which it is laid to dry.

c.1698		B.E. Dict. Canting Crew n.p.: Hedge-creeper c. a Robber of Hedges.
1725		New Canting Dict. [as cit. c.1698].
1737, 1759, 1760, 1776		Bailey Universal Etym. Eng. Dict. [as cit. c.1698].
1785, 1788, 1796		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue n.p.: Hedge creeper, a robber of hedges.
1809		G. Andrewes Dict. Sl. and Cant n.p.: Hedge creeper a robber of hedges, one of the meanest order of thieves.
1811		Lex. Balatronicum.
1823		Egan Grose’s Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.
1835		G. Kent Modern Flash Dict. 17: Hedge creepers – the meanest order of thieves.
1848		Flash Dict. in Sinks of London Laid Open [as cit. 1835].

(UK Und.) a priest, or a beggar who poses as such, who works in rural areas, ministering to other beggars and the local peasantry; the implication is that such clergy were not true priests.

1588		Marprelate’s Epistle (Arber edn) 30: Is it any maruaile that we haue so many swine dumbe dogs nonresidents with their iourneimen the hedge-priests, so many lewd livers [...] in our ministry .
c.1595		Shakespeare Love’s Labour’s Lost V ii: The pedant, the braggart, the hedge-priest, the fool, and the boy.
1641		R. Brome Jovial Crew V i: A Hedge Priest have you taken, say you?
1663		J. Wilson Cheats V iii: Now for a small hedge-priest to make the knot.
1676		‘The Beggars’ Wedding’ in Ebsworth Bagford Ballads (1878) II 874: The Hedg[e]-Priest then was call’d, Fame did him bring, / Married they were with an old Curtain Ring.
c.1698		B.E. Dict. Canting Crew n.p.: Hedge-priest, a sorry Hackney, Undeiling [i.e. underling], Illiterate, Vagabond.
1725		New Canting Dict. [as cit. c.1698].
1737, 1759, 1760, 1776		Bailey Universal Etym. Eng. Dict. [as cit. c.1698].
1748		L. Pilkington Memoirs (1928) I 68: Why, Madam, I suppose you take me for one of your paltry hedge-parsons.
1785, 1788, 1796		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.
1811		Lex. Balatronicum.
1822		(con. early 17C) W. Scott Fortunes of Nigel II 134: A hedge-parson, or buckle-beggar, as that order of priesthood has been irreverently termed.
1833		W. Carleton Traits and Stories of Irish Peasantry II 94: The class to which Father Kavanagh belonged [...] sometimes were called ‘Hedge-priests,’ by way of reproach.
1858		‘A. Pendragon’ Queen of the South 97: First a fossiker, then cook to a couple of hedge-priests – heaven forgive me for saying so of cousin Peter.
1866		E.L. Linton Lizzie Lorton II 5: He was not ordained at all – just a hedge parson [...] set up in a pulpit by the consent of the villagers.
1893		Cornishman 17 Aug. 8/1: Hedge-Priest is not specially applicable to Ireland [...] Hedge-priest means an illiterate priest.
1944		Western Morn. News 22 May 2/4: A paper by Rev. W.W. Bickford [...] entitled ‘Down Along o’ We: Fifty Years Recollections by a Hedge-Priest.’ Sub-Dean H.W. Sedgwick [...] said Mr Bickford was not a hedge-priest but a real pioneer in the Kingdom of God.

a prostitute, presumably working in the countryside.

1841		F.L.G. Swells Night Out n.p.: From the aristocratic nymph of Pentonville Hill, to the poor bush ranger or hedge prowler of Highgate Fields.
1846		New Swell’s Night Guide to the Bowers of Venus 38: The bar is surrounded by some of the most outré in London [...] the hedge-rangers of Highgate Fields.

(mid-17C) one who take on the rearing of an illegitimate child, e.g. a servant or a cuckolded husband.

1653		Mercurius Democritus 21-28 Sept. 588: He hired his man John the Carter to take the businesse upon himself, which honest John did, thinking it good Law to be his Master Hedge-sparrow, to hatch up the Cuckoos Egge Mr Just-asse had laid him.
1654		Mercurius Fumigosus 14 30 Aug.–6 Sept. 130: She broak into two Pieces, to the great joy of all her Neighbours; though not without some grief to the Hedge-sparrow her Husband.

a low tavern, often the home of criminals, card-sharps and similar underworld figures.

c.1698		B.E. Dict. Canting Crew n.p.: Hedge-Tavern, or Ale-house, a Jilting, Sharping Tavern, or Blind Ale house.
1702		Farquhar Twin-Rivals I i: That was in the days [...] of dirty linen, pit-masks, hedge taverns, and beef-steaks.
1725		New Canting Dict. [as cit. c.1698].
1730		Swift ‘Beautiful young Nymph going to Bed’ Miscellanies V (1736) 29: By a faithless Bully drawn, At some Hedge-Tavern lies in Pawn.
1756		Memoirs of an Oxford Scholar 128: There they were married; and begging your pardon, Sir, in a Hedge-Alehouse they bedded.
1785, 1788, 1796		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue n.p.: Hedge alehouse, a small obscure alehouse.
1808		York Herald 2 July 3/3: It is a pity so grand an inn should be degraded by the lowest appellation of an hedge alehouse.
1809		G. Andrewes Dict. Sl. and Cant n.p.: Hedge-tavern public-houses on the road-side, little frequented by travellers.
1811		Lex. Balatronicum [as cit. 1785].
1813		P. Hawker Diary (1893) I 22 Feb. 68: We [...] stopped to malt it at all the hedge alehouses.
1823		Egan Grose’s Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue [as cit. 1785].
1832		Berks. Chron. 1 Dec. 3/2: Sadly and slowly Jack Tapster he bore, / Right thankful to stop at each hedge-alehouse door.
1835		G. Kent Modern Flash Dict. [as cit. 1809].
1840		Fife Herald 26 Mar. 3/4: He was attacked [...] by the landlord of a hedge alehouse.
1848		Flash Dict. in Sinks of London Laid Open.
c.1850		Duncombe New and Improved Flash Dict. n.p.: Hedge-taverns little public-houses on the road-side.
1853		Taunton Courier 4 May 5/2: The principal tobacco smoking will have to take refuge in hedge taverns and pot houses. In good hotels smoking will be forbidden.
1857		Notts. Guardian 9 July 6/1: Half a dozen tenants meeting at a hedge alehouse.
1875		Western Dly Press 3 July 8/1: As they loiter their time at some hedge alehouse door.
1883		London Standard 26 Jan. 5/3: This old-fashioned highway man had his hedge tavern, where he swore, and drank [...] and defied the Bow-street runners.
1889		Star (Guernsey) 22 Jan. 4/1: It is a hedge alehouse of the smallest kind.
1895		Lichfield Mercury 19 July n.p.: The man is lying at a hedge alehouse [...] in Kent.
1904		Surrey Mirror 23 Dec. 4/6: Some passengers in a Portsmouth stage coach refused to dine at a hedge alehouse.

a prostitute who plies her trade in the open air.

1590		R.W. Three Lords and Three Ladies of London D 3: I think this blindfold buzzardly hedge-wench spoke to ye.
1598		Florio Worlde of Wordes n.p.: Zambracca, a common hedge-whore, strumpet, a base harlot.
1696		Motteux (trans.) Pantagruelian Prognostications (1927) II 693: Those whom Venus is said to rule, as punks, jilts, [...] bona robas, barbers-chairs, hedge-whores.
1785, 1788, 1796		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue n.p.: Hedge whore, an itinerant harlot, who bilks the bagnios and bawdy-houses, by disposing of her favours on the wayside, under a hedge; a low beggarly prostitute.
1811		Lex. Balatronicum.
1823		Egan Grose’s Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.
1980		Maledicta IV:2 (Winter) 195: A […] stargazer, which can also be a hedge-whore – that is one who goes stargazing on her back and receives an Anglo-Indian back. In other words, she has done a rural.