cert n.
1. a definite winner, usu. in a sporting context.
![[UK]](/static/img/flags/uk.png "United Kingdom") | Music Hall & Theatre Rev. 23 Mar. 92/2: But as Harry Randall says, it [i.e. a music-hall sketch] is a ‘cert’. | |
![[Aus]](/static/img/flags/aus.png "Australia") | Truth (Sydney) 3 Feb. 3/6: One youth [...] offered to ‘lay her on’ to a ‘good thing’ for a double. It was a ‘cert’, he said. | |
| [perf. Marie Lloyd] He knows a Good Thing When He Sees It 🎵 And he’d planked down his all on the cert. | |
| Pink ’Un and Pelican 159: The ‘cert’ and the circular arriving together was surely an augury of good fortune to come. | |
| Sporting Times 3 Mar. 3/2: Why has London gone so mad over what was an absolute cert. from the word ‘go’ in the long run? | |
| Sun. Times (Perth) 27 Apr. 2/2: He forget to put it on himself, and thus make a cert of earning the two quid. | |
| Sporting Times 8 Jan. 10/1: Joe is a backer of horses who pinches oof from his kid’s money-box to bung on a ‘cert’. | |
| ‘Mar’ in Songs of a Sentimental Bloke 68: Love is a gamble, an’ there ain’t no certs. | |
| Carry on, Jeeves 35: ‘It’s a cert!’ I said. ‘An absolute cinch!’ said Corky. | |
| Here’s Luck 50: ‘Steak knows an absolute cert for today. Opportunity only knocks once. Come on!’ . | |
| This Gutter Life 277: Would Gwenda like a hundred to one ‘cert’ for the three-thirty? | |
| Horrie The Wog-Dog 225: ‘He’s a cert!’ grinned Gordie. ‘He’ll make history in Australia yet.’. | |
| Shiralee 215: It’s a cinch. It’s a cert. You haven’t got a look-in. | |
| Bunch of Ratbags 42: I’ve got two certs – one in the fifth and one in the last. | |
| et al. Working Lives 89: Two certs in one day’s not bad picking. | |
| Dandy Book n.p.: ‘I’m a cert, mother’. |
2. a certainty.
| ‘As Good As New’ Sporting Times 21 Jan. 1/4: ‘If he worked for the same boss as we do, his nibs / Would get nothing to ape the smart set with.’ ‘That’s a cert.’. | |
 | ‘Never Let Your Braces Dangle’ 🎵 I wriggled out of my pants for a cert. | |
| Handful of Ausseys 114: Wot, is concription a cert, then, for Aussie? | |
| ‘Gimme the Ground’ in Dryblower’s Verses 12: An’ I don’t think I’m makin’ an error / When I tell ’em its safety’s a cert. | |
| Tamworth Herald 2 Apr. 6/1: [advert] It isn’t a Gamble — it’s a Cert That you will be Pleased with your Easter Suit. | |
| Enemy Coast Ahead (1955) 39: After running up the unenviable score of 2 certs., 4 probables and many damaged, he was finally posted elsewhere. | |
| Und. Nights 91: Not a word more or it’ll be porridge and cocoa for a cert. | |
| When the Green Woods Laugh (1985) 253: It was a damn cert. | |
| Hazell Plays Solomon (1976) 11: One cert, you can’t keep her in cottonwool all her life. | |
| Traveller’s Tool 53: If she takes off her shoes as soon as she comes into the office, it’s a cert she’ll take off more than that after hours. | |
![[Scot]](/static/img/flags/sco.png "Scotland") | Glue 53: He’s no gaun wi ma faither or naebody else’s faither, that’s a cert. | |
| Killing Pool 250: I already know for a nailed-on cert I’m going to do this. |
3. attrib. use of sense 2.
| Of Love And Hunger 140: There’s a cert sale there, if I go about it right. |
In phrases
(orig. racing) an absolute certainty, esp. in race-course betting.
| Dreepdaily Burghs 4: Everybody is realising; the banks won’t discount; and when your bills become due, they will be, to a dead certainty, protested [F&H]. | |
| Diary of Nobody in Punch 2 Mar. 97/1: It is not speculation – it’s a dead cert. | |
| Truth (Sydney) 7 Jan. 3/3: Train a wife in the way she should go— and she’ll go the opposite way for a dead cert. | |
| Gal’s Gossip 172: ‘O Irené, Irené, I cannot live without you!’ ‘You cannot live with me, that’s a dead cert,’ the heartless creature wrote back. | |
| Sydney Sportsman (Surry Hills, NSW) 17 Oct. 1/3: Remember, the tip-slinger who has a ‘dead cert’ is quite truthful — he has. It’s always a dead cert for the fly-flat to fall in. | |
| Sun. Times (Perth) 12 Nov. 4/7: [title] The Dead Cert. | |
| Sporting Times 2 May 1/5: The rubber at the baths has just told me that the Bobolink is a stone dead cert. for that two-year-old race at Alexandra Park. | |
| Boys’ Best 20 Oct. 42: That’s a dead cert. | |
| Sport (Adelaide) 15 Nov. 7/2: They Say [...] That She is reported to be [...] a ‘dead cert’ for the Streetwalker’s Stakes. | |
| Temporary Crusaders 15 May 🌐 I watched [the horse] the whole way round, and thereby lost not only my money, but a good view of an exciting finish between the first and second, some hundreds of yards in front of my choice. So much for dead certs. | |
![[Ire]](/static/img/flags/ire.png "Ireland") | Ulysses 123: Lenehan came out of the inner office with Sport’s tissues. – Who wants a dead cert for the Gold cup? he asked. | |
| Gilt Kid 154: Well, we can’t stand around here spare. We’ll get knocked off for a dead cert if we do. | |
| An Indiscreet Guide to Soho 109: ’Frisco is following a dead cert at the White City. | |
| Bang To Rights 192: He’s a dead cert for fourteen P.D. when he’s old enough. | |
| [bk title] Dead Cert. | |
| G’DAY 76: Davo has a dead cert for the trots. | |
| Traveller’s Tool 74: If you see a Kraut breaking into a cake shop after midnight, he’d have to be a dead cert alky. | |
| Streets Above Us (1991) 123: Dodgy walking around like that [...] two or three days’ stubble on your face, dead cert for a tug. | |
| Indep. Rev. 29 Feb. 8: The Gucci show is such a dead cert for inclusion in the next day’s newspapers. | |
| Times 23 Apr. 🌐 [headline] Dead cert. | |
| More You Bet 6: A ‘good thing’ might also have been referred to as a ‘sure thing,’ or a ‘certain cop,’ or a ‘sure cop,’ or a ‘dead bird’ or a ‘dead cert’. | |
| Empty Wigs (t/s) 202: Coarse, primitive, rough [...] and, worst of all, a dead cert to get backs up. |
(Aus.) certain, guaranteed.
| ‘Introduction’ in Rose of Spadgers 10: Regardin’ morils, I was on a cert. |