Green’s Dictionary of Slang

see cushion-thumper

a parson.

1661		A. Brome ‘The Levellers Rant’ Songs and Poems 56: We shall have no cushion-cuffers to tell us of hell.
1683		E. Hooker Pref. Ep. Pordage’s Mystic Div. 36: Our impertinently idl [sic] Pulpit-praters, or [...] too busily laborious Cushion-Cuffers.
1893		Aberdeen Eve. Exp. 14 Jan. 2/3: The ‘cushion cuffer’, the soporiphic drawler may be endured, but the cleric who [etc.].
1937–84		Partridge DSUE (1984) 281/1: ca. 1680–1750.

a parson.

c.1786		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue ms. additions .
1788, 1796		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue (2nd, 3rd edn) n.p.: Cushion Duster, [...] A parson; many of whom in the fury of their eloquence, heartily belabour their cushions.
1811		Lex. Balatronicum.

a parson.

1860, 1870		Hotten Sl. Dict.
1891		A. Day Mysterious Beggar 214: I mean th’ holy Joes: th’ cushion smiters. Them as holds a palaver uv a Sunday in th’ cackle tubs in th’ big churches.
1895		Crowe Aus. Sl. Dict. 22: Cushion Smiter, a clergyman.

a parson; thus cushion-thumping adj.; thump the cushion v.

c.1635		W. Cartwright Ordinary III v: Thou violent cushion-thumper, hold thy tongue.
1700		T. Brown Amusements Serious and Comical in Works (1744) III 105: Leaving father Daniel thumping the cushion in a most immoderate manner.
c.1709		‘The Saint Turn’d Sinner’ in Farmer Merry Songs and Ballads (1897) IV 199: A Gospel Cushion Thumper, / Who dearly lov’d a Bumper.
1720		‘The Saint turn’d Sinner’ in D’Urfey Pills to Purge Melancholy VI 215: A Gospel Cushion Thumper, / Who dearly lov’d a Bumper.
1732		Progress of a Rake [title page]: V. His vast Improvement in each Faculty, especially that of a Cushion-thumper.
1732		Progress of a Rake 24: Since all our zealous Cushion-beaters, / Or most, are mighty Pudding-eaters.
c.1786		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue ms. additions .
1788		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue (2nd edn) n.p.: Cushion Thumper, [...] A parson; many of whom in the fury of their eloquence, heartily belabour their cushions.
1795		Sporting Mag. Dec. VII 165/1: An honest old thump-cushion, called Doctor Bull, / Who had preach’d for his King.
1796		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue (3rd edn).
1807		Salisbury & Winchester Jrnl 9 Mar. 2/2: He admitted that he had been introduced [...] as a Clergyman, but that he was not entitled to the appellation of Reverend, as ‘he was no cushion-thumper’.
1811		Lex. Balatronicum.
1821		‘A Real Paddy’ Real Life in Ireland 15: Brian cleared it [...] carrying off with his horse’s heels the wig and part of the thump-the-cushion’s scalp.
1821		R. Waln Hermit in America on Visit to Phila. 2nd series 28: All the crack, pon honour — promised to call in the cushion thumper when Dick sowed his wild oats.
1838		Manchester Courier 22 Sept. 3/6: After the many absurdities to which the schematic cushion thumper had committed himself [...].
1843		Thackeray Irish Sketch Book II 96: O parsons! If a man is to give an account of every idle word he utters [...] spoken not for God’s glory but the preacher’s, will many a cushion-thumper have to answer!
1845		R.S. Surtees Hillingdon Hall II 16: James one of those desperately over-righteous, cushion-thumping, jump-Jim-Crow breed of parsons.
1858		Hudderfield Chron. 30 Jan. 3/3: We listened with attention to the noisy declarations of this cushion thumper.
1866		Letters by an Odd Boy 162: A preacher [is] ‘a cushion thumper;’ a lawyer, ‘a limb-of-the-law,’ a surgeon.
1873		Sl. Dict. 125: Cushion Thumper polite rendering of TUB THUMPER, a clergyman, a preacher.
1885		Bulletin (Sydney) 7 Nov. 6/2: A Boston Bible and cushion-thumper, who has the reputation of being one of the fastest speakers that America can produce, was on a visit to London.
1887		Indiana State Sentinel 1 June 3/6: Cushion-thumpers and high and low Church extatics [sic], have often carried what they call their love for [etc.].
1889		Leeds Times 27 July 4/7: A cushion-thumper of celebrity [...] heavily dosed his congregation with brimstone.
1935		A.J. Pollock Und. Speaks 28/2: Cushion thumper, a wealthy evangelist or leader of a religious organization.

(Aus./US) suffering (financial) problems.

1901		World’s News (Syney) 21 Dec. 16/3: The American management seems to have been informed that it was thus in danger of being left hard up against the cushion .
1902		Inland Printer 29 727/2: I was right up against the cushion, to use the Western slang, and had no money.
1909		Cobar Herald (NSW) 31 Dec. 3/4: [M]any people a [...] would rather endure their sufferings [...] than let even their friends know they are ‘up against the cushion’ .
1915		Drew & Evans Grafter (1922) 90: ‘I’ve been so long hard up against the cushion that I’ll have to do something or I’ll bust’.

(US Und.) travelling in a passenger coach as opposed to a freight wagon; thus symbolic of any form of luxury/comfort (see cit. 1931); thus ride the cushions v.

1903		Bismarck Dly Trib. (ND) 1 Sept. 3/2: It is said five different holdups have occurred which would seem to be an incentive to laborers to buy a ticket and ride on the cushions instead of in empty box cars and wherever they can stow themselves away on freight trains.
1908		Arizona Republican (Phoenix, AZ) 31 Jan. 5/2: He [...] had the necessary strip of paper which entitled to him to a ride on the cushions.
1916		Day Book (Chicago) 9 June 10/1: [He] bad his mother good-by and hopped a ‘rattler’ [...] Not being overburdened with the necessary passport to ride on the cushions, Ever annexed the first freight going west.
1920		Film Fun 24 Apr. 1: Packed in like sardines, and these nuts have done it on the cush!
1923		N. Anderson Hobo 12: The labor exchanges facilitate this turnover of seasonal labor. They enable a man to leave the city ‘on the cushins’.
1927		H. Yenne ‘Prison Lingo’ in AS II:6 280: The ‘swag’ (amount realized from the act) will get ’em out of the ‘big burg’ (city) ‘on the cushions’ (a paid fare on the railroad).
1930		‘Dean Stiff’ Milk and Honey Route 114: The hobo never wants a job badly enough to pay for it, unless a five-hundred mile trip on the cushions is thrown in.
1931		Irwin Amer. Tramp and Und. Sl. 137: On the Cushions. – Originally applied to one riding on the cushioned seats of a passenger train, and therefore having money; the phrase has been extended to include any state of comfort, wealth or ease.
1934		(con. 1910s) Farrell Young Manhood in Studs Lonigan (1936) 204: Then he’d [...] ride back home on the cushions.
1950		Goldin et al. DAUL 54/1: Cushions. (Chiefly Hobo) [...] ‘To ride the cushions’ — to pay one’s fare; to live in comparative luxury.
1962		Ragen & Finston World’s Toughest Prison 810: on the cushions – Any state of comfort, wealth or ease.
1991		(con. 1920s) O.D. Brooks Legs 82: We’ll bed down on the cushions tonight.

see cushion-thumper

1. surreptitiously, illegally.

1915

Drew & Evans Grafter (1922) 24: ‘He’s been winning every night [...] and I’m sure he’s getting it under the cushion some way or another’.

2. in reserve, hidden.

1915

Drew & Evans Grafter (1922) 1: [B]eing careful to keep two or three horses which he lnew would be well backed under the cushion.