filch n.
1. a short pole with a hook on one end, used to steal small, portable items from windows, stalls etc; note earlier filchman under filch v.1
Martin Mark-all 42: Out budgd the Coue of the Ken, / With a ben filtch in his quarr’me. | ||
Beggar’s Bush II i: Thus we throw up our nab-cheats first, for joy, / And then our filches; last we clap our fambles. | ||
Eng. Villainies (8th edn) O3: To thy bughar and thy skew, Filch and Iybes I bid adue. | Canting Song||
Eng. Villainies (9th edn). | Canters Dict.||
Eng. Rogue I 62: Providing himself and me with a good lusty Filch or Stick with a hole at the end thereof, to put in a hook. | ||
‘A Wenches complaint for . . . her lusty Rogue’ Canting Academy (1674) 17: [as cit. 1637]. | ||
Academy of Armory Ch. iii item 68c: Canting Terms used by Beggars, Vagabonds, Cheaters, Cripples and Bedlams. [...] Filch, [...] a Staff. | ||
Dict. Canting Crew n.p.: A good Filch, a Staff, of Ash or Hazel, with a Hole through, and a Spike at the bottom, to pluck Cloathes from a Hedge or anything out of a Casement. | ||
Triumph of Wit 200: [as cit. 1637]. | ||
New Canting Dict. [as cit. c.1698]. | ||
, , , | Universal Etym. Eng. Dict. [as cit. c.1698]. | |
Scoundrel’s Dict. | ||
, , | Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue. | |
Lex. Balatronicum. | ||
Grose’s Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue. | ||
Dict. of Modern Sl. etc. (2nd edn). | ||
, , | Sl. Dict. |
2. a thief.
Beggar’s Opera I vi: filch: I ply’d at the Opera, Madam; and considering ’twas neither dark nor rainy [...] made a tolerable hand on’t. These seven Handkerchiefs, Madam. | ||
Caledonian Mercury 21 Mar. 1/1: Backwards rode Filch, who Pockets us'd to rifle, / And thought it hard to hang for such a trifle. / There having been no Pickpokets executed since the Guinea-filers. | ||
Rivington’s N.-Y. Gazetteer 15 July 2/3–4: Last Saturday Darcus, the rascal, who stole his Excellency Governor Tryon’s silver cups as advertised in this paper, was brought to town from New-Haven, where he was apprehended: this same Filch had likewise been tolerably successful about the house of our late commander in chief [etc.]. | ||
Hamlet Travestie II iii: A very Filch, that more deserves to hang Than any one of the light-finger’d gang. | ||
Chester Courant 28 Feb. 4/3: He puts a fine parcel of money into his own pocket! [...] quite a filch! Oh a blessed babe of grace! | ||
Western Times 12 Jan. 3/5: A Junevile [sic] 'Filch' [...] His name is Stephen Stokes, and he was only thirteen years of age. | ||
Morn. Chron. 6 Mar. 4/2: The most expert Filch upon the town [...] was most fashionably attired [with] the fawney (ring) upon the little finger of his dexter hand. | ||
Curvy Lovebox 123: Ringers burglars teefs filches dips and deedees. Scammers an’ skankers. Specialist form-fillers an’ loophole operators. |
3. that which is stolen, the booty of a theft.
Works (1801) V 267: He put a fine parcel of money into the pockets of the Proprietors – quite a Filch! | ‘Tales of Hoy’