Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. whooping cough.

1602		J. Withals Dictionarie in Eng. and Latine 298: The cough, Tuffis. The chincough, Pertussus.
1707		N. Ward London Terraefilius V 26: She was fearful the dampness of the Floor would give her Modicum the Chin-cough.
1721		Swift ‘The Country Life’ in Chalmers Eng. Poets XI (1810) 413/2: How his wife [...] Tells every thing that you can think of, How she cur’d Charly of the chin-cough; What gave her brats and pigs the measles.
1722		‘Whipping-Tom’ Immodest Wearing of Hoop-Petticoats I 32: I admire our Ladies catch not the Cold [...] but Pride is insensible of Frigidity, so they never fear getting a Chin-Cough.
1960		J. O’Donoghue In Kerry Long Ago 84: He never left the valley till his mother wheeled him out of it in a little donkey-car the time he had the chincough.
1974		J. Hewitt Out of my Time in Coll Poems (1991) 180: But suddenly the sister swept the talk / From charms and hedgerow cures dropped out of use, / for chin-cough and for cleaning of the blood .

2. a spasm of laughter or tears.

1997

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