Green’s Dictionary of Slang

foolish.

an idle simpleton.

1653		Urquhart (trans.) Gargantua and Pantagruel (1927) I Bk I 103: The bunsellers or cake-makers [...] did injure them most outrageously, calling them [...] jobbernol goosecaps, foolish loggerheads, flutch calf-lollies, grouthead gnat-snappers, lob-dotterels, gaping changelings, codshead loobies, woodcock slangams, ninnie-hammer fly-catchers, noddiepeak simpletons, turdy-gut, shitten shepherds, and other such like defamatory epithets.
1696		Motteux (trans.) Gargantua and Pantagruel (1927) II Bk IV 484: But now I find I was a gull, a wittol, a woodcock, a mere ninny, a dolt-head, a noddy, a changeling, a calf-lolly, a doddipoll.
1850		E.V. Kenealy Goethe: a New Pantomime 192: Cozening fox, calf-lolly, milksop!

1. (also calves foot head) a fool.

1521		Skelton Speke Parott line 484: So many thevys hangyd [...] So braynles calvys hedes, so many shepis taylys.
1599		Shakespeare Much Ado About Nothing V i: I’faith, I thank him; he hath bid me to a calf’s-head and a capon [...] Shall I not find a woodcock too?
1611		Davies of Hereford Scourge of Folly 16: One call’d Calistus Caulves-head, in a fume.
1630		J. Taylor ‘Wit and Mirth’ in Works (1869) II 184: Thou spoylest my hat with putting a Calues head into it.
1673		M. Stevenson Norfolk Drollery 102: Th’ Combatants, Calveshead and Bacon met.
1719		in D’Urfey Pills to Purge Melancholy IV 42: My Lord he name’d a Calves-head, at which she made a pish.
1766		‘The Butcher’ in Farmer Merry Songs and Ballads (1897) II 216: Take care that her mag with raw meat is well fed, / Lest the horns of an ox should adorn your calve’s head.
a.1790		C. Dibdin ‘The Waggoner’ Collection of Songs II 184: How many ways in London town / They dresses a calf’s head.
1801		Sporting Mag. Oct. XIX 50/2: I’d have cleaved his calf’s head, and given him such a chop in the kidnies.
1815		‘The pig-Faced Lady’ in Vocal Mag. 1 June 194: Yet, d’ye mind, I was not at a boarding school bred, / And it an’t every lady that likes a calf’s head.
1816		J.H. Lewis Lectures on Art of Writing (1840) 60: A old fashion hat – Quaker cut – with a brim broad enough to hide a ‘calf’s head’.
1821		W.T. Moncrieff Tom and Jerry II ii: No, I suppose I von’t stand a drop of nothing! young Calf’s-head?
1836		H.M. Milner Turpin’s Ride to York II vi: He, he – I were thinking that my bacon face and thy calf’s head would make a capital dish.
1840		A.A. Park Book of Jests 11: ‘What have you got to say old Bacon-face?’ [...] Why, answered the farmer, ‘I am thinking my bacon-face and your calf’s-head would make a very good dish!’.
1851		Life in Boston & N.Y. (Boston, MA) 28 June n.p.: I would advise the widow H—n, if she is so fond of calf’s head, to chain the animal when next he visits her.
1915		M.G. Hayden ‘Terms Of Disparagement’ in DN IV:iii 205: calf’s head, a stupid fellow. ‘He doesn’t act as though he were anything but a calf’s head’.
1916		J. Buchan Greenmantle (1930) 186: Botha is a cleverish man and has beaten you calves’-heads of rebels. Can you deny it?
1926		Breton & Bevir Adventures of Mrs. May 41: Why you’d go down among the ’ole of ’Oxton as a crackpot, and a fellow with a calves foot head.

2. a white-faced man with a large head.

1823		‘Jon Bee’ Dict. of the Turf, the Ring, the Chase, etc. 21: Calf’s head — a tallow-faced fellow and meaty.
1889–90		Barrère & Leland Dict. of Sl., Jargon and Cant I 219/2: Calf’s head (popular), a white-faced man with a large head.

(UK Und.) pretending that perfectly normal goods have supposedly been stolen; a greater price can thus be asked, since some customers like the idea of obtaining stolen goods.

1884

Daily Gaz. for Middlesborough 25 June 3/3: He took to ‘calf-sticking’ [...] the putting off of worthless rubbish, on the pretence that it was smuggled goods, on any foolish or unsuspecting person [...] Tom’s ingenuity in the ‘calf-sticking’ line of business had enabled him to dispose of four-and-twenty boxes of cigars at 10s 6d.

(US) to lose control, to have an emotional fit.

1978

UTSQ 29 Nov. n.p.: [Get angry] ...have a calf, have a hissy [HDAS].

see holler calf-rope under holler v.

1. (US) a meringue topping for pastry.

1927		C. Samolar ‘Argot of the Vagabond’ in AS II:9 390: Meringue, on pastry, is called calf-slobber.
1936		Mencken Amer. Lang. (4th edn) 583: Pastry is toppings and the meringue on a pie is calf-slobber.
1955		Great Bend Trib. (KS) 2 July 3/1: You’d never guess the names of many dishes [...] meringue on pies (calf slobber).
1960, 1975		Wentworth & Flexner DAS.

2. foam on a glass of beer.

2004

‘Cowboy Talk’ at www.bunkhouse.com 🌐 Calf-slobber. 1. Foam on a head of beer. ‘I like to pour it into the glass real fast to get a good head of calf-slobber on it.’.

the three weeks immediately before a holiday period, usu. Christmas, characterized in shops and factories by an increasingly heavy workload and concomitantly higher pay; note cite 1906 for specific naming.

1871		Echo 4 Dec. n.p.: Calf, cow and bull week. We find a good illustration of the beneficial influence of the Factory Acts in the reports of the Government Inspectors just issued. The district inspector expresses the hope that the measures which he took against some offenders in bull week last year will extinguish for good and all this absurd and illogical custom [F&H].
1872		Sheffield Dly Teleg. 27 Jan. 6/7: About 30 females had come to him on the first day in ‘bull week’ and asked if overtime was to be worked.
1880		Sheffield Indep. 26 Jan. 3/7: Mr Fisher: It was what is called ‘Bull Week’ was it not?
1890		Sheffield Dly Teleg. 16 Jan. 8/3: ‘Bull Week’ in Sheffield. People were anxious to earn as much money as they could for the Christmas holidays.
1906		Sheffield Eve. Teleg. 22 Dec. 5/3: The week before Christmas is bull week, the week before that cow week and the week prior to that calf week.
1924		Yorks. Post 17 Dec. 3/8: These are strenuous days at the pits, for it is the miners’ ‘bull week’, on the product of which the ascale of Christmas festivities will turn.
1947		Yorks. Post 17 Dec. 2/4: The spurt in output just before and during Bull Week — as the week before Christmas is called in the pits [...] is due to the wish to have something extra to spend.
1950		Dover Exp. 4 Aug. 9/5: Last week — ‘bull’ week before the annual holidays —Kent miners produced 42,794 tons of coal.