Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(a) (UK Und., also rattle, ratler) a coach.

1630		J. Taylor in Nares Glossary (1822) II 723/2: And I my necke unto the rope would pawne / That if our hackney rattlers were so drawne / With cords, or rope, or halters.
c.1698		B.E. Dict. Canting Crew n.p.: Rattler c. a Coach.
1703		Hell Upon Earth 6: Ratler, a Coach.
1718		C. Hitchin Regulator 22: In August last, Ob. Lemmon and Will. Matthews bit a Lob from a Ratler, alias took a Deal-Box from behind a Coach.
1725		New Canting Dict. [as cit. c.1698].
1737, 1759, 1760, 1776		Bailey Universal Etym. Eng. Dict. [as cit. c.1698].
1753		J. Poulter Discoveries (1774) 30: They take all, and pike directly into the first Rattler; that is, into the first Coach.
1768		(con. 1710–25) Tyburn Chronicle II in Groom (1999) xxix: A Rattler A Coach.
1777		J. Fielding Thieving Detected 39: Touching the Rattler [...] This method of robbing is chiefly followed by those who go upon the Drag Lay.
c.1785		‘The Dog and Duck Rig’ in Holloway & Black I (1975) 80: And O! my sweet blowing, that you / In a rattler will go to the scaffold.
1797		London Sharper 80: In a rattler, sat two blowings.
1800		Sporting Mag. Apr. XVI 26/2: Within a rattler stands Moll Flash, / To see the kiddies die.
1812		Vaux Vocab. of the Flash Lang.
1819		‘One of the Fancy’ Tom Crib’s Memorial to Congress 8: And long before daylight, gigs, rattlers, and prads, / Were in motion for Mousley, brimful of the Lads.
1821		‘An Amateur’ Real Life in London I 197: Let us proceed directly to Dolly’s, take our chop, then a rattler, and hey for the Spell.
1831		Satirist (London) 15 May 43/2: Can’t stop now: my carriage waits [...] There’s the rattle.
1832		Egan Bk of Sports 8: His rattler was sure to be full, both inside and out [...] with Cantabs, young sprigs of nobility.
1841		W.J. Neale Paul Periwinkle 131: Since we are to have a solitary drive, we’ll have a rattler.
1859		‘Scene in a London Flash-Panny’ Matsell Vocabulum 98: Oh! I’m fly. You [...] talked of padding the hoof. Why, sure, Jack had a rattler and a prad?
1864, 1867, 1870		Hotten Sl. Dict.
1873		Sl. Dict.
1881		Trumble Sl. Dict. n.p.: Jack had a rattler and a prad [F&H].

(b) a cab.

1821		Egan Life in London (1869) 311: At length a move was made, but not a rattler was to be had.
1859		Hotten Dict. of Modern Sl. etc. 80: RATTLER, a cab, coach, cart.
1864, 1867, 1870		Hotten Sl. Dict.
1922		Joyce Ulysses 469: The squeak is out. A split is gone for the flatties. Nip the first rattler.

(c) an omnibus.

1832

Satirist (London) 2 Sept 285/4: From the well-tried tendency to horse-killing, Omnibuses are called some Osbaldistones, by others Rattlers.

(d) (also rattle) a passenger train or carriage of the train, esp. in phr. the rattlers.

1859		Hotten Dict. of Modern Sl. etc. 81: RATTLERS, a railway; ‘on the rattlers to the stretchers,’ i.e. going to the races by railway.
1862		Worcs. Chron. 12 Nov. 4/1: When we touched for it, we had to get on the finger and thum [sic] a few miles. We durst not get on the rattles.
1865		Leaves from Diary of Celebrated Burglar 5/2: At Selby we took the ‘rattler’ for Leeds.
1879		‘Autobiog. of a Thief’ in Macmillan’s Mag. XL 501: I will go to London Bridge rattler (railway) and take a deaner ride and go wedge-hunting (stealing plate).
1887		‘Dagonet’ ‘A Plank Bed Ballad’ in Referee 12 Feb. n.p.: By the rattler I ride when I’ve taken my brief, / And I sling on my back an old kipsey.
1893		P.H. Emerson Signor Lippo 11: Did you frog it or come by the rattler?
1895		C. Crowe Aus. Sl. Dict. 65: Rattler, a train;‘to battle the rattler,’ to travel without a ticket.
1900		Flynt & Walton Powers That Prey 62: We take in the through rattlers on the Pennsy or the Central.
1904		‘Dryblower’ ‘His Quest’ in Sun. Times (Perth) 3 Apr. 4/7: You’ve done the rattler in today, you ain’t got Buckley’s ’ope.
1907		Sun. Times (Perth) 11 Aug. 4/8: The Rattler roars on the curving track / Like a monster swift and snaky.
1914		W.C. Handy ‘Yellow Dog Rag’ 🎵 Dear Sue, your Easy Rider struck this burg today, On a south-boun’ rattler.
1922		Smith’s Wkly (Sydney) 2 Dec. 18/2: Well, we got on the rattler all right [...] I ‘touched’ a parson in the corridor but it was a dead ‘blue’.
1923		J.C. Goodwin ‘Criminal Sl.’ in Sidelights on Criminal Matters 164: One day he sent me a stiff to go to Margate with him on the rattler.
1926		J. Black You Can’t Win (2000) 75: All we have to do is tell the truth, say we rode this rattler out of Cheyenne and never left the yards at Rock Springs.
1931		Dly Mercury (Mackay, Qld) 22 June 11/4: Blow in to any swaggies’ camp in a railway town, ask the campers how the rattler is for a jump, and if they trust you, you will learn all about the movements of trains.
1935		Thieves Slang ms list from District Police Training Centre, Ryton-on-Dunsmore, Warwicks 9: Rattler: Train.
1938		Pittsburgh Courier (PA) 30 July 11/1: The trek here was a drag because we latched onto one of those [...] rattlers that stopped at every shack on the line.
1938		J. Curtis They Drive by Night 212: They’ll never think of us taking a cross-country journey on a rattler.
1947		F. Brown Fabulous Clipjoint (1949) 190: Kid, we’re going back by rattler.
1957		D. Niland Call Me When the Cross Turns Over (1958) 67: Got off the rattler, did you?
1961		(con. 1920s) J. Sparks Burglar to the Nobility 40: Me with no galoshes and having to come 200 miles on the rattler from London.
1964		J.A. Lee Shiner Slattery 27: I’ll shoulder bluey once again and by rattler I’ll go back.
1974		D. Ireland Burn 47: One hitched rides and jumped the rattlers all the way.
1988		J. Healy Grass Arena (1990) 153: Woke up an hour later, thawed out, jumped the next rattler to Euston.
1993		Aus. Word Map 🌐 red rattler. (formerly) a train with dark red carriages, noted for the discomfort it caused to passengers .
2000		J.J. Connolly Layer Cake 268: You can be back on the rattler back to Liverpool at about half-past.
2012		(con. 1943) G.S. Manson Coorparoo Blues [ebook] Len was on the first rattler going south.
2018		Guardian 13 Jan. 🌐 [I]f I’m on business in Manchester and need to get back to London in good time I’d probably choose to take the rattler.

(e) (Aus./US) a freight train or carriage of a train.

1848		G.F. Ruxton Life in the Far West (1849) 26: They arn’t agoin’ to pack them animals after ’em, and have crawled like ‘rattlers’ along this bottom to câche ’em till they come back.
1857		Bolton Chron. 26 Sept. 8/3: ‘I have nailed a “souper” from a “rattler” (railway carriage) and got “hot beef”’.
1899		Salt Lake Herald (UT) 24 Dec. 10/6: Just then Red heard the whistle of our freight [...] ‘Hustle, Cigarette, there’s our rattler’.
1904		Number 1500 Life In Sing Sing 258: Busting the tag on a rattler. Breaking the seal on a freight car.
1914		Wash. Post 11 Nov. Misc. 3/6: Yeggs call a freight train a ‘rattler’ and a passenger train or car the ‘cushions.’.
1924		‘Digit’ Confessions of a Twentieth Century Hobo 12: Rattler...A freight train. [Ibid.] 60: We went out again to attempt to ride a rattler.
1934		AS IX:II Apr. 74/1: There was a hundred and thirty rattlers and a crummy on that thing and you should have heard the old hog wheeze as we went down to the station.
1949		Monteleone Criminal Sl. (rev. edn).
1952		C. Hamilton Men of the Und. 324: Rattler, A freight train.
1973		(con. 1930s) F. Huelin ‘Keep Moving’ 25: No train jockey, with nothing on his conscience except ‘riding that rattler’ would think of escaping from a few days of free meals and the opportunity of a good clean-up.
1999		G. Seal Lingo 95: hooking a rattler or hopping a rattler was to illegally catch a train, usually up the country, where it was hoped [...] to find work.
2000		Sun. Times Mag. 6 Feb. 24: Now you can see why I call these trains rattlers [rattlesnakes].

(f) (US) the Manhattan elevated railway; any urban cable car or streetcar.

1886		A. Pinkerton Thirty Years a Detective 44: This kind of robbery is generally practiced on the cars – (called ‘rattlers’) [...] and if upon the cars it is performed on the platforms or in the doorways of these crowded vehicles.
1896		F. Hutcheson Barkeep Stories 141: ’[D]e only t’ing I see to do is to go over an’ grab a rattler fer downtown’.
1904		Number 1500 Life In Sing Sing 260: The tool picked his mark and the stalls crushed him against the tail of the rattler.
1913		‘Lord Ballyrot in Slangland’ in Tacoma Times (WA) 3 July 4/4: This Cholly guy wants to do a Brodie off the rattler!
1913		H.G. Van Campen ‘Life on Broadway’ in McClure’s Mag. Mar. 38/2: He bought [...] a red-trimmed sixty h. p. for a skinny brunette in a musical show, an’ it seems like I’m always meetin’ her drivin’ by in it just as I’m climbin’ on the Seventh Avenue rattler.
2000		(con. 1940s–60s) Décharné Straight from the Fridge Dad.

(g) (US) a police van.

1904

C. Connors Bowery Life [ebook] Say, I thought dey’d need a rattler to move him. Rattler. You gilly, what do they cart a chaw off in when a collar gets tru beltin’ him, generally? A rattler is a patrol; dat’s what.

(h) (US Und.) a tramp who rides on freight cars.

1916		‘A-No. 1’ Snare of the Road 31: In accordance with the method of travel they prefer when hoboing over the country, tramps are classed in three grand divisions: ‘Pikers’ they are called who walk; ‘Rattlers,’ who ride freight cars, and ‘Ramblers,’ who hobo passenger trains.
1927		‘Jargon of the Und.’ in DN V 463: skin a rattler, To rob hoboes riding on a freight.

(i) any tram.

1912		Ade Knocking the Neighbors 178: All the Bookies, Barkeeps, Bruisers, and the Boys sitting on the Moonlight Rattlers knew him by his First Name.
1924		Indianapolis Sun. Star 15 June 4/7: Why do you call an electric tram a rattler?
1927		W.R. Morse ‘Stanford Expressions’ in AS II:6 276: hop a rattler—board a trolley car.

(j) (US) an automobile.

1923

T.A. Dorgan in Zwilling TAD Lex. (1993) 24: Listening to an egg with one way pockets as he tries to trade in his old rock crusher for a new rattler.

(k) a bicycle.

1922

D.H. Lawrence ‘Monkey Nuts’ England, my England (2006) 56: Miss Stokes had a puncture. ‘Let me wheel the rattler,’ said Albert.

(l) the New York or London underground railway.

1924		Townsville Daily Bulletin (Aus.) 14 June 13: ‘The rattler’ is [...] the underground railway.
1928		J. Callahan Man’s Grim Justice 25: We’ll work the subway rattlers [...] and we’ll make all kinds of dough.
1937		J. Curtis There Ain’t No Justice 163: She’s just come out of the Holland Park rattler and she’s turned up Lansdowne Road to go home like.
1938		J. Archibald ‘Bird Cagey’ in Popular Detective Jan. 🌐 Soon thereafter he hopped a subterranean rattler uptown.
1949		J. Archibald ‘State Penmanship’ Popular Detective Jan. 🌐 He hiked for the nearest underground rattler.
1977		D. Powis Signs of Crime 198: Rattler [...] the underground railway.
1989		J. Morton Lowspeak 121: Rattler – the underground railway.
2011		J.J. Connolly Viva La Madness 217: I get to have a proper read [...] on the rattler to Liverpool Street.

(a) a blow.

1812		Sporting Mag. XL 66: Receiving a rattler in the neck.
1818		Saunders’s News Letter 15 Dec. 2/4: Scroggins planted a rattler on the side of Martin’s head.
1820		Commercial Advertiser (N.Y.) 19 May 2/5: Our readers are not used to such scientific expressions as — ‘close-enough-in’ — ‘giving a rattler on the chest’ — ‘hit well left and right, and one of his peepers queered’ — ‘giving a hit which crimsoned well,’ &c. &c.
1823		N.Y. Eve. Post 10 July 2/4: Spring gave him a right hand rattler upon the smeller.
1826		‘Nocturnal Sports’ in Universal Songster II 180/1: Floored him vith a rattler on the lug.
1844		Era (London) 21 Jan. 11/3: Charley put in a rattler on the chest.
1848		Bell’s Life in Sydney 18 Mar. 1/4: Johnny caught him a rattler on the left ear.
1852		Bell’s Life in Sydney 14 Feb. 1/2: In went Trainer a rattler and Spider retreated.
1865		Dickens Our Mutual Friend (1994) 90: And once, when he did this in a manner that amounted to personal, I should have given him a rattler for himself.

(b) something serious or impressive.

1847		‘Epistle from Joe Muggins’s Dog’ in Era (London) 19 Sept. 3/2: The Champion Stakes [...] was a rattler between Assault and Lodestone.
1865		‘Mark Twain’ Californian 18 Mar. n.p.: He used to worry along well enough, though, till he’d flush one of them rattlers with a clatter of syllables as long as a string of sluice-boxes, and then he’d lose his grip.
1879		‘’Arry on the Rail’ in Punch 13 Sept. 109/1: I’m jest back from a journey, a regular rattler by Rail!
1883		J. Greenwood Tag, Rag & Co. 81: I took a stronger oath than the last one, and a rattler it was this time, I can tell you, that I’d never touch a card again, in the way of play, as long as I lived.

(c) an admirable person.

1845		J. Lindridge Sixteen-String Jack 76: Well, damme, but you are a rattler.
1887		‘’Arry on Ochre’ in Punch 15 Oct. 169/1: That Loo / Was a rattler to keep up the pace while a bloke ’ad a brown left to blue.
1895		W. Pett Ridge Minor Dialogues 282: ‘Nice girls?’ ‘My boy! Were there any nice girls? Why, I never saw such a lot of rattlers in all my born days.’.

(d) as prev., used of an animal.

1895

Mirror of Life 17 Aug. 6/2: [W]e were the possessor of a mare which was considered a rattler for three miles.