bowman adj.
good, excellent, first-rate, a general positive; often as all’s bowman, everything is in order.
![[UK]](/static/img/flags/uk.png "United Kingdom") | Dict. Canting Crew n.p.: Then we’ll pike, tis all Bowman, c. we will be gone, all is well, the Coast is clear. | |
| (con. 1710–25) Tyburn Chronicle II in (1999) xxviii: All’s Bowman All is safe. | |
| (con. 1715) Jack Sheppard 68: All’s bowman, my covey. Fear nothing. |
In compounds
1. a house considered worth robbing.
| Dict. Canting Crew. | |
| Lives of Most Notorious Highway-men, etc. (1926) 207: A bob, or boman-ken, i.e., a good or well furnished house, full of booty, worth robbing. | |
| , , | | Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue. |
| Lex. Balatronicum. | |
| Grose’s Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue. | |
| Flash Dict. in Sinks of London Laid Open 112: Ken Bowman, a well-furnished house. |
2. a house occupied by thieves.
| Dict. Canting Crew. | |
| , , | | Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue. |
| Lex. Balatronicum. | |
| Grose’s Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue. |
a first-rate thief.
| Conduct of Receivers and Thief-Takers 13: Those three young Lads, altho’ they are young, yet they are Boman Prigs, and as such go on the lay call’d the Dub. | |
| The Quaker’s Opera II i: At St. Martins, St Giles’, we shall have Burial still, / And here the Bowman Prig stands Buff, / And the Pimps have miss’d their Will. | |
| Hist. of Col. Francis Charteris 62: ’Cause the Boman Priggs / Shan’t run their Riggs, / When we bold Fellows die. | |
| (con. 1710–25) Tyburn Chronicle II in (1999) xxviii: A Bowman Prig A bold or dext’rous Thief a sure Rogue. | |
| Whole Art of Thieving n.p.: A boman prig A bold or dexterous thief. | |
| ‘The Bowman Prigg’s Farewell’ in (1995) 283: Here’s health to the beauman prigs, / From the rum pad down to the prancer. |