Spanish, adj. — Green’s Dictionary of Slang

Spanish adj.

[the role of Spain as England’s primary national enemy during 16C–17C; these stereotypes, presumably encouraged by the late 19C Spanish-American War, persist in 20C+ US use]

used in combs. below to denote arrogance, duplicitousness, treachery, sexual corruption etc.

In compounds

Spanish archer (n.) (also Spanish fiddle) [pun on cod Spanish el bow i.e. elbow n.¹ (2)]

dismissal, rejection.

1986		F. Taylor Auf Wiedersehen Pet Two 26: ‘She gave you the Spanish archer.’ ‘The what?’ ‘The El Bow, mate.’.
1994		V. McDermid Crack Down (1999) 50: ‘Give this one the Spanish archer [...] “El Bow”’.
2001		K. Waterhouse Soho 23: ‘Why do you say she gave you the Spanish fiddle?’ ‘Come again?’ ‘Spanish fiddle. El bow. That’s what your Cockneys call it. The Big E. The elbow.’.
2004		P. Howard PS, I Scored the Bridesmaids 202: No bird likes being given the Spanish Archer.

Spanish athlete (n.) [play on throw the bull (see throw it v.)]

(US campus) a braggart, a boaster.

1932		J.L. Kuethe ‘Johns Hopkins Jargon’ in AS VII:5 337: Spanish athlete—one who talks nonsense (one who ‘throws the bull’).
1977		Maledicta 1 (Summer) 14: If he is fundamentally dishonest and a liar to boot, [...] He is throwing the bull (or is a Spanish athlete).

Spanish buttons (n.)

syphilitic sores.

1591

Nashe Prognostication in Works III 384: Surgeons in Spain shall wax rich, and their Hospitals poore [...] The Dukes, Marquesses, & Counties shall have their dublets closed with such Spanish buttons that they shal never prove good quiresters, for the hotte and inflamed rewnes fallen down into their throats.

Spanish coin (n.) [stereotyping of the Spanish as impeccably courteous but deeply untrustworthy]

empty compliments and meaningless courtesies.

1785, 1788, 1796		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.
1811		Lex. Balatronicum.
1823		Egan Grose’s Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.

Spanish cure (n.) [? as used in Spain]

a treatment for drug addiction based on enforced abstinence.

1986–7

Maledicta IX 60: Spanish cure n [D] Treatment of drug addiction by forced, total abstinence.

Spanish faggot (n.) [SE faggot, a piece of kindling wood; the stereotype of the Spanish Inquisition; the sun burns, as did the Inquisition]

the sun.

1785, 1788, 1796		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.
1811		Lex. Balatronicum.
1823		Egan Grose’s Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.

Spanish fiddle (n.)

see Spanish archer

Spanish gout (n.) (also Spanish glanders, Spanish needle) [reflecting the contemporary role of Spain as the national enemy. This was soon replaced by France (cf. French crown under French adj. etc), although the old term lingered into 19C]

venereal disease, syphilis.

1632		T. Nabbes Covent Garden III i: The Combatants will enter presently. The Knight of the Inkhorne, and the Knight of the Spanish Needle.
1674		Cavendish Triumphant Widow Act III: I defy your Yard, and your Spanish Needle, and your middle finger, with your Corslet Thimble.
c.1698		B.E. Dict. Canting Crew n.p.: Spanish gout the Pox.
1725		New Canting Dict. [as cit. c.1698].
1737, 1759, 1760, 1776		Bailey Universal Etym. Eng. Dict. [as cit. c.1698].
1785, 1788, 1796		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.
1811		Lex. Balatronicum.
1884		‘Experiences of a Cunt Philosopher’ in Randiana 36: A bad attack of the Spanish glanders, which was always his happy method of expressing the clap.

Spanish machete (n.) (also Paniar machete, Pannya machete) [the Spanish machete has a two-edged blade and thus ‘cuts both ways’]

(W.I.) a hypocrite.

1894		T. Banbury Jam. Superstitions 41: Pannya (Spanish) machete cut two side:—There are people who through deceit never give a fair and decided opinion on any subject, but will tell one thing to one and another thing to another when consulted [DJE].
1910		Anderson & Cundall Jam. Anancy Stories 30: ‘Paniar’ machete cut two side [DJE].
1943, 1954		cited in Cassidy & LePage Dict. Jam. Eng. (1980).

Spanish padlock (n.)

a chastity belt.

1608		Middleton Mad World (1640) I ii: Let me not be purloind, purloind indeed; the merry Greekes conceive me: there is a gem I would not loose, Kept by the Italian under lock and key].
1788, 1796		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue (2nd, 3rd edn) n.p.: Spanish padlock A kind of girdle contrived by jealous husbands of that nation, to secure the chastity of their wives.
1811		Lex. Balatronicum.
1823		Egan Grose’s Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.
1839		Crim.-Con. Gaz. 19 Jan. 24/1: A female evil / [...] / A slippery Proteus who no chain / Nor Spanish padlock could contain.

Spanish pip (n.) [pip n.¹ (2)]

venereal disease.

1583		P. Stubbes Anatomie of Abuses 41: Beware the Spanish pip.
1591		Greene Second Part of Conny-Catching in Grosart (1881–3) X 108: Such base minded leachers as giue themselves to such leud companie [...] catch such a Spanish pip, that they haue no more hair on their head than on their nails.
1600		N. Breton Pasquil’s Passe, and Passeth Not in Grosart (1879) I 9/1: The French Verola, and the English feuer, / The Irish ague, and the Spanish pippe, / The lungs consumption, and the rotten liuer, / The cursed fall into a fellons trippe, / And from the ladder by the rope to skippe, / Where execution makes the fatall tree.
1620		J. Taylor ‘Praise of Hemp-Seed’ in Works (1869) III 65: There’s many a Gallant dallying with a Drab, / Hath got the Spanish pip, or Naples scab, / The Galliae Morbus or the Scottish fleas, / Or English Poxe, for all’s but one disease.

Spanish pox (n.) [pox n.¹ (1)]

venereal disease, syphilis.

1508		Dunbar ‘To the Quene’ in Mackenzie Poems (1932) 60: I saw coclinkis [prostitute] me besyd The young men to thair howses gyd [...] Some fra the bordell wald nocht byd, Quhill that thai gatt the Spanyie pockis.
1547		Boorde Breuiary of Helthe 80^v: In Englyshe, Morbus Gallicuss is named the Frenche pockes: when that I was yonge, they were named the Spanyshe pockes.
1608		E. Topsell Hist. of Serpents 34: The fat of a black Serpent, is mixt to good purpose with those oyntments that are prepared against the French or Spanish-pox.
1619		J.T. Hvnting of the Pox B: The Flemmings call it Spanish Pox.
1665		G. Harvey Venus Unmasked 2: In Dutch its de spanise pocken, the Spanish Pox, from the Spanish souldiers quartered in the Netherlands, that first made their Landladies partakers of it.
a.1700		‘To the Renowned Beigh William Hedges’ Harleian Mss. 7315.236^v: My Privities were much ulcerated by the Christian Spanish Pox.

Spanish rice (n.)

(gay) lumpy semen.

1972		B. Rodgers Queens’ Vernacular.
1986–7		Maledicta IX 60: Spanish rice n [R] Lumpy semen; homosexual slang.

Spanish supper (n.)

(US) no supper at all or very little supper.

1936		R.F. Adams Cowboy Lingo 153: The tightening of the belt another notch or two as a substitute for food was called having a ‘Spanish supper’.
1979		Maledicta III:2 172: Spanish supper n [DA 1929] Belt-tightening as a substitute for food.

Spanish time (n.) [the Spanish, stereotypically, are reputed to maintain a flexible attitude to appointments]

(Aus.) unpunctuality.

c.2003

‘How to Find a Man in Europe and Leave Him There’ at AmericanGirlsAreEasy.com 🌐 There is another time zone in Spain known as ‘Spanish time’ and it’s no where close to what the clock says. Spaniards have the energy to stay out all night because they don’t stress over being punctual during the day. If they’re tired at two in the afternoon, they take a nap. If they have an appointment at two thirty, they’ll get there when they wake up. Spain isn’t a stressful place because everyone in the country is running on the same warped Spanish time.

Spanish trick (n.) [Williams (1994) suggests additional ety. of conventional or ‘missionary position’ intercourse]

sexual intercourse.

a.1625		Beaumont & Fletcher Love’s Cure I ii: Why, I but taught her a Spanish trick in charity.
1709		N. Ward ‘Panegyrick upon my Lady Fizzleton’s Lap-Dog’ Secret Hist. of Clubs 250: [The dog] whose Tongue my Lady’s Wants supplies, [...] Pleases much better than the Spanish Art.
1677		Behn Rover III ii: Egad I’ll show her Husband a Spanish Trick; send him out of the World, and marry her: she’s damnably in love with me.

Spanish trumpeter (n.) [pun on SE Don Key/donkey]

a (braying) donkey.

1785, 1788, 1796		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue n.p.: Spanish, or King of Spain’s trumpeter an ass when braying.
1811		Lex. Balatronicum.
1823		Egan Grose’s Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.

Spanish tummy (n.)

diarrhoea or any form of stomach upset experienced by tourists to Spain.

c.2003

‘FAQs’ at RelocationSpain.com 🌐 I have heard that ‘Spanish tummy’ (stomach upset) is mostly caused by the water. Can I drink the tap water?

Spanish walk (n.) [? the way Spanish pirates supposedly forced their prisoners to walk on tiptoes while they were held by the scruff of the neck, or the tip-toeing gait of flamenco dancers]

(US) a constrained style of walking assumed, willy-nilly, by those who are being ejected from a bar or saloon; also as v.; thus walk (someone) Spanish v., to walk or cause to walk in this way.

1848		J.R. Lowell Biglow Papers (1880) 20: Wich means to take a feller up jest by the slack o’ ’s trowsis / An’ walk him Spanish clean right out o’ all his homes an’ houses.
1859		‘Scene in a London Flash-Panny’ Matsell Vocabulum 98: They were spotted by the harmans, and so we walked Spanish.
1881		Trumble Sl. Dict. [as cit. 1859].
1900		Punch 28 Feb. 161/2: Elvina, who managed everybody, would not find the slightest difficulty in making him ‘walk Spanish’, a phrase which was understood to mean that he had to mind his ‘p’s’ and ‘q’s’.
1912		R.W. Brown ‘Word-List From Western Indiana’ in DN III:viii 582: make one walk Spanish, v. phr. To make one walk hurriedly by lifting him up a little by the hair on the back of the head.
1944		Post (Lanarks) 23 Apr. 6/3: Walk Spanish — discharged (by the nape of the neck and seat of the trousers).
1949		W.R. Burnett Asphalt Jungle in Four Novels (1984) 157: Gus [...] Spanish-walked him swiftly across the little place and out the front door.
1979		Maledicta III:2 172: Spanish walk n 1: [DAS 1949] Forceful exit 2: Cautious walk; from the manner in which pirates of the Spanish Main forced their prisoners to walk the plank.

Spanish worm (n.) [contemporary dislike of Spain]

a nail found embedded in a piece of wood that one is sawing.

1785, 1788, 1796		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.
1811		Lex. Balatronicum.