Green’s Dictionary of Slang

death by hanging.

1802

Sporting Mag. 19 199/1: Give us a good account of the lively lads, whose spirit brings them to a hempen apoplexy .

(UK Und.) money paid to thief takers and others involved in the conviction of felons.

c.1850

Duncombe New and Improved Flash Dict. n.p.: Hempen ballast money given and received by thief-takers and others for convicting felons.

(UK Und.) the hangman’s noose.

1659		A most exact and true relation, extracted out of the [...] publick instruments 14: [W]hether his Highness the Lord Protector being duly informed thereof, would not cause him [i.e. a seditious astronomer] to contemplate the Celestial constellations, through a Hempen casement.
1680		R. Head English Rogue 64: I resolved quite to give over the practice of [thieving], for fear in the end, it should bring me to look through a hempen casement.
1699		J. Dunton Dublin Scuffle 430: Robin Bog-house will dye looking through an Hempen Casement.
a.1790		H.T. Potter New Dict. Cant (1795).
1809		G. Andrewes Dict. Sl. and Cant.
1835		G. Kent Modern Flash Dict.
1848		Flash Dict. in Sinks of London Laid Open.
c.1850		Duncombe New and Improved Flash Dict.

the hangman’s noose.

1618		Owles almanacke 39: Fatall cords will be busily set on worke, and hempen cawdles will be common physicke for desperate persons.
1620		J. Taylor ‘Praise of Hemp-Seed’ in Works (1869) III 68: To end this matter, thus much I assure you, / A Tiburne Hempen-caudell well will cure you.

a hangman’s noose.

1584		Three Ladies of London III: The Painter saies when he is hang, you may put out the knot without fear. I am sure they were armes, for there was written in Romaine letters round the hempen collar, Getten by the worthie valiant Captaine Maister Fraud.
1626		J. Hall A sermon of publike thanksgiuing 29: Doe the enemies of the Church [...] breathe nothing but threats, & death? Make sure of our God, he shal be sure to make them lick our dust. Great Benhadad of the Syrians shall come with his hempen collar, to the King of Israel.
1674		The mall 59: Sir Ralph. Ile go hide my self somewhere from the hands of Justice. / [...] / But how shall I escape the Hempen Collar.
1685		Salamanca Doctor’s Farewell 1: To this Collar of Wood comes a hempen Crevat [sic] Titus’s Exaltation Pillory.
1696		Motteux (trans.) Gargantua and Pantagruel (1927) II Bk V 493: Oh! they will cost me an estate in hempen collars [...] they will take the pains to dance at a rope’s end.
1772		Reading Mercury 29 June 4/1: We hear that a hempen collar was given to Holland, a Minister of the law.
1787		Adventures of Jonathan Corncob 71: ‘Fie! fie! my jewel,’ said he, ‘you a soldier, used to leathern stock, and make faces at the touch of a hempen collar!’.
1801		Sporting Mag. Jan. XVII 203/2: Halters no more than hempen collars are.
1820		Chester Courant 25 Jan. 4/5: I bequeath a string hempen collar, as the only legacy I can think that is worthy of him.
1830		Lytton Paul Clifford I 74: If ever I know as how you makes a flat of my Paul, blow me tight, but I’ll weave you a hempen collar: I’ll hang you, you dog, I will.
1838		W.N. Glascock Land Sharks and Sea Gulls II 11: I’ll tell you what, Bess, if you means to be a spy upon me, or blow the gaff [...] you had better at once fit yourself with a hempen collar.
1848		J.R. Lowell Biglow Papers (1880) 14: It comes so nateral to think about a hempen collar.
1852		Western Times 13 Mar. 7/5: He would give the rogues a hempen collar.
1868		Reynolds’s Newspaper 7 June 4/3: Instead of a hempen collar of which poor Wall died, he is likely to receive a lordly coronet.
1878		Western Times 3 July 2/3: As he is the Executioner of the Law, a ‘hempen collar’ or a silken cord would have been typical.
1884		Pall Mall Gaz. 26 June 5/2: Some day democracy will be inclined to fit a hempen collar round the necks of some of these astute gentlemen.
1898		Graphic (London) 21 May 24/2: It was said he was to be granted the hempen collar.
1916		Western Times 1 Sept. 10/2: Indeed, we care not whether poison or shot, / Or, like Casement, a hempen collar.
1936		L. Pound ‘American Euphemisms for Dying’ in AS XI:3 200: Put on the hempen collar.
1949		Monteleone Criminal Sl. (rev. edn).

death by judicial hanging.

1830

Lytton Paul Clifford II 125: Yourself grabbed, with a slight possibility of a hempen consummation.

the hangman’s noose; also one who is to be hanged, gallows bait; cite 1793 refers to a rope, but not for hanging.

1514		Skelton Agenst Garnesche v line 161: God garde the, Garnyche, from the rope! Stop a tyd, and be welle ware Ye be nat cawte in an hempen snare.
1565		J. Calfhill An aunsvvere to the Treatise of the crosse n.p.: [T]he yron chayne [...] put about the necke, might saue them from the hempen halter.
1576		U. Fulwell Art of Flattery 8th dialogue 38: Lo here is cretinsis cum cretense, a cogging knaue with a foysting varlet wel met: he with his herhaltrie and you with your hemp-haltrie.
1589		Nashe Death and Buriall of Martin Mar-Prelate in Works I (1883–4) 174: Neither is there any one of all your crue, that would not be glad to die that death: but it will not be, except you will be enstald in a hempen whood.
1600		T. Garzoni [trans.] The hospitall of incurable fooles 127: [A] good hempen halter so gagge their throates, as that they may no more bee able to vomite foorth such acerbitie and bitternes.
1612		Rowlands Knave of Hearts 48: To such an end as my last line / Concludes withall, the Hempen-twine.
1612		W. Fennor Pasquils night-cap 4: [A] pilfring and a picke-purse knaue: / Which well deserues to stretch an hempen string, / And climbe the gallowes for to seeke his graue.
1612		Dekker ‘Canting Song’ O per se O O2: Away, sweet Ducks, with greedy eyes From London walk up Holborne / Sue him who stole your clothes: he flyes with hempen wings to Tyborne.
1616		B. Rich My ladies looking glasse 34: [S]ome mercilesse Magistrats, that hath murthered more poore suiters with their Currish answers, then the Hangman of London did euer strangle with his Hempen halter.
1625		Massinger New Way to Pay Old Debts V i: There is a statute for you, which will bring Your necke in a hempen circle, yes there is.
1625		M.S. The blessings on Mount Gerizzim 259: We hope rather to sée him sent flying to his holy father with an hempen halter about his necke, and led triumphantly in a dongcart to the gallowes.
1630		J. Taylor Works 151: Thou wouldst turne Hangman to aduance thy state; / And hang vp me: but (Sculler) I’l o’r-match you, / And stand to see a Hempen halter catch you.
1632		T. Randolph Jealous Lovers III xiv: Shall we not be suspected for the murder, / And choke with a hempen squincy?
1639		J. Taylor A iuniper lecture 230: Let her [i.e. a scolding wife] have a swing / All in a hempen string.
1648		‘Mercurius Elenticus’ The Parliament mended or ended 4: Take each of you a good hempen halter strongly and surely twisted (and each of you after you haue well dined (For it is not good to goo to hell with an emptie stomack) adorn each of your thick necks with the aforesaid Bracelets.
1648		‘Mercurius Elenticus’ The Parliament mended or ended 4: [F]asten your hempen instrument, and having performed these necessary ceremonies without praying to God, who abhorres you, or calling on the Devill, who longs to embrace you, put your selves to the mercy of the throtle.
1649		R. Brandon The last will and testament 7: [He] did behead, hang, draw, and quarter better then any of his Predecessors [...] What e’re belong’d to Axe or Hempen string.
1652		A. Scattergood Sermon 20: Why was that traitour dressed with an hempen halter, and this with a gold chain.
1657		J. Poole English Parnassus 336: Hang’d. Chok’t with a hempen squincy. To dangle from the cursed tree.
1657		W. Sprigg Essayes 38: The surfeit of which conceits, with the help of an hempen string, gives his frighted soul an Exit from off the stage of his Body.
1659		R. Brome Five new playes 120: And Treason in your Breech, we'll hang you for your Knaveries, / On tree in Hempen twine .
1663		Jack Adams his perpetual almanack (2 edn) 26: On the first line write Green sleeves [...] on the eleventh a Hempen Halter.
1664		C. Cotton Virgil Travestie (1765) Bk IV 144: And loth a Queen in Hempen Tackle / Should to Plebeians be a Spectacle.
1672		M. Atkins Cataplus 62: But more than can be number’d saving / For villany in hempen string.
1675		J. Higham A looking-glass for loyalty 158: Nemesis will [...] make a snare with the hair of his own head in stead of an hempen halter, to truss him up to the fatal Tree.
1678		‘The Plotters’ Ballad’ in Ebsworth Bagford Ballads (1878) II 702: A Hempen Cravat to stop up your Breath, / Will give you abundance of Ease.
1680		Crack upon crack 3: Pray Sir, let’s have each an entire Suit, except a Hempen Cravat, for that begins to grow out of Fashion.
1685		S. Wesley Maggots 154: Who Mounts the Bridal Bed is madder / By far, than him that Mounts the Ladder. / What Man in’s Wits wo’n’t rather chuse / The Hempen, than the Marriage Noose?
1688		The Jesuites exaltation 1: And when we have the Hempen string, / then hey boys up go we.
1697		B.H. The parliament of bees n.p.: [They] were Cashier’d and Paid off at Tyburn. Therefore I advise ’um all to beware, lest they are Nooz’d [...] in a Hempen-String.
1697		E. Settle The world in the moon 28: Pal. Speed the Gallows! Thou art full ripe for a Hempen Noose, but too rotten for a Wedlock one.
1698		Æsop in select fables 8: No Cure upon them could be done, / But by a hempen Halter.
1700		J. Cooper Misthoskopia 188: [T]o send [Haman] out of the World with an hempen Squincy, hanging him on the same Gallows that his own Malice had erected for poor Mordecai?
1703		Hell Upon Earth 11: The Yeoman of the Halter, then adorns them with a hempen Garment.
1714		J. Gay ‘4th Pastoral’ Shepherd’s Week 37: He wist not when the hempen String I drew.
1719		A. Smith Lives of Most Notorious Highway-men, etc. (1926) xvii: But whatever the costume, one gruesome addition was always in fashion — the ‘hempen cravat’ already knotted round the neck.
1723		‘Whipping-Tom’ In Praise of Knavery III 20: He will swing at Tyburn [...] A Man never looks so Silly as when he has a Hempen Halter for his Neckcloth.
1725		J. Sheppard Sheppard in Egypt 22: He that’s to be hang’d, & fate hath fixt th’lot, / To all’s Invulnerable but a H--p-n Knot, / No wonder then this Throat escap’d the Cut.
1741		Newcastle Courant 19 Dec. 3/2: If George, in a good Hempen String, / Dooms B**, and all such K—s, to swing / Then, we’ll pray, God Save the King.
1754		Scoundrel’s Dict. 24: He flies / with Hempen Wings to Tyburn.
1784		Rambler’s Mag. Mar. 115/2: May each knave swing / In an hempen string.
c.1790		‘Peter Pindar’ ‘The Rights of Kings’ Works (1794) III 53: Your hemp cravats, your pray’r, your Tyburn mien, May pardon gain from our good King and Queen.
1793		Oxford Jrnl 21 Sept. 3/2: An affectionate husband [...] took her (his rib) to the market cross where being provided with an auctioneer and a hempen necklace [...] she was knocked down to a purchaser.
1809		A.B. Lindsley Yankee Notions 27: It’s apt to introduce its authors and abettors to hempen neck cloths. [Ibid.] 53: Oh, there’s no doubt we shall get the hempen cravats by and bye.
1819		W. Scott Bride of Lammermoor 290: I wad wager twa and a plack that hemp plaits his cravat yet.
1834		(con. 1737–9) W.H. Ainsworth Rookwood (1857) 256: You might set at nought the tightest hempen cravat that was ever twisted.
1838		‘The Hand of Glory’ Bentley’s Misc. Mar. 303: There’s a horrid old hag in a steeple-crown’d hat, / Round her neck they have tied to a hempen cravat / A Dead Man’s hand, and a dead Tom Cat.
1838		Reading Mercury 29 Sept. 4/3: He who signs the warrant [...] must some day die too, when the ermine tippet must [...] lie down with the hempen string.
1840		‘Christopher Snub’ in New Monthly Mag. Sept.–Dec. 190: His tree of social liberty was the tree that grew at Tyburn: the Gordian knot of policy, a nice new hempen halter.
1842		Boston Satirist (MA) 21 Oct. n.p.: [E]ven when the hempen cravat was adjusted about his neck’.
1843		Kendal Mercury 23 Dec. 1/7: He was under trial for some three or four libels — with the simple addition of a ‘hempen cravat’.
1845		J. Lindridge Sixteen-String Jack 356: So hang me [...] let it be done by an hempen neck-cloth.
1855		‘Things I Do Like To See’ Diprose’s Comic Song Book 24: And I do like to see, I do, and that’s flat, / A chap wear a silk, not a hempen cravat.
1857		Delhi Gazette Extra 22 July n.p.: Let us view Delhi, [...] the General Commander sitting in the Moghul’s Palace, and a hempen necklace around the King’s throat as a substitute for his crown.
1862		Dundee Advertiser 6 Oct. 2/4: Mrs M’Lachlan does not admire a hempen necklace and would rather prefer that someone else’s neck than hers should be fitted with that vulgar ornament.
1864		London Standard 14 Apr. 4/5: More than half the total wore the white cap and the hempen halter.
1868		‘O Andy J’ Grant Songster 29: O Andy Judas, circle swinger, / It is you who ought to swing [...] within a hempen ring.
1873		Manchester Eve. News 14 Apr. 4/5: Despite the remonstrances of the coroner’s jury [...] Evans carried off the hempen necklace to add to his trophies.
1875		Sheffield Dly Teleg. 13 Aug. 3/7: He [was] threatened [...] with a hempen cravat, and the navigation of the Bosphorus in a sack.
1882		Sydney Sl. Dict. (2 edn) 5: Hempen Cravat - The hangman’s noose.
1886		M.E. Braddon Mohawks III 107: Nothing but the immediate prospect of a hempen necklace would extort that.
1891		F.W. Carew Autobiog. of a Gipsey 408: A crowd of slatternly women and juvenile candidates for the hempen cravat clustered about the portals of the Hen and Chickens.
1895		Crowe Aus. Sl. Dict. 35: Hempen Cravat, the hangman’s noose.
1893		Daily Herald (Brownsville, TX) 20 May 2/2: A few of the white caps should be decorated with white caps and hemp neckties.
1900		NY Tribune 8 Oct. 8/5: The negro seems to prefer this to the hemp necktie with which the Democrats decorate him.
1905		Marvel III:58 17: Then I can see a lot of cop-folk never getting any more rest in their naturals [...] ’cos Big Jim don’t mean to wear the hemp tie.
1925		N. Lucas Autobiog. of a Thief 172: She replied that I was of the sort which comes to wear a hempen tie in the end.
1932		D.L. Sayers Have His Carcase 267: I’ll begin seriously to weave a hempen neck-tie for him.
1936		L. Pound ‘American Euphemisms for Dying’ in AS XI:3 200: Put on the hempen collar/cravat/necktie/necklace/anodyne necklace/choker/halter.
1940		Baber & Walker Longest Rope 34: We wanted to lynch Frank Canton, and if we had been allowed to hand him a hemp necktie right then, it would have saved a heap of good men [DA].
1959		N. Nye Long Run (1983) 67: You want a hemp necktie?

a judicial hanging.

[1688		J. Shirley Triumph of Wit 181: He fell sick of a filching Fever, for which the Doctor of the Tripple-Tree applied the powerful Cordial of Hemp to his Jugular Vein, so that the strength of Application not being allayed in time, cast him into a dead Sleep, and for ever spoiled his drinking at the Boozing-ken].
1785, 1788, 1796		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue n.p.: Hempen fever, a man who was hanged, is said to have died of a hempen fever.
1796		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue (3rd edn).
1811		Lex. Balatronicum [as cit. 1785].
1821		W. Scott Pirate (1822) II 81: Are you advised what death he died of? [...] for I have heard that it was of a tight neck-collar – a hempen fever.
1839		(con. 1703) W.H. Ainsworth Jack Sheppard (1917) 23: The unpleasant complaint, de hempen fever.
1894		Burnley Exp. 8 Aug. 4/8: Victims of the hangman’s rope were said to [...] ‘die of the hempen fever’.

(UK Und.) money paid to thief takers and others involved in the conviction of felons.

a.1790		H.T. Potter New Dict. Cant (1795) n.p.: [hempen] fortune money received as rewards for convicting felons by thief takers.
1809		G. Andrewes Dict. Sl. and Cant n.p.: [hempen] furniture money received as rewards for convicting felons by thief-takers and others; commonly called blood-money.
1821		Flash Dict. [as cit. 1809].
1835		G. Kent Modern Flash Dict. [as cit. 1809].
1848		Flash Dict. in Sinks of London Laid Open [as cit. 1809].
c.1850		Duncombe New and Improved Flash Dict. n.p.: Hempen furniture the same.

a hangman’s noose.

1818		W. Perry London Guide 42: Men who rob only occasionally [...] mistake the obect, and get into trouble, from which they are released only by a hempen habeas corpus.
1823		‘Jon Bee’ Dict. of the Turf, the Ring, the Chase, etc.

a hangman’s noose.

1838

Paul Pry 30 Sept. 181/3: I hope some day or the other, instead of your being in the custody of hemp, you may end your exploits by a hempen substitute.

a hangman’s noose .

c.1592

Marlowe Jew of Malta IV ii: When the hangman had put on his hempen tippet.

a woman whose husband is hanged.

c.1698		B.E. Dict. Canting Crew n.p.: Hempen-widdow one whose Husband was Hang’d.
1714		A. Smith Lives of Most Noted Highway-men, etc. I 219: Nan was left a hempen widow, and forc’d to shift for herself.
1726		A. Smith Memoirs of... Jonathan Wild 5: Mol Pines, a notorious Shoplifter, and Hempen Widow.
1737, 1759, 1760, 1776		Bailey Universal Etym. Eng. Dict. [as cit. c.1698].
1748		Dyche & Pardon New General Eng. Dict. (5th edn) n.p.: Hempen-Widow (s.), a woman whose husband was hanged [F&H].
c.1750–1882		B.M. Carew Life and Adventures.
1785, 1788, 1796		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.
1809		G. Andrewes Dict. Sl. and Cant.
1811		Lex. Balatronicum.
1823		‘Jon Bee’ Dict. of the Turf, the Ring, the Chase, etc.
1834		(con. 1737–9) W.H. Ainsworth Rookwood (1857) 186: He never left anything behind him [...] except a broken kit and a hempen widow.
1839		(con. 1703) W.H. Ainsworth Jack Sheppard (1917) 2: You show [...] consideration to the feelings of a hempen widow.
1841		‘Nix My Dolly’ Dublin Comic Songster 3: In a box of the stone jug I was born, / Of a hempen widow the kid forlorn.
1848		Flash Dict. in Sinks of London Laid Open.
c.1850		Duncombe New and Improved Flash Dict.
1861		Dublin Eve. Mail 7 Nov. 1/6: A London theatre [...] to conclude with ‘Horsemonger Lane Joe; or the child of the Hempen Widow’.
1874		H. Mayhew London Characters 346: The well-known Newgate metaphor of a ‘hempen widow’.
1882		Sydney Sl. Dict. (2 edn) 5: Hempen Widow - One whose husband has been hanged.
1886		Stephens & Yardley Little Jack Sheppard 28: 🎵 In a box of the stone jug I was born / Of a hempen widow.
1897		C. Whibley ‘Jonathan Wild’ Book of Scoundrels 82: Molly, his wife, was destined a second time to win the conspicuous honour that belongs to a hempen widow.
1949		Monteleone Criminal Sl. (rev. edn).

see hempen cravat

to be hanged.

1890–1904

Farmer & Henley Sl. and Its Analogues.

to be hanged.

1627

J. Taylor ‘An Armado’ in Works (1869) I 77: Looking through a hempen window at St. Thomas Waterings.