Green’s Dictionary of Slang

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Recollections of a Life of Adventure choose

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[UK] W. Stamer Life of Adventure I 226: Now, if [...] the wretch had volunteered to give me some assistance, I would have jumped at the chance. [...] [B]eing altogether too proud to hint such a thing myself, I made up my mind for the worst, and, shouldering the boat, prepared to collar the hill .
at collar, v.
[UK] W. Stamer Life of Adventure I 26: In my chest or ‘donkey,’ were deposited oilskins, ‘sou’-westers,’ sea-boots [...] sufficient to last, he assured me, for a two-years’ cruise .
at donkey, n.
[UK] W. Stamer Life of Adventure II 282: His father’s patronymic was the good old Irish one of Murphy, but on making a handsome fortune out of the celebrated ‘Knock me Down’ bitters [...] it was changed into the aristocratic one of De Morphie.
at knock-me-down, n.
[UK] W. Stamer Life of Adventure II 21: W]hen daylight came S. was still in a state of ‘fourpenny,’ or what was worse still, ‘new rum,’ and I could not get him out of the dirty blankets in which he was coiled up .
at fourpenny, n.
[UK] W. Stamer Life of Adventure II 295: [A]s to what people thought, they might go to Halifax for all I cared.
at go to Halifax! (excl.) under Halifax, n.
[UK] W. Stamer Life of Adventure II 138: ‘Oh, you eternal thumping villain, I’d like to cut the liver out of you, I would! Never mind, sir, let him kick; he’s got his match this time, I warrant him. Holy jumping! . . . if he won’t have his neck broken’.
at holy jumping...!, excl.
[UK] W. Stamer Life of Adventure 1 25: The pay was, by his account, most liberal—one hundred and fortieth ‘lay’ he called it; in other words, I was to receive a one hundred and fortieth part of all the oil made on the cruise .
at lay, n.4
[UK] W. Stamer Life of Adventure II 139: [M]y precious steed was not brought back until the evening of the second day after his escape, and then minus saddle and bridle .
at minus, adj.
[UK] W. Stamer Life of Adventure II 34: Sydney was not such a go-ahead place as the capital of Victoria. [...] After the noise and stir of Melbourne, it seemed what the Yankees would call a very ‘one-horse sort of a place’.
at one-horse (adj.) under one, adj.
[UK] W. Stamer Life of Adventure 1297: [T]he bodies of these unhappy men are totally unfit for the hard work they are forced to undergo, and they are speedily ‘rubbed out’ of the land of the living.
at rub out, v.
[UK] W. Stamer Life of Adventure II 295: [A]fter having purchased a little under-clothing [...] I returned to my friend’s house without having expended more than twenty-five pounds at the outside.
at at the outside (adv.) under outside, n.
[UK] W. Stamer Life of Adventure 1 274: [I]it had never struck me that the notes of such a well-known bank as that of ‘Cape Fear’ would not pass current in the Northern states, and I had not therefore taken the precaution of converting my money into Yankee ‘shin-plaisters’ [sic].
at shinplaster (adj.) under shin, n.3
[UK] W. Stamer Life of Adventure I 252: The enemy [i.e. a hunted bear], however, did not ‘show up,’ so I took courage and cautiously advanced on tiptoe until I was again close alongside his prostrate carcase .
at show (up), v.
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