Green’s Dictionary of Slang

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Things I Have Seen and People I Have Known choose

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[UK] G.A. Sala Things I Have Seen I 120: I was no less than seventy pounds to the bad.
at to the bad under bad, n.
[UK] (c.1850) G.A. Sala Things I Have Seen I 16: It was not always safe to approach Mr. Thackeray [...] there were seasons when he had, figuratively, speaking, the ‘black dog’ on his shoulder.
at black dog, n.2
[UK] (con. 1861–5) G.A. Sala Things I Have Seen I 237: The South [...] called the Federal soldiers, whose upper garment was a kind of gabardine of a light azure hue, ‘filthy bluebellies.’.
at bluebelly, n.
[UK] G.A. Sala Things I Have Seen II 182: I had been reading about the extensive consumption of ‘brandy pawnee’ in India.
at brandy-pawnee (n.) under brandy, n.
[UK] G.A. Sala Things I Have Seen II 42: Well, my buck, and what might you want with me?
at buck, n.1
[UK] G.A. Sala Things I Have Seen II 51: [heading] ‘Fi. Fa.’ and ‘Ca. Sa.’ [Ibid.] 54: The writ of Capias ad Satisfaciendum, or ‘Ca.Sa.’ as it was familiarly termed.
at ca-sa, n.
[UK] G.A. Sala Things I Have Seen II 146: The young lady and her fiancé were of hopelessly contrary dispositions, and [...] they would lead a cat-and-dog life.
at cat and dog life (n.) under cat, n.1
[UK] G.A. Sala Things I Have Seen II 78: ‘Johnnies’ and ‘Chappies’ who [...] ‘raise Cain and break things.’.
at chappie, n.
[UK] G.A. Sala Things I Have Seen II 23: A [...] little lady in short skirt, scarlet continuations, and white canvas gaiters.
at continuations, n.
[UK] G.A. Sala Things I Have Seen II 60: Hoary-headed old roués, copper captains, ruined speculators, chronically distressed poets, [etc.].
at copper captain (n.) under copper, adj.
[UK] G.A. Sala Things I Have Seen I 218: A group of [...] politicians, and journalists who were a little more than Democrats. They were known as ‘Copperheads.’.
at copperhead, n.
[UK] (con. 1835) G.A. Sala Things I Have Seen II 110: The ‘force’ [...] were contumeliously halloaed at by small boys [...] as ‘bobbies,’ ‘peelers,’ and ‘crushers.’.
at crusher, n.1
[UK] G.A. Sala Things I Have Seen II 63: For gentlemen in difficulties arrested in the county of Surrey there was a single spunging-house in a street somewhere off the Blackfriars Road. I remember visiting a friend there once, who told me that the apartments were extremely comfortable. The sheriff’s officer was an accomplished whist player, and he had a musical daughter who used to play and sing to the gentleman in ‘diffs.’.
at dif, n.
[UK] G.A. Sala Things I Have Seen II 43: He ‘did’ the bill, eventually, and remarkably stiff interest he charged.
at do, v.1
[UK] G.A. Sala Things I Have Seen I 57: The other [eye] was and still remains a ‘duffer,’ wandering about on its own account and persistently refusing to do any tangible work.
at duffer, n.1
[UK] G.A. Sala Things I Have Seen II 32: [He] had been [...] both a lady-killer and a fire-eater in his youth.
at fire-eater, n.
[UK] G.A. Sala Things I Have Seen I 202: A sporting baronet, who had suffered much from the infirmity of ‘shaking his elbow’ at Crockford’s.
at shake one’s elbow (v.) under elbow, n.1
[UK] G.A. Sala Things I Have Seen II 95: Many of the gambling-house proprietors had realised handsome fortunes [...] Fred Elbowshake cultivated a taste for the Old Masters.
at elbow-shaker (n.) under elbow, n.1
[UK] G.A. Sala Things I Have Seen II 72: That ‘fast’ life which has been so divertingly depicted in Pierce Egan’s ‘Life in London.’.
at fast life (n.) under fast, adj.1
[UK] (con. 1839) G.A. Sala Things I Have Seen I 174: My schoolfellows [...] bestowed upon me such hard names as ‘Pomme de terre’ and ‘Goddam.’ Well; did not Joan of Arc habitually speak of the English in France as ‘Goddams’?
at Goddam, n.
[UK] (con. 1861–5) G.A. Sala Things I Have Seen I 237: The warriors of General Lee, who wore a light drab uniform, were known by the contumelious nickname of ‘greybacks’.
at grayback, n.
[UK] (con. 1840s) G.A. Sala Things I Have Seen II 90: The professional frequenters of which [i.e. ‘gambling-houses’] were known, in the slang of the time, as ‘Greeks’.
at Greek, n.
[UK] G.A. Sala Things I Have Seen II 58: If you had a sufficiency of petty cash about you, you might elect to be taken to the sheriff’s officer’s own private place of durance, which, in popular parlance, was known as a ‘spunging-house.’.
at sponging-house, n.
[UK] G.A. Sala Things I Have Seen II 34: The story may be, for aught I know, in Joe Miller.
at Joe Miller, n.
[UK] G.A. Sala Things I Have Seen II 78: ‘Johnnies’ and ‘Chappies’ who [...] ‘raise Cain and break things.’.
at johnny, n.1
[UK] G.A. Sala Things I Have Seen II 38: A friend who, getting a ‘kite’ flown for a hundred pounds, received twenty-five pounds in cash [etc.].
at kite, n.
[UK] G.A. Sala Things I Have Seen II 35: ‘Kite-flying,’ or, to use a less figurative term, dealing in accommodation bills, is a financial operation rapidly declining.
at kite-flying (n.) under kite, n.
[UK] G.A. Sala Things I Have Seen II 209: Aeneas [...] at once proceeded to knock over three ‘beamy stags.’.
at knock over, v.
[UK] (con. c.1850) G.A. Sala Things I Have Seen I 11: He had [...] an old-world look about him, inasmuch as he always wore leathers and top-boots.
at leathers, n.
[UK] (con. 1835) G.A. Sala Things I Have Seen II 109: I can most distinctly remember [...] the metamorphosis of a policeman into a lobster. The ‘force’ were not very popular in 1835.
at lobster, n.1
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