John S. Farmer

“ English Synonyms.—To bam; to bamblustercate; to bamboozle; to bambosh; to barney; to be on the job; to best; to bilk; to blarney; to blow; to bosh; to bounce; to cob; to cod; to cog; to chaff; to come over (or the artful, or Paddy, or the old soldier over) one; to cram; to do; to do brown; to doctor; to do Taffy; to fake the kidment; to flare up; to flam; to flummox; to get at (round, or to windward of) one; to gild the pill; to give a cock’s egg; to gravel; to gull; to haze; to jimmify; to jaw; to jockey; to jolly; to kid; to make believe the moon is made of green cheese (Cotgrave) ; to mogue ”

“ To kill the goose for the golden eggs, verb. phr. (colloquial) .—To grasp at more than is due; to over-reach oneself. (From the Greek fable.)
Everything is lovely and the goose hangs high, phr. See Everything.
He’ll be a man among the geese when the gander is gone, phr. (old) .—Ironical; = ‘He’ll be a man before his mother.’
Go! shoe the goose, phr. (old) .—A retort, derisive or incredulous = the modern ‘To hell and pump thunder.’
Unable to say boh! to a goose, phr. (colloquial) .—Said of a bashful person.—Grose. ”

“ An Irish tailor who has had a slight dispute with his wife the night before, and has corporeally chastised her with a hot goose—a tailor’s goose, be it understood—to the extent of all but fracturing her skull. ”

“ To take a flier (American trade) .—1. To make a venture; to invest against odds.
2. (venery) .—To copulate in haste (Grose) ; to do a Fast-fuck (q.v.) .
Flies, subs. (rhyming) .—Lies. Hence, nonsense; trickery; deceit.
There are no flies on me, on him, etc., phr. (common) .—‘I am dealing honestly with you;’ ‘he is genuine, and is not humbugging.’ In America, the expression is used of (1) a man of quick parts, a man who ‘knows a thing without its being kicked into him by a mule’; and (2) a person of superior breeding or descent. Sometimes the phrase is corrupted into ‘no fleas.’ See Gammon. ”

“ That fellowes pocket is like a tailors hell, it eats up part of every mans due; ’tis an executioner, and makes away more innocent petitions in one yeere, than a red-headed hangman cuts ropes in an age. ”

“ A made-flyer is when the bound of the ball is gained from a previous kick, by the same side, against canvas or any other obstacle, or is dropped, as in a ‘drop-kick.’ This is now confused with a ‘kick-up.’
Fly-flapped, adj. (obsolete) .—Whipped in the stocks, or at the cart’s tail.—Grose.
Fly-Flapper, subs. (old) .—A heavy bludgeon.
Fly-flat, subs. (turf) .—A would-be connoisseur and authority. [From fly = knowing + flat = a fool.]
Flying.—To look as if the Devil had shit him (or her) flying (common and proverbial) .—Said in derision of one odd-looking, filthy, or deformed. ”

“ If theatre managers would only give the public the chance of as good a seat as can be got at the Trocadero or the Pavilion, at the same price, and manage the ventilation of their houses so as not to bake the gods and freeze the ‘pitites,’ I venture to think that fewer people would go to the music halls. ”

“ For synonyms, see Buffle and Cabbage-head.
1596. Sir J. Davies, Book of Epigrams. A gull is he who feares a velvet gowne, And when a wench is brave dares not speak to her; A gull is he which traverseth the towne, And is for marriage known a common wooer; A gull is he, which while he proudly weares A silver-hilted rapier by his side. Indures the lye and knockes about the eares, While in his sheath his sleeping sword doth bide. But to define a gull in termes precise—A gull is he which seems, and is not, wise.
1598. Florio, A World of Wordes, passim. ”

“ To fly off the handle, verb. phr. (American pioneer) .—To lose temper; to fail of a promise; to jilt; to die; also to slip off the handle (q.v.) ; to disappoint in any way. [In pioneer life for an axe to part company with its handle is a serious trial to temper and patience.]
1843–4. Haliburton, The Attaché. You never see such a crotchical old critter as he is. He flies right off the handle for nothing. ”

“ Faire une gaffe, in modern Parisian slang, may be best rendered as to put your foot in it.
To have one foot (or leg) in the grave, verb. phr. (common) .—On one’s last legs; measured for a funeral sermon. Also as adj.
1825. English Spy, i., pp. 199–200. With one leg in the grave he’ll laugh.
1890. Globe, 15 May, p. 5, col. 2. One-foot-in-the-grave paralytic sort of people.
To pull foot, verb. phr. (American) .—To make haste. Variants are to take one’s foot in one’s hand, and to make tracks; but for synonyms, see Absquatulate and Skedaddle. ”

“ English Synonyms.—To bob; to box the Jesuit [‘St. Omer’s lewdness,’ Marston, [74] ‘Scourge’ (1598) ] ; to chuff; to chuffer; to claw (Florio) ; to digitate (of women) ; to eat (or get) cock-roaches; to bring up (or off) by hand; to fight one’s turkey (Texan) ; to finger or finger-fuck (of women) ; to friggle (Florio) ; to fuck one’s fist (of men) ; to fetch mettle (Grose) ; to handle; to indorse; to jerk, play, pump, toss, or work off; to lark; to milk; to mount a corporal and four; to mess, or pull about; to play with (schoolboys’) , to rub up; to shag; to tickle one’s crack (of women) ”

“ French Synonyms.—Un bourgeron (popular = a nip of brandy) ; un asticot de cercueil (= a coffin-worm, a play on verre and bière) ; un coup d’arrosoir (popular: a touch of the watering pot) ; un gargarisme (popular: = a gargle [q.v.] ) ; un galopin (= a pony [q.v.] of beer) ; un larme (= a tear) ; un mistiche (thieves’) ; un misérable (popular: a glass of spirits costing one sou; une demoiselle = two sous; un monsieur = four sous; un poisson = five sous) ; un mince de chic (popular: in contempt) ; une coquille de noix (popular = a thimbleful; a very small go; a drain) ”

“ Men talk of high and low dice.
High-nosed, adj. phr. (colloquial) .—Very proud in look and in fact; supercilious in bearing and speech; superior (q.v.) .
High- [or gay-] old (time, game, liar, etc.) , adj. phr. (common) .—A general intensitive: e.g., high old time = a very merry time indeed; high old liar = a liar of might; high old drunk = an uncommon booze (q.v.) ”

“ To horse a man, is for one of two men who are engaged on precisely similar pieces of work to make extraordinary exertions in order to work down the other man. This is sometimes done simply to see what kind of a workman a new man may be, but often with the much less creditable motive of injuring a fellow workman in the estimation of an employer.
The gray mare is the better horse. ”

“ Of women only.—To get an arselins coup (Burns) ; to catch an oyster; to do the naughty; to do a spread, a tumble, a back-fall, what mother did before me; a turn on one’s back, what Eve did with Adam; to hold, or turn up one’s tail (Burns and Durfey) ; to get one’s leg lifted, one’s kettle mended, one’s chimney swept out, one’s leather stretched; to lift one’s leg; to open up to; to get shot in the tail; to get a shove in one’s blind eye; to get a wet bottom; what Harry gave Doll (Durfey) ; to suck the sugar-stick; to take in beef; to take Nebuchadnezzar out to grass ”

“ For synonyms, see jemmy.
To put a churl (or beggar) upon a gentleman, verb. phr. (old) .—To drink malt liquor immediately after wine.—Grose.
Gentleman of the (Three, or Four, or Five) Outs (or Ins) , subs. phr. (old) .—A [131] varying and ancient wheeze, of which the following are representative:—
Out of money, and out of clothes; Out at the heels, and out at the toes; Out of credit, and in debt.
A man in debt, in danger, and in poverty; or in gaol, indicted, and in danger of being hanged.
1785. Grose, Vulg. Tongue, s.v. ”

“ Other colloquial usages are at heart = in reality, truly, at bottom; for one’s heart = for one’s life; in one’s heart of hearts = in the inmost recesses of oneself; to break the heart of = (a) to cause great grief, or to kill by grief, and (b) to bring nearly to completion; to find in one’s heart = to be willing; to get or learn by heart = to commit to memory; to have at heart = to feel strongly about; to have in the heart = to design or to intend; to lay or take to heart = to be concerned or anxious about; to set the heart at rest = to tranquilize ”

“ Among combinations may be mentioned, to flash one’s ivories = to show one’s teeth, to grin (Grose) ; to flash the hash = to vomit (Grose) ; to flash the dickey = to show the shirt front; to flash the dibs = to show or spend one’s money; to flash a fawney = to wear a ring; to flash one’s gab = to talk, to swagger, to brag; to flash the bubs = to expose the paps; to flash the muzzle (q.v.) ; to flash one’s ticker = to air one’s watch; to flash the drag = to wear women’s clothes for immoral purposes; to flash the white grin = see grin ”

“ The indignant settler who has been ill-treated, as he fancies, in court, denounces his attorney as a ‘miserable, one-horse lawyer;’ and the Yankee newly arrived in England does not hesitate to declare that ‘Liverpool is a poor one-horse kind of a place,’ a term applied by Mark Twain to no less a city than Rome itself ”

“ Detroit Free Press, 15 Sept. ‘Stranger, did ye lope it?’ (come on foot) . ‘Yes.’ ‘A mile or a sot down?’ ‘More’n that. About a dozen flop-ups.’
Flop-up-time = Bedtime.
[Flop, too, is something of a vocable of all-work. Thus to flop in = (venery) to effect intromission; to flop round = to loaf; to dangle; to flop a judy = to lay out, or ‘spread’ (q.v.) , a girl; to do a flop = (colloquial) to sit, or to fall, down, and (venery) to lie down to a man; to flop out = to leave the water noisily and awkwardly; belly-flopping = belly-bumping, coition; a flop in the gills = a smack in the mouth.] ”

“ For synonyms, see Buffle and Cabbage-head.
Gay, adj. (colloquial) .—1. Dissipated; specifically, given to venery: As in the French, avoir la cuisse gaie = to be addicted to the use of men. Hence gay woman, or girl, or bit = a strumpet; gay house = a brothel; to be gay = to be incontinent; gay in the legs, in the groin, in the arse = short-heeled (q.v.) ; gaying instrument = the penis [Lexicon Balatronicum, 1811, s.v.] ; gay man = a wencher ”

“ Gilded Rooster, subs. phr. (American) .—A man of importance; a howling swell (q.v.) ; sometimes the gilded rooster on the top of the steeple. Cf., big-bug; big dog of the tanyard, etc.
1888. New York Herald. We admit that as a metropolis Chicago is the gilded rooster on top of the steeple, but even gilded roosters have no right to the whole corn bin.
Gilderoy’s Kite. To be hung higher than gilderoy’s kite, verb. phr. (old) .—To be punished more severely than the very worst criminals. ‘The greater the crime the higher the gallows’ was at one time a practical legal axiom. ”

“ English Synonyms.—To retire up (one’s fundament) ; to slope; to smouge; to do a sneak; to take the Frenchman; to vamoose.
French Synonyms.—S’escarpiner (popular: = to flash one’s pumps) ; escarpin = a dancing shoe; jouer de l’escarpin = to ply one’s pumps, (16th century) ; s’échapper, s’esquiver, filer, disparaître, s’éclipser, se dérober, se retirer, and s’en aller à l’anglaise (= to take English leave) ; pisser à l’anglaise (= to do an English piss, i.e., affect a visit to the urinal) ; prendre sa permission sous son coude (popular: literally to take one’s leave under one’s arm) ”

“ To hop the twig ... and the like, are more flippant than humorous.
2. (common) .—To die; to ‘kick the bucket’ (q.v.) ; to peg out (q.v.) . Also To hop off.
English Synonyms. To be content; to cock up one’s toes; to croak; to cut (or let go) the painter; to cut one’s stick; to give in; to give up; to go to Davy Jones’ locker; to go off the hooks; to go under; to go up; to kick the bucket; kickeraboo (West Indian) ; to lay down one’s knife and fork; to lose the member of one’s mess; to mizzle; to pass in one’s checks; to peg out; to put on a wooden surtout; to be put to bed with a shovel ”

“ Hunting the Squirrel, an amusement practised by post boys, and stage coachmen, which consists in following a one-horse chaise, and driving it before them, passing close to it so as to brush the wheel, and by other means terrifying any woman, or person that may be in it. ”

“ Half-snags is a corrupted form of half snacks, i.e., half shares. If one of a party of arabs finds any article it becomes his entire property unless his fellows say Half-Snags, or ‘Quarter-bits,’ or ‘Some for your neighbours.’
Half-’un, subs. (common) .—Half-a-glass of spirits and water; Half-a-Go (q.v.) .
Half-widow, subs. (American) .—A woman with a lazy and thriftless husband.
[For Half in combination, see also Bean: Borde; Bull; Case: Century; Couter; Dollar; George; Go; Grunter; Hog; Jack; James; Ned; Ounce; Quid; Skiv; Stretch; Tusheroon; Wheel.]
Halifax. Go to Halifax, verb. phr. ”

“ High-heeled Shoes. To have high-heeled shoes on, verb. phr. (American) .—To set up as a person of consequence; to do the grand (q.v.) .
High Horse. To be (or get) on (or ride) the high horse, verb. phr. (colloquial) .—To give oneself airs; to stand on one’s dignity; to take offence. [Fr. monter sur ses grands chevaux. The simile is common to most languages.] ”

“ You flymy titters fond of flam.
Fly-my-kite, subs. phr. (rhyming) .—A light.
Flymy-mess, to be in a flymy-mess, verb. phr. (military) .—To be hungry and have nothing to eat. For synonyms, see peckish.
Fly-slicer, subs. (common) .—A cavalry-man: cf., Mudcrusher. French lancers are allumeurs de gaz, their weapons being likened to a lamplighter’s rod. [47]
1785. Grose, Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue, s.v. Fly-slicers: Life-guardmen, from their sitting on horseback, under an arch, where they are frequently observed to drive away flies with their swords.
Fly the Garter, subs. phr. ”

“ Any ‘cute’ performance by which a man is sold is a good flop, and by a phrase borrowed from the base-ball ground is ‘rightly played.’ The discomfited individual declares that they ‘are all on a side,’ and gives up, or ‘rolls over,’ by giving his opponent ‘gowdy.’ A man writes cards during examinations to ‘feeze the profs’; said cards are ‘gumming cards,’ and he flops the examination if he gets a good mark by the means. One usually flops his marks by feigning sickness. ”

“ Flesh, verb., or, Flesh It; or, to be fleshed in (venery) .—To have carnal knowledge of—to be ‘one flesh with’—a woman. [For synonyms, see Greens and Ride.] An equivalent in the passive sense is to feel his flesh in one’s body (said by women only) .
1598. Florio, A Worlde of Wordes, Andar in Carnafau. To go a fleshing or a wenching: (Carnafau = the brat-getting place; the hole of content) .
Flesh and Blood, subs. phr. (common) .—Brandy and port in equal proportions. ”