FILCH, or FILEL. A beggar's staff, with an iron hook at
the end, to pluck clothes from an hedge, or any thing out
of a casement. Filcher; the same as angler. Filching
cove; a man thief. Filching mort; a woman thief.
FILCH, or FILEL. A beggar's staff, with an iron hook at
the end, to pluck clothes from an hedge, or any thing out
of a casement. Filcher; the same as angler. Filching
cove; a man thief. Filching mort; a woman thief.
FIGDEAN. To kill.
CHESHIRE CAT. He grins like a Cheshire cat; said of anyone
who shews his teeth and gums in laughing.
CAT IN PAN. To turn cat in pan, to change sides or
parties; supposed originally to have been to turn CATE or CAKE
in pan.
CUNNY-THUMBED. To double one's fist with the thumb inwards,
like a woman.
FILE, FILE CLOY, or BUNGNIPPER. A pick pocket. To
file; to rob or cheat. The file, or bungnipper, goes
generally in company with two assistants, the adam tiler, and
another called the bulk or bulker, Whose business it is to
jostle the person they intend to rob, and push him against
the wall, while the file picks his pocket, and gives'the booty
to the adam tiler, who scours off with it. CANT.
TO HEAVE. To rob. To heave a case; to rob a house.
To heave a bough; to rob a booth. CANT.
BEARINGS. I'll bring him to his bearings; I'll bring him to
reason. Sea term.
WIPER. A handkerchief. CANT.
CAPTAIN SHARP. A cheating bully, or one in a set of
gamblers, whose office is to bully any pigeon, who, suspecting
roguery, refuses to pay what he has lost. CANT.
BEAST. To drink like a beast, i.e. only when thirsty.
CAPTAIN PODD. A celebrated master of a puppet-shew, in
Ben Johnson's time, whose name became a common one
to signify any of that fraternity.
CAPTAIN TOM. The leader of a mob; also the mob itself.
BEAN. A guinea. Half bean; half a guinea.
CAPTAIN COPPERTHORNE'S CREW. All officers; a saying
of a company where everyone strives to rule.
CAPSIZE. To overturn or reverse. He took his broth till
he capsized; he drank till he fell out of his chair. SEA
TERM.
CAPRICORNIFIED. Cuckolded, hornified.
CAPTAIN. Led captain; an humble dependant in a great
family, who for a precarious subsistence, and distant hopes
of preferment, suffers every kind of indignity, and is the
butt of every species of joke or ill-humour. The small
provision made for officers of the army and navy in time of
peace, obliges many in both services to occupy this wretched
station. The idea of the appellation is taken from a led horse,
many of which for magnificence appear in the retinues
of great personages on solemn occasions, such as processions,
&c.
CAPTAIN LIEUTENANT. Meat between veal and beef, the
flesh of an old calf; a military simile, drawn from the
officer of that denomination, who has only the pay of a
lieutenant, with the rank of captain; and so is not entirely
one or the other, but between both.
CARAVAN. A large sum of money; also, a person cheated
of such sum. CANT.
BAWDY-HOUSE BOTTLE. A very small bottle; short measure
being among the many means used by the keepers of those
houses, to gain what they call an honest livelihood: indeed
this is one of the least reprehensible; the less they give a
man of their infernal beverages for his money, the kinder
they behave to him.
BAY FEVER. A term of ridicule applied to convicts, who
sham illness, to avoid being sent to Botany Bay.
BAYARD OF TEN TOES. To ride bayard of ten toes, is to
walk on foot. Bayard was a horse famous in old romances,
BAWDY BASKET. The twenty-third rank of canters, who
carry pins, tape, ballads, and obscene books to sell, but live
mostly by stealing. Cant.
CAPER MERCHANT. A dancing master, or hop mercbant;
marchand des capriolles. FRENCH TERM.--To cut papers; to
leap or jump in dancing. See HOP MERCHANT.
CAPPING VERSES. Repeating Latin Verses in turn, beginning
with the letter with which the last speaker left off.
TO CAP. To take off one's hat or cap. To cap the quadrangle;
a lesson of humility, or rather servility, taught
undergraduates at the university, where they are obliged to
cross the area of the college cap in hand, in reverence to
the fellows who sometimes walk there. The same ceremony
is observed on coming on the quarter deck of ships of
war, although no officer should be on it.
TO CAP. To support another's assertion or tale. To assist
a man in cheating. The file kidded the joskin with sham
books, and his pall capped; the deep one cheated the
countryman with false cards, and his confederate assisted
in the fraud.
CANTERBURY STORY. A long roundabout tale.
BEAK. A justice of-peace, or magistrate. Also a judge or
chairman who presides in court. I clapp'd my peepers
full of tears, and so the old beak set me free; I began to
weep, and the judge set me free.