1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue Part 14

CHEATS. Sham sleeves to put over a dirty shift or shirt.

See SHAMS.

CHEEK BY JOWL. Side by side, hand to fist.

CHEEKS. Ask cheeks near cunnyborough; the repartee of a St. Gilse's fair one, who bids you ask her backside, anglice her a-se. A like answer is current in France: any one asking the road or distance to Macon, a city near Lyons, would be answered by a French lady of easy virtue, 'Mettez votre nez dans mon cul, & vous serrez dans les Fauxbourgs.'

CHEESE-TOASTER. A sword.

CHEESE IT; Be silent, be quiet, don't do it. Cheese it, the coves are fly; be silent, the people understand our discourse.

CHEESER. A strong smelling fart.

CHELSEA. A village near London, famous for the military hospital. To get Chelsea; to obtain the benefit of that hospital. Dead Chelsea, by G-d! an exclamation uttered by a grenadier at Fontenoy, on having his leg carried away by a cannon-ball.

CHEST OF TOOLS. A shoe-black's brush and wig, &c. Irish.

CHERRY-COLOURED CAT. A black cat, there being black cherries as well as red.

CHERUBIMS. Peevish children, becausecherubimsand seraphims continually do cry.

CHESHIRE CAT. He grins like a Cheshire cat; said of anyone who shews his teeth and gums in laughing.

CHICK-A-BIDDY. A chicken, so called to and by little children.

CHICKEN-BREASTED. Said of a woman with scarce any b.r.e.a.s.t.s.

CHICKEN BUTCHER. A poulterer.

CHICKEN-HAMMED. Persons whose legs and thighs are bent or archward outwards.

CHICKEN-HEARTED. Fearful, cowardly.

CHICKEN NABOB. One returned from the East Indies with but a moderate fortune of fifty or sixty thousand pounds, a diminutive nabob: a term borrowed from the chicken turtle.

CHILD. To eat a child; to partake of a treat given to the parish officers, in part of commutation for a b.a.s.t.a.r.d child the common price was formerly ten pounds and a greasy chiu. See GREASY CHIN.

CHIMNEY CHOPS. An abusive appellation for a negro.

c.h.i.n.k. Money.

CHIP. A child. A chip of the old block; a child who either in person or sentiments resembles its father or mother.

CHIP. A brother chip; a person of the same trade or calling.

CHIPS, A nick name for a carpenter.

CHIRPING MERRY. Exhilarated with liquor. Chirping gla.s.s, a cheerful gla.s.s, that makes the company chirp like birds in spring.

CHIT. An infant or baby.

CHITTERLINS. The bowels. There is a rumpus among my bowels, i.e. I have the colic. The frill of a shirt.

CHITTY-FACED. Baby-faced; said of one who has a childish look.

CHIVE, or CHIFF. A knife, file: or saw. To chive the darbies; to file off the irons or fetters. To chive the bouhgs of the frows; to cut off women's pockets.

CHIVEY. I gave him a good chivey; I gave him, a hearty Scolding.

CHIVING LAY. Cutting the braces of coaches behind, on which the coachman quitting the box, an accomplice robs the boot; also, formerly, cutting the back of the coach to steal the fine large wigs then worn.

CHOAK. Choak away, the churchyard's near; a jocular saying to a person taken with a violent fit of coughing, or who has swallowed any thing, as it is called the wrong way; Choak, chicken, more are hatching: a like consolation.

CHOAK PEAR. Figuratively, an unanswerable objection: also a machine formerly used in Holland by robbers; it was of iron, shaped like a pear; this they forced into the mouths of persons from whom they intended to extort money; and on turning a key, certain interior springs thrust forth a number of points, in all directions, which so enlarged it, that it could not be taken out of the mouth: and the iron, being case-hardened, could not be filed: the only methods of getting rid of it, were either by cutting the mouth, or advertizing a reward for the key, These pears were also called pears of agony.

CHOAKING PYE, or COLD PYE, A punishment inflicted on any person sleeping in company: it consists in wrapping up cotton in a case or tube of paper, setting it on fire, and directing the smoke up the nostrils of the sleeper.

See HOWELL'S COTGRAVE.

CHOCOLATE. To give chocolate without sugar; to reprove.

MILITARY TERM.

CHOICE SPIRIT. A thoughtless, laughing, singing, drunken fellow.

CHOP. A blow. Boxing term.

TO CHOP AND CHANGE. To exchange backwards and forwards.

To chop, in the canting sense, means making dispatch, or hurrying over any business: ex. The AUTEM BAWLER will soon quit the HUMS, for he CHOPS UP the WHINERS; the parson will soon quit the pulpit, for he hurries over the prayers. See AUTEM BAWLER, HUMS, and WHINERS,

CHOP CHURCHES. Simoniacal dealers in livings, or other ecclesiastical preferments.

CHOPPING, l.u.s.tY. A chopping boy or girl; a l.u.s.ty child.

CHOPS. The mouth. I gave him a wherrit, or a souse, across the chops; I gave him a blow over the mouth, See WHERRIT.

CHOP-STICK. A fork.

CHOUDER. A sea-dish, composed of fresh fish, salt pork, herbs, and sea-biscuits, laid in different layers, and stewed together.

TO CHOUSE. To cheat or trick: he choused me out of it.

Chouse is also the term for a game like chuck-farthing.

CHRIST-CROSS ROW. The alphabet in a horn-book: called Christ-cross Row, from having, as an Irishman observed, Christ's cross PREFIXED before and AFTER the twenty-four letters.

CHRISTENING. Erasing the name of the true maker from a stolen watch, and engraving a fict.i.tious one in its place.

CHRISTIAN PONEY. A chairman.

CHRISTIAN. A tradesman who has faith, i.e. will give credit.