1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue Part 23

a saying occasioned by the shameful impositions practised by the inhabitants of those places, on sailors and travellers.

DEVIL DRAWER. A miserable painter.

DEVIL'S DUNG. a.s.safoetida.

DEVIL'S GUTS. A surveyor's chain: so called by farmers, who do not like their land should be measured by their landlords.

DEVILISH. Very: an epithet which in the English vulgar language is made to agree with every quality or thing; as, devilish bad, devilish good; devilish sick, devilish well; devilish sweet, devilish sour; devilish hot, devilish cold, &c. &c.

DEUSEA VILLE. The country. Cant.

DEUSEA VILLE STAMPERS. Country carriers. Cant.

DEW BEATERS. Feet. Cant.

DEWS WINS, or DEUX WINS. Two-pence. Cant.

DEWITTED. Torn to pieces by a mob, as that great statesman John de Wit was in Holland, anno 1672.

DIAL PLATE. The face. To alter his dial plate; to disfigure his face.

DICE. The names of false dice: A bale of bard cinque deuces A bale of flat cinque deuces A bale of flat sice aces A bale of bard cater traes A bale of flat cater traes A bale of fulhams A bale of light graniers A bale of langrets contrary to the ventage A bale of gordes, with as many highmen as lowmen, for pa.s.sage A bale of demies A bale of long dice for even and odd A bale of bristles A bale of direct contraries.

d.i.c.k. That happened in the reign of queen d.i.c.k, i. e.

never: said of any absurd old story. I am as queer as d.i.c.k's hatband; that is, out of spirits, or don't know what ails me.

d.i.c.kY. A woman's under-petticoat. It's all d.i.c.ky with him; i.e. it's all over with him.

d.i.c.kED IN THE n.o.b. Silly. Crazed.

d.i.c.kEY. A sham shirt.

d.i.c.kEY. An a.s.s. Roll your d.i.c.key; drive your a.s.s. Also a seat for servants to sit behind a carriage, when their master drives.

TO DIDDLE. To cheat. To defraud. The cull diddled me out of my dearee; the fellow robbed me of my sweetheart.

See Jeremy Diddler In Raising The Wind.

DIDDEYS. A woman's b.r.e.a.s.t.s or bubbies.

DIDDLE. Gin.

DIGGERS. Spurs. Cant.

DILBERRIES. Small pieces of excrement adhering to the hairs near the fundament.

DILBERRY MAKER. The fundament.

d.i.l.d.o. [From the Italian DILETTO, q. d. a woman's delight; or from our word DALLY, q. d. a thing to play withal.]

p.e.n.i.s-succedaneus, called in Lombardy Pa.s.so Tempo. Bailey.

DILIGENT. Double diligent, like the Devil's apothecary; said of one affectedly diligent.

DILLY. (An abbreviation of the word DILIGENCE.) A public voiture or stage, commonly a post chaise, carrying three persons; the name is taken from the public stage vehicles in France and Flanders. The dillies first began to run in England about the year 1779.

DIMBER. Pretty. A dimber cove; a pretty fellow. Dimber mort; a pretty wench. CANT.

DIMBER DAMBER. A top man, or prince, among the canting crew: also the chief rogue of the gang, or the completest cheat. CANT.

DING. To knock down. To ding it in one's ears; to reproach or tell one something one is not desirous of hearing.

Also to throw away or hide: thus a highwayman who throws away or hides any thing with which he robbed, to prevent being known or detected, is, in the canting lingo, styled a Dinger.

DING BOY. A rogue, a hector, a bully, or sharper. CANT.

DING DONG. Helter skelter, in a hasty disorderly manner.

DINGEY CHRISTIAN. A mulatto; or any one who has, as the West-Indian term is, a lick of the tar-brush, that is, some negro blood in him.

DINING ROOM POST. A mode of stealing in houses that let lodgings, by rogues pretending to be postmen, who send up sham letters to the lodgers, and, whilst waiting in the entry for the postage, go into the first room they see open, and rob it.

DIP. To dip for a wig. Formerly, in Middle Row, Holborn, wigs of different sorts were, it is said, put into a close-stool box, into which, for three-pence, any one might dip, or thrust in his hand, and take out the first wig he laid hold of; if he was dissatisfied with his prize, he might, on paying three halfpence, return it and dip again.

THE DIP. A cook's shop, under Furnival's Inn, where many attornies clerks, and other inferior limbs of the law, take out the wrinkles from their bellies. DIP is also a punning name for a tallow-chandler.

DIPPERS. Anabaptists.

DIPT. p.a.w.ned or mortgaged.

DIRTY PUZZLE. A nasty s.l.u.t.

DISGUISED. Drunk.

DISGRUNTLED. Offended, disobliged.

DISHED UP. He is completely dished up; he is totally ruined.

To throw a thing in one's dish; to reproach or twit one with any particular matter.

DISHCLOUT. A dirty, greasy woman. He has made a napkin of his dishclout; a saying of one who has married his cook maid. To pin a dishclout to a man's tail; a punishment often threatened by the female servants in a kitchen, to a man who pries too minutely into the secrets of that place.

DISMAL DITTY. The psalm sung by the felons at the gallows, just before they are turned off.

DISPATCHES. A mittimus, or justice of the peace's warrant, for the commitment of a rogue.

DITTO. A suit of ditto; coat, waistcoat, and breeches, all of one colour.

DISPATCHERS. Loaded or false dice.

DISTRACTED DIVISION. Husband and wife fighting.

DIVE. To dive; to pick a pocket. To dive for a dinner; to go down into a cellar to dinner. A dive, is a thief who stands ready to receive goods thrown out to him by a little boy put in at a window. Cant.