John Hotten - A Dictionary of Slang, Cant, and Vulgar Words

“Swarms of vagabonds, whose eyes were so sharp as Lynx.” — Bullein’s Simples and Surgery, 1562.

Mayhew has a curious idea upon the habitual restlessness of the nomadic tribes, i. e. , “Whether it be that in the mere act of wandering, there is a greater determination of blood to the surface of the body, and consequently a less quantity sent to the brain.” — London Labour , vol. i., p. 2.

Mr. Thos. Lawrence, who promised an Etymological, Cant, and Slang Dictionary . Where is the book?

Richardson’s Dictionary.

Description of England , prefixed to Holinshed’s Chronicle .

The word Slang, as will be seen in the chapter upon that subject, is purely a Gipsey term, although now-a-days it refers to low or vulgar language of any kind, – other than cant. Slang and Gibberish in the Gipsey language are synonymous; but, as English adoptions, have meanings very different from that given to them in their original.

The vulgar tongue consists of two parts: the first is the Cant Language; the second, those burlesque phrases, quaint allusions, and nick names for persons, things, and places, which, from long uninterrupted usage, are made classical by prescription. — Grose’s Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue , 1st edition, 1785.

“Outlandish people calling themselves Egyptians .” 1530.

This very proverb was mentioned by a young Gipsey to Crabb, a few years ago. — Gipseys’ Advocate , p. 14.

I except, of course, the numerous writers who have followed Grellman, and based their researches upon his labours.

Gipseys of Spain , vol. i., p. 18.

Shakes. Hen. IV., part 2, act ii, scene 4.

It is easy to see how cheat became synonymous with “fraud,” when we remember that it was one of the most common words of the greatest class of cheats in the country.

I am reminded by an eminent philologist that the origin of QUEER is seen in the German , QUER, crooked, – hence “odd.” I agree with this etymology, but still have reason to believe that the word was first used in this country in a cant sense. Is it mentioned any where as a respectable term before 1500? If not, it had a vulgar or cant introduction into this country.

Booget properly signifies a leathern wallet, and is probably derived from the low Latin , BULGA. A tinker’s budget is from the same source.

Which, literally translated, means:

Who wrote about the year 1610.

Gipseys of Spain , vol. i., p. 18. Borrow further commits himself by remarking that “Head’s Vocabulary has always been accepted as the speech of the English Gipseys.” Nothing of the kind. Head professed to have lived with the Gipseys, but in reality filched his words from Decker and Brome .

The modern meanings of a few of the old cant words are given in brackets.

This is a curious volume, and is worth from one to two guineas. The Canting Dictionary was afterwards reprinted, word for word, with the title of The Scoundrel’s Dictionary , in 1751. It was originally published, without date, about the year 1710 by B. E., under the title of a Dictionary of the Canting Crew .

Bacchus and Venus , 1737.

Mayhew’s London Labour and London Poor , vol. iii., No. 43, Oct. 4th, 1851.

Mayhew (vol. i., p. 217), speaks of a low lodging-house, “in which there were at one time five university men, three surgeons, and several sorts of broken down clerks.” But old Harman’s saying, that “a wylde Roge is he that is borne a roge,” will perhaps explain this seeming anomaly.

Mr. Rawlinson’s Report to the General Board of Health, Parish of Havant, Hampshire.

Vol. v., p. 210.

Vol. i., pages 218 and 247.

See Dictionary.

Sometimes, as appears from the following, the names of persons and houses are written instead. “In almost every one of the padding-kens, or low lodging-houses in the country, there is a list of walks pasted up over the kitchen mantel piece. Now at St. Albans, for instance, at the – , and at other places, there is a paper stuck up in each of the kitchens. This paper is headed “Walks out of this Town,” and underneath it is set down the names of the villages in the neighbourhood at which a beggar may call when out on his walk, and they are so arranged as to allow the cadger to make a round of about six miles each day, and return the same night. In many of these papers there are sometimes twenty walks set down. No villages that are in any way “gammy” [bad] are ever mentioned in these papers, and the cadger, if he feels inclined to stop for a few days in the town, will be told by the lodging-house keeper, or the other cadgers that he may meet there, what gentlemen’s seats or private houses are of any account on the walk that he means to take. The names of the good houses are not set down in the paper for fear of the police.” — Mayhew , vol. i., p. 418.

Mayhew , vol. i., p. 218.

See Dictionary.

Mayhew , vol. i., p. 218.

Mr. Rawlinson’s Report to the General Board of Health, – Parish of Havant, Hampshire.

This term, with a singular literal downrightness, which would be remarkable in any other people than the French, is translated by them as the sect of Trembleurs .

Swift alludes to this term in his Art of Polite Conversation , p. 14. 1738.

See Notes and Queries , vol. i., p. 185. 1850.

He afterwards kept a tavern at Wapping, mentioned by Pope in the Dunciad .

Sportsman’s Dictionary , 1825, p. 15. I have searched the venerable magazine in vain for this Slang glossary.

Introduction to Bee’s Sportsman’s Dictionary , 1825.

The Gipseys use the word Slang as the Anglican synonyme for Romany, the continental (or rather Spanish) term for the Cingari or Gipsey tongue. Crabb , who wrote the Gipsies’ Advocate in 1831, thus mentions the word: – “This language [Gipsey] called by themselves Slang , or Gibberish , invented, as they think, by their forefathers for secret purposes, is not merely the language of one or a few of these wandering tribes, which are found in the European nations, but is adopted by the vast numbers who inhabit the earth.”