Slang Dictionary
| The flash language my narrator speaks is a mixture of the prison argot recorded in works such as J.H. Vaux’s Dictionary of Flash (1812) and Sinks of London Laid Open by J. Duncombe (1848). | |
| in the altogether: | in the nude |
| balm (v): | lie to someone |
| balsam: | money |
| bay ship | transport vessel to BotanyBay |
| belly timber: | food |
| betty (n, v): | a picklock; to pick a lock |
| bishop’d: | christened |
| Black arrow: | marks on uniform of chain gang |
| blarney: | flattering or wheedling talk; cajolery (Macq) |
| bleeders: | spurs |
| blue vein: | erect penis |
| blunt: | money |
| bobtail[s]: | young girls |
| bone (v): | to tell the story of one’s apprehension |
| bowled out | exposed as fraudster |
| brace: | pair of guns |
| broads: | cards |
| browns and whistlers | bad halfpence and farthings |
| bully traps: | pretend constables to frighten the unwary and extort money |
| buttered bun: | going second |
| chapel: | a molly’s bedroom |
| cheeks: | an imaginary person, a nobody; as, who does that belong to? Cheeks |
| chere amie: | sweetheart |
| claret: | blood |
| cockchafers: | a ladybird, prostitute |
| coriander (seed): | money |
| counting house: | the privy |
| cover me properly: | fashionable toggery |
| covess dinge: | black woman |
| coy: | company |
| culch: | rubbish |
| curlers: | Jews, who sweat gold coins by rubbing them together, for the dust |
| darbied: | handcuffed |
| dominic: | parson |
| donkey’s ears | a false collar |
| donovans: | potatoes |
| dromedary: | clumsy thief, young beginner |
| drummond | an infallible scheme |
| flash your gab: | show off your talk |
| floorer;s aide | robber of someone knocked down |
| flute: | penis |
| frizzen: | part of a musket |
| frontispiece: | face |
| gammoning us: | playing with us |
| glims: | eyes |
| glims flashy: | scared, fiery |
| goosed: | ridiculed |
| ground sweat: | buried |
| gunpowder: | an old woman |
| in the gun: | under close observation |
| hank | to have contact advantageous to self |
| hell cat: | a lewd, abandoned woman |
| hisnabs: | his nibs, him or himself (Vaux) |
| the Holy Land : | St Giles, a London suburb |
| hotel barber: | an internal spy |
| ivories: | teeth |
| jaw: | to lecture, admonish |
| Johnny Raw: | an ignorant bumpkin |
| judy: | women, a woman |
| kerseymeres: | trousers made of a kind of woollen cloth |
| knowledge box: | head, mind |
| lad from Soho : | St Giles |
| lag: | convict |
| lambskin men: | the judges |
| lob’s pound: | prison |
| loose cannon: | an unpredictable, unreliable person |
| lullaby (n, v): | sleep |
| on the mallet: | the truth |
| merr y-a ndrew: | clown, buffoon |
| milestone: | bumpkin |
| milled: | fought, beaten up |
| mollisher: | a woman |
| molly: | a homosexual |
| [up the] monkery: | [in] country parts of England |
| monkied up: | agitated; passionate |
| mother’s milk: | booze, good liquor |
| Mrs Jones: | the privy |
| nancy : | buttocks |
| neckcloth: | noose |
| n e-d ash: | nothing |
| nix my doll: | nothing |
| nodding office: | transferring control |
| on the cross | getting a living by dishonest means |
| peg: | kill |
| pigeons: | dupes |
| plant | to conceal spy |
| pointers: | spears |
| the poop: | where the guards on the bay ships (heading for Botany Bay ) fired their guns |
| poopoop: | a baby |
| poppers: | pistols |
| prancers: | nags |
| proddoes | Protestant faith |
| pratt: | buttocks |
| quarroms (adv): | as a dead body |
| quod: | jail |
| R.Cs | Roman Catholic faith |
| red rag: | tongue |
| re d-r ag (v): | to talk, converse |
| rhino: | money |
| romany: | gypsy flash talk |
| Romeville: | London |
| rose[s]: | nobility |
| ruggins’s: | bedtime, to go to bed (with someone) |
| scone: | head |
| scottish (adj): | fiery, irritable, easily provoked |
| scran: | food |
| screwbado: | dirty fellow, insignificant |
| sherriff’s ball: | execution, hanging |
| split whiskers: | vulva |
| spoilage: | curses |
| stiff: | unlucky |
| done with a sting: | tricked, put on your guard |
| up in the stirrups: | well off |
| stringing: | ‘amusing him with false assurances’ (Vaux) |
| tater trap: | mouth |
| timber (v): | to cut wood for building material |
| tip the velvet: | impose by flowery language |
| titter: | young woman |
| in tow: | (of a woman) wearing the breeches |
| town toddler: | a silly person easily taken in by sharps |
| twig: | observe |
| wake/woke: | realise, wake up to something, become aware of/that |
| whid: | word |
| whiddle: | to speak of, or mention any thing |
| Whimpshire: | Yorkshire |
| woodpecker (v): | to talk with play on words |
| wooll y-b ird: | sheep |
| wrinkle (n, v): | an untruth; to lie, utter a falsehood |
| york : | to stare or look boldly at someone |