1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue Part 81

TOOTH Music. Chewing.

TOOTH-PICK. A large stick. An ironical expression.

TOPPER. A violent blow on the head.

TOP ROPES. To sway away on all top ropes; to live riotously or extravagantly.

TO TOP. To cheat, or trick: also to insult: he thought to have topped upon me. Top; the signal among taylors for snuffing the candles: he who last p.r.o.nounces that word word, is obliged to get up and perform the operation.--to be topped; to be hanged. The cove was topped for smas.h.i.+ng queerscreens; he was hanged for uttering forged bank notes.

TOP DIVER. A lover of women. An old top diver; one who has loved old hat in his time.

TOP HEAVY. Drunk.

TOP LIGHTS. The eyes. Blast your top lights. See CURSE.

Top SAIL. He paid his debts at Portsmouth with the topsail; i.e. he went to sea and left them unpaid. SCT soldiers are said to pay off their scores with the drum; that is, by marching away.

TOPER. One that loves his bottle, a soaker. SEE TO SOAK.

TOPPING FELLOW. One at the top or head of his profession.

TOPPING CHEAT. The gallows. CANT.

TOPPING COVE. The hangman. CANT.

TOPPING MAN. A rich man.

TOFSY-TURVY. The top side the other way; i.e. the wrong side upwards; some explain it, the top side turf ways, turf being always laid the wrong side upwards.

TORCHECUL. b.u.mfodder.

TORMENTER OF SHEEP SKIN. A drummer.

TORMENTER OF CATGUT. A fiddler.

TORY. An advocate for absolute monarchy and church power; also an Irish vagabond, robber, Or rapparee.

TOSS POT. A drunkard.

TOSS OFF. Manual pollution.

TOTTY-HEADED. Giddy, hare-brained.

TOUCH. To touch; to get money from any one; also to arrest. Touched in the wind; broken winded.

Touched in the head; insane, crazy. To touch up a woman; to have carnal knowledge of her. Touch bone and whistle; any one having broken wind backwards, according to the vulgar law, may be pinched by any of the company till he has touched bone (i.e. his teeth) and whistled.

TOUCH BUN FOR LUCK. See BUN.

TOVT. A look-out house, or eminence.

TOUTING. (From TUERI, to look about) Publicans fore-stalling guests, or meeting them on the road, and begging their custom; also thieves or smugglers looking out to see that the coast is clear. Touting ken; the bar of a public house.

TOW ROW. A grenadier. The tow row club; a club or society of the grenadier officers of the line.

TOWEL. An oaken towel, a cudgel. To rub one down with an oaken towel; to beat or cudgel him.

TOWER. Clipped money: they have been round the tower with it. CANT.

TO TOWER. To overlook, to rise aloft as in a high tower.

TOWER HILL PLAY. A slap on the face, and a kick on the breech.

TOWN. A woman of the town; a prost.i.tute. To be on the town: to live by prost.i.tution.

TOWN BULL. A common wh.o.r.emaster. To roar like a town bull; to cry or bellow aloud.

TO TRACK. To go. Track up the dancers; go up stairs.

CANT.

TRADING JUSTICES. Broken mechanics, discharged footmen, and other low fellows, smuggled into the commission of the peace, who subsist by fomenting disputes, granting warrants, and otherwise retailing justice; to the honour of the present times, these nuisances are by no means, so common as formerly.

TRADESMEN. Thieves. Clever tradesmen; good thieves.

TRANSLATORS. Sellers of old mended shoes and boots, between coblers and shoemakers.

TO TRANSMOGRAPHY, or TRANSMIGRIFY. To patch up vamp, or alter.

TO TRANSNEAR. To come up with any body.

TRANTER. See CROCKER.

TRAP. To understand trap; to know one's own interest.

TRAP STICKS. Thin legs, gambs: from the sticks with which boys play at trap-ball.

TRAPS. Constables and thief-takers. CANT.

TO TRAPAN. To inveigle, or ensnare.

TRAPES. A slatternly woman, a careless s.l.u.ttish woman.

TRAVELLER. To tip the traveller; to tell wonderful stories, to romance.

TRAVELLING PIQUET. A mode of amusing themselves, practised by two persons riding in a carriage, each reckoning towards his game the persons or animals that pa.s.s by on the side next them, according to the following estimation:

A parson riding a grey horse, witholue furniture; game.

An old woman under a hedge; ditto.

A cat looking out of a window; 60.

A man, woman, and child, in a buggy; 40.