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HABERDASHER OF PRONOUNS. A schoolmaster, or usher.
HACKNEY WRITER. One who writes for attornies or booksellers.
HACKUM. Captain Hackum; a bravo, a slasher.
HAD’EM. He has been at Had’em, and came home by Clapham; said of one who
has caught the venereal disease.
HAIR SPLITTER. A man’s yard.
HALBERT. A weapon carried by a serjeant of foot. To get a halbert; to be
appointed a serjeant. To be brought to the halberts; to be flogged a la
militaire: soldiers of the infantry, when flogged, being commonly tied to
three halberts, set up in a triangle, with a fourth fastened across them.
He carries the halbert in his face; a saying of one promoted from a
serjeant to a commission officer.
HALF A HOG. Sixpence.
HALF SEAS OVER. Almost drunk.
HAMLET. A high constable. .
HAMS, or HAMCASES Breeches.
HAND. A sailor. We lost a hand; we lost a sailor. Bear a hand; make haste.
Hand to fist; opposite: the same as tete-a-tete, or cheek by joul.
HAND AND POCKET SHOP. An eating house, where ready money is paid for what
is called for.
HAND BASKET PORTION. A woman whose husband receives frequent presents from
her father, or family, is said to have a hand-basket portion.
HANDLE. To know how to handle one’s fists; to be skilful in the art of
boxing. The cove flashes a rare handle to his physog; the fellow has a
large nose.
HANDSOME. He is a handsome-bodied man in the face; a jeering commendation
of an ugly fellow. Handsome is that handsome does: a proverb frequently
cited by ugly women.
HANDSOME REWARD. This, in advertisements, means a horse-whipping.
To HANG AN ARSE. To hang back, to hesitate.
HANG GALLOWS LOOK. A thievish, or villainous appearance.
HANG IN CHAINS. A vile, desperate fellow. Persons guilty of murder, or
other atrocious crimes, are frequently, after execution, hanged on a
gibbet, to which they are fastened by iron bandages; the gibbet is
commonly placed on or near the place where the crime was committed.
HANG IT UP. Score it up: speaking of a reckoning.
HANG OUT. The traps scavey where we hang out; the officers know where we
live.
HANGER ON. A dependant.
HANGMAN’S WAGES. Thirteen pence halfpenny; which, according to the vulgar
tradition, was thus allotted: one shilling for the executioner, and three
halfpence for the rope, --N. B. This refers to former times; the hangmen
of the present day having, like other artificers, raised their prices. The
true state of this matter is, that a Scottish mark was the fee allowed for
an execution, and the value of that piece was settled by a proclamation of
James I. at thirteen pence halfpenny.
HANK. He has a hank on him; i.e. an ascendancy over him, or a hold upon
him. A Smithfield hank; an ox, rendered furious by overdriving and
barbarous treatment. See BULL HANK.
HANKER. To hanker after any thing; to have a longing after or for it.
HANS IN KELDER. Jack in the cellar, i.e. the child in the womb: a health
frequently drank to breeding women or their husbands.
HARD. Stale beer, nearly sour, is said to be hard. Hard also means severe:
as, hard fate, a hard master.
HARD AT HIS A-SE. Close after him.
HARE. He has swallowed a hare; he is drunk; more probably
a HAIR, which requires washing down,
HARK-YE-ING. Whispering on one side to borrow money.
HARMAN. A constable. .
HARMAN BECK. A beadle. .
HARMANS. The stocks. .
HARP. To harp upon; to dwell upon a subject. Have among you, my blind
harpers; an expression used in throwing or shooting at random among the
crowd. Harp is also the Irish expression for woman, or tail, used in
tossing up in Ireland: from Hibernia, being represented with a harp on the
reverse of the copper coins of that country; for which it is, in hoisting
the copper, i.e. tossing up, sometimes likewise called music.
HARRIDAN. A hagged old woman; a miserable, scraggy, worn-out harlot, fit
to take her bawd’s degree: derived from the French word HARIDELLE, a
worn-out jade of a horse or mare.
HARRY. A country fellow. .—Old Harry; the Devil.
HARUM SCARUM. He was running harum scarum; said of any one running or
walking hastily, and in a hurry, after they know not what.
HASH. To flash the hash; to vomit. .
HASTY. Precipitate, passionate. He is none of the Hastings sort; a saying
of a slow, loitering fellow: an allusion to the Hastings pea, which is the
first in season.
HASTY PUDDING. Oatmeal and milk boiled to a moderate thickness, and eaten
with sugar and butter. Figuratively, a wet, muddy road: as, The way
through Wandsworth is quite a hasty pudding. To eat hot hasty pudding for
a laced hat, or some other prize, is a common feat at wakes and fairs.
HAT. Old hat; a woman’s privities: because frequently felt.
HATCHES. Under the hatches; in trouble, distress, or debt.
HATCHET FACE. A long thin face.
HAVIL. A sheep. .
HAVY CAVY. Wavering, doubtful, shilly shally.
HAWK. Ware hawk; the word to look sharp, a bye-word when a bailiff passes.
Hawk also signifies a sharper, in opposition to pigeon. See PIGEON. See
WARE HAWK.
HAWKERS. Licensed itinerant retailers of different commodities, called
also pedlars; likewise the sellers of news-papers. Hawking; an effort to
spit up the thick phlegm, called OYSTERS: whence it is wit upon record, to
ask the person so doing whether he has a licence; a punning allusion to
the Act of hawkers and pedlars.
To HAZEL GILD. To beat any one with a hazel stick.
HEAD CULLY OF THE PASS, or PASSAGE BANK. The top tilter of that gang
throughout the whole army, who demands and receives contribution from all
the pass banks in the camp.
HEAD RAILS. Teeth. .
HEARING CHEATS. Ears. .
HEART’S EASE. Gin.
HEARTY CHOAK. He will have a hearty choak and caper sauce for breakfast;
i.e. he will be hanged.
HEATHEN PHILOSOPHER. One whose breech may be seen through his pocket-hole:
this saying arose from the old philosophers, many of whom depised the
vanity of dress to such a point, as often to fall into the opposite
extreme.
TO HEAVE. To rob. To heave a case; to rob a house.
To heave a bough; to rob a booth. .
HEAVER. The breast. .
HEAVERS. Thieves who make it their business to steal tradesmen’s shop-books.
.
HECTOR. bully, a swaggering coward. To hector; to bully, probably from
such persons affecting the valour of Hector, the Trojan hero.
HEDGE. To make a hedge; to secure a bet, or wager, laid on one side, by
taking the odds on the other, so that, let what will happen, a certain
gain is secured, or hedged in, by the person who takes this precaution;
who is then said to be on velvet.
HEDGE ALEHOUSE. A small obscure alehouse.
HEDGE CREEPER. A robber of hedges.
HEDGE PRIEST. An illiterate unbeneficed curate, a patrico.
HEDGE WHORE. An itinerant harlot, who bilks the bagnios and bawdy-houses,
by disposing of her favours on the wayside, under a hedge; a low beggarly
prostitute.
HEELS. To he laid by the heels; to be confined, or put in prison. Out at
heels; worn, or diminished: his estate or affairs are out at heels. To
turn up his heels; to turn up the knave of trumps at the game of all-fours.
HEEL TAP. A peg in the heel of a shoe, taken out when it is finished. A
person leaving any liquor in his glass, is frequently called upon by the
toast-master to take off his heel-tap.
HELL. A taylor’s repository for his stolen goods, called cabbage: see
CABBAGE. Little hell; a small dark covered passage, leading from London-wall
to Bell-alley.
HELL-BORN BABE. A lewd graceless youth, one naturally of a wicked
disposition.
HELL CAT. A termagant, a vixen, a furious scolding woman.
See TERMAGANT and VIXEN.
HELL HOUND. A wicked abandoned fellow.
HELL FIRE DICK. The Cambridge driver of the Telegraph. The favorite
companion of the University fashionables, and the only tutor to whose
precepts they attend.
HELTER SKELTER. To run helter skelter, hand over head, in defiance of
order.
HEMP. Young hemp; an appellation for a graceless boy.
HEMPEN FEVER. A man who was hanged is said to have died of a hempen fever;
and, in Dorsetshire, to have been stabbed with a Bridport dagger; Bridport
being a place famous for manufacturing hemp into cords.
HEMPEN WIDOW. One whose husband was hanged.
HEN-HEARTED. Cowardly.
HEN HOUSE. A house where the woman rules; called also a SHE HOUSE, and HEN
FRIGATE: the latter a , originally applied to a ship, the captain of which
had his wife on board, supposed to command him.
HENPECKED. A husband governed by his wife, is said to be henpecked.
HEN. A woman. A cock and hen club; a club composed of men and women.
HERE AND THEREIAN. One who has no settled place of residence.
HERRING. The devil a barrel the better herring; all equally bad.
HERRING GUTTED. Thin, as a shotten hering.
HERRING POND. The sea. To cross the herring pond at the king’s expence; to
be transported.
HERTFORDSHIRE KINDNESS. Drinking twice to the same person.
HICK. A country hick; an ignorant clown. .
HICKENBOTHOM. Mr. Hickenbothom; a ludicrous name for an unknown person,
similar to that of Mr. Thingambob. Hickenbothom, i.e. a corruption of the
German word ickenbaum, i.e. oak tree.
HICKEY. Tipsey; quasi, hickupping.
HIDE AND SEEK. A childish game. He plays at hide and seek; a saying of one
who is in fear of being arrested for debt, or apprehended for some crime,
and therefore does not chuse to appear in public, but secretly skulks up
and down. See SKULK.
HIDEBOUND. Stingy, hard of delivery; a poet poor in invention, is said to
have a hidebound muse.
HIGGLEDY PIGGLEDY. Confusedly mixed.
HIGH EATING. To eat skylarks in a garret.
HIGH FLYERS. Tories, Jacobites.
HIGH JINKS. A gambler at dice, who, having a strong head, drinks to
intoxicate his adversary, or pigeon.
HIGH LIVING. To lodge in a garret, or cockloft
HIGH PAD. A highwayman. .
HIGH ROPES. To be on the high ropes; to be in a passion.
HIGH SHOON, or CLOUTED SHOON. A country clown.
HIGH WATER. It is high water, with him; he is full of money.
HIGHGATE. Sworn at Highgate—a ridiculous custom formerly prevailed at the
public-houses in Highgate, to administer a ludicrous oath to all
travellers of the middling rank who stopped there. The party was sworn on
a pair of horns, fastened on a stick: the substance of the oath was, never
to kiss the maid when he could kiss the mistress, never to drink small
beer when he could get strong, with many other injunctions of the like
kind; to all which was added the saving cause of “unless you like it
best.” The person administering the oath was always to be called father by
the juror; and he, in return, was to style him son, under the penalty of a
bottle.
HIKE. To hike off; to run away. .
HIND LEG. To kick out a hind leg; to make a rustic bow.
HINNEY, MY HONEY. A north country hinney, particularly a Northumbrian: in
that county, hinney is the general term of endearment.
HISTORY OF THE FOUR KINGS, or CHILD’S BEST GUIDE TO THE GALLOWS. A pack of
cards. He studies the history of the four kings assiduously; he plays much
at cards.
HOAXING. Bantering, ridiculing. Hoaxing a quiz; joking an odd fellow.
UNIVERSITY WIT.
HOB, or HOBBINOL, a clown.
HOB OR NOB. Will you hob or nob with me? a question formerly in fashion at
polite tables, signifying a request or challenge to drink a glass of wine
with the proposer: if the party challenged answered Nob, they were to
chuse whether white or red. This foolish custom is said to have originated
in the days of good queen Bess, thus: when great chimnies were in fashion,
there was at each corner of the hearth, or grate, a small elevated
projection, called the hob; and behind it a seat. In winter time the beer
was placed on the hob to warm: and the cold beer was set on a small table,
said to have been called the nob; so that the question, Will you have hob
or nob? seems only to have meant, Will you have warm or cold beer? i.e.
beer from the hob, or beer from the nob.
HOBBERDEHOY. Half a man and half a boy, a lad between both.
HOBBLED. Impeded, interrupted, puzzled. To hobble; to walk lamely.
HOBBLEDYGEE. A pace between a walk and a run, a dog-trot.
HOBBY. Sir Posthumous’s hobby; one nice or whimsical in his clothes.
HOBBY HORSE. A man’s favourite amusement, or study, is called his hobby
horse. It also means a particular kind of small Irish horse: and also a
wooden one, such as is given to children.
HOBBY HORSICAL. A man who is a great keeper or rider of hobby horses; one
that is apt to be strongly attached to his systems of amusement.
HOBNAIL. A country clodhopper: from the shoes of country farmers and
ploughmen being commonly stuck full of hob-nails, and even often clouted,
or tipped with iron. The Devil ran over his face with hobnails in his
shoes; said of one pitted With the small pox.
HOBSON’S CHOICE. That or none; from old Hobson, a famous carrier of
Cambridge, who used to let horses to the students; but never permitted
them to chuse, always allotting each man the horse he thought properest
for his manner of riding and treatment.
HOCKS. vulgar appellation for the feet. You have left the marks of your
dirty hocks on my clean stairs; a frequent complaint from a mop squeezer
to a footman.
HOCKEY. Drunk with strong stale beer, called old hock.
See HICKEY.
HOCKING, or HOUGHING. A piece of cruelty practised by the butchers of
Dublin, on soldiers, by cutting the tendon of Achilles; this has been by
law made felony.
HOCUS POCUS. Nonsensical words used by jugglers, previous to their
deceptions, as a kind of charm, or ination. A celebrated writer supposes
it to be a ludicrous corruption of the words hoc est corpus, used by the
popish priests m consecrating the host. Also Hell Hocus is used to express
drunkenness: as, he is quite hocus; he is quite drunk.
HOD. Brother Hod; a familiar name for a bricklayer’s labourer: from the
hod which is used for carrying bricks and mortar.
HODDY DODDY, ALL A-SE AND NO BODY. A short clumsy person, either male or
female.
HODGE. An abbreviation of Roger: a general name for a country booby.
HODGE PODGE. An irregular mixture of numerous things.
HODMANDODS. Snails in their shells.
HOG. A shilling. To drive one’s hogs; to snore: the noise made by some
persons in snoring, being not much unlike the notes of that animal. He has
brought his hogs to a fine market; a saying of any one who has been
remarkably successful in his affairs, and is spoken ironically to signify
the contrary. A hog in armour; an awkward or mean looking man or woman,
finely dressed, is said to look like a hog in armour. To hog a horse’s
mane; to cut it short, so that the ends of the hair stick up like hog’s
bristles. Jonian hogs; an appellation given to the members of St.
John’s College, Cambridge.
HOG GRUBBER. A mean stingy fellow.
HOGGISH. Rude, unmannerly, filthy.
HOGO. Corruption of haut goust, high taste, or flavour; commonly said of
flesh somewhat tainted. It has a confounded hogo; it stinks confoundedly.
HOIST. To go upon the hoist; to get into windows accidentally left open:
this is done by the assistance of a confederate, called the hoist, who
leans his head against the wall, making his back a kind of step or ascent.
HOISTING. A ludicrous ceremony formerly performed on every soldier, the
first time he appeared in the field after being married; it was thus
managed: As soon as the regiment, or company, had grounded their arms to
rest a while, three or four men of the same company to which the
bridegroom belonged, seized upon him, and putting a couple of bayonets out
of the two corners of his hat, to represent horns, it was placed on his
head, the back part foremost. He was then hoisted on the shoulders of two
strong fellows, and carried round the arms, a drum and fife beating and
playing the pioneers call, named Round Heads and Cuckolds, but on this
occasion styled the Cuckold’s March; in passing the colours, he was to
take off his hat: this, in some regiments, was practised by the officers
on their brethren, Hoisting, among pickpockets, is, setting a man on his
head, that his money, watch, &c. may fall out of his pockets; these they
pick up, and hold to be no robbery. See REVERSED.
HOITY-TOITY. A hoity-toity wench; a giddy, thoughtless, romping girl.
HOLBORN HILL. To ride backwards up Holborn hill; to go to the gallows: the
way to Tyburn, the place of execution for criminals condemned in London,
was up that hill. Criminals going to suffer, always ride backwards, as
some conceive to increase the ignominy, but more probably to prevent them
being shocked with a distant view of the gallows; as, in amputations,
surgeons conceal the instruments with which they are going to operate.
HOLIDAY. A holiday bowler; a bad bowler. Blind man’s holiday; darkness,
night. A holiday is any part of a ship’s bottom, left uncovered in paying
it. SEA TERM. It is all holiday; See ALL HOLIDAY.
HOLY FATHER. A butcher’s boy of St. Patrick’s Market, Dublin, or other
Irish blackguard; among whom the exclamation, or oath, by the Holy Father
(meaning the Pope), is common.
HOLY LAMB. A thorough-paced villain. IRISH.
HOLY WATER. He loves him as the Devil loves holy water, i.e. hates him
mortally. Holy water, according to the Roman Catholics, having the virtue
to chase away the Devil and his imps.
HOLLOW. It was quiet a hollow thing; i.e. a certainty, or decided business.
HONEST MAN. A term frequently used by superiors to inferiors. As honest a
man as any in the cards when all the kings are out; i.e. a knave. I dare
not call thee rogue for fear of the law, said a quaker to an attorney; but
I wil give thee five pounds, if thou canst find any creditable person who
wilt say thou art an honest man.
HONEST WOMAN. To marry a woman with whom one has cohabitated as a mistress,
is termed, making an honest woman of her.
HONEY MOON. The first month after marriage. A poor honey; a harmless,
foolish, goodnatured fellow. It is all honey or a t—d with them; said of
persons who are either in the extremity of friendship or enmity, either
kissing or fighting.
HOOD-WINKED. Blindfolded by a handkerchief, or other ligature, bound over
the eyes.
HOOF. To beat the hoof; to travel on foot. He hoofed it or beat the hoof,
every step of the way from Chester to London.
HOOK AND SNIVEY, WITH NIX THE BUFFER. This rig consists in feeding a man
and a dog for nothing, and is carried on thus: Three men, one of who
pretends to be sick and unable to eat, go to a public house: the two well
men make a bargain with the landlord for their dinner, and when he is out
of sight, feed their pretended sick companion and dog gratis.
HOOKEE WALKER. An expression signifying that the story is not true, or
that the thing will not occour.
HOOKED. Over-reached, tricked, caught: a simile taken from fishing. ****
hooks; fingers.
HOOKERS. See ANGLERS.
HOOP. To run the hoop; an ancient marine custom. Four or more boys having
their left hands tied fast to an iron hoop, and each of them a rope,
called a nettle, in their right, being naked to the waist, wait the signal
to begin: this being made by a stroke with a cat of nine tails, given by
the boatswain to one of the boys, he strikes the boy before him, and every
one does the same: at first the blows are but gently administered; but
each irritated by the strokes from the boy behind him, at length lays it
on in earnest. This was anciently practised when a ship was wind-bound.
TO HOOP. To beat. I’ll well hoop his or her barrel, I’ll beat him or her
soundly.
TO HOP THE TWIG. To run away. .
HOP MERCHANT. A dancing master. See CAPER MERCHANT.
HOP-O-MY-THUMB. A diminutive person, man or woman. She was such a-hop-o-my
thumb, that a pigeon, sitting on her shoulder, might pick a pea out of her
a-se.
HOPKINS. Mr. Hopkins; a ludicrous address to a lame or limping man, being
a pun on the word hop.
HOPPING GILES. A jeering appellation given to any person who limps, or is
lame; St. Giles was the patron of cripples, lepers, &c. Churches dedicated
to that saint commonly stand out of town, many of them having been chapels
to hospitals. See GYLES.
HOPPER-ARSED. Having large projecting buttocks: from their resemblance to
a small basket, called a hopper or hoppet, worn by husbandmen for
containing seed corn, when they sow the land.
HORNS. To draw in one’s horns; to retract an assertion through fear:
metaphor borrowed from a snail, who on the apprehension of danger, draws
in his horns, and retires to his shell.
HORN COLIC. A temporary priapism.
HORN MAD. A person extremely jealous of his wife, is said to be horn mad.
Also a cuckold, who does not cut or breed his horns easily.
HORN WORK. Cuckold-making.
HORNIFIED. Cuckolded.
HORSE BUSS. A kiss with a loud smack; also a bite.
HORSE COSER. A dealer in horses: vulgarly and corruptly pronounced HORSE
COURSER. The verb TO COSE was used by the Scots, in the sense of bartering
or exchanging.
HORSE GODMOTHER. A large masculine woman, a gentlemanlike kind of a lady.
HORSE LADDER. A piece of Wiltshire wit, which consists in sending some raw
lad, or simpleton, to a neighbouring farm house, to borrow a horse ladder,
in order to get up the horses, to finish a hay-mow.
HORSE’S MEAL. A meal without drinking.
HOSTELER, i.e. oat stealer. Hosteler was originally the name for an
inn-keeper; inns being in old English styled hostels, from the French
signifying the same.
HOT POT. Ale and brandy made hot.
HOT STOMACH. He has so hot a stomach, that he burns all the clothes off
his back; said of one who pawns his clothes to purchase liquor.
HOUSE, or TENEMENT, TO LET. A widow’s weeds; also an atchievement marking
the death of a husband, set up on the outside of a mansion: both supposed
to indicate that the dolorous widow wants a male comforter.
HOYDON. A romping girl.
HUBBLE-BUBBLE. Confusion. A hubble-bubble fellow; a man of confused ideas,
or one thick of speech, whose words sound like water bubbling out of a
bottle. Also an instrument used for smoaking through water in the East
Indies, called likewise a caloon, and hooker.
HUBBLE DE SHUFF. Confusedly. To fire hubble de shuff, to fire quick and
irregularly. OLD MILITARY TERM.
HUBBUB. A noise, riot, or disturbance.
HUCKLE MY BUFF. Beer, egg, and brandy, made hot.
HUCKSTERS. Itinerant retailers of provisions. He is in hucksters hands; he
is in a bad way.
TO HUE. To lash. The cove was hued in the naskin; the rogue was soundly
lashed in bridewell. .
TO HUFF. To reprove, or scold at any one; also to bluster, bounce, ding,
or swagger. A captain huff; a noted bully. To stand the huff; to be
answerable for the reckoning in a public house.
HUG. To hug brown bess; to carry a firelock, or serve as a private
soldier. He hugs it as the Devil hugs a witch: said of one who holds any
thing as if he was afraid of losing it.
HUGGER MUGGER. By stealth, privately, without making an appearance. They
spent their money in a hugger mugger way.
HULKY, or HULKING. A great hulky fellow; an over-grown clumsy lout, or
fellow.
HULVER-HEADED. Having a hard impenetrable head; hulver, in the Norfolk
dialect, signifying holly, a hard and solid wood.
TO HUM, or HUMBUG. To deceive, or impose on one by
some story or device. A humbug; a jocular imposition,
or deception. To hum and haw; to hesitate in speech,
also to delay, or be with difficulty brought to consent to
any matter or business,
HUMS. Persons at church. There is a great number of hums in the autem;
there is a great congregation in the church.
HUM BOX. A pulpit.
HUM CAP. Very old and strong beer, called also stingo.
See STINGO.
HUM DRUM. A hum drum fellow; a dull tedious narrator, a bore; also a set
of gentlemen, who (Bailey says) used to meet near the Charter House, or at
the King’s Head in St. John’s-street, who had more of pleasantry, and less
of mystery, than the free masons.
HUM DURGEON. An imaginary illness. He has got the humdurgeon, the thickest
part of his thigh is nearest his a-se; i.e. nothing ails him except low
spirits.
HUMBUGS. The brethren of the venerable society of humbugs was held at
brother Hallam’s, in Goodman’s Fields.
HUMMER. A great lye, a rapper. See RAPPER.
HUMMING LIQUOR. Double ale, stout pharaoh. See PHARAOH.
HUMMUMS. A bagnio, or bathing house.
HUM TRUM. A musical instrument made of a mopstick, a bladder, and some
packthread, thence also called a bladder and string, and hurdy gurdy; it
is played on like a violin, which is sometimes ludicrously called a
humstrum; sometimes, instead of a bladder, a tin canister is used.
HUMP. To hump; once a fashionable word for copulation.
HUMPTY DUMPTY. A little humpty dumpty man or woman; a short clumsy person
of either sex: also ale boiled with brandy.
TO HUNCH. To jostle, or thrust.
HUNCH-BACKED. Hump-backed.
HUNG BEEF. A dried bull’s pizzle. How the dubber served the cull with hung
beef; how the turnkey beat the fellow with a bull’s pizzle.
HUNKS. A covetous miserable fellow, a miser; also the name of a famous
bear mentioned by Ben Jonson.
HUNT’S DOG. He is like Hunt’s dog, will neither go to church nor stay at
home. One Hunt, a labouring man at a small town in Shropshire, kept a
mastiff, who on being shut up on Sundays, whilst his master went to
church, howled so terribly as to disturb the whole village; wherefore his
master resolved to take him to church with him: but when he came to the
church door, the dog having perhaps formerly been whipped out by the
sexton, refused to enter; whereupon Hunt exclaimed loudly against his
dog’s obstinacy, who would neither go to church nor stay at home. This
shortly became a bye-word for discontented and whimsical persons.
HUNTING. Drawing in unwary persons to play or game.
HUNTING THE SQUIRREL. An amusement practised by postboys and
stage-coachmen, which consists in following a one-horse chaise, anddriving
it before them, passing close to it, so as to brush the wheel, and by
other means terrifying any woman or person that may be in it. A man whose
turn comes for him to drink, before he has emptied his former glass, is
said to be hunted.
HUNTSUP. The reveillier of huntsmen, sounded on the French horn, or other
instrument.
HURDY GURDY. A kind of fiddle, originally made perhaps out of a gourd. See
HUMSTRUM.
HURLY BURLY. A rout, riot, bustle or confusion.
HUSH. Hush the cull; murder the fellow.
HUSH MONEY. Money given to hush up or conceal a robbery, theft, or any
other offence, or to take off the evidence from appearing against a
criminal.
HUSKYLOUR. A guinea, or job.
HUSSY. An abbreviation of housewife, but now always used as a term of
reproach; as, How now, hussy? or She is a light hussy.
HUZZA. Said to have been originally the cry of the huzzars or Hungarian
light horse; but now the national shout of the English, both civil and
military, in the termed a cheer; to give three cheers being to huzza
thrice.
HYP, or HIP. A mode of calling to one passing by. Hip, Michael, your
head’s on fire; a piece of vulgar wit to a red haired man.
HYP. The hypochondriac: low spirits. He is hypped; he has got the blue
devils, &c. |
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