1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue

CAPON. A castrated cock, also an eunuch.

CAPRICORNIFIED. Cuckolded, hornified.

CAPSIZE. To overturn or reverse. He took his broth till he capsized; he drank till he fell out of his chair. SEA TERM.

CAPTAIN. Led captain; an humble dependant in a great family, who for a precarious subsistence, and distant hopes of preferment, suffers every kind of indignity, and is the butt of every species of joke or ill-humour. The small provision made for officers of the army and navy in time of peace, obliges many in both services to occupy this wretched station. The idea of the appellation is taken from a led horse, many of which for magnificence appear in the retinues of great personages on solemn occasions, such as processions, &c.

CAPTAIN COPPERTHORNE'S CREW. All officers; a saying of a company where everyone strives to rule.

CAPTAIN LIEUTENANT. Meat between veal and beef, the flesh of an old calf; a military simile, drawn from the officer of that denomination, who has only the pay of a lieutenant, with the rank of captain; and so is not entirely one or the other, but between both.

CAPTAIN PODD. A celebrated master of a puppet-shew, in Ben Johnson's time, whose name became a common one to signify any of that fraternity.

CAPTAIN QUEERNABS. A shabby ill-dressed fellow.

CAPTAIN SHARP. A cheating bully, or one in a set of gamblers, whose office is to bully any pigeon, who, suspecting roguery, refuses to pay what he has lost. CANT.

CAPTAIN TOM. The leader of a mob; also the mob itself.

CARAVAN. A large sum of money; also, a person cheated of such sum. CANT.

CARBUNCLE FACE. A red face, full of pimples.

CARDINAL. A cloak in fashion about the year 1760.

To CAROUSE. To drink freely or deep: from the German word expressing ALL OUT.

CARRIERS. A set of rogues who are employed to look out and watch upon the roads, at inns, &c. in order to carry information to their respective gangs, of a booty in prospect.

CARRIERS. Pigeons which carry expresses.

CARRION HUNTER. An undertaker; called also a cold cook, and death hunter. See COLD COOK and DEATH HUNTER.

CARROTS. Red hair.

CARROTTY-PATED. Ginger-hackled, red-haired. See GINGER-HACKLED.

CARRY WITCHET. A sort of conundrum, puzzlewit, or riddle.

CART. To put the cart before the horse; to mention the last part of a story first. To be flogged at the cart's a-se or tail; persons guilty of petty larceny are frequently sentenced to be tied to the tail of a cart, and whipped by the common executioner, for a certain distance: the degree of severity in the execution is left to the discretion of the executioner, who, it is said, has cats of nine tails of all prices.

CARTING. The punishment formerly inflicted on bawds, who were placed in a tumbrel or cart, and led through a town, that their persons might be known.

CARVEL'S RING. The private parts of a woman. Ham Carvel, a jealous old doctor, being in bed with his wife, dreamed that the Devil gave him a ring, which, so long as he had it on his finger, would prevent his being made a cuckold: waking he found he had got his finger the Lord knows where. See Rabelais, and Prior's versification of the story.

TO CASCADE. To vomit.

CASE. A house; perhaps from the Italian CASA. In the canting lingo it meant store or ware house, as well as a dwelling house. Tout that case; mark or observe that house. It is all bob, now let's dub the gig of the case; now the coast is clear, let us break open the door of the house.

CASE VROW. A prostitute attached to a particular bawdy house.

CASH, or CAFFAN. Cheese; CANT. See CAFFAN.

CASTER. A cloak. CANT.

CASTOR. A hat. To prig a castor; to steal a hat.

CASTING UP ONE'S ACCOUNTS. Vomiting.

CAT. A common prostitute. An old cat; a cross old woman.

CAT-HEADS. A Woman's breasts. SEA PHRASE.

TO CAT, or SHOOT THE CAT. To vomit from drunkenness.

CAT AND BAGPIPEAN SOCIETY. A society which met at their office in the great western road: in their summons, published in the daily papers, it was added, that the kittens might come with the old cats without being scratched.

CAT CALL. A kind of whistle, chiefly used at theatres, to interrupt the actors, and damn a new piece. It derives its name from one of its sounds, which greatly resembles the modulation of an intriguing boar cat.

CAT HARPING FASHION. Drinking cross-ways, and not, as usual, over the left thumb. SEA TERM.

CAT IN PAN. To turn cat in pan, to change sides or parties; supposed originally to have been to turn CATE or CAKE in pan.

CAT'S FOOT. To live under the cat's foot; to be under the dominion of a wife hen-pecked. To live like dog and cat; spoken of married persons who live unhappily together. As many lives as a cat; cats, according to vulgar naturalists, have nine lives, that is one less than a woman. No more chance than a cat in hell without claws; said of one who enters into a dispute or quarrel with one greatly above his match.

CAT LAP. Tea, called also scandal broth. See SCANDAL BROTH.

CAT MATCH. When a rook or cully is engaged amongst bad bowlers.

CAT OF NINE TAILS. A scourge composed of nine strings of whip-cord, each string having nine knots.

CAT'S PAW. To be made a cat's paw of; to be made a tool or instrument to accomplish the purpose of another: an allusion to the story of a monkey, who made use of a cat's paw to scratch a roasted chesnut out of the fire.

CAT'S SLEEP. Counterfeit sleep: cats often counterfeiting sleep, to decoy their prey near them, and then suddenly spring on them.

CAT STICKS. Thin legs, compared to sticks with which boys play at cat. See TRAPSTICKS.

CAT WHIPPING, or WHIPPING THE CAT. A trick often practised on ignorant country fellows, vain of their strength, by laying a wager with them that they may be pulled through a pond by a cat. The bet being made, a rope is fixed round the waist of the party to be catted, and the end thrown across the pond, to which the cat is also fastened by a packthread, and three or four sturdy fellows are appointed to lead and whip the cat; these on a signal given, seize the end of the cord, and pretending to whip the cat, haul the astonished booby through the water.—To whip the cat, is also a term among tailors for working jobs at private houses, as practised in the country.

CATAMARAN. An old scraggy woman; from a kind of float made of spars and yards lashed together, for saving ship-wrecked persons.

CATCH CLUB. A member of the patch club; a bum bailiff.

CATCH FART. A footboy; so called from such servants commonly following close behind their master or mistress.

CATCH PENNY. Any temporary contrivance to raise a contribution on the public.

CATCH POLE. A bum bailiff, or sheriff's officer.