1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue

TO CLUTCH THE FIST. To clench or shut the hand. Clutch fisted; covetous, stingy. See CLOSE-FISTED.

CLUTCHES. Hands, gripe, power.

CLUTTER. A stir, noise, or racket: what a confounded clutter here is!

CLY. Money; also a pocket. He has filed the cly; he has picked a pocket. CANT.

CLY THE JERK: To be whipped. CANT.

CLYSTER PIPE. A nick name for an apothecary.

COACH WHEEL. A half crown piece is a fore coach wheel, and a crown piece a hind coach wheel; the fore wheels of a coach being less than the hind ones.

TO COAX. To fondle, or wheedle. To coax a pair of stockings; to pull down the part soiled into the shoes, so as to give a dirty pair of stockings the appearance of clean ones. Coaxing is also used, instead of darning, to hide the holes about the ancles.

COB. A Spanish dollar.

COB, or COBBING. A punishment used by the seamen for petty offences, or irregularities, among themselves: it consists in bastonadoing the offender on the posteriors with a cobbing stick, or pipe staff; the number usually inflicted is a dozen. At the first stroke the executioner repeats the word WATCH, on which all persons present are to take off their hats, on pain of like punishment: the last stroke is always given as hard as possible, and is called THE PURSE. Ashore, among soldiers, where this punishment is sometimes adopted, WATCH and THE PURSE are not included in the number, but given over and above, or, in the vulgar phrase, free gratis for nothing. This piece of discipline is also inflicted in Ireland, by the school-boys, on persons coming into the school without taking off their hats; it is there called school butter.

COBBLE. A kind of boat.

TO COBBLE. To mend, or patch; likewise to do a thing in a bungling manner.

COBBLE COLTER. A turkey.

COBBLER. A mender of shoes, an improver of the understandings of his customers; a translator.

COBBLERS PUNCH. Treacle, vinegar, gin, and water.

COCK, or CHIEF COCK OF THE WALK. The leading man in any society or body; the best boxer in a village or district.

COCK ALE. A provocative drink.

COCK ALLEY or COCK LANE. The private parts of a woman.

COCK AND A BULL STORY. A roundabout story, without head or tail, i.e. beginning or ending.

COCK OF THE COMPANY. A weak man, who from the desire of being the head of the company associates with low people, and pays all the reckoning.

COCK-A-WHOOP. Elevated, in high-spirits, transported with joy.

COCK BAWD. A male keeper of a bawdy-house.

COCK HOIST. A cross buttock.

COCKISH. Wanton, forward. A cockish wench; a forward coming girl.

COCKLES. To cry cockles; to be hanged: perhaps from the noise made whilst strangling. CANT.—This will rejoice the cockles of one's heart; a saying in praise of wine, ale, or spirituous liquors.

COCK PIMP. The supposed husband of a bawd.

COCK ROBIN. A soft, easy fellow.

COCK-SURE. Certain: a metaphor borrowed front the cock of a firelock, as being much more certain to fire than the match.

COCK YOUR EYE. Shut one eye: thus translated into apothecaries Latin.—Gallus tuus ego.

COCKER. One fond of the diversion of cock-fighting.

COCKNEY: A nick name given to the citizens of London, or persons born within the sound of Bow bell, derived from the following story: A citizen of London, being in the country, and hearing a horse neigh, exclaimed, Lord! how that horse laughs! A by-stander telling him that noise was called NEIGHING, the next morning, when the cock crowed, the citizen to shew he had not forgot what was told him, cried out, Do you hear how the COCK NEIGHS? The king of the cockneys is mentioned among the regulations for the sports and shows formerly held in the Middle Temple on Childermas Day, where he had his officers, a marshal, constable, butler, &c. See DUGDALE'S ORIGINES JURIDICIALES, p. 247.—Ray says, the interpretation of the word Cockney, is, a young person coaxed or conquered, made wanton; or a nestle cock, delicately bred and brought up, so as, when arrived a man's estate, to be unable to bear the least hardship. Whatever may be the origin of this appellation, we learn from the following verses, attributed to Hugh Bigot, Earl of Norfolk, that it was in use, in the time of king Henry II.

Was I in my castle at Bungay,
Fast by the river Waveney,
I would not care for the king of Cockney;

i.e. the king of London.

COCKSHUT TIME. The evening, when fowls go to roost.

COD. A cod of money: a good sum of money.

CODDERS. Persons employed by the gardeners to gather peas.

CODGER. An old codger: an old fellow.

COD PIECE. The fore flap of a man's breeches. Do they bite, master? where, in the cod piece or collar?—a jocular attack on a patient angler by watermen, &c.

CODS. The scrotum. Also a nick name for a curate: a rude fellow meeting a curate, mistook him for the rector, and accosted him with the vulgar appellation of Bol—ks the rector, No, Sir, answered he; only Cods the curate, at your service.

COD'S HEAD. A stupid fellow.

COFFEE HOUSE. A necessary house. To make a coffee-house of a woman's ****; to go in and out and spend nothing.

COG. The money, or whatsoever the sweeteners drop to draw in a bubble.

COG. A tooth. A queer cog; a rotten tooth. How the cull flashes his queer cogs; how the fool shews his rotten teeth.

TO COG. To cheat with dice; also to coax or wheedle, To cog a die; to conceal or secure a die. To cog a dinner; to wheedle one out of a dinner.

COGUE. A dram of any spirituous liquor.

COKER. A lie.

COKES. The fool in the play of Bartholomew Fair: perhaps a contraction of the word COXCOMB.

COLCANNON. Potatoes and cabbage pounded together in a mortar, and then stewed with butter: an Irish dish.

COLD. You will catch cold at that; a vulgar threat or advice to desist from an attempt. He caught cold by lying in bed barefoot; a saying of any one extremely tender or careful of himself.