Chapter V: Part 5

1694. Congreve, Double Dealer, v., 17. I have so contriv’d that
Mellefont will presently, in the chaplain’s habit, wait for Cynthia
in your dressing-room; but I have put the change upon her, that she
may be otherwise employed.

1821. Scott, Kenilwortht, ch. iii. You cannot put the change on me
so easy as you think, for I have lived among the quick-stirring
spirits of the age too long to swallow chaff for grain.

To ring the changes, phr. (common).—To change a better article for a worse. [An allusion to bell-ringing where it signifies to exhaust the combinations of a peal of bells.] In its slang sense to ring the changes chiefly refers to the passing of counterfeit money. As thus:—‘About five weeks ago, the prisoner went into a tobacconist’s shop in Cheapside, and purchased a cheroot, tendering a sovereign in payment. The prosecutor, Mr. Elkin, gave him the change, half-a-sovereign and 9s. 6d. silver. The prisoner said he did not want to distress him by taking away all his silver, and asked for another half sovereign. The prosecutor put down half-a-sovereign, which the prisoner took up, and the latter then said that if he returned the sovereign, he would give him back the change, and the prosecutor, taken off his guard, did so, and received the first half sovereign and the 9s. 6d. in silver, the prisoner walking out of the shop with the second half sovereign.’

1661. Hist. of Eng. Rebellion in Harl. Misc. (ed. Park), II., 528.
Five months ago, our mighty States Were pleas’d to vote No King;
But two months since, to act new cheats, Their votes the changes
ring.

1760. Smollett, Sir L. Graves, vol. I., ch. x. Hugging in and
ringing out the changes on the balance of power, the Protestant
religion, and your allies on the Continent.

1828. Jon. Bee, Picture of London, p. 232. He found one piece [of
muslin] that was indeed real India, bargained for and bought it,
amidst continued attempts to shuffle it between others, for the
purpose of ringing the changes, as they term the nefarious act.

1877. Five Years’ Penal Servitude, ch. iii., p. 234. Nothing easier
than for some man to have slipped out of bed, night or day, and
rung the changes of the bottles.

1880. Hawley Smart, Social Sinners. ch. xli. The culprit had been
guilty of ringing the changes or other petty larceny.

To take the change out of [a person or thing], phr. (common).—To be revenged upon; to take an equivalent, or quid pro quo. Frequently used interjectionally—Take your change out of that! with a blow or other rejoinder. An analogous expression is Put that in your pipe and smoke it!

1829. John Wilson, Noctes Amb., wks. II., 174. Shepherd (flinging a
purse of gold on the table). It’ll require a gey strang thaw to
melt that, chiels; sae. tak your change out o’ that, as Joseph
[Hume] says, either in champagne, or jile ... just whatsumever you
like to devour best.

1838. Haliburton, Clockmaker, 2 S., ch. viii. ‘Thinks I to myself,
take your change out o’ that, young man, will you?’

1854. Whyte Melville, General Bounce, ch. xi. If his ammunition be
exhausted he betakes himself to the bayonet, and swears ‘the
beggars may take your change out o’ that.’

1861. H. Kingsley, Ravenshoe, ch. xlvi. Turn Lady Ascot once fairly
to bay, you would (if you can forgive slang) get very little change
out of her.

1863. H. Kingsley, Austin Elliott, I., 185. Cabman, log: ‘I never
said nothink to you, but without provocation you tell me to go to
Putney. Now, I tell you what it is, I’m blessed if I don’t go, and
you may take your change out of that!’ And go he did. [Cf., ‘Go to
Putney’ (q.v.).]

Quick change artiste, subs. (music hall).—A performer, male or female, who sings one song in one costume, retires for a few seconds and returns to sing another in another guise, and so on.

Change-Bags, subs. (Eton).—Grey flannel trousers for cricket, and knickerbockers for football.

Change One’s Note or Tune, verbal phr. (colloquial).—To pass from laughter to tears, or from arrogance to humility; to alter one’s mode of speech, behaviour, etc. Cf., Change your breath (q.v. under Breath).

1578. Scot. Poems, 16th c. (1808), II. 185. Priestes change your
tune. [m.]

1708. Motteux, Rabelais, V., ix. I’ll make him change his note
presently.

Change Your Breath.—See Breath.

Chant or Chaunt, subs. (old).—1. See quots.

1812. J. H. Vaux, Flash Dictionary. Chaunt: a song ... To throw off
a rum chaunt is to sing a good song.

1882. Daily Telegraph, 19 Oct., p. 5, col. 2. To troll his jovial
chaunts ... in a tavern-parlour. [m.]

2. (old).—See quots.

1812. J. H. Vaux, Flash Dict. Chaunt: (a person’s) name, address,
or designation; ... a cipher, initials, or mark of any kind, on a
piece of plate, linen, or other article; anything so marked is said
to be chanted ... an advertisement in a newspaper or handbill, etc.

1824. Compl. Hist. Murder Mr. Weare. 258. ‘We may as well look and
see if there is any chaunt about the money’—and they examined the
four notes, but there were no marks upon them. [m.]

Verb (old).—1. To talk; sing; relate the praises of; to ‘cry’ or ‘crack up.’ Street patterers and vendors chant their songs and wares, oftentimes to an extent not warranted by their quality: hence sense 2. An equivalent amongst French thieves is pousser la goualante.

1851. Mayhew, London Labour and London Poor, I., p. 240. A running
patterer ... who also occasionally chaunts.

2. (common).—To sell a horse by fraudulent representations. [Apparently an extended usage of sense 1—‘to cry’ or ‘crack up.’] Fr., enrosser = to dissemble a horse’s faults.

1816. Sporting Magazine, vol. XLIX., p. 305. A number of frauds
have been practised lately in the disposal of horses ... by a gang
of ... swindlers, who technically call it chaunting horses.

1825. English Spy, vol. I., pp. 199, 200. Here a church militant is
seen Who’d rather fight than preach, I ween, Once major now a
parson; With one leg in the grave he’ll laugh, Chant up a prad, or
quaintly chaff To keep life’s pleasant farce on.

1860. Thackeray, Philip, ch. xx. You may as well say that horses
are sold in heaven, which, as you know, are groomed, are doctored,
are chanted on to the market, and warranted by dexterous
horse-vendors as possessing every quality of blood, pace, temper,
age.

Chanter (generally Horse-Chanter), subs. (common).—1. A horse-dealer who disposes of horses by means of fraudulent representations.

1821. W. T. Moncrieff, Tom and Jerry, Act. i., Sc. 6. Grooms,
Jockies, and Chaunters, to Tattersall’s bring.

1836. Dickens, Pickwick, xlii., 365. ‘He was a horse-chaunter: he’s
a leg now.’

1845. W. M. Thackeray, Miscellanies, II. (‘Leg. of the Rhine’), p.
88. He is a cogger of dice, a chanter of horse-flesh.

1857. Dickens, Dorrit, bk. I., ch. xii., 88. The Plaintiff was a
Chaunter—meaning, not a singer of anthems, but a seller of horses.

1884. Daily News, August 23, p. 5, col. 1. It is for the chanter
and his attendant bonnet, who officiates as groom, to place the
stock.

1890. W. E. Henley, Views and Reviews, p. 137. An apple woman to
mystify, a horse-chanter to swindle, a pugilist to study, etc.,
etc.

2. (vagrants’).—A street patterer. More commonly spelt chaunter (q.v.).

3. (Scots).—The penis.

Chantey or Shanty, subs. (nautical).—A song sung by sailors at their work.—See Chantey-man. [Obviously a diminutive of chant, a song.]

1869. Chambers’ Journal, 11 Dec., pp. 794–6. [Article on ‘Sailors’
Shanties and Sea-Songs.’]

1883. W. Clark Russell, Sailors’ Language, preface, xi. But the
lack of variety is no obstruction to the sailor’s poetical
inspiration when he wants the ‘old man’ to know his private
opinions without expressing them to his face, and so the same
chantey, as the windlass or halliard chorus is called, furnishes
the music to as many various indignant remonstrances as Jack can
find injuries to sing about.

1884. W. C. Russell, Jack’s Courtship, ch. iii. ‘Then give us one
of the old chanteys,’ exclaimed my uncle. ‘Haul the Bowline,’ or
‘Whiskey, Johnny.’

Chantey-Man, subs. (nautical).—A singer of Chanteys (q.v.).

1887. Saturday Review, 27 August. A shanty, or, as pedants call it,
‘chanty,’ is a song sung by sailors at their work. The music is ‘to
a certain extent traditional,’ the words—which are commonly unfit
for ears polite—are traditional likewise. The words and music are
divided into two parts—the ‘shanty’ proper, which is delivered by a
single voice, with or without a fiddle obligato, and the refrain
and chorus, which are sung with much straining and tugging, and
with peculiar breaks and strange and melancholy stresses, by a
number of men engaged in the actual performance of some piece of
bodily labour. The manner is this. We will suppose for instance,
that what is wanted is an anchor song. The fugleman takes his
stand, fiddle in hand, and strikes up the melody of ‘Away Down
Rio.’ Then, everything being ready, he pipes out a single line of
the song, and the working party, with a strong pull at the
capstan-bars, answers with a long-drawn Away Down Rio. He sings a
second verse, and this is followed by the full strength of the
chorus.... And so on, through stave after stave, till the anchor’s
weighed, and, the work being done, the need for song is gone by.

1890. W. E. Henley, Views and Reviews, p. 153. He goes down to the
docks and loiters among the galiots and brigantines; he hears the
melancholy song of the chantey-man.

Chantie, subs. (Scots).—A chamber-pot. For synonyms, see It.

Chanting (more commonly Horse-Chanting), verbal subs. (common).—1. Tricking into the purchase of unsound or vicious horses.

1825. English Spy, vol. I., pp. 199, 200. The servant was a
confederate, and the whole affair nothing more than a true orthodox
farce of horse-chaunting got up for the express purpose of raising
a temporary supply.

1870–2. Gallery of Comicalities. If I have got an ’orse to sell,
You’ll never find that Dick is wanting; There’s few that try it on
so well, Or beat me at a bit of chaunting.

2. (vagrants’).—Street ballad-singing.

1851. Mayhew, London Labour and London Poor, I., p. 297. There is a
class of ballads, which may with perfect propriety be called street
ballads, as they are written by street authors for street singing
(or chaunting) and street sale.

1883. Daily Telegraph, Feb. 8, p. 3, col. 1. ‘The bitterest sort of
weather is their [cadgers’] weather, and it doesn’t matter if it’s
house-to-house work or chanting, or mud-plunging, it’s cold work.’

Chapel or Chapel of Ease, subs. (common).—A water-closet. For synonyms, see Bury a Quaker and Mrs. Jones.

Chapel of Little Ease, subs. phr. (thieves’)—The police station or cells.

1871. Daily Telegraph, 27 Jan. [See short leader; also 25 Jan.]

1889. Answers, 9 Feb. A fourth kind of torture was a cell called
little ease. It was of so small dimensions, and so constructed,
that the prisoner could neither stand, walk, sit, nor lie in it at
full length. He was compelled to draw himself up in a squatting
posture, and so remain during several days.

Chapped or Chapt, ppl. adj. (old).—Parched; ‘dry’; thirsty. [From chap, to crack (as the lips) from want of moisture, + ed.]

1673. R. Head, Canting Acad., 37. Chap’d, Dry, or Thirsty.

1725. New Canting Dictionary, s.v.

1785. Grose, Dict. Vulg. Tongue. Chapt: dry or thirsty.

1811. Lexicon Balatronicum, s.v.

Chappie or Chappy, subs. (familiar).—The latest (1890) variety of man about town; a term of intimacy. [From chap, a chum, + ie, a diminutive.] For synonyms, see Dandy.

1882. Punch, vol. LXXXII., p. 69, col. 1. I’ll sing you a fine new
song, all about a fine young spark, Who’s a fine young London
gentleman, quite up to any lark, Who takes supper very early, and
breakfasts in the dark; Who’s a real ‘dear old chappie,’ as I
needn’t perhaps remark.

1883. G. A. S[ala], in Illustr. London News, March 24, p. 290, col.
1. Lord Boodle, a rapid Chappie always ready to bet on everything
with anybody.

Character, subs. (colloquial).—A man or woman exhibiting some prominent (and usually contemptible) trait; an eccentric; a case (q.v.). Generally used with such adjectives as ‘low,’ ‘queer,’ ‘comic,’ etc.—[From character = a personage in history or fiction: one who has distinguished him- or herself.] For synonyms, see Odd Fish.

1773. Goldsmith, She Stoops to Conquer, II., 1. A very impudent
fellow this! but he’s a character, and I’ll humour him.

1820–33. C. Lamb, Essays of Elia, p. 163. You are fond of having a
character at your table, and truly he is one.

Charactered, ppl. adj. (old).—Burnt on the hand; otherwise lettered (q.v.). [From the legitimate meaning of the word, = ‘marked or inscribed with characters.’]

1785. Grose, Dict. Vulg. T., s.v.

1811. Lexicon Balatronicum. They have palmed the character upon
him.

Charing-Cross, subs. (rhyming slang).—A horse. For synonyms, see Prad.

Chariot, subs. (thieves’).—An omnibus. In the sixteenth century chariot = a vehicle of any kind, and in the eighteenth a light four-wheeled carriage. French thieves call an omnibus une omnicroche, or un four banal, which last = also a pocket or ‘cly.’

Chariot-Buzzing, subs. (thieves’).—Picking pockets in an omnibus. [From chariot (q.v.), an omnibus, + buz, verb 2 (q.v.), to pick pockets, + ing.] French thieves’ faire l’omnicroche.

Charles, His Friend, subs. (theatrical).—See Friend.

Charley or Charlie, subs. (old).—1. A night watchman. A popular name, prior to the introduction by Sir R. Peel, in 1829, of the present police force; since when it has fallen into desuetude. The Charlies were generally old men whose chief duty was crying the hour on their rounds. Boxing a Charley was a favourite amusement with young bucks and bloods, who, when they found a night-watchman asleep in his box, would overturn it, leaving the occupant to escape as best he might. [The origin of the term is uncertain. Some trace it to Charles I., who re-organised the watch system of the metropolis in 1640. If this be tenable it is curious that so long a period elapsed between the event and its recognition in slang. The earliest appears to be that given infra. For synonyms, see Beak and Copper.

1812. J. H. Vaux, Flash Dictionary. Charley: a watchman.

1823. Charles Westmacott, Points of Misery, p. 28. A regular chase
between me and the Charleys all the way to Lad Lane.

1845. Hood, Tale of a Trumpet, st. 55. That other old woman, the
parish Charley!

1852. Bentley’s Miscellany, 1 June, p. 620. Oh, those dear old
Charlies of the Dogberry school! How their husky cries of the
passing hour mingled with our dreams, letting us know that they
were at least wide awake to the thievings of time!

1865. G. F. Berkeley, My Life, etc., I., 106. The night’s
entertainment ending in the morning before a magistrate, when the
roughly used Charleys, as the night-policemen were called,
preferred charges of assault supported by black eyes and a few
loose teeth carefully preserved for the purpose, and the offenders
thought themselves lucky if they got off with only a moderate fine.
[Temp. George IV.]

1889. Daily News, Sep. 28, p. 2, col. 5. The Last of the Charleys.
In the person of Mr. William Mason, who died on Wednesday at the
age of 89, we lose the last survivor of the Charleys who used to
patrol the streets prior to the establishment in 1849 of the City
Police Force.

2. (common).—A small, pointed beard, fashionable in the time of Charles I.; an ‘imperial’; in America a goatee (q.v. for synonyms).

1824. Gentleman’s Magazine, March 1, p. 295, col. 2. With white
pantaloons, watch chains, and Wellingtons, and a Charley at their
under lip.

1841. Hook, Widow, x., 145. He ... wore ... a Charley on his under
lip.

1861. Taylor, Antiq. Falkland, 43. That square, short man ...
wearing a moustache and Charlie is William Laud.

18(?). R. M. Jephson, Girl He Left Behind Him, ch. i. Dolly himself was occupied in nursing a tuft of hair on his chin termed, grandiloquently, an imperial, familiarly, a Charley.

3. (hunting).—A fox. Fourbesque, graniera.

1857. Hughes, Tom Brown’s Schooldays, ch. i., p. 8. A nice little
gorse or spinney where abideth poor Charley, having no other cover
to which to betake himself for miles and miles, when pushed out
some fine November morning by the old Berkshire.

1859. H. Kingsley, Geoffrey Hamlyn, ch. xxviii. ‘And all after a
poor little fox!’ ‘You don’t know Charley, I can see,’ said
Halbert; ‘poor little fox indeed.’

4. (American thieves’).—A watch. [Possibly a pun upon Charley, sense 1, a watch or watchman.] For synonyms, see Ticker.

5. (tailors’).—The nap on faced on glossy-surfaced cloth.

6. (tailors’).—A round-shouldered figure.

Charley Bates’ Farm, or Garden.—See Bates’ farm.

Charley-Lancaster, subs. (rhyming slang).—A ‘handkercher.’

Charley-Pitcher, subs. (thieves’).—A prowling sharper who entices greenhorns to take a hand in thimble-rigging, the three-card trick, prick the garter, etc.

1859. G. A. Sala, Twice Round the Clock (2 p.m., par. 10), p. 160.
Even at remote country race-courses, you may find remnants of the
whilom swarming tribe of Charley-pitchers, the knavish gentry who
pursue the games of ‘under seven or over seven,’ ... or inveigle
the unwary with ‘three little thimbles and one small pea.’

1851–61. H. Mayhew, Lon. Lab. and Lon. Poor, IV., 32, note. A
Charley-pitcher seems to be one who pitches to the Ceorla or
countryman, and hence is equivalent to the term Yokel-hunter.

1877. Besant and Rice, Son of Vulcan, pt. I., ch. ix. With them
marched the Charley-pitchers, who gained an honourable livelihood
with the thimble and the pea.

Charley-Prescot, subs. (rhyming slang).—A waistcoat. For synonyms, see Fan.

Charley-Wag. To play the charley-wag (school-slang).—1. To absent oneself from school without leave; to play truant. Variants are To mouch; To wag; Fr., tailler or caler l’école; Spanish, hacer novillos, and andar á la tuna.

1876. C. Hindley, Life and Adventures of a Cheap Jack, p. 57.
Nothing could be done with him at school ... Joe being, in spite of
all entreaties, the greatest rapscallion and ringleader of all
mischief, and at all times readier to play the charley Wag than to
be the first in any prominent position in his class or form.

2. (common).—To disappear [figurative].

1887. W. E. Henley, Villon’s Straight Tip to all Cross Coves. It’s
up the spout and Charley-wag With wipes and tickers and what not.
Until the squeezer nips your scrag, Booze and the blowens cop the
lot.

Charlie.—See Charley.

Charlies, subs. (popular).—1. The paps. For synonyms, see Dairy.

2. (Winchester College).—Thick gloves made of twine. [Introduced by a Mr. Charles Griffith; hence the name.] Obsolete.

Charm, subs. (old).—1. A picklock.

1785. Grose, Dict. Vulg. Tongue, s.v.

1811. Lexicon Balatronicum, s.v.

1881. New York Slang Dict., s.v.

Charms, subs. (old).—The paps. Fr., les appas. Once in literary use, but now impossible except as slang. Flashing her Charms = showing her paps.

2. (American).—A generic term for money. For synonyms, see Actual and Gilt.

1875. American English, in Cham. Journal, 25 Sept., p. 610. Money
has forty or fifty different names; such singular terms as ...
shadscales, and charms figuring in the list.

Charter the Bar or Grocery, verbal phr. (American).—To buy up the whole of the liquor at a bar and stand drinks all round as long as it lasts. This freak is not infrequent in the West. In Australia a similar expression is shouting oneself hoarse. (q.v.).

18(?). J. G. Baldwin, David Bolus, Esq. Bolus was no niggard. He
would as soon treat a regiment, or charter the grocery for the day,
as any other way.

Chasing, verbal subs. (workmens’). See quot.

1884. Rae, Cont. Socialism, 361. This is shown ... in their
prohibition of chasing ... i.e., of a workman exceeding a given
average standard of production. [m.]

Chasse, verb (society).—To dismiss. [From the French chasser.]

1847. Thackeray, Lords and Liv., III. He was chassÉd on the spot.
[m.]

1868. Yates, Rock Ahead, I., p. 185. If Lord Ticehurst married,
more than half Gilbert Lloyd’s influence would be gone, if indeed
the turf were not abandoned, and the confederate chassÉd.

Chat, subs. (thieves’).—1. A house. For synonyms, see Diggings.

1879. J. W. Horsley, in Macm. Mag., XL., 501. I piped a slavey
(servant) come out of a chat (house).

2. (common).—The female pudendum. [From French chat, a cat, and by implication the ‘pussy.’]

3. (common).—The truth; the real state of a case; the proper words to use; the ‘correct card.’

1819. Thomas Moore, Tom Crib’s Memorial to Congress, p. 6. And,
setting in case there should come such a rumpus, As some mode of
settling the chat we must compass, With which the tag-rag will have
nothing to do, What think you, great swells, of a royal set-to?

1862. Trollope, Orley Farm, ch. vi. Has the gentleman any right to
be in this room at all, or has he not? Is he commercial, or is
he—miscellaneous? That’s the chat as I take it.

4. (low).—Gabble; chatter; impudence; e.g., None of your chat, or I’ll give you a shove in the eye.

Verb.—To hang.—See Chates, sense 1. [This reading, however, is problematical.]

1513. G. Douglas, Æneis, viii., Prol. 126. Quod. I, churle, ga chat
the, and chide with ane vthir.

Chates, subs. (old).—1. The gallows, (Also Chattes and Chats.) [Doubtful as to derivation, see quot. 1610.] For synonyms, see Nubbing-cheat.

1567. Harman, Caveat (1814), p. 66. Chattes: the gallowes.

1610. Rowlands, Martin Mark-all, p. 37, (H. Club’s Repr., 1874).
Chates, the Gallowes: here he [Harman, author of a Caveat for
Cursitors-date, c. 1570, reprinted as The Belman of London,
containing list of cant words] mistakes both the simple word,
because he so found it printed, not knowing the true originall
thereof, and also in the compound; as for Chates it should be
Cheates, which word is vsed generally for things, as Tip me that
Cheate, Give me that thing: so that if you will make a word for the
Gallous, you must put thereto this word, Treyning, which signifies
hanging; and so Treyning Cheate is as much to say, hanging things,
or the Gallous, and not Chates.

1671. R. Head, English Rogue, pt. I., ch. v., p. 48 (1874). Chats:
the gallows.

1690. B. E., Dict. Cant. Crew, s.v.

1706. E. Coles, Eng. Dict., s.v.

1725. New Cant. Dict., s.v.

1785. Grose, Dict. Vulg. Tongue, s.v.

1811. Lexicon Balatronicum, s.v.

1881. New York Slang Dict., s.v.

2. (old).—Lice. (Also chats and chatts.) [Grose suggests that chatts is an abbreviation of chattels in the sense of cattle—lice being the chief live-stock of beggars, gipsies, and the rest of the canting crew; the history of the word ‘chattel’ appears to bear out his contention. The Norman catel passed later into cattell, and these forms were in the sixteenth century restricted to live-stock, chattell passing from legal French into general use for the wider sense—article of property.]

1690. B. E., Dict. Cant. Crew, s.v.

1725. New Cant. Dict., s.v.

1812. J. H. Vaux, Flash Dict., s.v.

1864. Hotten, Slang Dict., s.v.

English Synonyms. Active citizens; crabs; crumbs; friends in need; back friends; grey backs; black cattle; Scots Greys; gentleman’s companions; creepers; gold-backed ’uns; German ducks; dicky-birds; familiars; saddle-backs; Yorkshire Greys.

French Synonyms. Les espagnols (popular: formerly lice were called ‘Spanish bugs,’ poux espagnols, to distinguish them from the cimex lectuarius, or common bed bug); un coquillon (popular: also ‘a pilgrim’); les goux (thieves’); le garnison (pop. = garrison); un loupate (= poux, disguised); un habitant (= a householder or ‘citizen’); un grenadier (popular); un got (thieves’); un mousquetaire gris (pop. = a grey musketeer).

German Synonyms. Huttererg’ sell’n (perhaps the nearest German equivalent to the English ‘gentleman’s companion,’ the German word signifying ‘skin-society’); Jokel, or Jokelche, Jokelcher, Juckel, Juckeler (sing.: also = a postillion, ‘one who rides,’ the latter, however, being more commonly rendered Post-Juckel. Ave-Lallement derives it from Jäckel or Jockel, diminutives of Jacob, but there are the German words, Jucken, ‘to itch,’ and Juckler, ‘one who itches.’ It is quite possible that the two last are later, historically. In connection, see next example); Hans Walter (in Luther’s Liber Vagatorum [1529]. Hanz literally means Jack, or John [Cf., preceding Jokel], the old word Hansa refers to a multitude; old German Hanse, a society; Hans, a companion); Kinne, pl. Kinnim (of purely Hebrew origin; Kinnimachler = a ‘dirty, filthy fellow,’ or ‘an avaricious man,’ literally ‘a lice-eater’; Kinnimer, a man full of lice. The Fieselsprache has Kineh and Kinehbruder to signify ‘an intimate companion,’ or ‘chum’; Marschirer or die stillen Marschirer (Viennese thieves’ for lice; literally ‘the silent walkers’); Sand (used for vermin in general and lice in particular; sandig sein, to be lousy).

Italian Synonyms. Grisaldi; grisanti; guallino.

Spanish Synonym. Cancano, (m; a low term).

Chat-Hole, subs. (prison).—A hole made by convicts in a wall, to carry on a conversation. [From chat, an abbreviation of chatter, + hole.]

Chats, subs. (old).—1. See Chates.

2. (thieves’).—See quot.

1821. D. Haggart, Life, Glossary, p. 171. Chats, seals.

3. (Stock Exchange).—London, Chatham and Dover Railway Stock.

Chatter-Basket, subs. (common).—A prattling child. Originally dialectical, chatter-basket being the Lancashire form; while in West Somerset they say chatter-bag. Cf., Chatterbox.

Chatter-bones, Chatter-cart, and Chatter-bladder, subs. (common).—Variants of chatterbox (q.v.). For synonyms, see Clack-box.

1842. Dickens, American Notes, ch. xi., p. 94. That little girl of
fifteen with the loquacious chin: who, to do her justice, acts up
to it ... for of all the small chatterbones that ever invaded the
repose of drowsy ladies’ cabin, she is the first and foremost.

Chatterbox, subs. (colloquial).—An incessant talker; used contemptuously of adults and playfully of children. [From chatter, gabble + box, a receptacle; metaphorically, a box full of chatter. Cf., Bag of bones.] A variant is chatterbones (q.v.). For synonyms, see Clack-box.

1785. Grose, Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue. Chatter Box, one
whose tongue runs twelve score to the dozen; a chattering man or
woman.

1840. C. Dickens, Old Curiosity Shop [C. D. ed.], p. 93. A set of
idle chatterboxes.

1878. E. Jenkins, Haverholme, p. 52. A mere political chatterbox.

Chatter-Broth, subs. (old).—Tea; the beverage and the party. A Yorkshire equivalent is chatter-water. Quoted by Grose [1785]. Variants are cat-lap and scandal-broth (q.v.).

Chatterer, subs. (pugilistic).—A heavy blow upon the mouth; or, says Peter Corcoran, ‘a blow that tells.’ For synonyms see Dig.

1827. Reynolds (‘Peter Corcoran’), Sonnet on The Fancy. I’ve left
the Fives-Court rush,—the flash—the rally. The noise of ‘Go it,
Jack’—the stop—the blow—The shout—the chattering hit—the check—the
sally.

Chatterers, subs. (common).—The teeth. For synonyms, see Grinders.

Chattery, subs. (thieves’).—See quot.

1821. D. Haggart, Life, Glossary, p. 171. Chattery, cotton, or
linen goods.

Chatty, subs. (old).—A filthy man. [From chat (q.v.), a louse, + y.] English variants are chatty-dosser, crummy-dosser. Amongst French equivalents may be mentioned un bifteck à maquart (Maquart is the name of a well-known knacker); un sale pâtissier (literally a dirty pastry-cook); un kroumir; un gorgniat; un pégocier.

Adj. (common).—Filthy; lousy. [For derivation, see subs.] A French equivalent is graphiqué—itself a very ‘telling,’ ‘speaking,’ or ‘chatty’ expression; also malastiqué.

1812. J. H. Vaux, Flash Dictionary. Chatty: lousy.

Chatty-Feeder, subs. (old).—A spoon. [A vague reference to the mouth as the place of ‘chat’ or ‘chatter.’] For synonyms see Wedge-feeder.

1881. New York Slang Dictionary. ‘And where the swag so bleakly
pinched, A hundred stretches hence?... The chips, the fawneys,
chatty-feeders.’

Chaunt, subs. (old).—A song.—See Chant, subs., sense 1.

Verb (vagrants’).—To sing ballads, etc., in the streets.—See Chant, verb, sense 1.

To Chaunt the play, verbal phr. (thieves’).—To explain the tricks and manœuvres of thieves.

Chaunted, ppl. adj. (streets’).—Sung of, and celebrated, in street ballads. [From chaunt, to sing street ballads, + ed.]—See Chanting, subs., sense 2.

1827. Reynolds (‘Peter Corcoran’). Lines to Philip Samson in The
Fancy. ‘Be content that you’ve beat Dolly Smith, and been chaunted,
And trained—stripped—and petted, and hit off your legs!’

Chaunter, subs. (vagrants’).—1. A street singer of ballads, dying speeches, etc. Rarely heard now except in the poorest neighbourhoods. His practice is peculiar. One man gets as far as he can, and when his voice cracks his companion takes things up. For this reason the business is conducted by a brace of men, by a man and woman, or by a woman and child.—See quot. 1851. [From chaunt, to sing, + er.] Also called a paper-worker (q.v.); and Death-hunter (q.v.). French Synonyms are un chanteur à la balade or au baladage; un goualeur or une goualeuse (see Eugene Sue Mystères de Paris); une cigale (popular: a female street-singer); and un braillard. Fourbesque, granchetto (a term also applied to one who speaks gibberish or thieves’ lingo).

1851–61. H. Mayhew, London Lab. and Lon. Poor, vol. I., p. 229. The
chaunters, or those who do not cry, but (if one may so far stretch
the English language) sing the contents of the ‘papers’ they vend.
Ibid, p. 240. The running patterer ... is accompanied generally by
a chaunter.... The chaunter not only sings, but fiddles.

2. (common).—See Chanter, sense 1.

Chaunter-Cove, subs. (thieves’).—A reporter. [From chaunt, to ‘crack’ or ‘cry up,’ + er + cove, a man.]

Chaunter-Cull, subs. (old).—A writer of ballads and street literature for the use of chaunters or ‘street patterers.’ They haunted certain well-known public-houses in London and Birmingham, and were open to write ballads ‘to order’ on any subject, the rate of remuneration varying from half-a-crown to seven-and-sixpence. The chaunter having practically disappeared, his poet has gone with him.

1781. G. Parker, View of Society, II., 58. [Named and described
in.]

1785. Grose, Dict. Vulg. Tongue. Chaunter-culls: Grub Street
writers, who compose songs, carrols, etc., for ballad singers.

1834. H. Ainsworth, Rookwood, bk. IV., ch. vi. I trust, whenever
the chanter-culls and last-speech scribblers get hold of me,
they’ll at least put no cursed nonsense into my mouth.

Chaunter upon the Leer, phr. (old).—An advertiser.

Chaunting.—See Chanting.

Chauvering Donna or Moll, subs. (old).—A prostitute. [From chauvering, sexual intercourse. + donna (q.v.), a woman, or moll (q.v.), a loose female.] For synonyms, see Barrack-hack.

Chaw, subs. (common).—1. A countryman; a yokel; a bumpkin. [A contraction of chaw-bacon (q.v.). In common use at Harrow School.]

1856. T. Hughes, Tom Brown’s School-days, pt. I., ch. i. There’s
nothing like the old country-side for me, and no music like the
twang of the real old Saxon tongue, as one gets it fresh from the
veritable chaw in the White Horse Vale.

2. (vulgar).—A mouthful; a ‘gobbet’; in the mouth at once; e.g., a quid of tobacco; a dram of spirits, etc. [From chaw, verb, q.v.]

1749. ‘Humours of the Fleet,’ quoted in Ashton’s The Fleet, p. 286.
And in his nether jaw Was stuff’d an elemosynary chaw.

1772. Gentleman’s Magazine, XLII., 191. The tars ... Took their
chaws, hitched their trousers, and grinn’d in our faces. [m.]

1833. Marryat, Peter Simple, xiv. The boy was made to open his
mouth, while the chaw of tobacco was extracted.

1838. Glascock, Land Sharks and Sea Gulls, II., 123. ‘I’m blest if
I’m fit for work, ’thout a raw chaw.’

1864. Daily Telegraph, 26 July. The gentleman have often ‘that
within that passeth show,’ to wit, a chaw of tobacco: this is not
very conducive to volubility in conversation.

3. (University).—A trick; device; or ‘sell.’

Verb (vulgar).—1. To eat or chew noisily and roughly. To bite (see quot., 1890). Once literary; now degenerate, and vulgarly applied; specifically ‘to chew tobacco.’

1890. The Oont, Rudyard Kipling in Scots Observer, ... We socks him
with a stretcher-pole, and ’eads him off in front, And when we
saves his bloomin’ life, he chaws our bloomin’ arm.

2. (University).—To deceive, trick, ‘sell,’ or impose upon one.

To chaw over, verbal phr. (common).—To create ridicule by repeating one’s words.

To chaw up, phr. (American).—To get the better of; to demolish; ‘do for’; smash or finish. Chawed up: utterly done for.

1843. Dickens, Martin Chuzzlewit, ch. xvi., p. 162, ‘Here’s full
particulars of the patriotic loco-foco movement yesterday, in which
the Whigs was so chawed up.’

1862. C. F. Browne, Artemus Ward: His Book, p. 66. We chawed ’em
up, that’s what we did.

To chaw up one’s words, phr. (American).—To retract an assertion; ‘to eat one’s words.’

Chaw-Bacon, subs. (colloquial).—A country bumpkin. [From chaw, a vulgar form of chew, to masticate or chew, + bacon, the staple food of agricultural labourers.] Other nicknames for a countryman are bacon-slicer; clod-hopper; barn-door savage; clod-pole; cart-horse; Johnny; cabbage-gelder; turnip-sucker; joskin; jolterhead; yokel; clod-crusher, etc.

1811. Lexicon Balatronicum. Chaw Bacon. A countryman. A stupid
fellow.

1822. Blackwood’s Magazine, XII., 379. You live cheap with
chaw-bacons and see a fine, flat country. [m.]

1854. Whyte Melville, General Bounce, ch. v. ‘Give me the pail, you
lop-eared buffoon—do you call that the way to feed a pig?’ and the
General, seizing the bucket from an astonished chaw-bacon, who
stood aghast, as if he thought his master was mad, managed to spill
the greater part of the contents over his own person and gaiters.

Chaws, subs. (venery).—Copulation. For synonyms, see Greens.

Cheap. On the cheap, adv. phr. (colloquial).—At a low rate [of money]; economically; keeping up a showy appearance on small means.

1884. Cornhill Mag., June, p. 614. His being’s end and aim, both by
day and night, is to obtain as much drink as possible on the cheap.

Cheap and nasty, adv. phr. (colloquial).—Said of articles which, though pleasing to the eye, are ‘shoddy’ in fact. For special application, see quot.

1864. Athenæum, Oct. 29. Cheap and nasty, or, in a local form,
‘cheap and nasty, like Short’s in the Strand,’ a proverb applied to
the deceased founder of cheap dinners.

To feel cheap, verb. phr. (common).—To ‘have a mouth on;’ to be suffering from a night’s debauch.

Dirt cheap or dog cheap, adv. phr. (colloquial).—Inexpensive; as cheap as may be. Dog cheap is the earliest form in which this colloquialism appears in English literature, dirt cheap not being found earlier than 1837.

1577. Holinshed, Chron. Descr. Irel., iii. They afourded their
wares so dogge cheape, that etc. [m.]

1837. C. Dickens, Oliver Twist, xxxvii. ‘I sold myself,’ said Mr.
Bumble ... ‘I went very reasonable. Cheap, dirt cheap!’

Cheapside. He came home by way of cheapside, phr. (old).—That is ‘he gave little or nothing for it’; ‘he got it cheap.’

Cheat, subs. (old).—A general name for any object. [From Anglo-Saxon ceat, a thing. Cf., quot., 1608.] A term which, with a descriptive adjective, appears in a variety of forms in Old Cant. The cheat par excellence was the gallows, also known as the nubbing, topping, or treyning-cheat. The word is variously spelt—chet, chete, cheate, cheit, chate, cheat. The following combinations will serve to illustrate its use.

Belly-chete = An Apron.
Bleting-chete = A sheep or calf.
Cackling-chete = A fowl.
Crashing-cheats = The teeth.
Grunting-chete = A pig.
Hearing-chetes = The ears.
Low’ing-chete = A cow.
Lullaby-chete = An infant.
Mofling-chete = A napkin.
Nubbing-cheat = The gallows.
Prattling-chete = The tongue.
Quacking-chete = A duck.
Smelling-chete = The nose.
Topping-cheat = The gallows.
Treyning-cheat = The gallows.
Trundling-cheat = A cart or coach.

All of which see.

1567. Harman, Caveat [ed. 1869], p. 86. Now we have well bous’d,
let vs strike some chete [that is], now we have well dronke, let us
steale some thinge.

1608. Dekker, Belman of London, in wks. (Grosart) III., 117. The
Cheating Law or the Art of winning money by false dyce. Those that
practise this studie call themselues Cheators, the dyce Cheaters,
and the money which they purchase Cheates: borrowing the tearme
from our common Lawyers, with whome all casuals as fall to the Lord
at the holding of his Leetes, as Waifes, Strayes, and such like,
are said to be Escheated to the Lord’s use, and are called Cheates.

1611. Shakspeare, Winter’s Tale, iv., 2, 28. With dye and drab, I
purchas’d this Caparison, and my Reuennew is the silly Cheate.
Gallowes, and Knocke, are too powerfull on the Highway.

1754. Fielding, Jonathan Wild, bk. IV., ch. ii. See what your
laziness is come to; to the cheat, for thither will you go now,
that’s infallible.

Cheats, subs. (old).—Sham cuffs or wristbands. Cf., Dicky and Shams.—See also quot., 1688.

1688. R. Holme, Armoury, III., p. 96, col. 1. A ... kind of
Waistcoats are called Chates, because they are to be seen rich and
gaudy before, when all the back part is no such thing. Ibid, III.,
p. 258, col. 1. Such Gallants weare not Cheats or half Sleeves, but
... their Waistcoats are the same clear throughout. [m.]

1690. B. E., Dictionary Canting Crew. Cheats ... also Wristbands or
sham Sleeves worn for true, or whole ones.

1785. Grose, Dict. Vulg. Tongue. } Sham sleeves to put over a dirty
} shift or shirt.
1811. Lexicon Balatronicum. }

Checks, subs. (American).—Money in general; cash. [A term derived from poker, in which game counters or checks, bought at certain fixed rates, are equivalent to current coin.] For synonyms, see Actual and Cf., Chips.

To pass or hand in one’s checks, phr. (American).—See ante, To cash (or pass in) one’s checks. To die. For synonyms, see Aloft and Cf., Chips.

Cheek, subs. (colloquial).—1. Insolence; jaw; e.g., ‘none of your cheek’ or ‘chat’ and ‘none of your jaw.’ Equivalents are lip, chat, imperance, mouth, chin, chirrup, and nine shillings; the last a corruption of ‘nonchalance!’ Among foreign equivalents may be mentioned the French avoir un toupet de bœuf; and the Spanish adjectives cariraido (‘impudent’) and desollado (from desollar, ‘to skin, flay’); desuellacaras (m.; an impudent, shameless person); paparrucha (f. impertinence).

1840. Marryat, Poor Jack, xxii. The man, who was a sulky, saucy
sort of chap ... gives cheek.

1848. J. Mitchell, Jail Jrnl., July 20. I once asked ... what fault
a man had committed who was flogged.... ‘For giving cheek, sir.’
[m.]

1884. G. Moore, Mummer’s Wife (1887), p. 133. If he gives me any of
his cheek I’ll knock him down.

2. Audacity; confidence; impudence; ‘brass’; ‘face.’ Formerly ‘brow’ was used in the same sense.—(See quot., 1642.)

1642. Fuller, Holy State, bk. IV., ch. xi. They were men of more
brow than brain, being so ambitious to be known, that they had
rather be hissed down than not come upon the stage.

1851. Mayhew, London Labour and London Poor, I., p. 471. They [the
Crocusses] ’d actually have the cheek to put a blister on a cork
leg. Ibid, p. 404 (provided with) a noggin o’ rum to ‘give him
cheek,’ and make him speak up to his victims.

1882. Daily News, Oct. 10, p. 5, col. 6. Of this fact, I know no
more signal instance than the seizing of the Citadel of Cairo. As I
stood on the spot the other day I realised for the first time
the—if you will pardon me the use of a vulgar but expressive
colloquialism—astounding cheek of the feat.

1889. Answers, p. 59, col. 2. The whole suggestion savoured so much
of what our Transatlantic brothers call monumental cheek, that the
Duke hardly knew what to say, or what emotions to express.

1890. Athenæum, Feb. 22, p. 253, col. 2. In various disguises Miss
Palmer sings, dances, and exhibits her powers of coquetry and
cheek.

Verb.—To address a person saucily.

1851. Mayhew, London Labour and London Poor, I., p. 452. (They)
persuaded me to go and beg with them, but I couldn’t cheek it.

1857. Dickens, Our Vestry, in Reprinted Pieces, p. 292. Dogginson
... informed another gentleman ... that if he cheek’d him he would
resort to the extreme measure of knocking his blessed head off.

1890. Saturday Review, Feb. 1, p. 151, col. 1. Not only was Dick
always ready to cheek his employer, and by his own account usually
capable of getting the better of him, but he was on the same sort
of terms with his pupils.

To one’s own cheek, phr. (colloquial).—To one’s own share; all to oneself. Sometimes used in the sense of allowance, i.e., ‘Where’s my cheek?’

1841. Lever, Charles O’Malley, ch. lxxxviii. And though he consumed
something like a prize on to his own cheek, he at length had to
call for cheese.

1855. Punch, vol. XXVIII., p. 10. [From day to day, for near a
week,] ‘I had a boiled salt round of beef On Monday all to my own
cheek Whereon my hunger sought relief.’

To cheek up, verbal phr. (colloquial).— = cheek, to answer saucily.—See Cheek verb.

1867. North Briton, June 5. ‘Royal Dramatic College.’ We shall not
soon forget seeing, during our visit to the Fair last July, a
number of ladies dressed up as jockeys, confined, like so many
chattering monkeys, in a cage, cheeking up to gentlemen, selling
them ‘k’rect cards,’ etc.

Cheek-Ache. To have the cheek-ache, phr. (common).—To be made to blush; to be abashed. [From cheek, the face, + ache, a metaphorical exaggeration of the pain of blushing.]

Cheekiness, subs. (colloquial).—Impudence; effrontery; cool audacity.

1847. Illustrated London News, 28 Aug. p. 142, col. 1. They were
beat ... by their slow, loggy stroke, and by their cheekiness. [m.]

1854. Martin and Aytoun, Bon Gualtier Ballads, ‘Francesca da
Rimini.’ There’s wont to be at conscious times like these. An
affectation of a bright-eyed ease,—A crispy-cheekiness, if so I
dare, Describe the swaling of a jaunty air.

1857. A. Trollope, Three Clerks, ch. xliv. He lived but on the
cheekiness of his gait and habits; he had become member of
Parliament, Government official, railway director, and club
aristocrat, merely by dint of cheek.

Cheekish, adj. (colloquial).—Audacious; impudent; saucy. [From cheek + ish.]

1851. Mayhew, London Labour and London Poor, I., p. 248. Being
cheekish (saucy) to the beadle.

Cheeks, subs. (old).—1. The posteriors. For synonyms, see Blind-cheeks: to which may be added toby; stern; catastrophe; latter-end; jacksy-pardo; and juff.

1785. Grose, Dict. Vulgar Tongue.

2. (old).—An accomplice.

1857. Snowden, Mag. Assistant, 3 ed., p. 448. I have seen cheeks (a
flash name for an accomplice).

Cheeks and Ears.—A fantastic name for a kind of head-dress, of temporary fashion.

(?) Lond. Prod., iv., 3, Suppl. to Sh., II., 511. Fr. O then thou
canst tell how to help me to cheeks and ears. L. Yes, mistress,
very well. Fl. S. Cheeks and ears! why, mistress Frances, want you
cheeks and ears? methinks you have very fair ones. Fr. Thou art a
fool indeed, Tom, thou knowest what I mean. Civ. Ay, ay, Kester;
’tis such as they wear a’ their heads.

Cheeks the Marine, subs. phr. (nautical).—Mr. Nobody. An imaginary personage on board ship created and popularised by Captain Marryat. The epithet has, likewise, passed into a byword as a sarcastic rejoinder to a foolish or incredible story—‘tell that to Cheeks the marine.’

1833. Marryat, Peter Simple (ed. 1846), vol. I., ch. vii., p. 36. I
enquired who, and he said Cheeks the marine.

1878–80. Justin McCarthy, History of Our Own Times, II., ch. xiii.,
p. 15 (1848). Cheeks the Marine was a personage very familiar at
that time to the readers of Captain Marryat’s sea stories, and the
name of that mythical hero appeared with bewildering iteration in
the petition.

1883. Clark Russell, Sailors’ Language. Cheeks the marine: an
imaginary being in a man-of-war.

Cheeky, adj. (colloquial).—Coolly presumptuous; impudent or saucy. Fr., insolpé.

1859. H. Kingsley, Geoffrey Hamlyn, ch. xxvi. ‘You will find, Sir,’
said Lee, ‘that these men in this here hut are a rougher lot than
you think for; very like they’ll be cheeky.’

1860. Punch, vol. XXXIX., p. 30. ‘The Volunteer on July
fourteenth.’ But that Ass Snivens—a coming it as cheeky as could
be.

1889. Pall Mall Gaz., 8 Nov., p. 2, col. 3. The cheeky boy, with
the natural ingratitude of youth, often makes a long nose at his
master, even when showing off all that the master has taught him.

Cheese. The cheese, phr. (common).—1. Anything first-rate or highly becoming; the expression runs up and down the whole gamut of ‘cheese nomenclature’ from the Stilton, Double Gloster, to the pure Limburger. [It has been variously traced to the Anglo-Saxon ceosan, to choose; German, kiesen; French, chose; Persian, chiz; Hindu, cheez, thing. Summing up the evidence, the expression—(barring a solitary reference in the London Guide of 1818, where it is referred to a bald translation of c’est une autre chose, i.e., that is another cheese, subsequently coming to signify that is the real thing)—appears to have come into general vogue about 1840. This contention is borne out in some measure by a correspondent to Notes and Queries (1853, 1 S., viii., p. 89), who speaks of it as about ‘ten or twelve years old,’ a calculation which carries it back to the date when it appears to have started in literature. Yule, writing much later, says the expression was common among young Anglo-Indians, e.g., ‘my new Arab is the real chiz,’ i.e., ‘the real thing,’ a fact which points to a Persian origin.] For synonyms, see a1.

1835. Haliburton (‘Sam Slick’), The Clockmaker, 3 S., ch. xiv.
Whatever is the go in Europe will soon be the cheese here.

1837. R. H. Barham, Ingoldsby Legends, p. 418. Cries Rigmaree,
rubbing her hands, ‘that will please—My “Conjuring cap”—it’s the
thing;—it’s the cheese.’

1842. Punch, vol. III., p. 33. ‘I hopes my love will excuse me if
I’m not quite—quite—’ ‘Comme il faut, George.’ ‘I don’t mean that,
love—not quite the cheese.’

1860. Punch, vol. XXXIX., p. 97. Were the custom [of putting
mottoes on garments, temp. Rich. II.] now revived we can conceive
what stupid mottoes would be sported by the Œntish who always mock
and maul the fashion of their betters:—‘I wish my gal to please: O,
aint I just the cheese’ would doubtless be a popular device for a
new shirt front.

1863. Chas. Reade, Hard Cash, II., 186. ‘Who ever heard [said Mrs.
Dodd] of a young lady being married without something to be married
in?’ ‘Well [said Edward], I’ve heard Nudity is not the cheese on
public occasions.’

2. subs. (schools and University).—An adept; one who ‘takes the shine out of another’ at anything; at Cambridge an overdressed dandy is called a howling cheese. [An extended usage based on sense 1.]

1864. Eton School-days. ‘Do you know Homer, Purefoy?’ asked
Chudleigh. ‘No, I have not looked at the lesson yet.’ ‘I am sure I
don’t know why you ever do; you are such a cheese. I want you to
give me a construe.’

Hard cheese, phr. (common).—What is barely endurable; hard lines; bad luck.

Tip-cheese.—Probably the same as Tip-cat (q.v.).

1836. C. Dickens, Pickwick Papers, p. 282 (ed. 1857). All is gloom
and silence in the house; even the voice of the child is hushed;
his infant sports are disregarded when his mother weeps; his ‘alley
tors’ and his ‘commoneys’ are alike neglected; he forgets the long
familiar cry of ‘knuckle down,’ and at tip-cheese, or odd and even,
his hand is out.

Cheese it! phr. (thieves’).—Leave off! Have done! Be off! [Thought to be a corruption of ‘cease it!’]. For synonyms, see Stow it!

1811. Lexicon Balatronicum, Cheese it, the coves are fly; be
silent, the people understand our discourse.

1859. Sala, Gaslight and Daylight, ch. xxviii. Two or three
‘hallos!’ and ‘now thens!’ accompanied by a strong recommendation
to cheese it (i.e., act of cessation), causes these trifling
annoyances to cease.

1864. Times, 7 December. He shouted ‘Murder!’ as well as he could,
and the cries he made bringing assistance, he heard one of the men
just before they let go of him call out ‘Cheese it, cheese it,’
which a policeman said meant make off.

1871. London Figaro, May 13, p. 3, col. 3. ‘Cheese that,’ cried
Bill. ‘The genelman’s agoin’ to read, and I am agoin’ to listen.’

Cheese-Boxes, subs. (American).—A Confederate nickname for vessels of the ‘Monitor’ type; first applied during the Civil War [1860–65]. Cf., tinclads (q.v.).

1871. De Vere, Americanisms, p. 335. The great inventor has not
made it known what induced him to choose the name [‘Monitor’]:
hence etymologists have evolved it out of their inner consciousness
that he must have borrowed it from Gray’s Monitor Dracæna, a large
lizard covered with impenetrable armour. Irreverent Confederates
called the hideous-looking vessels cheese-boxes, and apparently one
designation is, etymologically, though not æsthetically, as good as
the other.

Cheesecutter, subs. (common).—1. A prominent, aquiline nose. For synonyms, see Conk.

2. (common).—A large, square peak to a cap; the abat-jour of the Zouaves.

3. (in plural).—Bandy-legs. For synonyms, see Drumsticks.

Cheese-Knife, subs. (military).—A sword. For synonyms, see Cheese-toaster.

Cheesemongers.—A popular name for the First Lifeguards until the Peninsular War. The term then fell into desuetude; but at Waterloo the commanding officer of the regiment had not forgotten it, and when leading to the charge, he called out, ‘Come on, you damned Cheesemongers!’ an invitation accepted so heartily that the title was restored, with the difference that it was no longer a word of reproach. [Some say that the nickname came from their exclusive home service until the time of the Peninsular War; others that it was bestowed on account of the old gentlemen in the corps declining to serve when it was remodelled in 1788, on the ground that the ranks were no longer composed of gentlemen, but of cheesemongers.] Also called The cheeses.

Cheeser, subs. (old).—An eructation. The Spanish has una pluma (f.; literally ‘a feather’); zullenco (a common colloquialism); soltar el preso (soltar = ‘to unloose,’ or ‘to untie’; preso = ‘a prisoner’).

Cheeses.—See Cheesemongers.

Cheese-Toaster, subs. (military).—A sword.

English Synonyms. Toasting-fork; toasting iron; sharp; knitting-needle; iron; cheese-knife; toll; poker.

French Synonyms. Un astic (thieves’: from the German Stich); l’aiguille à tricoter les côtes (military: l’aiguille à tricoter = knitting-needle, côtes = ribs); l’entrecôte (popular); un charlemagne (military; a bayonet-sabre); un Bon-Dieu (military); une curette (military: a cavalry sword, as also is un bancal); une côte de bœuf (thieves’); un grand couteau (military: a cavalry sword. Literally ‘a large knife’); un fauchon (popular); un fauchon de satou (a wooden sword); une gaudille or gandille; Joyeuse (the name of the sword of Charlemagne); une flambe or flamberge (the sword of Roland); une paille de fer (= cold steel); une latte (a cavalry sword); une lardoire (popular).

German Synonym. Michel (from the Hebrew michael, an executioner’s sword; also Langmichel).

Italian Synonym. Martina.

Spanish Synonyms. Fisberta; centella (literally ‘spark,’ ‘thunder,’ ‘lightning’); respeto (properly ‘respect’); garrancha; durindana.

1785. Grose, Dict. Vulg. Tongue, Cheese-toaster: a sword.

1857–59. Thackeray, Virginians, x. I’ll drive my cheese-toaster
through his body.

Cheesy, adj. (common).—Fine or showy. The opposite of ‘dusty.’ [From cheese (q.v.) + y.] For synonyms, see Up to Dick.

1858. R. S. Surtees, Ask Mamma, xlviii., 211. To see him at
Tattersall’s sucking his cane, his cheesey hat well down on his
nose. [m.]

Chemiloon, subs.—Chemise and drawers in one; a combination (q.v.).

Chepemens, subs. (old).—See quot.

1610. Rowlands, Martin Mark-all, p. 37 (H. Club’s Repr., 1874).
Chepemans: Cheape-side Market.

Cheque. To have seen the cheque, phr. (common).—To know positively; to be possessed of exact knowledge concerning a matter. For synonyms, see Knowing.

Cherrilets, subs. (old).—The nipples.

1599. Sylvester, Miracle of the Peace. Then those twins, thy
strawberry teates, Curled, purled cherrilets?

1654. Witt’s Recreations. Then nature for a sweet allurement sets
Two smelling, swelling, bashful cherrylets.

Cherry, subs. (thieves’).—A young girl. Cf., Cherry-ripe and Rosebud.

Cherry-Breeches.—See Cherubims.

Cherry-Coloured, adj. (common).—Either red or black; a term used in a cheating trick at cards. When the cards are being dealt, a ‘knowing’ one offers to bet that he will tell the colour of the turn-up card. ‘Done,’ says Mr. Green. The sum being named, Mr. Sharp affirms that it will be cherry-colour; and as cherries are either black or red, he wins. Grose [1785] has cherry-coloured cat for one either black or white in colour.

1834. Harrison Ainsworth, Rookwood. And forth to the heath is the
scamps-man gone, His matchless cherry black prancer riding.

1886. Ill. London News, Jan. 23, p. 78, col. 2. A favourite hoax is
the great exhibition, wherein a cherry-coloured cat and a
rose-coloured pigeon (the meeting between Wellington and Blucher),
etc., are to be shown. The former consists of a black cat and a
white pigeon.

Cherry-Merry, adj. (old).—1. Convivial; slightly inebriated.

1602. Middleton, Blurt, I., i. [Tricks, tricks, kerry merry buff!]

1775. Cont. Sterne’s Sent. Jour., 219. That every convivial
assistant should go home cherry merry.

2. subs. (Anglo-Indian).—A present of money. Cherry-merry-bamboo, a beating.

Cherry-Pickers, subs. (military).—See Cherubims.

Cherry-Pie, subs. (common).—A girl. [Possibly only an amplification of cherry (q.v.).] For synonyms, see Titter.

Cherry-Pipe, subs. (rhyming slang).—A woman, the ‘rhyme’ being with ‘ripe,’ from cherry-ripe (q.v.). For synonyms, see Petticoat.

Cherry-Ripe, subs. (thieves’).—1. A woman. Cf., Cherry = a young girl. For synonyms, see Petticoat.

2. (old).—A ‘redbreast’ or Bow Street Runner. [So called from the scarlet waistcoat which formed part of the uniform.]

3. (common).—A footman in red plush.

4. (rhyming slang).—A pipe.

Cherubims, vulgo, Cherry-bums, subs. (military).—1. The Eleventh Hussars. [From their crimson overalls.] Also cherry-breeches and cherry-pickers.

1865. Notes and Queries, 3 S., vii., p. 49. 11th Hussars—Cherubims
and Cherry Pickers, having had some men taken while on out-post
duty in a fruit garden in Spain.

1871. Forbes, Exper. War between France and Germany, II., 149. When
[Lord Cardigan] commanded the Cherry-breeches there were generally
more sore backs among them than in any other regiment in the
service.

1871. Chambers’ Journal, Dec. 23, p. 802. The 11th Hussars, the
‘Cherubims and Cherry Pickers.’

2. (common).—Peevish children. [A facetious allusion to a passage in the Te Deum—‘To Thee cherubin and seraphin continually do cry.’] Quoted by Grose [1785].

3. (common).—Chorister boys. [Either founded on the allusion quoted in sense 2, or in reference to the fact that little more than the heads of choristers is visible to the general congregation.]

To be in the cherubims, phr. (old).—To be in good humour; in the clouds; unsubstantial; fanciful.