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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.
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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. CANT.
HARMAN BECK. A beadle. CANT.
HARMANS. The stocks. CANT.
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. CANT. 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. CANT.
HASTY. Precipitate, passionate. He is none of the Hastings
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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. CANT.
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. SEA PHRASE.
HEARING CHEATS. Ears. CANT.
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
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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. CANT.
HEAVER. The breast. CANT.
HEAVERS. Thieves who make it their business to steal
tradesmen's shop-books. CANT.
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.
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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 sea phrase,
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. CANT.
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.
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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.
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