NAVIGATION OF BEAUTIFUL WORDS
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DIRECTORY OF SAUCY SLANG
Where Did That Expression Really Come From?
Know Your Onions! A Jumble of Random Slang
THE QUEEN’S ENGLISH
View Slang and Curses WordMap
A cheeky collection of all slang, insults, curses and idioms available from all categories
Where Did That Expression Really Come From?
Know Your Onions! A Jumble of Random Slang
THE QUEEN’S ENGLISH
- The British Greatest Hits List
- The British Love their Bits N’ Bobs
- Chockablock of Quirky British Slang
- The Cockney Bits About Rhyming Slang
- Raggabrash Runaway to the Middle Ages
- The Victorian Play of Bricky Old Bags
- The Victorian Replay of Bags of Mystery
- Is That Victorian Gibberish or Slang?
- V is for Vulgar Victorian Vagabonds
- Insulted by a Clanging Church Bell
- Two Whoops & A Cowboy Holler
- Penny for Your Thoughts - l Money Talks
- Making a Portmanteau Love Connection
- The Name of the Game in Sports Idioms
- Stealing the Cliff Notes for Millennials
- Pirates Plundering With Curses and Slang
- Walkabout of Aussie Slang - (Home)
- Stirring the Possum - (People)
- Happy Little Vegemite - (Feelings)
- True Blue Values - (Country & Government)
- Sozzled Didgeridoo Solo - (Entertainment)
- Scratching Your Arse - (Curses & Insults)
- Short the Stack - (Abbreviations)
- Froth and Bubbles - (Rhyming Slang)
View Slang and Curses WordMap
A cheeky collection of all slang, insults, curses and idioms available from all categories
V is for VULGAR VICTORIAN VAGABONDS
Law and Order Slang
VULGAR VICTORIANS
The Victorian Play of Bricky Old Bags
The Victorian Bag of Beer and Skittles
Is That English? Gibberish or Slang?
V is for Vulgar Victorian Vagabonds
Insulted by a Clanging Church Bell
The Victorian Play of Bricky Old Bags
The Victorian Bag of Beer and Skittles
Is That English? Gibberish or Slang?
V is for Vulgar Victorian Vagabonds
Insulted by a Clanging Church Bell
CRIMINAL SLANG
AMUSERS - thieves who would throw snuff (or dust) into the eyes of their victims in order to rob them of the valuables.
AREA DIVING - opportunistic burglaries, quickly trying to see if a basement door was open, running in and out.
ARK RUFFIANS - waterside robbers who would start a row with passengers on a boat, climb aboard, beat their victims, strip them and cast them overboard. Also called badgers.
AUTEM DIVERS - pickpockets who work mainly during church services.
BARQUE OF FRAILTY - prostitute
BEAK HUNTING - poultry stealing. (Lots of livestock in 19C London)
BEARING UP - a woman tempts a man to a lonely place where he can be robbed.
BLUE PIGEONS - thieves who go after the lead off from church roofs and houses.
BOATED - transported to Australia.
BOUNCER - stealing from a shop while pretending to buy something.
BREAK A DRUM - rob a house.
BUFFER - someone who steals animals—horses and dogs, mostly—and sells their skins.
BUG HUNTING - to go out looking for drunks to attack and rob at night.
BUTTONER - the man who puts on cheat games in the street for betting
CHIMPING MERRY — exhilarated with liquor
CHRISTENING - the act of taking a stolen watch and erasing the name of its maker, replacing it with the name of a fake maker.
CHRISTENING JACK - scratching names off watches so they can be resold.
CLAWS FOR BREAKFAST - whipped in prison.
DEAD LURK - robbing a house while the family are at church.
DEMI-MONDE - literally “half world”; a class on the fringes of respectable Society. Often used in reference to courtesans, prostitutes, etc,
DIPPING - pickpocketting typically for handkerchiefs and the like.
DRAGSMAN - stealing luggage from a moving cab.
FLYING THE BLUE PIGEON - stealing lead from roofs.
GOSPEL-GRINDER - inner city missionary, one of those over enthusiastic supercilious Victorian types.
HAYMARKET HECTOR - a pimp. A gapstopper.
HEDGE WHORE - itinerant prostitute, who bilks the bagnios and bawdy houses, by disposing of her favors on the way side, under a hedge; a low beggarly prostitute.
HEDGE-CREEPER - at its core it means a prostitute, but there are also low-class implications to it as well. So not only is someone like this not an expensive hooker (like for athletes or politicians,) their base of operations is in the countryside where people weren’t likely to pay as much as cityfolk for their services. They just creep around hedges waiting for their next trick.
HORNSWOGGLER - a fraud or cheat
JOLLY - a fake fight in the street to distract those being robbed.
JUST-ASS — a punning name for a justice [judge]
KINCHINS - children or young servants who can be easily mugged.
MUTTON SHUNTER - a police officer who dealt mainly with getting prostitutes off the street. Back in the 1900s, this aspect of police work was less than noble considering the officers who did it would engage in sexual activities with the people they were supposed to be arresting.
PINCH A BOB - rob a till.
PINCH ON THE PARSON’S SIDE - to defraud the parson of his tithe.
PLANT - the victim.
QUEER SCREENS - forged bank notes.
REVERENCE - was considered a fair punishment for indecency—should someone be caught having a poo near a footpath or highway and the person catching them say the word reverence—that without moving, they should take off their hat with their teeth and toss it back over their heads, so that it would roll down their backs and become fouled. A refusal to do so could result in being pushed over, with a similar result (only worse). This is referred to as “an ancient custom,” which does make you bless the invention of the public lavatory.
RUB BUBBERS (or CLANK NAPPERS) - people who steal silver tankards from pubs.
SKINNING - stealing clothes from children.
SMATTER HAULING - handkerchief stealing, again from pockets
SNAKESMAN - sending a child into a house, through a small opening, to let thieves in.
SNEAKING BUDGE - to break into a house (possibly using a little cudgel or small tool known as a bessor betty) with the express intention of stealing clothes, specifically cloaks.
SNOWING - stealing linen drying on the line.
STARRING THE GLAZE - breaking a pane of glass.
SWINGING THE STICK - full out mugging.
THIMBLE-TWISTER - expert pickpocket of watches
TOOLING - proper grown up pickpocketing, perhaps so named because a device was used to open out the pocket. Note that a maltooler was an omnibus pickpocket.
WIRE - long fingered pickpocket.
AREA DIVING - opportunistic burglaries, quickly trying to see if a basement door was open, running in and out.
ARK RUFFIANS - waterside robbers who would start a row with passengers on a boat, climb aboard, beat their victims, strip them and cast them overboard. Also called badgers.
AUTEM DIVERS - pickpockets who work mainly during church services.
BARQUE OF FRAILTY - prostitute
BEAK HUNTING - poultry stealing. (Lots of livestock in 19C London)
BEARING UP - a woman tempts a man to a lonely place where he can be robbed.
BLUE PIGEONS - thieves who go after the lead off from church roofs and houses.
BOATED - transported to Australia.
BOUNCER - stealing from a shop while pretending to buy something.
BREAK A DRUM - rob a house.
BUFFER - someone who steals animals—horses and dogs, mostly—and sells their skins.
BUG HUNTING - to go out looking for drunks to attack and rob at night.
BUTTONER - the man who puts on cheat games in the street for betting
CHIMPING MERRY — exhilarated with liquor
CHRISTENING - the act of taking a stolen watch and erasing the name of its maker, replacing it with the name of a fake maker.
CHRISTENING JACK - scratching names off watches so they can be resold.
CLAWS FOR BREAKFAST - whipped in prison.
DEAD LURK - robbing a house while the family are at church.
DEMI-MONDE - literally “half world”; a class on the fringes of respectable Society. Often used in reference to courtesans, prostitutes, etc,
DIPPING - pickpocketting typically for handkerchiefs and the like.
DRAGSMAN - stealing luggage from a moving cab.
FLYING THE BLUE PIGEON - stealing lead from roofs.
GOSPEL-GRINDER - inner city missionary, one of those over enthusiastic supercilious Victorian types.
HAYMARKET HECTOR - a pimp. A gapstopper.
HEDGE WHORE - itinerant prostitute, who bilks the bagnios and bawdy houses, by disposing of her favors on the way side, under a hedge; a low beggarly prostitute.
HEDGE-CREEPER - at its core it means a prostitute, but there are also low-class implications to it as well. So not only is someone like this not an expensive hooker (like for athletes or politicians,) their base of operations is in the countryside where people weren’t likely to pay as much as cityfolk for their services. They just creep around hedges waiting for their next trick.
HORNSWOGGLER - a fraud or cheat
JOLLY - a fake fight in the street to distract those being robbed.
JUST-ASS — a punning name for a justice [judge]
KINCHINS - children or young servants who can be easily mugged.
MUTTON SHUNTER - a police officer who dealt mainly with getting prostitutes off the street. Back in the 1900s, this aspect of police work was less than noble considering the officers who did it would engage in sexual activities with the people they were supposed to be arresting.
PINCH A BOB - rob a till.
PINCH ON THE PARSON’S SIDE - to defraud the parson of his tithe.
PLANT - the victim.
QUEER SCREENS - forged bank notes.
REVERENCE - was considered a fair punishment for indecency—should someone be caught having a poo near a footpath or highway and the person catching them say the word reverence—that without moving, they should take off their hat with their teeth and toss it back over their heads, so that it would roll down their backs and become fouled. A refusal to do so could result in being pushed over, with a similar result (only worse). This is referred to as “an ancient custom,” which does make you bless the invention of the public lavatory.
RUB BUBBERS (or CLANK NAPPERS) - people who steal silver tankards from pubs.
SKINNING - stealing clothes from children.
SMATTER HAULING - handkerchief stealing, again from pockets
SNAKESMAN - sending a child into a house, through a small opening, to let thieves in.
SNEAKING BUDGE - to break into a house (possibly using a little cudgel or small tool known as a bessor betty) with the express intention of stealing clothes, specifically cloaks.
SNOWING - stealing linen drying on the line.
STARRING THE GLAZE - breaking a pane of glass.
SWINGING THE STICK - full out mugging.
THIMBLE-TWISTER - expert pickpocket of watches
TOOLING - proper grown up pickpocketing, perhaps so named because a device was used to open out the pocket. Note that a maltooler was an omnibus pickpocket.
WIRE - long fingered pickpocket.
Victorian Slang Index
A BEAUTIFULLY OBSCURE WORD
this site for logophiles and writers & word lovers is a part of A SERIES OF BEAUTIFUL WORDS
Collection of Vocabulary Books, Sites and Resources
Series Homepage | View Sites | Download Books
Words are also posted on twitter under the hashtags #beautifulwords and shared on pinterest boards
HOME | ABOUT SITE | SITEMAPS | SEARCH
Content by Kairos ~ @kairosoflife
Homepage | Portfolio | Contact | Feedback
Never underestimate the strength and power of a beautiful vocabulary
Original content © 2021 Copyright, Kairos
this site for logophiles and writers & word lovers is a part of A SERIES OF BEAUTIFUL WORDS
Collection of Vocabulary Books, Sites and Resources
Series Homepage | View Sites | Download Books
Words are also posted on twitter under the hashtags #beautifulwords and shared on pinterest boards
HOME | ABOUT SITE | SITEMAPS | SEARCH
Content by Kairos ~ @kairosoflife
Homepage | Portfolio | Contact | Feedback
Never underestimate the strength and power of a beautiful vocabulary
Original content © 2021 Copyright, Kairos
