CLICK. A blow. A click in the muns; a blow or knock in the face. CANT.
TO CLICK. To snatch. To click a nab; to snatch a hat. CANT.
CLICKER. A salesman's servant; also, one who proportions out the different shares of the booty among thieves.
CLICKET. Copulation of foxes; and thence used, in a canting sense, for that of men and women: as, The cull and the mort are at clicket in the dyke; the man and woman are copulating in the ditch.
CLIMB. To climb the three trees with a ladder; to ascend the gallows.
CLINCH. A pun or quibble. To clinch, or to clinch the nail; to confirm an improbable story by another: as, A man swore he drove a tenpenny nail through the moon; a bystander said it was true, for he was on the other side and clinched it.
CLINK. A place in the Borough of Southwark, formerly privileged from arrests; and inhabited by lawless vagabonds of every denomination, called, from the place of their residence, clinkers. Also a gaol, from the clinking of the prisoners' chains or fetters: he is gone to clink.
CLINKERS. A kind of small Dutch bricks; also irons worn by prisoners; a crafty fellow.
TO CLIP. To hug or embrace: to clip and cling. To clip the coin; to diminish the current coin. To clip the king's English; to be unable to speak plain through drunkenness.
CLOAK TWITCHERS. Rogues who lurk about the entrances into dark alleys, and bye-lanes, to snatch cloaks from the shoulders of passengers.
CLOD HOPPER. A country farmer, or ploughman.
CLOD PATE. A dull, heavy booby.
CLOD POLE. The same.
CLOSE. As close as God's curse to a whore's a-se: close as shirt and shitten a-se.
CLOSE-FISTED. Covetous or stingy.
CLOSH. A general name given by the mobility to Dutch seamen, being a corruption of CLAUS, the abbreviation of Nicholas, a name very common among the men of that nation.
CLOTH MARKET. He is just come from the cloth market, i.e. from between the sheets, he is just risen from bed.
CLOUD. Tobacco. Under a cloud; in adversity.
CLOVEN, CLEAVE, or CLEFT. A term used for a woman who passes for a maid, but is not one.
CLOVEN FOOT. To spy the cloven foot in any business; to discover some roguery or something bad in it: a saying that alludes to a piece of vulgar superstition, which is, that, let the Devil transform himself into what shape he will, he cannot hide his cloven foot.
TO CHUCK. To shew a propensity for a man. The mors chucks; the wench wants to be doing.
CLOUT. A blow. I'll give you a clout on your jolly nob; I'll give you a blow on your head. It also means a handkerchief. CANT. Any pocket handkerchief except a silk one.
CLOUTED SHOON. Shoes tipped with iron.
CLOUTING LAY. Picking pockets of handkerchiefs.
CLOVER. To be, or live, in clover; to live luxuriously. Clover is the most desirable food for cattle.
CLOWES. Rogues.
CLOY. To steal. To cloy the clout; to steal the handkerchief. To cloy the lour; to steal money. CANT.
CLOVES. Thieves, robbers, &c.
CLUB. A meeting or association, where each man is to spend an equal and stated sum, called his club.
CLUB LAW. Argumentum bacculinum, in which an oaken stick is a better plea than an act of parliament.
CLUMP. A lump. Clumpish; lumpish, stupid.
CLUNCH. An awkward clownish fellow.
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,