ecclesiastical preferments.
CHOPPING, LUSTY. A chopping boy or girl; a lusty
child.
CHOPS. The mouth. I gave him a wherrit, or a souse,
across the chops; I gave him a blow over the mouth,
See WHERRIT.
CHOP-STICK. A fork.
CHOUDER. A sea-dish, composed of fresh fish, salt pork, herbs, and sea-biscuits, laid in different layers, and stewed together.
TO CHOUSE. To cheat or trick: he choused me out of it.
Chouse is also the term for a game like chuck-farthing.
CHRIST-CROSS ROW. The alphabet in a horn-book: called
Christ-cross Row, from having, as an Irishman observed,
Christ's cross PREFIXED before and AFTER the twenty-four
letters.
CHRISTENING. Erasing the name of the true maker from
a stolen watch, and engraving a fictitious one in its place.
CHRISTIAN PONEY. A chairman.
CHRISTIAN. A tradesman who has faith, i.e. will give credit.
CHRISTMAS COMPLIMENTS. A cough, kibed heels, and a snotty nose.
CHUB. He is a young chub, or a mere chub; i.e. a foolish fellow, easily imposed on: an illusion to a fish of that name, easily taken.
CHUBBY. Round-faced, plump.
CHUCK. My chuck; a term of endearment.
CHUCK FARTHING. A parish clerk.
CHUCKLE-HEADED. Stupid, thick-headed.
CHUFFY. Round-faced, chubby.
CHUM. A chamber-fellow, particularly at the universities and in prison.
CHUMMAGE. Money paid by the richer sort of prisoners in the Fleet and King's Bench, to the poorer, for their share of a room. When prisons are very full, which is too often the case, particularly on the eve of an insolvent act, two or three persons are obliged to sleep in a room. A prisoner who can pay for being alone, chuses two poor chums, who for a stipulated price, called chummage, give up their share of the room, and sleep on the stairs, or, as the term is, ruff it.
CHUNK. Among printers, a journeyman who refuses to work for legal wages; the same as the flint among taylors. See FLINT.
CHURCH WARDEN. A Sussex name for a shag, or cormorant, probably from its voracity.
CHURCH WORK. Said of any work that advances slowly.
CHURCHYARD COUGH. A cough that is likely to terminate in death.
CHURK. The udder.
CHURL. Originally, a labourer or husbandman: figuratively a rude, surly, boorish fellow. To put a churl upon a gentleman; to drink malt liquor immediately after having drunk wine.
CINDER GARBLER. A servant maid, from her business of
sifting the ashes from the cinders. CUSTOM-HOUSE WIT.
CIRCUMBENDIBUS. A roundabout way, or story. He
took such a circumbendibus; he took such a circuit.
CIT. A citizen of London.
CITY COLLEGE. Newgate.
CIVILITY MONEY. A reward claimed by bailiffs for executing
their office with civility.
CIVIL RECEPTION. A house of civil reception; a bawdy-house,
or nanny-house. See NANNY-HOUSE.
CLACK. A tongue, chiefly applied to women; a simile drawn
from the clack of a water-mill.
CLACK-LOFT. A pulpit, so called by orator Henley.
CLAMMED. Starved.
CLAN. A family's tribe or brotherhood; a word much used in Scotland. The head of the clan; the chief: an allusion to a story of a Scotchman, who, when a very large louse crept down his arm, put him back again, saying he was the head of the clan, and that, if injured, all the rest would resent it.
CLANK. A silver tankard. CANT.
CLANK NAPPER. A silver tankard stealer. See RUM BUBBER.
CLANKER. A great lie.
CLAP. A venereal taint. He went out by Had'em, and came round by Clapham home; i.e. he went out a wenching, and got a clap.
CLAP ON THE SHOULDER. An arrest for debt; whence a
bum bailiff is called a shoulder-clapper.
CLAPPER. The tongue of a bell, and figuratively of a man
or woman.
CLAPPER CLAW. To scold, to abuse, or claw off with the
tongue.
CLAPPERDOGEON. A beggar born. CANT.
CLARET. French red wine; figuratively, blood. I tapped his claret; I broke his head, and made the blood run. Claret-faced; red-faced.
CLAWED OFF. Severely beaten or whipped; also smartly
poxed or clapped.
CLEAR. Very drunk. The cull is clear, let's bite him; the
fellow is very drunk, let's cheat him. CANT.
CLEAVER. One that will cleave; used of a forward or
wanton woman.
CLEAN. Expert; clever. Amongst the knuckling coves he
is reckoned very clean; he is considered very expert as
a pickpocket.
CLERKED. Soothed, funned, imposed on. The cull will
not be clerked; i.e. the fellow will not be imposed on by
fair words.
CLEYMES. Artificial sores, made by beggars to excite
charity.
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