NUGGING DRESS. An out-of-the-way old-fashioned dress, or rather a loose kind of dress, denoting a courtesan. NUGGING-HOUSE. A brothel. TO NULL. To beat: as, He nulled him heartily. NUMBERS. To consult the book of numbers: a term used in the House of Commons, when, instead of answering or confuting a pressing argument, the minister calls for a division, i.e. puts the matter to the vote. NUMBSCULL. A stupid fellow. NUMMS. A sham collar, to be worn over a dirty shirt. NUNNERY. A bawdy house. TO NURSE. To cheat: as, they nursed him out of it. An estate in the hands of trustees, for the payment of bdebts, is said to be at nurse. NUTS. It was nuts for them; i.e. it was very agreeable to them. NUTS. Fond; pleased. She's nuts upon her cull; she's pleased with her cully. The cove's nutting the blowen; the man is trying to please the girl. NUTCRACKERS. The pillory: as, The cull peeped through the nutcrackers. NUTMEGS. Testicles. NYP, or NIP. A half pint, a nip of ale: whence the nipperkin, a small vessel. NYP SHOP. The Peacock in Gray's Inn Lane, where Burton ale is sold in nyps. NYPPER. A cut-purse: so called by one Wotton, who in the year 1585 kept an academy for the education and perfection of pickpockets and cut-purses: his school was near Billingsgate, London. As in the dress of ancient times many people wore their purses at their girdles, cutting them was a branch of the light-fingered art, which is now lost, though the name remains. Maitland, from Stow, gives the following account of this Wotton: This man was a gentleman born, and sometime a merchant of good credit, but fallen by time into decay: he kept an alehouse near Smart's Key, near Billingsgate, afterwards for some misdemeanor put down. He reared up a new trade of life, and in the same house he procured all the cut-purses about the city, to repair to his house; there was a school-house set up to learn young boys to cut purses: two devices were hung up; one was a pocket, and another was a purse; the pocket had in it certain counters, and was hung about with hawks bells, and over the top did hang a little sacring bell. The purse had silver in it; and he that could take out a counter, without noise of any of the bells, was adjudged a judicial NYPPER: according to their terms of art, a FOYSTER was a pick-pocket; a NYPPER was a pick purse, or cut-purse. O BE JOYFUL. I'll make you sing O be joyful on the other side of your mouth; a threat, implying the party threatened will be made to cry. To sing O be easy; to appear contented when one has cause to complain, and dare not. OAF. A silly fellow. OAFISH. Simple. OAK. A rich maa, a man of good substance and credit. To sport oak; to shut the outward door of a student's room at college. An oaken towel; an oaken cudgel. To rub a man down with an oaken towel; to beat him.