Slang and its analogues past and present, volume 3 [of 7] : $b A dictionary, historical and comparative, of the heterodox speech of all classes of society for more than three hundred years. With synonyms in English, French, German, Italian, etc.Henley, William Ernest
History
Slang and its analogues past and present, volume 3 [of 7] : $b A dictionary, historical and comparative, of the heterodox speech of all classes of society for more than three hundred years. With synonyms in English, French, German, Italian, etc.
Henley, William Ernest
English language -- Slang -- Dictionaries; Slang -- Dictionaries
1890. Cassell’s Enc. Dict. Gambler, one given to playing for a
stake.
Gambol, subs. (booking clerks’).—A railway ticket.
1882. Daily News, 6 Sept., p. 2, c. 5. ... Mr. Chance [the
magistrate] asked what gambols meant. The inspector said doubtless
the railway tickets.
Gam-cases, subs. (old). Stockings (Parker, Life’s Painter). [From gam =
leg + case.]
Game, subs. (old).—1. The proceeds of a robbery; swag (q.v.).
1676. Warning for Housekeepers. Song. When that we have bit the
bloe, we carry away the game.
2. (old).—A company of whores. A game-pullet = a young prostitute, or a
girl inclined to lechery; cf., adj., sense 8.
1690. B. E., New Dictionary, s.v. ... also a Bawdy house, lewd
women.
1785. Grose, Vulg. Tongue, s.v. game ... Mother, have you any game,
Mother, have you any girls?
3. (old).—A gull; a simpleton. For synonyms, see Buffle and
Cabbage-head.
1690. B. E., New Dictionary. Game, c. Bubbles drawn in to be
cheated.
1785. Grose, Vulg. Tongue, s.v.
4. (thieves’).—Specifically, the game = thieving; also (nautical),
slave trading; and (venery), the practice of copulation (e.g., good at
the game = an expert and vigorous bedfellow. Cf., Shakspeare, Troilus,
iv., 5, ‘Spoils of opportunity, daughters of the game’). In quot.
(1639) it would seem that hen of the game = a shrew, a fighting woman.
1639–61. Rump, ii., 185. ‘Free Parliament Litany.’ From a dunghill
Cock and a Hen of the Game.
1640. Ladies’ Parliament. Stamford she is for the game, She saies
her husband is to blame, For her part she loves a foole, If he hath
a good toole.
1668. Etheredge, She Would if She Could, i., 1. A gentleman should
not have gone out of his chambers but some civil officer of the
game or other would have ... given him notice where he might have
had a course or two in the afternoon.
17(?). Burns, Merry Muses, ‘Jenny Macraw’ (old song). Jenny Macraw
was a bird of the game.
1839. Brandon, Poverty, Mendicity, and Crime, Glossary. On the
game—thieving.
1851–61. Mayhew, Lond. Lab. and Lond. Poor, i., 263. Whether the
game got stale, or Peter became honest, is beyond the purport of my
communication to settle.
1857. Snowden, Mag. Assist. (3rd ed.), p. 444, s.v.
1859. Matsell, Vocabulum, or Rogue’s Lexicon, s.v. The particular
line of rascality the rogue is engaged in; thieving; cheating.
1860. Chambers’ Journal, Vol. 13, p. 281. I asked him if he meant
by a trading voyage, the game.
5. (colloquial).—A source of amusement; a lark (q.v.); a barney (q.v.);
as, e.g., It was such a game!
6. (colloquial).—A design; trick; object; line of conduct: e.g., What’s
your little game = What are you after? Also, None of your little games!
= None of your tricks! See High Old Game.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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