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
Hampstead-heath Sailor, subs. phr. (common).—A landlubber (q.v.); a
freshwater sailor (q.v.). Fr., un marin d’eau douce or un amiral Suisse
(= a Swiss admiral: Switzerland having no seaboard).
Hanced, adj. (old).—In liquor. [From Hance = ‘to elevate.’] For
synonyms, see Drinks and Screwed.
1630. Taylor, Works. I doe finde my selfe sufficiently hanced, and
that henceforth I shall acknowledge it; and that whensoever I shall
offer to bee hanced again, I shall arme my selfe with the craft of
a fox, the manners of a hogge, the wisdom of an asse, mixt with the
civility of a beare.
Hand, subs. (colloquial).—Properly a seaman; now a labourer, a workman,
an agent.
1658. Phillips, New World of Words, s.v. Hand ... a Word us’d among
Mariners ... when Men are wanted to do any Labour they usually Call
for more hands.
1632–1704. Locke, Wks. A dictionary containing a natural history
requires too many hands, as well as too much time.
1711. Spectator, No. 232. The reduction of the prices of our
manufactures by the addition of so many new hands, would be no
inconvenience to any man.
1754. Fielding, Jonathan Wild, i, 14. The mercantile part of the
world, therefore, wisely use the term ‘employing hands,’ and esteem
each other as they employ more or fewer.
1811. Lexicon Balatronicum, s.v. We lost a hand, we lost a sailor.
1871. Chambers’ Miscellany, No. 113, p. 3. He was admitted as a
hand in an establishment already numbering three hundred active
workers.
1892. Milliken, ’Arry Ballads, p. 70. The hands has all bloomin’
well struck.
1892. National Observer, 22 Oct., vol. viii., p. 571. The dispute
in the South-East Lancashire cotton trade is like to result in the
stoppage of fourteen or fifteen million spindles which will take
employment from sixty thousand hands, a fifth of them women and
children.
1893. Fortnightly Review, Jan., p. 62. The wages paid to the
operatives in our woollen industry are, to a marked extent, lower
than those received by the hands employed in our cotton mills.
2. (coachmen’s).—See quot.
1856. Whyte Melville, Kate Coventry, ch. xv. Lady Horsingham was
tolerably courageous, but totally destitute of what is termed hand,
a quality as necessary in driving as in riding, particularly with
fractious or high-spirited horses.
A good (or cool, neat, old, fine, etc.) hand, subs. phr.
(colloquial).—An expert.
1748. T. Dyche, Dictionary (5th ed.), s.v. Hand (v.). ‘He is a good
hand,’ spoke of one that is an artist in some particular mechanical
art or trade, etc.
1773. Goldsmith, She Stoops to Conquer, iii., 1. When I was in my
best story of the Duke of Marlborough and Prince Eugene, he asked
if I had not a good hand at making punch.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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