A l’avant-scène se prélassait un jeune merveilleux agitant avec nonchalance un binocle d’or émaillé.—Th. Gautier.
The Slang Dictionary includes the word “dandy” among slang expressions. It says: “Dandy, a fop, or fashionable nondescript. This word, in the sense of a fop, is of modern origin. Egan says it was first used in 1820, and Bee in 1816. Johnson does not mention it, although it is to be found in all late dictionaries. Dandies wore stays, studied a feminine style, and tried to undo their manhood by all manner of affectations which were not actually immoral. Lord Petersham headed them. At the present day dandies of this stamp have almost entirely disappeared, but the new school of muscular Christians is not altogether faultless. The feminine of dandy was dandizette, but the term only lived for a short season.”
Mésigo, mézière, mézigue, (thieves’), I, me, “dis child,” as the negroes say; —— roulait le trimard, I was tramping along the road.
Messe, f. (popular), être à la ——, to be late. Nous avons été à la —— de cinq minutes, we were five minutes late. (Thieves’) La —— du diable, examination of a prisoner by a magistrate, or trial, an ordeal the unpleasant nature of which is eloquently expressed by the words. Termed by English rogues “cross kidment.”
Messiadien, adj. and m. (thieves’), convicted, sentenced, “booked.” The epithet is applied to one who has been compelled to attend “la messe du diable,” with unpleasant consequences to himself. Il est —— à six bergarès plombes, he is in for six years’ prison, “put away” for “six stretches;” —— pour pégrasse, convicted for stealing, “in for a vamp.” Il fagaut ta magnette blague de maniagnère que tu n’es paga les pindesse dans le dintesse pour pégrasse, autrement tu es messiadien et tu laveragas tes pieds d’agnet dans le grand pré, which signifies, in the thieves’ jargon of the day, You must take an alias, so that you may escape the clutches of the police; if not, you will be convicted and transported.
Messier, or messière, m. (thieves’), man; inhabitant. A form of mézière, a fool. Les messiers de cambrouse, the country folk, or “clods.”
Messière, m. (thieves’), man; victim; —— de la haute, well-to-do man, “nib cove, or gentry cove;” —— franc, citizen; individual, or “cove.”
Messire Luc, m. (familiar), breech, or “Nancy.” See [Vasistas].
Mesure, f. (popular), prendre la —— des côtes, to thrash, “to wollop.”
Méthode Chevé, f. (familiar and popular), playing billiards in an out-of-the-way fashion—with two cues, for instance, or by pushing the balls with the hand.