CHIPS, A nick name for a carpenter.
CHIRPING MERRY. Exhilarated with liquor. Chirping glass, a cheerful glass, that makes the company chirp like birds in spring.
CHIT. An infant or baby.
CHITTERLINS. The bowels. There is a rumpus among my
bowels, i.e. I have the colic. The frill of a shirt.
CHITTY-FACED. Baby-faced; said of one who has a childish
look.
CHIVE, or CHIFF. A knife, file: or saw. To chive the
darbies; to file off the irons or fetters. To chive the bouhgs
of the frows; to cut off women's pockets.
CHIVEY. I gave him a good chivey; I gave him, a hearty
Scolding.
CHIVING LAY. Cutting the braces of coaches behind, on
which the coachman quitting the box, an accomplice robs
the boot; also, formerly, cutting the back of the coach to
steal the fine large wigs then worn.
CHOAK. Choak away, the churchyard's near; a jocular saying
to a person taken with a violent fit of coughing, or who
has swallowed any thing, as it is called the wrong way;
Choak, chicken, more are hatching: a like consolation.
CHOAK PEAR. Figuratively, an unanswerable objection: also a machine formerly used in Holland by robbers; it was of iron, shaped like a pear; this they forced into the mouths of persons from whom they intended to extort money; and on turning a key, certain interior springs thrust forth a number of points, in all directions, which so enlarged it, that it could not be taken out of the mouth: and the iron, being case-hardened, could not be filed: the only methods of getting rid of it, were either by cutting the mouth, or advertizing a reward for the key, These pears were also called pears of agony.