SPICK AND SPAN, applied to anything that is quite new and fresh.—Hudibras.
SPIFFED, slightly intoxicated.—Scotch slang.
SPIFFS, the percentage allowed by drapers to their young men when they effect a sale of old-fashioned or undesirable stock.
SPIFFY, spruce, well-dressed, tout à la mode.
SPIFLICATE, to confound, silence, or thrash.
SPILT, thrown from a horse or chaise.—See [PURL].
SPIN, to reject from an examination.—Army.
SPIN-EM-ROUNDS, a street game consisting of a piece of brass, wood, or iron, balanced on a pin, and turned quickly around on a board, when the point, arrow shaped, stops at a number and decides the bet one way or the other. The contrivance very much resembles a sea compass, and was formerly the gambling accompaniment of London piemen. The apparatus then was erected on the tin lids of their pie cans, and the bets were ostensibly for pies, but more frequently for “coppers,” when no policeman frowned upon the scene, and when two or three apprentices or porters happened to meet.
SPINIKEN, a workhouse.
SPIRT, or SPURT, “to put on a SPIRT,” to make an increased exertion for a brief space, to attain one’s end; a nervous effort.