A Dictionary of Slang, Cant, and Vulgar Words / Used at the Present Day in the Streets of London; the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge; the Houses of Parliament; the Dens of St. Giles; and the Palaces of St. James.

by John Camden Hotten

CAD, or CADGER (from which it is shortened), a mean or vulgar fellow; a beggar; one who would rather live on other people than work for himself; a man trying to worm something out of another, either money or information. Johnson uses the word, and gives huckster as the meaning, but I never heard it used in this sense. Cager, or GAGER, the old cant term for a man. The exclusives in the Universities apply the term CAD to all non-members.

CAD, an omnibus conductor.

CADGE, to beg in an artful or wheedling manner.—North.

CADGING, begging of the lowest degree.

CAG-MAG, bad food, scraps, odds and ends; or that which no one could relish. Grose gives CAGG MAGGS, old and tough Lincolnshire geese, sent to London to feast the poor cockneys.

CAGE, a minor kind of prison.—Shakespere, part ii. of Henry IV., iv. 2.

CAKE, a flat, a soft or doughy person, a fool.

CAKEY-PANNUM-FENCER, a man who sells street pastry.

CALL-A-GO, in street “patter,” is to remove to another spot, or address the public in different vein.

CAMESA, shirt or chemise.—Span. Ancient cant, COMMISSION.