DIVE, to pick pockets.
DIVERS, pickpockets.
DO, this useful and industrious verb has for many years done service as a slang term. To DO a person is to cheat him. Sometimes another tense is employed, such as “I DONE him,” meaning I cheated or “paid him out;” DONE BROWN, cheated thoroughly, befooled; DONE OVER, upset, cheated, knocked down, ruined; DONE UP, used up, finished, or quieted. Done also means convicted, or sentenced; so does DONE-FOR. To DO a person in pugilism is to excel him in fisticuffs. Humphreys, who fought Mendoza, a Jew, wrote this laconic note to his supporter—“Sir,—I have DONE the Jew, and am in good health. Rich. Humphreys.” Tourists use the expression “I have DONE France and Italy,” meaning I have completely explored those countries.
DOCTOR, to adulterate or drug liquor; also to falsify accounts.—See [COOK].
DODGE, a cunning trick. “Dodge, that homely but expressive phrase.”—Sir Hugh Cairns on the Reform Bill, 2nd March, 1859. Anglo Saxon, DEOGIAN, to colour, to conceal. The TIDY DODGE, as it is called by street-folk, consists in dressing up a family clean and tidy, and parading the streets to excite compassion and obtain alms. A correspondent suggests that the verb DODGE may have been formed (like wench from wink) from DOG, i.e., to double quickly and unexpectedly, as in coursing.
DODGER, a tricky person, or one who, to use the popular phrase, “knows too much.”—See [DEVIL-DODGER].
DODGER, a dram. In Kent, a DODGER signifies a nightcap; which name is often given to the last dram at night.
DOG, to follow in one’s footsteps on the sly, to track.
DOG-CHEAP, or DOG-FOOLISH, very, or singularly cheap, or foolish. Latham, in his English Language, says:—“This has nothing to do with dogs. The first syllable is god = good transposed, and the second, the ch—p, is chapman, merchant: compare EASTCHEAP.”—Old term.
DOG-LATIN, barbarous Latin, such as was formerly used by lawyers in their pleadings.