Half-baked, soft, doughy, half-witted, silly. [Half-rocked] has a similar meaning.
Half-foolish, ridiculous; means often wholly foolish.
Half Jack. See [JACKS].
Half-mourning, to have a black eye from a blow. As distinguished from “whole-mourning,” two black eyes.
Half-rocked, silly, half-witted. Derived from a vulgar idea that in the Westcountry children are nursed in a peculiar manner, which in afterlife affects their wits. They are said to be nursed bottom upwards, so as to sleep without much rocking. If this is inconsequent it is the fault of the saying and not of the dictionary. Compare [HALF-BAKED].
Half-seas-over, reeling drunk.—Sea. Used by Swift.
Hall, THE, Leadenhall Market, among folk who get their livings there, in the same way as “The Garden” refers to Covent Garden.
Hand, a workman or helper, a person. “A cool HAND,” explained by Sir Thomas Overbury to be “one who accounts bashfulness the wickedest thing in the world, and therefore studies impudence.”
Hander, a second, or assistant. At some schools blows on the hand administered with a cane are so called.
Handicap, an arrangement by which, in any description of sport, every competitor in a race is supposed to have a chance of winning equal to the chances of his opponents. Handicapping, in horse-racing signifies the adjudgment of various weights to horses differing in age, power, and speed, so as to place them as much as possible on an equality. At other sports this equalization is managed by means of starts.