A vulgar performance, consisting of pilferings from Grose, and made up with meanings of a degraded character.
Bartlett’s Dictionary of Americanisms; a Glossary of Words and Phrases colloquially used in the United States, 8vo. New York, 1859.
It is a curious fact connected with slang that a great number of vulgar words common in England are equally common in the United States; and when we remember that America began to be peopled two centuries ago, and that these colloquialisms must have crossed the sea with the first emigrants, we can form some idea of the antiquity of popular or street language. Many words, owing to the caprices of fashion or society, have wholly disappeared in the parent country, whilst in the colonies they are yet heard. The words “skink,” to serve drink in company, and the old term “miching” or “meeching,” skulking or playing truant, for instance, are still in use in the United States, although nearly obsolete here.
Beaumont and Fletcher’s Comedy of The Beggar’s Bush, 4to, 1661.
Contains numerous Cant words.
Bee’s (Jon.) Dictionary of the Turf, the Ring, the Chase, the Pit, the Bon Ton, and the Varieties of Life, forming the completest and most authentic Lexicon Balatronicum hitherto offered to the notice of the Sporting World, by John Bee [i.e., John Badcock], Editor of the Fancy, Fancy Gazette, Living Picture of London, and the like of that, 12mo. 1823.
This author published books on Stable Economy under the name of Hinds. He was the sporting rival of Pierce Egan. Professor Wilson, in an amusing article in Blackwood’s Magazine, reviewed this work.
Bee’s (Jon.) Living Picture of London for 1828, and Stranger’s Guide through the Streets of the Metropolis; showing the Frauds, the Arts, Snares, and Wiles of all descriptions of Rogues that everywhere abound, 12mo. 1828.
Professes to be a guide to society, high and low, in London, and to give an insight into the language of the streets.
Bee’s (Jon.) Sportsman’s Slang; a New Dictionary of Terms used in the Affairs of the Turf, the Ring, the Chase, and the Cockpit; with those of Bon Ton and the Varieties of Life, forming a Lexicon Balatronicum et Macaronicum, &c., 12mo, PLATE. For the Author, 1825.