Cabbage, pieces of cloth said to be purloined by tailors. Any small profits in the way of material.
Cabbage, to pilfer or purloin. Termed by Johnson a “cant word,” but adopted by later lexicographers as a respectable term. Said to have been first used in the above sense by Arbuthnot.
Cabbage-Head, a soft-headed person.
Cabby, popular name for the driver of a cab. This title has almost supplanted the more ancient one of jarvey.
Caboose, the galley or cook-house of a ship; a term used by tramps to indicate a kitchen.
Cackle-Tub, a pulpit.
Cackling-Cove, an actor. Also called a MUMMERY-COVE.—Theatrical.
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 who tries to worm something out of another, either money or information. Johnson uses the word, and gives huckster as the meaning, in which sense it was originally used. Apparently from CAGER, or GAGER, the old Cant term for a man. The exclusives at the English Universities apply the term CAD to all non-members. It has also been suggested that the word may be a contraction of the French CADET.
Cad, an omnibus conductor. Of late years the term has been generically applied to the objectionable class immortalized by Thackeray under the title of snob. A great deal of caddism is, however, perpetrated by those who profess to have the greatest horror of it—the upper classes—a fact which goes far to prove that it is impossible to fairly ascribe a distinctive feature to any grade of society.
Cadge, to beg in an artful, wheedling manner.—North. In Scotland to CADGE is to wander, to go astray. See under [CODGER].