2. (common).—A bailiff; a constable. For synonyms, see Beak.
1834. Ainsworth, Rookwood, bk. I., ch. iii. ‘The game’s spoiled this time, Rob Rust, anyhow,’ growled one, in an angry tone; ‘the hawks are upon us, and we must leave this brave buck to take care of himself.’
Verb (old).—See quots.
1589. Nashe, Anatomie, Whereas, by their humming and hawking … they have leisure to gesture the mislike of his rudeness.
1600. Shakspeare, As You Like It, v., 3. Shall we clap into ’t roundly, without hawking, or spitting, or saying we are hoarse?
1604. Marston, Malcontent, ii., 2. Is he troubled with the cough of the lungs still? Does he hawke a night’s?
1690. B. E., Dict. Cant. Crew, s.v. … Also spitting difficulty.
1785. Grose, Vulg. Tongue, s.v. … Hawking, an effort to spit up the thick phlegm, called oysters, whence it is wit upon record, to ask the person so doing, whether he has a license, a punning allusion to the act of hawkers and pedlars.
1815. Scott, Guy Mannering, ch. xlvi. This tremendous volley of superlatives which Sampson hawked up from the pit of his stomach.
1822. Byron, Vision of Judgment, xc. To cough and hawk, and hem, and pitch His voice into that awful note of woe.