1725. New Cant. Dict., s.v.
1785. Grose, Vulg. Tongue, s.v. Hawkers, licensed itinerant retailers of different commodities, called also pedlars; likewise the sellers of newspapers.
Hawking, verb. subs. (old: now recognised).—Peddling; offering small wares for sale from door to door. Also see quot. 1690.
1690. B. E., Dict. Cant. Crew, s.v. Hawking, going about Town and Country with Scotch-Cloth, etc., or News-Papers: also Spitting difficultly.
1725. New Cant. Dict., s.v.
Hawk-eye State, subs. phr. (American).—Iowa. [After the famous Indian chief.]
Hawse. To fall athwart one’s hawse, verb. phr. (nautical).—To obstruct; to fall out with; to counter and check.
Hawse-holes. To come (or creep) in through the hawse-holes, verb. phr. (nautical).—To enter the service at the lowest grade; to rise from the forecastle.
1830. Marryat, King’s Own, ch. viii. His kind and considerate captain was aware that a lad who creeps in at the hawse-holes, i.e., is promoted from before the mast, was not likely to be favourably received in the midshipmen’s mess.
1889. Chambers’ Journal, 3 Aug., 495. A sailor who rose from the ranks was formerly said to have crept through the hawse-holes.