Regency Slang Revealed
Mix with Regency sportsmen, gamblers and explore the underworld of crime.
Late Georgian and Regency dictionaries of slang and cant have long been a source of fascination (sometimes appalled fascination!) for historians, historical novelists and readers alike. But all of them – from the iconic Grose’s Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue to Pierce Egan and John Bee’s versions – have been arranged only in alphabetical order of the word or phrase. There has been no way to search for the word for a specific thing or to browse all the terms relating to a subject. This volume allows both with a thematic section and a full index. Armed with Regency Slang Revealed the reader can discover over forty terms for having sex, numerous phrases for the parts of the body and its appearance and gain a fascinating – and alarming – insight into the Regency underworld.
Excerpt
APPEARANCE
Backside
Hopper-arsed (with projecting backside)
Breasts
Bushel bubby, A (full breasted woman)
Chicken breasted (woman with small breasts)
Van-neck, Miss or Mrs (woman with large breasts)
Eyes
Beetle-browed (with thick projecting eyebrows)
Cutty eye, To look (to look out of the corner of the eye)
Ferret-eyed (red eyed)
Goggle eyes (large prominent eyes)
Gooseberry-eyed (with grey eyes; dull grey eyes)
Gravy-eyed (blear-eyed)
Hoodwinked (blindfolded)
Irish beauty, An (woman with two black eyes)
Rum ogles (fine eyes)
Stinker, A (black eye)
Suit of mourning, A (two black eyes)
Winkers (sparkling eyes)
Face
Attractive
Rosy gills, A (someone with a sanguine or fresh-coloured face)
Smock-faced (fair faced)
Bearded
Black mummer, A (unshaven man)
Freckled
Bran-faced.
Full-faced
Bacon-faced (to have a full face)
Chitty-faced (baby-faced)
Chuffy (round faced, chubby)
Platter-faced (broad-faced)
Miserable
Friday-faced (looking dismal)
Pockmarked
Cribbage-faced (marked with small pox)
Frosty-faced (pitted with smallpox)
Hobnails in his boots, The devil ran over his face with (someone with bad pockmarks)
Stub faced (pockmarked)
Red-faced
Brandy-faced (red-faced from drink)
Carbuncle face, A (red, pimpled face)
Corney-faced (very red, pimpled face)
Pump water, He was christened in (he has a red face)
Rich face (red, pimpled face)
Fieri facias, To be served with a writ of (to be red-faced)
Thin-faced
Hatchet face (long, thin face)
Lanthorn/Lenten/Lockeram-jawed (thin-visaged, looking emaciated)
Weasel faced (thin, meagre-faced)
Ugly
Blubber cheeks (droopy, flaccid cheeks)
Bracket-faced (ugly, hard featured)
Muffin-faced (large protruding facial muscles & pale complexion)
