Excerpts from Francis Grose's "A Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue" from 1785

These are the different terms I gathered from different news stories about Francis Grose's A Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue. There are many more, and you can find the book here (affiliate link). You can also leaf through its virtual pages for free here.

  • Admiral of the narrow seas: "One who from drunkenness vomits into the lap of the person sitting opposite him"
  • Betwattled: to be surprised, confounded, out of one's senses
  • Blind cupid: the backside
  • Blue ruin: Gin, the alcohol. Other terms include cobblers punch, frog's wine, heart's ease, moonshine, strip me naked.
  • Bone box: the mouth
  • Bottle-headed: void of wit.
  • Box the Jesuit: To masturbate; a crime, it is said, much practiced by the reverend fathers of that society.
  • Brother of the quill: An author
  • Bum fodder: toilet paper
  • Butcher's dog:someone who 'lies by the beef without touching it; a simile often applicable to married men.'
  • Cake: a foolish man
  • Cascade: to vomit
  • Cackling farts: eggs
  • Captain queernabs: shabby ill-dressed fellow
  • Chimping merry: exhilarated with liquor
  • Comfortable importance: a wife
  • Dicked in the nob: silly, crazed
  • Dismal ditty: The psalm sung by the felons at the gallows, just before they are turned off.
  • Dog booby: an awkward lout
  • Double jugg: a man's bottom
  • Duke of limbs: a tall, awkward, ill-made fellow
  • Eternity box: a coffin
  • Fart catcher: a valet or footman
  • Fizzle: A small windy escape backwards, more obvious to the nose than ears; frequently by old ladies charged on their lap-dogs.
  • Gambs: thin, ill-shaped legs
  • Head rails: teeth
  • Hickey: tipsy, hiccupping
  • Hoggish: rude and filthy
  • Irish apricots: potatoes
  • Jack weight: a fat man
  • Jolly nob: the head. "I'll lump your jolly nob for you": I'll give you a knock on the head.
  • Just-ass: a punning name for a justice [judge] 
  • Kettle drums: a woman's breasts
  • Kick the bucket: die
  • Kittle pitchering: to disrupt the flow of a "troublesome teller of long stories" by constantly questioning and contradicting unimportant details, especially at the start (best done in tandem with others)
  • Knight of the trenches: a great eater
  • Knowledge box: another term for the head.
  • Looking as if one could not help it: a simpleton
  • Mutton-headed: stupid
  • Owl in an ivory bush: someone wearing a frizzy wig
  • Paw paw tricks: forbidden tricks; from the French pas pas
  • Penny wise and pound foolish: saving in small matters, and extravagant in great
  • Pissing pins and needles: to have gonorrhea
  • Polish: to be in jail, in the sense of "polishing the king's iron with one's eyebrows, by looking through the iron grated windows."
  • Screw: to copulate
  • Sugar stick: the virile member
  • Tallywags / Whirligigs: testicles
  • Whipt Syllabub: a flimsy, frothy discourse
  • Whipster: a sharp or subtle fellow





My new humor novel, Mackinac Island Nation, is finished and available on Amazon. You can get the Kindle version here or the paperback version here.