Part 26 (2/2)

EARNEST. A deposit in part of payment, to bind a bargain.

EARTH BATH. A Grave.

EASY. Make the cull easy or quiet; gag or kill him. As easy as p.i.s.sing the bed.

EASY VIRTUE. A lady of easy virtue: an impure or prost.i.tute.

EAT. To eat like a beggar man, and wag his under jaw; a jocular reproach to a proud man. To eat one's words; to retract what one has said.

TO EDGE. To excite, stimulate, or provoke; or as it is vulgarly called, to egg a man on. Fall back, fall edge; i.e.

let what will happen. Some derive to egg on, from the Latin word, AGE, AGE.

EIGHT EYES. I will knock out two of your eight eyes; a common Billingsgate threat from one fish nymph to another: every woman, according to the naturalists of that society, having eight eyes; viz. two seeing eyes, two bub-eyes, a bell-eye, two pope's eyes, and a ***-eye. He has fallen down and trod upon his eye; said of one who has a black eye.

ELBOW GREASE. Labour. Elbow grease will make an oak table s.h.i.+ne.

ELBOW ROOM. Sufficient s.p.a.ce to act in. Out at elbows; said of an estate that is mortgaged.

ELBOW SHAKER. A gamester, one who rattles Saint Hugh's bones, i.e. the dice.

ELLENBOROUGH LODGE. The King's Bench Prison. Lord Ellenborough's teeth; the chevaux de frize round the top of the wall of that prison.

ELF. A fairy or hobgoblin, a little man or woman.

EMPEROR. Drunk as an emperor, i.e. ten times as drunk as a lord.

ENGLISH BURGUNDY. Porter.

ENSIGN BEARER. A drunken man, who looks red in the face, or hoists his colours in his drink.

EQUIPT. Rich; also, having new clothes. Well equipt; full of money, or well dressed. The cull equipped me with a brace of meggs; the gentleman furnished me with.

a couple of guineas.

ESs.e.x LION. A calf; Ess.e.x being famous for calves, and chiefly supplying the London markets.

ESs.e.x STILE. A ditch; a great part of Ess.e.x is low marshy ground, in which there are more ditches than Stiles.

ETERNITY Box. A coffin.

EVES. Hen roosts.

EVE'S CUSTOM-HOUSE, where Adam made his first entry.

The monosyllable.

EVES DROPPER. One that lurks about to rob hen-roosts; also a listener at doors and windows, to hear private conversation.

EVIL. A halter. Cant, Also a wife.

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