Part 34 (2/2)

GRAPPLE THE RAILS. A cant name used in Ireland for whiskey.

GRAPPLING IRONS. Handcuffs.

GRAVE DIGGER. Like a grave digger; up to the a-se in business, and don't know which way to turn.

GRAVY-EYED. Blear-eyed, one whose eyes have a running humour.

TO GREASE. To bribe. To grease a man in the fist; to bribe him. To grease a fat sow in the a-se; to give to a rich man. Greasy chin; a treat given to parish officers in part of commutation for a b.a.s.t.a.r.d: called also, Eating a child.

GREAT INTIMATE. As great as s.h.i.+rt and s.h.i.+tten a-se.

GREAT JOSEPH. A surtout. CANT.

GREEDY GUTS. A covetous or voracious person.

GREEK. St. Giles's Greek; the slang lingo, cant, or gibberish.

GREEN. Doctor Green; i.e. gra.s.s: a physician, or rather medicine, found very successful in curing most disorders to which horses are liable. My horse is not well, I shall send him to Doctor Green.

GREEN. Young, inexperienced, unacquainted; ignorant. How green the cull was not to stag how the old file planted the books. How ignorant the b.o.o.by was not to perceive how the old sharper placed the cards in such a manner as to insure the game.

GREEN BAG. An attorney: those gentlemen carry their clients' deeds in a green bag; and, it is said, when they have no deeds to carry, frequently fill them with an old pair of breeches, or any other trumpery, to give themselves the appearance of business.

GREEN GOWN. To give a girl a green gown; to tumble her on the gra.s.s.

GREEN SICKNESS. The disease of maids occasioned by celibacy.

GREENHEAD. An inexperienced young man.

GREENHORN. A novice on the town, an undebauched young fellow, just initiated into the society of bucks and bloods.

GREENWICH BARBERS. Retailers of sand from the pits at and about Greenwich, in Kent: perhaps they are styled barbers, from their constant shaving the sandbanks.

GREENWICH GOOSE. A pensioner of Greenwich Hospital.

GREGORIAN TREE. The gallows: so named from Gregory Brandon, a famous finisher of the law; to whom Sir William Segar, garter king of arms (being imposed on by Brooke, a herald), granted a coat of arms.

GREY BEARD. Earthen jugs formerly used in public house for drawing ale: they had the figure of a man with a large beard stamped on them; whence probably they took the name: see BEN JONSON'S PLAYS, BARTHOLOMEW FAIR, &c. &c. Dutch earthen jugs, used for smuggling gin on the coasts of Ess.e.x and Suffolk, are at this time called grey beards.

GREY MARE. The grey mare is the better horse; said of a woman who governs her husband.

GREY PARSON. A farmer who rents the t.i.thes of the rector or vicar.

GRIG. A farthing. A merry grig; a fellow as merry as a grig: an allusion to the apparent liveliness of a grig, or young eel.

GRIM. Old Mr. Grim; death.

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