Part 44 (1/2)

KING'S BAD BARGAIN. One of the king's bad bargains; a malingeror, or soldier who s.h.i.+rks his duty.

KING'S HEAD INN, or CHEQUER INN, IN NEWGATE STREET. The prison of Newgate.

KING JOHN'S MEN. He is one of king John's men, eight score to the hundred: a saying of a little undersized man.

KING OF THE GYPSIES. The captain, chief, or ringleader of the gang of misrule: in the cant language called also the upright man.

KING'S PICTURES. Coin, money.

KINGDOM COME. He is gone to kingdom come, he is dead.

KIP. The skin of a large calf, in the language of the Excise-office.

KISS MINE A-SE. An offer, as Fielding observes, very frequently made, but never, as he could learn, literally accepted. A kiss mine a-se fellow; a sycophant.

KISSING CRUST. That part where the loaves have touched the oven.

KIT. A dancing-master, so called from his kit or cittern, a small fiddle, which dancing-masters always carry about with them, to play to their scholars. The kit is likewise the whole of a soldier's necessaries, the contents of his knapsack: and is used also to express the whole of different commodities: as, Here, take the whole kit; i.e. take all.

KIT-CAT CLUB. A society of gentlemen, eminent for wit and learning, who in the reign of queen Anne and George I. met at a house kept by one Christopher Cat. The portraits of most of the members of this society were painted by Sir G.o.dfrey Kneller, of one size; thence still called the kit-cat size.

KITCHEN PHYSIC. Food, good meat roasted or boiled. A little kitchen physic will set him up; he has more need of a cook than a doctor.

KITTLE PITCHERING. A jocular method of hobbling or bothering a troublesome teller of long stories: this is done by contradicting some very immaterial circ.u.mstance at the beginning of the narration, the objections to which being settled, others are immediately started to some new particular of like consequence; thus impeding, or rather not suffering him to enter into, the main story. Kittle pitchering is often practised in confederacy, one relieving the other, by which the design is rendered less obvious.

KITTYS. Effects, furniture; stock in trade. To seize one's kittys; to take his sticks.

KNACK SHOP. A toy-shop, a nick-nack-atory.

KNAPPERS POLL. A sheep's head. CANT.

KNAVE IN GRAIN. A knave of the first rate: a phrase borrowed from the dyehouse, where certain colours are said to be in grain, to denote their superiority, as being dyed with cochineal, called grain. Knave in grain is likewise a pun applied to a cornfactor or miller.

KNIGHT OF THE BLADE. A bully.

KNIGHT OF THE POST. A false evidence, one that is ready to swear any thing for hire.

KNIGHT OF THE RAINBOW. A footman: from the variety of colours in the liveries and tr.i.m.m.i.n.g of gentlemen of that cloth.

KNIGHT OF THE ROAD. A highwayman.

KNIGHT OF THE SHEERS. A taylor.

KNIGHT OF THE THIMBLE, or NEEDLE. A taylor or stay-maker.

KNIGHT OF THE WHIP. A coachman.

KNIGHT OF THE TRENCHER. A great eater.

KNIGHT AND BARROW PIG, more hog than gentleman. A saying of any low pretender to precedency.