K. KÉN KATE. A picklock. "Tis a rum kate; it is a clever picklock. Cant. KEEL BULLIES. coal veffels. Men employed to load and unload the KEELHAULING. A punishment in ufe among the Dutch feamen, in which, for certain offences, the delinquent is drawn once, or oftener, under the fhip's keel; ludicrously defined, undergoing a great hard-fhip. TO KEEP. To inhabit. Lord, where do you keep? i. e. where are your rooms? Academical phrase. TO KEEP IT UP. To prolong a debauch. We kept it up finely last night; metaphor drawn from the game at shuttlecock, KEEPING CULLY. One who keeps a mistress, as he fupposes, for his own ufe, but really for that of the public. KEFFEL. A horfe. Welf. KELTER. Condition, order. Condition, order. Out of kelter; out of order. KEMP'S MORRIS. William Kemp, faid to have been the original Dogberry in Much ado about Nothing, danced a morris from London to Norwich in nine days; of which he printed the account, A. D. 1600, intitled, Kemp's Nine Days Wonder, &c. KEMP'S SHOES. Would I had Kemp's fhoes to throw after you. Ben Jonfon. Perhaps Kemp was a man remarkable for his good luck or fortune; throwing an old fhoe, or fhoes, after any one going on an important business, being by the vulgar deemed lucky. KEN. A house. A bob ken, or a bowman ken; a wellfurnished house, also a house that harbours thieves. Biting the ken; robbing the houfe. Cant. KEN MILLER, or KEN CRACKER. A houfebreaker. Cant. KENT-STREET EJECTMENT. To take away the street door: a method practifed by the landlords in Kent-street, Southwark, when their tenants are above a fortnight's rent in arrear. KERRY SECURITY. Bond, pledge, oath, and keep the money. KETCH. Jack Ketch; a general name for the finishers of the law, or hangmen, ever fince the year 1682, when the office was filled by a famous practitioner of that name, of whom his wife faid, that any bungler might put a man to death, but only her husband knew how to make a gentleman die fweetly. This officer is mentioned in Butler's Ghoft, page 54, published about the year 1682, in the following lines: Till Ketch obferving he was chous'd, And in his profits much abus'd, In open hall the tribute dunn'd, To do his office, or refund. Mr. Ketch had not long been elevated to his office, for the name of his predeceffor Dun occurs in the former part of this poem, page 29: For you yourself to act fquire Dun, Such ignominy ne'er faw the fun. The addition of 'fquire,' with which Mr. Dun is here dignified, is a mark that he had beheaded fome state criminal for high treafon; an operation which, according to custom for time out of mind, has always entitled the operator to that diftinction. The predeceffor of Dun was Gregory Brandon, from whom the gallows was called the Gregorian tree, by which name it is mentioned in the prologue to Mercurius Pragmaticus, a tragi-comedy acted at Paris, &c. 1641: This trembles under the black rod, and he Doth fear his fate from the Gregorian tree, Gregory Brandon fucceeded Derrick. See DERRICK, KETTLE DRUMs. Cupid's kettle drums; a woman's breasts, called by failors chest and bedding. KETTLE OF FISH. When a perfon has perplexed his affairs in general, or any particular bufinefs, he is faid to have made a fine kettle of fish of it. KHAJBAR. The worthy brethren of this order met, A. D. 1749, at the Nag's Head, Tothill-ftreet, Westminster. KICKS. Breeches. A high kick; the top of the fashion, Α It is all the kick; it is the prefent mode. Tip us your kicks, we'll have them as well as your lour; pull off your breeches, for we must have them as well as your money. A kick; fixpence. Two and a kick; half-a-crown. kick in the guts; a dram of gin, or any other fpirituous liquor. A kick up; a difturbance, alfo a hop or dance. An odd kick in one's gallop; a ftrange whim or pecu. liarity. TO KICK THE BUCKET. To die. He kicked the bucket one day; he died one day, KICKERAPOO. Dead. Negro word. KICKSHAWS. French dishes: corruption of quelque chofe. KID LAY. Rogues who make it their business to defraud KIDNEY. Difpofition, principles, humour. Of a strange kidney; of an odd or unaccountable humour. A man of a different kidney; a man of different principles. KILKENNY. An old frize coat. KILL CARE CLUB. The members of this club, styled also the Sons of Sound Senfe and Satisfaction, met at their fortress, the Castle tavern, in Pater-nofter-row. KILL DEVIL. New ftill-burnt rum, KILL PRIEST. Port wine, To To KIMBAW.. To trick, cheat, or cozen; alfo to beat or to bully. Let's kimbaw the cull; let's bully the fellow. To fet one's arms a-kimbaw, vulgarly pronounced akimbo, is to rest one's hands on the hips, keeping the elbows fquare, and sticking out from the body; an infolent bullying attitude. Cant. KINCHIN. A little child. Kinchin coes; orphan beggar boys, educated in thieving. Kinchin morts; young girls under the like circumstances and training. Kinchin morts, or coes in flates; beggars children carried at their mothers backs in fheets. Kinchin cove; a little man. Cant. KING'S BAD BARGAIN. One of the king's bad bargains; a malingeror, or foldier who fhirks his duty. KING'S HEAD INN, or CHEQUER INN, IN NEWGATESTREET. The prifon of Newgate. KING JOHN'S MEN. He is one of king John's men, eight score to the hundred; a faying of a little underfized man. KING OF THE GYPSIES. The captain, chief, or ringleader of the gang of mifrule; 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 fkin of a large calf, in the language of the Excife Office. KISS MINE A-SE. An offer, as Fielding obferves, very frequently made, but never, as he could learn, literally accepted. A kifs mine a-fe fellow; a fycophant. KISSING CRUST. That part where the loaves have touched in the oven. KIT. A dancing mafter: fo called from his kit or cittern, : a fmall fiddle, which dancing masters always carry about with them, to play to their scholars. The kit is likewife the whole of a foldier's neceffaries, the contents of his knapfack and is ufed alfo to exprefs the whole of different commodities; as, Here, take the whole kit; i. e. take all. KIT-CAT CLUB. A fociety of gentlemen, eminent for wit and learning, who in the reign of Queen Anne and George I. met at a houfe kept by one Chriftopher Cat. The KNO The portraits of most of the members of this fociety were painted by Sir Godfrey Kneller, of one fize; thence fill. called the kit-cat fize. KITCHEN PHYSICK. Food, good meat roaft or boiled. A little kitchen phyfic will fet 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 ftories: this is done by contradicting fome very immaterial circumftance at the beginning of the narration, the objections to which being fettled, others are immediately ftarted to fome new particular of like confequence; thus impeding, or rather not fuffering him to enter into, the main ftory. Kittle pitchering is often practifed in confederacy, one relieving the other, by which the defign is rendered lefs obvious. KNACK SHOP. A toy fhop, a nick-nack-atory. KNAPPER'S POLL. A fheep's head. Cant. KNAVE IN GRAIN. A knave of the first rate: a phrafe borrowed from the dyehoufe, where certain colours are faid to be in grain, to denote their fuperiority, 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 falfe evidence, one that is ready to fwear any thing for hire. KNIGHT OF THE RAINBOW. A footman: from the variety of colours in the liveries and trimming 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 TRENCHER. A great eater. KNIGHT AND BARROW PIG, more hog than gentleman. A faying of any low pretender to precedency. KNOCK. To knock a woman; to have carnal knowledge of her. To knock off; to conclude: phrafe borrowed from the blacksmith. To knock under; to fubmit. KNOCK |