KNOCK ME DOWN.

LAM

Strong ale or beer, ftingo.

KNOT. A crew, gang, or fraternity. He has tied a knot with his tongue, that he cannot untie with his teeth ; i. e. he is married.

KNOWING ONES. Sportsmen on the turf, who, from experience and an acquaintance with the jockies, are fuppofed to be in the fecret, that is, to know the true merits or powers of each horfe; notwithstanding which it often happens that the knowing ones are taken in. KNOWLEDGE Box. The head.

KNUCKLES. Pickpockets who attend the avenues to public places, to steal pocket books, watches, &c. a fuperior kind of pickpockets. To knuckle to; to fubmit. KNUCKLEDABS, or KNUCKLE CONFOUNDERS. Ruffles.

LACING. Beating. I'll lace your jacket handfomely.
LADDER. To go up the ladder to reft; to be hanged.
LADY. A crooked or hump-backed woman.

LADY OF EASY VIRTUE. A woman of the town, an impure, a prostitute.

LADYBIRDS. Light or lewd women.

TO LAG. To drop behind, to keep back. Lag laft; the

laft of a company.

LAGE. Water. Cant:

LAGE OF DUDS. A buck of linen.

LAID ON THE SHELF, or LAID UP IN LAVENDER. Pawned. TO LAMB, or LAMBASTE. To beat. Lamb pye; a beating:

from lambo.

LAMB'9

LAT

LAMB'S WOOL. Apples roafted and put into ftong ale. LAMBSKIN MEN. The judges: from their robes lined and bordered with ermine.

LAND. How lies the land? how ftands the reckoning? Who has any land in Appleby? a question asked the man at whose door the glass stands long, or who does not circulate it in due time.

LAND LOPERS, or LAND LUBBERS. Vagabonds lurking about the country, who fubfift by pilfering.

LAND PIRATES. Highwaymen.

LANK SLEEVE. The empty fleeve of a one-armed man. A fellow with a lank fleeve; a man who has loft an

arm.

LANSPRISADO. One who has only two-pence in his pocket. Also a lance, or deputy corporal; that is, one doing the duty without the pay of a corporal. Formerly a lancier, or horfeman, who being difmounted by the death of his horse, ferved in the foot, by the title of lanfprifado, or lancepes fato, a broken lance. LANTHORN-JAWED. Thin-vifaged: from their cheeks being almost tranfparent. Or elfe, lenten jawed ; i. e. having the jaws of one emaciated by a too rigid observation of Lent. Dark lanthorns a fervant or agent at court, who receives. a bribe for his principal or master.

LAP. Butter milk or whey. Cant.

LAREOVERS FOR MEDLERS. An anfwer frequently given

to children, or young people, as a rebuke for their impertinent curiofity, in enquiring what is contained in a box, bundle, or any other closed conveyance: perhaps from a layover, or turnover, a kind of tart not baked in a pan, but made to contain the fruit by turning one end of the cruft over the other. Medlar tarts were probably fo made in former times.

LARRY DUGAN'S EYE WATER. Blacking: Larry Dugan was a famous fhoeblack at Dublin.

LATHY. Thin, flender. A lathy wench; a girl almoft as flender as a lath.

LATITAT.

LÉ A

LATITAT. A nick-name for an attorney: from the name of a writ.

LAVENDER. Laid up in lavender; pawned.

LAUGH. To laugh on the wrong fide of the mouth; to cry. I'll make him laugh on the wrong (or t'other) fide of his mouth.

LAUNCH. The delivery, or labour, of a pregnant woman; a crying out or groaning.

LAW. To give law to a hare; a fporting term, fignifying to give the animal a chance of escaping, by not fetting on the dogs till the hare is at fome distance: it is also more figuratively used for giving any one a chance of fucceeding in a scheme or project.

LAY. Enterprise, purfuit, or attempt: to be fick of the lay. It also means a hazard, or chance: he ftands a queer lay; i. e. he is in danger. Cant.

LAYSTALL. A dunghill about London, on which the foil

brought from neceffary houses is emptied; or, in more technical terms, where the old gold collected at weddings by the Tom t-d man, is flored.

LAZY. As lazy as Ludlam's dog, who leaned against the wall to bark. As lazy as the tinker who laid down his budget to f-t.

LAZY MAN'S LOAD. Lazy people frequently take up more than they can fafely carry, to fave the trouble of coming a fecond time./

LAZYBONES.

.

An inftrument like a pair of tongs, for old

or very fat people to take any thing from the ground without flooping.

LEAF. To go off with the fall of the leaf; to be hanged: criminals in Dublin being turned off from the outfide of the prifon by the falling of a board, propped up, and moving on a hinge, like the leaf of a table. Irish term. TO LEAK. To make water.

LEAKY. Apt to blab: one who cannot keep a fecret is faid to be leaky.

.

LEAPING OVER THE SWORD. An ancient ceremonial faid to conflitute a military marriage. A fword being laid down on the ground, the parties to be married joined

hands,

hands, when the corporal or ferjeant of the company repeated these words:

Leap rogue, and jump whore,

And then you are married for evermore.

Whereupon the happy couple jumped hand in hand over the fword, the drum beating a ruffle; and the parties were ever after confidered as man and wife.

LEAST IN SIGHT. To play leaft in fight; to hide, keep out of the way, or make one's felf scarce.

LEATHER. To lofe leather; to be galled with riding on horfeback, or, as the Scotch exprefs it, to be faddle fick. To leather alfo means to beat, perhaps originally with a ftrap: I'll leather you to your heart's content. Leatherheaded; ftupid. Leathern conveniency; term ufed by quakers for a ftage-coach.

LEFT-HANDED WIFE. A concubine: an allufion to an ancient German cuftom, according to which, when a man married his concubine, or a woman greatly his inferior, he gave her his left hand.

LEG. To make a leg; to bow. To give leg bail and land fecurity; to run away. To fight at the leg; to take unfair advantages; it being held unfair by back-fword players to ftrike at the leg. To break a leg; a woman who has had a bastard, is said to have broken a leg.

LEGGERS. Sham leggers; cheats who pretend to fell fmuggled goods, but in reality only deal in old fhopkeepers or damaged goods.

LENTEN FARE. Spare diet.

LEVITE. A priest or parfon.

TO LIB. To lie together. Cant.

LIBBEGE. A bed. Cant.

LIBBEN. A private dwelling houfe. Cant.

LIBKEN. A houfe to lie in. Cant.

TO LICK. To beat; alfo to wash, or to paint flightly over. I'll give you a good lick o' the chops; I'll give you a good ftroke or blow on the face. Jack tumbled into a cowt-d, and naftied his beft clothes, for which his father ftept up, and licked him neatly.-I'll lick you! the dovetail to which is, If you lick me all over, you won't miss

S 2

LICK

LICKSPITTLE. A parafite, or talebearer.

LIFT. To give one a lift; to affift. A good hand at a dead lift; a good hand upon an emergency. To lift one's hand to one's head; to drink to excess, or to drink drams. To lift or raife one's elbow; the fame.

LIFT. See SHOPLIFTER, &c.

LIFTER. A crutch.

LIG. A bed. See LIB.

LIGHT BOB. A foldier of the light infantry company.
LIGHT-FINGERED, Thievifh, apt to pilfer.

LIGHT-HEELED. Swift in running. A light-heeled wench; one who is apt, by the flying up of her heels, to fall flat on her back, a willing wench.

LIGHTMANS. The day. Cant.

LILIPUTIAN, A diminutive man or woman: from Gulliver's Travels, written by Dean Swift, where an imaginary kingdom of dwarfs of that name is defcribed.

LILY WHITE. A chimney fweeper.

LIMBS. Duke of limbs; a tall aukward fellow.

LIMB OF THE LAW. An inferior or pettyfogging attorney, LIMBO. A prifon, confinement.

TO LINE, A term for the act of coition between dog and bitch.

LINE OF THE OLD AUTHOR, A dram of brandy.

LINGO. Language. An outlandish lingo; a foreign tongue,
The parlezvous lingo; the French language.
LINEN ARMOURERS. Taylors.

LION. To tip the lion; to fqueeze the nose of the party tipped, flat to his face with the thumb. To fhew the lions and tombs; to point out the particular curiofities of any place, to act the ciceroni: an allufion to Westminster Abbey, and the Tower, where the tombs and lions are shewn. A lion is alfo a name given by the gownfmen of Oxford to an inhabitant or vifitor. It is a standing joke among the city wits to fend boys and country folks, on the first of April, to the Tower Ditch, to see the lions washed. LIQUOR. To liquor one's boots; to drink before a journey: among Roman Catholics, to adminifter the extreme unction,

LITTLE