Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue

The Online Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue dates from 1811 and this is probably the only full, uncensored version of this dictionary on the internet. All the original crudities have been restored and it offers an interesting perspective on Common English from the time of the Regency and Jane Austen.

Select a letter or type a word and click Find. Searches are automatically wild-carded

A  B  C  D  E  F  G  H  I  J  K  L  M  N  O  P  Q  R  S  T  U  V  W  X  Y  Z  

LACED MUTTON
  A prostitute.
LACING
  Beating. I'll lace your jacket handsomely.
LADDER
  To go up the ladder to rest; to be hanged.
LADY
  A crooked or hump-backed woman.
LADY DACRE'S WINE
  Gin.
LADY OF EASY VIRTUE
  A woman of the town, an impure, a prostitute.
LADYBIRDS
  Light or lewd women.
LAG
  A man transported. The cove was lagged for a drag. The man was transported for stealing something out of a waggon.
LAG
  To drop behind, to keep back. Lag last; the last of a company.
LAG FEVER
  A term of ridicule applied to men who being under sentence of transportation, pretend illness, to avoid being sent from gaol to the hulks.
LAGE
  Water.
LAGE OF DUDS
  A buck of linen.
LAID ON THE SHELF, or LAID UP IN LAVENDER
  Pawned.
LAMB'S WOOL
  Apples roasted and put into strong ale.
LAMB, or LAMBASTE
  To beat. Lamb pye; a beating: from lambo.
LAMBSKIN MEN
  The judges: from their robes lined and bordered with ermine.
LAMP
  An eye. The cove has a queer lamp. The man has a blind or squinting eye.
LAND
  How lies the land? How stands the reckoning? Who has any land in Appleby? a question asked the man at whose door the glass stands long, or who does not ciculate it in due time.
LAND LOPERS, or LAND LUBBERS
  Vagabonds lurking about the country who subsist by pilfering.
LAND PIRATES
  Highwaymen.
LANK SLEEVE
  The empty sleeve of a one armed man. A fellow with a lank sleeve; a man who has lost 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 horseman, who being dismounted by the death of his horse, served in the foot, by the title of lansprisado, or lancepesato, a broken lance.
LANTHORN-JAWED
  Thin-visaged: from their cheeksbeing almost transparent. Or else, lenten jawed; i.e. having the jaws of one emaciated by a too rigid observation of Lent. Dark lanthorn; a servant or agent at court, who receives a bribe for his principal or master.
LAP
  Butter-milk or whey.
LARK
  A boat.
LARK
  A piece of merriment. People playing together jocosely.
LARRY DUGAN'S EYE WATER
  Blacking: Larry Dugan was a famous shoe-black at Dublin.
LATCH
  Let in.
LATHY
  Thin, slender. A lathy wench; a girl almost as slender as a lath.
LATITAT
  A nick-name for an attorney; from the name of a writ.
LAUGH
  To laugh on the wrong side of the mouth; to cry. I'll make him laugh on the wrong (or t'other) side of his mouth.
LAUNCH
  The delivery, or labour, of a pregnant woman; a crying out or groaning.
LAVENDER
  Laid up in lavender; pawned.
LAW
  To give law to a hare; a sporting term, signifying to give the animal a chance of escaping, by not setting on the dogs till the hare is at some distance; it is also more figuratively used for giving any one a chance of succeeding in a scheme or project.
LAWFUL BLANKET
  A wife.
LAY
  Enterprize, pursuit, or attempt: to be sick of the lay. It also means a hazard or chance: he stands a queer lay; i.e. he is in danger.
LAYSTALL
  A dunghill about London, on which the soil brought from necessary houses is emptied; or, in more technical terms, where the old gold collected at weddings by the Tom t - d man, is stored.
LAZY
  As lazy as Ludman'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 safely carry, to save the trouble of coming a second time.
LAZYBONES
  An instrument like a pair of tongs, for old or very fat people to take any thing from the ground without stooping.
LEAF
  To go off with the fall of the leaf; to be hanged: criminals in Dublin being turned off from the outside of the prison by the falling of a board, propped up, and moving on a hinge, like the leaf of a table. IRISH TERM.
LEAK
  To make water.
LEAKY
  Apt to blab; one who cannot keep a secret is said to be leaky.
LEAPING OVER THE SWORD
  An ancient ceremonial said to constitute a military marriage. A sword being laid down on the ground, the parties to be married joined hands.
LEAST IN SIGHT
  To play least in sight; to hide, keep out of the way, or make one's self scarce.
LEATHER
  To lose leather; to be galled with riding on horseback, or, as the Scotch express it, to be saddle sick. To leather also meant to beat, perhaps originally with a strap: I'll leather you to your heart's content. Leather-headed; stupid. Leathern conveniency; term used by quakers for a stage-coach.
LEERY
  On one's guard. See PEERY.
LEFT-HANDED WIFE
  A concubine; an allusion to an ancient German custom, 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 security; to run away. To fight at the leg; to take unfair advantages: it being held unfair by back-sword players to strike 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 sell smuggled goods, but in reality only deal in old shop-keepers or damaged goods.
LENTEN FARE
  Spare diet.
LETCH
  A whim of the amorous kind, out of the common way.
LEVITE
  A priest or parson.
LIB
  To lie together.
LIBBEGE
  A bed.
LIBBEN
  A private dwelling-house.
LIBKEN
  A house to lie in.
LICK
  To beat; also to wash, or to paint slightly over. I'll give you a good lick o' the chops; I'll give you a good stroke or blow on the face. Jack tumbled into a cow t - d, and nastied his best clothes, for which his father stept up, and licked him neatly. - I'll lick you! the dovetail to which is, If you lick me all over, you won't miss - .
LICKSPITTLE
  A parasite, or talebearer.
LIFT
  To give one a lift; to assist. 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 raise one's elbow; the same.
LIFT
  See SHOPLIFTER, etc.
LIFTER
  A crutch.
LIG
  A bed. See LIB.
LIGHT BOB
  A soldier of the light infantry company.
LIGHT HOUSE
  A man with a red fiery nose.
LIGHT TROOPS
  Lice; the light troops are in full march; the lice are crawling about.
LIGHT-FINGERED
  Thievish, 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.
LIGHTNING
  Gin. A flash of lightning; a glass of gin.
LIKENESS
  A phrase used by thieves when the officers or turnkeys are examining their countenance. As the traps are taking our likeness; the officers are attentively observing us.
LILIPUTIAN
  A diminutive man or woman: from Gulliver's Travels, written by Dean Swift, where an imaginary kingdom of dwarfs of that name is described.
LILY SHALLOW
  A white driving hat.
LILY WHITE
  A chimney-sweeper.
LIMB OF THE LAW
  An inferior or pettyfogging attorney.
LIMBO
  A prison, confinement.
LIMBS
  Duke of limbs; a tall awkward fellow.
LINE
  A term for the act of coition between dog and bitch.
LINE
  To get a man into a line, i.e. to divert his attention by a ridiculous or absurd story. To humbug.
LINE OF THE OLD AUTHOR
  A dram of brandy.
LINEN ARMOURERS
  Taylors.
LINGO
  Language. An outlandish lingo; a foreign tongue. The parlezvous lingo; the French language.
LION
  To tip the lion; to squeeze the nose of the party tipped, flat to his face with the thumb. To shew the lions and tombs; to point out the particular curiosities of any place, to act the ciceroni: an allusion to Westminster Abbey, and the Tower, where the tombs and lions are shewn. A lion is also a name given by the gownsmen of Oxford to an inhabitant or visitor. It is a standing joke among the city wits to send 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 administer the extreme unction.
LITTLE BARBARY
  Wapping.
LITTLE BREECHES
  A familiar appellation used to a little boy.
LITTLE CLERGYMAN
  A young chimney-sweeper.
LITTLE EASE
  A small dark cell in Guildhall, London, where disorderly apprentices are confined by the city chamberlain: it is called Little Ease from its being so low that a lad cannot stand upright in it.
LITTLE SNAKESMAN
  A little boy who gets into a house through the sink-hole, and then opens the door for his accomplices: he is so called, from writhing and twisting like a snake, in order to work himself through the narrow passage.
LIVE LUMBER
  A term used by sailors, to signify all landsmen on board their ships.
LIVE STOCK
  Lice or fleas.
LOAF
  To be in bad loaf, to be in a disagreeable situation, or in trouble.
LOB
  A till in a tradesman's shop. To frisk a lob; to rob a till. See FLASH PANNEY.
LOB
  Going on the lob; going into a shop to get change for gold, and secreting some of the change.
LOB'S POUND
  A prison. Dr. Grey, in his notes on Hudibras, explains it to allude to one Doctor Lob, a dissenting preacher, who used to hold forth when conventicles were prohibited, and had made himself a retreat by means of a trap door at the bottom of his pulpit. Once being pursued by the officers of justice, they followed him through divers subterraneous passages, till they got into a dark cell, from whence they could not find their way out, but calling to some of their companions, swore they had got into Lob's Pound.
LOBCOCK
  A large relaxed penis: also a dull inanimate fellow.
LOBKIN
  A house to lie in: also a lodging.
LOBLOLLEY BOY
  A nick name for the surgeon's servant on board a man of war, sometimes for the surgeon himself: from the water gruel prescribed to the sick, which is called loblolley.
LOBONIAN SOCIETY
  A society which met at Lob Hall, at the King and Queen, Norton Falgate, by order of Lob the great.
LOBSCOUSE
  A dish much eaten at sea, composed of salt beef, biscuit and onions, well peppered, and stewed together.
LOBSTER
  A nick name for a soldier, from the colour of his clothes. To boil one's lobster, for a churchman to become a soldier: lobsters, which are of a bluish black, being made red by boiling. I will not make a lobster kettle of my cunt, a reply frequently made by the nymphs of the Point at Portsmouth, when requested by a soldier to grant him a favour.
LOCK
  A scheme, a mode. I must fight that lock; I must try that scheme.
LOCK
  Character. He stood a queer lock; he bore but an indifferent character. A lock is also a buyer of stolen goods, as well as the receptacle for them.
LOCK HOSPITAL
  An hospital for venereal patients.
LOCK UP HOUSE
  A spunging house; a public house kept by sheriff's officers, to which they convey the persons they have arrested, where they practise every species of imposition and extortion with impunity. Also houses kept by agents or crimps, who enlist, or rather trepan, men to serve the East India or African company as soldiers.
LOCKERAM-JAWED
  Thin-faced, or lanthorn-jawed. See LANTHORN JAWED.
LOCKSMITH'S DAUGHTER
  A key.
LOGGERHEAD
  A blockhead, or stupid fellow. We three loggerheads be: a sentence frequently written under two heads, and the reader by repeating it makes himself the third. A loggerhead is also a double-headed, or bar shot of iron. To go to loggerheads; to fall to fighting.
LOLL
  Mother's loll; a favourite child, the mother's darling,
LOLL TONGUE
  He has been playing a game at loll tongue; he has been salivated.
LOLLIPOPS
  Sweet lozenges purchased by children.
LOLLOP
  To lean with one's elbows on a table.
LOLLPOOP
  A lazy, idle drone.
LOMBARD FEVER
  Sick of the lombard fever; i.e. of the idles.
LONG
  Great. A long price; a great price.
LONG GALLERY
  Throwing, or rather trundling, the dice the whole length of the board.
LONG MEG
  A jeering name for a very tall woman: from one famous in story, called Long Meg of Westminster.
LONG ONE
  A hare; a term used by poachers.
LONG SHANKS
  A long-legged person.
LONG STOMACH
  A voracious appetite.
LONG TONGUED
  Loquacious, not able to keep a secret. He is as long-tongued as Granny: Granny was an idiot who could lick her own eye. See GRANNY.
LONG-WINDED
  A long-winded parson; one who preached long, tedious sermons. A long-winded paymaster; one who takes long credit.
LOO
  For the good of the loo; for the benefit of the company or community.
LOOBY
  An awkward, ignorant fellow.
LOOKING AS IF ONE COULD NOT HELP IT
  Looking like a simpleton, or as if one could not say boh! to a goose.
LOOKING-GLASS
  A chamber pot, jordan, or member mug.
LOON, or LOUT
  A country bumkin, or clown.
LOONSLATE
  Thirteen pence halfpenny.
LOOPHOLE
  An opening, or means of escape. To find a loophole in an act of parliament; i.e. a method of evading it,
LOP-SIDED
  Uneven, having one side larger or heavier than the other: boys' paper kites are often said to be lop-sided.
LOPE
  To leap, to run away. He loped down the dancers; he ran down stairs.
LORD
  A crooked or hump-backed man. These unhappy people afford great scope for vulgar raillery; such as, 'Did you come straight from home? if so, you have got confoundedly bent by the way.'
LOUNGE
  A loitering place, or gossiping shop.
LOUSE
  A gentleman's companion. He will never louse a grey head of his own; he will never live to be old.
LOUSE BAG
  A black bag worn to the hair or wig.
LOUSE HOUSE
  The round house, cage, or any other place of confinement.
LOUSE LADDER
  A stitch fallen in a stocking.
LOUSE LAND
  Scotland.
LOUSE TRAP
  A small toothed comb.
LOUT
  A clumsy stupid fellow.
LOVE BEGOTTEN CHILD
  A bastard.
LOW PAD
  A footpad.
LOW TIDE, or LOW WATER
  When there is no money in a man's pocket.
LOWING RIG
  Stealing oxen or cows.
LOWRE
  Money.
LUBBER
  An awkward fellow: a name given by sailors to landsmen.
LUCK, or GOOD LUCK
  To tread in a surreverence, to be bewrayed: an allusion to the proverb, Shitten luck is good luck.
LUD'S BULWARK
  Ludgate prison.
LUGS
  Ears or wattles. See WATTLES.
LULLABY CHEAT
  An infant.
LULLIES
  Wet linen.
LULLY TRIGGERS
  Thieves who steal wet linen.
LUMB
  Too much.
LUMBER
  Live lumber; soldiers or passengers on board a ship are so called by the sailors.
LUMBER HOUSE
  A house appropriated by thieves for the reception of their stolen property.
LUMBER TROOP
  A club or society of citizens of London.
LUMP
  To beat; also to include a number of articles under one head.
LUMP THE LIGHTER
  To be transported.
LUMPERS
  Persons who contract to unload ships; also thieves who lurk about wharfs to pilfer goods from ships, lighters, etc.
LUMPING
  Great. A lumping penny worth; a great quantity for the money, a bargain. He has'got a lumping penny-worth; frequently said of a man who marries a fat woman.
LUN
  Harlequin.
LURCH
  To be left in the lurch; to be abandoned by one's confederates or party, to be left in a scrape.
LURCHED
  Those who lose a game of whist, without scoring five, are said to be lurched.
LURCHER
  A lurcher of the law; a bum bailiff, or his setter.
LURRIES
  Money, watches, rings, or other moveablcs.
LUSH
  Strong beer.
LUSH
  To drink.
LUSHEY
  Drunk. The rolling kiddeys hud a spree, and got bloody lushey; the dashing lads went on a party of pleasure, and got very drunk.
LYE
  Chamber lye; urine.