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Slang dictionaries have been around for hundreds of years. The Canting Academy, or Devil's Cabinet Opened was a 17th-century slang dictionary, written in 1673 by Richard Head, that looked to define thieves' cant. [1] A New Dictionary of the Terms Ancient and Modern of the Canting Crew, was first published c. 1698.
In 1993 Cassell commissioned Green to create a new dictionary, this time broadening the focus to include slang terms from approximately 1500 onwards, but without citations. The first edition of the single-volume Cassell's Dictionary of Slang appeared in 1998. [5] Cassell immediately commissioned a sequel with full historical quotations as in ...
A macaroni (formerly spelled maccaroni [1]) was a pejorative term used to describe a fashionable fellow of 18th-century Britain. Stereotypically, men in the macaroni subculture dressed, spoke, and behaved in an unusually epicene and androgynous manner.
6. Hoosegow. Used to describe: Jail or prison Coming from the Spanish word "juzgado" which means court of justice, hoosegow was a term used around the turn of the last century to describe a place ...
Molly house or molly-house was a term used in 18th- and 19th-century Britain for a meeting place for homosexual men and gender-nonconforming people. The meeting places were generally taverns, public houses, coffeehouses [1] or even private rooms [2] where patrons could either socialise or meet possible sexual partners.
Fop was a pejorative term for a man excessively concerned with his appearance and clothes in 17th-century England. Some of the many similar alternative terms are: coxcomb, [1] fribble, popinjay (meaning 'parrot'), dandy, fashion-monger, and ninny. Macaroni was another term of the 18th century more specifically concerned with fashion.
The introduction acknowledges that slang is an ever-changing language with new slang terms emerging all the time. It also recognises that some service slang has made its way into civilian use. [ 16 ] [ 17 ] [ 18 ] Examples of this include the old naval terms, "Talking bilge" (nonsense) and "A loose cannon" (an unorthodox person with the ...
Since the late 18th century, the word dandy has been rumored to be an abbreviated usage of the 17th-century British jack-a-dandy used to described a conceited man. [9] In British North America , prior to American Revolution (1765–1791), a British version of the song " Yankee Doodle " in its first verse: "Yankee Doodle went to town, / Upon a ...