18th Century and Regency Thieves Cant
Jack-sprat! Dandyprat! Ben! High-shoon! Rum-ned! Gundiguts! Damme-boy! Rum-cull, oaf of a hen-peckt-frigot! Lolpoop! Shamble-leggd colt-bowler! Captain Queernabs! Groper lord! Stall-whimper titter-totter! Wooly-crown wise man of Gotham! Lockeram-jawed bully-fop! Bundle-tail! Queere-doxy! Fussock! Gill-flurt! Trigry-mate!
Those are all more or less insulting characteristics put together from the extensive 18th century Cant vocabulary for describing men and women.
Cant was a secret language or lingo of thieves, beggars, gypsies, and other maligned groups in Great Britain from around 1500 and, apparently, still alive enough to warrant a dictionary in 1811. This site has a dictionary based on several sources, which include both Cant and general age-typical slang that would have been part of the vocabulary of 17th and 18th century British low-lifes.
There is an earlier dictionary published ca. 1698 with the wonderful title A new dictionary of the terms ancient and modern of the canting crew, in its several tribes, of gypsies, beggers, thieves, cheats, &c. with an addition of some proverbs, phrases, figurative speeches, &c, which is also online, but presented in a terrible way, making it hard to read and useless as a reference.
The dictionary has more than insults: among other things, it tells us that How dost do my buff? is a familiar greeting, and that famgrasping the cove means agreeing with your adversary. There are, predictably, one hundred ways of talking about money: recruits, rhino, poney, mopusses, lurries, rouleau, king’s pictures, iron, goree, dust, cly, crap, blunt, balsom, chink, coriander seeds, yellow-boy, ridge, loonslate, ill fortune, grig, cob, bull, bean, decus, baubee, thrums, gelt. The same goes for prostitutes, crime, violence, gaming, and other topics that would occupy thieves and beggars.
