A Vocabulary of Criminal Slang: With Some Examples of Common Usages |
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Common terms and phrases
acquired action Adjective ample bank blow carry character classes clerk clothes common concealed confidence crimes criminal crooks Current amongst pickpockets Current amongst yeggs Current chiefly amongst Derived designate detective display dope drop employed Example fall female fiends flat give grafters hand He's hook hundred idem individual jewelry JOHN joint latter LAYING less look loss mainly meaning merchandise methods moral Noun Current amongst Noun General circulation Noun General currency Noun General usage object observe officers operate opium person play pocket police possession possible practical preventable principal prison prison habitues professional protection secret sense shoplifters short signifies sneak stall street suggestion synonym term thief thieves thing tion tool train valuables Verb General currency Verb General usage victim Vogue watch whilst woman
Popular passages
Page 26 - All the fagots (sissies) will be dressed in drag at the ball tonight.
Page 50 - Paris casting ... to give the "phoney" broken-arm trick a cloak of respectability. — A- No. 1 , America's Most Celebrated Tramp, "The Trail of the Tramp," 72 (Erie, Pennsylvania). 1914 Lamos, adj. General currency. Gold-plated; flimsy; unsubstantial. Derived from the name of a firm of Chicago jewelers who supplied the cheap jewelry trade with 'PHONIES,
Page 15 - Broad is derived from the far-fetched metaphor of "meal ticket," signifying a female provider for a pimp, from the fanciful correspondence of a meal ticket to a railroad or other ticket, which latter originally was exclusively used by "gonlfs" to indicate "broad,
Page 39 - HEAVY WEIGHT, Noun Current amongst long-odds crooks. A desperate thief; a husky capable of delivering a dangerous attack in the event of personal encounter; a yegg; a burglar; a "stickup man.
Page 40 - I can't see you tonight; I've got a Jane on my hip." "What's the use of taking more on your hip?
Page 43 - Current in localities where North European laborers abound. A corruption of Hungarian, but employed to signify a Continental European who is unwashed and unnaturalized. HUSTLER, Noun General currency. A grafter; a pimp who steals betimes. The genteel thief is designated a "hustler.
Page 39 - next"; "on." Derived from the name of a fabulous detective who operated in Cincinnati, the legend has it, who knew so much about criminality and criminals that his patronymic became a byword for the last thing in wisdom of illicit possibilities. Example: "Chop the skirmish; he's hep.
Page 39 - HEEL, Noun General currency. An incompetent; an undesirable; an inefficient or pusillanimous pretender to sterling criminal qualifications. See "FINK"; "DEAD ONE"; "CRAB"; "LOB.
Page 38 - HAM, Verb General usage. To walk. Example: "If we get a tumble, it's a case of ham.
Page 84 - WOP, Noun Used principally in the east. An ignorant person; a foreigner; an impossible character.
Bibliographic information
| Title | A Vocabulary of Criminal Slang: With Some Examples of Common Usages |
| Authors | Louis E. Jackson, C. R. Hellyer |
| Publisher | Modern Printing Company, 1914 |
| Length | 103 pages |
| Export Citation | BiBTeX EndNote RefMan |