Historical Dictionary of American Slang

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68 Results 1690-1790

• kick out
  
  ( v ) To dismiss or expel. He was kicked out of office for malfeasance.
  1690s
• kid
  
  ( int ) A young person. Hey kid, where are you going?
  1690s
• peepers
  
  ( n ) Glasses. He can't see his fingers without his peepers.
  1690s
• sharp
  
  ( adj ) Smart, intelligent. He is very sharp with numbers.
  1690s
• booby
  
  ( n ) A stupid or foolish person That booby, Claude McCann, left the tiger cage open again!
  1690s
• numbskull
  
  ( n ) A stupid or foolish person. What kind of numbskull would try to steal an electric fork?
  1690s
• skinflint
  
  ( n ) A cheapskate. Owen Cash is such a skinflint, he cuts up sheets for napkins.
  1690s
• clod
  
  ( n ) A clumsy, unsophisticated person from the country. That new guy is a clod straight from the country.
  1700s
• cracked
  
  ( adj ) Crazy, insane. Lureen must be cracked to think that she can make the men's team.
  1700s
• nest egg
  
  ( np ) A savings account for retirement. When he retired, he had a tidy little nest egg in the bank.
  1700s
• pull up stakes
  
  ( vp ) To move to a new home. When Bubberly lost his job, he pulled up stakes and moved to Italy.
  1700s
• to the nines
  
  ( pp ) In fine clothes Seamus Allgood came to the party dressed to the nines.
  1700s
• butter up
  
  ( v ) To flatter in order to get something from someone. Don't think I'll loan you the money if you butter me up.
  1700s
• to the nines
  
  ( pp ) In fine clothes. Seamus Allgood came to the party dressed to the nines.
  1700s
• squeeze
  
  ( v ) To put pressure on someone. Don't try to put the squeeze on me, buddy; I don't squeeze easily.
  1700s
• fence
  
  ( n ) Dealer in stolen goods. Rocky couldn't find a fence to buy Elvis's underwear after he stole it.
  1700s
• bigwig
  
  ( n ) An important person. Imogene Ettasis is a bigwig in the human genome project.
  1700s
• hijinks
  
  ( n ) Mischievous merry-making. What sort of hijinks have you kids been up to?
  1700s
• cool
  
  ( adj ) All told, every bit of. He made a cool million (dollars) in the animal waste business.
  1720s
• kill
  
  ( v ) Waste (time). I killed two hours in a movie today.
  1720s
• beat
  
  ( n ) Policeman's patrol area. My old man walked a beat for 20 years.
  1720s
• booby-hatch
  
  ( n ) An insane asymlum. Donny Brooke should be put away in a booby-hatch somewhere.
  1720s
• claptrap
  
  ( n ) Nonsense. Lucinda Head thinks climate change is just so much claptrap.
  1720s
• dingy
  
  ( adj ) Dirty, grimy. Leave your dingy clothes in the garage.
  1730s
• rot-gut
  
  ( n ) Bad quality liquor. I never drink that rot-gut hooch Harold buys from his uncle.
  1730s
• nip
  
  ( n ) A quick drink. He took a nip out of the bottle.
  1730s
• throw up
  
  ( v ) Vomit. I doubt he'll date her again; she threw up on his car seat on their last date.
  1730s
• stewed
  
  ( adj ) Drunk. Jack Daniels was so stewed last night, he went to the wrong house.
  1730s
• mumbo-jumbo
  
  ( n ) Nonsense. To sell me a car, he fed me some mumbo-jumbo about its previous owner being John Gotti.
  1730s
• crib
  
  ( v ) To steal or plagarize. He cribbed most of his term paper from the Web.
  1740s
• low
  
  ( adj ) Sad, depressed. I just flunked chem and I'm feeling really low.
  1740s
• bugaboo
  
  ( n ) Something that frightens you. You aren't worried about that old bugaboo, taxes, are you?
  1740s
• dilly-dally
  
  ( v ) Waste time. Hurry up! Don't dilly-dally!
  1740s
• bob
  
  ( adj ) To shorten. Why to they bob the tails of some dogs?
  1750s
• gosh
  
  ( int ) An exclamation of surprise. Gosh, I didn't know that.
  1750s
• humbug
  
  ( n ) Nonsense. Everything she says is just a lot of humbug.
  1750s
• scoot
  
  ( v ) To leave, go. Wow! Is it that late? I have to scoot.
  1750s
• scene
  
  ( n ) A scandal, uproar. She caused a scene at the restaurant when she was served cold coffee.
  1760s
• noggin
  
  ( n ) The head. Francine ran into the door and got a knot on her noggin.
  1760s
• clink
  
  ( n ) Jail or prison. You had better clean up your act or you will end up in the clink.
  1770s
• dern
  
  ( int ) Emphatic adjective (euphemism for damn). Oh, heck! I locked the dern keys in the car!
  1770s
• frog
  
  ( n ) Frenchman (offensive). No matter what you say, the frogs still make the best wine.
  1770s
• Golly!
  
  ( int ) An interjection of emphasis (euphemism for 'God'). Golly, that was a good breakfast.
  1770s
• togs
  
  ( n ) Clothes. Hey, what swell togs you're in!
  1770s
• blackball
  
  ( v ) To exclude from contact; to ostracize. They blackballed Harry Krashner from the Heaven's Devils motorcycle gang when someone saw him riding a ten-speed.
  1770s
• chatterbox
  
  ( n ) A loquacious person. Lucinda is such a chatterbox nobody can get a word in edgewise.
  1770s
• darn
  
  ( adj ) Emphatic adjective (euphemism for damn). Why are you so darn quiet?
  1780s
• darned
  
  ( adj ) Emphatic adjective (euphemism for damned). Why are you so darned quiet?
  1780s
• dime
  
  ( n ) A 10-cent piece. I can't go anywhere; I don't have a dime in my pocket.
  1780s
• loot
  
  ( n ) Stolen goods or money. The robbers were caught red-handed still holding the loot.
  1780s
• nose
  
  ( v ) An informer, a tattle-tale. The coppers had their noses all around town.
  1780s
• piece
  
  ( n ) Female genitalia. [Use your imagination].
  1780s
• quarter
  
  ( n ) A 25-cent piece. Give me a quarter; I need to make a telephone call.
  1780s
• rattle
  
  ( v ) To upset, agitate. Nothing rattles her; she is a cool as a cucumber.
  1780s
• has-been
  
  ( n ) Someone whose career has ended. Wiley Slider is a has-been who'll never play baseball again.
  1780s
• biddy
  
  ( n ) A middle-aged woman. A bunch of old biddies kept us swell guys away from the girls.
  1780s
• fiddle-de-dee
  
  ( int ) Nonsense! Fiddle-de-dee! You can't run a mile in four minutes!
  1780s
• twaddle
  
  ( n ) Nonsense. He came up with some twaddle that convinced a bank to loan him the money.
  1780s
• mess
  
  ( v ) Associate or mix with. Don't mess (around) with people like that; they will get you in trouble.
  1790s
• nab
  
  ( v ) To steal. Somebody nabbed my coat while I was in the meeting.
  1790s
• pound
  
  ( v ) Beaten up. Marlow got pounded by a gang on the way home from school.
  1790s
• swag
  
  ( n ) Stolen goods or money. The robbers were caught red-handed with the swag still in their possession.
  1790s
• tog
  
  ( v ) To dress. My swing partner last night was togged to the bricks.
  1790s
• make-believe
  
  ( n, adj ) Pretence, imagination. You can't live your whole life in a make-believe world.
  1790s
• mug
  
  ( n ) Guys of questionable intentions. Who are these mugs?
  1790s
• peg
  
  ( v ) To throw (a ball). Snidley was pegged out sliding into second base.
  1790s
• frisk
  
  ( v ) To search someone. Billy goes to a school where students are frisked at the front door.
  1790s
• croon
  
  ( v ) To sing (lovesongs) in the lowest range of the voice in a conversation al style Mike Raffone likes to croon a few toons now and then.
  1790s