Slang Words Starting With "C," from 1874 London Quiz

Answer: He's a beggar, or will try to get money out of you somehow.

"Cad, or Cadger (from which it is shortened), [is] a mean or vulgar fellow; a beggar; one who would rather live on other people than work for himself; a man who tries to worm something out of another, either money or information," according to the "Slang Dictionary, Etymological, Historical and Anecdotal" (London: Chatto and Windus, 1874). As a verb, to cadge is "to beg in an artful, wheedling manner."

The Online Etymology Dictionary says the verb means "to beg" and is from 1812, or "to get by begging" from 1848. The origin is uncertain, "perhaps a back-formation from cadger" which meant an "itinerant dealer with a pack-horse" from the mid-15th Century.

Answer: She's an incessant talker.

This is slang I'd still use in the 21st Century USA, so I didn't realize it had been around so long! It meant "an incessant talker or chatterer," according to the "Slang Dictionary, Etymological, Historical and Anecdotal" (London: Chatto and Windus, 1874).

The Online Etymology Dictionary dates it from 1774, as a combination of chatter and box. The Oxford English Dictionary dates a similar compound word, "prattle-basket", as early as 1602, and "prattle-box" to 1671. The idea seems to be that one imagines a container, either a box or basket, full of idle talk, either prattle or chatter, and the concept goes back hundreds of years.

Answer: cock

A cock and bull story is "a long, rambling anecdote," according to the "Slang Dictionary, Etymological, Historical and Anecdotal" (London: Chatto and Windus, 1874). Its origin is hard to trace. There is a false etymology that it was based on stories told at two inns, the Cock and the Bull in Buckinghamshire, but there is no actual evidence. The phrase goes back at least to the 1620s, and some etymologists think it may come from the talking animals in Aesop's fables, or another story that has been long forgotten.

Answer: He wept false, insincere tears.

This is a slang phrase that seems to have spread around the world and lasted into the 21st Century. It wasn't new in the 19th Century either. Crocodile tears were "the tears of a hypocrite," according to the "Slang Dictionary, Etymological, Historical and Anecdotal" (London: Chatto and Windus, 1874). It was "an ancient phrase," introduced by some "early English traveler, who believed that the crocodile made a weeping noise to attract travelers, and then devoured them. See Shakespeare's use of the term in Othello."

Indeed, Shakespeare wrote:
"If that the earth could teem with woman's tears,
Each drop she falls would prove a crocodile."

There are two explanations for when and why the crocodile cries. There's the one about luring prey, and another that the crocodile cries false tears while consuming its victim. The phrase goes back at least to the days of Plutarch, who lived in Greece in the first century A.D. and mentioned it in a collection of proverbs.

Ironically, crocodiles do generate tears. The longer they have been on dry land before eating, the more apt they are to do it, either before or during eating. The tears really are insincere, because they are linked to lubricating dry eyes, rather than being brought forth by grief. They aren't a way of luring prey, though. At least they're not that cold-hearted!

Answer: He's my friend or maybe also my roommate.

A chum was "an intimate acquaintance," according to the "Slang Dictionary, Etymological, Historical and Anecdotal" (London: Chatto and Windus, 1874). The dictionary said it could also mean, as a verb, "to occupy a joint lodging with another person," and that seems to be where it came from and a strong meaning still attached in the late 19th Century. The Online Etymology Dictionary says chum is from the 1680s but was "originally university slang for 'roommate'... Among derived forms used 19c. were chumship; chummery 'shared bachelor quarters,' chummage 'system of quartering more than one to a room.'"

The 1874 "Slang Dictionary" also mentioned "Chumming-up, an old custom amongst prisoners before the present regulations were in vogue, and before imprisonment for debt was abolished; when a fresh man was admitted to their number, rough music was made with pokers, tongs, sticks, and saucepans. For this ovation the initiated prisoner had to pay, or 'fork over,' half-a-crown or submit to a loss of coat and waistcoat."

Answer: Stop, leave off!

Apparently a lady, a preacher, a child, or someone else not ready for dirty jokes was coming into hearing. "Cheese, or cheese it" meant "leave off, or have done," and the term was "very common," according to the "Slang Dictionary, Etymological, Historical and Anecdotal" (London: Chatto and Windus, 1874). It was "evidently a corruption of cease."

I can remember my mother saying it was standard gangster slang in US movies and cartoons in the 1930s-1940s to say "Cheese it! The cops!" which may have caused the meaning to become something like "run away" in the US. One of the earliest references, more than 100 years before, is from "Lexicon Balatronicum: A Dictionary of Buckish Slang, University Wit, and Pickpocket Eloquence" (London: C. Chappell, 1811), which says that "cheese it" meant "Be silent, be quiet, don't do it."

Answer: He's a yokel, a rustic.

To chaw meant to chew, and "Chaw-bacon [was] a rustic. Derived from the popular idea that a countryman lives entirely on bread and fat bacon. A country clown, a joskin, a yokel, a clodcrusher. These terms are all exchangeable," according to "Slang Dictionary, Etymological, Historical and Anecdotal" (London: Chatto and Windus, 1874).

It was an older term, going back at least to "Lexicon Balatronicum" (London: C. Chappell, 1811) where it meant "A countryman. A stupid fellow."

Answer: A crime; the silversmith will erase the watchmaker's name and put in a fake one.

Alas, this was not sentimental at all. "Christening" meant "erasing the name of the maker, the number, or any other mark, from a stolen watch, and inserting a fictitious one in its place," according to the "Slang Dictionary, Etymological, Historical and Anecdotal" (London: Chatto and Windus, 1874).

In the 18th Century, you could "bishop or christen a watch (replace its name and number with a false one to prevent it being traced)," according to "Terms of Employment: The Secret Lingo of the Workplace" by Charlie Croker (Random House, 2012).

Answer: He's shocked with happiness.

"Carry me Out!" was "an exclamation of pretended astonishment on hearing news too good to be true, or a story too marvellous to be believed," based on the "Slang Dictionary, Etymological, Historical and Anecdotal" (London: Chatto and Windus, 1874). The implication was the person saw something amazingly good happen, and died of the shock, or perhaps fainted. It was "Sometimes varied by 'let me die,' i.e., I can't survive that."

"Post-1850 variants," according to "Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English" by Eric Partridge, 2006, included "carry me out and leave me in the gutter, carry me upstairs, carry me home, and whoa, carry me out."

Answer: clover

"Clover" seems the most logical thing to say, because it meant "happiness, luck, a delightful position -- from the supposed extra enjoyment which attends cattle when they suddenly find their quarters changed from a barren field to a meadow of clover," according to the "Slang Dictionary, Etymological, Historical and Anecdotal" (London: Chatto and Windus, 1874). The Online Etymology Dictionary dates the earliest documentation to 1710, "To be in clover" meaning to "live luxuriously."

The other three options are silly ones that I made up. The least logical is chamber pots, the things people use when they don't want to go all the way to their outhouses at night. Camels and claws have no slang connected to luck, wealth or happiness that I'm aware of.