1811 Dictionary in the Vulgar Tongue: Section I

1811 Dictionary in the Vulgar Tongue, by Francis Grose is part of HackerNoon’s Book Blog Post series. You can jump to any chapter in this book here: [LINK TO TABLE OF LINK]. Section I

Section I

IRISH APRICOTS. Potatoes. It is a common joke against
  the Irish vessels, to say they are loaded with fruit and
  timber, that is, potatoes and broomsticks.

IRISH ASSURANCE. A bold forward behaviour: as being dipt in the river Styx was formerly supposed to render persons invulnerable, so it is said that a dipping in the river Shannon totally annihilates bashfulness; whence arises the saying of an impudent Irishman, that he has been dipt in the Shannon.

IRISH BEAUTY. A woman with two black eyes.

IRISH EVIDENCE. A false witness.

IRISH LEGS. Thick legs, jocularly styled the Irish arms.
  It is said of the Irish women, that they have a dispensation
  from the pope to wear the thick end of their legs downwards.

IRISH TOYLES. Thieves who carry about pins, laces, and
  other pedlars wares, and under the pretence of offering
  their goods to sale, rob houses, or pilfer any thing they
  can lay hold of.

IRON. Money in general. To polish the king's iron with
  one's eyebrows; to look out of grated or prison windows,
  or, as the Irishman expresses them, the iron glass
  windows. Iron doublet; a prison. See STONE DOUBLET.

IRONMONGER'S SHOP. To keep an ironmonger's shop by
  the side of a common, where the sheriff sets one up; to be
  hanged in chains. Iron-bound; laced. An iron-bound
  hat; a silver-laced hat.

ISLAND. He drank out of the bottle till he saw the island;
  the island is the rising bottom of a wine bottle, which
  appears like an island in the centre, before the bottle is
  quite empty.

IVORIES. Teeth. How the swell flashed his ivories; how
  the gentleman shewed his teeth.

ITCHLAND, or SCRATCHLAND. Scotland.

IVY BUSH. Like an owl in an ivy bush; a simile for a
  meagre or weasel-faced man, with a large wig, or very
  bushy hair.

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Grose, Francis. 2004. 1881 Dictionary in the Vulgar Tongue. Urbana, Illinois: Project Gutenberg. Retrieved April 2022 from https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/5402/pg5402.html

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