The Cant Language

PLENTY OF INTEREST FROM READERS since our last issue on the subject of Bamfylde-Moore Carew, Devon’s so-called King of the Gypsies and more particularly about the CANT LANGUAGE, spoken amongst ‘Egyptian’ Gypsies and other ne’er-do-wells in Georgian England.

Some of these odd code words and phrases survive in Devon to this day. If you find yourself watching the carving of the roast next Sunday to make sure you are getting your fair whack, you are talking CANT.

Getting all togged up for a night out? You’re talking CANT again.

And if that panto you took the kids to see happened to be Babes in the Wood, you just used the CANT code for any of their number held fast in the stocks!

Here are a few more, below:

Abram  –  naked, without clothes
Adam tiler  –  a pickpocket’s accomplice
Amen curler  –  a parish clerk
Autumn jet  –  a parson
Autumn bawler  –  a preacher
Babes in the wood  –  criminals in the stocks
Back’d  –  dead
Balsam – money
Bandog  –  a bailiff
Baptised  –  any spirit cut with water
Barking irons  –  pistols
Bawbee  –  a halfpenny
Beater cases  –  boots
Belly cheat  –  an apron
Bing  –  to go
Blackfly  –  the parson
Blackbox  –  a lawyer
Black Indies  –  Newcastle
Bob  –  a shoplifter’s assistant (‘Bob’s your uncle!’)
Booby hatch  – a one-horse chaise
Bum brusher  –  a school master
Cank  –  dumb
Cap  –  to swear
Case  –  a shop, house or warehouse, or a target for thievery – ‘case’ the joint
Calfskin fiddle  –  a drum
Charm  –  a picklock
Chates  –  the gallows
Chafe  –  a knife
Chosen tells  –  highwaymen working in pairs
Chuck farthing  –  parish clerk
Clickman toad  –  a West Country man
Closes  –  rogues
Cloy  –  a rogue, a robber
Coach wheel  –  half a crown
Collar day  –  execution
Cooler  – a woman
Crew  –  knot or gang
Crook  –  sixpence
Cucumbers  –  tailors
Cussin  –  a man
Darby ready  –  money
Dag  –  a gun
Dancers  –  stairs
Dash  –  a tavern drawer
Diddle  –  gin
Timber dater  –  the top rogue
Dobing rig  –  stealing ribbons
Doctors  –  loaded dice
Dunker  –  a stealer of cows
Riffs newly  –  initiated rogues
Eternity box  –  coffin
Families  –  rings
Fammes  –  hands
Fastener  –  a warrant
Fawnet  –  a ring
Feeder  –  a spoon
Ferret  –  a pawnbroker
Flick  –  sly
Flyers  –  shoes or boots
Froglanders  –  the Dutch
Frummagemmed  –  choked, strangled, hanged
Gaberlunsie  –  a beggar
Gem  –  a fire
Gibberish  –  the Cant language
Bigger  –  a door
Gaoler’s coach  –  a hurdle
Green bag  –  a  lawyer
Gropers  –  a blind man
Gutter-lane  –  the throat
Hammer  –  a great lie
Hams  –  breeches
Henfright   – hen-pecked husbands
Hums  –  church goers
King’s pictures  –  money of any kind
Lantern  – a bribable court official
Lifter  –  a crutch
Little Barbary  –  Wapping
Lushy cover  –  drunk
Mill clapper  –  a scolding tongue
Moon-curser  –  a link-boy
Muck  –  money
Ne’er a face but his own – Not a penny in his pocket
Nub  –  a head
Nubbing  –  cheat the gallows
Nut-crackers  –  a pillory
Ogles  –  eyes
Pad-the-hoof  –  journeying on foot
Pantler  –  a butler
Peeper  –  a mirror
Penance boards  –  a pillory
Porker  – a sword
Royster  – a rude, roaring fellow
Ruffin  –  the devil
Rumba  –   a prison
Sharper  –  a cheat
Shove the tumbler  – whipped at the cart’s tail
Spanish money  –  forwards
Spoil pudding  –  long-winded parson
Swag  – a shop
Tip  –  to give or lend
Toggery  –  clothes
Twig  –  to break off
Wattles  – ears
Whack  –  share
Whitewall  –  silver money
Wooden ruff  –  the stocks
Yam  – to eat heartily
Yarum  –  milk
Yellow George  –  a guinea
Yelper  –  town crier
Znees  –  frost or frozen
Zneesy  –  frosty weather

Re-searched (and Spellchecked)
– by John Fisher

Featured image “Hark, hark, the dogs do bark, the beggars are coming to town!”.  Courtesy Russell-Coates Museum & Art gallery