Theives' Cant

This is a special presen for Nicodemus. You may have heard me mentioning "theives' cant" which is not a language, its more of a dialect. Well I found a little glossary if you'd ever like to use it, it'll certainly add spice to role playing for rogues.

Many thieves, rogues, and gamblers
have their own slang or argot, also called
thieves’ cant. The samples provided here
are taken from terms used by 18th-century
British thieves, a form of jargon that
works fairly well for English speakers.


Arrested: boned, hooked, pulled, roasted,
snapt, touched

Bandit: colt, high pad, knight of the road,
land pirate, rank rider

Beggar: rattling mumper, ruffler

Begging: maunding

Booty: quota, swag, whack

Bribe: dawb, grease, hush money, sop

Brothel: academy, nunnery, snoozing ken

Call for the watch: cry beef

City watchman: bandog, bus napper, bus
napper kenchin, harman, myrmidon,
night magistrate, pig

Cloak: calle

Club: jordain, oaken towel

Coin (counterfeit): button, dump

Con: amuse, bilk, fob, fun, fuzz, hoodwink,
sham

Con man: amuser, jack in a box, needle
point, nip, sharper

Counterfeiter: figure dancer, queer bit
maker

Counterfeiting: drawing the king’s
picture, sweating

Courthouse: nubbing ken

Criminals being punished:
• Being transported: barrow man, lag
• In stocks: babes in the wood,
nappered, overseer
• With hands burned: badge,
charactered

Crowbar: Bess, Betty, ginny, jemmy

Danger: lay

Day: lightmans

Death sentence: cramp word

Dog: bufe

Drunk: clear

Escape: bing, burning the ken, hike, rub

Follow: drag

Fool: Ben, cullability, gudgeon, gull,
milch cow, pigeon, queer

Gallows: chatts, deadly nevergreen, leafless
tree, morning drop, new drop, nubbing
cheat, three legged mare, three
legged stool, topping cheat

Gambling den: hell

Gang: birds of a feather

Gypsies: cattle, moon men

Good: bene, rum

Hanged: acorn, artichoked, beilby’s ball,
cry cockles, cropped, dangled, frummagemmed,
hearty choked, hempen fever,
ironmonger’s shop, jammed, leaf,
noozed, nubbing, scragged, stretched,
swing

Hangman: Jack Ketch, Ketch, nubbing
cove, sheriff’s journeyman, topping cove,
turned off

Hideout: dive, fencing ken, flash ken,
stalling ken, stop hole abbey, stuling ken
Highway robbery: recruiting service

Hit: click

Honest man: cull

House: ken, panny

Housebreaker: cracksman, draw latch,
rusher

Inform: cackle, long tongued, nose,
office, peach, rat, sing

Judge: beak, fortuneteller, queer cuffin

Kill: crash, use up

Lantern: darkee, glim

Lawyer: black box, cursitor, petty fogger,
puzzle-case

Lead: moss

License: jukrum

Lie: amuse, gamon, palaver

Lock pick: charm, dub, kate, screw

Lock picker: gilt

Lock picking: black art, dub lay

Man: cove

Madam of brothel: abbess, aunt

Money: caravan, iron, king’s pictures,
plate, pony, rag, ready, rhino, ribbin,
wedge

Mugger: ding boy

Murder: hush

Night: darkman

Oath: cap, earnest, rap (false), salmon

Pickpocket: autem divers, bung nipper,
buzman, foyst, natty lad, nypper, reader
merchants

Picking pockets: dive, figging law, forking

Pocket: cly

Priest: autem bawler

Prison: bilboes, boarding school, porridge,
pound, queer ken, quod, repository,
sheriff’s hotel, shop, spring-ankle
warehouse

Prison ship: floating hell

Prisoner: jail bird, queer birds

Prostitute: aunt, bat, bawd, buttock and
file, cattle, fen, laced mutton, public
ledger, queer mort, tail

Purse: boung, dummee, reader

Rich: equipt, oak

Ring: jem, onion

Shackles: darbies, king’s plate, ruffles,
slang

Staff: jordain

Steal: bite, bite the blow, cloy, curbing
law, heave, hoist, lift, nim, prad lay

Stocks: Bilboes, parenthesis, penance
board, wooden ruff

Stolen: ard, made

Swap: bug, ring the changes
Tavern owner: beggar maker

Theft: game

Thief: angler, ark ruffian, bawdy basket,
blue pigeon, bubber, bufe napper, bung
nipper, buzman, canter, canting crew,
Captain Sharp, clank napper, cloyes,
cracksman, draw latch, dromedary, fagger,
fidlam ben, filcher, footpad, foyst,
gallows bird, gilt, glazier, kiddey, little
snakesman, lully prigger, made man,
moon curser, napper of naps, natty lad,
nypper, old hand, pad borrower, poulterer,
prigger, queer cove, reader merchant,
resurrection man, rover, sneak, swaddler,
tayle drawer, waterpad, whip jack

Thief (head): Arch Rogue, Dimber
Damber, Prince Prig, Upright Man

Thieves’ cant: flash lingo, gibberish,
patter flash

Victim: content, provendor

Whipping: air and exercise, cly the jerk,
hue, teize

Whipping post: jigger

Widow: ace of spades, hempen widow
(if husband was hanged)
Witness (false): affidavit man, knight of
the post

Woman: mort, mot

Wound: beef

Sources:
Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue: A
Dictionary of Buckish Slang, University
Wit, and Pickpocket Eloquence, London,
1811 (based on a version by Captain
Grose, 1785).
The Penguin Dictionary of Historical
Slang by Eric Partridge (for some pre-
WWI terms).