The Cant was the secret argot of England’s criminal underworld — beggars, cutpurses, rogues, and vagabonds — a deliberately opaque tongue designed to exclude the honest and confound the constable. Attested in pamphlets from the sixteenth century onwards, it circulated in printed canting dictionaries from Thomas Harman’s Caveat for Common Cursitors (1566) through to the rogue-literature of the seventeenth century.
Darkmans (the night), lightmans (the day), the chates (the gallows), and the harmans (the stocks): a language of shadow and necessity, where eyes are glaziers, teeth are crashing-cheats, and London itself is merely Romeville.
Transcribed from Appendix B of: J. Ernest Barlough,
The Archaicon: A Collection of Unusual, Archaic English
(Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow Press, 1974), pp. 300–303.
147 entries.
147 entries
A
abram
naked
abram-cour
a ragged person
autem
a church
autem mort
a married woman
B
belly-cheat, billy-cheat
an apron
bene
good
bene cofe
good man
beneship
very good
bing
to go
bing a wast
to go away
bleating-cheat
a sheep or calf
blowing
a whore
bord
a shilling
boughar
a cur
boung, bung
a purse
bouse, booze
drink
bousing-ken, boozing-ken
an ale-house
bube
the pox
bufe, buge
a dog
bulk and file
a pickpocket and his mate
buttock
a whore
C
cackling-cheat
a chicken or cock
calle
a cloak
cant
to speak
cassan
cheese
caster
a cloak
chates, chats
the gallows
clear
very drunk
cloy
to steal
cly the jerk
to be whipped
coale
ready cash
cofe, cove
a man
cokir
a liar
confeck
counterfeit
convenient
a whore
couch
to lie asleep
couch a hogshead
to go to sleep
crackmans
a hedge
crampings
bolts and shackles
crash
to kill
crashing-cheats
teeth
cuffin
a man
cuffin quire
a justice
cut
to speak
cut bene whids
to speak well
cut queer whids
to speak evil
D
damber
rascal
darkmans
the night
deusea vile, deuce-a-ville
the country
dimber
pretty
dommerer
a madman
drawers
hose, stockings
duds
goods, clothing
dup
to go in, to enter
F
fencing cully
a fence; one that receives stolen goods
ferme
a hole
fib
to beat
filch
a stick or staff
flag
a groat
fogus
tobacco
fripon
a scoundrel
G
gage, gauge
a quart-pot
gan
a mouth
gentry cove
a gentleman
gentry more
a gentlewoman
glaziers
eyes
glimmer
a fire
grannam
corn
grunting-cheat
a pig or hog
gun
lip
gybe
a written pass
H
harman beck
a constable
harmans
the stocks
heartsease
twenty shillings
heave a book
to rob a house
J
jigger
a door
K
ken
a house
knapper of knappers
a stealer of sheep
L
lag
water
lap
butter; milk; pottage; whey
lib
to tumble
libben, libken
a house
libedge
a bed
lightmans
the day
lower
money
lowing-cheat
a cow
lucries
all kinds of clothing
lullabye-cheat
a child
M
make
a halfpenny
Margery prater
a hen
maund, maunder
to ask, beg
mill
to steal
mint
gold
mish
a shirt
muffling-cheat
a napkin
N
natural
a whore
niggling
companying with women
nosegent
a nun
P
pad
a pathway, a way
patrico
a priest
peck
meat
piss upon a nettle
to be anxious or uneasy
poplars
pottage
prancer
a horse
prat
a buttock
prig
a pert fellow
prog
meat
pure, purest pure
a whore
put
a person easily gulled or cheated
Q
quaroms
a body
queer cuffin
a churl
queer ken
a prison
R
rhino
ready cash
rhinocerical
full of cash
rigging
clothing
Roger or Tib of the buttery
a goose
Rome booze
wine
Rome mort
a queen
Romeville
London
Ruffian
the Devil
ruffmans
woods or bushes
ruff peck
bacon
S
scout
a watch
sharp
subtle
sharper
a cheater
sheep-biter
a poor, sorry wretch
skew
a cup
skipper
a barn
slate
a sheet
smelling-cheat
an orchard or garden, or the nose
smoky
jealous
Solomon
the Mass
stampers
shoes
stamps
legs
strommel
straw
stuling ken
a house for the reception of stolen property
T
tackle
a whore
tattler
an alarm
tattmonger
one who cheats at dice
tatts
false dice
tilter
a sword
togeman
a cloak
tower
to see
trining
hanging
V
vardo
a wagon
W
win
a penny
Y
yarum
milk
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