Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue: terms for women

Today I have been trying to think up my next book title so, for inspiration, I visited Captain Groce’s Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue (1811¹ and listed all the terms for women of one type or another. Of course, as you might expect in a book of slang, nearly all the terms are derogatory.

My favourites? I’m quite fond of “Curtain lecture”, “Horse godmother”, “Toad eater” and “One of my cousins”.

Tomorrow I’ll be blogging terms for women’s body parts.

The terms are listed as Groce gave them, although I have removed some irrelevant parts of the definitions.

See also: Terms for women’s bodies

ABBESS, or LADY ABBESS. A bawd, the mistress of a brothel.
ACE OF SPADES. A widow.
APE LEADER. An old maid; their punishment after death, for neglecting increase and multiply, will be, it is said, leading apes in hell.
ARTICLE. A wench. A prime article. A handsome girl. She’s a prime article (WHIP SLANG), she’s a devilish good piece, a hell of a GOER.
ATHANASIAN WENCH, or QUICUNQUE VULT. A forward girl, ready to oblige every man that shall ask her.
AUTEM MORT. A married woman; also a female beggar with several children hired or borrowed to excite charity. CANT.²
BAGGAGE. Heavy baggage; women and children. Also a familiar epithet for a woman; as, cunning baggage, wanton baggage, &c.
BARBER’S CHAIR. She is as common as a barber’s chair, in which a whole parish sit to be trimmed; said of a prostitute.
BAWD. A female procuress.
BIDDY, or CHICK-A-BIDDY. A chicken, and figuratively a young wench.
BINGO MORT. A female dram drinker. Cant.
BITCH. A she dog, or doggess; the most offensive appellation that can be given to an English woman, even more provoking than that of whore, as may be gathered from the regular Billinsgate or St. Giles’s answer—”I may be a whore, but can’t be a bitch.”
BITCH BOOBY. A country wench. Military term.
BLOWEN. A mistress or whore of a gentleman of the scamp. The blowen kidded the swell into a snoozing ken, and shook him of his dummee and thimble; the girl inveigled the gentleman into a brothel and robbed him of his pocket book and watch.
BLOWSE, or BLOWSABELLA. A woman whose hair is dishevelled, and hanging about her face; a slattern.
BOB TAIL. A lewd woman, or one that plays with her tail.
BREECHES. To wear the breeches; a woman who governs her husband is said to wear the breeches.
BRIM. (Abbreviation of Brimstone.) An abandoned woman; perhaps originally only a passionate or irascible woman, compared to brimstone for its inflammability.
BUSHEL BUBBY. A full breasted woman.
BUTTER AND EGGS TROT. A kind of short jogg trot, such as is used by women going to market, with butter and eggs.—she looks as if butter would not melt in her mouth, yet I warrant you cheese would not choak her; a saying of a demure looking woman, of suspected character.
CAMBRIDGE FORTUNE. A wind-mill and a water-mill, used to signify a woman without any but personal endowments.
CAT. A common prostitute. An old cat; a cross old woman.
CATAMARAN. An old scraggy woman; from a kind of float made of spars and yards lashed together, for saving ship-wrecked persons.
CHICKEN-BREASTED. Said of a woman with scarce any breasts.
CLEAVER. One that will cleave; used of a forward or wanton woman.
CLOVEN, CLEAVE, or CLEFT. A term used for a woman who passes for a maid, but is not one.
COCKISH. Wanton, forward. A cockish wench; a forward coming girl.
COOLER. A woman.
COMB. To comb one’s head; to clapperclaw, or scold any one: a woman who lectures her husband, is said to comb his head. She combed his head with a joint stool; she threw a stool at him.
COMING WENCH. A forward wench, also a breeding woman.
CRUMMY. Fat, fleshy. A fine crummy dame; a fat woman.
CURTAIN LECTURE. A woman who scolds her husband when in bed, is said to read him a curtain lecture.
DEMY-REP. An abbreviation of demy-reputation; a woman of doubtful character.
DISHCLOUT. A dirty, greasy woman. He has made a napkin of his dishclout; a saying of one who has married his cook maid. To pin a dishclout to a man’s tail; a punishment often threatened by the female servants in a kitchen, to a man who pries too minutely into the secrets of that place.
DODSEY. A woman: perhaps a corruption of Doxey. CANT.
DOGGESS, DOG’S WIFE or LADY, PUPPY’S MAMMA. Jocular ways of calling a woman a bitch.
DOLL. Bartholomew doll; a tawdry, over-drest woman, like one of the children’s dolls at Bartholomew fair. To mill doll; to beat hemp at Bridewell, or any other house of correction.
DOWDY. A coarse, vulgar-looking woman.
DRAGGLETAIL or DAGGLETAIL. One whose garments are bespattered with dag or dew: generally applied to the female sex, to signify a slattern.
DRURY LANE VESTAL. A woman of the town, or prostitute; Drury-lane and its environs were formerly the residence of many of those ladies.
EWE. A white ewe; a beautiful woman. An old ewe, drest lamb fashion; an old woman, drest like a young girl.
FILCH, or FILEL. A beggar’s staff, with an iron hook at the end, to pluck clothes from an hedge, or any thing out of a casement. Filcher; the same as angler. Filching cove; a man thief. Filching mort; a woman thief.
FLAT COCK. A female.
FROE, or VROE, A woman, wife, or mistress. Brush to your froe, or bloss, and wheedle for crop; run to your mistress, and sooth and coax her out of some money. DUTCH.
FUSSOCK. A lazy fat woman. An old fussock; a frowsy old woman.
FUSTY LUGGS. A beastly, sluttish woman.
GAME. Bubbles or pigeons drawn in to be cheated. Also, at bawdy-houses, lewd women. Mother have you any game; mother, have you any girls? Game pullet; a young whore, or forward girl in the way of becoming one.
GENTRY MORT. A gentlewoman.
GILFLURT. A proud minks, a vain capricious woman.
GILL. The abbreviation of Gillian, figuratively used for woman. Every jack has his gill; i.e. every jack has his gillian, or female mate.
GREY MARE. The grey mare is the better horse; said of a woman who governs her husband.
GUNPOWDER. An old Woman. CANT.
HARP. To harp upon; to dwell upon a subject. Harp is also the Irish expression for woman, or tail, used in tossing up in Ireland: from Hibernia, being represented with a harp on the reverse of the copper coins of that country; for which it is, in hoisting the copper, i.e. tossing up, sometimes likewise called music.
HARRIDAN. A hagged old woman; a miserable, scraggy, worn-out harlot, fit to take her bawd’s degree: derived from the French word HARIDELLE, a worn-out jade of a horse or mare.
HELL CAT. A termagant, a vixen, a furious scolding woman. See TERMAGANT and VIXEN.
HEN. A woman. A cock and hen club; a club composed of men and women.
HOITY-TOITY. A hoity-toity wench; a giddy, thoughtless, romping girl.
HONEST WOMAN. To marry a woman with whom one has cohabitated as a mistress, is termed, making an honest woman of her.
HORSE GODMOTHER. A large masculine woman, a gentlemanlike kind of a lady.
HOYDON [sic]. A romping girl.
JILT. A tricking woman, who encourages the addresses of a man whom she means to deceive and abandon.
IRISH BEAUTY. A woman with two black eyes.
LADY. A crooked or hump-backed woman.
LADY OF EASY VIRTUE. A woman of the town, an impure, a prostitute.
LEFT-HANDED WIFE. A concubine; an allusion to an ancient German custom, according to which, when a man married his concubine, or a woman greatly his inferior, he gave her his left hand.
LEG. To make a leg; to bow. To break a leg; a woman who has had a bastard, is said to have broken a leg.
LONG MEG. A jeering name for a very tall woman: from one famous in story, called Long Meg of Westminster.
MALKIN, or MAULKIN. A general name for a cat; also a parcel of rags fastened to the end of a stick, to clean an oven; also a figure set up in a garden to scare the birds; likewise an awkward woman.
MOPSEY. A dowdy, or homely woman.
MOT. A girl, or wench. See MORT.
MORT. A woman or wench; also a yeoman’s daughter. To be taken all-a mort; to be confounded, surprised, or motionless through fear.
MUNSTER HEIFER. An Irish woman. A woman with thick legs is said to be like a Munster heifer; i.e. beef to the heels.
ONE OF US, or ONE OF MY COUSINS. A woman of the town, a harlot.
OWL IN AN IVY BUSH. He looks like an owl in an ivy bush; frequently said of a person with a large frizzled wig, or a woman whose hair is dressed a-la-blowze.
PIECE. A wench. A damned good or bad piece; a girl who is more or less active and skilful in the amorous congress. Hence the (CAMBRIDGE) toast, May we never have a PIECE (peace) that will injure the constitution.
QUEAN. A slut, or worthless woman, a strumpet.
RAMMISH. Rank. Rammish woman; a sturdy virago.
RANTIPOLE. A rude romping boy or girl; also a gadabout dissipated woman.
REP. A woman of reputation.
ROMP. A forward wanton girl, a tomrig. Grey, in his notes to Shakespeare, derives it from arompo, an animal found in South Guinea, that is a man eater. See HOYDEN.
TO SCREW. To copulate. A female screw; a common prostitute.
SHE NAPPER. A woman thief-catcher; also a bawd or pimp.
SHORT-HEELED WENCH. A girl apt to fall on her back.
SLATTERN. A woman sluttishly negligent in her dress.
SLAMKIN. A female sloven, one whose clothes seem hung on with a pitch-fork, a careless trapes.
SOW. A fat woman.
SOW CHILD. A female child.
TERMAGANT. An outrageous scold from Termagantes, a cruel Pagan, formerly represented in diners shows and entertainments, where being dressed a la Turque, in long clothes, he was mistaken for a furious woman.
TIT. A horse; a pretty little tit; a smart little girl. a *** or tid bit; a delicate morsel.
TOAD EATER. A poor female relation, and humble companion, or reduced gentlewoman, in a great family, the standing butt, on whom all kinds of practical jokes are played off, and all ill humours vented. This appellation is derived from a mountebank’s servant, on whom all experiments used to be made in public by the doctor, his master; among which was the eating of toads, formerly supposed poisonous. Swallowing toads is here figuratively meant for swallowing or putting up with insults, as disagreeable to a person of feeling as toads to the stomach.
TOAST. A health; also a beautiful woman whose health is often drank by men. The origin of this term (as it is said) was this: a beautiful lady bathing in a cold bath, one of her admirers out of gallantry drank some of the water: whereupon another of her lovers observed, he never drank in the morning, but he would kiss the toast, and immediately saluted the lady.
TOMBOY. A romping girl, who prefers the amusement used by boys to those of her own sex.
TRAPES. A slatternly woman, a careless sluttish woman.
TROLLOP. A lusty coarse sluttish woman.
TROT. An old trot; a decrepit old woman. A dog trot; a gentle pace.
TRIGRYMATE. An idle female companion.
TRULL. A soldier or a tinker’s trull; a soldier or tinker’s female companion.—Guteli, or trulli, are spirits like women, which shew great kindness to men, and hereof it is that we call light women trulls. RANDLE HOLM’S ACADEMY OF ARMORY.
VAN-NECK. Miss or Mrs. Van-Neck; a woman with large breasts; a bushel bubby.
WAGTAIL. A lewd woman.
WARMING-PAN. A large old-fashioned watch. A Scotch warming-pan; a female bedfellow.
WOMAN OF ALL WORK. Sometimes applied to a female servant, who refuses none of her master’s commands.
WOMAN OF THE TOWN, or WOMAN OF PLEASURE. A prostitute.
WRINKLE. A wrinkle-bellied whore; one who has had a number of bastards: child-bearing leaves wrinkles in a woman’s belly.

1. Available free from the Gutenberg project.
2. Thieves’ slang.