Upon reader request, I have created a Master Glossary for the Rookery Rogues, including the thieving cant used in the books, as well as some of the places/gang names used. If it is a fictional term just for this series, I have indicated that.
Abbess – The (female) owner of a brothel
Affidavit Woman – Someone who is paid to give false testimony to the police
Altamel – Ledgers for brothels
Bawd – The (female) owner of a brothel
Bawdy house – A brothel
Beater – Miscreants
Bedlam – slang for Bethlehem Hospital, an insane asylum for the poor. Also used as a general term for “madness.”
Belcher – A neckcloth, named after the man who made them fashionable
Bit o’ muslin – A prostitute (a politer term than cant)
Black art – Lockpicking
Blackguard – a despicable man with no honor
Blackguard – A dishonorable man
Blaster – A person skilled at explosions
Blighter – contemptible person
Blowen – Cant term for prostitute
Blue ruin – Cant term for gin
Bluestocking – An intellectual girl
Blunt – slang term for money
Blunt – Cant term for money
Bobbies – Members of the Metropolitan Police, nicknamed after founder Robert Peel
Bob-cull – Good-natured, foolish man
Bodysnatch – To grave rob
Bogger – Cant term for Irish; derogatory
Bon ton – Member of the aristocracy
Bordello – A brothel
Bounder – contemptible person
Bow-wow shop – A secondhand clothing shop
Boxing fancy – People who are fans of bare-knuckle boxing
Broadsheet – Newspaper – so called because it’s a large sheet printed on only one side
Bruiser – Bare-knuckle boxer or street fighter
Bullyback – A guard at a brothel, meant to protect the girls from getting hurt and also from customers running out without paying
Bummed – To be arrested for a crime
Bun’s been buttered by another – Another man has had sex with you (used in reference to prostitutes)
Bungnip – Pickpocket
Bunter – A low dirty prostitute, half whore and half beggar.
Buttock – A whore, cant
Buttock and file – A common whore and a pickpocket
Buttock and twang OR down buttock and sham file – A common prostitute, but not a pickpocket
Caper-witted – Stupid
Cart-boy, or cart-man – Someone who transports the corpses dug from graveyards so they can be sold to surgeons for anatomization
Case vrow – A prostitute who is owned by a brothel
Case vrow – A prostitute who has sold her body to a particular brothel
Cat – A common prostitute
Catholic Question – Whether or not Catholics should be emancipated; addressed in the Roman Catholic Relief Act of 1829
Chapman OR Chapman Street Gang – A street gang led by Zacharias Baines (fictional)
Chit – a young girl
Chit – A girl or woman
City – When capitalized, refers to the original boundaries of London
Cloyed – To steal
Codger – A dishonorable man
Cod-witted – Foolish
Colt-bowler – a raw or inexperienced man
Commodity – The private parts of a woman
Courtesan – A higher class prostitute who often services the aristocracy
Cove – A thief; cant term sometimes applied to any man in the rookeries
Covent Garden Nun – A prostitute who works Covent Garden
Crank – Gin and water mixed together
Cub – A young thief; also used to refer to anyone who looks young and foolishly innocent
Cull – A man, honest or not
Cull – A man, cant
Cup-shot – Drunk
Darkman’s budge – Someone who slips into a house at night to let in thieves
Devil take it – A curse
Devil/devilish – used for general emphasis
Dimber – pretty
Dimber – Cant term for beautiful, usually in reference to a woman
Dimber – Beautiful
Dimber mort – Cant term for a beautiful woman
Diver – a pickpocket
Dolly shop – A pawn shop
Doxy – Cant term for prostitute
Drab – Prostitute
Dram joint – A place that sells gin, see also gin palace
Draw your claret – To injure someone; make them bleed
Dry bob – Oral sex
Dub lay – To pick a lock
Easy virtue – A woman who has given up her virginity outside of marriage, whether it be for sale or by choice (an impure, prostitute)
Exhumators – See resurrection men
Fancy crowd – See boxing fancy
Fen – Cant term for a prostitute
Figger – a little boy put in a window to hand out goods to a diver
Filch – to steal
Flash house – A house where a group of thieves would congregate
Flash panney – See flash house
Foolscap – A specific size of a piece of paper
Foxed – Drunk
Gambling hell – A place of ill repute where people would go to gamble
Gaol – Jail
Gin palace – A place that sells gin, see also dram joint
Go to the devil – go to hell
Hack – A carriage
Hatchet-faced – Ugly
Hedge whore – Literally, someone who has sex behind hedges. Considered a low class whore because she bilks the brothels out of the fee they’d receive otherwise.
Highway, the – Ratcliffe Highway, site of infamous murders in 1811
Hog-grubber -a miserly, sneaky fellow
In your cups – Drunk
Judy – Cant name for prostitutes
Kings – A street gang led by Joaquin Mason (fictional)
Ladybird – Mistress
Loblolley boy – a surgeon
London Burkers – The London Burkers comes from the murder committed by Bishop and Williams of a small Italian boy so they could sell his body to surgeons for a profit. The Burkers reference is to serial killers Burke and Hare, who did the same thing earlier in Scotland.
Lour – Cant term for money
Mantua-maker – dressmaker
Mark – Someone to steal from
Mayfair – Neighborhood in West London, very popular with the aristocracy
Merry-begotten – a child born out of wedlock
Met, the – short for the Metropolitan Police Force
Mill – a boxing match
Modiste – dressmaker
Mort – A woman or a wench
Mother – The (female) owner of a brothel
Mudlark – People who scavenged in the river for items to resell
Mutton – Cant term for a woman’s private parts
Niggling – To have sex with a prostitute
Old Toast – a brisk old man
Paddy – Irish person, so taken from St. Patrick. Derogatory.
Paltry – Coin
Peelers – Members of the Metropolitan Police, nicknamed after founder Robert Peel
Penny pie – Meat pies sold by street vendors, so named because the pie-man would offer to toss a coin, and if you won the toss, the pie-man sold you the food for a penny
Plow – To have sex with, especially rough sex
Popery – In reference to Irish Catholics; derogatory
Prime and pump – To ready a flintlock to shoot
Queer mort – A diseased strumpet
Quiz – To tease
Rag and bones shop – A secondhand clothing store
Rag shops – Secondhand clothing shops
Ragged school – charity schools set up in the rookeries
Resurrection men/Resurrectionists – Grave robbers who sell corpses to surgeons for anatomization
Resurrection trade – the process of selling grave-robbed bodies to surgeons
Rum mort – Cant term for a lady of great worth (aristocratic)
Runners – Bow Street Runners, the police force running out of Westminster, so named because their office is on Bow Street
Set your cap at – To try and draw the attention of a suitor into marriage
Shan – Counterfeit money
Shirtsleeves – Not wearing a jacket – basically, to just be wearing a shirt.
Shiver-tapped – To have many debts
Six and tips – a drink of whisky mixed with small beer
Skin-flint – Miser
Socket money – The money paid to have sex with a prostitute
Subject – Corpses sold to surgeons for anatomization
Tail – Cant term for prostitute
Take – Money earned through illegal means
Tally men – Brokers who let out clothes for prostitutes to wear while soliciting business
Tanners – A street gang on Jacob’s Island, once led by Jasper Finn and now led by Benjamin Wilkes (fictional)
Teague – Irish
Teague-lander – Irish man
Thing/Things – Corpses to be sold to surgeons for anatomization
To dock – To have sex with a prostitute
Toff – a rich person, aristocrat
Ton – Member of the aristocracy
Touting-ken – A public house
Trade on one’s commodities – To have sex with a prostitute, so named because a woman’s body was her commodity in the brothel
Up to snuff – Passes as quality
Wag my lips – To snitch
Wipe – silk handkerchief
Women of town – A prostitute