The Sparrowhawk Companion (17 page)

ketch
A small vessel with one large mast, usually with a triangular sail.

kickshaw
A fancy food dish, usually a “dainty” French concoction, elegant but insubstantial.

King’s Bench
In Britain, until 1875, a superior or supreme court that could hear major criminal and civil cases. (In Queen Victoria’s time, it was the
Queen’s Court
.) Its name is derived from the bench on which a monarch sat when a case required his attendance. The King’s Bench could sit wherever a monarch happened to be, when necessary. Like the Court of the Common Pleas, it had its own chief justice. See COMMON PLEAS.

knacker
1. A shipbreaker, or one who takes apart or breaks up a vessel; 2. a buyer of dilapidated buildings for their usable materials;
3. to break up an unwieldy sentence.

knocking shop
A brothel. “Knocking” was likely a euphemism for an expletive.

lamb’s wool
A drink consisting of hot ale mixed with the pulp of roasted apples, sugar, and spice.

larboard
The “port” side of a vessel, on the left side looking forward. (
Port side
did not come into common usage until 1846).

larrikin
A hoodlum or rowdy.

league
Three English or nautical miles.

levee
1. A reception held by a person of distinction on rising from bed; 2. an afternoon assembly at which a sovereign, lord or his proxy received only men; 3. a reception held in honor of a particular person.

Lewis
Or
Ludwig
, the family name of the Hanoverians, beginning with George the First.

livery
1. The distinctive attire of a servant; 2. a stable for horses, where they could be billeted or hired.

logodædaly
Cleverness in wordplay.

loo
A card game, a forerunner of bridge.

lord
1. Feudal superior; 2. a nobleman, peer of the realm entitled by courtesy to the title or address of “Lord.” The Scottish style was
laird
.

lunge
To exercise and train a horse in a wide circle with the aid of a long rope.

lurdane
A lazy, stupid person.

lustre
A chandelier of crystal and polished silver, whose reflecting properties aided in amplifying candlelight.

majesty
The person of a sovereign, used in address to a king, queen, emperor, or empress; a royal bearing or aspect.

manifest
A merchantman’s cargo list of goods carried on the vessel. See COCKET, DOCKET, DUTY.

mar(ling)
To mix clay and lime into arable soil in order to improve its fertility.

market town
Since medieval times, a town legally permitted to hold an open-air market of producers and buyers.

marle
A soft, soapy earth found from between 18 inches to several feet below ground surface.

marquis
A noble rank between a duke and an earl (wife:
marchioness
). A variation is
marquess.
See BARON, BARONET, DUKE, EARL, VISCOUNT.

masquerade
A social gathering of persons wearing masks or dominos and often fantastic costumes. Also called a
mask
or
masque
.

master
1. One having authority over another; 2. a youth or boy too young to be addressed “mister,” “sir,” or “lord”; 3. the eldest son of a Scottish viscount or baron.

memorial
A statement of facts, addressed to a government (in Britain, to the House of Lords), often accompanied by a petition or remonstrance. See ADDRESS, PETITION, REMONSTRANCE.

Mendips
A range of hills noted for limestone caves near the southwest coast of England.

mercer
A dealer in small wares.

merchant
An importer and exporter of goods in quantity.

merchantman
A British commercial vessel, especially a seagoing one.

milord
An Englishman of noble or genteel birth; the address of such a person, instead of “sir.”

mob
The fickle crowd, a contraction of
mobile vulgus
(Latin); a further pun on
English mobility
(q.v.), which was a humorous opposition to the “nobility” (
nob
or
nab
).

Mohock
An aristocratic bully or hoodlum, thug, or tough, who wandered about London with a gang of his ilk to terrorize or torment at whim. Also called a
tumbler
or
sweater
.

moonraker
An illusory thing or idea; a person who has illusory ideas or behaves oddly. Its origin was the practice of raking the reflection of the moon from a pool of water.

mortar
A short, large-bore cannon for throwing shells (lit-fuse explosives) in high trajectories to fall on or behind enemy fortifications.

nab
A satirical, deprecating address for
his worship
,
his lordship
, and so on. Its usual form was
his nabs
or
his nibs
. Possibly a corruption of the Hindu
nabob
.

nailery
An ironworks.

nautical mile
One minute of longitude, or 6,000 feet. See LEAGUE.

necessary
An outdoor lavatory.

nice
Minutely accurate; over-refined.

niffy-naffy
A silly fellow; a trifler.

noddy
A simpleton; foolish.

nonage
The state of being under legal age; one’s minority; immaturity.

nonce
1. For the time being; 2. a word coined for the occasion.

oat
The primary grain of Scotland and northern England, used in the preparation of haggis, oatcake, porridge, and horse feed.

orangery
Originally, in the Restoration era, a room that sheltered orange trees, but which later became a sun room and breakfast room.

ordinary
1. An unembellished inn for travelers, atop a tavern; 2. a diocesan officer appointed to give criminals their “neck-verses” (before hanging), and to prepare them for death; 3. the chaplain of a prison, whose duty it was to prepare condemned prisoners for death.

Oronoco
A species of tobacco plant, the rival of sweetscented tobacco, with coarser leaves, and, when smoked, with a more pungent taste and odor. Introduced from the Oronoco River basin in South America.

orrery
An apparatus showing the relative positions and motions of planets and their moons in the solar system, employing an integrated wheelworks that set the system in motion. After Charles Boyle, 4th Earl of Orrery (1676-1731).

overlooker
On a plantation, a man who supervised overseers, sharing the duties of a steward. See OVERSEER, PLANTER, STEWARD.

overseer
On a plantation, a man responsible for carrying out tasks, and managed slaves and servants.

own
Acknowledge, admit, concede, or confess a thing.

oyer and terminer
Sessions of court held by circuit judges for capital offenses. See ASSIZE, QUARTER SESSION.

parish lamp
The most common form of street lighting in mid- eighteenth century London and other British cities, fueled with whale blubber, and the responsibility of parishes.

Parliament
The supreme governing and legislative body of Britain, composed of the upper house (Lords) and the lower, elective house (the Commons). Its executive was the monarch, who could veto or endorse legislation passed by both houses. See HOUSE OF COMMONS, HOUSE OF LORDS.

parky
A cold or chilly condition. Said also of weather or a person’s character.

peer
A member of one of the degrees of nobility. Possibly an Anglicism of the French
per
(connoting
father
or seniority). A peer was a
baron,
an
earl
, a
marquis
, a
viscount
, or a
duke
.

peruke
A man’s wig, made of human or horse hair.

petition
In British politics, a document stating a grievance or grievances signed by a certain number of bona fide individuals, requesting redress, addressed to a sovereign or government body. In the eighteenth century, it was usually addressed to the Commons. See ADDRESS, MEMORIAL, REMONSTRANCE.

phaeton
A light, four-wheeled, uncovered carriage, pulled by two horses. See POST-CHAISE.

phiz
Slang for face. Probably a corruption of
visage
.

phiz-monger
An artist who painted the faces of portraits, leaving assistants or apprentices to paint the bodies, clothes, backgrounds, and so on.

phlogiston
Before the discovery of oxygen by Joseph Priestly, a substance thought to reside in all inflammable matter and released during combustion.

pillory
A device for publicly punishing criminal offenders, consisting of a wooden frame with holes for the head and hands. An offender stood on a pillory. See STOCKS.

pipe
1. A device for smoking tobacco, in the eighteenth century, usually
made of clay; 2. a 100-gallon cask of spirits.

pippin
1. Any of a variety of apples valued for their dessert quality; 2. a highly esteemed or very admirable person or thing.

pistole
A Spanish gold coin, worth sixteen shillings and nine pence, which circulated in the colonies in lieu of scarce British specie or money. See DOLLAR, SPECIE.

planter
A tobacco plantation owner (from the practice of replanting tobacco seedlings from seedbeds to separate mounds).

Pleiad
A group of seven illustrious or brilliant persons or things, in reference to a cluster of stars in the constellation Taurus.

plumb
A slang expression to describe a person worth at least £100,000 sterling.

point
In grammar and composition, to punctuate.

pony
The sum of fifty guineas (£52.5).

porter
A dark, heavy beer. Also called
stout
.

posset
A drink of hot milk, curdled with ale or wine, flavored with spices, used as a remedy for colds or minor ailments.

post-chaise
A two-wheeled, horse-drawn conveyance with a hood, for two persons. See PHAETON.

postilion
A liveried servant who rode on the lead horse of a team-drawn coach, in place of a coachman or driver.

pound
A gold coin of twenty shillings, adopted in 1813 to replace the guinea. Symbol: £. The pound later became the
sovereign
. See DOLLAR, GUINEA, SPECIE, STERLING.

powder monkey
In all eighteenth–century navies, a boy who brought up charges from the magazine for naval guns.

prat
The buttocks, slang since the seventeenth century for a fool.

priming
1. The removal from tobacco plants of undesirable leaves that allegedly deprived desired leaves of nutrition and water; 2. to load a musket or firelock by assembling the bullet.

primogeniture
The custom or legally mandated practice of passing land ownership from father to the first-born or eldest son. See COPYHOLD, ENTAIL.

prize
To pack harvested tobacco into a hogshead. Possibly a corruption of
press
.

prorogue
The power of an executive, such as a colonial governor, to delay or postpone a legislative session. See DISSOLVE.

puncheon
A large cask or barrel for liquids, especially for alcohol, of between seventy-two and 120 gallons. See BUTT, HOGSHEAD.

quahog
An edible round clam found on the Atlantic coast, the shells of which were often used as gravel on colonial streets. Ground up, it was also used as fertilizer.

Quaker
After the pacifist religious sect, a log fashioned and painted to pass for a naval gun, in order to deceive an enemy about a vessel’s fire power.

quarter session
A court of limited criminal and civil jurisdiction, and of appeal, held quarterly. The British terms or sessions were Michaelmas, Hilary, Easter, and Trinity. See ASSIZE.

Queer Street
The state of bankruptcy.

queue
A “pigtail” attached to a man’s wig or hair, bound by a ribbon over the back of his neck.

quillet
A verbal nicety or subtle distinction. Probably from
quillet
, a small, narrow strip of land.

quit-rent
A fee or “rent” paid to a lord or sovereign by a freeholder or copyholder in lieu of military or other service. See IN FEE, SOCCAGE.

redemptioner
An immigrant whose passage to America was paid for by a merchant, and who indentured his labor until the cost of the passage was redeemed by either the merchant or his employer.

regiment
In the British army, a unit of about 475 men, organized into ten companies. See BATTALION, BRIGADE, COMPANY.

remembrancer
One of several English officials originally appointed to remind a sovereign or government official of a duty, or to collect debts owed the sovereign.

remonstrance
In British politics, a document addressed to the Commons formally stating pointed opposition or a grievance. See ADDRESS, MEMORIAL, PETITION.