Page:Dictionary of Slang, Jargon & Cant (1889) by Barrere & Leland.djvu/155



Blackfriars (thieves' slang), used as a warning; "look out!" French thieves would say, "acresto!"

Blackguard (common), a low, disreputable fellow. Dr. Johnson, Gifford, and others derive this from an attendant on the devil, and also from the mean dependants of a great house, who were generally called the black guard as early at least as the beginning of the sixteenth century.

C. G. Leland says:—"It is probably the old Dutch thieves' slang word blagaart, from blag, meaning a man (but always in an inferior sense), and art, the commonest termination for a noun. 'The greater part of the nouns in slang which are of Dutch origin, are formed with the ending aard (aart, erd, ert), er, rik, heid, and ing.'—James Teirlinck, Woordenboek van Bargoensch. To those who would object that man does not necessarily mean a vulgar or low person, I would suggest that in thieves' patois it means nothing else, and that in our British tinkers' dialect, subil siableach (Gaelic for a vagabond) is used simply to denote any man."

Likewise in the French argot, gonce, originally a fool (occasionally used with that meaning now), has the signification of man, individual. Wright has, however, shown that the entirely English term blackguard, as applied to scullions, was in general use at an early date.