Page:Farmer - Slang and its analogues past and present - Volume 2.pdf/17

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'brandy.' There seems, however, little connection between either of these readings and the example under consideration); un Egyptien (theatrical: a term applied to a bad or inferior actor); un acteur-guitare (a term specially applied to one who elicits applause in lacrymose scenes only—an actor with only one string to his bow); un enleveur (theatrical: one who plays in such a way as to enlever la salle, i.e., 'to bring down the house'); une doublure (an understudy); un cab, cabot, or cabotin, (used mainly in contempt, much in the same way as 'mummer.' Cabotinage is the life of hardship led by strolling players, and thence, by derivation, the life of the 'profession' generally); un brûleur de planches (theatrical: a spirited or restless actor); un acteur brûlé (popular: one that has had his day); un bouch trou (theatrical: an understudy or stop-gap); un bouleur or une bouleuse (a substitute, or understudy); un misloquier or une misloquière (thieves'); un nom (theatrical: 'a star').

Cackling-Fart, subs. (old).—An egg. [From cackling (see Cackle) + fart (q.v.) a discharge of wind through the anus.] A variant in English is hen-fruit; Fr. un avergot (thieves'); the Breton cant has bruant, whilst in the German Gaunersprache is found Dickmann (also = the penis and testes); the Fourbesque has arbifi and alberto (the latter from the Italian albo, white).

Cad, subs. (popular).—A term of contempt now generally applied to an offensively ill-bred person, irrespective of social position. Formerly used of underlings and others performing menial offices. [Murray favours its origin in cadet and the popular forms cadee and caddie. See, however, Cadator, the quotations under which appear to suggest a collateral, if an independent origin. Some regard the word as a contraction of 'cadger'; whilst others trace it to the Scotch 'cadie' or 'caddie,' an errand boy—now an attendant at golf; or to the slang University sense of the word, a non-member]. The vocable has passed through a variety of meanings.

1. Passengers taken up by coach drivers for their own profit. [M.]

2. (obsolete).—A chum or companion.

3. (old).—An assistant.

4. (old).—An omnibus conductor.

1833. Hood, Sk.fr. Road. Though I am a cad now, I was once a coachman. [m.]

1836. Dickens, Pickwick, ch. xxxiii., p. 279. He paused, and contemplated, with a face of great calmness and philosophy, the numerous cads and drivers of short stages who assemble near that famous place of resort [the Mansion-House].

1851-61. H. Mayhew, London Lab. and Lon. Poor, vol. III., p. 355. The conductor, who is vulgarly known as the cad, stands on a small projection at the end of the omnibus.

5. A messenger or errand boy.

1835. T. Hook, Gilbert Gurney, ch. vii. I will appear to know more of you than one of the cads of the thimble-rig knows of the pea-holder.

1839. T. Hood, Miss Kilmansegg, p. 230. Not to forget that saucy lad (Ostentation's favourite cad), The page, who looked so splendidly clad.