Page:Farmer - Slang and its analogues past and present - Volume 2.pdf/41

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1890. New York Herald, 3 June. 'Newfoundland Fishery Dispute.' Factories have been established for the production of cape cod turkeys; i.e., salted cod fish.

Capella, subs. (theatrical).—A coat. [From the Italian.]

English Synonyms. Benjamin; cover-me-decently; upper benjamin (a great coat); joseph; wrap-rascal; bum-cooler or arse-hole-perisher, or shaver (a short jacket); claw-hammer, swallow-tail, steel-pen (all three = a dress coat); M.B. coat; panu-*petaston; rock-a-low; reliever; pygostole; ulster; monkey-jacket. See also Caster, many synonyms of which = a coat.

French Synonyms. Un cache-misère (familiar: specially applied to a coat buttoned close to the throat to conceal the absence of a shirt or the soiled state of one's linen); un alpague (also alpaga and alpag); un elbeuf; un Berry (a fatigue jacket); une menuisière (pop: a long coat); un ne-te-gêne-pas-dans-le-parc (a short jacket; also termed un saute-en-barque, un pet-en-l'air, and un montretout).

German Synonyms. Ober-*hänger (an overcoat; also a cloak). Wallnusch (Hanoverian: corruption from the Hebrew malbusch = clothes); Schwalbenschweif (a dress-coat, a 'swallow-tail').

Italian Synonym. Tappe (clothing in general; it also signifies 'feathers').

Cape-Nightingale, subs. (colonial).—A frog. Cf., Cambridgeshire nightingale.

1889. H. A. Bryden, Kloof and Karroo: or Sport, Legend, and Natural History in Cape Colony. The very smell of the water and the din of the huge frogs, cape nightingales as we call them, revived them.

Capeovi, adj. (costers').—Sick; seedy (q.v. for synonyms). Cf., Capivi.

Caper, subs. (vagrants').—A device, idea, performance, or occupation. Americans use it in the same sense as racket (q.v.), e.g., the 'real estate racket' or 'caper.' [From the figurative sense of caper, signifying a fantastic proceeding, freak, or prank.] Also used in the sense of 'the go,' 'the fad,' i.e., the latest fashionable fancy.

1867. London Herald, 23 March, p. 221. 'He'll get five years penal for this little caper,' said the policeman.

1870. C. Hindley, Life and Adventures of a Cheap Jack, p. 220. Charley would reply 'I have just done such and such an amount to-day with these people,' at the same time showing the invoice of the goods he had just purchased at the house where he got change for his fifty sovereigns. The conversation, as a rule, ended in Charley's giving them an order too. Of course, this little caper would only 'wash' once.

1884. J. Greenwood, The Little Ragamuffins. 'Are you goin' a 'tottin'?' 'No,' 'Then what caper are you up to?'

To cut a caper upon nothing, or to cut caper sauce, phr. (old).—To be hanged. For synonyms, see Ladder.

1708. Motteux, Rabelais. IV. xvi. Two of the honestest Gentlemen in Catch-pole-land had been made to cut a caper on nothing.

1834. H. Ainsworth, Rookwood, bk. III., ch. v. And my father, as I've heard say, Was a merchant of capers gay, Who cut his last fling with great applause.