Page:Farmer - Slang and its analogues past and present - Volume 6.pdf/322

 *feat. [The sponge used in cleansing a combatant's face was chucked up in sign of submission.]

1899. Hyne, Further Adv. of Captain Kettle, vi. Don't throw up the sponge until someone else does it for you.

Sponge-wit, subs. phr. (old).—A plagiarist.

Spoof, subs. (common).—Deception, a swindle: also the spoof-game. Also as verb. (or to play spoof).

1897. Marshall, Pomes, 10. Then 'e sets the gals a-screaming with a caper known as spoof, Playing monkey games on my old Uncle John.

Spook, subs. (colloquial).—A ghost. Whence spookish (or spooky) = ghostly.

Spoon, subs. (common).—1. A simpleton: spec. an absurd whole-hearted lover: also spooney; a rank spoon = 'a prating shallow fellow' (Vaux). Hence (2) = calf-love: e.g., a case of spoons. As verb. (to come the spoon, or to be spoons on) = to make love openly, innocently, and ridiculously. Also spoony = stupidly fond; spooniness = foolish fondness (Grose, Vaux, Bee).

1837. Barham, Ingolds. Leg., 'Witches' Frolic.' But you'll find very soon, if you aim at the moon, In a carriage like that, you're a bit of a spoon.

1838. Becket, Paradise Lost, 67. And I, at that time not suspicious Suck'd in her gammon like a spoony.

d. 1845. Hood, Morning Meditations. A man that's fond precociously of stirring must be a spoon.

1847. Bronte, James Eyre, xv. In short I began the process of ruining myself in the received style, like any other spoonie.

1848. Thackeray, Vanity Fair, xxxiv. What the deuce can she find in that spooney of a Pitt Crawley? The fellow has not pluck enough to say Bo to a goose.

1855. Tom Taylor, Still Waters, iii. 'A coolness, a self-possession I never should have expected from—from ' 'From such a spoon—that's what you mean, isn't it?'

1859. Lever, Davenport Dunn, lx. Not actually in love but only spoony.

1863. Reade, Hard Cash, Prol. What a good-natured spoon that Dodd is!

1869. Macm. Mag., Nov., 65. Yes, Captain Waldron averred, he was a spooney; that was the right name for a man who let himself be played with as she had played with him.

1885. Hawley Smart, Struck Down xi. A girl would rather make her way out by herself than with a fellow she's spoons on.

1887. Henley, Culture in Slums. Was it not prime—I leave you all to guess How prime! to have a jude in love's distress Come spooning round.

1888. Harper's Mag., lxxviii. 749. I ought to remember, for I was spoons on you myself for a week or two.

1897. Marshall, Pomes, 38. 'Twas an instance Of the danger attending unlimited spoons.

Verb. (American).—1. To nestle; to lie close; and 2. (venery). = to copulate while lying spoon-fashion, i.e., the bowl of one spoon in the other's.

1888. Harper's Mag., lxxvii. 49. 'Now spoon me.' Sterling stretched himself out on the warm flag-stone, and the boy nestled up against him. Ibid. (1886), lxxiv. 781. Two persons in each bunk, the sleepers spooning together, packed like sardines.

3. (cricketers').—To hit with a 'slack and horizontal' bat, causing the ball to rise in the air.

Phrases.—To stick one's spoon in the wall = to die; see Hop the Twig; to fill the mouth with empty spoons = to go hungry (Ray); to take with a big (or little) spoon = to take in large (or small) quantities: see Silver Spoon, and Wooden Spoon.