Page:Farmer - Slang and its analogues past and present - Volume 6.pdf/39

 Road, subs. (venery).—1. The female pudendum: also road to heaven (or paradise): see Monosyllable. Whence road-making (or road up for repairs) = menstruation. Also (2) a harlot.

1598. Shakspeare, 2 Hen. IV., ii. 2, 182. This Doll Tearsheet should be some road.

c.1796. Burns, Merry Muses, 112.

To take to the road, verb. phr. (various).—To turn highwayman (the road also = highway robbery); footpad; beggar; tramp; or commercial. Whence road-agent, gentleman (or knight) of the road = (1) a highwayman, and (2) a commercial traveller.

1704. [Ashton, Social Life, &c., 11. 242]. There is always some little Trifle given to Prisoners, they call Garnish; we of the road are above it.

1730. Swift, Capt. Creichton [Oliphant, New Eng., ii. 162. Among the verbs are go upon the road (as a highwayman) ].

1749. Smollett, Gil Bias [Routledge], 13. I do not think you are fool enough to make any bones about consorting with gentlemen of the road.

1883. Stevenson, Silverado Squatters, 15. The highway robber—road-agent, he is quaintly called.

1893. Standard, 29 Jan., 2. Now suppose we are on the road and we meet a josser policeman.

1895. Marriott-Watson [New Review, July, 8]. But if a gentleman of the road must be hindered by the impudent accidents of the weather, he had best settle down with empty pockets afore a mercer's counter.

Roaf, adj. (back slang).—Four. Hence Roaf-yanneps = fourpence; Roaf-gen = four shillings.

Roach-and-dace, subs. phr. (rhyming).—The face: see Dial.

Roadster, subs. (hunting).—A person who prefers the road to cross country riding.

1885. Field, 4 Ap. Once in a way the roadsters and shirkers are distinctly favoured.

Roarer, subs. (common).—Anything especially loud: e.g. (1) = a broken-winded horse (Grose); (2) a pushing newsvendor; (3) a stump-orator. Hence roar = (1) to breathe hard: of horses; (2) to rant (q.v.); roaring = the disease in horses causing broken wind.

1752. Johnson, Rambler, No. 144. The Roarer has no other qualifications for a champion of controversy than a hardened front and a strong voice.

1837. Peake, Quarter to Nine, 1. His horse is neither a crib biter nor a roarer.

d.1841. Hook, Man of Many Friends. His stalls at Melton inhabited by slugs and roarers.

1841. Thackeray, Sketches, 'A Night's Pleasure.' Cox's most roomy fly in which he insists on putting the roaring gray horse.

1847. Robb, Traits of Squatter Life, 64. Ben was an old Mississip' roarer.

1850. Stowe, Uncle Tom's Cabin, viii. Tom's a roarer when there's any thumping or fighting to be done.

1865. Evening Citizen, 7 Aug. One of a class of men known as roarers went round with a few evening papers which he announced to be "extraordinary editions."

1872. Figaro, 30 Nov. Greeley's too great a roarer, and depended too much on the stump.

1872. Eliot, Middlemarch, xxiii. The horse was a penny trumpet to that roarer of yours.

1883. D. Telegraph, 5 Jan., 2, 6. Prosecutor, after paying for the mare, discovered her to be a roarer.

Roaratorio, subs. (old).—An oratorio.—Grose (1785).