Page:Farmer - Slang and its analogues past and present - Volume 7.pdf/211

 6. (American).—Threepence; 3d.: cf. Thrip, Threp, etc.

[?]. Hills, Vulg. Arith. [Century]. The same vingten is woorth our trip, or Eng. 3d., or woorth halfe a Spanish royall.

Tripe, subs. (once literary: now vulgar).—In pl. = the guts: whence the belly. Also in contempt both of persons and things; tripe-visaged = flabby, baggy, expressionless; Mr. Double-Tripe = a fat man: also tripes and trullibubs (Grose); tripe-cheek = a fat blowsy face.

1598. Shakspeare, 2 Henry IV., v. 4. 9. Thou tripe-visaged rascal.

1614. Jonson, Bartholomew Fair, iv. 3. Alice. Thou sow of Smithfield, thou! Urs. Thou tripe of Turnbull.

c. 1630. Howell, Letters, ii. The Turk, when he hath his Tripe full of Pelaw, or of Mutton and Rice, will go either to the next Well or River to drink Water.

1834. Hood, Tylney Hall, xxxv. I'm as marciful as any on 'em—and I'll stick my knife in his tripes as says otherwise.

Triplet, subs. (colloquial).—One of three at a birth; in pl. = three children at a birth.

1874. Flint, Physiology, 941. We have in mind at this moment a case of three females, triplets, all of whom lived past middle age.

Triple-tree, subs. phr. (Old Cant).—The gallows: see Nubbing-cheat, Ladder, and Tree.

d. 1635. Randolph [?], Hey For Honesty, iv. 1. This is a rascal deserves to ride up Holborn, And take a pilgrimage to the triple tree, To dance in hemp Derrick's coranto.

1641. Broome, Jovial Crew, i. What they may do hereafter under a, triple tree is much expected,

1694. Motteux, Rabelais, iv. xvi. That very hour from an exalted triple tree two of the honestest gentlemen in Catchpoleland had been made to cut a caper on nothing.

d. 1704. Brown, Works, iii. 62. A wry mouth on the triple tree puts an end to all discourse about us.

1855. Leland, Meister Karl. For whether I sink in the foaming flood, Or swing on the triple-tree, Or die in my bed as a Christian should, Is all the same to me!

Triple X's (The), subs. phr. (military).—The 30th Foot, now the 1st battalion East Lancashire Regiment. Also Treble X's.

Tripoly. To come from Tripoly, verb. phr. (old).—To vault or tumble; to perform with spirit (Halliwell).

Tripos, subs. (Cambridge Univ.).—Orig. the stool on which the champion of the University sat at the disputations held with the 'Father' in the Philosophy School on Ash Wednesday, at the admission of Bachelors of Arts to their degree; then it was transferred to the Bachelor himself; still later to the humorous, or, in some cases, scurrilous, speech with which 'Mr. Tripos' opened the proceedings, and to the verses of the Bachelors at the Acts, each sheet of verses being called a Tripos or Tripos-paper. The honours-lists were printed (about 1747-8) on the backs of these verses, and so tripos came to mean an honour-list, and, last of all, the examination itself. Until the year 1824 there was only one tripos, the Mathematical; and up to 1850 only those who had obtained honours in mathematics were admitted to the Classical examination. The degree was not given for that examination