Page:Farmer - Slang and its analogues past and present - Volume 7.pdf/313

 Verb (common).—To roll the neck and body from side to side: of horses. Also (American) = to walk unsteadily, to make snakes (q.v.): as a shuttle in a loom: spec. of drunken men: usually with along, about, etc.

1884. Clemens, Huckleberry Finn. He began in earnest too; and went weaving first to one side of the platform and then the other.

Weaving, subs. (gaming).—A card-sharping trick: cards are kept on the knee, or between the knee and the under side of the table, and used when required by changing them for cards held in the hand (Hotten).

Web-foot State, subs. phr. (American).—Oregon.

Wedding, subs. (old).—Cesspool emptying: 'because always done in the night' (Grose).

Wedge, subs. (Old Cant).—1. Generic for money: spec. silver, money or plate: see Rhino (Grose). Hence wedge-feeder = a silver spoon; wedge-lobb = a silver snuff-box; wedge-yack = a silver watch; wedge-hunter = a thief, spec. one devoting attention to silver plate, watches, etc.; to flash the wedge = to fence (q.v.) the swag (q.v.).

1832. Egan, Book of Sports. He valued neither cove nor swell, for he had wedge snug in his clie.

1839. Ainsworth, Jack Sheppard [1889], 70. Near to these hopeful youths sat a fence, or receiver, bargaining with a clouter, or pickpocket, for a 'suit,' two 'cloaks,' and a wedge-lobb.

1879. Horsley, Jottings from Jail [Macm., xl. 500]. They told me all about the wedge, how I should know it by the ramp.

1891. Carew, Auto. of a Gypsy, 417. Nat swore I must'er been scammered and 'ad made a mistake in sampling the wedge.

2. (Cambridge University).—The last in the classical tripos (q.v.) list: also wooden wedge: in 1824, on the publication of the first list the position was occupied by a T. H. Wedgewood.

To knock out the wedges, verb. phr. (American).—To desert, 'leave in the lurch' (q.v.), abandon one in a difficulty.

The thin (or small) end of the wedge, subs. phr. (colloquial).—A first move (or a beginning), seemingly trivial, but calculated to lead to important results, 'a finger in the pie,' a manœuvre, shift, artifice.

Wedlock, subs. (old).—A wife.

1601. Jonson, Poetaster, iv. 1. Which of these is thy wedlock, Menelaus? thy Helen, thy Lucrece? that we may do her honour, mad boy.

Wee, adj. (colloquial).—Small, little, tiny: also weeny (which also see).

1596. Shakspeare, Merry Wives, i. 4. 22. No, forsooth: he hath but a little wee face, with a little yellow beard, a Cain-coloured beard.

1814. Scott, Waverley, lxxi. I made up a wee bit minute of an ante-nuptial contract.

Weed, subs. (common).—1. A cigar, a Newtown pippin (q.v.). Also the weed = tobacco: cf. Cabbage.

1844. Puck, 14. With his weed in his cheek and his glass on his eye, His cutaway neat, and knowing tie, The milliners' hearts he did trepan My spicy swell small-college man.