Page:Farmer - Slang and its analogues past and present - Volume 7.pdf/372

 Y-Y, insep. suffix (Manchester Grammar School).—Mathy = mathematics; chemmy = chemistry; gymmy = gymnastics; etc.

Yack, subs. (thieves').—A watch. To church (or christen) a yack = to change the case, or substitute a fictitious inscription, in order to prevent identification.

1851-61. Mayhew, Lond. Lab., ii. 57. At last he was bowled out in the very act of nailing a yack.

1857. Ducange Anglicus, Vulg. Tongue, 38. He told me as Bill had flimped a yack.

1868. Doran, Saints and Sinners, II. 290. The [thieves] church their yacks when they transpose the works of stolen watches to prevent identification.

Yaff, verb (colloquial).—To talk pertly: also yaffle. [Properly yaff = to bark or yelp.]

Yaffle, subs. (provincial).—An armful.

Verb (Old Cant).—1. To eat (Halliwell).

2. (colloquial).—To snatch, to pilfer, to take illicitly.

3. See Yaff.

Yahoo, subs. (common).—A generic reproach: spec. a rough, brutal, uncouth character. In America = a back-country lout, a greenhorn (Bartlett). [A name given by Swift in his Gulliver's Travels (1726) to a race of brutes, described as having human forms and vicious and degraded propensities. They were subject to the Houyhnhnms, or horses endowed with human reason.] As adj. = boorish, loutish, uncouth.

1772. Graves, Spiritual Quixote, iv. x. To see a noble creature start and tremble at the passionate exclamation of a mere yahoo of a stable-boy equally excites my pity and my indignation.

d.1790. Warton, Newmarket, 170 That hated animal, a Yahoo squire.

1861. Kingsley, Ravenshoe, lv. 'And what sort of fellow is he?' said Lord Saltire; 'a Yahoo, I suppose?' 'Not at all; he is a capital fellow, a perfect gentleman.'

1900. Savage, Brought to Bay, v. You frontier yahoos know nothing but herding cattle.

Yallow. See Yellow.

Yam, subs. (nautical).—Food; grub (q.v.). As verb = to eat.

Yank, subs. (American).—1. A Yankee (q.v.): 'an abbreviation universally applied by the Confederates to the soldiers of the Union armies' (Bartlett).