Page:Farmer - Slang and its analogues past and present - Volume 7.pdf/9

 To strain one's taters, verb. phr. (common).—To urinate: see Piss.

Stram, subs. (colloquial).—1. A walk; spec. a society parade. As verb = to walk stiffly: also (provincial: Halliwell) = to dash down violently, to beat.

1869. Stowe, Oldtown, 508. I hed sech a stram this mornin'.

2. (venery).—See Strumpet.

Stramash, subs. (colloquial).—A disturbance; a rough and tumble (q.v.). As verb = to beat, bang, destroy.

1837. Barham, Ingolds. Leg. 'House Warming.' More calling and bawling, and squalling and falling, Oh, what a fearful stramash they're all in.

1855. Kingsley, Ravenshoe, xxxvi. I and three other University men had a noble stramash on Folly Bridge. That is the last fighting I have seen.

Strammel. See Strummel.

Strammer, subs. (colloquial).—Anything exceptional: see Whopper. Stramming = huge, great.

Stranded, adj., (colloquial).—Penniless; friendless.

1897. Marshall, Pomes, 26. Now, the bank was a trifle dyspeptic—a quid was its longest reach—And Yiffler could see himself stranded, for he sighted a pebbly beach.

Stranger, subs. (common).—1. A sovereign: formerly a guinea (Grose): see Rhino.

2. (common.)—A visitor: cf. the folk-saying of a badly burning candle, or a stalk in tea: 'A stranger's coming.'

Strangle-Goose, subs. phr. (old).—A poulterer (Grose).

Strap, subs. (old).—1. A barber. [Strap, a barber in Smollett's Roderick Random, 1748.]

2. (common).—Credit: orig. credit for drink. On strap = 'on tick' (q.v.); strapped = penniless, bankrupt. See Hard-up.

1857. Nat. Intelligencer, Oct. Lowndes is strapped; had to pay his wife's cousin's last quarter's rent, which consumed what he had reserved for current expenses.

1903. Kennedy, Sailor Tramp, 1. ix. 'Say, are you strapped?' 'Oh I'm not hard up. I'm all right.' Ibid., II. i. Why didn't you come to me when you were strapped?

Verb. (venery).—1. 'To lie with a woman': see Greens and Ride (B. E. and Grose).

2. (common).—To flog; to beat. Hence strapping (or a dose of strap-oil or oil of strap'em) = a thrashing; an April fool joke is to send a lad for 'a penn'orth of strap oil': cf. Stirrup-oil.

3. (Scots).—To hang.

1825. Scott, St Ronan's Well, xiv. It's a crime baith by the law of God and man, and mony a pretty man has been strapped for it.

4. (old).—To work (Grose).

See Blackstrap.

Strappado, subs. (old).—A form of torture: the culprit, his legs tied, was hoisted by a rope fastened to his arms behind his back, and was given a rapid descent stopped so suddenly that the jerk often dislocated the joints of arms and shoulders. This was repeated once or twice. Cf. Scavenger's Daughter.