E
- Earnest
- A deposit in part of payment, to bind a bargain.
- Earth Bath
- A Grave.
- Easy
- Make the cull easy or quiet; gag or kill him. As easy as pissing the bed.
- Easy Virtue
- A lady of easy virtue: an impure or prostitute.
- Eat
- To eat like a beggar man, and wag his under jaw; a jocular reproach to a proud man. To eat one's words; to retract what one has said.
- Edge, To
- To excite, stimulate, or provoke; or as it is vulgarly called, to egg a man on. Fall back, fall edge; i.e. let what will happen. Some derive to egg on, from the Latin word, AGE, AGE.
- Eight Eyes
- I will knock out two of your eight eyes; a common Billingsgate threat from one fish nymph to another: every woman, according to the naturalists of that society, having eight eyes; viz. two seeing eyes, two bub-eyes, a bell-eye, two pope's eyes, and a ***-eye. He has fallen down and trod upon his eye; said of one who has a black eye.
- Elbow Grease
- Labour. Elbow grease will make an oak table shine.
- Elbow Room
- Sufficient space to act in. Out at elbows; said of an estate that is mortgaged.
- Elbow Shaker
- A gamester, one who rattles Saint Hugh's bones, i.e. the dice.
- Elf
- A fairy or hobgoblin, a little man or woman.
- Ellenborough Lodge
- The King's Bench Prison. Lord Ellenborough's teeth; the chevaux de frize round the top of the wall of that prison.
- Emperor
- Drunk as an emperor, i.e. ten times as drunk as a lord.
- English Burgundy
- Porter.
- Ensign Bearer
- A drunken man, who looks red in the face, or hoists his colours in his drink.
- Equipt
- Rich; also, having new clothes. Well equipt; full of money, or well dressed. The cull equipped me with a brace of meggs; the gentleman furnished me with. a couple of guineas.
- Essex Lion
- A calf; Essex being famous for calves, and chiefly supplying the London markets.
- Essex Stile
- A ditch; a great part of Essex is low marshy ground, in which there are more ditches than Stiles.
- Eve's Custom-house
- where Adam made his first entry. The monosyllable.
- Eves
- Hen roosts.
- Eves Dropper
- One that lurks about to rob hen-roosts; also a listener at doors and windows, to hear private conversation.
- Evil
- A halter. CANT, Also a wife.
- Ewe
- A white ewe; a beautiful woman. An old ewe, drest lamb fashion; an old woman, drest like a young girl.
- Execution Day
- Washing day.
- Expended
- Killed: alluding to the gunner's accounts, wherein the articles consumed are charged under the title of expended. Sea phrase.
- Eye
- It's all my eye and Betty Martin. It's all nonsense, all mere stuff.
- Eye-sore
- A disagreeable object. It will be an eye-sore as long as she lives, said by a limn whose wife was cut for a fistula in ano.