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Cutpurse

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Now called “pickpocket.” The two words are of historical value. When purses were worn suspended from a girdle, thieves cut the string by which the purse was attached; but when pockets were adopted, and purses were no longer hung on the girdle, the thief was no longer a cutpurse, but became a pickpocket.

“To have an open ear, a quick eye, and a nimble hand, is necessary for a cutpurse.”—Shakespeare: Winter’s Tale, iv. 3.

 

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Entry taken from Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, edited by the Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D. and revised in 1895.

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Cut and Run
Cut Away
Cut Capers (To)
Cut it Short
Cut of his Jib
Cut Short
Cut up Rough (To)
Cuthbert
Cuthbert Bede
Cutler’s Poetry
Cutpurse
Cutter’s Law
Cuttle
Cutty
Cutty Pipe
Cutty Stool
Cwt
Cyanean Rocks (The)
Cycle
Cyclic Poets
Cyclopædia