Cabbage (Grose 1811 Dictionary)

Cabbage

Cloth, stuff, or silk purloined by taylors from their employers, which they deposit in a place called hell, or their eye: from the first, when taxed, with their knavery, they equivocally swear, that if they have taken any, they wish they may find it in hell; or, alluding to the second, protest, that what they have over and above is not more than they could put in their eye.—When the scrotum is relaxed or whiffled, it is said they will not cabbage.

Definition taken from The 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue, originally by Francis Grose.

Cab

Nearby

Nathan Bailey's 1736 Dictionary of canting and thieving slang

John S. Farmer's collection of canting songs and slang rhymes

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About

Francis Grose was independently wealthy, having inherited money from his father, a jeweller. Finding himself overspending, he published a number of books; his Provincial Glossary seems to have been the starting-point for the Vulgar Tongue reproduced here.