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David’s Sow (Grose 1811 Dictionary)

David’s Sow

As drunk as David’s sow; a common saying, which took its rise from the following circumstance: One David Lloyd, a Welchman, who kept an alehouse at Hereford, had a living sow with six legs, which was greatly resorted to by the curious; he had also a wife much addicted to drunkenness, for which he used sometimes to give her due correction. One day David’s wife having taken a cup too much, and being fearful of the consequences, turned out the sow, and lay down to sleep herself sober in the stye. A company coming in to see the sow, David ushered them into the stye, exclaiming, there is a sow for you! did any of you ever see such another? all the while supposing the sow had really been there; to which some of the company, seeing the state the woman was in, replied, it was the drunkenest sow they had ever beheld; whence the woman was ever after called David’s sow.

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

David Jones’s Locker * Davy

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.

Darbies
Darby
Dark Cully
Darkee
Darkmans
Darkman’s Budge
Dart
Dash
David Jones
David Jones’s Locker
David’s Sow
Davy
To Dawb
Day Lights
Dead Cargo
Dead Horse
Dead-louse
Dead Men
Deadly Nevergreen
Dear Joys
Death Hunter