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GILES’S BREED. Fat, ragged, and saucy; Newton and Dyot streets, the grand head-quarters-of most of the thieves and pickpockets about London, are in St. Giles’s parish. St. Giles’s Greek; the cant language, called also Slang, Pedlars’ French, and Flash.
Definition taken from The 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue, originally by Francis Grose.
To Giggle * GilflurtNathan Bailey's 1736 Dictionary of canting and thieving slang
John S. Farmer's collection of canting songs and slang rhymes
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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.