This site may be going away; please consider the Donate link above... or LiberaPay:
A huge thank you to all who donated in 2025; 2026 Q1 Web hosting 0 / $400; planning a move to much cheaper hosting this quarter.
This site may be going away; please consider the Donate link above... or LiberaPay:
A huge thank you to all who donated in 2025; 2026 Q1 Web hosting 0 / $400; planning a move to much cheaper hosting this quarter.
A nick name for the purser of a ship: from those gentlemen being supposed sometimes to nip, or diminish, the allowance of the seamen, in that and every other article. It is also applied to stingy persons in general.
Definition taken from The 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue, originally by Francis Grose.
Nip * NipperkinNathan Bailey's 1736 Dictionary of canting and thieving slang
John S. Farmer's collection of canting songs and slang rhymes
Buy a modern reprint of this book from Amazon CA; US;
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.