A Dictionary of Slang, Jargon & Cant, embracing English, American, and Anglo-Indian slang, pidgin English, tinkers’ jargon and other irregular phraseology. 2 vols

Albert Barrère and Charles G. Leland

A Dictionary of Slang, Jargon & Cant, embracing English, American, and Anglo-Indian slang, pidgin English, tinkers’ jargon and other irregular phraseology. 2 vols

London

Ballantyne Press

1889–90

The French writer Albert Marie Victor Barrère teamed up with a folklorist, Philadelphian Charles Godfrey Leland, to focus on the “irregular phraseology” of Britain and America, including, for the first time, words derived from Yiddish. The vocabulary can be charming, as with taradiddles (“falsehoods”), affygraphy (“said of anything that fits nicely”), flush in the fob (“well supplied with money”), muzzy (“drunk”), and the needful (“money”). Other entries, though, are less endearing, especially those from the late-Victorian demimonde. 

Ex coll. Karolyne & Bryan A. Garner. HHD no. 113