subs. (old).—1. Chlorosis: i.e., the green sickness.
1719. D’URFEY, Wit and Mirth; or Pills to Purge Melancholy, i., 313. The maiden takes five too, that’s vex’d with her GREENS.
2. In pl. (printers’).—Bad or worn out rollers.
TO HAVE, GET, or GIVE ONE’S GREENS, verb phr. (venery).—To enjoy, procure, or confer the sexual favour. Said indifferently of both sexes.
Hence, also, ON FOR ONE’S GREENS = amorous and willing; AFTER ONE’S GREENS = in quest of the favour; GREEN-GROVE = the pubes; GREEN-GROCERY = the female pudendum; THE PRICE OF GREENS = the cost of an embrace; FRESH GREENS = a new PIECE (q.v.). [Derived by some from the old Scots’ grene = to pine, to long for, to desire with insistence: whence GREENS = longings, desires; which words may in their turn be referred, perhaps, to Mid. Eng., zernen, A.S., gyrnan, Icelandic, girna = to desire, and Gothic, gairns = desirous. Mod. Ger., begehren = to desire. See DALZIEL, Darker Superstitions of Scotland, 1835, p. 106:—‘He answered that he wald gif the sum Spanyie fleis callit cantarides, quhilk, gif thou suld move the said Elizabeth to drynk of, it wold mak hir out of all question to GRENE eftir the.’ Trial of Peter Hay, of Kirklands, and others, for Witchcraft, 25th May, 1601. But in truth, the expression is a late and vulgar coinage. It would seem, indeed, to be a reminiscence of GARDEN (q.v.), and the set of metaphors—as KAIL, CAULIFLOWER, PARSLEY BED, and so forth (all which see) suggested thereby.]
ENGLISH SYNONYMS.—TO BE all there but the most of you; in Abraham’s bosom; up one’s petticoats (or among one’s frills); there; on the spot; into; up; up to one’s balls; where uncle’s doodle goes; among the cabbages.
TO DANCE the blanket hornpipe; the buttock jig; the cushion dance (see MONOSYLLABLE); the goat’s jig; the mattress jig; the married man’s cotillion; the matrimonial polka; the reels o’ Bogie (Scots’); the reels of Stumpie (Scots’); to the tune of THE SHAKING OF THE SHEETS; with your arse to the ceiling, or the kipples (Scots’).
TO GO ballocking; beard-splitting; bed-pressing (Marston); belly-bumping (Urquhart); bitching (Marston); bum-fighting; bum-working; bum-tickling; bum-faking; bush-ranging; buttock-stirring (Urquhart); bird’s-nesting; buttocking; cockfighting; cunny-catching; doodling; drabbing; fleshing it; fieshmongering; goosing: to Hairyfordshire; jock-hunting; jottling; jumming (Urquhart); leather-stretching; on the loose; motting; molrowing; pile-driving; prick-scouring; quim-sticking; rumping; rump-splitting; strumming; twatting; twat-faking; vaulting (Marston, etc.); wenching; womanizing; working the dumb (or double, or hairy) oracle, twat-raking; tummy-tickling; tromboning; quim-wedging; tail-twitching; button-hole working; under-petticoating.
TO HAVE, or DO, A BIT OF BEEF (of women); business (Shakespeare); bum-dancing; cauliflower; cock; cock-fighting; cunt; curly greens; fish; on a fork; fun; off the chump end; flat; front-door work; giblet pie; the gut- (or cream- or sugar-) stick (of women); jam; ladies’ tailoring; meat; mutton; pork; quimsy; rough; sharp-and-blunt (rhyming slang); stuff; split-mutton; skirt; summer cabbage.
TO HAVE, or DO, or PERFORM, the act of androgynation (Urquhart); a ballocking; a bit; a lassie’s by-job (Burns); a bedward bit (D’URFEY); a beanfeast in bed; a belly-warmer; a blindfold bit; a bottom-wetter (of women); a bout; a brush with the cue; a dive in the dark; a drop-in; a double fight; an ejectment in Love-lane; a four-legged frolic; a fuck; a futter; a game in the cock-loft; a goose-and-duck (rhyming slang); the culbatizing exercise (Urquhart); a grind; a hoist-in; a jottle; a jumble-giblets; a jumble-up; an inside worry; a leap; a leap up the ladder; a little of one with t’other (D’URFEY); a mount; a mow (David Lyndsay, Burns, etc.); a nibble; a plaster of warm guts (Grose); a poke; a put; a put-in; a random push (Burns); a rasp; a ride; a roger; a rootle; a rush up the straight; a shot at the bull’s eye; a slide up the board; a squirt-and-a-squeeze; a touch-off; a touch-up; a tumble-in; a wet-’un; a wipe at the place; a wollop-in.
SPECIFIC.—TO HAVE, or DO, A BACK-SCUTTLE, (q.v.); a BUTTERED BUN (q.v.); a DOG’S MARRIAGE (q.v.); a KNEE-TREMBLER, PERPENDICULAR, or UPRIGHT (q.v.); a MATRIMONIAL (q.v.); SPOON-FASHION (q.v.); a ST. GEORGE (q.v.).
TO PLAY AT, All-fours; Adam-and-Eve; belly-to-belly (Urquhart); brangle-buttock (Urquhart); buttock-and-leave-her; cherry-pit (Herrick); couple-your-navels; cuddle-my-cuddie (D’URFEY); Hey Gammer Cook (C. Johnson); fathers-and-mothers; the first-game-ever-played; Handie-Dandie; Hooper’s Hide (q.v.); grapple-my-belly (Urquhart); horses-and-mares (schoolboys’); the close-buttock-game (Urquhart); cock-in-cover; houghmagandie (Burns); in-and-in; in-and-out; Irish-whist (where-the-JACK(q.v.)-takes-the-ACE [see MONOSYLLABLE]); the-loose-coat-game (Urquhart); Molly’s hole (schoolboys’); pickle-me-tickle-me (Urquhart); mumble-peg; prick-the-garter; pully-hauly (GROSE); put-in-all; the-same-old-game; squeezem-close; stable-my-naggie; thread-the-needle; tops-and-bottoms; two-handed-put (Grose); uptails-all.
GENERAL.—To Adam and Eve it; to blow the groundsels; to engage three to one; to chuck a tread; to do (Jonson); to do it; to do ‘the act of darkness’ (Shakespeare), the act of love, the deed of kind, the work of increase, ‘the divine work of fatherhood’ (Whitman); to feed the dumb-glutton; to get one’s hair cut; to slip in Daintie Davie (Scots’), or Willie Wallace (idem); to get Jack in the orchard; to get on top of; to give a lesson in simple arithmetic (i.e., addition, division, multiplication and subtraction); to give a GREEN GOWN (q.v.); to go ‘groping for trout in a peculiar river’ (Shakespeare); to go face-making; to go to Durham (North Country); to go to see a sick friend; to have it; to join faces (D’URFEY); to join giblets; to make ends meet; to make the beast with two backs (Shakespeare and Urquhart); to make a settlement in tail; to play top-sawyer; to put it in and break it; to post a letter; to go on the stitch; to labor lea (Scots’); to tether one’s nags on (idem); to nail twa wames thegither (idem); to lift a leg on (Burns); to ride a post (Cotton); to peel one’s end in; to put the devil into hell (Boccaccio); to rub bacons (Urquhart); to strop one’s beak; to strip one’s tarse in; to grind one’s tool; to grease the wheel; to take on a split-arsed mechanic; to take a turn in Bushey-park, Cock-alley, Cock-lane, Cupid’s-alley, Cupid’s-corner, Hair-court, ‘the lists of love’ (Shakespeare), Love-lane, on Mount Pleasant, among the parsley, on Shooter’s-hill, through the stubble; to whack it up; to wollop it in; to labour leather; to wind up the clock (Sterne).
OF WOMEN ONLY.—To get an arselins coup (Burns); to catch an oyster; to do the naughty; to do a spread, a tumble, a back-fall, what mother did before me; a turn on one’s back, what Eve did with Adam; to hold, or turn up one’s tail (Burns and D’URFEY); to get one’s leg lifted, one’s kettle mended, one’s chimney swept out, one’s leather stretched; to lift one’s leg; to open up to; to get shot in the tail; to get a shove in one’s blind eye; to get a wet bottom; what Harry gave Doll (D’URFEY); to suck the sugar-stick; to take in beef; to take Nebuchadnezzar out to grass; to look at the ceiling over a man’s shoulder; to get outside it; to play one’s ace; to rub one’s arse on (Rochester); to spread to; to take in and do for; to give standing room for one; to get hulled between wind and water; to get a pair of balls against one’s butt; to take in cream; to show (or give) a bit; to skin the live rabbit; to feed (or trot out) one’s PUSSY (q.v.); to lose the match and pocket the stakes; to get a bellyful of marrow pudding; to supple both ends of it (Scots’); to draw a cork; to get hilt and hair (Burns); to draw a man’s fireworks; to wag one’s tail (Pope); to take the starch out of; to go star-gazing (or studying astronomy) on one’s back; to get a GREEN GOWN (Herrick and D’URFEY); to have a hot pudding (or live sausage) for supper; to grant the favour; to give mutton for beef, juice for jelly, soft for hard, a bit of snug for a bit of stiff, a hole to hide it in, a cure for the HORN (q.v.), a hot poultice for the Irish toothache; to pull up one’s petticoats to; to get the best and plenty of it; to lie under; to stand the push; to get stabbed in the thigh; to take off one’s stays; to get touched up, a bit of the goose’s-neck, a go at the creamstick, a handle for the broom.
CONVENTIONALISMS.—To have connection; to have carnal, improper, or sexual intercourse; to know carnally; to have carnal knowledge of; to indulge in sexual commerce; to go to bed with; to lie with; to go in unto (Biblical); to be intimate; improperly intimate, familiar, on terms of familiarity with; to have one’s will of; to lavish one’s favours on; to enjoy the pleasures of love, or the conjugal embrace; to embrace; to have one’s way with; to perform connubial rites; to scale the heights of connubial bliss; to yield one’s favours (of women); to surrender, or give one the enjoyment of one’s person (of women); to use benevolence to; to possess. For other synonyms, see RIDE.
TO SEND TO DR. GREEN, verb. phr. (old).—To put out to grass.
1811. GROSE and CLARKE, Lexicon Balatronicum, s.v. My horse is not well, I shall send him to Doctor GREEN.
S’ELP ME GREENS! (or TATURS!) intj. (common).—A veiled oath of an obscene origin; see GREENS. For synonyms, see OATHS.
1851–61. H. MAYHEW, London Labour and the London Poor, vol. iii., p. 144. They’ll say, too, ‘S’ELP MY GREENS!’ and ‘Upon my word and say so!’
1891. Licensed Victuallers’ Gazette, 23 Jan. ‘Well, S’ELP ME GREENS,’ he cried, wiping his eyes and panting for breath, ‘if you arn’t the greatest treat I ever did meet; you’ll be the death o’ me, Juggins, you will. Why, you bloomin’ idiot, d’ye think if they had’nt been rogues we should have been able to bribe ’em?’
JUST FOR GREENS, adv. phr. (American).—See quot.
1848. W. T. THOMPSON, Major Jones’s Sketches of Travel, p. 7. I’ve made up my mind to make a tower of travel to the big North this summer, JEST FOR GREENS, as we say in Georgia, when we hain’t got no very pertickeler reason for any thing, or hain’t got time to tell the real one.
