subs. (costers’).—A handkerchief with yellow patterns upon a green ground; the favourite coloured neckerchief of the costermongers. Sometimes worn by women thrown over their shoulders: cf. BILLY.
1851–61. H. MAYHEW, London Labour and the London Poor, i. 53. The man who does not wear his silk neckerchief—his ‘KING’S-MAN’ as it is called—is known to be in desperate circumstances; the inference being that it has gone to supply the morning’s stock-money. A yellow flower on a green ground, or a red and blue pattern, is at present greatly in vogue.
2. (Cambridge university).—A member of King’s College.
1852. BRISTED, Five Years in an English University, 127. He came out the winner, with the KINGSMAN, and one of our three.
3. In pl. (military).—The Seventy-eighth Foot. [Their motto is Cuidich’r Rhi = Help the King].
