verb (old).—1. To hang: see LADDER. Whence, NECKCLOTH (NECKINGER, NECKLACE, NECK-SQUEEZER, or NECKTIE) = a halter; NECKTIE-SOCIABLE = a hanging done by a Vigilance Committee; NECK-QUESTION = a hanging matter something vital; NECK-VERSE, see quot. 1696; NECK-WEED = hemp, or GALLOWS-GRASS (q.v.); TO WEAR A HEMPEN NECKTIE, etc. = to be hanged.
d. 1536. TYNDALE, Workes, 112. Yet to setfoorth a NECKEUERSE to saue all maner of trespassers, from the feare of the sword.
1578. WHETSTONE, Promos and Cassandra, iv., 4. And it behoves me to be secret, or else my NECK-VERSE cun [con].
1578. LYTE, trans. Dodoens’s A Niewe Herball, or Historie of Plantes, 72. Hempe is called in … English … NECKEWEEDE, & Gallowgrasse.
1578. The History of King Lier [Six Old Plays, ii., 410].
| Messenger. Madam, I hope your grace will stand | |
| Betweene me and my NECK-VERSE, if I be | |
| Call’d in question, for opening the king’s letters. |
1586. MARLOWE, The Jew of Malta, iv., 4. Within forty foot of the gallows conning his NECK-VERSE.
1587. GREENE, Menaphon [GROSART, Works (1886), vi., 15]. A sort of shifting companions, that … busie themselues with the indeuors of Art, that could scarcelie latinize their NECKE-VERSE if they should haue neede.
1593. G. HARVEY, Pierce’s Supererogation [GROSART, Works (1884–5), ii., 281]. For thy penne is as very a Gentleman Foist, as any pick-purse liuing: and, that which is most-miserable, not a more famous NECKVERSE, than thy choice.
1630. TAYLOR (‘The Water Poet’), Workes, ‘The Praise of Hemp-seed.’
| Some call it NECK-WEED, for it hath a tricke | |
| To cure the necke that’s troubled with the crick |
1637. MASSINGER, The Guardian, iv., 1.
| For the credit of your calling, have not your instruments | |
| To tune when you should strike up; but twang it perfectly, | |
| As you would read your NECK-VERSE. |
1647. BEAUMONT and FLETCHER, Bonduca, iv. 1.
| What’s the crime committed | |
| That they wear NECKLACES? |
1655. FULLER, The Church History of Britain. These words, ‘bread and cheese,’ were their NECK-VERSE or shibboleth to distinguish them.
1659. C. CLOBERY, Divine Glimpses of a Maiden Muse [quoted in A Dictionary of Slang, Jargon & Cant].
| At the assizes fear not to appear;The judge will read thy NECK-VERSE for thee here. |
1662. Rump Songs, ‘The Rump Dockt,’ ii., 45.
| Instead of NECK-VERSE | |
| Shall have it writ on his Herse, | |
| Here hangs one of the Kings Tryers. |
1678. COTTON, Virgil Travestie, in Works (1725), Bk. iv., p. 133.
| Seeing the Rope | |
| Ty’d to the Beam i’th’ Chamber-Top, | |
| With neat alluring Noose, her sick Grace | |
| E’en long’d to wear it for a NECKLACE. |
c. 1696. B. E., A New Dictionary of the Canting Crew, s.v. NECK-VERSE. A Favor (formerly) indulged to the Clergy only, but (now) to the Laity also, to mitigate the Rigor of the Law, as in Man-slaughter, etc. Reading a verse out of an old Manuscript Latin Psalter (tho’ the Book now used by the Ordinary is the same Printed in an Old English Character) save the Criminal’s Life. Nay now even the Women (by a late Act of Parliament) have (in a manner) the benefit of their Clergy, tho’ not so much as put to Read; for in such cases where the men are allow’d it; the Women are of course sizz’d in the Fist, without running the risque of a Halter by not Reading.
1710 Old Song (in The British Apollo).
| If a clerk had been taken | |
| For stealing of bacon, | |
| For burglary, murder, or rape, | |
| If he could but rehearse | |
| (Well prompt) his NECK-VERSE, | |
| He never could fail to escape. |
1725. A New Canting Dictionary, s.v.
1755. JOHNSON, A Dictionary of the English Language, s.v.
1785. GROSE, A Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue. The … NECK VERSE … was the first verse of the fifty-first psalm, Miserere mei, etc.
c. 1816. Old Song, ‘The Night before Larry Was Stretched,’ [FARMER, Musa Pedestris (1896), 79]. For the NECKCLOTH I don’t care a button.
1823. GROSE, A Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue [EGAN], s.v.
1859. G. W. MATSELL, Vocabulum; or, The Rogue’s Lexicon, s.v.
1878. J. H. BEADLE, Western Wilds [BARTLETT], 45. He joined the Vigilantes, and had the pleasure of presiding at a ‘NECK-TIE SOCIABLE’ where two of the men who had robbed him were hanged.
1886. Notes and Queries, 7 S., ii., 98. NECKINGER is nothing more than neckerchief, but implies, I think, its proximity to a place of execution, the ‘Devil’s Neckerchief on the way to Redriffe,’ which sign would further imply that it was euphemistic or slang for the gallows, the rope, or the hempen collar.
2. (old colloquial).—To swallow. Also TO WASH THE NECK.—BEE (1823).
NECK AND CROP, adv. (colloquial).—See quot. 1823.
1823. BADCOCK (‘Jon Bee’), Dictionary of the Turf, etc., s.v. NECK AND CROP. Turn him out NECK AND CROP, is to push one forth all of a heap, down some steps or stairs being understood, so that the patient may pitch upon his neck (or head).
1836. DICKENS, Pickwick Papers (1857), 125. When I was first pitched NECK AND CROP into the world to play at leap frog with its troubles, replied Sam.
1847. BULWER-LYTTON, Lucretia, II., xx. I was a-thinking of turning her out NECK AN’ CROP.
NECK OR NOTHING, adv. (colloquial).—At every risk; desperately.
1708–10. SWIFT, Polite Conversation, 1. NECK OR NOTHING; come down or I’ll fetch you down.
1731. FIELDING, The Grub-Street Opera, ii. 4. It is always NECK OR NOTHING with you.
1747. W. DARREL, The Gentlemen Instructed, 526. The world is stock’d with NECK OR NOTHING; with men that will make over by retail an estate of a thousand pound per annum to a lawyer in expectation of being pleaded into another of two hundred.
1766. GARRICK, Neck or Nothing [Title].
1842. DICKENS, American Notes, iv., 38. And dashes on haphazard, pell-mell, NECK-OR-NOTHING, down the middle of the road.
1870. Daily News, 31 March. ‘On Acrobats.’ It must be literally NECK OR NOTHING with him, neck or 35s. per week.
1896. G. A. SALA, London up to Date, 39. We resolved for once on a NECK-OR-NOTHING outing.
NECK AND NECK, adv. (colloquial).—Close; almost equal: as horses in a race.
1861–2. EARL STANHOPE, Life of Pitt, xxii. After two NECK AND NECK votes the same evening, the final numbers were 54 against 54.
1864. London Society, Oct., 389. Number 1 waltzes all round her affections, but No. 2 sings like ‘ten cherubs,’ and he finds her out at concerts, and comes to five o’clock tea. It is NECK-AND-NECK between Nos. 1 and 2.
ON (or IN) THE NECK OF, phr. (colloquial).—Close upon, or behind.
1598. SHAKESPEARE, 1 Henry IV., iv. 3. And IN THE NECK OF that tasked the whole state.
1775. ASH, Dictionary, s.v. NECK … ON THE NECK, immediately after.
TO WIN (or LOSE) BY A NECK, verb. phr. (colloquial).—To win (or lose) by next to nothing.
TO BREAK THE NECK OF ANYTHING, verb. phr. (colloquial).—To get the worst part done: see quot.
1775. ASH, Dictionary, s.v. NECK … TO BREAK THE NECK, to do more than half, to hinder from being done.
1855. Brooklyn Journal, 18 April. Mr. Schumacher defended his client by observing that some of the prisoners’ attorneys got as often SHOT IN THE NECK as the Under-Sheriff did in the head.
UNABLE TO NECK IT, phr. (colloquial).—Lacking moral courage.
Also see SHUT.
