liar colloquialism for a pert, saucy, young woman; like 'wench,' 'rogue,' 'gypsy,' it is often used endearingly.
1693. Congreve, Old Batchelor, I., iii. I believe the baggage loves me.
1732. Fielding, The Miser, Act i., Sc. 9. Here's a baggage of a daughter, who refuses the most advantageous match that ever was offered.
1863. Alex. Smith, Dreamthorpe, p. 12. And Beauty, who is something of a coquette . . . goes off in a huff. Let the baggage go!
3. (old).—A whore or strumpet; a woman of loose morals.
4. (old).—Rubbish; 'rot.'
1575. Touchstone of Complexions, p. 118. For throughe cruditye and lacke of perfect concoction in the stomacke is engendered great abundance of naughty baggage and hurtful phlegme.
1576. Gascoigne, The Steele Glas, p. 79. When brewers put no bagage in their beere.
Adj. (old).—Used contemptuously of individuals and things. Cf., Baggage—a worthless, good-for-nothing woman.
1593. G. Harvey, Pierees Superero, in works (Gresart) II., 273. Bibbing Nash, baggage Nash, swaddish Nash, rogish Nash, the bellweather of the scribling flocke.
1692. Hacket, Life of Williams, ii., 128. For four cellars of wine, syder, ale, beer, with wood, hay, corn, and the like, stored up for a year or two, he gave not account of sixpence, but spent it upon baggage, and loose franions. Ibid, p. 123. Booth himself confest, in the hearing of those witnesses, that Pregion had nothing to do with that baggage woman.
Baggage-Smasher, subs. (American).—1. A railway porter. The why and wherefore of this nickname is abundantly apparent from the following quotations.
1871. De Vere, Americanisms, p. 358. The baggage-smasher, as the porter is commonly called, handles his burdens with appalling recklessness, and responsibility there is none.
1880. New Viginians, i., 37. 'Called baggage-smashers. [M.]
1888. Texas Siftings, Nov. 3. Fashionable people who have spent the summer at the watering places or at the seaside, but have now returned to the cities, assert that the baggage-smasher has become more destructive than ever. The baggage-smasher is indeed a terror. In fact there are two of them: the one who flits from station to station and dumps your poor dumb trunk with force enough to drive piles in a government breakwater, and the one who loiters around the depôt watching for his chance to shatter your baggage. The depôt baggageman is the most culpable of the two species. In his long and dark career of smashing trunks, he has, evidently, knocked the hoops off his conscience, and there is no remorse brave, foolhardy and reckless enough to tackle his heart-strings and play on them.
2. Also a thief who hangs about 'depôts,' with a view to robbery of luggage.
1861. New York Tribune, Nov. 23. Gamblers, ticket-swindlers, emigrant robbers, baggage-smashers, and all the worst classes of the city.
Bagged, ppl. adj. (American).—A term used to signify imprisonment and victimization—probably only an extension of the idea of capture as derived from sport, through the slang 'to bag,' i.e., to steal. Cf., To bag.
Bagging, subs. (provincial slang).—In the first instance, food taken between regular meals; now generally applied, especially in Lancashire, to what is known in the South of England as 'high tea.'
1750. J. Collier, in Lancashire Glossary (E.D.S.). Hoo'l naw cum agen till baggin' time. [m.]
1870. Chambers' Journal, Oct., p. 661. Lancashire adopts the whole-board or partial-board system very extensively. The local term of bagging implies bread and cheese, or pies; and there are all
