1833. Marryat, Peter Simple, ch. xliii. 'Broached molasses, cask No. 1, letter A.'
1876. C. Hindley, Life and Adventures of a Cheap Jack, p. 229. 'Here's spoons for six, and tea and sugar for one. Sold again! and this time to my old sweetheart of all. She's a prime girl, she is; she is a number one, copper-bottomed, and can sail as well in her stays as out of her stays; she is full rigged, and carries a lot of canvas. But I must not tell tales out of school.'
1882. Punch, lxxxii. 181, 1. In Vino (et cetera) Veritas. 'What's up, old man? You seem to be out of sorts!' 'Snappe's been here. I begged him to give me his candid opinion about my pictures. He did!' 'Ah! I see! It differs from yours! Now when I want a fellow's candid opinion about my pictures, I ask him to dinner, give him a first-rate bottle of claret, a cup of A1 coffee, a glass of old cognac, and the best cigar money can buy, and then I show him my pictures, and I always find that his candid opinion coincides with my own.'
Eng. Synonyms. All brandy; the pure quill; about East (American); about right; at par; the cheese; all there; bang up; a corker; up to Dick; downy; fizzing; that's Bible; splash up; up to the nines; up to the knocker; down to the ground; slap up, etc.
French Synonyms. Abracadabrant, adj. (from Abracadabra); aux petits oignons (literally 'like small onions.' Cf., English, 'like a thousand of bricks,' and 'like winkey'); bath (adj.: also bate. In Argot and Slang the origin of the term is thus stated:--Towards 1848 some Bath notepaper of superior quality was hawked about in the streets of Paris, and sold at a low price. Thus 'papier bath' became synonymous of (sic) excellent paper. In a short time the qualifying term alone remained and received a general application); arriver bon premier (literally 'to arrive a good first').
(Fenian).--Sometimes erroneously No. 1. In the copy of Hotten's Slang Dictionary, annotated by H. J. Byron, the playwright, now in the British Museum, this is given as 'a title for the commander of 900 men."[**']
Aaron, subs. (thieves').--'The Aaron,' says H. O. Manton in Slangiana, 'is the chief or captain of a gang or school of thieves. The title is invariably preceded by the prefix The--par excellence the first--similar to the eldest representatives of certain Irish and Scotch clans or families, such as The O'Connor Don, The Chisholm, etc. As Aaron was the first high priest ....[**...] it is probably of Jewish origin in its slang application. An Aaron was an old cant term for one of a class of cadgers, who combined begging with acting as guide to the summits of mountains, chiefly to evade the laws against vagabondage, no doubt a play, in its slang sense, on its Hebrew equivalent, lofty.' In this last connection a closer relationship probably exists than that just stated, inasmuch as Gesenius thinks that the Hebrew Aaron is a derivative of H[=a]ron, a mountaineer. It is to be remarked that leaders of the church were also called Aarons.
A. B., or A. B. S. (commercial).--An able-bodied seaman.--See Bottle sucker.
1875. Chambers' Journal, No. 627. Of all the European sailors by far the most reliable were five stalwart A.B[**.]'s,[**. ?]
