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. 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. Lond. Lab. and Lond. Poor, vol. iii., p. 144. They'll say, too, s'elp my greens! and 'Upon my word and say so!'
1891. Licensed Vict. Gaz., 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. Jones, 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 anything, or hain't got time to tell the real one.
Green-apron, subs. (old).—A lay
preacher. Also adjectively. For
synonyms, see Devil-Dodger
and Sky-Pilot.
1654. Warren, Unbelievers, 145. It more befits a green-apron preacher, than such a Gamaliel.
1705. Hickeringill, Priestcraft, I. (1721) 21. Unbeneficed Noncons. (that live by Alms and no Paternoster, no Penny, say the green-aprons).
1765. Tucker, Lt. Nat., II., 451 The gifted priestess amongst the Quaker is known by her green apron.
Green-back, subs. (common).—1
A frog.
2. (University).—One of Todhunter's series of mathematical text-books. (Because bound in green cloth. Cf., Blue-ruin.)
3. (American).—The paper issue of the Treasury of the United States; first sent out in 1862 during the civil war. [From the backs being printed in green.] Hence green-backer = an advocate for an unlimited issue or paper money.
1873. Echo, 8 May. This was accomplished by the issue of legal tender notes, popularly known as greenbacks.
1877. Clemens, Life on the Mississippi, ch. lvii., p. 499. Anything in the semblance of a town lot, no matter how situated, was saleable, and at a figure which would still have been high if the ground had been sodded with greenbacks.
1891. Gunter, Miss Nobody of Nowhere, p. 228. Gussie can hear the crinkle of the greenbacks as he folds them up.
Green Bag, subs. (old).—A lawyer.
[From the green bag in which
robes and briefs were carried.
The colour is now blue, or, in
cases of presentation from seniors
to juniors, red.]
1690. B. E., Dict. Cant. Crew, s.v.
1785. Grose, Vulg. Tongue, s.v.
