1857. Snowden, Magistrates' Assistant, 3rd ed., p 444. To steal a muff. To free a cat.
1859. Matsell, Vocabulum, or Rogue's Lexicon, s.v.
1882. McCabe, New York, ch. xxxiv., p. 509. (Given in list of slang terms.)
Free-fucking, subs. (venery).—General lewdness. Also the favour gratis. Also fidelity to the other sex at large.
Free of Fumbler's Hall, adv. phr. (venery).—Impotent; unable to do 'the trick.' [Fumbler's Hall = female pudendum.]
1785. Grose, Vulg. Tongue s.v., A saying of one who cannot get his wife with child.
Free, gratis,—for nothing, phr. (common).—A pleonastic vulgarism. Cf., On the dead.
To make free with both ends of the busk, verb. phr. (venery).—To take liberties with a woman. Cf., Both ends of the busk.
Free of the house, adj. phr. (colloquial).—Intimate; privileged to come and go at will.
Free of the bush, adj. phr. (venery).—On terms of extreme intimacy. See Bush.
[For the rest, the commonest sense of free is one of liberality: e.g., free of his foolishness = full of chaff; free-handed = lavish in giving; free-hearted = generously disposed; free of her favours = liberal of her person: free of his patter = full of talk.]
Free-and-Easy, subs. (common).—A
social gathering where you
smoke, drink, and sing; generally
held at a public house.
1796. (In Bee's Dict. of the Turf, published 1823, s.v.). Twenty seven years ago the cards of invitation to that (free-and-easy) at the 'Pied Horse,' in Moorfields, had the notable 'N.B.—Fighting allowed.'
1810. Crabbe, The Borough, Letter 10. Clubs. Next is the club, where to their friends in town, Our country neighbours once a-month come down; We term it free-and-easy, and yet we Find it no easy matter to be free.
1811. Lexicon Balatronicum. Free-and-easy Johns. A society which meets at the Hole in the Wall, Fleet Street, to tipple porter, and sing bawdry.
1821. Egan, Tom and Jerry (ed. 1890), p 91. Blew a cloud at a free-and-easy.
1843. Macaulay. Essays: Gladstone on Church and State. Clubs of all ranks, from those which have lined Pall-Mall and St. James's Street with their palaces, down to the free-and-easy which meets in the shabby parlour of the village inn.
1869. Mrs. H. Wood, Roland Yorke, ch. xii. He tilted himself on to a high stool in the middle of the room, his legs dangling, just as though he had been at a free and-easy meeting.
1880. Jas. Greenwood, Odd People in Odd Places, p. 64. A roaring trade is done, for instance, on a Saturday evening at the 'Medley' in Hoxton, a combination of theatre and music-hall, and serves as a free-and-easy chiefly for boys and girls.
1891. Cassell's Saturday Journal, Sept., p. 1068, col. 3. The free and easy of to-day among us is a species of public-house party, at which much indifferent liquor and tobacco are consumed, songs are sung, and speeches are got rid of.
Freebooker, subs. (journalists').—A
'pirate' bookseller or
publisher; a play on the word
freebooter.
Free fight, subs. (colloquial).—A
general mellay.
1877. W. Mark, Green Past. and Picc., ch. xxx. That vehement German has been insisting on the Irish porters bringing up all our luggage at once; and as there has been a sort of free fight below he comes fuming upstairs.
