queer-bit (-cole, -money, -paper, -screens, -soft, or queer) = base money, coin or notes (whence queer-shover; to shove the queer = to pass counterfeit money; and queer-bit maker = a coiner); queer-bluffer = a cut-throat innkeeper; queer-booze = poor lap, swipes (q.v.); queer-bung = an empty purse; queer-checker = a swindling box-keeper; queer-card (fellow, or fish) = a person strange in manner or views (also, in pl. = queer-cattle); queer-clout = a handkerchief not worth stealing; queer-cole-maker = a coiner; queer-cole-fencer = a receiver (or utterer) of base coin; queer-cove -bird, -cull, or -gill) = (1) a rogue, thief, or gaol-bird, (2) a fop, (3) a fool, and (4) a shabbily-dressed person; queer-cuffin = (1) a magistrate, a beak (q.v.), and (2) a churl; queer-degen = a poor sword; queer-diver = a bungling pick-*pocket; queer-doxy = (1) a jilting jade, and (2) an ill-dressed whore; queer-drawers = old or coarse stockings; queer-duke = (1) a decayed gentleman, and (2) a starveling; queer-'em (queer-'un or queer-'um) = the gallows; queer-fun = a bungled trick; queer-ken (or queer-ken-hall) = (1) a prison; and (2) a house not worth robbing; queer-kicks = tattered breeches; queer-mort = a dirty drab, a jilting wench, a pocky whore; queer-nab = a shabby hat; queer-peeper = (1) a mirror of poor quality, and (2), in pl. = squinting eyes; queer-plunger = a cheat working the drowning man and rescue dodge; queer-prancer = (1) a foundered whore, and (2) an old screw; queer-rooster = a police spy living among thieves; queer-topping = a frowsy wig; queer-wedge = base gold; queer-whidding = a scolding; queer-gammed = crippled; to queer = to spoil, to get the better of; to be queered = to be drunk; to tip the queer = to pass sentence; to be queer to (or on) = (1) to rob; (2) to treat harshly; in Queer Street = (1) in a difficulty, (2) = wrong, and (3) = hard-up.—Awdeley (1560); Harman (1567); Rowlands (1610); Head (1665); B. E. (c.1696); Coles (1724); Bailey (1726); Parker (1781); Grose (1785); Vaux (1812); Bee (1823).
1560. Awdeley, Fraternitye of Vacabondes, 4. A quire bird is one that came lately out of prison, and goeth to seeke seruice.
1567. Harman, Caveat, 85. It is quyer bouse (it is small and naughtye drynke).
1592. Greene, Quip [Grosart, Works (18..) xi. 283]. You can lift or nip a bounge like a quire coue, if you want pence.
1608. Dekker, Lanthorne and Candlelight [Grosart, Works (188), iii. 203]. To the quier cuffing we bing. Ibid. 196. In canting they terme a Justice of peace, because he punisheth them belike (by no other name than by quier cuffin, that is to say, a Churle, or a naughty man). Ibid. Then to the quier ken, to scoure the Cramp-ring.
1610. Rowlands, Martin Mark-all. 'Towre out ben Morts.' And the quire coves tippe the lowre. Ibid. But if we be spid we shall be clyd, And carried to the quirken hall.
1622. Fletcher, Beggar's Bush. We the cuffins quere defy.
1707. Shirley, Triumph of Wil [Farmer, Musa Pedestris (1896), 35]. Duds and Cheats thou oft has won, Yet the cuffin quire couldst shun.
