Slang, subs., adj., and verb. (old: now recognised).—See Terminal Essay and quots. As verb. = (1) to speak slang; and (2) to scold or abuse. As adj. = (1) relating to slang; (2) = low, unrefined; and (3) = angry: also slangy and slangular. Slanginess = the state of being slangy; slang-boys (or boys of the slang) (see quot. 1789); slangster = a master of flash (q.v.); slang-*whanger = a speaker addicted to slang: whence slangwhanging, and slangwhang, verb. = to scold; slangander (American) = to backbite; slangoosing (American) = tittle-tattle, back-biting, esp. of women.
1743. Fielding, Jonathan Wild, 'Advice to His Successor.' The master who teaches them [young thieves] should be a man well versed in the cant language, commonly called the slang patter, in which they should by all means excel.
1761. Foote, Lyar. [Oliphant, New Eng., ii. 180. A man begs "in the College cant" to tick a little longer (remain in debt); this cant was soon to make way for slang]. Ibid. (1762), Orators, 1. Foote. Have you not seen the bills? Scamper. What, about the lectures? ay, but that's all slang, I suppose, . . . no, no.
1785. Grose, Vulg. Tongue, s.v. Flash lingo. The canting or slang language. Ibid., Giles'. St. Giles Greek, the cant language, called also slang, Pedler's French, and Flash.
1789. Parker, Variegated Characters. Slang boys, fellows who speak the slang language which is the same as flash and cant.
1796. W. Taylor, Monthly Rev., xx. 543-4. The personages have mostly the manners and language of elegant middle life, removed alike from the rant of tragedy or the slang of farce.
1798. Anti-Jacobin, 5 Mar. Stanzas . . . conceived rather in the slang or Brentford dialect.
1807. Irving, Salmagundi, No. 14. It embraces alike all manner of concerns; . . . to the personal disputes of two miserable slangwhangers, the cleaning of the streets . . . Ibid. (1824). T. Trav., I. 373. Slang talk and cant jokes.
1809. Malkin, Gil Blas [Routledge], 47. He [a doctor] had got into reputation with the public by a certain professional slang.
1813. Edgeworth, Patronage, iii. The total want of proper pride and dignity . . . a certain slang and familiarity of tone, gave superficial observers the notion that he was good-natured.
1816. Gentleman's Mag., lxxxvi, 418. Unwilling to be a disciple of the stable, the kennel, and the sty, as of the other precious slang, the dialect of Newgate.
1817. Coleridge, Biog., II. xvi. To make us laugh by . . . slang phrases of the day.
1819. Robert Rabelais the Younger, Abeillard and Heloisa, 35. For filthy talk and slang discourse, They every day grow worse and worse.
1820. Blackwood's Mag., viii. 261. Living on the town, as it is slangishly called.
1821. De Quincey, Conf. (1862), 234. According to the modern slang phrase.
1823. Moncrieff, Tom and Jerry, 5. Flash, my young friend, or slang, as others call it, is the classical language of the Holy Land; in other words, St Giles's Greek.
1824. Scott, Redgauntlet, xiii. What did actually reach his ears was disguised so completely by the use of cant words and the thieves'-Latin called slang, that even when he caught the words, he found himself as far as ever from the sense of their conversation.
1827. Lytton, Pelham, xlix. We rowed, swore, slanged.
1830. Knight, Tr. Acharnians, 106. Drunk he shall slang with the harlots.
1837. Hood, 'Ode to Rae Wilson.' With tropes from Billingsgates' slangwhanging Tartars. Ibid. (1845), 36. Tale of a Trumpet. The smallest urchin whose tongue could tang Shock'd the dame with a volley of slang.
1840. Hood, Up the Rhine, 62. In spite of a slang air, a knowing look, and the use of certain insignificant phrases that are most current in London . . .
1845. N. Y. Com. Advtr., 10 Oct. Part of the customary slang-whanging against all other nations which is habitual to the English press.
