Page:Farmer - Slang and its analogues past and present - Volume 6.pdf/245

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Slantendicular, adj. (colloquial).—Indirect; a slant (q.v.). Also as adv.

1844. Haliburton, The Attache, xxviii. Pony got mad and sent the Elder right slap over his head slantendicularly, on the broad of his back, into the river.

1872. De Morgan, Budg. of Paradoxes, 289. He must put himself [in the Calendar] under the first saint, with a slantendicular reference to the other.


Slap, subs. (old).—1. Booty; plunder.

c.1790. Kilmainham Minit [Ireland Sixty Years Ago, 87]. And when dat he milled a fat slap, He merrily melted de winners.

2. (theatrical).—Make-up. Also as verb.: [cf. slap = to rough cast].

1897. Marshall, Pomes, 98. You could just distinguish faintly That she favoured the judicious use of slap.

Adj. (colloquial).—First-rate; smart (q.v.); prime (q.v.): also slap-up: cf. bang-up (Grose). Whence slapper = anything exceptional: see Whopper; slapping = very big, excellent.

1851-61. Mayhew, Lond. Lab., ii. 119. People's got proud now . . . and must have everything slap. Ibid., 122. A smart female servant in slap-up black.

1855. Thackeray, Newcomes, xxxi. Might it not be more slap-up still to have the two shields painted on the panels with the coronet over.

1859. Matsell, Vocabulum. Kerseymere kicksies . . . built very slap with the artful dodge.

1865. Dickens, O. M. Friend. A slap-up gal in a bang-up chariot.

1880. Ainsworth, Auriol. He's a regular slap-up swell.

1885. Stage, 129. Whitechapel costers, who wore slap-up kicksies.

Adv. (colloquial).—Violently; plump; offhand: also slap-bang, slam-bang and slap-dash. as subs. = (1) careless work, and (2) indiscriminate action; as verb. = to go recklessly to work.

1671. Buckingham, Rehearsal [Arber], 67. He is upon him, slap, with a repartee; then he is at him again, dash, with a new conceit.

1693. Congreve, Old Batchelor, iv. 9. I am slap dash down in the mouth, and have not one word to say.

1705. Vanbrugh, Confederacy, iv. Very genteel, truly! Go, slap dash, and offer a woman of her scruples money, bolt in her face!

1712. Centlivre, Perpl. Lovers, iii. If you don't march off, I shall play you such an English courant of slap dash presently, that shan't out of your ears this twelvemonth.

1717. Prior, Alma, i. 17. And yet, slapdash, is all again, In every sinew, nerve, and vein.

1753. Richardson, Grandison, i. 170. In so peremptory, in so unceremonious a manner, slapdash as I may say.

1759-67. Sterne, Tristram Shandy, iii. 38. The whips and short turns which in one stage or other of my life have come slap upon me.

c.1790. Kilmainham Minit [Ireland Sixty Years Ago], 87. Slap dash tro de Poddle we lark it.

1809. Malkin, Gil Blas [Routledge], 42. He came down slap-dash on all the rest of the dishes.

1837. Barham, Ingoldsby Legends, ii. 143. His horse, coming slap on his knees . . . threw . . . him head over heels.

1853. Lytton, My Novel, iii. vi. It was a slapdash style.

c.1866. Vance, Jolly Dogs. Slap-bang, here we are again.

1882. Lowell [Century Mag., xxxv. 515]. The slapdash judgments upon artists . . . are very characteristic.

1884. C. Reade, Art, 20. He . . . executed a marvellously grotesque bow . . . this done, he . . . strode away again slap-dash.

1885. Weekly Echo, 5 Sep. This most eccentric of quill-drivers gets up his facts in a slap-dash fashion.