(needle, or pox) = syphilis: see French-gout and Ladies'-fever; Spanish-padlock = 'a kind of girdle contrived by jealous husbands of that nation to secure the chastity of their wives' (Grose); Spanish-pike = a needle; Spanish-plague = building (Ray); Spanish-trumpeter (or King of Spain's trumpeter, i.e., Don Key) = a braying ass (Grose); to walk Spanish = to be seized by the scruff and the seat, and thus forced along; hence, to act under compulsion; to ride the Spanish mare (nautical) = a punishment in which the offender was set astride a beam with the guys loosed, when the vessel was in a sea-way.
1656. Ford, Sun's Darling, ii. 1. A French gentleman, that trails a Spanish pike; a tailor.
1837. Barham, Ingoldsby Leg. Save its synonyms Spanish, blunt, stumpy and rowdy.
Spank, subs. (colloquial).—A
sounding thwack: spec. on the
buttocks (Grose): also spanker.
As verb. = to strike. Whence
spanking = a beating.
1772. Bridges, Burlesque Homer, 491. But Ajax gave him two such spankers, They smarted worse than nodes and shankers.
1857. Tennyson, Northern Cobbler. An' 'e spanks 'is 'and into mine.
1869. L. M. Alcott, Little Women, xxxviii. Meg led her son away, feeling a strong desire to spank the little marplot.
1883. Century Mag., xxxvii. 743. My mother lifted me cleverly, planted two spanks behind, and passed me to the hands of Madame.
1885. Queen, 28 Sept. Suggested spanking all round as a cure for the evil.
Verb. (old).—1. 'To run neatly along between a trot and a gallop' (Grose), to move quickly and briskly: usually with 'along.'
Spanking, adj. = (1) big, jolly, sprightly: as a spanking lass (Bailey); (2) large, big (Bailey and Grose), stunning (q.v.), whopping (q.v.); and (3) dashing, free-going. Hence spanker = anything of exceptional size, pace, figure, or merit: cf. skelp, 'He's a spanker to go.' Spanky = showy, smart (q.v.).
1751. Smollett, Pereg. Pickle, lxxxvii. His desire being titillated by the contact of a buxom wench . . . he . . . suddenly broke out . . . Sblood, I believe master thinks I have no more stuff in my body than a dried haddock, to turn me adrift in the dark with such a spanker.'
1772. Bridges, Burlesque Homer, 501. So spread a table . . . Whereon she placed a spanking dish.
1790 Dibdin, Sea Songs, '. . . I've a spanking wife at Portsmouth gate, A pigmy at Goree.
1802. Colman, Poor Gentleman, iv. 2. There are four spanking greys ready harnessed . . . that shall whisk us to town in a minute.
1840. Thackeray, Shabby Genteel Story, v. How knowingly did he spank the horses along. Ibid. (1860), Lovel the Widower. Here a Gentleman in a natty gig, with a high trotting horse, came spanking towards us over the common.
1885. Cassell's Sat. Jo., 19 Sep., 802. We spanked along, rapidly accelerating our pace.
2. (thieves').—To break, to smash: e.g., to spank the glaze (see quot. 1785); also on the spank.
1785. Grose, Vulg. Tongue, s.v. Spank is, to break a pane in a shop window and to snatch some article, having tied the shop door to prevent pursuit (Abridged).
Spanker, subs. (old).—1. In pl. =
money: generic: spec. gold
(Grose).
2. (nautical).—A fore-and-aft gaff sail on the mizzen mast of a ship or barque (Clark Russell). Hence spanking = sailing swiftly along with the wind so quartered as to keep the spankers full.
