1694. Motteux, Rabelais. 'Pant. Prog.' (1900), v. 214. Shoemakers and translators, tanners, bricklayers.
c. 1696. B. E., Dict. Cant. Crew, s.v. Translator, Sellers of old Shoes and Boots, between Shoe-makers and Coblers.
d. 1704. Brown, Works; iii. 73. The cobbler is affronted, if you don't call him Mr. Translator.
1757. Sewell, Dict., s.v. Translator, Schoenlappen.
1851-61. Mayhew, Lond. Lab., II. 40. Great quantities of second-hand boots and shoes are sent to Ireland to be translated there. . . . 'Translation, as I understand it (said my informant), is this—to take a worn, old pair of shoes or boots, and by repairing them make them appear as if left off with hardly any wear—as if they were only soiled.' Ibid., II. 110. Among these things are blankets . . . translated boots, mended trousers. Ibid., I. 51. To wear a pair of second-hand [boots] or translators . . . is felt as a bitter degradation.
1864. Times, 2 Nov. The clobberer, the reviver, and the translator lay hands on them . . . to patch, to sew up, and to restore as far as possible the garments to their pristine appearance.
1865. Cassel's Paper, 'Old Clo'.' They are now past 'clobbering,' 'reviving,' Or 'TRANSLATING.'
188[?]. Greenwood, Woodchopper's Wedding. I interviewed the kind-hearted old translator . . . in his kitchen in Leather Lane.
c. 1889. Sporting Times [S. J. and C.]. Baeker had to limp in his socks to the New Cut, and purchase a pair of translated crab-shells to go home in.
Transmogrify (or TransmigRIFY), verb. (old).—To transform, change, alter, or 'new vamp' (B. E. and Grose). Also, as Subs., TRANSMOGRIFICATION.
1728. Fielding, Love in Sev. Masques, v. 4. I begin to think . . . that some wicked enchanters have transmogrified my Dulcinea.
1751-4. Jortin, Eccles. Hist., i. 254. Augustine seems to have had a small doubt whether Apuleius was really transmographied into an ass.
1777. Foote, Trip to Calais [Oliphant, New Eng., ii. 187. There is the curious transmogrify].
1836. Scott, Tom Cringle's Log, iii. Jonathan . . . let drive his whole broadside: and fearfully did it transmogrify us.
1837. Barham, Ingoldsby Legends, 'St. Aloys.' The transmogrified Pagan performed his vow.
1884. Nation, 20 Mar., 250. But of all restorations, reparations, and transmogrifications that inflicted upon the Cnidian Venus of the Vatican is the most grotesque.
TRANSNEAR, verb. (Grose).—'To come up with any body.'
Trap, subs. (old).—I. Sagacity, craft, contrivance, penetration. Hence to understand trap = to be knowing, wide-awake (q.v.), alive to one's own interest (Grose); to smell trap = to suspect: spec. of thieves in 'spotting' a 'tec. 'That trap is down' = The trick (or try-on) has failed, It's no go.
d. 1704. Brown, Works (1705). Crying out, Split my Wind Pipe, Sir, you are a Fool, and don't understand Trap, the whole world's a Cheat.
1740. North, Examen, 203. It is almost impossible that all these circumstances . . . should be collected without some contrivance for purposes that do not obviously appear; and nothing but trap can resolve them. Ibid., 549. Some cunning persons that had found out his foible and ignorance of trap, first put him in great fright.
1748. Boyer, Dict. You do not understand trap, 'vous n'y entendez pas finesse.'
1760. Foote, Minor, ii. Our Minor was a little too hasty; he did not understand trap, knows nothing of the game, my dear.
1821. Scott, Pirate, i. 51. His good lady . . . understood trap as well as any woman in the Mearns.
