-stretch) = a hanging; Tyburn-face = a hangdog look; Tyburn-ticket = an exemption (under 10 & 11 Will. III., c. 23, § 2) to prosecutors who had secured a capital conviction: it released 'from all manner of parish and ward offices within the parish wherein such felony was committed': the Act was repealed in 1818: Tyburn-tickets were transferable, and often sold for a high price [see Notes and Queries (2nd ser., xi. 395, 437)]; Tyburn-tree = the gallows; to preach at Tyburn-cross (fetch a Tyburn stretch, dance a Tyburn hornpipe on nothing, the Paddington-frisk, etc.) = to be hanged; Tyburn-spectacles = the cap pulled over the face of a criminal before execution; and so forth. See Ladder and Tree.
[1377. Langland, Piers Plowman, [E.E.T.S.], 115. Here occurs a reference to the hangman of Tyborne.]
c. 1515. Cocke Lorell's B. (Percy Soc.), 11. Tyburne collopes and penny pryckers.
1549. Latimer, Sermons before Edward VI., ii. He should have had a Tyburn tippet, a halfpenny halter, and all such proud prelates. Ibid., 5 f. 63 b. There lacks a fourth thing to make up the messe which, so God help me, if I were judge, should be hangum tuum, a Tyburne tippet to take with him.
1557. Tusser, Husbandrie, 214. Where cocking dads make sawsie lads, In youth so rage to begin age, Or else to fetch a Tibourne stretch, Among the rest.
1576. Gascoigne, Steele Glas, 55 That soldiours sterve or preche at Tiborne Crosse.
1613. Rowlands, Knave of Hearts. Never regarding hangman's feare, Till Tyburn-tiffany he weare.
1630. Taylor, Praise of Hempseed. Till they put on a Tyburne-pickadill.
1695. Congreve, Love for Love, ii. vii. Has he not a rogue's face . . . a damned Tyburn face without the benefit o' the clergy?
1698. Farquhar, Love and a Bottle, ii. 2. Which is best, Mr. Nimblewrist, an easy minuet, or a Tyburn-jig?
1727. Gay, Beggar's Opera. Since laws were made for every degree, To curb vice in others as well as in me, I wonder we ha'nt better company 'Neath Tyburn tree.
1827. Lytton, Pelham, lxxxii. The cove . . . is as pretty a Tyburn blossom as ever was brought up to ride a horse foaled by an acorn.
1861. Notes and Queries, 2 S. xi. 395. Last week, says the Stamford Mercury of March 27, 1818, a Tyburn-ticket was sold in Manchester for 280l.
1892. Sydney, England and English, ii. 285. An execution-day at Tyburn was considered, to all intents and purposes, by the lower classes, as a holiday. Tyburn Fair was one of the designations by which [it] was known. A 'hanging-match' was another.
1903. Hyne, Filibusters, i. There's no consolation prize to look for, except a platoon, or a cable of hempen tow, and a tree.
Tyburnia, subs. (obsolete).—A
name given, about the middle of
the nineteenth century, to the
district lying between Edgware
Road and Westbourne and
Gloucester Terraces and Craven
Hill, and bounded on the south
by the Bayswater Road, and
subsequently including (Hotten)
the Portman and Grosvenor
Square district: facetiously divided
by Londoners into 'Tyburnia
Felix,' 'Tyburnia Deserta,' and
'Tyburnia Snobbica': it soon
fell into disuse. [From a brook
called Tyburn (properly The Eye
bourn), which flowed down from
Hampstead into the Thames.]
Tye (or Tie), subs. (old: now recognised).—A
neckcloth (Grose).
[Hotten (1864): Proper hosiers'
term now, but slang thirty years
ago, and as early as 1718.]
