1866. Trevelyan, Dawk Bungalow, 223. Well, young Shaver, have you seen the horses? How is the waler's off fore-leg?
1873. Madras Mail, 25 June. For sale. A brown wailer gelding (Advt.).
1888. Kipling, Plain Tales from the Hills, 224. The soul of the Regiment lives in the Drum-Horse who carries the silver kettle-drums He is nearly always a big piebald waler.
1896. Melburnian, 28 Aug., 62. Gaunt won the Regimental Cup Steeplechase this year on an Australian mare of his own. Australian horses are called walers in India, from the circumstance of their being generally imported from New South Wales.
Walk, subs. (colloquial).—A
special haunt, place of resort, or
round (q.v.): an extension of
the ordinary usage. Thus a
milkman's (cat's-meat-man's,
postman's, etc.) walk = the
district habitually served by a
salesman (postman, etc.); a
bank-walk = the round of a
banker's collecting clerk; The
Walk (Royal Exchange) = that
portion of the promenade frequented
by some particular clique
or set of merchants.
1851-61. Mayhew, Lond. Lab., ii. He had thoughts at one time of trying to establish himself in a cat's-meat walk.
Cock (or Hen) of the walk (club, school, etc.), subs. phr. (common).—A man (or woman) of parts, a worthy, a leader.
1711. Spectator, 131. Service to the knight. Sir Andrew is grown the cock of the club since he left us, and if he does not return quickly will make every mother's son of us commonwealth's men.
1729. Swift, Grand Question Debated. But at cuffs I was always the cock of the school.
1764. O'Hara, Midas, i. 1. Cock of the school. He bears despotic rule.
1862. Wood, Channings, xxix. Were I going in for the seniorship, and one below me were suddenly hoisted above my head, and made a cock of the walk, I'd know the reason why.
d. 1863. Thackeray, Miscellanies, ii. 275. There is no more dangerous or stultifying position for a man in life than to be a cock of small society.
1899. Whiteing, John St., xxiii. This hen of the walk of our slum is really herself. . . . Who can jaw a copper like Tilda, or carney a Covent Garden salesman . . . or take the size out of a chaffing swell?
Ladies' (or Gentlemen's) walk, subs. phr. (American).—A W.C.: a euphemism (hotel-proprietors').
To walk the streets, verb. phr. (common).—To frequent the streets for the purpose of prostitution; to make public quest for men.
1887. St. James's Gazette, 2 July. The other prisoner was in the habit of walking the Quadrant.
To walk into, verb. phr. (colloquial).—1. To attack, assault, drub: also to walk into the affections; (2) = to scold, rag (q.v.), slang (q.v.); (3) = to demolish, overcome, get the best of; and (4) to eat heartily, to wolf (q.v.).
1840. Dickens, Old Curiosity Shop, lxviii. There is little Jacob, walking . . . into a home-made plum-cake, at a most surprising pace.
1840. Haliburton, Sam Slick, iii. 122. To walk into a Down-East land-jobber requires great skill, and a very considerable knowledge of human nature.
1853. Bradley, Verdant Green. When he told Verdant that . . . his bread-basket walked into, his day-lights darkened.
1858 New York Herald, 16 Sept. The way in which the Courier and Enquirer walk into the character and reputation of some of their old associates in the Clay movement is a caution to respectable blackguards.
