Heading
1882. Blackwood's Magazine, Feb., p. 238, col. 1. He . . . cabs off to take advice.
2. (schoolboys').—To pilfer; to use a crib. Cf., Cabbage, verb, of which it is an abbreviation.
Cabbage, subs. (old).—1. Generally applied to pieces purloined by tailors; attributively to any small profits in the shape of material. Quoted by Johnson as 'a canting term,' but now recognised. There is little chance of cabbage nowadays, save amongst those who 'make up gentlemen's own material'; but the expression is well understood by low-class dressmakers. In America a corresponding term is 'cold-slaw (q.v.) which consists of finely-cut cabbage, and represents the small remnants known in other quarters as 'carpet-rags' Or CABBAGE. Cf., PIGEON skewings. [The derivation is obscure. Murray traces it back to 1663 (Hudibras [spurious]), but points out that Herrick [1648] apparently uses garbage and carbage for 'shreds and patches used as padding.' He then goes on to say that 'if this was a genuine use at the time, carbage may easily have been corrupted to cabbage.' This difficulty can, I think, be removed. In the seventeenth century, a style of feminine headdress, then in vogue, very similar to the modern chignon, was called a cabbage. Thus in Mundus Muliebris [1690]:
Behind the noddle every baggage, Wears bundle 'choux,' in English cabbage.
Now, if this usage (omitted from the N.E.D.) be compared with the three quotations first following, it would appear (1) that the word cabbage was in use prior to carbage or garbage for 'shreds and patches'; (2) that carbage and garbage contain a sarcastic reference to the materials with which a woman's cabbage, or chignon, was stuffed; and (3) that in every quotation the play upon words appears to confirm these contentions. Hence, if cabbage as a mode of dressing the hair was current during the seventeenth century (I have come across no earlier instance), it is possible that the stages of transition were as follows:—
1. Cabbage = a well-known vegetable.
2. = A mode of dressing the hair, in such a form as to resemble a cabbage.
3. = The materials with which such a tire was stuffed.
4. = The shreds and pieces appropriated by tailors and others as perquisites.
There is no evidence in support of such guesses as those in, for example, the quotations dated 1853 and 1886.
1638. Randolph, Hey for Honestey (Old Play). Tailor. Nay, he has made me sharper than my needle; makes me eat my own cabbage.
1648. Herrick, Hesperides (Hazl.), I., 79. Upon some women, Pieces, patches, ropes of haire, In-laid garbage ev'rywhere.
1648. Herrick, Hesperides (Hazl.). II., 325. Eupez for the outside of his suite has paide; But for his heart, he cannot have it made; The reason is, his credit cannot get The inward carbage for his cloathes as yet.
1663. Hudibras, II., 56. For as tailors preserve their cabbage, So squires take care of bag and baggage.
