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In England a Billingsgate pheasant is a fresh herring; whilst a Yarmouth bloater is sometimes a two-eyed steak.
Cinder, subs. (common).—1. Any
strong liquor as brandy, whiskey,
sherry, etc., mixed with a weaker,
as soda-water, lemonade, water,
etc., to fortify it.
1864. Hotten, Slang Dictionary, s.v.
1883. Referee, March 18, p. 2, col. 4. Having rushed out to get a glass of cold water with a cinder in it to take the chill off.
2. (sporting).—A running path or track; merely an abbreviation of 'cinder-path,' it being laid with 'cinders.'
Cinder-Garbler, subs. (old).—A
female servant. Grose [1785]
says the term was 'Custom
House wit,' but gives no particulars.
English Synonyms. Marchioness; slavey; cinder-grabber; Cinderella; can (Scots); piss-kitchen; Julia.
French Synonyms. Un extrait de garni (popular); un chambrillon; une bobonne (for bonne); une larbine; une cambrouse; une jeanneton; une groule or groulasse.
German Synonyms. Schifche or Schifches; Schammesch or Schammes (from the Hebrew).
Spanish Synonym. Famula (f).
Circling-Boy, subs. (old).—A
'rook'; swindler. Nares says a
species of roarer; one who in
some way drew a man into a
snare, to cheat or rob him. See
Gifford.—Ben Jonson, Barth.
Fair, iv., 3, p. 481.
Circs, subs. (common).—Circumstances.
Circumbendibus, subs. (old).—A
roundabout; a long-winded
story. [From Lat. circum,
around, + Eng. bend, with a
Latin termination.]
1681. Dryden, Sp. Friar, V., ii. I shall fetch him back with a circumbendibus, I warrant him. [m.]
1768. Lord Carlisle, in Jesse's Selwyn, II., 317 (1882). I can assure you it grieved me that anything of yours should make such a circumbendibus before it came to my hands.
1773. O. Goldsmith, She Stoops to Conquer, Act v., Sc. 2. 'And from that, with a circumbendibus, I fairly lodged them in the horse-pond at the bottom of the garden.'
1849. Lytton, Caxtons, pt. VIII., ch. i. The cabman, to swell his fare, had thought proper to take a circumbendibus.
1890. Notes and Queries, 7 S., ix., 29 March. . . . No choice but to deliver himself of a malediction with a circumbendibus.
Circumlocution Office, Subs.
(common).—A centre of red-tape;
a roundabout way. [A
term invented by Charles Dickens
(see quot., 1857), and applied at
first in ridicule to public offices,
where everybody tries to shuffle
off his responsibilities upon some
one else.
1857. C. Dickens, Little Dorrit, I., x. The Circumlocution Office was the most important Department under Government. Ibid. Whatever was required to be done, the Circumlocution Office was beforehand with all the public departments in the art of perceiving—How not to do it.
1870. Graphic, Feb. 19, in 'By the Bye.' To complete the contretemps a portion of the telegraphs struck work on the very first day of the Government taking them in hand. Of course the great tribe
