Heading
cul or cul d'âne (popular: cul d'âne = 'the rump of an ass'; Cf., English 'ass'); un cantaloup (popular: literally a melon); un cube (a 'regular idiot'); un canarie; être un c (a euphemistic phrase); un busard or buson or une buse (an allusion to the stupidity of the buzzard); une couenne (popular: = 'pig-skin.' 'Est-il couenne!' 'What an ass!'); un coquardeau; un couillon (popular: a cullion, used in friendly jocularity = abashed, crestfallen, and above all idiotic); un espèce de cafouilleux (popular = 'a bally bounder'); un arguche (thieves'); battre comtois (thieves' = to play the fool); un baveux (a driveller: one who does not know what he is talking about); un boniface (popular); n'avoir pas cassé la patte à coco (thieves' = 'as big a bloody mug as they make 'em').
Spanish Synonyms. Asnazo (m; properly 'a big jackass'); asno (m); bambarria (m; also = an accidental but successful stroke at billiards, 'a fluke'); bobalias (m; a colloquialism for 'a very stupid fellow'); borro (m; properly a wether not two years old); echacantos (m); gentil hombre de placer (= 'a buffoon' or 'clown'); guillote (m; literally a husbandman, one who enjoys the produce of a farm. Cf., 'joskin'); Juan lanas (vulgar); mamacallos or mamaluco (m); naranjo (m; properly the citrus aurantium); pandero (m; also 'a timbrel'); pinchauvas (m = a despicable person); porra (f); es un solemne bobo ('he is a down-*right booby'); zamacuco.
Portuguese Synonyms.—Bamburrio; macacada; tauso; pãosinho.
1682. Mrs. Behn, False Count (1724), III., 146. Thou foul, filthy CABBAGE-HEAD. [M.]
1862. Lowell, Biglow Papers, II., 228. For take my word for 't, when all's come and past, The Cabbage-heads 'll cair the day at last.
c. 1880. Broadside Ballad, 'Right before the missis too.' I've had a dreadful row All through a chum named Tommy Sheen, I ought to call him cabbage-head, He is so very green.
Cabbage-Leaf, subs. (common).—A bad cigar; usually contracted into cabbage (q.v., subs., sense 5). [From a popular theory of material.] In French un infectados by a play upon words in two languages, infect, Fr. = more than common, vile, and infectar, Sp. = 'to infect' or 'be infected'. For synonyms, see Weed.
Cabbage Plant, subs. (old).—An umbrella; gamp (q.v.); or brolly.
Cabbager, subs. (common).—A tailor. [From cabbage (q.v., subs., sense 1) + er.] For synonyms, see Button-catcher and Snip.
Cabbage-Stumps, subs. (common).—The legs. For synonyms, see Drumsticks.
Cabbage-Tree Mob, subs. (Australian). Old for what are now called Larrikins (q.v.). Derived from the low-crowned cabbage-palm hat affected by this section of Australian society.] Cabbagites was an alternative.
18(?). Lieut.-Col. Munday Our Antipodes. Loafers known as the cabbage-tree mob, a class whom, in the spirit of the ancient tyrant, one might excusably wish had but one nose in order to make it a bloody one. Ibid. Unaware of the propensities of the cabbagites, he was by them furiously assailed.
