Heading
To dance Barnaby.—See Barnaby.
Dance of Death, subs. phr. (old).—Hanging.
Cf., Dance, verb,
sense 1.
Dancers, subs. (thieves')—1.
Stairs; a flight of steps. Fr., les
grimpants.
1671. R. Head, English Rogue, pt. I., ch. v., p. 52 (1874). Track up the dancers, go up the stayres.
1785. Grose, Dict. Vulg. Tongue, s.v.
1847. Lytton, Lucretia, pt. II., ch. vii. 'Bob, track the dancers. Up like a lark—and down like a dump.' Bob grinned . . . and scampered up the stairs.
1858. Lytton, What will he do with it? bk. III., ch. xvi. Come, my Hebe, track the dancers, that is, go up the stairs.
2. sing. (thieves').—Also dancing master. A thief whose speciality is prowling about the roofs of houses and effecting an entrance through attic and upper storey windows; a garreteer (q.v.). [In allusion to dexterity of walk.] For synonyms, see Area-sneak.
Dancing-Master, subs. (old).—1.
A species of Mohock or dandy,
temp. Queen Anne. [Who made
his victims caper by running
his sword through the legs; for
detailed description, see Spectator
(1712), No. 324.] For list of
synonyms, see Dandy.
2. (thieves').—See Dancers, sense 2.
3. (old).—The hangman; Jack Ketch.—See Dance, verb, sense 1.
D AND D, phr. (police).—'Drunk
and disorderly' (in connection
with charge sheet cases). A synonym
is Lushy and Stropolus.
1889. Answers, 2 March, p. 218, col. 1. Last New Year's Day he took over 14s. to my certain knowledge, for the old man was up for d and d, trying to break a window with his broom.
Dander, subs. (colloquial).—Anger.
To raise one's dander or Get
one's dander up or riz = to
make or get angry. [Derivation
uncertain; provincial in several
English counties.]
1843. Dickens, Martin Chuzzlewit, ch. xxi., p. 223. I do my duty; and I raise the dander of my feller critters, as I wish to serve; . . . they rile up rough, along of my objecting to their selling Eden off too cheap.
1848-62. J. Russell Lowell, Biglow Papers. Wut'll make ye act like freemen? Wut'll git your dander riz?
1849. Thackeray, Pendennis, ch. xliii. Don't talk to me about daring to do this thing or t'other, or when my dander is up, it's the very thing to urge me on.
1863. Punch, 7 Feb. If John Bull had riz our dander, Settin' foot on yonder shore, Then we should have holler'd grander Than the broad Atlantic's roar.
1872. Chamb. Journal, 14 Dec, p. 791. They knew he'd never find out who did it, for he was in such an awful dander.
DANDERED, ppl. adj. (colloquial).—Angry;
'mad.'
1890. H. D. Traill, Saturday Songs, 'The Precipitate Grandmother,' p. 30. Whose way of tackling dandered snakes Is to perpitiate the critters With hominy an' buckwheat cakes And pumpkin-squash an' apple fritters.
Dando, subs. (common).—A great eater; a glutton; specifically a sharper who subsists at the expense of hotels, restaurants, or oyster bars. [From one dando, a 'bouncing, seedy swell,' hero of a hundred ballads, notorious for being 'charged' at least twice a month with bilking.]
