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little turn up with the bolster); se bâcher, pagnotter or percher (to roost); se mettre dans la bâche; se bourser (popular); éteindre son gaz (popular: to put out one's light; = also to die); entrer aux quinze-vingts (Les Quinze-vingts = a government hospital for the blind); dormir en chien de fusil (i.e., to sleep sitting, the head between the knees); dormir en gendarme (popular: 'to sleep with one eye round the corner'); fermer les châssis (to put up shutters or 'peepers'); se coller dans le pieu (popular).
Spanish Synonyms.—Acostarse con las gallinas (= to go to bed by cock-light); encamarse; tomarle á uno el sueño; tumbar (literally, to tumble down).
1785. Grose, Dict. Vulg. Tongue, s.v. To dorse with a woman signifies to sleep with her.
1846. Punch, vol. XI., p. 165. Then silent flowed the tears of those maidens as perforce, Each saw her favourite champion sent, as Bell's Life says, dorse.
1850. Lloyd's Weekly, 3 Feb., 'Low Lodging House of London.' One said, Mate, how long have you been knocking about; where did you doss? I didn't know what they meant, and when they'd told me, they meant, where did I sleep?
Dosser, subs. (vagrants').—One
who frequents a doss house (q.v.).
'Appy-dossers, subs. (vagrants').—Houseless vagrants who creep in, sleep on stairs, in passages, and in empty cellars.
1880. G. R. Sims, How the Poor Live, p. 43. A 'appy dosser can make himself comfortable anywhere. I heard of one who used to crawl into the dust-bin, and pull the lid down.
1883. Referee, 15 July, p. 7, col. 2. The Lazaruses of to-day don't lie exactly at Dives's front door—the police are too active to allow such happy dossing as that.
The dosser, subs.—The father of a family.
Doss-house or Dossing-crib or
Ken, subs. (vagrants').—A common
lodging-house. [From doss,
to sleep + crib, or ken, a place
of abode.] Fr., un bastengue and
un garno. English variants:
Libken, two-penny-rope, padding-ken,
and kidden (all of
which see). Doss-money = the
price of a night's lodging.
1838. Comic Almanack, April. The hulks is now my bowsing-crib, the hold my dossing-ken.
1851-61. H. Mayhew, London Lab. and Lon. Poor, vol. I., p. 150. When their funds are insufficient to defray the charge of a bed, or a part of one, at a country dossing-crib (his lodging-house).
1885. Daily Telegraph, 22 August, p. 2. col. 1. Her's is no common dossing-crib, with a squalid kitchen, common to all comers.
1889. Globe, 29 Aug., p. 2, col. 2. Various other smart people who are at present residing in the doss-houses of London.
1890. Speaker, 12. Feb., p. 211, col. 1. Equally bad doss-houses exist in Notting Hill and near Drury Lane.
Dossy, adj. (common).—Elegant,
'spiff' (q.v.).
Dot, subs. (old).—A ribbon. Dot-*drag
= a watch ribbon.
1821. D. Haggart, Life, Glossary, p. 171, s.v.
Dot-and-Carry-, or Go-one, subs.
phr. (common).—1. Properly,
a man with a wooden leg; by
implication, a hopping-giles
or limping jesus (q.v.). Fr.,
un (or une) banban. Cf., verbal
sense.
1785. Grose, Dict. Vulg. Tongue, s.v.
