Heading
night together, and thumping the table with a dice-box?
1822. Scott, Fortunes of Nigel, ch. xvii. To eke out your living By the wag of your elbows.
To crook the elbow, verb. phr. (common).—To drink.—See Elbow-crooker. [From the action of the arm.] For synonyms, see Lush.
Elbow-Crooker, subs. (common).—A
hard drinker. See infra and
Drinks.
English Synonyms.—Borachio; boozington; brewer's horse; bubber; budger; mop; lushington; worker of the cannon; wet-quaker; soaker; lapper; pegger; angel altogether; bloat; ensign-bearer; fiddle-cup; sponge; tun; tosspot; swill-pot; wet subject; shifter; potster; swallower; pot-walloper; wetster; dramster; drinkster; beer-barrel; ginnums; lowerer; moist 'un; drainist; boozer; mopper-up; piss-maker; thirstington.
French Synonyms.—Un louave (thieves'); un litronneur (popular: litre = 1·760 pint); une grosse culotte (popular = big-breeches or fat-arse); un gavé (thieves': gaver = to stuff); une lampe à mort (pop.: a confirmed drunkard; = a death-lamp); un zingueur (popular); un boyau rouge (pop. = red-guts); un marquant (thieves': = conspicuous, striking, etc.); un canonneur (pop.: canon = a glass of wine; cf., English cannon); un camphrier (pop.: a dram-drinker; also = a camphor-tree); un fioleur (pop.: fiole = phial: cf., toss-pot and swill-pot); une éponge (pop.: = a sponge; also a paramour, a fool, an attorney); un bibard (thieves': biberon = sucking-bottle); un buvard (popular: = blotting book); un pochard (colloquial); adroit du coude (pop. = artful elbowed); un artilleur (pop.: = a cannoneer; cf., cannon); un boissonneur (pop.: boisson = drink); un buvailleur or buvaillon (pop.: a man easily drunk); un chocaillon (pop.: a female drunkard); un poivrot (familiar); un sac à vin (pop. = a wine butt).
German Synonym.—Mattobolo (matto balo = a drunken pig: from the gypsy matto = drunk).
Italian Synonyms.—Fransoso (= a Frenchman); chiaritore; chiaristante.
Spanish Synonyms.—Cuero (= a goat-skin bag for wine or oil); coladra (= a wooden pail in which wine is measured and retailed); cuba (= a measure for wine); difunto de taberna (lit., a public-house corpse); odre (= a wine-skin); pellejo (= a liquor skin dressed and pitched); peneque; potista; odrina (= an ox-hide bottle).
Elbower, subs. (American thieves').—A
runaway. [Cf., elbow.]
Elbow-Grease, subs. (colloquial).—Energetic
and continuous
manual labour: e.g., 'Elbow-Grease
is the best furniture oil.'
Fr., huile de bras or de poignet;
du foulage.
1779-1839. Galt [quoted in Imperial Eng. Dict.]. He has scartit and dintit my guid mahogany past a' the power o beeswax and elbow-grease to smooth.
1785. Grose, Dict. Vulg. Tongue, s.v.
1809. G. Eliot, Adam Bede, bk. I., ch. vi. Nowhere else could an oak clock-case and an oak table have got to such a
