Heading
corona; it is in all probability a mispronunciation of the English word 'crown.']
English Synonyms. Bull, or bull's-eye; cartwheel, coachwheel, or simply wheel; tusheroon; dollar; thick 'un (obsolete, the term being now applied to a sovereign); case; caser; decus.
The nearest French equivalent, a five franc piece, is called un roue de derrière (literally 'a hind wheel,' and corresponding pretty closely to the English wheel, cartwheel, and coachwheel); un bouton de guétre; un blafard de cinq balles; une drille or dringue; une croix (the old six franc piece, in allusion to the cross inscribed on it); une chatte (a piece of six francs: very old; and formerly prostitutes'); une médaille or médaille de St. Hubert (popular); un monarque (popular); un œil de bœuf (= an ox's eye); un noble étrangère (literary: = a distinguished stranger).
1859. G. W. Matsell, Vocabulum, or the Rogue's Lexicon. Kersey-mere kicksies, any colour, built very slap with the artful dodge, from three caroon.
Carpet, verb (colloquial).—To
reprimand. Equivalents are to
'call over the coals,' to 'give a
wigging' or 'earwigging,' etc.
The phrase sometimes runs 'to
walk the carpet.' So also
carpeting; for synonyms, see
Wig.
1823. Galt, Entail, III., xxix., 278. Making . . . . her servants walk the carpet. [m.]
1840. H. Cockton, Valentine Vox, xli. They had done nothing! Why were they carpeted?
1871. Chester Chronicle, 11 Feb. 'Report of Affiliation Case at Hawarden Petty Sessions.' [The plaintiff, Louisa Jackson, said] neither did Lunt, the page, say that night if her master knew of her coming home in that state she would be carpeted for it.
1877. Hawley Smart, Bound to Win, ch. xxx. There is no hurry; but, before the race, I think Mr. Luxmoore will have to carpet Sam.
To bring on the carpet. To bring up or forward. A slang rendering of mettre sur le tapis.
Carpet-Bag, subs. used attributively
as adj. (American).—See
Carpet-bagger for explanation
of such phrases as carpet-bag
rule, carpet-bag adventurers,
carpet-bag government, etc.
1872. New York Herald, 22 Aug. Hundreds of millions have been taken from the pockets of the people since the beginning of the war by dishonest contractors, unjust claimants, county robbers, and city plunderers, and Carpet-bag State Governments. Ibid. The Tammany robberies, although trifling in comparison with the old revenue robberies, and the present wholesale plunder of the Carpet-bag Governments in the South, etc.
1888. Chicago Record. The head of the ticket is one of the most vulnerable men who figured in Southern politics in the carpet-bag era. No man of that period left a blacker record.
Carpet-Bagger, subs. (American
political).—A political adventurer.
[After the Civil War,
numbers of Northerners went
South. Honest or not, they
we e looked upon with suspicion
by the Southerners, and, as they
were generally Republican in
politics and joined with the freed-men
at the polls, the nickname
carpet-bagger came to have,
and still retains, a political significance.
It was unjustly applied
to many well-meaning men, but
at the same time it fitted the
horde of corrupt adventurers who
infested the South, and whose
only 'property qualification' was
contained in the carpet bag with
