Heading
At Oxford in 1865 it was employed to designate a 'guy' or 'cure.'
1835. C. F. Hoffman, Winter in the West, p. 234. The way the icy blast would come down the bleak shore was a caution.
1853. Wh. Melville, Digby Grand, ch. ii. 'The way he cleaned out a southerner, a fine young Carolinian, who made a series of matches with him, was, as the Squire himself would have said, a caution.'
1861. Whyte Melville, Good for Nothing, ch. i. Such a clench of the slender hand and stamp of the slender foot as constitute what our American friends term a caution.
Cautionary, adj. (American).—Pertaining
to that which is a
caution (q.v.).
1843-4. Haliburton, Sam Slick in England. Well, the way the cow cut dirt was cautionary; she cleared stumps, ditches, windfalls, and everything.
Cavaulting or Cavolting, verbal
subs. (old).—Sexual intercourse.
[From the Lingua Franca cavolta,
the equivalent of horsing or
riding, both of which are frequently
used in the same sense.
Italian cavaliero = a rake or debauchee.]
Cf., Cavort. For
synonyms, see Greens.
Cavaulting School, subs. (old).—A
house of ill-fame.—See Cavaulting,
and for synonyms, see
Nanny-shop.
Cave or Cave in, verb (American).—To
give way when opposition
can no longer be maintained; to
break down; to 'turn up.' [Derived
from the practice of navvies
in digging earthworks, when the
lower part is undermined until it
can no longer sustain the over-*hanging
mass. Murray says all
the earliest instances of cave in,
in print, are from America, and
its literary use appears to have
arisen there; but, as the word
is given as East Anglian by
Forby [1830], and is widely used
in Eng. dialects, it is generally
conjectured to have reached the
U.S. from East Anglia.] The
French has barrer; the Spanish
acomodarse; and the Fourbesque
battere.
English Synonyms. To knuckle under; knock under; give in; sing small; turn it up; chuck it up; jack up; climb down (q.v.), throw up the sponge; chuck it; go down; go out; cut it; cut the rope (pugilistic), etc.
1837-40. Haliburton, Sam Slick, Hum. Nat., 55 (Bardett). He was a plucky fellow, and warn't a goin' to cave in that way.
1862. Brown ('Artemus Ward'), His Book. I kin cave in enny man's head that, etc.
1869. S. L. Clemens ('Mark Twain'), Innocents at Home. In the meantime the tropical sun was beating down and threatening to cave the top of my head in.
1883. Hawley Smart, Hard Lines, ch. xxii. 'The Russians will cave when they find we are in earnest.'
Cave! intj. (Eton College).—Beware!' A byword among boys out of bounds when a master is in sight. [From the Latin. The modern, 'beware of the dog ' was rendered cave canem by the Romans.]
Caviare, subs. (literary).—The obnoxious
matter 'blacked out' by
the Russian Press Censor. Every
foreign periodical entering Russia
is examined for objectionable
references or 'irreligious' matter,
the removal whereof is accomplished
in two ways. If the
articles or items are bulky,
