1893. Emerson, Signor Lippo, xiv. 'Blower, how about Letty?' 'Kip for you two, eh? I'll just go and see the under-sheriff.'
Let-up, subs. (common).—1. A pause; a breach.
1888. Troy Daily Times. . . . It rained for three days, almost without a let up, after we reached our destination. Ibid. The stable hymn, as the boys called it, was sung in some companies where there was a little let-up on discipline.
1888. Spirit of the Times. There will be a let up of a few days, maybe a week, between the close of the Winter Meeting and the opening of the Spring Meeting.
2. (Stock Exchange).—A sudden disappearance of artificial causes of depression.
Levant, verb. (common).—To abscond. To do (or throw or run) a levant (gaming) = to stake and skip (q.v.). Fr. faire voile en Levant; It. andare in Levante. See quots. 1714 and 1823.
1714. Lucas, Gamesters, iii. He hath ventur'd to come the levant over gentlemen; that is, to play without any money at all in his pocket.
1729. Vanbrugh and Cibber, Provoked Husband, i. Crowd to the Hazard table, throw a familiar levant upon some sharp lurching man of quality, and if he demands his money, turn it off with a loud laugh.
1749. Fielding, Tom Jones, Bk. viii. ch. 12. Never mind that, man! E'en run a levant.
1788. G. A. Stevens, Adv. of a Speculist, i. 96. This [cheating described] at Hazard-table is called levanting.
1823. Grose, Vulg. Tongue (3rd ed.). Levanting, or running a levant, an expedient practised by broken gamesters to retrieve themselves, and signifies to bet money at a race, cock-match, etc., without a shilling in their pocket to answer the event. The punishment . . . is curious: the offender is placed in a large basket .., hoisted up to the ceiling . . . and . . . then kept suspended . . . exposed to derision, during the pleasure of the company.
1837. Barham, Ingoldsby Legends, i. 244. When he found she'd levanted, the Count of Alsace, At first turned remarkably red in the face.
1880. A. Trollope, The Duke's Children, ch. xlix. Was it not clear that a conspiracy might have been made without his knowledge;—and clear also that the real conspirators had levanted?
1883. Referee, 25 March, p. 3, col. 2. The late manager of the 'Vic.', it appears, levanted with over £100 of the money belonging to the committee.
1887. Daily Telegraph, 12 March. Whom he would compel to lodge a considerable sum as caution money, so that in the event of one of the body levanting, there would be wherewithal to pay his creditors.
1892. Globe, 2 April, p. 2, col. 1. If he could only lay his hands on levanting Brown!
Levant me! intj. (common).—Used as an imprecation: cf. Blow me.
1760. Foote, The Minor, i. Levant me, but he got enough last night to purchase a principality amongst his countrymen.
Levanter, subs. (common).—A
defaulting debtor; a welsher.
1598. Florio, Worlde of Wordes. Levante. . . . A limlifter, a shifter, an uptaker, a pilfrer.
1781. G. Parker, View of Society, ii. 168. Levanters. These are of the order and number of Black-Legs.
1823. Moncrieff, Tom and Jerry, p. 5. Here, among the pinks in Rotten-row, the lady-birds in the Saloon, the angelics at Almack's, the-top-of-the-tree heroes, the legs and levanters at Tattersal's, nay, even among the millers at the Fives, it would be taken for nothing less than the index of a complete flat.
1826. Hood, Whims and Oddities, 1st S. (Backing the Favourite). But she wedded in a canter, And made me a levanter, In foreign lands to sigh for the Favourite!
