c. 1886. Broadside Ballad. 'Up they Go.' There were three bits of jam stepping out of the tram, So we tipped them a wink in a trice.
1889. Henley, Villon's Good Night. Gay grass-widows and lawful-jam.
2. (venery).—The female pudendum: whence To have a bit of jam = to copulate: cf. Tart. Fr. sucre.
3. (racing).—A certainty of winning; clear profit: also real jam.
4.(common).—Excellence; good luck; happiness. Jam-up (adj. and adv.) = the pink of perfection; slap-up (q.v.); bang-up (q.v.). Also real jam.
1855. Haliburton, Nature & Human Nature, p. 273. Connubial bliss, I allot, was real jam up.
1882. F. Anstey, Vice-Versâ, xiv. 'Ah!' observed Dick. 'I thought you wouldn't find it all jam! And yet you seemed to be enjoying yourself, too,' he said with a grin, 'from that letter you wrote.'
1889. The Mirror, 26 Aug., p. 6, col. 2. He'll marvel at the rod you have in pickle For him who now considers you real jam.
1892. Millikin, 'Arry Ballads, p. 56. Society's lions' wag their tails on the cheap, and that's jam.
1892. Kipling, Barrack-Room Ballads. 'Oonts.' It aint no jam for Tommy.
5. (colloquial).—A crush; a crowd.
1812. J. & H. Smith, Rejected Addresses. All is bustle, squeeze . . . and jam.
1864. Lowell, Fireside Travels, p. 111. The surest eye for . . . the weak point of a jam.
1889. Illustrated Bits, 13 July. 'I knew that there would be such a jam that I couldn't get inside the door.'
6. (American thieves').—A ring.—Matsell (1859).
7. (gaming).—The pool at Nap, into which each dealer pays, the winner of the next nap taking the lot.
Adj. (common).—Neat; smart; spruce: cf. subs. sense 5.
Verb. (old).—To hang.—Grose (1785).
Jamboree (or Jimboree), subs.
(American).—A frolic; a spree
(q.v.). For synonyms see Flare-up.
1872. Scribner's Mag., iv. 363. There have not been so many dollars spent on any jamboree.
James, subs. (thieves').—1. A crowbar.
For synonyms see jemmy. Fr.
un jacques.
1819. De Vaux, Memoirs, s.v. James.
1879. Macmillan's Magazine, 'Autobiography of a Thief,' xl. 503. I had the james and screws on me.
2. (thieves').—A sovereign or twenty shillings.
1858. A. Mayhew, Paved with Gold, III, xvii, 365. The firm that received most of his 'favours' was in the habit of pricing its 'half-james' and james (i.e., half and whole sovereigns) at 2/10 and 7/-
1887. Horsley, Jottings from Jail. I put a half james in the hand and said 'Guy!'
1893. Emerson, Signor Lippo, xxi. He gives him the half-james, and told him never to bother him more.
3. (common).—A sheep's head: more frequently, when uncooked, bloody jemmy (q.v.).
1827. Belcher's Every Night Book, p. 38. Hear us, great james, thou poetry of mutton; Delicious profile of the beast that bleats.
1870. London Figaro, 2 July. Club your pence, and you may attain to the glories of Osmazome and james—that is, of baked sheep's head.
