A handy Kim-to-English guide

[cant_kim]

 More.

And even more!

Adjectives, nouns, verbs, and generally useful phrases:

• above par - tolerably drunk
• awake - aware of
• bang-up - great
• bacon-brained - stupid
• barking irons -- pistols
• bawbels - testicles
• bear-garden jaw -- rough talk
• bilking - cheating
• Blue ruin - gin
• blunt - money
• bosky - crazy
• bran-faced -- freckled
• bunch of fives -- a fist
• cackle - to inform on a criminal
• Canterbury story -- shaggy-dog story
• Cat's paw -- to be the tool of another. "From the story about the monkey who secured a chestunt from the fire by using the cat's paw," according to the Regency Companion.
• chalk -- to take advantage
• charactered - having your hand burned as punishment for stealing. Think Jack Sparrow’s “P”
• charm - lockpick
• cheeseparing -- miserly
• clanker -- a whopper of a lie
• crack lay - housebreaking
• cracked the crib - broke into
• cup-shot - tipsy
• dab, dab hand -- skilled practitioner
• doss - sleep
• dub - lockpick
• face -- lie brazenly
• facer -- punch to the FACE
• fambles - hands
• flash - fancy, fake?
• flea bite -- slight injury
• floor -- to knock down
• flummery -- flattery
• foxed - drunk
• French leave -- going AWOL
• Friday-faced - a dismal countenance
• gammon - nonsense; to fool
• gingerbread -- wealth
• glimflashy -- wrathful
• grease - bribe
• havey-cavey - suspicious
• hen-hearted -- cowardly
• high water -- rich
• hoaxing -- mocking
• inexpressibles -- underwear
• ivories -- teeth
• ken - home
• kicks - shoes
• kick over the traces -- out of control
• lay - danger, problem
• leg -- to bow
• leg-shackled - married
• lighten - steal from
• light-skirt - prostitute
• lookout - problem, worry
• low water mark -- penniless
• maggotty -- whimsical (seriously??)
• nattered - bothered, worried
• nubbing cheat - gallows
• out at the heels -- in a bad financial situation
• pet -- huff, as in "in a huff"
• pucker -- disorder or fright
• put in an oar -- meddle
• queering - fooling
• ready -- money
• rig -- trick or scheme
• rum - good, valuable
• scandal broth -- tea. BEST SLANG EVER.
• sharping lay - housebreaking
• sharp set -- ravenous
• shoot the cat - "to retch from drunken excess" (in the Regency Companion's delicate phrasing)
• smokey -- strange, curious
• Spanish coin -- flattery
• stick your spoon in the wall - die
• stubble it! -- shut up!
• suds -- trouble
• togs - clothing
• touch -- social level
• twig -- to see
• twit - scold
• warm -- wealthy
• whisker -- lie
• wicher-bubber, wicher cheat - silver drinking bowl, silver platter. I don't pretend to understand the etymology.

Money:

• bean -- guinea
• canary -- a sovereign
• sovereign - one pound
• plum -- 100,000 pounds
• pony - twenty-five pounds
• monkey - five hundred pounds

Insults/people:

• Ace of spades -- widow
• Ape leader -- old maid
• apartments to let -- airheaded
• back door usher - gay man (or, as delicately put in the dictionary I found it in, "sodomite")
• Baggage -- women and children
• Blunderbuss -- incompetent person
• Captain Queernabs -- poorly dressed man
• Captain Sharp -- "a roguish gambler who is well-schooled in cheating."
• Cit -- city person, citizen of London
• Clunch -- lout
• Court card -- foppish fool
• cully -- SO MANY MEANINGS. A prostitute's john, a foppish ninny, general term for a man . . .
• deep one -- cunning rascal (as opposed to a tentacular horror from a Lovecraft story.)
• diamond squad -- persons of quality
• Dowdy -- coarse woman
• flat - gullible fool
• frogmaker - wizard, magic-user (Note that this is endemic to Kim's world, and not to Regency England in general. >.>)
• fribble -- effeminate fop
• gabster -- chatterbox
• gudgeon - someone gullible
• gull - someone easily cheated; to cheat
• Harridan -- unitdy old woman
• Hell cat -- uppity woman
• hoyden - tomboy
• jackanapes -- impertinent fellow
• jade -- worthless woman
• jilt -- deceiving woman
• Johnny raw -- country bumpkin
• loose fish - someone unreliable
• merry-begotten -- love child
• mort - woman
• mushroom -- someone who suddenly gains wealth and importance
• paper scull -- fool
• Quiz -- odd-looking man
• shallow pate -- ninny
• swell - rich person
• toff - rich person
• Turk -- cruel man
• Unlicked cub -- immature lad
• wag -- mischevious fellow
• wet goose -- stupid girl (although I think "goose" is gender-neutral for "dumbass")

Canting crew:

• abbess -- madam of a brothel
• ale-draper - publican
• Autem Divers - pickpockets who work in churches
• bit o’ muslin - prostitute
• bung nipper - pickpocket
• canters - thieves or beggars (I'm fairly sure at this point that the term is derived from Canterbury, but I could be wrong.)
• Covent Garden abbess, Covent Garden nun, Covent Garden lady -- prostitue. Take a wild guess what went on in Covent Garden.
• doxy - prostitute
• family man - fence for stolen goods
• freebooter - pirate, smuggler, bandit
• impure -- loose woman
• ladybird -- a kept woman or mistress.
• nabbing culls - constables
• Robin Redbreasts - constables, I think.
• scapegallows -- what it sounds like: someone who's escaped the gallows.
• sawyer - horseman
• School of Venus -- rather delicate name for a brothel
• sharper - con man (sharps con flats. Get it?)
• stews - brothels
• thatch-gallows -- rascal