rum

adj (dated Br inf) peculiar; odd: He's a rum character (Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary (OALD).

Rum how he'd had a feeling it was coming, all the same, he thought, still staring into the blurred plain. (John le Carré: The Honurable Schoolboy, Coronet Books, 2000, p.55).

by Petyush March 27, 2005

Jacky Tar

Jacky Tar / jack tar: n. 1 (late 18C+) a sailor.

They believe in rod, ... and Jacky Tar, the son of a gun, who was conceived of unholy boast, born of the fighting navy ... (James Joyce: Ulysses, PICADOR, 1997, p. 314).

by Petyush March 27, 2005

miching

n (obviously Irish school slang of the 1910s): staying away from school without permission, playing hookey, playing truant.Eg.: We often planned a miching for the whole day if we did not want to do our preparations for the classes.

With Leo Dillon and a boy named Mahony I planned a day's miching. (James Joyce: Dubliners, Penguin Books, 1998, p.20).

by Petyush March 27, 2005

puff

Puff: sl. n. (early-mid-19C) wind, breath. 2 (1920s+) life, esp. As in my puff, on my puff. (SE pff, to discharge a puff of air).

You never saw the like of it in all your born puff.
James Joyce, Ulysses, PICADOR, 1998, p. 329.

by Petyush March 27, 2005

stew

v. to study hard. (See: Cassell's Dictionary of Slang).

- Going over next week to stew? You know that red Carlisle girl, Lily?
- Yes.(James Joyce:Ulysses,PICADOR,1998, p.23)

by Petyush March 27, 2005

club/knock the stuffing out of sg

(infml, originally NY slang): make sb. feeble, weak or demoralized

“Talk quickly – those fellows are clubbing the stuffing out of Union Pacific.”
O’Henry: 100 Selected Stories, Wordsworth Classics, 199, p.74.

by Petyush March 29, 2005

weeds n. pl.

(1950s +) (US sl.) clothes

... and to see him in his round spectacles and his civil servant weeds, you would think it was he ... who deserved the tradename ’mole’.
John le Carré: The honourable schoolboy, Coronet Books, Hodder and Stuoghton, 2000, p.57).

by Petyush March 27, 2005