smatter-hauling
Obsolete British thieves' cant for the theft of handkerchiefs — a skilled pickpocket speciality in 18th and 19th century London.
Definitions
Obsolete British thieves' cant for the theft of handkerchiefs — a skilled pickpocket speciality in 18th and 19th century London. Handkerchiefs were valuable items in an era before disposable tissue, making them worthwhile theft targets. The vocabulary is documented in historical canting dictionaries.
He'd been arrested twice for smatter-hauling before he turned fifteen.
Comments
(UK, slang, obsolete) The theft of handkerchiefs.
Comments
Used in
Have a better definition?
Add your own interpretation of "smatter-hauling".
🇬🇧About British & Irish slang slang
UK and Irish slang — Cockney, Scouse, Geordie, Yorkshire, Glaswegian, Brummie, Welsh, West Country, plus Irish English. Centuries of regional dialects feeding into modern British and Irish street talk.
See all British & Irish slang slang on Slangora.
Tags
Other words near "smatter-hauling" (S)
Browse all slang words starting with S.
Related terms
People also read
Semantically related
- 63%
Historical British thieves' cant for the act of stealing from a till or cash box. 'Lob' was slang for a till containing money, so lob-sneaking described sneaking a theft from it. Now purely historical, encountered mainly in studies of Victorian or earlier criminal slang.
- 62%
Obsolete British criminal slang from the thieves' cant tradition, meaning to divide the stolen loot among the members of a criminal crew. Nap here means to take or seize, and regulars refers to the established shares owed to each person. Thieves' cant was a deliberate secret language used by criminals, beggars, and traveling people in 17th–19th century Britain to talk openly without being understood by outsiders.
- 61%
To steal, to pickpocket.
- 59%
(Scotland, archaic) petty theft.