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GAFF . to gamble with cards, dice, etc., or to toss up.
GAFF . a country fair; also a meeting of gamblers for the purpose of play; any public place of amusement is liable to be called the gaff, when spoken of in flash company who know to what it alludes.
GALANEY . a fowl.
GALLOOT . a soldier.
GAME . every particular branch of depredation practised by the family, is called a game; as, what game do you go upon? One species of robbery or fraud is said to be a good game, another a queer game, etc.
GAMMON . flattery; deceit; pretence; plausible language; any assertion which is not strictly true, or professions believed to be insincere, as, I believe you're gammoning, or, that's all gammon, meaning, you are no doubt jesting with me, or, that's all a farce. To gammon a person, is to amuse him with false assurances, to praise, or flatter him, in order to obtain some particular end; to gammon a man to any act, is to persuade him to it by artful language, or pretence; to gammon a shop-keeper, etc., is to engage his attention to your discourse, while your accomplice is executing some preconcerted plan of depredation upon his property; a thief detected in a house which he has entered, upon the sneak, for the purpose of robbing it, will endeavour by some gammoning story to account for his intrusion, and to get off with a good grace; a man who is, ready at invention, and has always a flow of plausible language on these occasions, is said to be a prime gammoner; to gammon lushy or queer, is to pretend drunkenness, or sickness, for some private end.
GAMMON THE TWELVE . a man who has been tried by a criminal court, and by a plausible defence, has induced the jury to acquit him, or to banish the capital part of the charge, and so save his life, is said, by his associates to have gammoned the twelve in prime twig, alluding to the number of jurymen.
GAMS . the legs, to have queer gams, is to be bandy-legged, or otherwise deformed.
GARDEN . to put a person in the garden, in the hole, in the bucket, or in the well, are synonymous phrases, signifying to defraud him of his due share of the booty by embezzling a part of the property, or the money, it is fenced for; this phrase also applies generally to defrauding anyone with whom you are confidentially connected of what is justly his due.
GARNISH . a small sum of money extracted from a new chum on his entering a jail, by his fellow-prisoners, which affords them a treat of beer, gin, etc.
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