Eric Partridge

A Dictionary of the Underworld: British and American Eric Partridge

Originally published: New York: The Macmillan Company, 1950. xv, 804 pp. Reprint of the second edition. One of the great lexicographers of the twentieth century, Partridge compiled the Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English, Shakespeare's Bawdy, A Dictionary of Catch Phrases and other books. Thoroughly engrossing, A Dictionary of the Underworld offers definitions for such obscure terms and phrases as witch-hazel man (heroin addict), sarbot (informer), eason (to tell) and budge a beak (run away).