wapping dell

English

Etymology

From wap (“to engage in sexual intercourse”) + dell (“young woman”).

Noun

wapping dell (plural wapping dells)

(obsolete, UK, thieves' cant) A prostitute.
- 1665, Richard Head, The English Rogue‎, page 45:
  And wapping Dell, that niggles well, / And takes loure for her hire.
- 1922, James Joyce, “Proteus”, in Ulysses, page 47:
  Buss her, wap in rogue’s rum lingo, for, O, my dimber wapping dell.

Synonyms

wapping moll, wapping mort, see also Thesaurus:prostitute

References

John S[tephen] Farmer; W[illiam] E[rnest] Henley, compilers (1904) “wapping dell”, in Slang and Its Analogues Past and Present. […], volume VII, [London: […] Neill and Co.] […], →OCLC, pages 292–293.
Eric Partridge (1949) A Dictionary of the Underworld, London: Macmillan Co.

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