Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue – Day 184

The Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue was first published at the end of the eighteenth century, and given that the current health crisis is giving too much time to read books, I thought I’d pick a daily word from it until I got bored….

Launch

This is another one of the definitions that Grose uses that I can’t add much to, but I very much like the terminology again. He defines the word as “the delivery, or labour, of a pregnant woman; a crying out of groaning”. There’s something rather lovely about calling the birth of a baby as its “launch”.