Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue – Day Eighty-Two

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

Cod

Defined by the dictionary as “a cod of money; a good sum of money”, this word originally meant a small bag, container or pouch from the old English ‘codd’. So, perhaps, the phrase came from that origin, ‘a container of money’. As an aside, the fish likely took its name as it looked similar to an old leather pouch, although the word ‘cod’ seems to have had tens of meanings over the centuries.