Release date is 2025-08-05

Terry Jeffress and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This book was produced from scanned images of public domain material from the Google Books project.)

"A vocabulary of criminal slang : with some examples of common usages" by Louis E. Jackson is a glossary of criminal slang written in the early 20th century. It catalogs the underworld’s vocabulary for the benefit of law officers, the press, and other professionals, pairing definitions with usage notes and cross-references. The focus is practical: to strip secrecy from criminal jargon and improve detection, prosecution, and reform. The opening of this work sets a sober, reform-minded tone: a dedication to a sheriff, a statement that the book aims to aid public servants rather than sensationalize, and an argument that exposing slang diminishes its power. The preface explains how slang mutates, shows how meanings arise (such as “dope”), urges cooperation from readers to expand the list, and offers a brief survey of crime types and their economic and moral costs, criticizing prisons that idle rather than train. After this, the alphabetical vocabulary begins—dense with entries from ADMAN and ANGEL through early S-terms—each giving concise meanings, common contexts (e.g., pickpockets, yeggs, shoplifters), examples in sentences, and frequent cross-references that map the criminal subcultures’ speech. (This is an automatically generated summary.)

Originally published: Portland: Modern Printing Co., 1915