Appendix B: Slang

This chapter details some of the (very optional) slang for the Frontier. Most of it is borrowed from our own real world. Feel free to use it or ignore it if it gets annoying.

Above-board – in open sight, without artifice or trick

Above Snakes – alive

Ace in the Hole – a hideout or hidden gun

Ace-High – first class and respected

Across Lots – fastest way possible, in the most expeditious manner

Addle-headed – empty-headed, not smart

Afeared – scared, frightened

Apple peeler – pocket knife

Atwixt – between

Bad Box – bad predicament

Bad Egg – bad person

Bamboozle – deceive, impose upon

Barking Irons – pistols

Barrens – elevated lands, or plains upon which grow small trees, but never timber

Beef – to kill

Big Fifty – Big buffalo hunting rifle, close to 16 pounds unloaded, three-quarter inch, 120-grain black powder cartridges loaded for differing ranges

Big Guns – men of importance

Bite the Ground – to be killed

Black-eyed Susan – a six-gun

By the Bye – by the way

By Good Rights – by strict justice

Cahoots = partnership

Calico – paint horse

Candle-light – dusk

Canister – gun

Cannon – revolver

Carryall – pleasure carriage

Cash in – to die

Catch a weasel asleep – something impossible

Chalk – not by a long chalk – fails by a long way

Chow – food, dinner

Clean your plow – give a whippin’

Cotton to

Cowboy up

Croaker – pessimist

Crooked as a virginia fence

Cut a dash – make a great show, to make a figure

Cut a path – leave, go

Dang – damn

Dash – damn

Decade – a small gold bar worth $10

Dog cheap

Eagle – ten dollar coin

Equalizer – pistol

Eventuate – to issue, come to an end, close, terminate

Fair shake

Fat in the fire – to have one’s plans frustrated

Feller – man, fellow

Get your back up – get angry

Go Boil Your Shirt – take a hike, get lost, bug off

Go Heeled – packing iron, carrying a gun

Gospel Mill – a church

Grassed – killed, put in the grass

Haint – have not, like ain’t

Hash – settle one’s business

Have a Mind To

Heeled – armed with a gun

High Tail – leave or ride off quickly

Hither and Yon – here and there

Hobble your lip – shut up

Huckleberry – the man for the job

Illy – sick

In For It – engaged with no retreating

Iron -branding iron or six-gun

Iron Horse – railroad train

Jawing – talking

Lead Plumb – a bullet

Lead Pusher – Gun

Lead Poisoning – shot

Leafless Tree – gallows

Leather-necks – soldiers

Nailed to the Counter – proven a lie

Necessary – bathroom

No Odds – no difference, no matter

Old Country – Areast

Over Head and Ears – overwhelmed

Pack Iron – carrying a gun

Painting His Nose – getting drunk

Passed his chips – died

Persuader – a gun

Piddle – waste time

Raise Sand – start trouble

Rattler – freight train

Road Agent – robber, bandit, desperado

Roostered – drunk

Salting – Planting valuable metal ore samples in a mine to sucker in buyers

Sand – guts, courage, toughness

Sawbones – surgeon

Scare Up – To get or obtain something

Sixes and Sevens – Disorder or confusion

Tarnation – a nicer form of damn. They sure had a lot of variations for damn in our world.

Tin – money

Vamoose – to leave quickly