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