subs. (gaming).—In pl. = playing cards: see STOCK BROADS. Hence BROADSMAN (or BROAD-COVE) = a card-sharper: Fr. brémeur; cf. BROAD-FENCER; BROAD-FAKING = card-playing, but spec. work of the three card and kindred character.
1789. G. PARKER, Life’s Painter, 142. Who are continually looking out for flats, in order to do them upon the BROADS, that is cards.
1819. J. H. VAUX, A Vocabulary of the Flash Language. BROADS, cards; a person expert at which is said to be a good BROAD-PLAYER.
1821. W. T. MONCRIEFF, Tom and Jerry, ii., 5.
| Your swell BROAD COVES, with all their airs, | |
| Can’t match the kids near Wapping stairs. |
1834. W. H. AINSWORTH, Rookwood, iv., ii. I nick the BROADS.
1877. W. H. THOMSON, Five Years’ Penal Servitude, iv. 262. He … became one of a gang who practised with the ‘BROADS’ card-sharping and the ‘confidence trick.’
1879. J. W. HORSLEY, ‘Autobiography of a Thief,’ in Macmillan’s Magazine, XL., 502. BROADSMEN (card-sharpers).
1887. W. E. HENLEY, Villon’s Straight Tip to all Cross Coves, i. Or fake the BROADS? or fig a nag?
1888. G. R. SIMS, in Cassell’s Saturday Journal, 31 March, 7. The BROADSMAN is a card-sharper.
2. (colloquial).—Bordering on the indecent; SMUTTY (q.v.).
1902. Free Lance, 19 July, 364, 2. ‘In all my repertory,’ says the lady, ‘there is, I think, but one expression which is a little BROAD, and I always deliver that with an apologetic glance at my audience.’ Well all we can say is this, an audience who jibbed at an expression a ‘little BROAD,’ accompanied by an ‘apologetic glance,’ must be more than a little narrow. It is glances such as those that disarm criticism, and are apt to cause smiles even broader than the expression.
PHRASES—IN THE BROAD or THE LONG = in one way or another. IT’S AS BROAD AS IT’S LONG = there’s no difference, there’s not a pin to choose between them.
