subs. (popular).—1. A person new to office, or, to the exercise of any art; e.g., a professional cricketer during his first season; a first-time juryman; a thief in his novitiate. [Properly a COLT is a young male horse.]
1785. GROSE, A Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue, s.v.
1885. Daily News, 28 Aug., p. 3, col. 7. A match arranged for the benefit of the young players of the county was commenced yesterday at Manchester, when the Lancashire Eleven were opposed to Twenty-six COLTS.
2. (nautical).—See quots.
1830. MARRYAT, The King’s Own, ch. viii. He always carried in his pocket a COLT (i.e., a foot and a half of rope, knotted at one end, and whipped at the other), for the benefit of the youngsters, to whom he was a most inordinate tyrant.
1836. MARRYAT, Mr. Midshipman Easy, xii. 59. ‘He said he was determined to uphold the service, and then he knocked me down—and when I got up again, he told me that I could stand a little more—and then he took out his COLT, and said he was determined to ride the high horse—and that there should be no Equality Jack in future.’
4. (thieves’).—A man who hires horses to burglars. In America he is called a COLT-MAN. [Quoted by Grose, 1785.]
5. (legal).—See quot.
1887. SIR F. POLLOCK, Personal Remembrances, vol. I., p. 212. In April I accompanied the newly-made Chief Baron [of Exchequer] as his COLT (the so-called attendant on a serjeant at his making) to the Lord Chancellor’s private room at Westminster.
1836. MARRYAT, Mr. Midshipman Easy, xii. 59. ‘And then he COLTED me for half an hour, and that’s all.’
2. (common).—To cause a person to stand treat by way of being ‘made free’ of a new place; to make one ‘pay one’s footing.’ Cf., subs., sense 1.
