subs. (costers’).—A shilling. Back slang, but cf. Fr., argent. For synonyms, see BLOW.
1851–61. H. MAYHEW, London Labour and the London Poor, vol. i., p. 19. I’ll try you a GEN (shilling) said a coster.
1887. The Saturday Review, 14 May, p. 700. The difficulty of inverting the word shilling accounts for ‘generalize,’ from which the abbreviation to GEN is natural as well as affectionate.
