or hackney, subs. (old: now recognised).—1. A person or thing let out for promiscuous use: e.g., a horse, a whore, a literary drudge. Whence (2) a coach that plies for hire; (3) (stables’) a horse for everyday use, as offered to one for a special purpose—hunting, racing, polo. (4) (Cambridge University), see quot. 1803. Also HACKSTER.
1333. CHAUCER, The Canterbury Tales, 16,027. His HAKENEY, which that was a pomele gris.
1540. LYNDSAY, Ane Pleasant Satyre of the Thrie Estaitis, 3237.
| Quhair I may finde | |
| The Erle of Rothus best HAIKNAY? |
1582. HAKLUYT, Voyages, i., 400. There they use to put out their women to hire as we do here HAKNEY horses.
1594. SHAKESPEARE, Love’s Labour’s Lost, iii. 1. The hobby-horse is but a colt, and your love perhaps a HACKNEY.
1594. NASHE, The Unfortunate Traveller, 101 (Chiswick Press, 1890). Out whore, strumpet, sixpenny HACKSTER, away with her to prison!
1672. RAY, Proverbs. HACKNEY mistress, HACKNEY maid.
1678. BUTLER, Hudibras, pt. iii., c. 1, 891.
| That is no more than ev’ry lover | |
| Does from his HACKNEY-LADY suffer. |
c. 1696. B. E., A New Dictionary of the Canting Crew, s.v. HACKS, or HACKNEYS, Hirelings. Ibid., HACKNEY HORSES. Ibid., HACKNEY SCRIBBLERS. Ibid., HACKNEY WHORES, Common Prostitutes.
1738. POPE, Epilogue to the Satires.
| What! shall each spur-gall’d HACKNEY of the day,… | |
| Or each new pension’d sycophant, pretend | |
| To break my windows …? |
1754. FIELDING, Jonathan Wild, iv., 14. With wonderful alacrity he had ended almost in an instant, and conveyed himself into a place of safety in a HACKNEY-coach.
1785. GROSE, A Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue, s.v. HACKNEY WRITER. One who writes for attornies or booksellers.
1803. Gradus ad Cantabrigiam, III. HACKS. HACK Preachers; the common exhibitioners at St. Mary’s, employed in the service of defaulters, and absentees.
1819. T. MOORE, Tom Crib’s Memorial to Congress. I first was hir’d to peg a HACK.
1821. W. T. MONCRIEFF, Tom and Jerry, i., 7. A rattler is a nimbler, otherwise a Jarvy! Better known, perhaps, by the name of a HACK.
1841. LEMAN REDE, Sixteen-String Jack, ii., 3. Kit. I’ll get a HACK, be off in a crack.
Verb (colloquial, football).—To kick shins. HACKING = the practice of kicking shins at football.
1857. G. A. LAWRENCE, Guy Livingstone, ch. i. I saw, too, more than one player limp out of his path disconsolately, trying vainly to dissemble the pain of a vicious HACK.
1869. SPENCER, The Study of Sociology, ch. viii., p. 186 (9 ed.). And thus, perhaps, the ‘education of a gentleman’ may rightly include giving and receiving HACKING of the shins at foot-ball.
1872. The Echo, 3 Nov. Some of the modern foot ball players have the tips of their shoes tipped with iron, and others wear a kind of armour or iron plate under their knicker-bockers to avoid … what is called HACKING.
