or hypo, subs. (old).—The BLUE DEVILS (q.v.).
1710. SWIFT, Tatler, No. 230. Will Hazard has got the HIPPS, having lost to the tune of five hund’rd pound. Ibid. (1729), Poems, ‘The Grand Question Debated’ (CHALMERS, English Poets, 1810, xi., 485). And the doctor was plaguily DOWN IN THE HIPS. Ibid. (1738), Polite Conversation, Dial 1. Her ladyship was plaguily bamb’d; I warrant it put her into the HIPPS.
1811. GROSE and CLARKE, Lexicon Balatronicum, s.v.
1830. LAMB, The Pawnbroker’s Daughter, i., 2.
| The drops so like to tears did drip, | |
| They gave my infant nerves the HYP. |
1854. HALIBURTON (‘Sam Slick’), The Americans at Home, i. 176. The old man would give up to the HYPO, and keep his bed for weeks. During this time, he wouldn’t say a word, but ‘I’m not long for this world.’
