subs. (old).—1. A chamber-mug. For synonyms, see IT. [Short for JORDAN BOTTLE; a memory of the Crusades]. Hence JORDAN-HEADED (DUNBAR) an opprobrious epithet.
1383. CHAUCER, The Canterbury Tales, 12. 240, ‘The Pardoneres Prologue.’
| I pray to God to saue thy gentil corps, | |
| And eke thyn urinals, and thy JORDANES. |
1545. LYNDSAY, Ane Pleasant Satyre of the Thrie Estaitis l. 2478. Your mouth war meit to drinke an wesche JURDEN.
1592. GREENE, The Blacke Bookes Messenger, in Works, xi. 33. And so pluckt goodman IURDAINE with all his contents downe pat on the Curbers pate.
1598. SHAKESPEARE, 1 Henry IV., ii. 1. They will allow us ne’er a JORDEN.
1614. JONSON, Bartholomew Fair, ii. 1. Good JORDAN, I know what you’ll take to a very drop.
1622. JONSON, The Masque of Augurs, in Wks. (CUNNINGHAM), iii. 165.
| My lady will come | |
| With a bowl and a broom, | |
| And her handmaid with a JORDAN. |
1658. R. BROME, The Covent-Garden Weeded, ii., 2, p. 33. Vint. Carry up a JORDAN for the Maidenhead, and a quart of white musckadine for the blew Bore.
c. 1696. B. E., A New Dictionary of the Canting Crew, s.v. JORDAIN.
1725. A New Canting Dictionary, s.v.
1728. POPE, The Dunciad, ii. 190. Crown’d with the JORDAN walks contented home.
1765. GOLDSMITH, Essays, 1. Instead of a crown, our performer covered his brows with an inverted JORDAN.
1785. GROSE, A Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue, s.v.
c. 1794. WOLCOT (‘Peter Pindar’), Peter’s Prophecy. Who knows not JORDANS, fool! from Roman vases?
1887. DR. BREWER, in Notes and Queries, S. iii. 79. We always called the Matula the JORDAN, and into this receptacle all the bedroom slops were emptied.
2. (old).—A stroke with a staff.
c. 1696. B. E., A New Dictionary of the Canting Crew, s.v. JORDAIN. I’ll tip him a JORDAIN if I transnear, I will give a blow with my staff if I get up to him.
1859. G. W. MATSELL, Vocabulum; or, The Rogue’s Lexicon, s.v.
3. (journalistic).—The Atlantic; THE DITCH (q.v.); THE HERRING-POND (q.v.).
1875. Daily Telegraph, 10 May. No sooner does a great want of any kind make itself felt, than the means of supplying that want are discovered by our ingenuous cousins on the other side of JORDAN.
Adj. (American thieves’).—Disagreeable; hard of accomplishment.
1859. G. W. MATSELL, Vocabulum; or, The Rogue’s Lexicon, s.v.
