yegg
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English[edit]
Alternative forms[edit]
Etymology[edit]
Origin unknown.
Pronunciation[edit]
Noun[edit]
yegg (plural yeggs)
- (cant, slang) A person who breaks open safes; a burglar.
- 1904, Edwin S. Porter (director), Capture of the ‘Yegg’ Bank Burglars
- 1914, Louis Joseph Vance, “Accessary after the Fact”, in Nobody, New York, N.Y.: George H[enry] Doran Company, published 1915, →OCLC, page 51:
- She was frankly disappointed. For some reason she had thought to discover a burglar of one or another accepted type—either a dashing cracksman in full-blown evening dress, lithe, polished, pantherish, or a common yegg, a red-eyed, unshaven burly brute in the rags and tatters of a tramp.
- 1940, Raymond Chandler, Farewell, My Lovely, Penguin, published 2010, page 265:
- ‘These racketeers are a new type. We think about them the way we think about old time yeggs or needled-up punks.’
Synonyms[edit]
Translations[edit]
a person who breaks open safes; a burglar
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Verb[edit]
yegg (third-person singular simple present yeggs, present participle yegging, simple past and past participle yegged)
- (slang) To rob.
- 1956, Ian Fleming, chapter 10, in Diamonds Are Forever:
- The bookmakers were yegged as they left the track in the era of the hand-books.
References[edit]
- “yegg”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.
- Jonathon Green (2024) “yegg n.”, in Green’s Dictionary of Slang
- Jonathon Green (2024) “yegg v.”, in Green’s Dictionary of Slang
Anagrams[edit]
Categories:
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- Rhymes:English/ɛɡ
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- en:Crime
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