• Infants
• Boys
• Girls
• Children
• Illegitimate children
• Being with Child
• Interesting Expressions related to children

 One of the things that fascinates me most about slang is its very changeable nature. Words can change meaning at the drop of a hat. New words come into lay and may be gone in an instant, or they may stay around for a very long time.

I found some very familiar terms in this offering of Regency era language pertaining to children.

Infants

• Bantling

• Brat

• Chit  

• Lullaby Cheat

Boys

• Young shaver

• Kid

• Little Breeches

Girls

• Sow Child

Children

• Kinchin. A little child.

• Urchin. A child, a little fellow: also, a hedgehog.

Bull Chin. A fat chubby child.

Cherubim. Peevish children, because cherubim and seraphim continually do cry.

Chip of the old block. A child who, either in person or sentiments, resembles its father or mother.

Cosset. A foundling.

One of his get. One of his offspring or begetting.

Mother’s loll. A favorite child, the mother’s darling

Pin-basket. The youngest child.

Illegitimate children

• Love-begotten Child 

• Merry-begotten

• Squeaker

• A natural son or daughter

To stand Moses: a man is said to stand Moses when he has another man’s bastard child fathered upon him, and he is obliged by the parish to maintain it.

A wrinkle-bellied whore. One who has had a number of bastards as child-bearing leaves wrinkles in a woman’s belly.

Being with Child

• A woman has got her belly full

• A girl who sprained her ankle

• A woman has a white swelling.

• That wench is poisoned, see how her belly is swelled

Hans In Kelder. Jack in the cellar; i.e. the child in the womb: a health frequently drank to breeding women or their husbands.

Jack In A Box.  A child in the mother’s womb.

Launch. The delivery, or labor, of a pregnant woman.

Interesting Expressions related to children

Heavy baggage; women and children.

Black Monday. The first Monday after the school-boys’ holidays, or breaking up, when they are to go to school and produce or repeat the tasks set them. 

To sing the black psalm; to cry

A chip of the old block; a child who, either in person or sentiments, resembles its father or mother.

Chitty-paced. Baby-faced; said of one who has a childish look. 

He has deserved the cushion; a saying of one whose wife is brought to bed of a boy: implying, that, having done his business effectually, he may now indulge or repose himself. 

Foundling. A child dropped in the street, and found and educated at the parish expense.

Free of fumbler’s hall; a saying of one who cannot get his wife with child.

Marriage Music. The squalling and crying of children.

His mouth is full of pap; he is still a baby.

Prattle. Insignificant talk: generally applied to women and children.

He is as like his father as if he was spit out of his mouth: said of a child much resembling his father.

Sunburnt. Clapped: also, having many male children.

Quoted from:   Grose, Captain (Francis). (2004) Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue, 1811 ed. Ikon Classics