Hang Up One’s Fiddle
- To give up. The opposite would be to "hang on to one’s fiddle.”
Hanker or Hankering - To have an incessant wish,
strong desire, longing.
Happifying - Making happy.
Hard Case - Worthless,
bad, unpleasant, - often referring to a person.
Hardfisted - Covetous,
close-handed, miserly.
Hard Money - A common term for
silver and gold, rather than paper money.
Hard Pushed or Hard Run - Hard pressed, to be in
a difficulty, short of cash.
Hard Row To Hoe - A metaphor derived from hoeing
corn, meaning a difficult matter or job to accomplish.
Harum-Scarum - A negative
term applied to flighty persons or persons always in a hurry.
Hash
- To settle
one's business.
Have a Mind To -
To have a notion, to be willing.
Hay Baler - A
horse, also called hay burner.
Hay Seed -
Deragatory term for a farmer, also called hay shaker.
Haze - To haze round, is to go rioting
about.
Head-Cheese - The ears and feet of
swine cut up fine, boiled, and pressed into the form of a cheese.
Heap
- A lot, many, a great deal. "He went through a heap of trouble to get her
that piano." Also refers to a crowd, a throng, a rabble.
Hearn - Heard.
Hear Tell - To hear a report of, to
hear of.
Hearty As A Buck - Very well,
healthy, hearty. A hunter's phrase.
Heave In Sight - To come in sight,
to appear. A nautical phrase that originated with approaching vessels
which appeared to raise or heave itself above the horizon.
Heeled - To
be armed with a gun. "He wanted to fight me, but I told him I was not
heeled."
Heft - Weight, ponderousness.
Hellabaloo - Riotous noise, confusion.
Hell-fired - Very, great, immensely;
used for emphasis. He is just too hell-fired lazy to get any work done
around here. Also "all-fired” and "jo-fired."
Hell Rousers - Spurs.
Helter-Skelter - In a hurry, without
order, tumultuously.
Hemp
-
Cowboy
talk for rope; in verb form to hang someone. Hemp fever was a morbidly
jocular term for a hanging. Hemp party (also string party) meant the same.
A hemp committee was a group of vigilantes or a lynch mob (depending on
your point of view) and a hemp necktie was the rope they did the deed
with. Coined because
cowboys
used ropes made of Manila hem.
