upright man

See also: Upright Man

English

Alternative forms

• Upright Man

Noun

upright man (plural upright men)

1. (archaic, UK, thieves' cant) The leader of a group of thieves or vagrants.
   • 1611, Thomas Middleton, The Roaring Girle‎^[1]:

     I hope then you can cant, for by your cudgels, you sirra are an upright man.

   • 1815, Sir Walter Scott, Guy Mannering:

     And the gentry had kind hearts, and would have given baith lap and pannel to ony puir gypsy; and there was not one, from Johnnie Faa the upright man, to little Christie that was in the panniers, would cloyed a dud from them.

2. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see upright,‎ man.
   • 2013, Danson Enogiomwan Ubebe, Return to God: The ABC of 'set Free by Knowing the Truth', →ISBN, page 19:

     Later He gave him freedom from the Lord to live alone as an upright man to cultivate and keep His garden called Eden.

Synonyms

• See Thesaurus:criminal leader

References

• Albert Barrère and Charles G[odfrey] Leland, compilers and editors (1889–1890) “upright man”, in A Dictionary of Slang, Jargon & Cant […], volume II (L–Z), Edinburgh: […] The Ballantyne Press, →OCLC, page 391.
• John S[tephen] Farmer; W[illiam] E[rnest] Henley, compilers (1904) “upright man”, in Slang and Its Analogues Past and Present. […], volume VII, [London: […] Neill and Co.] […], →OCLC, page 264.