wapping dell

English

Etymology

From wap (“to engage in sexual intercourse”) + dell (“young woman”).

Noun

wapping dell (plural wapping dells)

1. (obsolete, UK, thieves' cant) A prostitute.
   • 1665, Richard Head, The English Rogue‎^[1], page 45:

     And wapping Dell, that niggles well, / And takes loure for her hire.

   • 1922, James Joyce, “Proteus”, in Ulysses, page 47:

     Buss her, wap in rogue’s rum lingo, for, O, my dimber wapping dell.

Synonyms

• wapping moll, wapping mort, see also Thesaurus:prostitute

References

• John S[tephen] Farmer; W[illiam] E[rnest] Henley, compilers (1904) “wapping dell”, in Slang and Its Analogues Past and Present. […], volume VII, [London: […] Neill and Co.] […], →OCLC, pages 292–293.
• Eric Partridge (1949) A Dictionary of the Underworld, London: Macmillan Co.