CHUCK-A-LUCK. A Western game, played with dice.

At Holly Fork, Tennessee, any one can be accommodated. Cards or chuck-aluck, old corn or cider, a fight or a foot-race, mattered not, it was to be had at a moment's notice. - Southern Sketches, p. 160.

CHUK! A noise made in calling swine. Always repeated at least three times.

CHUNK. A short, thick piece of wood, or of any thing else; a chump. The word is provincial in England, and colloquial in the United States.

I rode an all-fired smart chunk of a poney-real creole- cane raised — walk six miles an hour, and run like a scared deer in a prairie a-fire.-N. Y. Spirit of the Times, Frontier Incident.

It is true that now and then a small chunk of sentiment or patriotism or philanthropy is thrown in awkwardly among the crudities and immoralities [of the stage] — but it evidently has no business there. — New York in Slices, The Theatre. TO CHUNK. To throw sticks or chips at one.

Southern and Western.

CHUNK-YARD or CHUNKEE-YARD. A name given by the white traders to the oblong four-square yards adjoining the high mounts and rotundas of the modern Indians of Florida. In the centre of these stands the obelisk, and at each corner of the further end stands a slave post, or strong stake, where the captives that are burnt alive are bound. — Bartram.

The pyramidal hills or artificial mounts, and highways or avenues, leading from them to artificial lakes or ponds, vast tetragon terraces, chunk-yards, and obelisks or pillars of wood, are the only monuments of labor, ingenuity, and magnificence, that I have seen worthy of notice. - Bartram, Travels in Florida, (1773,) p. 518.

This is doubtless an Indian term, and the enclosure a place where the natives played a game called chunkee, as will appear by the following extract from Du Pratz :

"The warriors practise a diversion which they call the game of the pole, at which only two play at a time. Each pole is about eight feet long, resembling a Roman f, and the game consists in rolling a flat, round stone, about three inches in diameter and one inch thick, and throwing the pole in such a manner, that when the stone rests the pole may be at or near it. Both the antagonists throw their poles at the same time, and he whose pole is nearest the stone counts one, and has the right of rolling the stone."- History of Louisiana, 1720.

CHUNKED. Any person who is impudent or bold, at the South-west, is said to be chunked.

CHUNKY. Short and thick. Often applied to the stature of a person, as "he is a chunky little fellow."

CHURCH. Mr. Pickering has the following remarks on this word: "A

church, as a body of persons, is distinguished, in New England, from a

congregation, by the privileges which the former in general reserve to themselves of receiving exclusively in that church the sacrament and baptism, in consequence of their having publicly declared their assent to the creed which that church maintains. Marriage, burial, and public worship, are open to the members of the congregation at large, according to the forms and methods employed in each church; as are also catechizing for children and visits to the sick." - Vocabulary.

CIDER. All talk and no cider is a phrase equivalent to "great cry and little wool."

CIDER BRANDY. See Apple Brandy.

CIDER OIL. Cider concentrated by boiling, to which honey is subsequently added.

CIENEGA. (Span.) A marsh. New Mexico and Texas. A small marsh is called a cieneguita.

CIMLIN. A squash, so called in the Middle and Southern States.

TO CIRCULATE. To travel. Used in this sense many times in a pamphlet on the "Frauds, Extortions, and Oppressions of the Railroad Monopoly in New Jersey." In comparing the rates of travel in various States, by which it is shown that the rates in New Jersey are the highest in the world, the author says of the traveller:

Arriving in Maryland, a slave State, he circulates at a cost of from three to five cents per mile.

CIRCUMSTANCE. Not a circumstance, in the sense of a thing of no account, nothing in comparison, is a vulgarism which has become popular within the last few years.

I never saw so lean and spare a gall as Miss A since I was raised. Pharaoh's lean kine war n't the smallest part of a circumstance to her. I had to look twice before I could see her at all. -Sam Slick, Human Nature, p. 184.

CISCO.

The popular name of a fish of the herring kind which abounds in Lake Ontario, particularly in Chaumont Bay at the east end, where thousands of barrels are annually caught and salted. I do not find this name mentioned by Dr. DeKay, in his work on the fishes of New York, in the Natural History of the State.

TO CITIZENIZE. To make a citizen, to admit to the rank and privileges of a citizen.-Webster. Rarely used.

Talleyrand was citizenized in Pennsylvania, when there in the form of an emigrant.-T. Pickering.

CITESS. This word, as well as citizeness, was used in America during the first years of the French Revolution, as a translation of the revolutionary

title, citoyenne; but it has, for several years, been wholly disused. Pickering's Vocabulary.

It is unnecessary to recite the discussions on this word by the British critics, the Quarterly Review, etc., as it was never adopted into our language. Dr. Webster and the English lexicographers have the word citess in their dictionaries, but only in the sense of "a city woman.” CIVISM. Love of country; patriotism. Webster. This, like the preceding word, is one of the productions of the French Revolution; and, though frequently used several years ago, is now obsolete here as well as in France. -Pickering's Vocabulary.

CIVILIZEE. A civilized man; one advanced in civilization. The word has never obtained currency.

The barbarian likes his seraglio; the civilizee admires the institution of marriage. The barbarian likes a roving, wandering life; the civilizee likes his home and fireside. New York Observer.

CLABBER. See Bonny-Clabber.

CLAIM. A piece of public land which a squatter marks out for himself and settles upon, with the intention of purchasing it when the government I will offer it for sale.

CLAIM-JUMPER. One who violently seizes on another's land claim.

CLAIM-JUMPING. Violently seizing on another's claim.

CLAM. The popular name of certain shell-fish, highly esteemed for food. They are of two principal kinds :

1. The Hard Clam (Venus mercenaria), a very common mollusk, found buried in the sand or shores of marine districts at half-tide.

2. The Soft Clam, or Mananosay (Mya arenaria), obtained from the shores of tidal rivers by digging one or two feet in the loose sand. It has a long, extensible, cartilaginous snout, or proboscis, through which it ejects water; whence it is also called Stem-clam and Piss-clam. CLAM-BAKE. Clams, baked in the primitive style of the Indians, furnish one of the most popular dishes on those parts of the coast where they abound, and constitute a main feature in the bill of fare at pic-nics and other festive gatherings. The method of baking is as follows: A cavity is dug in the earth, about eighteen inches deep, which is lined with round stones. On this a fire is made; and, when the stones are sufficiently heated, a bushel or more of hard clams (according to the number of persons who are to partake of the feast) is thrown upon them. On this is put a layer of rock-weed gathered from the beach, and over this a second layer of sea-weed. Sometimes the clams are simply placed close together on the ground, with the hinges uppermost, and over them is

Clams

Imade a fire of brush. This is called an Indian bed of clams. baked in this manner are preferred to those cooked in the usual way in the kitchen.

Parties of ten or twenty persons, of both sexes, are the most common. Often they extend to a hundred, when other amusements are added; and on one occasion, that of a grand political mass-meeting in favor of Gen. Harrison on the 4th of July, 1840, nearly 10,000 persons assembled in Rhode Island, for whom a clambake and chowder were prepared. This was probably the greatest feast of the kind that ever took place in New England. CLAM-SHELL. The lips, or mouth. There is a common though vulgar expression in New England, of "Shut your clam-shell," that is, "Shut your mouth, hold your tongue." The padlock, now used on the United States mail-bags is called the "Clam-shell padlock."

CLAPBOARD. A thin, narrow board, used to cover the sides of houses, and placed so as to overlap the one below it. In England, according to Bailey's Dictionary, a clapboard is a thin board formed ready for the cooper's use, in order to make casks or vessels.

TO CLAPBOARD. To cover with clapboarding.

The house was neat and comfortable. It was a small frame building, clapboarded on the sides and roof. - Margaret, p. 18.

CLAPE. The common name of the Golden-winged Woodpecker, in the State of New York. Dr. DeKay thinks it "a provincial word, introduced by the early English colonists." It is elsewhere called High-hole, Yucker, Flicker, Wake-up, and Pigeon Woodpecker; in Louisiana, Piquebois jaune. Nat. Hist. of New York.

CLATTER WHACKING. A clatter, racket.

When we went a bar hunting, I heard the darndest clatterwhacking and noise in the road behind us. -Southern Sketches, p. 32.

CLAY-EATERS. A miserable set of people inhabiting some of the Southern States, who subsist chiefly on turpentine whiskey, and appease their craving for more substantial food by filling their stomachs with a kind of aluminous earth which abounds everywhere. This gives them a yellowish, drab-colored complexion, with dull eyes, and faces whose idiotic expression is only varied by a dull despair or a devilish malignity. They are looked down upon by the negroes with a contempt which they return by a hearty hatred.- Ida May.

THE CLEAN THING. A low expression, denoting propriety, or what is honorable.

It is admitted, that sending out ships to plunder your neighbor or adversary is as much as mere words in making war. I don't like it. It is n't the clean thing. Crockett, Tour, p. 193.

A man may be the straight thing, that is, right up and down like a cow's tail; but hang me if he can be the clean thing any how he can fix it.-S. Slick, Human Nature, p. 53.

CLEAN TICKET. The entire

ticket without any erasures. Nominations."

regularly nominated ticket at an election; a "He went the clean ticket on the Whig

CLEARING. A place or tract of land cleared of wood for cultivation a common use of the word in America.

Webster.

After we reached the boundaries of the clearing and plunged into the timbered land, this heat was exchanged for a grotto-like coolness. — Mrs. Clavers, Forest Life, Vol. I. p. 64.

CLEARING HOUSE. An establishment recently organized in the city of New York, where clerks from the various banks daily meet to settle the balances of their respective institutions.

To CLEAR OUT. To take oneself off; to depart, decamp. A vulgar expression.

This thing of man-worship I am a stranger to; I don't like it; it taints every action of life; it is like a skunk getting into a house-long after he has cleared out, you smell him in every room and closet from the cellar to the garret. - Crockett's Speech, Tour, p. 74.

I turned round, and was going to clear out. But, says he, Stop, Mister! — Major Downing's May-day in New York.

CLEAR SWING. Good opportunity. See Full Swing.

As soon as civilization arrives at years of discretion, we expect to see our cities purged of rowdyism, incentives to vice abated, and a clear swing and ample reward granted to labor and intelligence.-N. Y. Tribune.

To CLERK, or TO CLERK IT. To act in the capacity of a clerk. In common use at the West, and occasionally heard in New York.

Teaching, clerking, law, etc., are so very precarious except to men of established reputation and business, that it is next to madness for a youth to come here relying upon them.-N. Y. Tribune, April 19, 1849.

Young Soublette had been clerking down to the fort on the Platte, so he know'd something. Ruxton, Far West, p. 17.

I was struck with the original mode in which the young gentleman who was clerking it managed his spelling. — A Stray Yankee in Texas, p. 197.

CLEVER. The following are the English senses of this word as given by Dr. Worcester: Dexterous, skilful (Addison); just, fit, proper, commodious (Pope); well-shaped, handsome (Arbuthnot).

In the United States, clever is much used as a colloquial word in the sense of good-natured, well-disposed, honest; and the phrase "clever man" or "clever fellow," is employed to denote a person of good-nature, good disposition, or good intention. Worcester's Dictionary.