Thieves' cant

It is now mostly obsolete and used in literature and fantasy role-playing, although individual terms continue to be used in the criminal subcultures of Britain and the United States.

It was claimed by Samuel Rid to have been devised around 1530 by two vagabond leaders – Giles Hather, of the "Egyptians", and Cock Lorell, of the "Quartern of Knaves" – at The Devil's Arse, a cave in Derbyshire, "to the end that their cozenings, knaveries and villainies might not so easily be perceived and known".

It was used extensively in The Beggars' Bush, a play by Francis Beaumont, John Fletcher and Philip Massinger, first performed in 1622, but possibly written c. 1614.

The play remained popular for two centuries, and the canting section was extracted as The Beggars Commonwealth by Francis Kirkman as one of the drolls he published for performance at markets, fairs and camps.

Bampfylde Moore Carew, who published his picaresque Life in 1745, claimed to have been chosen to succeed "Clause Patch" as King of the Beggars, and many editions of his work included a canting dictionary.

[4] There is doubt as to the extent to which the words in canting literature were taken from street usage, or were adopted by those wishing to show that they were part of a real or imagined criminal underworld.