How it works
This Victorian English translator swaps plain words for slang recorded in two dictionaries of Victorian speech: a policeman becomes a bobby, sausages become bags o' mystery, tea becomes scandal-water. Each row says which dictionary lists it.
Read the full guide
Plain English in, Victorian slang out
Whole words and phrases change, the longest match first, and anything without a row is left alone. Swap reads Victorian words back into plain ones, roughly: tin, tile and twig are also ordinary words, so check those by eye.
The two dictionaries behind the table
Most rows are entries of John Camden Hotten's Slang Dictionary in its edition of 1874. The rest come from J. Redding Ware's Passing English of the Victorian Era, printed in 1909, which often adds who said a word and when: bang up to the elephant is marked London, 1882.
- Everyday nouns have the most rows: food, tea, sausages, hat, trousers, umbrella and money all change.
- As a Victorian translator for a story, it suits short spoken lines: praise, complaints and orders to go away.
Questions and answers
How do I translate to Victorian English?
Type a plain sentence in the box and copy the result. Friend becomes chum, nonsense becomes gammon, excellent becomes bang-up, and go away becomes hook it.
What does gigglemug mean?
A face that is always smiling. Ware lists it as street slang. His book also has mutton shunter for a policeman, dated 1883, and rain-napper for an umbrella, because it catches the rain.
Is this a Victorian era language translator for formal writing?
No. It is a Victorian slang translator: it changes words and leaves grammar alone. The long sentences of a Victorian letter are a way of writing, which a word table cannot produce. For grander wording, try the fancy word translator.
Why are some Victorian slang words missing?
Both dictionaries are full of words for drink, theft, prison and betting, and of words that mock a people or a kind of person. This site is used by children, so none of those has a row, and neither do the oaths.
Were all these words in use at the same time?
No. Hotten marks some as old in 1874, and Ware's entries run past 1900. Street sellers, sailors, students and society each had their own words, so a sentence that mixes them is for fun, not for a history essay.