gooseberry lay

English

Noun

gooseberry lay (plural gooseberry lays)

1. (archaic, thieves' cant) The stealing of linen hanging on a line.
   • 1865, Ballou's Monthly Magazine, page 315:

     I soon had some kids in working order, and we done a good business - this was in the winter, and we all vent on the gooseberry lay - that means taking things from clothes lines - and ye see they would talk about it ven dey comes home, so that the landlord could hear 'em sometimes - being only a thin board partition between our room and his'n. […]

   • (Can we date this quote?), Dashiell Hammett, early manuscript of The Maltese Falcon, quoted in 2020, Study Guide to The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett (Influence Publishers, →ISBN):

     “How long have you been off the gooseberry lay, son?”

References

• John S[tephen] Farmer; W[illiam] E[rnest] Henley, compilers (1893) “gooseberry lay”, in Slang and Its Analogues Past and Present. […], volume III, [London: […] Harrison and Sons] […], →OCLC, page 183.