~Keep a pig~, an Oxford University phrase, which means to have a lodger. A man whose rooms contain two bedchambers has sometimes, when his college is full, to allow the use of one of them to a Freshman, who is called under these circumstances a PIG. The original occupier is then said to KEEP A PIG.
~Keep it up~, to prolong a debauch, or the occasion of a rejoicing,--a metaphor drawn from the game of shuttlecock. People suffering from the effects of drink are said to have been KEEPING IT UP.--_Grose._
~Kelter~, coin, money. Probably from GELT.
~Ken~, a house.--_Ancient cant._ KHAN, _Gipsy_ and _Oriental_.
[Asterism] All slang and cant words which end in KEN, such as SPIELKEN, SPINIKEN, or BOOZINGKEN, refer to houses, and are mainly of Gipsy origin.
~Kennedy~, a poker; to "give KENNEDY" is to strike or kill with a poker. A St. Giles's term, so given from a man of that name being killed by a poker.
~Kent rag~, or CLOUT, a cotton handkerchief.
~Kervorten~, a Cockneyism for QUARTERN or quarter-pint measure. "KERVORTEN and three houts," a quartern of liquor and glasses, each holding a third of the quantity.
~Ketch~, or JACK KETCH, the popular name for a public hangman; derived from a person of that name who officiated in the reign of Charles II.--_See Macaulay's History of England._
~Kettle of fish~, a mess or muddle of any kind. As, "Here's a pretty KETTLE OF FISH!"
~Key of the street~, an imaginary instrument said to be possessed by any one locked out of doors.
~Kibosh~, nonsense, stuff, humbug; "it's all KIBOSH," _i.e._, palaver or nonsense; to "put on the KIBOSH," to run down, slander, degrade, &c. To put the KIBOSH on anything is, latterly, to put an effectual end or stop to it.
~Kick~, a moment; "I'll be there in a KICK," _i.e._, in a moment.
~Kick~, a pocket; _Gaelic_, CUACH, a bowl, a nest; _Scotch_, QUAIGH.
~Kick~, a sixpence; "two and a KICK," two shillings and sixpence.
~Kick the bucket~, to die.--_Norfolk._ According to Forby, a metaphor taken from the descent of a well or mine, which is of course absurd. The Rev. E. S. Taylor supplies the following note from his MS. additions to the work of the East-Anglian lexicographer:--
"The allusion is to the way in which a slaughtered pig is hung up--viz., by passing the ends of a bent piece of wood behind the tendons of the hind legs, and so suspending it to a hook in a beam above. This piece of wood is locally termed a BUCKET, and so by a coarse metaphor the phrase came to signify to die."