road —
“This Doll Tearsheet should be some,”
2 HENRY IV., ii. 2. 160.
Here road is evidently the cant term for a
prostitute; but the word, I believe, is not found elsewhere in this sense. (Compare,
however, the following passage:
“Sister. Alas,
What course is left for vs to liue by, then?
Thomas. In troth, sister, we two to beg in the fields,
And you to betake yourselfe to the old trade,
Filling of small cannes in the suburbes.
Sister. Shall I be left, then, like a common road,
That euery beast that can but pay his tole
May trauell ouer, and, like to cammomile,
Flourish the better being trodden on?”
Wilkins's Miseries of Inforst Marriage,
sig. E 4 verso, ed. 1629. )
What course is left for vs to liue by, then?
Thomas. In troth, sister, we two to beg in the fields,
And you to betake yourselfe to the old trade,
Filling of small cannes in the suburbes.
Sister. Shall I be left, then, like a common road,
That euery beast that can but pay his tole
May trauell ouer, and, like to cammomile,
Flourish the better being trodden on?”
Wilkins's Miseries of Inforst Marriage,
sig. E 4 verso, ed. 1629. )
