Imposition; cheat; fraud.
R-- and H-- will probably receive from Mr. Polk's administration 100,000 more than respectable printers would have done the work for. There is a clean plain gouge of this sum out of the people's strong box.--N. Y. Tribune, Dec. 10, 1845.
TO GOUGE
To chouse; to cheat.
Very well, gentlemen! gouge Mr. Crosby out of the seat, if you think it wholesome to do it.--N. Y. Tribune, Nov. 26, 1845.
TO GOUGE
"Gouging is performed by twisting the forefinger in a lock of hair, near the temple, and turning the eye out of the socket with the thumb-nail, which is suffered to grow long for that purpose."--Lambert's Travels, Vol. II. p. 300.
This practice is known only by hearsay at the North and East, and appears to have existed at no time except among the lower class of people in the interior of some of the Southern States. An instance has not been heard of for years. Grose has the word in his Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue, and defines it as "a cruel custom practised by the Bostonians in America!"