Feeling a bit ‘dicked in the nob’ this week? In Regency England, this cheeky phrase meant acting crazy or foolish—like betting your estate on a lame horse or serenading a lady while three sheets to the wind! Heard in gentlemen’s clubs like White’s or at the Newmarket races, it was a favorite of sporting gents and rakes. Ex: ‘Lord Alvanley’s dicked in the nob, risking his blunt on a deuce!’ ‘Nob’ = head, and ‘dicked’ = faulty, from old cant slang. Who’s had a dicked-in-the-nob moment lately?

This is a slang phrase you would only hear from a man, never a lady. It meant crazy, mad, or foolish, but most specifically referred to someone who was acting eccentrically or irrationally, not unlike saying someone was “off their rocker” or “nuts.”

“Dicked” comes from an old slang term for a defect, flaw, or fault, often seen in Georgian cant, and was used as a colloquial term for any person or thing that might have something “wrong” with them. Since it was mostly oral slang, not used in writing, the history is murky, but it is include in Georgian cant dictionaries, such as Francis Grose’s Dictionary of Vulgar Tongue (1785 and updated in 1811).

“Nob” derives from “knob,” which referred to any rounded protrusion, such as one’s head on their neck. While used by the lower and middle classes as a disparaging term for aristocracy, there were casual contexts in gentlemanly slang like a “nob-thatcher” (wig-maker) or a “nobber” (a blow to the head).

Dicked in the nob originated as cant, or street slang, used mostly by criminals during the 18th century, but as we enter the Regency, its popularity spread into the upper realm, specifically with Corinthians and gentlemen rakes (but would never be said in the presence of a lady). You’d most likely hear it at the horses races, at a boxing match, or some other sporting event. The younger gentlemen during the Regency might use the phrase in front of a lady if he was intending to antagonize her, such as a son to his mother or sister.

It went from street slang to playful gentry slang in a matter of a decade. Would the Prince Regent have used this while gaming with his friends? You bet!

Playful usage might be to tease a friend about their wild idea or drunken antics.

Derogatory usage might be to insult someone’s sanity or intelligence.

Examples:

At White’s, Lord Alvanley bets his entire month’s allowance on a single card game. His friend turns to him, and in response to his reckless gambling, exclaims, “By Jove, Alvanley’s dicked in the nob to risk it all on a deuce!”

A young buck at Newmarket insists on betting on a lame horse. The Corinthian next to him scoffs at the foolish wager. “That fellow’s dicked in the nob, throwing his blunt on such a nag!”

A rake recounts his friend’s attempt to serenade a lady at midnight, only to fall into a fountain. With a laugh over his brandy, he says, “Poor devil was dicked in the nob, warbling like a cracked flute and soaking his breeches!”

In a letter to his friend, a gentleman gossips by writing, “My dear Charles, you’d scarce credit the folly at Brooks’s last night. Young Wentworth, dicked in the nob with claret, challenged a footman to a duel over a spilled glass.”