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Week sixty-two: SALAMON (probability 12017), by David Sutton

SALAMON is a word used in old oaths that supposedly refers to the Mass; vagrants swore 'by the salamon'. The origin is obscure.

A number of other such words from the fraternity of the road and/or the criminal underworld have found their way into the Scrabble list, among them:

CUFFIN	a chap, a fellow. A 'queer cuffin' was a justice of the peace; I don't believe that the epithet necessarily alluded to the sexual orientation of representatives of that learned profession, but simply reflected an aversion to having anything to do with them.
DARBIES	handcuffs. There is no DARBIE* or DARBY*.
DARKMANS	night. There is no DARKMAN*.
HARMAN	a constable. In the plural, HARMANS can mean the stocks.
KINCHIN	a child, from the German Kindchen.
LIBKEN	a place to sleep, an abode.
TOBY	the road. The 'high toby' was robbery by a highwayman on horseback; the 'low toby' was robbery by a highwayman on foot. Presumably after enough successful low tobies a highwayman could afford to graduate to the high toby, though then you have to balance the advantages of increased mobility against the additional costs of oats, stabling etc. But of course, the economics of highway robbery are not relevant to most Scrabble players, so I'll stop there.

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