A saint’s day or holiday, marked in the calendars with red letters. Red letter men; Roman Catholics: from their observation of the saint days marked in red letters.

–From the 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue.

One who deserves and has narrowly escaped the gallows, a slip-gibbet, one for whom the gallows is said to groan.

–From the 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue.

A public execution.

–From the 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue.

Perplexity, confusion, or any thing else: a fashionable term that for a while succeeded that of bore.

–From the 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue.