Obsolete English thieves' cant for nighttime or 'the night', used by 16th and 17th century criminal underworld communities to refer to the dark hours when illicit activity was most easily conducted. Part of a rich vocabulary of Elizabethan and Jacobean criminal slang documented in canting dictionaries of the period. 'Darkmans' pairs with 'lightmans' (daytime). Today the word is of purely historical and literary interest, appearing in period crime fiction, academic study of cant, and occasionally in fantasy or historical RPG settings.
They planned to move the stolen goods during the darkmans, when the constables would be least attentive.
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(obsolete, UK, thieves') The night.
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Regional slang from around the English-speaking world — British, Australian, Irish, Caribbean, Nigerian, Filipino, AAVE, and the hyphenated-English dialects that make the internet sound local.
See all Regional & Other slang on Slangora.