| Summary: | ‘You are lying like a thief and rogue’. Verbal abuse cited before the courts in 17th and 18th centuries southern and middle parts of Northern Sweden The aim of this article is to investigate the frequencies and meanings of abusive words cited before the town courts of Gävle and Härnösand, and the district courts of Hälsingland and Ångermanland respectively, during the periods 1665–69 and 1745–49. The main questions at issue concern gendered meanings and to what extent the words honesty and dishonesty had different meanings than today. ‘Thief’ and ‘rogue’ were the most common abusive words directed against men, and ‘whore’ and ‘thief’ against women. ‘Whore’ was, however, also strongly associated with lying and deceiving whereas the expression ‘you hit me like a thief and rogue’ could be used to blame the violent attack of an antagonist as unfair and dishonest. Thus, the abusive triad ‘thief’, ‘rogue’ and ‘whore’ indicate a much broader yet fundamentally similar meaning of dishonesty as today.
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