SSoIH Hobo Terms and Definitions

Some of the descriptive text may seem a little strange as it was copied from the source as displayed.
Some of the terms and descriptions can be offensive in nature but this is part of history. Some terms have been edited in extreme cases.

SSoIH Slang Word Lookup

Search on a slang word or a common word in the description across multiple slang words.

A - back to top ↑

B - back to top ↑

B.N. - Burlington Northern
Badger Game - A blackmailing scheme, once much more common than at present, in which the victim is taken to a room or apartment by the woman accomplice, and there discovered by the “ husband.” Hush money is demanded under threat of exposure or injury, and in many cases, when the victim’s identity is known, a long and expensive acquaintance with the blackmailers follow.
Badorder - A wrecked boxcar on its way to the repair yard
Bad Road - A railroad, or a railroad division, whereon trainmen are especially hard on tramps and other trespassers. This enmity is generally the result of depredations committed by tramps, or the killing of some trainman by a tramp or yegg, and is not usually due to any official order or regulation. See " fishing ", " dew drop ".
Bakehead - A locomotive fireman ; since many railroaders claim these workers are non too bright merely because of the intense heat they face while firing their engines. The term is also applied to stokers of any boiler or engine, and has become fairly common as a substitute for fool or idiot, especially among migratory workers. Of like construction are " hoghead ", " pinhead " and " swellhead ".
Bald-Headed Lump - A “ lump " or package of food given a tramp which contains nothing but coarse, hearty food, without pie, cake or other sweets. See " lump ", " robbing the mail ".
Baldy - A generic term for an old man, regardless of the hair he may or may not have.
Bale of Straw - A blonde woman. Very generally used in circus and carnival circles, and obvious as to origin, the more so since the large and sturdy type of woman is the one which makes the greatest appeal to the men who follow the shows and demand their play, to match their work, in large doses.
Ball Lump - Sandwiches or cake wrapped up and handed to a hobo or tramp.
Balling the Jack - Speeding
Balloon - Bedding, especially when carried over the shoulder in a roll which when loosely tied does resemble a balloon in some degree. See also “ crum roll ”, “ bindle ”, “ soogan ”.
Bally - See " ballyhoo".
Ballyhoo - Loud talk; noisy conversation. Originally, the free entertainment or “lecture” given outside a sale or entertainment to attract a crowd. Also called “ bally ” by pitchmen ” and carnival workers.
Bally Stand - The platform or stage from which a ballyhoo is delivered.
Band House - A gaol or prison. Old yeggs say the term simply means a group of men banded together, but probably the old English " band " or " bond ", something to fetter the individual, is the origin.
Banjo - (1) A short-handled scoop shovel, especially one used for coal, and so called from its similarity in shape to the musical instrument. (2) a small portable frying pan.
Bang Out - Excellent or successful ; desirable. See " bang up ".
Bang Up - The same as " bang out ", and perhaps more generally used. When everything goes well for the tramp, and he is able to live easly, he says " things are bang up by me ", and thus expresses his contentment.
Baraby - A genteel, quiet, respectful hobo or tramp.
Barber - To talk. The legendary ability of the barber in the matter of gossip has been made into a verb, and is one of the oldest tramp expressions known when lengthy talk is concerned.
Barbering - Conversation. “We was barbering” is merely a tramp’s way of saying he was having a talk with his associates.
Barnacle - a person who sticks to one job a year or more
Barrel - To drink, especially to excess. This word, as well as the related terms which follow, all arise from the fact a barrel invariably means liquor when a tramp is concerned.
Barrel Dosser - See “ barrel stiff.”
Barrel Fever - Delirium tremors.
Barrel House - Originally, and before prohibition, the cheap Bowery resorts where the dregs from liquor barrels were served at as little as a penny a drink. More lately the term has come to mean any cheap lodging-house, speakeasy or brothel of the lowest, filthiest sort, where the money to pay for a drunken sleep is all that is asked of a patron.
Barrel House Drunk - Hopelessly intoxicated ; the term arising from the condition of those tramps who patronize a " barrel house ". Of all the synonyms for intoxication this is without doubt the one which idicates the last stage, and is more forefull in its proper application than is " paralysed ". For lesser degrees of intoxication see " high ", " rum dumb ", etc.
Barrel Stiff - An old, worn-out bum, living in barrel houses, eating whatever may be salvaged from garbage cans or cheap lunch rooms, and absolutely without hope or ambition. See " speck bum ", “ tomato can stiff ”.
Bat - A prostitute ; possibly since they are more often seen about after dark, perhaps since they flit around in a furtive manner much of the time. The word is also used to indicate a prolonged or unusually heavy bout of drinking, as “ he’s on a bat,” “ batting around,” but not referring to the presence of a prostitute in the party or with the individual. See “batty”.
Bat House - An insane asylum; a place where are confined those “batty” or with “bats in the belfry,” which expression has been shortened in vagabondia to “ bats ” or “ batty.” Never a brothel. See “ bat ”.
Bats - Insane or erratic. More extreme than “ dopey ” or " cracked ”.
Bat Shit Crazy - Insane, totally mental. Throwing a fit.
Batter - To beg or solicit alms ; originally when the charity was sought at the door of a private house, at which the tramp knocked or “ battered.” The term has been expanded, as see below.
Batter The Drag - To beg on the street. See “ drag.”
Batter The Privates - To beg from door to door in a residential district. A tramp who has a flair for this type of mendicancy will never lower himself to beg on the street, feeling it below his dignity, as well as more dangerous, to do so.
Batting - Traveling aimlessly and without purpose, much as a bat flits from place to place.
Battleship - A high-sided steel coal car, usually with a hopper or dump bottom. Not to be confused with "battlewagon", which sailor term has been adopted by the road and underworld to indicate a man-of-war.
Batty - Insane ; erratic. See "bat house".
Bazoo - (1) A person's mouth. (2) A person's buttocks or anus.
Beachcomber - A tramp or bum who hangs about water front saloons and the docks and begs food and drink from the sailors. Adopted from the correct use to indicate a tramp in the tropics, and used in its newer sense exclusively by the Fraternity of the road.
Beagles - Sausages, merely another, possibly more esoteric, name for “hot dogs,” it being an old tradition that stray animals such as dogs and cats found their way into these articles of Food. See "dogs".
Beak - The nose. Less frequently heard of late to indicate a police judge or justice of the peace, and in this sense taken from the English criminals’ cant, in which it doubtless indicated the official’s habit of nosing out the facts of the case.
Bean - The head. “ Use your bean” means merely “ Think for yourself, show good sense.” Also, but less frequently of late, one dollar. ie: bean counter is an accountant.
Bean Town - Boston, Mass., from the famous vegetable so intimately connected with that city, the “ Home of the bean and the cod.”
Beard Jammer - One who conducts a disorderly resort; a whoremaster. In 18th century English slang, a “ beard-splitter.”
Beat - (1) A neighbourhood or district controlled by a politician, or upon which a criminal or a criminal gang is supposed to have a monopoly; no doubt from the “ beat ” patrolled by a policeman.
Beat - (2) To evade or escape the consequences ; as " He escaped from prison " or managed to escape a sentenence ; " he beat the rap ", the charge against him was dismissed, or he evaded a sentenance. In the first example the escape does not necessarily mean that violence was used ; in that case the word would be "crush", which see.
Bee - “ To put the bee on ” is to beg or borrow, usually with a hard luck story. To say, I put the bee on him,” usually means that the donor has been “ stung ” when he gives up the loan, since seldom is it repaid. See “ sting ".
Beef - Traveling the country by bicycle
Beef - To complain against a criminal or an information laid against a criminal or suspect. In 18th century England, “ to cry beef” was thieves’ cant for “ to give the alarm ”.
Beefer - An informant or complainant; but not as strictly applied to the former as “rat,” “stool” or “snake".
beezer - The nose, hard to trace as to origin, and now falling into disuse in favor of "beak".
Belcher - A protest or complaint, usually from an individual aggrieved by some one of his associates. The application is as full-bodied as any in the lexicon of slang.
Bellyache - To complain or protest, escpecially when this is carried on over a long period. This word, like the next, is connon English low slang.
Bellyful - Enough, or more than enough, of anything. Much the same, and from the same basis, as " fed up", although in stronger measure.
Belly Of A Drag - The underside of a freight train. See "rods", "gunnels". One who states that he has been "riding the belly of a rattler" means he has been riding the rods, or trucks, of a fast train. See "guts".
Belly Robber - A pook cook, commissary steward or other official entrusted with the feeding of a gang of labourers or prisoners, and with little or no qualification or the job or consideration for his charges. In the army, a poor mess sergeant.
Ben - A vest.
Benny - An overcoat, a contraction. of " benjamin " once used to designate a particular type of Outer garment
Bent - Crooked ; criminal ' outside the law. Directly the opposite of " straight ", and applied to individuals, enterprises or goods.
Bent One - A stolen automobile.
Berries - “ The berries,” anything particularly worth while or valuable. Much the same sort of expression as “ the cat’s meow ” (taken from a much more lurid phrase), and with as little reason or purpose, except if taken from “ berry,” which see.
Berry - One Dollar.
B1 (Unknown if B1 or BI) - A Buick automobile. Originally and generally used by automobile theives and " fences ".
Bible Ranter - A preacher or evangelist. A logical term for many of these " inspired " uneducated and over-zealous individuals.
Biddies - Eggs, from the old farmyard word for hen. See also " cackler ".
Biddy - A woman or girl. usually the latter, and originated by the tramps who found that most of the cooks or serving women at the houses where they were fed were Irish, and as like as not “ Bridget ”, "or " Biddy ", by name.
the Big Burg - New York City.
Big Four - Duck Egg Omelet.
Big Guy - Properly, God. a logical if not an elegant term. More lately and leading criminal or official in charge. See " big shot ".
Big Hole - (1) A quick stop ; an emergency application of the air brakes, so called since the brake valve permits an immediate and heavy flow of air to the brake mechanism when placed in the emergency position or on the " big hole ". Boomers (q.v.) carried the term to the tramps, who in turn passed it on to the criminal element at large and it is now widely used to indicate an immediate cessation of any activity. See " wipe the clock ".
Big Hole - (2) To stop quickly.
Big House - A State or Federal Prison. Although sometimes used to indicate a penitentiary, the term is properly used only for a prison, and never for a penal institution operated by a unit smaller than a State.
Big Man - The Pinkerton Detective Agency, or one of its operatives, much feared and respected by old time criminals, who found their stay in a town or city with a venal police force was not so safe when " the pinkertons " were called in by victims of the gang's activities.
Big O - A railroad conductor ; from the Labour Union, The Order of Railroad Conductors, or " Big O ", to which practically every conductor belongs.
Big School - A penitentiary ' possibly from its size, but more probalby since so many of its " graduates " eventually enter the " big house " or States Prison. See " little school " , " little house ".
Big Screw - The Deputy Warden. of a prison or penitentiary. See " screw ".
Big Shot - A leading character ; one with authority over a number of underlings or henchmen. Although more usually applied to important gang leaders, the term also used for politicians with a great deal of authority, or able to secure protection for a consideration.
Big Smoke - London. Introduced from England by British soldiers in the World War, the term has been in general use in America ever since. In the United States the reference is usually Pittsburgh, PA.
Big Spuds - Any group in authority, such as a Parole Board, Board of Directors, etc. An opposite to " small potatoes ", or those with no power.
Bindle - A bed roll carried by tramps and migratory workers, and no doubt a corruption of " bundle ". Also, a packet of narcotics retailed on the street to the addict.
Bindle stick - a collection of belongings wrapped in cloth and tied around a stick
Bindlestiff - (1) A tramp or worker carrying his bedding. Also, but more rarely, a drug addict, under the influence of narcotics at the moment. See " stiff ". (2) A hobo who carries all his gear in a sack (berlap gunny sack) (a bindle). Also used to refer to old fashioned hobos.
Biinte - An overcoat. Possibly a corruption of " benny " q.v.
Bike Tourism - Traveling the country by bicycle
Bird - Anyone not moving in the same circle as the speaker or his gang ; an outsider or newcomer ; a queer or unusual individual.
Biscuit Shooter - A waitress or short order cook. The average tramp and migratory worker is not used to restaurants where the food or service is of the best, and the manner in which the dishes are “ shot ” at the diner is reflected in the term for the person responsible.
Bit - A penitentiary sentence. While during the World War. " doing one's bit " was the accepted thing, the criminal has long used the same term to indicate the length of time he was forced to labour for the state.
Bitch - A loose woman. Also, a can of grease with an improvised wick, used in tramp “jungles” as a lamp, and so called from the torch used by a locomotive engineer in “ oiling around ” and under his engine.
Bitches' Heaven - Boston, Mass. The city was once noted for the number of cheap prostitutes to be found there ' and hobohemia, concluding that condition must be ideal for sisterhood, coined the phrase.
Black Bottle - Knock-out drops (chloral hydrate), or poison. It is a legend with the poor and in the underworld that doctors in charity hospitals keep a black pottle (of poison) hand in order to avoid the work of caring for tramps and other penniless patients. The legend will not die, and many a desperately ill tramp prefers to hide away with his misery rather than risk a trip to the ward where he feels short shift will be his.
Black Jack - Orginally, in America, any strong purge like jalap ; but the sailor and lumber jack have long so called the strong black coffee server aboard ship and in lumber camps. The term no doubt originated in Scotland to indicate a waxed leather jug used for ale or beer. Also, a short slung-shot or sandbag used by police or thugs.
Blacklist - (1) The list of discharged or other undesirable former employees kept by many large corporations, and often, although such practice is regarded as unlawful, open to the scrutiny of other corporations. Men on such a list for actual or fancied dishonesty or other faults often find themselves unable to secure employment in the line for which they are best suited and are forced to fall back upon whatever work they can get. Every old boomer can recall the case of the railroader, blacklisted and desperate after a long search for work, who finally returned to the official who had discharged him, and at the point of a pistol compelled him to restore his position, seniority rights and back pay.
Blacklist - (2) To place on the blacklist ; to defame or decry.
Black Maria - The police patrol, used to carry prisoners to the station house or prison. One explanation for the phrase is that a negress, one " Maria ", once kept a sailors' boarding-house on the Boston waterfront, and was a terror to her boarders from her size and temper. Rumour adds that when sailors rioting along the docks became too much for the police they set up the call for " Black Maria ".
Black Strap - Coffee, so called from the black-strap molasses with which the beverage is sweetened in logging camps and on tramp ships in lieu of the more expensive refined sugar. The word is more often used in sailors' and lumberjack' talk than in the usual tramp circles, where " murk " or " jamoke " are used. See " black jack ".
Blankets - Griddle, or pancakes, the staple food in many logging and contractors camps, and so called from their weight and thickness.
Blanket Stiff - See " bindle stiff ".
Blast - To shoot; to assassinate, the victim being often blasted from the face of the earth, especially when a heavy calibre revolver or rifle is used in the shooting, or when more than one weapon is used.
Blind - (1) The front end of a baggage or mail car on a passenger train ; more especially and more correctly when the door is locked and when there is no platform. A dangerous place on which to ride, but much favored by the younger, more daring tramps, especially for night riding. Also used in the plural. Also a legitimate business enterprise used as a cover under which to operate a criminal enterprise.
Blind - (2) Hopelessly intoxicated. (Common post-war English slang).
Block - The head. A watch. While the first application is usual and not hard to follow, it is rather difficult to trace the second, unless it came from the size of many of the older watches.
Bloke - A casual name for any individual, and used as in the English.
Bloomer - An error ; a failure. To say " He pulled a bloomer", is to declare someone made a bad mistake or failed in an attempt. An empty safe ; in which case, " They cracked a box, but it was a bloomer. ", merely means the cracksmen forced open a safe, only to find it empty.
Blot Out - To kill, as one is " blotted out " or erased from life.
Blow - To leave hastily ; to travel like the wind. To spend money foolishly, to throw it to the winds, the English form being " to blew ". To take cocain by inhaling.
Blowed-in-the-glass - Genuine; to be trusted. From the old time liquor bottles and other containers, which had the name of the maker or the product blown in the glass to insure the quality. A “ blowed in the glass stiff,” then, is one who never works one in the know, and able to take care of himself in any situation.
Blow In - (1) An arrival. " Where did you blow in from? " is merely to ask " What ill wind brought you here? ".
Blow In - (2) To spend money foolishly.
Blow Off - The end of anything ; a culmination. Much as one realizes a boiler is at its full pressure when the safety valve " blows off " steam.
Blow One's Top - To commit suicide, correctly, by shooting, although sometimes extended to include any means of self distruction.
Blow Out - A festive occasion or big "drunk". Usually this term is applied to "parties" given by an individual or small group, as against the term " racket " as applied to large parties or festive gatherings sponsored by an association, club or society.
Blue Goose - The general cage or cell, shared by all the prisoners, in a convict road camp or on a chain gang. Also, the general room in a prison or jail from which access is had to the cells. The open mesh or steel barred sides of this enclosure, through which small articles may be thrown, is responsible for the expression, " Like mud through a blue goose", which indicates any swift or easy passage through a town or district.
Blue Liz - A patrol wagon. Probably a light-hearted play on the older term " Black Maria " which see.
Blue One - A poor location for business or store. Originated by " pitchmen " and other street hawkers to indicate any place where passers-by fail to stop for a " bally ". See " red one ".
Bo - (1) A contraction of " hobo ", which see. Generally applied to all vagrants on railroad property by trainmen, railroad police and officials. (2) The common way one hobo referred to another: "I met that 'Bo on the way to Bangor last spring."
Bo Cave - A shack or hut where tramps congregate, usually near a railroad yard or water tank, where trains may be boarded.
Bo Park - A jocular term for any railroad yard around which tramps and hobos congregate while waiting for a train on which to leave town.
Board Stiff - A sandwich man or itinerant advertiser. Not that the individual is "bored stiff" by his occupation, but from the " boards " carried fore and aft. See " stiff ".
Boarding House - Originally applied to the Tombs, New York's City prison, the term has become known as the popular reference to any city prison.
Bob - A shoplifter. One of these individuals has declared that the manner in which he and his kind " bobbed " in and out of a crowd looking for an opportunity to pilfer gave raise to the word ; certainly the origin is no more far-fetched than many another underworld idea.
Bob Tail - Originally, a dishonourable discharge from the Army, Navy or Marine Corps, so called since the day when stripping badges, buttons and epaulets from the uniform was part of the ceremony of discharging a useless and unwanted member of the service. Now, the loss of a job. Also a street car, formerly of scant length. An old term.
Bob Tail - A semi-truck without a trailer on the back.
Boiled - Intoxicated, usually when incapable of thought or action.
Boiler - An automobile. A camp cook. A still used by bootleggers.
Boil Up - A period of rest, usually beside the railroad right of way and near a stream of some sort, with an opportunity to wash the clothes and person, repair clothing, etc.
Boil Up - To wasn and boil the clothing, the latter to kill vermin. The true " hobo " is a cleanly individual, and welcomes any opportunity to keep his person clean and neat, since a good " front " is essential in looking for work.
Boil Up - specifically, to boil one's clothes to kill lice and their eggs; generally, to get oneself as clean as possible
Bone Head - A dolt or simpleton. A stupid error or faux pas, in this connection usually a " bone head play ". In both instances the term is apt, for no one whose head was not thick, or largely of bone, would make a mistake.
Bone Orchard - A graveyard. To most vagabonds the material things of life far outweigh any other consideration, and the one crop a graveyard may be depended on to yield is certainly bones.
Bone Polisher - A Dog, usually a vicious one. A mean dog
Booob - An uninitiated person or a thieves' victim. In general use by Americans as a slang term ; the underworld, however, places an entirely fresh meaning on it, and with a scornful context quite apart from the original meaning of dunce, stupid fellow or booby.
Booby Hatch - A petty gaft exacted from prisoners by a turnkey or " trusty ", the original meaning of the word, bribery or gaft, having been adopted by the men whose meagre wealth is preyed upon.
Boogie - A negro, probably from " bogy-man ", some thing to scare children. Also a prison hospital ; in the sense the word arises from the fact that many of the men who require treatment are suffering from a disease which renders the use of a bougie necessary. Despite its probable origin, the word is pronounced with a long sound to the double o, as spelt.
Book - Everything, especially used to indicate life imprisonment ; as " doing the book ", serving a life sentence.
Book - To list on the " blotter " or other police records, but not to be confused with " mugging ", which see. A suspect or criminal is " booked " when first taken to the police station after his arrest. In most cities he is " mugged " only after he has been convicted and sentenced, although in some jurisdictions he is photographed and finger-printed after he has been taken into custody.
Book - In the 1980's the term meant to leave or get out quickly. "Let's book" meant "Let's get out of here now."
Boomer - A migratory worker with some particular trade, traveling from town to town and from locality to locality as work offers. Orginally applied to the settlers who joined the first rush to a newly opened section of country, the present-day application is no less pointed. Up to a few years ago the railroad men who drifted about the country were generally referred to as " boomers ", but since employment is harder to find the class has largely passed out of existence, most of the men even going so far as to join the ranks of the " home guards " they once despised. A leading railroad executive recently stated the case very well indeed when he said " Boomers played a great part in railroad history years ago, and most of them were good men, but there aren't many of them left now. Times have changed, and nowadays it's the home guard who brings home the bacon." See " home guard ".
Booster - Originally any helper or confederate, the word is now used more often to denominate a shoplifter, probably as a play on the verb " to lift " since a booster is one who shoves or pushes upward. On a railroad, a second or third engine attached to a heavy train load to assist it over a hill or up a heavy grade. In modern locomotives an auxiliary engine built under the tender to assist in starting the train, and cut out after the train is moving.
Bootlegger - One who sells contraband liquor, of whatever degree of excellence. Originally applied to those men who sold whisky to the Indians, the flasks being carried in the tops of the boots which were widely worn in those days. Now, usually as " legger ".
Booze Fighter - A heavy drinker, one who habitually fights John Barleycorn and comes out second best - not applied to the person who occasionally drinks to excess.
Booze Run - A settled or more or less regular business of running liquor across a Federal border, or of smuggling it from place to place. See also " runner ".
Bossy - Beef, as a food. From Latin, bos, an ox, whence " bovril " " bovex ".
Bossy In A Bowl - Beef Stew. These two terms are not hard to understand, even though the hardfaced and horny-handed worker who brawls for " bossy in a bowl " when he wants beef stew may be hard to reconcile with the little boy who regards all cattle as " bossies ". SSoIH note: Possibly where "Bessie" came from when referring to cows.
Bouncer - The employee who ousts disorderly or quarrelsome persons from a saloon, a brothel or other resort. In English slang, " chucker out ". In a mission, the attaché who keeps the congregation from sleeping during the services, and prevents their worthless or " rubber " check, which see.
Box - A box car. A safe or money-box.
Boxcar Hobo / Boxcar Tramp - A hobo who regularly rides boxcars
Boxer - A box car. A safe-robber, and not applied to the burgler or prowler who steals from the home, disregarding sch hard and dangerous work as opening a safe.
Brace - To ask for money. To address or speak to, usually when in search of alms.
Braers - Legs
Brains - In railroad circles, from which the term was adopted, this applies to the train dispatcher almost exclusively, although the conductor is sometimes so called. In general, anyone directing a gang or party of workers, as a foreman. ie: " Who's the brains of this operation? ".
Brakie - Railroad Brakeman
Braky - Railroad Brakeman
Brass - Fake, jewelry, or that peddled by " pitchmen ". Used in this sense far more than as a synonym for impudence or forwardness. " Nerve " or lack of caution.
Brass Pounder - A telegraph operator, or one who pounds a brass key.
Break - A bit of good fortune or luck, sometime anything which makes possible the attainment of an end. Possibly from the oppening shot or " break " in a pool game, by which the balls are spread apart so as to make other shots easier.
Break - To " demote " or reduce in grade or rank. To solve a case or to arrest a criminal wanted for some particular crime.
Break One's Guts - To flog or beat a prisoner until his spirt is broken ; to destroy the " nerve " or " backbone " of an individual. More often then not applied in prisons and gaols.
Breeze - Idle character ; talk of no importance. False information. ie: "shoot the breeze" means to casually talk with someone.
Breeze - To depart ; see " blow ". To deceive.
Breezer - An open automobile, such as a roadster or touring car. In general use by automobile thieves.
Brig - A police station. Originally, on a U.S. man-of-war, the place of confinement for general prisoners; taken by the Army and Marine Corps to designate the guard house, used for a like purpose, and then adopted by the tramp to its present usage.
Broad - A woman, more especially one of loose morals, and therefore to many men broad-minded, willing to listen and accede to a plea for .
Brodie - A fall ; leap failure or unsuccessful attempt. All of these meanings, from Steve Brodie, the man who jumped (or didn't jump) from the old Brooklyn Bridge above the East River, and afterwards ran a very prosperous saloon on the Bowery. SSoIH note: To do a brodie in a car, was to turn around quickly or make a U-turn much like Steve Brodie turned his life around. Later called "Flipping a bitch".
Broker - A narcotic peddler ; a go-between who buys the drugs from the man higher up, who acts as the agent for a " ring ", and sells, at high prices and in small lots, to the addict..
Buck - A negro ; probably from the same name applied to an Indian brave. A dollar. A Roman Catholic priest, so called since many old-time tramps could always raise at least that sum from a priest for telling them an artistic " fairy story ".
Buck - To oppose ; to contend with. In railroad circles, one " bucking the board " is working as an extra employee, being paid only when taking the place of a regular employee on leave, or when work is heavy.
Buddy - A pal, or a good friend. The word seems to have originated among miners, especially those who worked in narrow coal seams, where two men usually lay or kneeled, back to back in their narrow working space in order to get at the mineral with their picks. In this postion their buttocks or " butts " were naturally close together. See " butt ". The writer has heard miners in several parts of the United States thus refer to their working mates, and the word is in common use, in ordinary slang as well as in the underworld.
Buddy Up - To make friends, to form a friendship, as " Me and Slim buddy up and take a trip " - Slim and I struck up a friendship and went for a trip together.
Buffalo - A negro, especially in the Western States. The dark, closely curling hair of the negro is probably responsible for the name, which is replaced by [edit] " N word ", " C**n " or " skunk " in other parts of the country.
Bug - An insane or simple-minded individual. See " bug house ". An artificial sore or wound, made by applying acid or a blister, such as "Spanish Fly" to the skin. Formerly much used by beggars to excite sympathy, and by prisoners to gain admittance to the prison hospital, where conditions were easier than in the cells ; these devices have been forced out of any practical use by better police supervision of beggars and by experience with their use in institutions. " Jigger " is an almost synonymous term.
Bugger - Any disagreeable or offensive individual, and while by no means an elegant term, not one quarter so vulgar an expression in America as in England. Seldom if ever used to indicate a sodomite. See " burglar ".
Bugger - Specifically to commit the criminal act ; more generally, to upset another's plans.
Bug House - A lunatic asylum ; a place where " bugs " are confined.
Bug House - Crazy, simple-minded or idiotic ; usually showing that the speaker has a poor opinion of the subject's mentality, and not necessarily to indicate a complete and admitted state of insanity, in which case " crazy as a bed bug " would be the term used. It is said that " Boston Mary ", a famous tramp character some fifty years ago, first coined the word when she was growing old and felt her brain was not as nimble as it had been, and thought she had insects crawling within her skull. Generally, anyone with ideas not conforming to the usual trend is said to be " bugs ".
Bughouse Square - Washington Square, Chicago ; so called since there assemble those of the fraternity of the road, and others, who think they have a message for the world. The name has lately been applied to Union Square, New York, and for the same reason.
Buggy - An automobile ; a contraction of the term " gasoline buggy ", by which the earlier automobiles were known.
Buggy - Crazy. See " bug house ". Verminous ; although seldom so used.
Buggy Bandits - Car theives ; automobile theives.
Bugs - Crazy. See " bug house ".
Bull - (1) A policeman, usually when a member of the uniformed force, and so called from the bullying attitude many of these men adopt to tramps and other unfortunates who fall into their hands. Deceit ; in the sense a contraction of the vulgar term for a bull's excretion, something offensive, worthless.(2) A railroad officer, police/security.
Bull - (3) To deceive ; to lie to. See above. To force an issue, in which case the origin was probably the strength and aggressive attitude of the animal.
Bull Buster - One with a morbid passion for assaulting the police.
Bull Cook - A camp flunky or waiter. From the language of the loggers, where it was applied to the rather dull, spiritless man who helped the cook ; a being but little better than the bullocks that haul timber, as far as intellect is concerned.
Bull Fighter - An empty passenger coach, usually when attached to a freight train or when standing idle in the yards. Just where the name originated is hard to say.
Bull Horrors - A morbid fear of the police, usually the result of a previous ill-treatment in their hands, or from the realization that an arrest would mean a long term of imprisonment. See " horrors ".
Bull Local - a freight which travels between divisions, often stopping at local yards
Bull Pen - The sleeping quarters or barracks in a lumber camp. The cage or pen in a prison or gaol in which general prisoners are kept while awaiting trial or transfer ; or, in the case of " trusties ", when allowed special privileges and not confined to their cells. In both instances from the likeness to a stock pen or corral. See " bull ring ".
Bull Ring - The gaol or prison walk about which prisoners are made to walk as a punishment or for exercise. A prison stockade. From the bull rings in which the animal is baited and fought.
Bull Simple - Afraid of the police. See " bull horrors ", " simple ".
Bull Wool - Shoddy clothing, so called from the rough texture, which feels as if filled with hair.
Bull Wool - Cheap ; Shoddy ; worthless.
Bullets - Beans, often served so poorly cooked they are hard and as indigestible as their namesake.
Bum - (1) A tramp who does not travel and who will not work ; one who lives on charity from choice, although in many cases able to earn a living. One of the most generally misapplied definitions in the underworld and tramp argot, but clearly explained in the words of an experienced hobo : "Bums loafs and sits. Tramps loafs and walks. But a hobo moves and works and he's clean." See " hobo ", " moocher ", " stiff ", " tramp ".
Bum - (2) A skid row alcoholic, found infrequently on freight trains. Does not work, stays drunk, usually drinks wine.
Bum - (3) Cheap ; undesirable ; inferior.
Bum - (4) To beg or solicit, from the habit of the " bum ".
Bum Beef - A unjust accusation. A prisoner who says "I was jugged on a bum beef", is merely declaring "I was imprisoned after an unjust accusation and undeserved arrest, for am innocent.".
Bum Factory - A mission or a cheap lodging-house. The fact that both of these establishments lead to a life of ease and indolence, since free food and clothes may be had from the first, and cheap lodging from the second, cause the true tramp and hobo to regard them as important factors in creating the " bums " which both despise.
Bum Sick - Inimical to all vagrants ; applied to those towns or cities which have had too many tramps and beggars to feed, and which are heartily tired of all such characters. More extreme in many cases then " hostile ", which see.
Bums On The Plush - The idle rich. Although the true " bum " is one who " loafs and sits " and neither works nor wanders, this term is given those members of society who need not work for a living and who are able to travel about on " the plush ", that is, in passenger coaches and Pullman cars, the general association of plush with riches. Of I.W.W. origin, the mouth-filling size of the phrase has added to its popularity. The hobo's idea of the " bum on the plush " and his reponsibility for social misery is well put in the verse which declares :

"The bum on the rods is a social flea
Who gets an occasional bite,
The bum on the plush is a social leech,
Bloodscuking day and night."

C - back to top ↑

D - back to top ↑

“Drill, ye carriers, drill,
Drill, ye terriers, drill;
Oh, it’s work all day,
And no sugar in your tay,
Workin’ on the U.P. Railway”

E - back to top ↑

F - back to top ↑

“They were booked as vags, for they had no kale,
And the judge said, “Sixty days in jail,”
But the ‘bo had a bindle, the worker’s plea,
So they gave him a floater and set him free.”

G - back to top ↑

H - back to top ↑

“Any railroad experience?”
“No,” lied the boomer. “Raised on a farm up in the hills and never saw a railroad.”
“Why do you want to work on the road?”
“Better chance to work up in the world.”
“Why did you leave the farm?”
“Well,” said the boomer, lapsing into railroad slang unconsciously, “I was first out to ride the hayrake, but they run a home guard around me and I pulled the pin.”

I - back to top ↑

J - back to top ↑

K - back to top ↑

L - back to top ↑

M - back to top ↑

N - back to top ↑

O - back to top ↑

P - back to top ↑

“You will eat, bye and bye,
In that glorious land in the sky;
Work and Pray, live on hay,
You’ll get pie in the sky when you die.”

Pig - A locomotive. See “hog.” A dirty, worn-out old harlot. Also, a “blind pig” or resort where, liquor is sold illegally; a “speakeasy.”
Pigeon Joint - A store where burglars’ tools may be purchased, or a resort specializing in the supply of such instruments. Perhaps from the old cant word “pigeon” as indicating either a special class of sharper or more generally, a dupe, although the word is never used in the latter of the two senses in modern criminal argot.
Piggyback Car - A train car that is carrying semi-truck trailers.
Pike - A road, street or railroad, and an obvious contraction of turnpike. To “take him down the pike” means variously to take someone out and defraud him, or to so pummel an individual that he is no longer a nuisance or a menace, but amenable to instruction or discipline.
Pill - Originally, the pellet of opium cooked over the nut-oil lamp and ready for smoking in the pipe; more generally, and by adoption, a cigarette.
Pillinger - A beggar who solicits alms before public buildings and stores. Not unlikely a mispronunciation and a misconception of “pillage.”
Pill Shooter - A physician.
Pilot - A locomotive sent over a railroad line before a regular or special train to make sure the roadbed is safe, or that the line is clear for the passage of an important party or personage. A boy or dog leading a blind beggar.
Pimp - One who lives on the earnings of a street-walker or prostitute, or who solicits trade for his woman or “meal ticket,” which see. Another word extremely hard to define or trace as to origin, but largely and generally used. It is sometimes applied as a term of any foppish individual, even proof of his occupation as a pander is had. The word was used by Dryden in 1681; probably an Anglicism in form and an adaptation in sense of the old French pimpreneau, a knave, rascal, scoundrel.
Pimp Stick - A cigarette, since so many of the pimps, constantly smoke them, and of greater force before cigarette smoking became general.
Pin Artist - An abortionist. The reference is to the simplest, and at the same time the most dangerous form of abortion.
Pinch - To arrest; to steal or pilfer, usually when the haul is a small one, or when it is taken on the spur of the moment and without plan.
Pinch - An arrest, since this is often accomplished when the officer grasps or “pinches” the suspect’s sleeve or collar. See also “collar.” A small theft. Also a dishonest gambling wheel, one which may be halted or “pinched” to a stop at the will of the operator. See “gaff wheel.”
Pineapple - A bomb. So called, during the World War, from the segmented markings on the casing, which ensured the missile breaking up and covering a lot of ground when exploding. (Specifically, as above, the very efficient Mills Bomb.) The term, therefore, did not originate in the underworld, although it is now in common use, alike by racketeers, extortionists and police.
Pineapple - To bomb or dynamite.
Pin Grease - Butter, so called from the yellow lubricant used to grease the pins on a locomotive’s driving-wheel bearings.
Pinhead - A drug addict; a clerk; a railroad brakeman; a fool or numb-skull. The idea behind every use of the word seems to be the same; the underworld regards the one who uses drugs as a fool—the worker in mine, mill or factory regards the White-collar man as of little importance-and the brakeman is slightingly referred to by engineer, fireman and other motive-power department workers, although “pulling the pin,” which see, may have something to do with the letter use.
Pink - A Pinkerton operative, or more lately, any private detective. An urgent telegram, from the colour of the form which such messages are written in railroad practice.
Pipe - Easy; simple of accomplishment. Probably, in the original, something as easy to do as smoking a pipe of opium, which requires only two or three puffs to consume.
Pipe - To look; to spy on; to observe. Undoubtedly, a misconception of the old term “to pipe the eye,” but widely used in America. To speak.
Pipe Down — To be quiet, to cease talking. From the Navy, where the men are called to attention. or to formations by a whistle or pipe.
Pistol Route - Death by shooting.
Pitch - Money. A street salesman’s platform or working space. See “pitchman.” The first use is evidently from that which is to be obtained at “pitch” as a place of business.
Pitchman - A fakir or peddler of novelties or small pieces of merchandise who works on the street, in empty lots, or on a circus or carnival lot. He is said to be working a “low pitch” when standing on the ground; and a “high pitch” when standing on a platform or in an automobile or wagon.
Pivot - To solicit for immoral purposes. Of obscure origin.
P.K - The Principal Keeper or assistant to the Warden in a prison or penitentiary. The official in close touch with the inmates.
Plant - A pre-arranged job or crime; a hiding-place for loot; a situation or proposition designed to give advantage to the one responsible. In every case, from the fact that the end has been planned for by a careful arrangement (or “planning”) of essentials. Also a place where contraband liquor is made or hidden.
Plant - To bury, as loot or a corpse; to arrange a situation.
Play - To scheme or gamble on success as in a hold-up or robbery.
Pling - To beg on the street, probably a corruption of “pillinge.”
Plug - To shoot; to work hard. The former is contraction of “plug with lead”; the latter in English colloquialism is used in the form of “plug along,” as in ordinary American slang.
Pogey - A workhouse; a sentence to the workhouse. A prison hospital, in which case no doubt a corruption of “bougie.” The first application may have had much the same origin as “bougie,” although it seems more likely the word is in this case a corruption of “poky,” something dull or petty, since the workhouse is generally used only for those offenders whose misdemeanors are undeserving of a jail or prison sentence.
Poke - A purse or moneybag carried upon the person, from the same word as formerly applied to a pocket.
Poke - To strike, in the sense of pushing forward the hand or hands.
Poke Out — See “hand out.”
Pokey Stiff - A tramp or bum living entirely on the food or “poke outs” obtained from householders, and not begging money on the streets. Usually a term of derision for the individual not able to make a living by “mooching the stem.”
Polish The Mug - To wash the hands and face.
Ponce - A young man, but generally not a “pimp,” maintained by a woman of means as a lover or because his presence seems to rejuvenate his benefactress. See “Valentino.”
Poogh - A dog or pet. By extension, any prison mascot, be it dog, cat, parrot, parrot, monkey or any other animal.
Poor Fish - Any individual regarded as deficient or as being not quite as lucky or as well off as the average individual, and generally because of the “fish’s” own fault or actions. See “fish.”
Pop Off — To talk wildly or in threatening manner; to argue. From the safety or “pop” valve on a boiler, which lifts to allow excess steam to escape when the pressure is dangerous.
Pork - A corpse; seemingly a cold-blooded reference to the general appearance of a human cadaver, generally bloodless and not unlike a side of pork.
Possesh - A possession, but generally applied only to “prushun,” which see.
Possum Belly - A ride on top of a passenger train, in which the rider must remain flat on his belly to avoid being jolted off by the movement of the train, and taken from the habit of the “possum” or opossum which carries its young upon its back. Also the large tool or supply box suspended from the floor of a passenger car or caboose, in which it is sometimes possible for a tramp to ride, and in which, at one time, it was common practice for cheap circus and carnival bosses to require some of their labourers to sleep on the road, thus saving their car fare. Here, of course, reference is made to the marsupial’s pouch.
Possum Trick - A feigned injury or illness alongside a highway to persuade an automobilist to stop. Once the car has stopped and the motorist alighted, the thug jumps up and assaults the luckless samaritan.
Pot Gang - A group of tramps gathered about the “pot” or cooking vessel in jungles.
PoulticeE - A dish of bread and gravy; a not inapt reference.
Poultice Route - Any rail line through Utah, where the inhabitant are generally hospitable, and where bread and gravy is always to be had even though, on account of poverty, meat may be scarce.
Pound The Ear - To sleep, a generally-used metaphor; cf. the French “dormir sur les deux oreilles,” to sleep soundly.
Powder - A drink of liquor, seemingly taken from the fact that a drink often braces one up much as would a powdered medicine. Also in the form “he took a powder on us,” it is used to indicate that someone had taken a “run out powder,” that is, left hastily, or abandoned a friend or group of friends.
Powder - To go away; to pass by; to flee.
Powder Monkey - A dynamiter or powder man on a hard-rock construction job, and by extension, anyone using dynamite or explosives.
Powder Up - To drink; to become intoxicated.
Power - Engines. Also called "units"
P.P - A faked plaster of Paris cast on a limb to simulate a fracture. Sec also “jigger,” “bug.”
Pratt - The buttocks, hence a hip pocket in the trousers. No good reason has ever been given for the origin of “pratt,” but in 16th-18th century English cant, a “prat” or “pratt” is a buttock and “prat(t)s “ the buttocks (or occasionally the thighs).
Private - A private house; a home.
Prop - A diamond pin or stud, not unlikely a contraction of “proper,” something unusually valuable or true to appearance.
Prowl - An investigational work, especially one taken for the purpose of planning a robbery or estimating the opportunities for one.
Prowl - To look for information; to burglarize.
Prowler - A sneak thief, usually one working in hotels, prowling about until such time as the opportunity for sneaking into a room occurs.
Prune Picker - A Californian, or a “fruit tramp” working on the crop of prunes. See “fruit tramp.”
Prushun - A boy enslaved by an older tramp or “jocker.” The boy is forced to beg and at times to steal for the jocker, and is often forced into unnatural practices. Those “prushuns” who stay with their “jockers” for any length of time find themselves absolutely at a loss when the older tramp dies, unable to think or act for themselves. On the other hand, if the “jocker” fears that the “prushun” may betray him to the law, or if the boy grows so large that he is a danger to the older man, the “jockey” has little compunction about “losing” the luckless “prushun.” See “lost,” “jocker,” “wolf,” “lamb.”
Puff - Powder to be employed in blowing a safe. Any explosion. When properly used, the explosive makes very little noise in blowing a safe door from its hinges, merely a “puff” or sudden burst of air being heard as the door gives way. Inexperienced burglars and safe-crackers are easily recognized by the excess of explosive used on a safe.
Pull The Pin - To quit work; to leave, to go away. From the railroad, where to pull the pin is to uncouple a car or engine by lifting the coupling pin, hence, when a car is left standing, to finish a job.
Pullman - a railroad sleeper car; most were once made by the George Pullman company
Punish One's Teeth - To eat.
Punk - any young kid
Punk - Bread. It has been suggested that this was brought down from Canada, where some tramp may have heard a French-Canadian use the word “pain” for bread, but this seems very far-fetched. Much of the bread that a tramp manages to obtain is dry and old and suggestive enough of the artificial tinder or dry wood referred to as “punk” in proper usage; moreover, and by the way, “punk” is the United States for of the English “spunk” (“punk,” in this sense, being rare in English). Also, any boy, in which case the meaning was coined from the obsolete use of the word as representing a prostitute, since many of the older tramps travelled with their “prushuns,” which see. The word is never used to designate a prostitute in America.
Punk - Of little account; displeasing; worthless, in this case undoubtedly from the word as explained above for boy; generally scant account as a worker or beggar.
Punk and Gut - Bread and cheese,
Punk and Plaster Route - The territory peopled by the Pennsylvania Dutch, where bread and butter is the usual “hand out.”
Push - A crowd; a gang or clique, usually of tramps or criminals, but especially applied by “pitchmen” to the crowd attracted by the “spiel” or “bally.” Probably since the crowd pushes or presses about the “pitch.”
Pusher - A contractor’s foreman or boss of a working gang, who pushes the work along. An extra locomotive attached to heavy trains to give assistance in climbing heavy grades.
Pushers - Units/locotmotives on the rear of a train.
Push Over - Any easy job or a crime easy to commit without fear of detection. A prostitute or any other easily obtained woman. In both cases from the sporting slang term for the fighter who is easily defeated or who seems to be pushed over rather than knocked off his feet by hard fighting or by a knockout blow.
Put The Boots To - To have intercourse, especially when the woman or girl has been talked into the idea, and when no move to a room or brothel has been made.

Q - back to top ↑

R - back to top ↑

S - back to top ↑

“And the Salvation Army they play,
And they sing and they clap and they pray
‘Till they get all your coin on the drum;
Then they tell you when you're on the bum."
“Work and pray, live on hay,
You’ll get pie in the sky when you die.”

Sales-Lady - A prostitute and an apt term for the woman who sells her body.
Sally - See “Sal.”
Sally - Salvation Army
Salvation Rancher - A preacher; mission attaché or evangelist.
Salve - Butter. Conversation, especially that used to attain an end. In the last application much the same as “soft soap.”
San Berdoo - San Bernardino, Calif., a junction point on the Santa Fé Railway, and an important town in the intinerary of the hobo or tramp who here first sees green grass and trees once more after a hot and tiring trip through the deserts.
Sand - Sugar. Seldom, if ever, used in the under-world to indicate bravery or courage, where “guts” or “nerve” would be the term. See “axle grease,” “blankets,” “shackles,” for other terms in the same class.
Sap - A fool or sap-head. A policeman’s club or billy, but more particularly a piece of rubber hose, used to beat a prisoner or to force a “confession” from a suspect. The rubber will not leave a scar of any permanence, nor is it likely to cause fractures. In the last application the word seems to have been taken from “sapling,” a young tree, or a rod used to chastise, though it may be from the sense of beating the “sap” or life out of the victim.
Sap - To beat.
SavvyAVVY - To understand; to know; to realize. From the French or Spanish, as “savoir,” “saber,” to know.
Saw Buck - A ten dollar bill; a ten years’ sentence. Both from the X or Roman numeral.
Scab - A strike-breaker, or one willing to work for lower wages than those usually paid for a job or a certain class of work. A term of deep scorn and the meanest epithet one worker can bestow upon another. Sec also “fink.”
Scab - To work on a job where a strike is in progress; or to work for less than the usual wages.
Scab Herder - A guard or militiaman protecting a shop, mine or mill where a strike is in progress, and where “scabs” are employed.
Scenery Bum - A tramp who is continually talking about the glories of nature, or who persists in “grabbing scenery,” which see.
Scissors Bill - An outsider to any circle or clique; an inefficient worker; one who has “struck it rich” and who looks down upon his former associates. According to I.W.W. belief, a worker who loves his boss, his wife, his job and the capitalist system at large; in other words one content with his lot, and an impossibility as far as making industrial discord is concerned.
Scoff - Food. Widely used and understood among the tramps, none of whom seem to know where it first came into being or why. Originally Scottish, “scoff,” food of any kind, it became English nautical slang as “scoff,” and the earliest written American use appears to be in Flynt’s “Tramping with Tramps,” 1893. (“Scoff‘s always more plenty than money.”)
Scoff - To eat.
Scoff Jack - Money for food; usually a collection taken by of tramps and sent to town by one or more of their number to acquire food or “make a gut plunge on butch,” especially when it has been impossible to beg or pilfer food. See “gut plunge.”
Scram - To leave hastily, and no doubt a contraction of scramble. As an order or a warning, “scram” is obeyed at once and without question, the word being used only when there is some good reason for it. See “lam.”
Scrape The Mug - To shave.
Scratch - Money especially banknotes. Forged cheques. A forger.
Scratch - To forge. In both these uses the application is evident from “a scratch of the pen.”
Scratch House - A cheap lodging-house or brothel. Not because the accommodation costs money, but because the vermin inevitably found in such places cause the lodgers to scratch.
Scratch Man - A forger. See “scratch.”
Screw - A turnkey or gaoler, so called since a key, especially of the older types, is turned or “screwed” in the lock. Sexual intercourse. With the latter, compare 18th century “a female screw,” a common prostitute, and “to screw,” to have sexual intercourse.
Screw - To leave hastily; of obscure origin. Also to lock up. To have sexual intercourse.
Sea Stiff - A sailor tramp, or a tramp or hobo who has been to sea.
Set Off - Leave part of the train behind.
Set Over - To kill, probably since the victim is set over or apart.
Settle - To arrange or “fix.” To sentence to gaol. To kill.
Settled - Imprisoned, as in the sense of having settled down for a long stay; arranged for or concluded; finished up; ended.
Set Up - A pre-arranged deal; an “easy” proposition; a likely spot for a robbery. The plate, cup and saucer and “tools,” knife, fork and spoon, set at a table in readiness for a diner. In both cases something “set” or placed in readiness.
Sewer Hogs - Ditch diggers, or men “rooting” in the earth.
Shack - A railroad brakeman, especially on a freight train, since these workers make their headquarters in the caboose or “shack” attached to the rear of the train. See “pinhead,” “fielder.”
Shack Fever - That “tired feeling,” or a desire to rest. Originated on the railroads, where the caboose is equipped with bunks. See “shack.”
Shackles - Soup. No doubt the word was coined in some prison where the dish was of such a nature as to keep the prisoners near a toilet, or “shackled” to one place. It is generally used on the road to indicate any article of food that exercises a definite effect upon the elimination.
Shadow - One who follows or keeps under surveillance; usually applied to a police officer or detective.
Shadow - To follow or trail; to observe. The verb originated in England about 1600; it is now regarded, in England, as being almost within the pale of perfect literary English: cf. the use of the word in J. B. Priestley’s “Angel Pavement,” 1930.
Shag - A chase or organized pursuit by the police or an irate citizenry. The origin of this sense of the word is obscure. “Shag” is sometimes used also in reference to sexual intercourse, both as noun and verb, and comes from 18th century English slang.
Shake Down - Tribute levied by the police or by prohibition agents upon criminals or liquor runners and bootleggers to ensure their freedom from arrest or molestation. In the sense that the payee “shakes” the payor until he has dislodged the money he seeks.
Shake Down - To force a contribution, as from those outside the law.
Sham - A policeman, probably from the fact the majority of these men were from Ireland, and wearers of the shamrock.
Shamos - See “sham.”
Shamus - See “sham.”
Shark - An employment agent. See “man catcher,” “slave market.” The “shark” is seldom used by the vagabond to indicate one who is an expert at some illicit pursuit, although ordinary slang accepts this as the correct meaning.
Sharpen Up - To practice, as at picking pockets with crooked dice or marked cards, etc.
Sharps - Needles, of whatever grade, as peddled by tramps or beggars.
Shavetail - Originally, in American Army slang, a Second Lieutenant, the lowest commissioned rank, and that to which graduates of the Military Academy are appointed. The name was correctly applied to the green mules received for Army use, as dealers shaved the animals’ tail for a good portion of its length, leaving a tuft of hair at the end. To a soldier's mind, changing the name from a mule to an officer seemed not unnatural. Since the War, when many “shavetails” seemed rather hard taskmasters and but poorly fitted for their work, the name has been applied to anyone new at a place of responsibility and anxious to show his authority.
Shed - A sedan, coupe or other enclosed automobile, and widely used by automobile thieves.
Sheepskin - A pardon from the Governor or president, such a document formerly being written on parchment. See “life boat.”
Sheets - Newspapers.
Sheet The Scratch Man - A high-class forger. See “scratch.”
Shill — Buncombe. One of the apparently bona fide pleasure-seekers at a circus or carnival who starts buying novelties or playing at games of chance to lure the public on. A decoy for a confidence game. The word comes from “shilly shally,” perhaps, although it is sometimes given as “shillaber.” See also, “stick,” “push.”
Shine - Liquor, especially that manufactured or imported without the law. The word has been handed down from old Scotch and English border cant where “moonshine” or “moonlight” was the liquor smuggled across the border under cover of night, and from Kent and Sussex, whither brandy (cognac), was smuggled from France; and was first used in America by the mountaineer distillers of the Blue Ridge Mountains, most of whom were of English or Scotch stock. See also “moonshine.” Also a negro, from the sweaty, shiny appearance of the skin.
Shit Tickets - Any form of paper that can be used as toilet tissue, usually napkins or police citation tickets.
Shive - A razor, apparently from the Cockney mispronunciation of “shave,” yet more likely an adaptation of “shive,” a thin piece or splinter.
Shock Joint - A cheap saloon or speakeasy where the liquor is all of a sort which “shocks” or galvanizes the drinker for a short time or until two or three drinks are consumed, then sends him into a drugged sleep.
Shonnicker - A Jewish pawnbroker, more especially when also a “fence.”
Short - A street car, probably since most of them run for comparatively short distances.
Short Line - See “hobo short line.”
Short Staker - A migratory worker or a hobo who stays in one place or one on job just long enough to amass a “road stake,” q.v., and then moves on. See also “stake,” “stake man.”
Shove - A gang of tramps or criminals. Probably another way of saying “push,” which see; perhaps originated by reference to some gang which was passing or “shoving” counterfeit money. The word has been in use for years, and now seems to be dying out. See “shover,” “shoving the queer.”
Shove Across - To kill. See “set over.”
Shovel Stiff - An unskilled labourer, one who is forced to accept such hard and relatively unprofitable work as digging ditches and the like.
Shover - One who passes or “shoves” counterfeit money.
Shoving The Queer - Passing counterfeit money, or, but not so frequently, bad cheques or forged paper.
Shroud - A suit of clothes. Although it seems unlikely that the obsolete meaning of “shroud,” a garment, has been applied by the underworld, yet the fact that a “stiff” wears a “shroud” may have had something to do with the application as here, since, a stiff " is not only a corpse, but any individual as well.
Shuffling - Switching can on a railroad or in a yard, a not unhappy comparison to a pack of cards when it is passed from hand to hand, or shuffled.
Siberia - A prison where the discipline is unusually harsh. Usually applied to Clinton Prison, Dannemora, N.Y., to which institution are sent those convicts known to be refractory and hard to control, and where discipline is stern and unrelenting, and the climate severe. See “Czar.”
Side Kick - A partner or friend. An old term in vagabondia.
Side-lined / Sided-out / Sided - When your train has to stop on a side-track to allow a higher priority train to pass through.
Simple - simple-minded; deficient, or more specifically having a morbid fear or affection as “kid simple,” fond of children; “bull simple,” afraid of the police. See “kid simple” for another application.
Simp - A simple-minded or foolish person; one easily led.
Simp Trap — A commissary or company store operated by an employer. In many cases the employees are paid largely in script or “monkey money,” which has to be redeemed at the store, and in any case the commissary is run to show a profit to the employer; hence experienced workers will have nothing to do with such establishments and consider them as mere traps for the poor “simps” who are foolish enough to trade with them.
Single O - One working a lone “game” or “racket.” One travelling alone by preference.
Sinkers - Doughnuts or crullers, fried cakes, which unless properly cooked are heavy as lead and indigestible. See “submarines.”
Sit Down - A meal given a tramp within doors, at which he may sit down to a table and eat in comfort. See “lump,” “hand out,” “exhibition.”
Sitting Pretty - Contented; happy; well off. In a happy situation.
Siwash - An Indian of the Salishan tribe, none too clean in their habits and person, hence any unclean or uncouth individual.
Sizzler - A cook; a stove. One who works, or that which is used, where sizzling sounds are heard.
Skater - A legless beggar. See “joy-rider.”
Skeleton Screw - A master key. See “screw.”
Skid Row - The district where workers congregate when in town or away from their job. Originated by the loggers, from the “skid road” down which the logs are hauled or slid, in the woods. The term is sometimes mistakenly applied to the lower stratum of society, to which its denizens are said to have “skidded” from their former estate.
Skin — A wallet or pocket-book, the idea being that skin or leather has ok been used in the manufacture. See “leather,”
Skin - To cheat or defraud.
Skinning A Poke - Taking the money and other valuables from a stolen wallet, much as one would “skin” or remove the hide from an animal.
Skinning A Rattler - Robbing the tramps and hobos on a train. See “catting up”
Skinner - A mule driver or teamster. See “mule skinner,” “hair pounder.”
Skipper - One in authority or leading a group; a police captain, a foreman or boss. From the sea term for captain, and used much the same way. See “captain.”
Skirt - A woman, regardless of condition or morals. The English slang is “a piece of skirt,” meaning either sweetheart or mistress or again what is expected from the latter.
Skull Dragging - Begging for drinks in a saloon. Probably since one drags or hangs the head when thus employed
Skunk - A negro, from the characteristic odour these people generally give off. One not to be trusted, from the dislike manifested to this kind of person as well as to the animal from which he takes his name.
Skunk - To cheat or defraud; to inform; to generally act as an undesirable. The same term seems to be behind the further meaning, to defeat in a game of cards.
Sky Pilot - A minister, taken from the sea, where the chaplain is so called, and since the 1880’s in general use ashore as well as afloat. See also “heaven reacher,” “hallelujah peddler,” “mission squawker.”
Sky pilot - a preacher or minister
Slam - To strike; to hit.
Slamming The Gate - Begging at private houses idea perhaps being that one is generally repulsed so vigorously there is no time to close the gate as one leaves. See “batter the privates.”
Slant Eye - Any Oriental. An obvious application. See “rag head.”
Slave - A worker, especially a wage earner. An abbreviation of “wage slave,” and used most generally by the I.W.W. and others of a radical turn of mind.
Slave Driver - A foreman. See “pusher.”
Slave Market - An employment agency, or that section of a city or town where employment agencies are to be found. See “shark,” “man catcher.” The term is in general use among workers and hoboes.
Sleigh Ride - Originally a debauch on heroin, “snow,” amplified to include any dream or state of elation induced by drugs. More broadly still, used to indicate an absolutely impossible or unlikely idea or action, or to refer to the cheating or fleecing of a victim. “He took a sleigh ride” — he was under the influence of heroin; “We gave him a sleigh ride” — we cheated him by a false story or by sharp practice.
Slicked Up - Well dressed; clean and neat in appearance. From the fact that one’s hair is well slicked down and carefully brushed as a detail in the presenting of a good appearance or “front” when applying for work, or when anxious to look one’s best for any other reason.
Slicker - A skillful crook, one with a good appearance and so able to avoid the suspicion which attaches to an uncouth or ill-dressed individual. Also a newly-painted stolen automobile, for much the same reason, the averting of suspicion.
Sliders - Shoes. Sec also “relievers,” “kicks.”
Slops - Beer, probably so called since the beverage has not the same intoxicant qualities as strong drink. An abbreviation of “slipslops” (English, 18th century).
Slop Up - To become intoxicated; to be sloppy in speech and looks.
Slough - To strike or assault. To close a “pitch” or place of business for the day. The most logical explanation seems to be that the person struck, or the business closed, is sloughed or discarded, left behind. The word is widely used.
Sloughed - Arrested; here, widely sense, “mired” or held fast, as in a slough.
Slough Work - Robbing houses in the absence of the owner or occupant. See “cold slough prowler.” Here it would seem that the house was compared to a slough in which one might be caught or mired, while the adjective “cold” is used to show the lack of danger in the slough. For this explanation see “cold.”
Slum - Cheap jewellery, especially that peddled by pitchmen. Stew. Possibly the word as used here is in reference to the neighbourhood in which the jewellery is sold, and in which the dish is eaten, even though the explanation seems far-fetched but the word is a common one, especially in the army when the reference is to food.
Smacker - One dollar, especially a silver dollar. The inference is that the name comes from the fact that such a coin, being heavy and large, falls into the hand or on a counter with a noticeable sound or “smack.”
Smarten Up - To advise or explain to; to detail a plan. An individual is said to be smart when knowing, wise or experienced, hence the application of the phrase. Here the appearance of the person or of his dress is not concerned.
Smile - A drink of liquor, something which cheers the recipient, brings a smile to his face.
Smoke - The cheap, often poisonous post-prohibition liquor served in “shock joints” ; " and other Bowery resorts. Compounded of alcohol from shellac, or from other commercial alcohols or solvents, or distilled from garbage, the drink takes on a smoky appearance when water is added; hence its name. See also “rot gut,” “alki,” “lush,” “third rail,” “shock joint.”
Smoke - To shoot. Also used as “smoke up.” See “torch,” “heater.”
Smoke Pole - A pistol or revolver.
Smoke Wagon - A pistol or revolver. See “rod,” “heater,” “torch.”
Smoky Seat - The electric chair. See “burn,” “hot seat.”
Smudge - A small camp fire, carefully kept from burning too brightly lest it attract attention to the “jungles.” Much the same as a fire fed with damp wood in the jungles or forests so as to keep off insects, although the prime purpose of the smudge is some-what different.
Smuts - Obscene pictures or postcards. Smutty pictures or literature as peddled by fakirs or tramps. While most vagrants enjoy looking at such stuff, they feel that the man who peddles it is a low and rather despicable character.
Snag - To commit pederasty.
Snails - Cinnamon rolls, not unlike a snail in cross section, and a favoured food with coffee or tea. Chiefly used in the Western States.
Snake - A crooked individual; a “snake in the grass.” See “skunk,” “rat,” “stool.” Also, a railroad switchman, not because of any crooked characteristics but seemingly because the worker does practically all his work on the ground, and not on the cars or trains as do other train men.
Snaky Route - The Oregon and California Railroad, a line running through mountainous country, and line very crooked as to direction.
Sneak - To leave; to stroll away in a casual manner so as to divert suspicion. To steal (from, 17th -18th century English cant). See “mooch,” “mope.”
Sneaker - A motor-boat used in liquor smuggling or in running aliens or other contraband across a border, especially a craft which is silent in operation and which is thus able to “sneak” past the officers at night.
Sniffer - A cocaine addict. See “junker,” “dopey.”
Sniffer - A drink of liquor, possibly because the drink is often taken with great gusto, and hence with more or less noise, as though sniffed. The original use of this slang word is that which arose in England about 1880: a long-drawn breath.
Snipe - A cigarette stub; a railroad section-hand. In the former instance, since the hobo or tramp who retrieves the smoke from the street does so in a furtive manner, much as one hunts the wary bird of the same name; in the latter, perhaps since the worker is on the ground, and therefore, to a tramp’s way of thinking, not unlike the “snipe” he picks up.
Snipe Shooting - Picking cigarette stubs from the street or sidewalk.
Snipes - cigarette butts "sniped" (e.g. from ashtrays or sidewalks)
Soup bowl - a place to get soup, bread and drinks
Snitch - A tale-bearer; a spy, or “stool.” See “skunk.”
Snitch - To inform on one's partner or fellows; from 18th-century thieves’ cant. The unforgivable sin in the underworld, and the cause of more killings than any other underworld breach of custom or habit.
Snootful - Originally, too much liquor, intoxication, and by extension, too much of anything. See “bellyfull.”
Snow - Heroin, so called from the appearance of its crystals. See “junk,” “snow-bird” “dopey.”
Snow-Bird - A heroin addict, one who appears to live on “snow.”
Soap Racket - The prison trick of eating soap, which results in heart palpitation’s, rapid pulse, retching and prostration, and which is violent resorted to in order to secure entrance to the prison hospital, with consequently lighter work and easier conditions. A favourite trick among soldiers in the Great War of 1914-1918.
Sock - The pocket or bank-roll. From the habit of many people who secrete their money on their person or in an old sock or stocking, in preference to banking it.
Sock - To strike or slug. Probably from the fact a sock filled with sand is sometimes used as a blackjack or bludgeon, although the verb indicates any striking, and not necessarily with a weapon.
Sod - A drunken individual, one sodden with liquor. The word is not, as originally in England, used to designate a man with unnatural sex habits; indeed it is not quite proved that the ordinary, unsexual meaning does not represent a metaphor based on a sod, a piece of turf.
Soft Heel - A detective; one who wears rubber or “soft” heels.
Soldier - To loaf on the job, and merely an extension of the old sea term, which came into being when the Marines were carried on a man-of-war, these “soldiers” doing but little if any work, in comparison with the sailors who worked the ship.
Solid - Trustworthy; sound. To be trusted.
Song And Dance - A long story or recital; a story to excite sympathy. See “ghost story,” “fakealoo.”
Soogan - A blanket or comforter carried by a tramp or migratory worker. From the Montana and Wyoming range country where the cow-punchers and sheep-herders originated the name. Strictly speaking, a soogan is not a bedroll, although the name is often given to the complete outfit of bedding, which is, of course, far too heavy to carry on the person for any distance. See also “bindle,” “balloon.”
Sop - Gravy, that in which bread is sopped.
Soppins - See “sop.”
Soup - Nitro-glycerine, especially that recovered from dynamite by boiling the explosive in water, a process that drives the explosive liquid out of the “dope” or earth in which it is packed. The “soup” is used by safe blowers in preference to black powder or dynamite, since it penetrates the cracks of a safe door, and, when properly used, it is far more securely destructive than powder or dynamite. It is dangerous to handle and no one but a reckless dare-devil or a real expert will have anything to do with it.
Soup House - A cheap restaurant, one in which the only article of food at all palatable is soup. A nitro-glycerine mixing house in an explosives plant.
Sour - Anything undesirable or worthless.
Sour Paper - Bad cheques, “sour” or unpleasant to the individual who finds he has been cheated by means of such paper.
Souse - A drunkard, one who is saturated with liquor. Also a washup after a dirty piece of work.
Space - A year in gaol or prison, and by extension, any sentence, as “three spaces,” three years, etc.
Spange - Asking people for spare change.
Spare biscuits - looking for food in a garbage can
Speakeasy - A resort in which illicit liquor is served, the name being given because patrons desiring to gain entrance are usually forced to knock or ring, and whisper (or “speakeasy”) their name or that of their sponsor before gaining admittance. Although in the United States to-day everyone who resorts to such an establishment is technically breaking the law, not every speakeasy is a " hang out " for criminals, although many of them are. See also "joint", "shock joint". Also a sawed-off shot gun or "riot gun" as used by law enforcement officers and prison guards, merely a jocular reference to the roar of such a weapon when discharged.
Spear - To obtain, much as one spears a fish or wild pig. Also to arrest.
Speck Bum - A tramp or bum of low degree, “specked” as in inferior fruit or produce. See “bindle stiff,” “bundle bum,” “tomato-can stiff.”
Speed Ball - A glass of wine, more especially when “doped” or made stronger by the addition of some alcohol, ether or strong spirits. Before prohibition a “speed ball” was a glass of port wine, upon which had been floated an ounce or two of ether, one glass of this mixture being sufficient to intoxicate the drinker in a short time. The name seems to be a contraction of “high ball” or “ball” with the adjective indicating the effect so quickly felt.
Spider - A Ford car, the word coined and used widely by automobile thieves for the older model of this make, which did look rather light and spidery alongside the other more expensive and more stable cars.
Spiel — A “ghost story”; a speech; a “grind”; any article peddled by tramps or street fakirs. Also a fast, boisterous dance. The word is taken from the German “spielen” to play, and while some of its applications in slang are more easily seen than others, it is a widely-used and understood term. As designating the small articles, such as needles or shoe-strings—“sharps” or “stretchers”—peddled by tramps, its significance emerges from the fact that the mere offering of the merchandise gives the tramp an opening for a speech or “spiel,” and he is often able to induce the charitable to contribute something, even though the merchandise be unwanted. As serving to designate a dance, the word especially refers to the wild dances in which one’s partner is swung clear of the floor, formerly a feat attempted only by, the strong and experienced dancer at low resorts, in the days before adagio dancing became the a fast, rage.
Spieler - A “grinder” or “ballyhoo” man; a fast, able dancer. In English slang, the word implies trickery.
Spike - The workhouse; first used, according to an old-time yegg was sent to the workhouse as a vagrant while in a town spying out the ground for a robbery, his absence from the scene of the crime thus effectually “spiking” his associate’s plans.
Spike - To upset a plan or prevent the accomplishment of a design. Largely as used in proper speech.
Splinter Belly - A carpenter or a migratory worker employed with a gang of carpenters, especially when doing rough work.
Split - A share of the loot.
Split - To divide, as loot. To inform on an accomplice. Used in much the same sense as in ordinary speech.
Split Finger - A clerk or white-collar worker, one whose hands are unaccustomed to hard manual labour, and who would suffer from blistered, split fingers if forced into hard work. See “pin head,” “ink-slinger.”
Spoiled Water - Lemonade or other “soft” drinks. See “juice.”
Spokaloo - Spokane, Washington. Also known as Spokangeles or Spokompton.
Spot - A term in prison, more definitely as “a one spot,” one year, etc.
Spot - To discover; to place in a pre-arranged locality or spot. From the railroad. See “on the spot.”
Spotter - An employee paid to spy on other workers; a company detective, especially when spying on employees, not guarding against thefts by outsiders. Also one looking over the scene of a projected crime for a band of thieves or other criminals.
Spring - To free from gaol or prison, either by process of law or illegally. See “crush out.” Also used by pitchmen to indicate opening a pitch for business.
Spring Out - To escape from gaol, usually when no force is needed. See also “crush out.”
Spuds — Potatoes, from the spade used to dig them.
Spud Route - The Bangor and Aroostook Railroad a line which traverses a part of the State of Maine, famous for its potatoes.
Square - A square meal.
Square - To settle for; to arrange; to pay off; to repay the victim of a thief and thus avoid prosecution; to leave a life of crime or to abandon the road.
Square It - To abandon a “racket” or “graft.” To live honestly, especially after serving a term in prison by which one’s debt to the law may be said to have been “squared” or met. The tramp and the criminal regard anything as “square” when honest or above-board, and say that a matter has been “squared” when honest or above-board, and say that a matter has been “squared” when it has been arranged or “settled.”
Square Nose - Modern yard engine, angled front end
Square Shooter - A fair and square associate or acquaintance. One who “shoots square,” or asks no unfair advantage in competition.
Squawk - A complaint; a cry. See “beef,” “holler,” “roar.”
Squawk - To inform; to cry out; to complain. See “belch,” “rap.”
Squawker — A dissatisfied customer, or one who, having been defrauded, makes a “squawk” or complaint, either to the person responsible for the fraud or to the police.
Squeal - An information against an associate or one in the same gang.
Squeal - To inform, or to betray a secret. The ultimate crime in the underworld. See “squealer,” “rat,” “skunk.”
Squealer - An informer or police spy, especially when the “squeal” is against one of the gang or associates by the squealer has been trusted or with whom he has been working. While a “stool” is and as such avoided, the squealer is often unknown to his associates until his information has been given to the police and arrests made.
Stack - To hide or conceal, as loot. From “stach” or “stash” as corruptions of cache, to hide; or possibly a corruption of “stack,” a pile or orderly collection, in the sense that loot is carefully placed together before being hidden away. Also, to arrange a crooked deal, in which stack has much the same meaning as to arrange a pack of cards secretly, so that cheating may be done easily.
Stake - A sum of money, usually laid aside for a definite purpose, or designed to be applied, when acquired, to some definite end. In the first place, from “grub stake,” a sum of money for food and outfit, given to a prospector by a storekeeper or another, who then shared in whatever minerals the prospector might discover. See “road stake.”
Stake - To advance or loan money to another, usually so that the other may be able to attain an end or carry out an agreement.
Stake Man - A “short staker,” which see. A “gay cat” or migratory worker who works only long enough to amass a “stake” and then moves on, taking to the road and a life of ease until the money has been used.
Stakers - The circus and carnival workers who handle the stakes which secure the tents and guy lines to the ground. The stakes are driven with heavy mauls or mallets, and the staker is of necessity a husky fellow.
Stall - A pickpocket’s partner, the man who jostles the victim in order that the “wire” which see, may work to better advantage. Any; excuse or delay, possibly in the sense that a delay results in the project or plan being slowed down or stopped engine “stalled” or stopped by a heavy load or in deep snow.
Stall - To delay; to pretend; to fence for time.
Stash - To hide. A corruption of “cache.”
Steam Up - To become intoxicated; to become angry. See “pop off.”
Steer - An advice or direction, by which an individual is directed in his movements as a ship is steered by the rudder.
Steer - To advise or direct; to lead a victim to a gambling game or to a brothel.
STEM - A road or street; a railroad line. See “drag”
Stemmer - One who begs on the street. See “mooching the stem.”
Stemming - panhandling or begging along the streets
Stew - A drunkard. A state of intoxication. See “stew bum.”
Stew Bum - A drunkard, usually a drunken tramp or hobo, and especially an individual almost continuously sodden with drink.
Stick - See “shill.” The term is usually applied to the men or boys employed by the proprietor of a gambling wheel or other device at a fair or carnival, and who “win” enough to induce the “suckers” to play, and play, and play. The cash the “stick” wins is handed back to the operator of the game under any one of a dozen pretexts, such as getting change, and the stick never has enough of his employer’s money to make it worth his while to decamp.
Stick - To remain with; to stand by. To defraud or cheat. In the first, the sticker adheres or “sticks,” in the second the person defrauded is stuck with bad money or otherwise “knifed.”
Sticker - A knife. A scarf pin.
Stick Up - A robbery from the person, accompanied by violence if the robber feels so inclined or believes it bad policy to leave any one behind him to “holler,” or if the “sucker” fails to disgorge his valuables promptly. Also any robbery, or a highway robber or bandit. The term originated from the fact that the victim is told to “stick ‘em up,” that is, raise the hands above the head, or from the fact that a gun is “stuck” under his nose.
Stick up Man - See “stick up.”
Sticks - The country; an outlying district of a city; a man with an artificial leg or legs; or the centre poles of a circus tent. “Out in the sticks,” when used to designate the country, refers to the region where trees are growing; and a recalcitrant policeman is sent to an outlying district or away from his home when he is “sent to the sticks.”
Stiff - A corpse. A conceited man. A generic term for the worker, such as a “lumber stiff,” a wood-cutter; a “bindle stiff,” one with a bundle, etc.
Stiff - Dead drunk; stiff as a corpse.
Stiffy - A beggar feigning paralysis.
Stilts - Crutches.
Sting - To cheat or defraud. See “bee.”
Stinger - A railroad brakeman, one who boards a fast train, a “stinger,” when it is in motion. A fast freight.
Stir - Jail or prison, possibly since the inmate cannot stir from it.
Stir Bug - One who has become slightly simpleminded or actually insane from long confinement or from mistreatment in a jail or prison, or one with a greater than normal dread of imprisonment. See “horrors.”
Stir Horrors — Undue fear of punishment in jail, of the state of mind of a “stir bug,” which sec.
Stone Crock - A State’s Prison, and originally applied to the New York institution, Sing Sing.
Stone John - Jail or prison. See also “jug” “stone jug,” “stone crock.”
Stone Jug - An elaboration of “jug,” which see, and not so often used.
Stool - An informer or sneak, from the decoy used to lure wild birds near the hunter. In brief, a stool pigeon may be said to be a person used by police and detectives to secure information about the underworld and its denizens. As an individual the “stool” is usually to be regarded as a simpleton, lacking not only intelligence but those qualities which cause normal persons to have some regard for their obligations and a sense of right and wrong. Most stool pigeons are known to the underworld, and avoided; when a stool pigeon is at last known to have passed on some information detrimental to a crook or criminal his end is swift and unpleasant.
Stool - To inform on one’s friends or associates in the underworld.
Stool Pigeon — See “stool.”
Stoop Tobacco - Cigar and cigarette ends picked up in the streets, the picker having to bend or stoop over to reach them. See “snipe.”
Stop Over - A short jail sentence, regarded as but little more than a pause or interlude in the life of a criminal.
Store-Made Scoff - A meal for which the ingredients have been bought or begged in a store, and cooked by the tramps in their “jungle” or hangout. See “scoff,” “lump,” “gut plunge.”
Straight - Honest; reliable; to be trusted. The honesty or reliability is a relative term, and indicates the regard in which the subject is held by the speaker. In English colloquial speech, an essentially honest person.
Straight Crip - A crippled beggar with a real deformity. See “phoney crip,” “P.P.”
Stranger - A stolen automobile driven some distance away to be disposed of.
Streamlining - If you are streamlining, you are riding the rails without your gear or kit.
Streets — Freedom, and so called by prisoners in confinement.
Stretch - A prison sentence; the time which stretches ahead of the person confined.
Stretch - To hang (a person). Not an inapt application of the verb, since one executed by hanging certainly does stretch to full length. In the 18th century the verb was intransitive: “he’ll stretch for it,” he’ll be hanged on that count.
Stretchers - Shoe laces, in tramp and peddler’s slang; the workers who handle or stretch the tents and canvas, in carnival and circus slang.
Strides - Trousers. From England, where used at least as early as 1900.
String - A repertory of “ghost stories,” no doubt since the possessor is often able to “string along” (“string on” in England) his listeners to good purpose.
String - To mislead or jolly along; to lead another to a desired end as by a string or lead.
Strong Arm - A hold-up man, one who steals by virtue of his strength. Also a hired thug or guard charged with the protection of his employer’s person or authority, regardless of the legality of the position.
Strong Arm - To assult or beat; to rob by violence.
Student - A youngster from the farm or a country town, working about a railroad station to learn telegraphy. Formerly these boys had a certain standing with the railroads, even though they drew no wages; now they are usually friends of the agent, ignored by the officials of the road until they are able to take an examination and go to work on their own. Also by extension, any green employee on a railroad, chiefly in train service.
Submarines - Doughnuts. See “sinkers”
Sucker - An easy mark, one who will believe anything regarded he is told. The victim of a thief or gang, derided by the spoilers for being taken in yet always regarded as a potential danger by the wiser crook, who knows that to be “played for a sucker - cheater or robbed—is probably the ultimate insult to a man’s pride, and one that he will go to great lengths to avenge.
Sucking Bamboo — Smoking opium, the pipe being usually of bamboo.
Sugar - Money, usually that which is dishonestly acquired or not worked for. In use in English slang at least as early as 1862; but, in English, merely money.
Sugar Daddy - A fatuous, elderly man supporting, or contributing to the support of a “gold digger” or other loose girl or woman.
Suicide Car - Riding dangerously on a train car that has no solid floor or safe place to sit/stand.
Super - In pitchmen’s slang and about carnivals and other similar shows, a large and handsome watch displayed as a prize at a game of chance, and often merely a case without works. Also a superintendent, or anyone in charge of a job or piece of work.
Swamper - A porter or cleaner in a saloon, cook-house or dining-room. Probably since the place is cleaned by being liberally sprinkled, i.e. “swamped,” with water before being swept.
Sweat - To worry; to give the third degree. The term is not far-fetched, as anyone who has seen a criminal or his interrogators after a session of the third degree will admit.
Swellhead - A railroad conductor, supreme in authority while on his train, and not infrequently aware of his own importance. The term was doubtless originated by some boomer with distaste for discipline.

T - back to top ↑

U - back to top ↑

V - back to top ↑

W - back to top ↑

X - back to top ↑

Y - back to top ↑

Z - back to top ↑