beast, n. — Green’s Dictionary of Slang

beast n.

1. an unpopular or unpleasant person; sometimes used flirtatiously, e.g. cite 1882.

1577		Misogonus in Farmer (1906) II i: Thou disardly drunkard! thou be- silling beast!
c.1580		Polwart Invectiues Capitane Allexander Montgomeree and Pollvart in Parkinson (Poems) (2000) IV line 33: Bot breflie, beist, I anser the. In sermone schort I am content.
1599		H. Porter Two Angry Women of Abington D3: Drunke? hees a beast and he be drunke, theres no man that is a sober man will be drunk, hees a boy and he be drunke.
1611		Rowlands ‘A Shee-Devill Made Tame by a Smith’ Knave of Clubs 35: Out, filthy beast, I loath thy lookes, / And hate thee like a toad.
1619		Two Wise Men and All the Rest Fooles V v: Was there euer such a monster hatch’d [...] So shameless, so frontlesse a beast as thou art?
c.1642		T. Killigrew Parson’s Wedding (1664) V ii: A pair of those what d’ye call’ems, those he-waiting women, Beasts, that Custome imposes upon ladies.
1673		T. Shadwell Epsom Wells IV i: frib.: As Gad judge me, the Jade’s drunk. mrs. frib.: ’Tis you are drunk, Beast, every night.
1678		Otway Friendship in Fashion IV i: Beast! Brute! Barbarian! Sot!
1703		T. Baker Tunbridge Walks III i: Thou art a rude Beast, and ’tis pity any thing that’s Humans should Couple with thee.
1727		J. Gay Beggar’s Opera II v: Women are Decoy Ducks; who can trust them! Beasts, Jades [...] Whores!
1731		Chickens Feed Capons 14: They call me Old Fool, and drunken old Beast to my Face.
1821		W. Scott Kenilworth I 134: ‘Dull beast!’ replied Varney.
1837		R. Nicholson Cockney Adventures 18 Nov. 20: So it is, indeed, yer beast – yes, [...] yer nasty, dirty, filthy, stinking, short-legged little warmint!
1862		Thackeray Adventures of Philip (1899) 380: ‘The youth is more offensive than the parent.’ ‘A most disgusting little beast.’.
1873		R. Broughton Nancy II 154: Look at him! [...] did you ever see such a Beast as he looks?
1882		Bristol Magpie 23 Nov. 6/1: Sending a very plump gentleman plump into the lap of an elderly spinster who, with beaming, grateful eyes, pronounced him sweetly a ‘beast’.
1896		G.M. Fenn Sappers and Miners 41: I never hated anyone that I know of, but I do hate him now. He’s a beast.
1906		New Boys’ World 29 Dec. 96: Sproggs – you beast!
1913		C. Mackenzie Sinister Street I 179: ‘Damn old Brownjohn,’ growled Michael. ‘I think he’s the damnedest old beast that ever lived.’.
1917		Union Jack 5 May 17: That must be the new beast’s bed on the right.
1922		S. Lewis Babbitt (1974) 110: This beast, this conductor hollered at me.
1933		J.T. Farrell Gas-House McGinty 91: Josephine, I forbid you to speak to that beast of a man.
1947		J. Maclaren-Ross Of Love And Hunger 43: Scruffy little beast, shiny blue suit, looked pretty shady all told.
1958		T. Capote Breakfast at Tiffany’s 21: I mean he’s sweet when he isn’t drunk, but let him start lapping up the vino, and oh God quel beast!
1968		P. Barnes Ruling Class I xv: Filthy beast!
1986		F. Pitt-Kethley Sky Ray Lolly 46: The little beasts from my snob school.
2008		A. Wheatle Dirty South 104: If any other non-Muslim girl was thinking about linking with the three beasts, would they obey Courtney, Milton and Adrian?

2. a homosexual male prostitute.

a.1603		J. Marston on Lord Hunsdon in Works (1887) 319: At Hoxton now his monstrous love he feasts / for there he keeps a bawdy house for beasts.
1842		Whip & Satirist of NY & Brooklyn (NY) 12 Feb. n.p.: The beasts who follow that unhallowed practice of Sodomy.

3. a bicycle [synon. with SE beast, a horse].

1898		Sporting Times 3 Sept. 2/4: [T]he vicious beast of a bicycle, seeing its opportunity, shied suddenly to one side.
1909		J. Ware Passing Eng. of the Victorian Era.

4. (US) a (fast) car.

1954		Mansell & Hall ‘Hot Rod Terms’ AS XXIX:2 93: Beast, n. A car.
1958		E. Gilbert Vice Trap 71: Your jalopy’s no real beast, O.K.
1961		Long Beach Press-Telegram 14 Dec. 8: Beep beep to all you handcuffs whose teenagers fizz it up when you won’t let them have the beast.
2012		M. Wilkerson ‘A Clean White Sun’ in ThugLit Sept./Oct. [ebook] ‘Sled had to be a beast to lay rubber like that’.
2021		T. Pluck Boy from County Hell 236: Beasts of Detroit iron lurked in the shadows.

5. a young woman, usu. unattractive.

(a) (US, mainly campus) a young woman, esp. an unattractive but sexually voracious one.

[1934		Weseen Dict. Amer. Sl. 306: [General] Beastess – A coarse or degraded woman; a girl or a woman disliked].
1948		Jarnagin & Eikel ‘N. Texas Agricultural College Sl.’ AS XXIII:3/4 248: Beast. Distasteful female.
1950		Goldin et al. DAUL 24/2: Beast. A prostitute or lewd woman.
1955		W. White ‘Wayne University Sl.’ AS XXX:4 302: beast [...] n. Woman of loose morals.
1957		H. Simmons Corner Boy 28: What’s the matter [...] the beast don’t move you?
1960, 1975		Wentworth & Flexner DAS 24/2: beast A cheap prostitute or B-girl.

(b) (US, mainly campus) any unattractive young woman.

1950		Goldin et al. DAUL 24/2: Beast. [...] a very homely or slatternly woman.
1953		L. Uris Battle Cry (1964) 47: Confidentially I know she looks like a beast.
1960		‘Lord & Marshall’ So Willing 42: You get a bunch of beasts together, with one good-looking girl in their midst, and they’ll cling to the looker as though she were a life-preserver.
1975		T. Berger Sneaky People (1980) 61: She was there with another girl [...] a beast who had pimples and wore glasses.
1980		E. Folb Runnin’ Down Some Lines 144: Other derogatory terms for women liken their unattractiveness to animals [...] Terms like [...] beast, bat, and boogabear.
1985		R.G. Barrett You Wouldn’t Be Dead for Quids (1989) 194: What I am I going to do with you ‘Fat Fuck’ [...] You’re a beast, there’s no two ways about it.
2001		OnLine Dict. of Playground Sl. 🌐 beast n. ugly or unattractive girl.
2002		R.G. Barrett Mystery Bay Blues 83: Gwendolyn [...] was an absolute beast. She had a miserable, fat face, pushed into a bony, hog head.

1946		T. Heggen Mister Roberts 59: The last time I was there, that was a year ago, man, I found a fine little beast. Cutest little doll you ever saw, blonde, a beautiful figure, really a beautiful girl.
1957		H. Simmons Corner Boy 28: That beast of yours doesn’t think so. [Ibid.] 49: Man, dig that crazy [rump] on the big beast in the plaid skirt!
1996		Allsopp Dict. Carib. Eng. Usage.

6. (drugs) as a drug [? their unpredictable effects].

(a) heroin; thus heroin addiction.

a.1958		‘Broadway Sam’ in D. Wepman et al. Life (1976) 98: His clothes were tattered, but that didn’t matter — / Not to Sam, at least, / As long as Mable his whore was able / To satisfy his beast.
1970		G. Scott-Heron Vulture (1996) 119: I knew the Beast when I saw him, though [...] The Beast was dope.
1983		R. Klein Jailhouse Jargon and Street Sl. [unpub. ms.].
1997		L. Davies Candy 33: There was a time back then, before we finally succumbed to the Beast, when we would regularly try to stop.
2001		ONDCP Street Terms 2: Beast — Heroin. [Ibid.] 21: The beast — Heroin.

(b) LSD.

1969		R.R. Lingeman Drugs from A to Z (1970) 43: beast, the [...] LSD-25.
1982		AS LVII:4 289: A sampling of current names for varieties of LSD would include [...] beast.
2001		ONDCP Street Terms 2: Beast — [...] LSD.

7. also constr. with the; an authority figure; coined by black nationalists in the 1960s; it lapsed thereafter but reappeared among rebellious youths in the 1990s.

(a) (orig. US black) a white person.

1968		‘Sl. of Watts’ in Current Sl. III:2 10: Beast, n. Caucasian.
1969		‘Iceberg Slim’ Mama Black Widow 101: The white beasts out there let black people rot and die.
1978		J. Webb Fields of Fire (1980) 215: Been bleedin’ Whitey’s war. Killin’ brown folks, ain’ no reason. Been dyin’ fo’ the Beast.
1980		E. Folb Runnin’ Down Some Lines 4: Expressions like [...] beast (white person), fronts (suit of clothes), gunny (marijuana) [...] have been common currency among blacks for some time.
1990		(con. c.1970) G. Hasford Phantom Blooper 32: He leans down into the Beaver’s face and grunts. ‘The Joker knows that you the beast because the Joker is a blue-eyed soul brother.’.

(b) the police; a police officer.

1978		H. Selby Jr Requiem for a Dream (1987) 177: Them two mutha fuckas, The Beas, bus me jim.
1989		J. Morton Lowspeak 22: Beast (W.I.) a police officer.
1992		V. Headley Yardie 77: I don’t wan’ to be here when the beas’ them come.
1999		(con. 1979–80) A. Wheatle Brixton Rock (2004) 1: There was no way he would let the beast know of the tribulation.
2002		‘Touré’ Portable Promised Land (ms.) 157: We Words (My Favorite Things) [...] The breaks. The beast. The blues. The vapors.

1990

Tupper & Wortley Aus. Prison Sl. Gloss. 🌐 Beast. Term of denigration for prison officer.

8. (US) the 2 train, part of the IRT subway sustem in NYC.

1982		N.Y. Times Mag. 31 Jan. 🌐 There is part of the No. 2 IRT line - from Nostrand to New Lots Avenue in Brooklyn - that is indisputably bad. It is dangerous and ugly, and when you get to New Lots Avenue you cannot imagine why you went. The transit police call this line ‘'the Beast’.
2017		D. Winslow The Force [ebook] It actually throbs from the IRT subway line [...] Malone used to ride the #2 train, the one they called ‘The Beast’ back then.

9. (UK prison) a child molester, a sexual offender.

[1877		Reynolds’s Newspaper 24 June 5/5: A Beast — James Blizzard [...] was charged with having committed an indecent assault upon Agnes Holbrook].
[1909		Truth (Brisbane) 9 May 11/5: Think you it will stop them Monsters / Wot debauches children, sir? / [...] / Them there Beasts will have their sway / In their hell-born loathsome gambols / Splte of all the laws may say].
1983		J. Sullivan ‘Wanted’ Only Fools and Horses [TV script] D’you know what they’d call me if I went in the nick? I’d be a beast!
1990		Observer 8 Apr. n.p.: 20 prison officers in riot uniform were observed banging their shields in unison and chanting ‘Beast, beast, beast!’.
1998		I. Welsh Filth 89: Thir’s loads ay beasts oan the wing, but only one in the whole ay the Scottish prison system that they call the Beast.
2012		(con. 1980s) I. Welsh Skagboys 511: So ah slips intae Albo’s cell [...] n sees the Beast jist sittin thaire.
2014		T. Black Artefacts of the Dead [ebook] I didn’t get a girl for them. Look, it wasn’t like that . . . I don’t deal with beasts.
2018		I. Welsh Dead Man’s Trousers 103: He’s getting rogered daily on the beasts’ wing at Saughton.
2024		J. Meades Empty Wigs (t/s) 951: The story that Tamis Afek is paedo beast was planted by Dudu.

10. cheap beer.

1987		Eble Campus Sl. Fall 9: beast – Milwaukee’s Best, inexpensive brand of beer: We only had five dollars so we bought Beast.
1997–2001		Online Sl. Dict. 🌐 beast n 1. any low-cost beer. Origin: the line of ‘Old Milwaukee’ beer products. (‘The college students drink beast into the night.’).
2004		Eble Campus Sl. Apr.

11. (US campus) an expert, an outstanding example.

2011		Myers & Workman Kick 74: ‘You’re a beast, man. You nailed that sucker,’ Nick said.
2020		C. von Ziegesar Cobble Hill 164: . ‘Try these [i.e. trainers],’ he said breathlessly, and handed them to Liam. ‘Sweet’ Ryan grinned merrily. You are going to be one hype beast’.

12. the penis.

2024

J. Meades Empty Wigs (t/s) 293: [T]hat arse going in deep, really burying that monster beast.

In derivatives

beastly (adj.)

homosexual.

1922

‘J.H. Ross’ Mint (1955) 110: In the four large camps of my sojourning there have been five fellows actively beastly.

beasty (adj.) (also beastie)

1. (US campus) disgusting, repellent, unattractive.

1982		S. Black Totally Awesome 68: Take time to laugh about the beasty hairdo on the saleswoman in the dress shop.
1990		Thorne Dict. Contemp. Sl.
1997–2002		Hope College ‘Dict. of New Terms’ 🌐 beastie adj. Mean, nasty, or obnoxious – usually in reference to a person [...] In some contexts restricted to negative judgments of female appearance.

2. (UK juv.) a general term of approbation, congratulation [on bad = good model].

2001		OnLine Dict. of Playground Sl. 🌐 beasty n. excellent, well done.
2003		McGill Reed Dict. of N.Z. Sl.

In compounds

beast-boy (n.) (also beast-bwoy)

(UK black) a policeman.

1994		P. Baker Blood Posse 312: The beast boys beat him up when they arrested him.
1997		C. Newland Scholar 273: FUUUCK, IT’S DE BEASTBWOY DEM!

beastman (n.)

(UK black) a policeman.

1989		J. Morton Lowspeak 22: Beastman – a policeman.
1999		(con. 1979–80) A. Wheatle Brixton Rock (2004) 2: Why should he make life easy for a beastman?
2001		(con. 1981) A. Wheatle East of Acre Lane 76: He searched me up like he’s a beastman.

beastmaster (n.) [SE master; note the similarly titled ‘sword and sorcery’ film of the period]

(US campus) a man who consistently dates unattractive women.

1989

P. Munro Sl. U.

beast wagon (n.)

(UK black) a police van, a Black Maria n. (1)

2001

(con. 1981) A. Wheatle East of Acre Lane 119: Dey fling me in de beast wagon.

SE in slang uses

In compounds

beast-lick (n.) [SE lick, a blow]

(W.I.) a harsh, heavy blow, such as might be given to an animal.

1941

cited in Cassidy & LePage Dict. Jam. Eng. (1980).

In phrases

as a beast (adv.)

see as a bastard under bastard n.

beast of a… (n.)

applied to anything seen as unpleasant.

1884		‘’Arry at a Political Pic-Nic’ in Punch 11 Oct. 180/1: Don’t ketch me a-slinging my legs about arter a beast of a ball.
1890		Sporting Times 18 Jan. 2/2: Monday was a beast of a day.
1900		P. White West End 419: What a beast of a wind!
1904		Sydney Sportsman (Surry Hills, NSW) 28 Sept. 3/3: It’s going to be a beast of a summer. If I know anything about the signs.
1906		Marvel 20 Oct. 366: It is a beast of a low pub.
1921		D.L. Sayers Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club (1977) 224: He was in a beast of a hole.
1929		(con. c.1900s) J.B. Booth London Town 82: I’m all right, except for a beast of a cold in my beautiful nose.
1956		‘Charles Raven’ Und. Nights 29: It had been a beast of a job.

food one’s beast (v.)

to obtain sexual gratification.

2000

Indep. on Sun. Culture 2 Apr. 14: Getting his own sexual pleasure is ‘food your beast’.

make the beast with two backs (v.) (also do the two-backed beast, make the double-backed beast) [the first cited use of the phr. is by Shakespeare, in Othello (1604); it also occurs in Fr., where Rabelais uses faire la bête à deux dos]

to have sexual intercourse; thus two-backed beast n., the act of intercourse.

1604		Shakespeare Othello I i: Your daughter and the Moor are now making the beast with two backs.
1653		Urquhart (trans.) Gargantua and Pantagruel (1927) I 10: These two did oftentimes do the two-backed beast together, joyfully rubbing and frotting their bacon ’gainst one another.
1675		C. Cotton Scoffer Scoff’d (1765) 206: Are he and’s Wife, if one may axe, / Making the Beast with the two Backs?
1702		T. Brown Letters from the Dead to the Living in Works (1760) II 11: What other business can a man and woman have in the dark, but [...] to make the beast with two backs?
1785, 1788, 1796		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.
1811		Lex. Balatronicum.
1833		‘Othello’ in Swell!!! or, Slap-Up Chaunter 22: As soon as Othello came back, Iago told him a great crammer, sir [...] This thief said, that Cassio and her, / Made the beast with two backs in her chamber, O!
c.1850		Peeping Tom (London) 9 32/3: [M]aking that monster the ‘beast with two backs’.
1890–1904		Farmer & Henley Sl. and Its Analogues.
1896		Farmer Vocabula Amatoria (1966) 14: Faire l’androgyne = to copulate; ‘to make the beast with two backs’.
1902		D. St John Memoirs of Madge Buford 44: ‘Wouldn’t you and he make a lovely couple [...] doing the double backed beast’.
1925		E. Field ‘A French Crisis’ in Facetiae Americana 18: And at the two-backed beast she beat the veriest whore alive.
1943		K. Amis letter 6 Nov. in Leader (2000) 10: We certainly want to make the beast with two backs.
1944		J.S. Pennell Hist. of Rome Hanks 50: It was a long time before I could bring myself to make the double-backed beast with an Olive street whore.
1966		H.S. Thompson Hell’s Angels (1967) 202: Several of the outlaws located a girl [...] who agreed to make the beast with two backs in a small building set apart from the main house.
1980		Maledicta IV:2 (Winter) 196: The terms used for copulating […] are not really euphemistic because it is implicit that no ambiguity could possibly result and, unlike euphemisms, they are, or used to be, avoided in polite, mixed company. Related to this group are the allusive [...] make the beast with two backs (Othello), go tummy-tickling, play rub-belly, match ends, get up.
1981		W. Boyd Good Man in Africa 20: Feeling vaguely grubby as he did so, he tried to imagine Jones and Mrs Bryce making the beast with two backs.
1989		J. Morton Lowspeak 142: Two-backed beast – the act of sexual intercourse.
1999		L. Gould Shagadelically Speaking 119: shag, To boff. To make the beast with two backs. [...] To engage in sexual intercourse.
2007		W. Ellis Crooked Little Vein 235: You’re not going to make the beast with two backs with the next warm body that falls in front of you.
2017		S.M. Jones August Snow [ebook] If you was plannin’ on makin’ that funky beast with two sweaty backs [etc].
2021		J. Ellroy Widespread Panic 40: Jack Kennedy and Ingrid Bergman banged the beast with two backs.

mark of the beast (n.) [the popular (male) image of the satanic vagina]

the vagina.

1772		G. Stevens ‘The Sentiment Song’ in Songs Comic and Satyrical 126: The Nick makes the Tail stand, the Farrier’s Wife’s Mark].
1890–1904		Farmer & Henley Sl. and Its Analogues.

sit a beast (v.) (also sit a dago) [SE beast, a monster, i.e. the height of the car/fig. use of dago n. (1); i.e. a style preferred by Hispanics]

(US black teen/L.A.) to ride in a car that has been mechanically lifted and appears higher off the ground than normal models.

1980

E. Folb Runnin’ Down Some Lines 120: The low-rider is like the frontier badman who is lost without his horse [...] Expressions like sitting or riding a dago or a beast reinforce the image of the man and his ride.