pink n.
1. in sexual contexts.
(a) a prostitute.
![[UK]](/static/img/flags/uk.png "United Kingdom") | Edward IV (1874) I 38: Commend me to blacke Luce, bouncing Bess, and lusty Kate, and the other pretty morsels of man’s flesh. Farewell, pink and pinnace, flibote and caruel, Turnbull and Spittal! | |
| Woman’s Prize II vi: E’re she have warm’d my sheets, e’re grappell’d with me, This Pinck, this painted Foist, this Cockle-boat, To hang her Fights out, and defie me friends, A well known man of war? | |
| Captives I i: Hee keepes a road in his oune howse wherein have ridd and bin ridd more leakinge vessayles, more panderly pinks, pimps and punkes, more rotten bottoms ballanst, more fly-boates laden and unladen every morninge and evenning tyde then weare able to fill the huge greate baye of Portingall. | |
| ‘A Bawd’ in Works (1869) II 103: Her pinks are fraighted, her Pinnaces are man’d, her friggots are rig’d (from the beak-head to the Poope). | |
| Ladies Priviledge I i: These gentlemen know better to cut a Caper, than a Cable, or board a Pinck in the Burdells, than a Pinnace at sea. | |
| Nights Search II 121: Our noble friend that keeps his Pincks. | |
![[US]](/static/img/flags/us.png "United States") | Lively Commerce 199: The Hollywood houses were especially proud of their new girls, and word would spread rapidly when a new ‘fresh pink’ had arrived. |
(b) naked (female) flesh.
| Satirist (London) 27 May 173/2: [of the female nipples] Bare your bosoms, dear madams, till the poet-praised pinks / Are seen on their summits of snow. | |
| ‘’Arry at the Play’ in Punch 2 Nov. in (2006) 39: But now the Stage licks arf the ’Alls, mate, for side-splitters, spice, and bare pink. | |
![[Aus]](/static/img/flags/aus.png "Australia") | Sun. Times (Perth) 9 July 1/1: The snappy house-mistress hurled two-neat fingered Phyilises out on their pinks. |
(c) the open vagina, esp. as in pornography.
| Homeboy 135: He told the ditz to shuck a clam, as in pink. | |
| Permanent Midnight 52: Larry [...] will go down as the first man in history to break the labia barrier; to, in the argot of the industry, ‘show Pink.’. | |
| Guardian Weekend 17 Mar. 14: The porno stills by the pool. ‘See pink? Want lots of pink?’ ‘Let’s have some booty.’ ‘Open it? You want it all?’. | |
| Cherry 128: About a dozen kids were hanging around, and Borges was teaching them the shocker. He arranged his fingers just so. He said, ‘Two in the pink. One in the stink’. |
(d) sexual intercourse.
 | ‘Pink For Green’ 🎵 No Comprende [album] A nasty whorish scene / pink for green / pink for green / think she wants a double team. |
2. as a synon. for excellence [SE in the pink].
(a) usu. constr. with the, the acme of a given type, e.g. of behaviour or dress.
| Old Bachelor II i: I am happy, to have obliged the mirror of knighthood, and pink of courtesy in the age. | |
| Polite Conversation 35: O, Mr. Neverout, every one knows you are the Pink of Courtesy. | |
| High Life Below Stairs II i: My Lord Duke, the Pink of all good Breeding. | |
| Agreeable Surprise (translation) I i: He charms the female heart, oh, la! / The pink of macaronies. | |
| She Stoops to Conquer Act I: She has been saying a hundred tender things, and setting off her pretty monster as the very pink of perfection. | |
| Contrast I i: Oh! I am the pink of prudence. [Ibid.] II i: What a pair!—She is the pink of flirtation, he the essence of everything that is outré. | |
| Sporting Mag. May VI 85/2: He being the pink of politeness among his equals in St. Giles’s. | |
| Lex. Balatronicum. | |
| ‘The Fields of Tothill’ in Fancy 72: She was adored by those who are the pink / Of that wild neighbourhood. | |
| Cumberland Pacquet 12 Dec. 4/4: Here Tom, the pink of bowlers, gain’d himself a never-dying name. | |
| ‘The Bilk’ in Randy Songster in Spedding & Watt (eds) I 208: She met a dandy tailor drest in the pink of fashion. | |
| N.Y. Dly Herald 24 May 2/2: Three starched exquisites were walking down Broadway [...] Each was the pink of pertness and puppyism. | |
![[Ind]](/static/img/flags/ind.png "India") | Bombay Gaz. 23 Sept. 3/3: [T]wo Portuguese, quite the ‘pinks of fashion,’ walked arm in arm, swaggering about with a most consequential air. | |
| Comic Almanack Mar. 308: He’ll be the pink of a London beau – / Quite the fashion, and all the go! | |
| Boston Satirist (MA) 3 Feb. n.p.: Boston Wants to Know [...] If sundry gents don’t think it the pink of politeness to [...] make remarks upon the ladies as they return from church. | |
| Young Tom Hall (1926) 19: His hussars were the pink of the yeomanry cavalry of England. | |
| Bell’s Life in Sydney 20 Nov. 3/2: Miss Ellen Murphy, a pink, or rather monster carnation of loveliness. | |
| Dict. of Modern Sl. etc. (2nd edn). | |
![[Scot]](/static/img/flags/sco.png "Scotland") | Fife Herald 29 June 4/5: A young man [...] who was the very pink of neatness in all matters pertaining to dress. | |
| ‘’Arry on Pooty Women’ in Punch 21 Sept. in (2006) 148: They’re a nice little lot, and no error; the pink of the swell and the fast. | |
| Stray Leaves (2nd ser.) 148: A][ man named Ronan, the very ne plus ultra, the pink and perfection of a tailor. | |
| [perf. George Byford] ‘The Broken Down Masher’ 🎵 I once was a King of the Mashers, you know / [...] / The pink of perfection, the gayest of gay. | |
| in Punch 21 Feb. 95: [heading] The pink of Courtesy and a True Blue. | |
| Aus. Sl. Dict. 58: Pink, the beau ideal or acme of excellence. | |
| Jest Of Fate (1903) 54: An honest, sensible negro, and the pink of good servants. | |
| Fact’ry ’Ands 128: Watch out fer Saterdees when ther latest season’s goods is out fer the air; ’n’ thy’re ther real pink. | |
| ‘Barracking’ in Benno and Some of the Push 140: Loud ’n’ large opinions t’ th’ effect that St. Kilda is the dazzlin’ P., the bonzers, the boshters, the pink, the pride, ’n’ the pick iv th’ earth. |
(b) a fashionable, well-dressed person.
| Life in London in Bk of Sports (1832) 179: It is the resort of the pinks of the swells — the tulips of the goes, — the dashing heroes of the military. | |
| American 2 Mar. 2/3: A spruce young pink of a lawyer [...] stepped in among us, and read it off as ‘glib’ as if he had written it himself. | |
| in Tarheel Talk (1956) 155: I visited Pa’s old faded pink . . . his old withered belle. | |
| Flash Dict. in Sinks of London Laid Open 119: Pinks of fashion, dashing fellows. | |
| New and Improved Flash Dict. n.p.: Pinks dashing fellows or girls. | |
| Bell’s Life in Sydney 13 Oct. 3/3: That pink of gallantry [...] bestowed upon the offcial dignitary several of what that gentleman called ‘shin ticklers’. | |
| Adventures of Philip (1899) 369: Mr. Hely, who was the pink of fashion, you know. | |
| ‘I Never Drink Behind the Bar’ in Flashes of Merriment (1971) 280: Oh, like a pink I mix a drink and toss the glass in style. | |
| Eve. Capital Jrnl (Salem, OR) 16 June 2/3: Jordan is not a very sweet scented society pink. | |
| Bushranger’s Sweetheart n.p.: The little darling [...] isn’t he a pink? | |
| Hand-made Fables 235: He had his Wardrobe built by a whispering Tailor who had held the Tape Measure against all the Pinks of Fashion. | |
| Hepster’s Dict. 8: Pink – A snooty boy or girl. | |
| Pound of Saffron 43: ‘Public School pinks,’ said D’Arcy acidly. |
3. (prizefighting) blood.
| Pierce Egan’s Life in London 7 May 533/1: [H]e felt for the upper works of the Great Gun, and produced a trifling quantity of pink. |
4. ( Aus.) the posterior, the buttocks.
| W.A. Sun. Times (Perth) 9 Feb.1/1: An alleged comedian who took his invitation for granted was quietly evicted on his pink. |
5. (US black) a white person; thus pink boy, a white man of any age [the actual skin colour of a ‘white’ person].
| Chicago Defender 5 Apr. 3/4: She likes her browns, but O you pinks! | |
| Nigger Heaven 286: pink: a white person. | |
| Banjo 20: Oh, boy, with a bunch a pinks and yallers and chocolates in between, what a show she could showem! | |
| Babe Gordon (1934) 159: Ah hears all duh yalla gals jus’ ’bout goin’ crazy since Money gone pink-chasin’! | |
| ‘Back Door Stuff’ 29 Jan. [synd. col.] [R]ide the Coast Line straight into Atlanta with them pinks sitting beside them and without jumping out the window [...] when the conductor comes around . | |
| Kingsblood Royal (2001) 112: What is all this junk about you pinks not wanting discrimination? | |
| et al. DAUL 157/2: Pink. 1. (South; obsolescent) A member of the white race, especially a white woman. | |
| ‘Konky Mohair’ in et al. Life (1976) 103: In no time at all Konky got on the ball / And had ten whores – nine pinks and a shade. | |
| Runnin’ Down Some Lines 60: The single most descriptive attribute young blacks focus on in their labeling of whites is color – or the lack of it – such as whitey, gray, gray boy, pinks, pink boys. | |
| Prison Sl. 55: Pink A white person. |
6. (orig. US) one whose politics are left of centre, but who is certainly not a communist (sometimes with an implication of insincerity) [a ‘paler’ version of red n. (8)].
| What Will He Do With It? 9: I’m for the old times; my neighbour, Joe Spruce, is for the new, and says we are all a-progressing. But he’s a pink - I’m a blue. [...] I’m a Tory.—that’s blue; and Spruce is a Rad—that’s pink! | |
| Hand-made Fables 10: The Village Pinks were still Sherlocking in front of the Chateau. | |
| Argot: Dict. of Und. Sl. | |
| USA Confidential 6: The pinks have infiltrated the entertainment, reading and thinking of an entire nation, aiming to make us all canned sardines. | |
| One Hundred Dollar Misunderstanding 99: A debate between this dirty pink jerk who thought we should scrap the H bomb [,...] and an Air Force person. |
7. (Aus.) cheap red wine.
| Sport (Adelaide) 20 Dec. 7/1: Pat G’s mates say it’s time he turned down the pink and took on beer . |
8. in pl., in drug uses [the colour of the tablets].
(a) (S.Afr. drugs) Wellconal tablets, a form of synthetic heroin.
![[SA]](/static/img/flags/sa.png "South Africa") | Dict. S. Afr. Eng. (4th edn). | |
| Acid Alex 235: I threw in pinks (Wellconal) for good measure, even though I had only popped them. |
(b) (US drugs) Seconal, barbiturates.
| Drugs from A to Z (1970). | |
| Chronicle-Telegram (Elyria, OH) 16 Mar. 2/6: The barbiturates are identfiied as ‘red devils,’ ‘pinks,’ ‘goof balls,’ [etc.]. | |
| Bk of Jargon 327: Seconal (phennies, reds, redbirds, pinks, pink ladies, seggy, seccy). |
(c) (US drugs) Dexytal capsules, i.e. amphetamines and barbiturates.
| Drugs from A to Z (1970). |
9. (US) the pink slip that confirms ownership of a vehicle.
| Grease 198: Pinks, you punk! Pink slips! The ownership papers. | |
| In La-La Land We Trust (1999) 116: ‘The owner come to take it out of impound?’ [...] Somebody else come with the pink. | |
| Bad Boy Boogie [ebook] ‘Next time, we race for pinks, old man’. | |
| Blacktop Wasteland 3: ‘You want to go for pinks?’. |
10. see Dutch pink under Dutch adj.1
In compounds
(US black) a black person who pursues the company and friendship of whites.
| Nigger Heaven 157: Funny thing about those pink-chasers, the ofays never seem to have any use for them. | |
| ‘Vocab. of the Amer. Negro’ in AS VII:1 30: pink-chaser. V. n. A Negro who seeks the company of whites. |
In phrases
(US) to have sexual intercourse.
| In The Cut 121: to get some pink, to have sexual intercourse. | |
| ‘Pink For Free’ 🎵 No Comprende [album] Who cares I get pink for free / is this the free pink I want / do I want what only wants me for my popularity / I guess Ill decide while Im getting some pink for free. |
to act in a fashionable manner; to show off.
| ‘There’s Nothing Like a Spree at Night’ in Convivialist in Spedding & Watt (eds) Bawdy Songbooks (2011) IV 13: Now is the day for frolicing and pinking it, / Ogles like rainbows tinged, are all the go. |
to surpass, outdo.
| Sportsman (London) 3 Nov. 2/1: Belgian litterateurs have recently been stupid enough [...] but it has been left American newspaper literature to put the pink on French newspaper nonsense. |