camel n.
1. (US) a bustle or ‘dress-improver’.
![[UK]](/static/img/flags/uk.png "United Kingdom") | America Revisited II 317: I subsequently discovered, by the aid of a comic illustrated paper, that a ‘camel’ was the popular name for that addendum to the feminine toilette which in England is known as a ‘dress improver,’ and which in the days of the Hottentot Venus used to be called a ‘bustle’. | |
| in Living London (1883) Jan. 12: ‘Bunched high at the back’ is ‘quite too utterly inelegant. The proper term is ‘camelled up’ [...] a ‘camel’ was what in England used to be called, I think, a ‘dress improver’. |
2. (Aus.) an unattractive woman.
![[Aus]](/static/img/flags/aus.png "Australia") | Aussie Bull 14: I’d probably be one of the poor unlucky buggers who ended up with an ‘ugly camel’. |
3. (Aus. prison) a prisoner who neglects personal hygiene.
| Aus. Prison Sl. Gloss. 🌐 Camel. Someone who doesn’t wash, ie one who doesn’t use water. |
4. (Aus.) a second-rate racehorse.
| (con. late 1950s) Amaze Your Friends (2019) 94: ‘Every other starter in the race would have to die for that camel to win’. |
SE in slang uses
Derog. nicknames for inhabitants of the Middle East
In compounds
an Arab.
| (con. WW2) Heart of Oak [ebook] There I was to hear tales [of] life among the camel-bashers. |
1. (US) a Jew [the inference is of Middle Eastern origins rather than professional stereotyping].
![[US]](/static/img/flags/us.png "United States") | Adventures of a Boomer Op. 51: Now I don’t mind a little rubber-necking with our friend the camel driver. |
2. an Arab, a native of the Middle East.
| Asbury Park Press (NJ) 6 May 18/5: Germans insult them [i.e. immigrants] with divisive names such as ‘camel driver,’ ‘macaroni eater’. | |
| Smack Man (1991) 596: His friends called him the Camel Driver, and he was, in fact Lebanese by descent. |
3. a derog. term for an Arabic native of the Middle East.
| Layer Cake 102: Even those Arab camel-drivers up the Edgware Road would have said it was over the top. |
(US) a derog. term for an Arabic native of the Middle East, thus adj. camel-fucking.
| Maledicta 1 (Summer) 83: This onomastic questionnaire [...] elicits the terms/designations for certain kinds of people (e.g. jerk; camel-fucker). | |
| ‘Jungletown Jihad’ in Destination: Morgue! (2004) 372: The Feds culled camel fuckers in custody. | |
| ‘Hot-Prowl Rape-O’ in Destination: Morgue! (2004) 296: The cat was a cold camel-fucker [...] He was movie-mad and one mean Muslim. | |
| Widespread Panic 156: ‘Your camel-fucking ass is grass’. | |
| (con. 1962) Enchanters 103: [of a Lebanese] I looked good. ‘Who’s that handsome camel-fucker in the mirror’. |
(US) a derog. epithet for an Arab, a native of the Middle East.
| ‘Jungletown Jihad’ in Destination: Morgue! (2004) 336: Bluesuits bloomed [...] They cordoned off a camelhead cadre. |
(US) a native of the Middle East; an Arab.
| in Reno (NV) Eve. Gazette 11 June 4/6: The Vice-President’s lengthy preoccupation with that Pakistani camel-jockey, Bashir Ahmed [etc.]. | |
| in Current Sl. IV:3–4 (1970) 14: Camel-jock, n. A foreign student from the near East. | |
| Ebonics Primer at www.dolemite.com 🌐 camel-jockey Definition: slang term for natives of the Arabic Peninsula Example: My homie, Abdoo, is da dopest camel-jockey I know, nigga. | |
| ‘Jungletown Jihad’ in Destination: Morgue! (2004) 334: I told them I toasted a camel jockey. | |
 | Twitter 10 Dec. 🌐 You'd think Richard the Lion Hearted would have taught these Camel Jockys a lesson not to mess with ENGLAND. | |
| Widespread Panic 136: Gamel Abdel Nasser [...] a fellow camel jockey. | |
| Stoning 159: ‘Those camel jockeys who stoned Molly to death, those sand niggers’. |
(US Und.) an Asian.
| Und. Speaks 18/1: Camel rider, a Hindoo. |
a Muslim.
![[Scot]](/static/img/flags/sco.png "Scotland") | Decent Ride 330: One ay they burds in they shite pillboax hood n dresses, thit they repressed camel-shagger cunts make them wear. |
General uses
a general derog. epithet.
| Die Nigger Die! 140: James O. Eastland, a red-neck camel-breath moldy old cracker from Mississippi, subjected Thurgood to a level of questioning that was unheard of before. |
a derog. name for unpleasantly tasting cigarettes, orig. using Egyptian tobacco; also attrib.
| Overdue 104: Recollection reeks of the flavour of the camel-dung cigarettes of Alexandria . | |
| (con. WWI) Gloss. of Sl. [...] in the A.I.F. 1921–1924 (rev. t/s) n.p.: CAMEL-DUNG. Egyptian Cigarettes. | |
| [ | | Eve. Press (York) 24 Apr. 🌐 The rogue Benson & Hedges 20-packs were said to be almost identical to the real thing – apart from the taste and smell, which were more akin to ‘camel dung’]. |
(Aus.) a camel-driver.
| Bulletin (Sydney) 19 Dec. 15/3: David came from the Flying Angel Push in Melbourne, and lobbed on to the rabbit-proof fence when it was going through Lake Nabbaroo (W.A.). They made him off-sider to a camel-puncher named Jim. |
depression.
| Sl. and Its Analogues. | |
| DSUE (1984) 176/1: ca. 1870–1930. |
(orig. US) the vulva as seen through a tight pair of jeans, shorts etc', also attrib.
| Roger’s Profanisaurus in Viz 87 Dec. n.p.: camel’s foot n. Of leggings and tight jeans, those folds generated in a ladies crotch when they are pulled up too tightly. See also Twix lips. | |
| Salon.com 3 Dec. 🌐 Both collections boast a young, blond diva who looks amazingly like You Know Who, complete with a pneumatically inflated, Britneyesque chest, bountifully curvaceous hips and a camel toe in the crotch. | |
| ‘Little Tammy’ at asstr.org 🌐 The seam of her shorts cut into her pussy mound forming a perfect miniature camel toe. | |
| Good Girl Stripped Bare i: Gone are the power suits, tight-fitting frocks and camel-toe trousers that are de rigueur for a television newsreader. |
In phrases
mid-19C US catchphrase shouted in the street.
| Whip & Satirist of NY & Brooklyn (NY) 3 Dec. n.p.: ‘‘How are you?’ ‘How do you live, and what do you do in the day-time?’ ‘Here, here!’ ‘If you do’nt look out we’ll get a camel on you,’ are some of the slang terms you can hear at any moment [...] in Gotham. |