yegg, n. — Green’s Dictionary of Slang

yegg n.

also yegger, yeggman

[? John Yegg, a contemporary villain and the first safe-breaker to use nitroglycerine; however, Cohen (ed.), Studies in Sl. VI (1999) 22–6, notes article in S.F Chronicle 6/3/1904 citing criminal John Yeager who led a gang of tramps who robbed the Reading railroad; his name was the basis of generic ‘John Yegg’, the notional leader of all similar gangs; note also Jack Black, You Can’t Win (1926): ‘Yegg [...] is a corruption of “yekk”, a word from one of the many dialects spoken in Chinatown, and it means beggar. When a hypo or beggar approached a Chinaman to ask for something to eat, he was greeted with the exclamation, “yekk man, yekk man.” The underworld is quick to seize upon strange words, and the bums and hypos in Chinatown were calling themselves yeggmen years before the term was taken out on the road and given currency by eastbound beggars. In no time it had a verb hung on it, and to yegg meant to beg. The late William A. Pinkerton was responsible for its changed meaning [...] A burglar with some humor fell into Pinkerton’s hands and when asked who was breaking open the country “jugs” he whispered to the detective that it was the yeggs. Investigation convinced Pinkerton that there were a lot of men drifting about the country who called themselves yeggs. The word went into a series of magazine articles Pinkerton was writing at the time and was fastened upon the “box” men. Its meaning has since widened until now the term “yegg” includes all criminals whose work is “heavy”’; Irwin, Amer. Tramp and Und. Sl. (1931), suggests: ‘Originally a man too wise, too cautious, too old or too cowardly to risk crime in a city, where police and private detectives were alert, and who took to “the road” for easier “graft” and “pickings”.’]

(US Und.)

1. (also johnny yeg, john yeg(g)) a thief, spec. a safe-cracker; thus yegg mob, a gang of safe-breakers.

1900		Fort Wayne (IN) News 28 June 30/2: Their lingo is the language of the ‘yegg.’ No other crook uses it, and their phrases would be Greek to the average citizen.
1904		‘Number 1500’ Life In Sing Sing 256: John Yeg. Safe blower who travels in the guise of a tramp. [Ibid.] 261: I did the grand to Chicago and filled in with a yeg mob.
1904		S.F. Chronicle 6 Mar. 3: The Pinkertons speedily proceeded to verify what they had suspected all along, that the ‘Yeggs’ were a sort of Masonic order of thieves and burglars and that their operations extended from Maine to California and from Texas to Manitoba. Each band had a ‘John Yegg,’ or leader, and the members were sworn to stand by each other to the death.
1908		A. Stringer Under Groove 13: Here was an old and experienced dip and box man, an airy-handed chevalier d'industrie, an ex-yegg.
1908		‘O. Henry’ ‘From Each According to his Ability’ in Voice of the City (1915) 221: Pickpocket, supper man, second-story man, yeggman.
1908		A. Stringer Under Groove 7: [He] had finally climbed up to the Yegg class under the guidance and inspiration of Buck Ballard.
1908		A. Stringer Under Groove 47: [I] drew might short-barreled yegger’s revolver.
1910		Wodehouse Gentleman of Leisure Ch. i: ‘You mustn’t think Jimmy’s one of your common yeggs,’ said Sutton. ‘He’s at the top of his profession.’.
1914		J. McCree ‘Types’ Variety Stage Eng. Plays 🌐 Well of course, there’s some excitement in a first class yeggman’s job.
1917		Blue Mountains Echo (NSW) 27 Apr. 3/6: ‘Cracksman’ is long out of date, - in the best circles of roguery they speak of a ‘yegg,’ a ‘second-storey man,’ or a ‘screwsman’ .
1918		Jackson Dly News (MS) 1 Apr. 7/2: Crook Chatter [...] ‘A good yegg or safe blower regards a “moll buzzer” as a vulgarian’’.
1925		N. Lucas Autobiog. of a Thief 197: Yeggs are simply what we call ‘screwsmen,’ but the yegg generally carries a length of lead piping, and perhaps a ‘gun.’.
1927		W. Edge Main Stem 7: To go to a meeting of the I.W.W. should prove as adventuresome a thing to do as to attend a conference of [...] yeggmen.
1931		W.N. Burns One-Way Ride 57: Them other yeggs, they hand me the double-cross. They keep all the dough.
1938		J.E. Hoover Persons in Hiding 173: I decided to become a yegg [...] a bank robber, you know. They’re the aristocracy of the criminal profession.
1939		Howsley Argot: Dict. of Und. Sl. 28: johnny yeg – a traveling, or itinerant safecracker.
1940		R. Chandler Farewell, My Lovely (1949) 220: We think about them the same way we think about old-time yeggs or needled-up punks.
1940		E. Curry Hysterical Hist. of Aus. 223: When the inoffensive copper goes a-strolling down the street / He may chance upon a yeggman.
1949		Monteleone Criminal Sl. (rev. edn) 134: john yegg A safe blower who travels in the disguise of a tramp. [Ibid.] 256: yeggman a safe cracker; a criminal tramp.
c.1950		J.C. Barton Corrupt Ones n.p.: The dame shrugged her bare shoulders. ‘You know it all, mac. Sure, my old man was a gangster, a tough yegg.’.
1950		Goldin et al. DAUL 111/1: Johnny Yegg. (Obsolescent) A yegg, or traveling safe-blower. ‘Old Johnny Yegg is hooked up with gopher mobs (thieves who tunnel into bank vaults or fur lofts) or he’s a dinner-pailer (working man) these days.’.
1959		(con. c.1915) G. Duffy Warden’s Wife 53: Other members of the fraternity, the prowlers, porch-climbers, and yeggmen.
1964		B. Jackson Get Your Ass in the Water (1974) 100: I was a yegg and one of the toughest of yeggs / was ever poled in the latter soup / till I met a moll with the face of a doll / that put my head in a loop.
1970		(con. 1900s) Gaddis & Long Panzram (2002) 26: The yegg was an itinerant burglar who moved from town to town, often in the company of his ‘boy.’.
1976		M. Braly False Starts 124: The yeggs were honored, if not quite as aristocrats, because they stole clean, with only the slightest potential for violence.
1988		W. Burroughs Foreword in Black You Can’t Win (2000) 11: Where are the hobo jungles, the hop joints, the old rod-riding yeggs, where is Salt Chunk Mary?
1990		S. Morgan Homeboy 26: Formerly he’d been a yegg, a safecracker.
2013		J. Stahl Bad Sex on Speed 135: That yegg Huncke picked my pocket. We was both high on bennies.
2024		J. Meades Empty Wigs (t/s) 557: [F]ugitive yeggman Goffard Corner.

2. attrib. use of sense 1.

1901		J. Flynt World of Graft 27: Hoboes that break safes in country post-offices come under the yegg-men classification.
1926		J. Black You Can’t Win (2000) 16: At thirty I was a respected member of the ‘yegg’ brotherhood, a thief of which little is known. He is silent, secretive, wary; forever traveling, always a ‘night’ worker. He shuns the bright lights, seldom straying far from his kind, never coming to the surface. Circulating through space with his always-ready automatic, the yegg rules the underworld.

3. any variety of criminal.

1901		J. Flynt World of Graft 27: The great majority are what certain detectives call ‘yegg-men,’ which is a term, by the way, that the detectives would do well to define. As far as I can discover it means tramp-thieves, but the average tramp seldom uses the word.
1917		J. Lait ‘Charlie the Wolf’ in Beef, Iron and Wine (1917) 58: After a yegg puts a tunnel t’rough a harness bull the Chief gives out a statement sayin’ he feels the loss keenly.
1920		Ade Hand-made Fables 72: He decided it was about time for some one to put a Crimp in the professional Yeggmen.
1928		M.C. Sharpe Chicago May (1929) 122: It is axiomatic with crooks not to carry evidence of their identity on their person when they are working. But then, Gus was never a ‘yegg’, as we Americans say.
1930		J. Lait Gangster Girl 33: How do these thugs and yeggs get that kind of women?
1941		J.M. Cain Mildred Pierce (1985) 455: Without having to give the password to some yegg with his face in a slot.
1950		R. Callahan Killers Don’t Care n.p.: One of his yegg men sat by the doors has seen me and has given his boss the high sign.
1996		(con. 1949) G. Pelecanos Big Blowdown (1999) 251: Not the criminal type, if you ask me — the guy doesn’t look like your average yegg.
1998		L. Stringer Grand Central Winter (1999) 237: These hard-edged yeggs.

4. a city beggar.

1907

N.Y. Times Sun. Mag. 27 Jan. 4: Six ‘yegg’ men in New York last week practiced street begging in the most ‘improved’ style. They belong to a class by themselves in that they do not ask for alms, but have boys and girls beg for them.

5. as a term of abuse (? misunderstanding of sense 1).

1910

Salt Lake Herald Republican (UH) 17 Apr. 3/2: You long-eared yegg.

6. a hold-up man, a robber with violence.

1912		G. Foxhall ‘Peace at Last’ in Railroad Man’s Mag. Feb. n.p.: The yeggman has neither code nor conscience. He gives no quarter, and he gets none.
1917		‘A-No. 1’ From Coast to Coast with Jack London 33: The yeggs had no inkling that we had witnessed their crime.
1921		P. & T. Casey Gay-cat 44: A yegger! [...] A strong-armer! Now I know, I don’t monkey with Mr. Whitey-scar.
1923		N. Anderson Hobo 65: They become ‘down-and-outs’ — tramps, bums, vagabonds, gamblers, pickpockets, yeggmen, and other petty criminals.
1931		M. Harris ‘Facing the Mob’ in Gangland Stories Feb. 🌐 I tricked them out of there and you cheap yeggs let them get away!

7. (also yeg) a tramp.

1912		A. Berkman Prison Memoirs of an Anarchist (1926) 161: A yegg, then, is a tramp.
1915		H.F. Day Landloper 33: You are not a real tramp. You are a bum, a loafer, a yeg.
1923		N. Anderson Hobo 101: [From A No. 1, The Famous Tramp] 41. Yegg. Roving desperado.
1925		J. Tully Beggars of Life 184: ‘Mulligan ready?’ asked Red [...] ‘Sure thing, old yegger.’.
1930		‘Dean Stiff’ Milk and Honey Route 33: Below the tramps you will find the various orders of bums and yeggs.
1949		Monteleone Criminal Sl. (rev. edn).
1989		(con. 1930s) H. Huncke ‘Boxcar Bertha’ in Huncke Reader (1998) 336: This Boxcar Bertha commanded the respect of all the bums and yeggs and reds and grifters of the road.