Green’s Dictionary of Slang

very bad, very unpleasant.

1978		(con. 1940s) J.G. Farrell Singapore Grip 179: They produce this piss-awful rubber but that’s their business.
1988		McGill Dict. of Kiwi Sl. 84/1: piss awful very unpleasant.
2000		Guardian Rev. 21 Jan. 18: Grunge deliberately looked and sounded as dingy, abrasive and piss-awful as its perpetrators.

very easy.

1988		Viz Oct./Nov. 2: Oh, fuck that Tom! It’s piss easy.
2000		J.J. Connolly Layer Cake 9: I reckon it [i.e. drug dealing] must look very inviting, like piss-easy money, which it is when all goes well.
2003		McGill Reed Dict. of N.Z. Sl.
2011		J.J. Connolly Viva La Madness 330: Piss-easy, this bodyguarding lark.

see separate entries.

1. third-rate, incompetent, useless.

1945		M. Kantor Glory for Me 183: I guess I know I'm piss-poor in a job like this.
1947		D. Davin For the Rest of Our Lives 370: Frank had asked him how it was: Poor as piss, he answered, poor as piss.
1955		K. Amis letter 23 Jan. in Leader (2000) 419: Snap judgment on what I’ve seen (not much): P.P.P. (pretty pisspoor).
1961		H.S. Thompson letter 20 Aug. in Proud Highway (1997) 283: It’s kind of honorable to tilt with the Rotary Club, but piss-poor when they shoot you down.
1972		J. Wambaugh Blue Knight 240: My partner, a piss-poor excuse for a cop.
1989		C. Hiaasen Skin Tight 22: Weather was piss-poor, that I know.
1999		Guardian Guide 31 July–6 Aug. 4: The mezzobrow postmodernism and the piss-poor sequels.
2003		Wayne Guestbook 8 Mar. at r1pilot.sportbikeworld.com 🌐 I’d rather have a Honda MELODY instead of that PISS POOR BAG OF SHITE HAYAPUSSY!!!
2009		P. Temple Truth 137: Jerry the tech in headphones, fiddling, tapping, talking to his throat mike. ‘Yeah, piss-poor, yeah, okay, here we go’.
2012		M. McBride Frank Sinatra in a Blender [ebook] They did a piss-poor job of making it look like he’d killed himself.
2015		G. Disher Heat [ebook] [A] pair of corrugated iron doors with a piss-poor padlock.
2020		S.A. Crosby Blacktop Wasteland 99: He knew he was a piss-poor teacher.

2. totally lacking in finances.

[1772		Bridges Burlesque Homer (3rd edn) 234: Don’t stay to pick a single fob; / Tho’ we are poor as we can piss].
1962		H.S. Thompson letter 13 Mar. in Proud Highway (1997) 327: A piss-poor living it is.
1970		L. Sanders Anderson Tapes 95: They’re all born piss-poor. They got nothing but their pride.
1999		J. Baker Walking With Ghosts (2000) 116: She’s piss-poor.
2011		J.J. Connolly Viva La Madness 289: I knew [...] all his big piss-poor family.

appalling, unpleasant, distasteful.

1940		E. Pound Cantos lxix 174: Bingham, Carrol of Carrolton Gone piss-rotten for Hamilton Cabot, Fisher Ames [etc.].
2001–2003		Ziggy’s Video Realm 🌐 The movie furnishes some of the most piss rotten production values since Ed Wood graced us with Plan Nine From Outer Space.

terrified.

1968		P. Terson Apprentices (1970) II iii: They’re piss scared I’ll cause trouble.
1985		B. Simon ‘Outers’ Born in the RSA (1997) 50: I could have fought Pierre Fourie but he was piss-scared of me.

utterly contemptuous.

1999

Observer 3 Oct. 22: She’s sick, sick, just piss-sick, of everything now being all hype and no content.

(orig. US) very ugly.

1989

P. Munro Sl. U.

1. weak, cowardly, pathetic (cf. weak as piss under weak adj.).

1961		G. Mill Nobody Dies But Me (2003) 70: [I]f it is possible to muck it up further The Mucus will, and although he’s only pissweak, in a physical sense, he has a temper like a bloody wild cat.
1974		D. Ireland Burn 132: Billy’s walkabout was piss-weak compared to what mine was.
1979		D. Maitland Breaking Out 169: You are a bloody lop-eared, snaggle-toothed, drippy faced, feeble-minded, piss-weak, [...] fart-faced flip of a fucking galah!
1980		M. Bail Homesickness (1999) 299: They were piss-weak in the war.
1986		C. Bowles G’DAY 94: Yer not gunna cop out now. Come on — we’re late [...] (mutters) Piss-weak!
1988		McGill Dict. of Kiwi Sl. 84/2: piss weak inadequate or mean or cowardly.
1998		P. Doyle (con. late 1950s) Amaze Your Friends (2019) 104: ‘He’s piss-weak’.
2001		(con. 1945–6) P. Doyle Devil’s Jump (2008) 58: I’ve heard some piss-weak bullshit in my thirty years in union politics but [...] you really take the cake.
2003		Bug (Aus.) Aug. 🌐 I sort of expected such a pissweak insult from the repesentative of this gutless mob of Sprungkok black shooters.
2009		P. Temple Truth 239: That’s the fed approach [...] Any phone, anybody, any time, any reason, no matter how pissweak.
2015		L. McInerney Glorious Heresies 65: [H]e remembered her laughing at some piss-weak anecdote he couldn’t give two shits for.
2020		G. Disher Consolation 36: ‘Coward…Mongrel…Piss weak the lotta ya’.

2. of alcohol, lacking strength.

2009

T. Black Gutted 167: ‘Gimme a pint.’ I pointed to some piss-weak-looking Belgian brand on the pump.

(Aus.) to run (away) fast.

2004		Urban Dict. 7 Sept. 🌐 pissbolt Australian slang [...] You should have seen that kid pissbolt out of there.
2010		L. Redhead Thrill City [ebook] Saw you piss-bolt down the street.
2015		Twitter 29 July 🌐 I just piss-bolted to catch a fucken train and fucken got there right as the door was closing.