Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (US) a thug, a ruffian, a violent person.

1866		Night Side of N.Y. 43: [The] gorillas quarrelled over their greasy cards, and the ‘cutlery’ came into play very promiscuously.
1867		Sportsman 19 Nov. 2/2: Notes on News [...] ‘The devil,’ he added, ‘was a bad boy, but he could not hold candle to Mr Price, the [prison] governor,’ whom he further characterised as ‘the old gorilla’.
1905		H. Green Actors’ Boarding House (1906) 138: The Gorillas bore down upon the Socialist trucks, intent on breaking up the meeting.
1910		H. Hapgood Types from City Streets 20: I know a common loafer, or ‘bum,’ or ‘gorilla,’ as they call such on the Bowery. [Ibid.] 350: De’re fighters, see? De’re gorillas.
1926		J. Black You Can’t Win (2000) 211: One, a big, tough-looking gorilla out of the British Navy, stopped and taunted me gleefully.
1933		‘Goat’ Laven Rough Stuff 144: We had an organization of gorillas, real tough men they were, who wouldn’t stick at much and who acted as bodyguards and gunmen and look-out men.
1933		Bulletin (Sydney) 6 Sept. 40/3: I saw a great big gorilla of a fellow whirling fifty-pound dumbbells around his head as if they were toy balloons.
1946		Mezzrow & Wolfe Really the Blues 95: It’s funny how the toughest gorilla [...] whimpers like a young pup when he begins to hear his own pump riffing.
1953		T. Williams Camino Real Block Twelve: I was being roughed up by them gorillas.
1965		C. Brown Manchild in the Promised Land (1969) 223: People started saying he was a gorilla, that he was going around shaking down people.
1975		E. Torres Carlito’s Way 82: Another gorilla grabbed me round the neck.
1985		J. Sullivan ‘To Hull and Back’ Only Fools and Horses [TV script] He gave the money to these two gorillas to check and, well, they were about as bright as an eclipse.
1989		M. Walker How to Kiss a Crocodile 99: It was two gorillas having an early morning romp above the clouds.
1993		I. Welsh Trainspotting 207: She introduces me to a surly, sweaty gorilla who grunts in ma direction.
1996		P. Beatty White Boy Shuffle 23: Ain’t this a bitch, the gorillas snacking with the guerillas.
1996		P. Temple Bad Debts (2012) [ebook] Take the gorilla’a advice about this Bishop too. You’ve touched a nerve somewhere.
2000		N. Griffiths Grits 406: Fucking gorilla. thinks I need his protection?
2004		R.G. Barrett Rosa Marie’s Baby (2013) [ebook] ‘A big, ugly gorilla like me [...] and noone around’.
2007		UGK ‘Cocaine’ 🎵 Grown by the cartels, protected by gorillas.
2017		G. Gilmore Headland [ebook] ‘Name,’ said the gorilla for the third time.
2019		S.M. Jones Lives Laid Away [ebook] The other gorilla took out a semi-auto .45.
2021		P. Papathanasiou Stoning 211: ‘One of those knuckle-dragging gorillas’.
2023		Rayman & Blau Riker’s 66: You could see the [authors’ note house gang] goons, the dudes that are the enforcers, the do-rag motherfuckers, the gorillas.

2. a large person, not necessarily a thug.

1953

‘Curt Cannon’ ‘Now Die In It’ in I Like ’Em Tough (1958) 45: The gorilla’s name was Rudy [...] a guy I’d know [sic] long ago.

3. a person.

1962		P. Highsmith Cry of the Owl (1968) 115: As if I’d ever call that gorilla!
1971		B. Malamud Tenants (1972) 84: Who’s the gorilla in Holzheimer’s old flat? Friend of yours?

4. (US campus) an unattractive, often overweight, young woman.

1972		(con. 1950s) Jacobs & Casey Grease II i: Jesus, is she a gorilla!
1978		R. De Christoforo Grease 159: That chick Kenick is with is a real gorilla!

5. (US) something or someone irresistible or posing difficulty; often modified as 600-pound gorilla, 800-pound gorilla etc.

1982		W. Safire What’s The Good Word? 272: Last summer this department reported [...] that the 800-pound gorillas what rattled their executive cages in Movieland liked the locution ‘taking a meeting.’.
2000		Cockburn & Cockburn Saddam Hussein (2002) 216: It so happened that London was headed at that time by these eight-hundred-pound gorillas, Tom Twetton [...] and Jack Devine.
2015		P. Beatty Sellout (2016) 5: She saw me, the other four-hundred-pound gorilla in the room.

6. see gorilla pimp under gorilla adj.