Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(US campus) very cheap beer.

1997–2000

Da Bomb 🌐 18: Liquid bread: Really cheap beer.

succour gained through alcohol.

1900

‘Doss Chiderdoss’ ‘Her New Game’ Sporting Times 29 Sept. 1/4: By and bye, into a public-house she shyly made her way; / As, as if she’d never in a pub. been caught, / She asked, not for liquid comfort, but for him who held the sway / In the house, for the proprietor, in short.

(UK prison) major tranquillizers used to calm rebellious or ‘difficult’ prisoners; also attrib.

1979		New Scientist 8 Nov. 423: Claims and counter-claims about controlling prisoners with drugs (the ‘liquid cosh’ is the inmates’ terms [sic]) and about drug experiments on prisoners are rife.
1988		J. Healy Grass Arena (1990) 161: The hospital screws gave him the liquid cosh – filled him so full of Largactil he doesn’t know his arse from his elbow.
1998		J. Hoskison Inside 44: Just spent a month in the hospital unit suffering large amounts of ‘liquid cosh’.
2006		I. Sinclair in London: City of Disappearances 123: He could describe the security precautions at Grendon Underwood, the ‘liquid cosh’ regime.
2012		D. O’Donnell Locked Ward (2013) 20: Various happy pills were doled out —and a few biffs of the liquid cosh.

(US) courage due to the consumption of alcohol.

1942		Berrey & Van den Bark Amer. Thes. Sl.
1997		Da Bomb Summer Supplement 9: Liquid courage (n.) Liquor.
1997		Eble Campus Sl. Apr. 5: Beer. [...] liquid courage.

(US black) malt liquor.

1997

Sonoma County Indep. 2–8 Oct. 🌐 Often referred to on the street as ‘liquid crack,’ malt liquor is the dregs of American brews. Although it is packaged like beer and looks like beer when poured in a glass, malt liquor’s alcohol content is twice as high.

strong, potent alcohol, esp. whisky.

1862		‘Edmund Kirke’ Among Pines 228: ‘Mine host’ and two assistants were dispensing ‘liquid death,’ at the rate of ten cents a glass.
1882		E. Nye Forty Liars (1888) 260: Vinegar Hill Sheep Dip [...] was way billed over the Union Pacific as ‘Liquid Crime’.
1889		St John’s Herald (AZ) 21 Feb. 6/4: We have had quite an influx of cow-punchers [...] filling up on ‘liquid crime’ of the vintage of 1888.
1903		Hardtford Repub. (KY) 17 Apr. 3/3: Will Long, of the ‘Hell’s Neck’ neighborhood [...] filled his anatomy full of ‘liquid crime’ and proceeded to ‘do’ the town.

strong liquor.

1840		Northern Star (W. Yorks) 16 May 7/6: When will ye learn to clothe your own backs before you fill the pockets of your rich and gourmandising oppressors by swallowing their ‘liquid damnation’.
1853		Leeds Times 10 Dec. 7/3: It would be interesting to compare the increase in the metropolitan consumption of —‘liquid damnation’.
1859		Cheltenham Chron 21 June 3/1: Look at yon miserable self-martyr, with the fire of liquid damnation gleaming through his carbuncle nose [...] his ruby proboscis.
1863		Preston Chron. 15 Aug. 6/4: There would be no sellers if there were no buyers of tht which total abstainers are so fond of terming ‘liquid damnation’.
1878		Dly Gaz. for Middlesborough 19 Nov. 3/2: The public [...] sold ‘liquid damnation’ at threepence a glass.
1883		Glasgow Herald 13 June 6/3: Is then, a distribution of ginger-beer before an election to be legal and a distribution of ‘liquid damnation’ that comes from Burton-on-Trent to be illegal?
1891		Glasgow Herald 20 June 6/3: Mr Dunn [...] a seller of spirits to the natives of South Africa, was sent to parliament by the votes of men who [...] look upon spirts as liquid damnation.
1901		Aberdeen Jrnl 13 Apr. 5/1: They marched back to the bar and drank the liquid damnation to the very dregs.
1913		Leamington Spa Courier 11 July 4/7: Men who for the greed of gain[...] traffic opium abroad and deal in ‘liquid damnation’ at home.
1919		Dundee Courier 3 Feb. 3/2: They had [...] as much right to sell liquid damanantion as he had.

strong, potent alcohol.

1852		N. Devon Jrnl 9 Sept. 6/4: Lest some miserable drunkard should feel an intense thirst for the ‘liquid fire’ [...] spirits, brandy, rum or whiskey are sold from a shilling to eighteen pence a gallon!
1885		Bulletin (Sydney) 4 July 17/4: And the local vendors of ‘liquid fire and distilled damnation’ smile like pleased oysters, for in Townsville the consumption of rum increases in proportion to the fervor of political feeling.
1885		Manchester Eve. News 12 Oct. 3/1: Liquid fire. Robert Wilson [...] was fined £40 at Glasgow for having on a Sunday [...] sold methylated spirits as a beverage.
1894		Hull Daily Mail 13 Dec. 4/2: Illustrated by an experiment showing how alcohol is rightly named ‘liquid fire’.

(drugs) alkyl nitrites.

2002

‘Drug Sl. Vault’ on Erowid.org 🌐 Liquid Gold Nitrites.

(US drugs) tetrahydrocannabinol (THC).

1971

Current Sl. V:4.

(orig. Aus.) vomit.

1963–74		B. Humphries Barry McKenzie [comic strip] in Complete Barry McKenzie (1988) 81: All them liquid laughs on the boat have left me feeling weak as piss.
1983		R. Aven-Bray Ridgey-Didge Oz Jack Lang 35: Liquid Laughter Vomit.
1988		McGill Dict. of Kiwi Sl. 69/2: liquid laugh vomit.
1991		Age (Melbourne) 7 Dec. 130/5: Australia has much of which to be proud [...] drain the dragon, syphon the python, (point percy at the porcelain), having a liquid laugh down the great white telephone.
1997		Roger’s Profanisaurus in Viz 87 Dec. n.p.: liquid laughter n. Puke.
2003		McGill Reed Dict. of N.Z. Sl. [as cit. 1988].

1. see lightning n. (1)

2. see lightning n. (2)

(orig. Aus.) a meal that consists of alcohol.

1960		A. Buzo Front Room Boys Scene i: We used to go down to Jim Buckley’s [...] for a liquid lunch.
1970		G.F. Newman Sir, You Bastard 54: The caretaker [was] aroused from his post-liquid lunch slumber.
1986		C. Bowles G’DAY 69: Feel like a liquid lunch today?
c.2003		D. Vrij ‘Tying Off’ on Inter-zone.org 🌐 The doctor left for a long liquid lunch leaving assurances of imminant liberation.
2017		T. Spicer Good Girl Stripped Bare 86: Derryn and his executive producer [...] down liquid lunches.
2020		S.A. Crosby Blacktop Wasteland 104: ‘[W]e can lock up and go over to Danny’s for some liquid lunch’.

(boxing) blood.

1858

A. Mayhew Paved with Gold 190: Hammer took advantage of the pause [...] to go up to his corner and once more get the ‘liquid rouge’ wiped off his ‘wig-block’.

(US drugs) heroin.

1986

C. Stroud Close Pursuit (1988) 133: He had the flag up when we took him, the whole nine yards of liquid sky straight up the arm.

see stuff n. (5a)

(Aus.) alcohol.

1912

Bulletin (Sydney) 19 Dec. 15/1: [He] straps on a couple of cases of whisky, or whatever liquid sunshine his immature soul hankers for, and makes for some secluded water-hole [...].