Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. a violent thug, a bully; used positively of a prize-fighter.

1559		‘The Blacksmith’ Mirror for Magistrates 410: With slashers, slaues and snuffers so falshod is in price, The simple faith is deadly sinne, and vertue counted vice .
1593		G. Harvey Pierce’s Supererogation 20: Behold the glorious picture of that most threatening Slassher.
1602		Rowlands Greene’s Ghost Haunting Coniecatchers E4: Such iollie shauers, that are deepe slashers of others mens hides, haue I knowne (more is the pitie) to sit vp all night, some at Cardes and Dice, some quaffing and swilling at the Tauerne, and others among their trulles.
1785, 1788, 1796		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.
1811		Lex. Balatronicum.
1823		Egan Grose’s Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.
1841		Bell’s Life in London 22 Apr. 4/5: A match has been made in Sheffield between[...] Anthony Reed and george Sinclair, the Liverpool Slasher.
1846		Bell’s Life in Sydney 31 Jan. 1/2: It was the Tipton Slasher and not the bold Bendy who was the candidate for the championship.
1848		Bell’s Life in Sydney 26 Feb. 2/5: By the powers, such a slasher / And terrible smasher.
1852		G.C. Mundy Our Antipodes I 384: It is needless to hint that your Botany Bay ‘Slasher’ [is] hardly likely to add lustre to the profession of the noble art.
1856		G.L. Chesterton Revelations of Prison Life I 73: Slasher also was tall and of powerful build, and had acquired her sobriquet from the aptitude she displayed in the ‘art of self-defence’.
1859		Hotten Dict. of Modern Sl. etc. 95: slasher a powerful roisterer, or pugilist.
1864, 1867, 1870		Hotten Sl. Dict. [as cit. 1859].
1869		Sportsman (London) 11Aug. 2/1: Notes on News [...] During this excited colloquy Justice Walter sat quietly in his seat without interrupting the legal slashers.
1870		Birmingham Dly Press 5 Feb. 8/2: The ‘Tipton Slasher’ was once a noted name. It was the fancy alias of William Perry [...] a fighting man of great power.
1873		W.H. Thomes Bushrangers 431: ‘I was tryin’ to make a match with the Northampton Slasher,’ said the old prizefighter.

2. a sword; a knife.

1673		M. Stevenson Norfolk Drollery 103: In which sharp Conflict, Bacon lost his sword, / About his brains [Calveshead] brandisht his bright slasher / [...] / cutting at Bacon’s britch.
1815		(con. 18C) Sir W. Scott Guy Mannering (1999) 179: ‘Had he no arms?’ asked the Justice. ‘Ay, ay, they are never without barkers and slashers.’.
1821–6		‘Bill Truck’ Man o’ War’s Man (1843) 109: He made his slasher play round Jerry’s carroty mop.
1938		J. Devanny Paradise Flow 23: Danil came out of the grove with his slasher and told his wife to ‘put up some tucker’.
1960		B. Crump A Good Keen Man 83: He went in and killed both boars with the short-handled slasher he carried everywhere.
1975		D. Davin Breathing Spaces 58: Give me that slasher.

3. anyone or anything seen as exceptional, whether positively or otherwise.

1817		M. Edgeworth Love and Law I i: They call me a beau and a buck, a slasher and a dasher.
1834		‘A Rum-Un to Look At’ in Libertine’s Songster in Spedding & Watt (eds) I 136: Her charms folks may hook at, / She’s a rum-un to look at / But yet she’s a good von to go, to go, to go, / She’s a regular slasher to go.
1843		Satirist & Sporting Chron. (Sydney) 25 Mar. 3/4: Mr J.M. Saunders left the fair Lucy enceinte [...] for the Derwent Slasher Louisa.
1849		Sam Sly 17 Mar. 3/3: ‘I say, Jem, there's a rummy-looking bloke.’ ‘Oh, vot a slasher’.
1869		H. Smart Breezie Langton I 24: ‘[T]hat big brown horse of his, The Slasher he calls it, is a clipper’.
1875		Dundee Courier (Scot.) 24 May 4/2: I tell you, mister, she was a slasher! Our Connie couldn’t hold a candle to her.
1888		H. King Savage London 44: Here’s Billy Davis on a new tack! Look at our slasher as drinks six water-grogs now-a-days!
1889		Dead Bird (Sydney) 23 Nov. 7/3: It’s a regular downright slasher / ls this charming little sheet.
1909		Eve. World (NY) 17 Mar. 1: [headline] Tariff Bill a Slasher — 75,000 March in Parade.

4. a hard blow.

1827		Bell’s Life in London 29 Apr. 3/1: Bob planted a slasher on Jem’s mouth.
1859		Bell’s Life in Tasmania 13 Sept. 3/6: Lanky went in, made a slasher on the brain pan followed by a [illegible] on the bread basket.
1862		Golden Age (Queenbeyan, NSW) 21 Aug. 2/5: [A] remark that is accompanied by a couple of slashers on the flank of Tyro.

5. (Aus.) a general term of praise, an excellent fellow.

1890		‘Doss Chiderdoss’ ‘The Rejected’ Sporting Times 29 Mar. 1/3: He thought that as a masher he was quite a tip-top slasher.
1951		(con. 1941) E. Lambert Twenty Thousand Thieves 128: Christ! She’s a slasher!
1960		J. Walker No Sunlight Singing (1966) 31: I seen this half-caste piece—what a slasher!

6. (UK Und.) a criminal accomplice who cheats on his partners.

1929		C.G. Gordon Crooks of the Und. 211: I myself had a rather peculiar experience when ‘working’ with a grafter who was strongly suspected by the ‘mob’ as being a ‘slasher’.
1938		F.D. Sharpe Sharpe of the Flying Squad 218: Once a man is found to be a ‘slasher,’ however, his name quickly becomes mud in the Underworld.

7. (Aus./N.Z. prison) a person who self-mutilates or commits suicide by cutting their wrists.

1990		Tupper & Wortley Aus. Prison Sl. Gloss. 🌐 Slasher. A self mutilator.
2001		D. Looser Boobslang [U. Canterbury D.Phil. thesis] 169/2: slasher n. a suicide by cutting.