grass n.3
1. an informer .
[ | Hartlepool Northern Dly Mail 28 Jan. 5/5: I have also learned [...] that a policeman is known as a ‘grass’ — short for grasshopper which rhymes with ‘copper’]. | |
Crooks of the Und. 69: A ‘grass’ is the term for ‘copper’s nark’ in the underworld to-day. | ||
They Drive by Night 123: I come back to help you, spite of watchew done, and all you do is lie to me and call me a grass. | ||
Letters from the Big House 20: Grass is jail-jargon for informer [...] Copper is colloquial for policeman; grass-hopper is rhyming-slang for copper; grass is the abbreviation. | ||
Tramp at Anchor 75: A grass is a man who makes a practice of giving information to the authorities about other prisoners. | ||
Guntz 129: You can be a [...] shnide, grass, ponce, bore. | ||
Sir, You Bastard 75: Sometimes grasses were a detective’s greatest asset. | ||
🎵 Cockney say grass. We say informer man. | ‘Cockney Translation’||
Doing Time 190: grass: to inform; an informer. | ||
The Joy (2015) [ebook] Stupid cunt didn’t even report that. Never does. Doesn’t want to be a grass. | ||
Happy Like Murderers 103: The inspector [...] used Fred West as a ‘grass’ on the local villains. | ||
Housing Benefit Hill 94: Kids scream at him in the town: ‘He’s a wrong’un, he’s a grass’. | ||
Boobslang [U. Canterbury D.Phil. thesis] 81/1: grass n. 1 an informer. | ||
Intractable [ebook] [T]he Special Purpose Witness Protection Prison, known as the Grass Castle. | ||
Graffito on bus stop shelter, Tufnell Park, London 27 July n.p.: SEAN (FISH) IS A GRASS. | ||
All the Colours 11: Whispering grasses. People with the inside dope, the horse’s mouth, on various ministers. | ||
Viva La Madness 44: Turns out the geezer she took up with was a grass. | ||
Blood Miracles 129: Pender’s a thief, not a grass. | ||
Bloody January 6: ‘Fuck off. I’m no a grass.’ McCoy laughed. ‘You’re no a grass? Fuck am I doing sitting here, then?’. | ||
Class Act [ebook] ‘[I]f journalists started letting on about their grasses, no one would ever grass again’. | ||
Empty Wigs (t/s) 323: ‘I am not a grass... However - your friend Marty is. [...] Marty... he fingered Andy’. |
2. (UK und.) information; the act of informing.
Thieves Slang ms list from District Police Training Centre, Ryton-on-Dunsmore, Warwicks 5: Grass: Information. | ||
(con. 1964-65) Sex and Thugs and Rock ’n’ Roll 79: ‘Now, one fuckin’ inch of grass ’bout this an’ I’ll do ya’. |
In phrases
to turn informer.
Farewell, Mr Gangster! 279: Slang used by English criminals [...] To come grass – to give away. | ||
DSUE (1984) 242/1: since mid-C.20. | ||
Playboy’s Book of Forbidden Words. |
to turn informer (on).
Eve. Herald (Dublin) 9 Dec. 4/6: The magistrate [in a London Police Court] was baffled by the words ‘somebody has gone the grass on me,’ which reflects the prisoner’s view that one his associates had informedthe police of his activities. | ||
Hartlepool Northern Dly Mail 15 Jan. 7/3: ‘Somebody has gone grass on me’ means thata ‘tea-leaf’s (thief’s) associate has given information to the ‘splits’ (detectives). |