Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(orig. Oxford Univ.) an empty bottle.

1785, 1788, 1796		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue n.p.: Gentleman commoner, an empty bottle, a university joke; gentlemen commoners not being deemed over-full of learning.
1811		Lex. Balatronicum.
1823		Egan Grose’s Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.

(UK gambling) an upper(-middle)-class gambler who is vulnerable to and targeted by plausible cheats.

1822		Eng. Chron. (London) 8 June 1/2: [A] gentleman flat complained to the officers that he had been caught to the tune of a 10/. note by the old trick of pricking in the garter.
1831		Satirist (London) 18 Sept. 190/1: The forte of this person lies among the ‘gentlemen flats,’ of whom he is considered a most dexterous inveigler. With an agreeable and insinuating address, he will, in an instant, be the accepted friend of a perfect stranger.

a highwayman.

1709

N. Ward Compleat and Humorous Account of Remarkable Clubs (1756) 294: Gentlemen Outers, in plain English, Highwaymen, boast their dangerous Exploits upon the open Road.

the male genitals.

2024

J. Meades Empty Wigs (t/s) 386: They’re always telling you they got what it takes in the gentleman quarters: I can make up my own mind on that one!

1. a woman’s male companion.

1606		Chapman [play title] Gentleman Usher.
1641		Brothers of the Blade 6: I could serve her turne well for a gentleman Usher, or at a shift upon occasion to be Pimpe for her Ladiship.
1654		Citie Matrons 6: I met with a wanton Gallant, newly married, the Goose bitt him; he goes home to his Wife, gives it her, she gives it to her Gentleman Usher, he to the Chamber-maid, and she, before her Master was fully cured, gave it him again.
1661		Wandring Whore V 6: Go to bed with thy Gentleman-usher, and if he [husband] be angry, call him rogue, raskal, and jealous Cuckold.
1685		E. Phillips Mysteries of Love & Eloquence 53: The Choice of a Gentleman Usher [...] He ought diligently to have studied over Melchior Swashbucklerus, de holdendo hattum in hando [...] he ought to be a diligent Observer of Fashions, and an espyer of faults in the garb and house keeping of other Ladies.
1700		T. Brown Amusements Serious and Comical in Works (1744) III 97: That cringing slave who is under the plague of being a gentleman-usher to a lame countess.
1700		T. D’Urfey Massaniello dramatis personae: Pimponio A Villain and Parasite, but Witty and Comical, Gentleman-Usher to Blowzabella.
1731		News from the New-Exchange (2 edn) 5: [T]hey were constrain’d to converse only with the Homes and Closets, and now and then with the Gentleman-Usher, or the Footman (when they could catch him) for Variety.

2. the penis; cit. 1719 is a double entendre.

1719

in D’Urfey Pills to Purge Melancholy III 6: Here Damsels are handled like Nymphs in the Bath, / By Gentlemen-Ushers, with Legs like a Lath.

(US) the penis.

1893

‘Bob Sterling’ Town-Bull 111: I pulled out the red-headed gentleman, ready to be introduced to a new lady.

to urinate.

1923

J. Manchon Le Slang.

the penis.

1748

Spy on Mother Midnight III 24: It was in vain to dissemble any longer, the gentleman/ below slairs slood stoutly for his prerogative, and inform'd Sally, with what species of the Cholick her bed-fellow was afficted.

a policeman.

1833		Wkly Dispatch (London) 7 Apr. 8/4: [T]o be trundled to the next Magistrate, to be charged, to be examined, and, oh worse to be published by some reporter who has just shared his pot with the identical gentleman in blue.
1840		Cheltenham Chron. 9 July 3/6: Mr. Kendall, his opinion, considered that the police were justified in their conduct; but Mr. Overbury thought far otherwise, and administered to the gentleman in blue a well merited and severe reprimand, and told them that they were not think because they wore a blue livery they could they liked.
[1845		Exter & Plymouth Gaz. 29 Nov. 4/1: She was received by a military-looking gentleman in blue [...] the waterman pronounced him to be Sergeant Tims of the Metropolitan Police Force].
1846		Bell’s Life in Sydney 4 July 3/1: Certain blank looks were observable amongst the ‘gemmen’ in blue.
1849		Paul Pry Jan. 1/2: [I]f the police were to force an entrance, the lights in the passage would be put out, and [...] a few ‘known bullies’ could keep back the ‘gentlemen in blue’ until every body else had escaped.
1852		Bell’s Life in Sydney 6 Nov. 3/1: Augustus Kean [...] performed a variety of monkeyish and bearish tricks [...] which called for the interposition of the gentlemen in blue.
1864, 1867, 1870		Hotten Sl. Dict. 78: ‘The gentleman in blue and white’ – i.e., a policeman.
1864		Western Gaz. 20 Feb. 3/3: He wants to know why a gentleman in blue was present.
1874		Western Gaz. 11 Sept. 8/3: Shortly afterwards ‘a gentleman in blue’ arrived, and took the unhappy being into custody .
1880		Bulletin (Sydney) 8 May 6/2: He’s going to see whether his own word and that of fourteen hard-working witnesses won’t be preferred in a court of justice to the emphatic oath of the gentleman in blue.
1883		Worcs. Chron. 6 Jan. 5/4: The news soon reached the village inn. [...] the local ‘gentleman in blue’ [...] quickly reached the spot.
1890		Bird o’ Freedom 8 Jan. 2/4: He looked as if a good supper of stewed tripe and onions (to fill up the gaps of his ‘inner man’ with) would have been much more to his liking than singing ‘Rory O’More,’ for the chance of a stray penny, or a hint from a gentleman in blue, to ‘move on’.
1899		Illus. Police News 4 Feb. 5/2: And a certain gent was sent for — you know the one I mean — / The gent in blue who promenades at night!
1902		Western Times 26 July 5/2: [cartoon caption] The Chief Constable took the precaution to send ‘a gentleman in blue’ to prevent any violent collision.
1911		Dundee Courier 30 May 7/2: The ‘gentleman in blue‘, who was quickly on the scene, was hoodwinked.
1928		Derby Dly Teleg. 11 Oct. 6/3: Police and Public [...] The public is prepared to make a friend of the gentleman in blue and to help him.

a bedbug.

1885		G.A. Sala in Daily Tel. 14 Aug. 5/3: Bed bugs, the convertible term for which is ‘chintzes,’ are the disagreeable insects known in modern polite English as ‘Norfolk Howards,’ or gentlemen in brown [F&H].
1890–1904		Farmer & Henley Sl. and Its Analogues.

a soldier.

1774

Lee in Burke’s Corr. (1844) I 513: We gentlemen in red never chose to remember that in all our defeats and disgraces [...] the provincials never led the flight .

a wasp.

1690

‘Teague’ Teagueland Jests I 116: The Gentleman in the yellow jacket whips his venomed dart into the most tender part of Teague’s Posteriours.

see separate entry.

see separate entry.

(US short-order) a plate of hash.

1910

Ocala Eve. Star (FL) 20 June 1/5: ‘Hash,’ says a customer. ‘Gentleman wants to take a chance!’.

(Irish) a pig.

1845		Dublin Eve. Post 6 Nov. 4/4: His plan comprehends no enclosure of a yard, no shed for fuel, no pigsty lor ‘the gentleman who pays the rent’ .
1858		Tralee Chron. 9 July 3/3: It is to be hoped that the gentleman who pays the rent will curb his appetite (and his snout) until his own new potatoes are fit to dig.
1865		Irish Times 1 Aug. 4/6: The [...] pig has been often and justly described as the ‘gentleman who pays the rent,’ and every one who knows anything of the of the classes above-mentioned knows that the pig does more — ‘he sows the spring’.
1872		Liverpool Wkly Courier 13 Apr. 4/1: The miserable one-roomed huts into which the pig, ‘the gentleman who pays the rent,’ had a right of free entry, have nearly all disappeared.
1880		Dublin Dly Exp. 6 Aug. ‘Bedad, lord, and is it meself that’s to be evicted?’ Peer (tenderly)—‘You evicted ! No, no. I’ll take the greatest care of the ‘gentleman who pays the rent’ .
1880		Bristol Mercury 11 Sept. 5/7: [I]n front [of a crofter’s cottage] is a dung-hill, half fluid, half liquid, the throne of ‘the gentleman who pays the rent’ and of a few geese and fowl.
1897		Daily Tel. 17 Dec. in Ware (1909) 140/1: The Irish pig, the gentleman who pays the Irish rent, if not exactly a willing immigrant into this country, has always proved a quiet one after his arrival. He has generally been cured before leaving home.
1910		Chicago Trib. 20 Feb. 8/2: It is a surprise [...] to a visitor from Ireland in this country to hear cobwebs alluded to as ‘Irish draperies’ [...] ‘The gintleman that pays the rint’ doesn’t walk in and out of the house any more than he does here.