Green’s Dictionary of Slang

dish (out) v.

to give out, to apportion.

1728		Swift ‘Dialogue between Mad Mullinix and Timothy’ in Works VII (1801) 402: Did not an able statesman bishop / This dangerous horrid motion dish-up / As popish craft?
1730		Hist. of Col. Francis Charteris 19: She was put to Bed and dished out in as handsome a manner as the Circumstances and Time would admit of.
1840		Morn. Post (London) 27 Jan. 3/3: I would employ Sir James each day some new scan-mag to dish up.
1853		Dickens ‘Slang’ in Household Words 24 Sept. 74/2: If there had been any of that commodity [i.e. slang] floating about in polite circles then, the Dean would have been the man to dish it up for posterity.
1865		Dly Ohio Statesman (Columbus, OH) 17 Aug. 2/2: The difficulty which teh Whigs experienced in endeavouring to swallow some objectionable doctrine that their party leader had dished up.
1871		Arizona Citizen (Tucson, AZ) 23 Sept. 2/3: He has dished up his feelings with such an array of horrible adjectives.
1884		Arizona Sentinel (Yuma, AZ) 29 Nov. 2/1: he ‘dished up’ several items about Yuma and Arizona territory.
1897		R. Marsh Beetle 269: Holt re-dished his yarn — I smelt a rat.
1899		Ade Fables in Sl. (1902) 196: The last Chapter is a Give-Away. It condenses the whole Plot and dishes up the Conclusion.
1905		T.A. Dorgan in Zwilling TAD Lex. (1993) 32: If boxing is to be part of the education dished out to the young New Yorkers the schools will take on a different appearance altogether.
1911		E.S. Sorenson Bush Cooks in Life in the Aus. Backblocks 88: [T]he cook, on the whole, has an unenviable time [...]. Take the man, for instance, who ‘dishes up’ for station-hands.
1917		F. Packard Adventures of Jimmie Dale (1918) I vi: The same old bunk dished out night after night at so much a head.
1920		R.J. Fry Salvation of Jemmy Sl. II i: He has had to keep dishin’ out change for Jemmy.
1930		K. Brush Young Man of Manhattan 40: ‘On matrimony,’ Ann said, ‘I have theories’ [...] ‘Dish out a few’.
1933		M. Marshall Tramp-Royal on the Toby 333: I was actually on the point of dishing up to you the same old stuff [...] that writers of Scottish travel-books continue to dish up year after year!
1936		J. Curtis Gilt Kid 16: ‘Yes,’ he said, looking down on his striped suit with obvious pride, ‘this whistle I got on’s a bit different from the old grey one they dish you out with back in the queer place.’.
1943		R.L. Bellem ‘Phoney Shakedown’ Dan Turner - Hollywood Detective Feb. 🌐 Speak up before I dish you a load of lumps!
1944		L. Jordan ‘Infantry Blues’ [V-disc for armed forces] This is Carmen Cavellero. Now Louis and the boys dish up something which probably won’t take up as much time as the title.
1949		Wodehouse Mating Season 109: He dished out all that stuff about his inner feelings.
1958		F. Norman Bang To Rights 14: I thought they’d stopped dishing out C.T.
1962		F. Norman Guntz 124: A great industry for the sole purpose [...] of dishing out bird to wrong doers.
1968		G. Slatter Pagan Game (1969) 104: I would have thought you’d be too busy working out how you’d get to be a head yourself to notice what they’ve been dishing out to him.
1972		P. Fordham Inside the Und. 68: The sort of bird that’s going to be dished out to me.
1978		L. Kramer Faggots 112: Music, undoctored, dished up loud.
1983		J. Byrell (con. 1959) Up the Cross 9: ‘He sprung a few bikie mugs dishin’ out of heap of tom to one of the dead horse charlies’.
1988		D. Woodrell Muscle for the Wing 91: These experts said a white dude couldn’t stand up under all the shit they dish out in that bad town.
1993		Snoop Doggy Dogg ‘Doggy Dogg World’ 🎵 I’m dishin out blues, I’m upsetting like bad news.
1996		J. Byrell Lairs, Urgers & Coat-Tuggers 61: Shirley The Dill - unless she was slinging whities and she wasn’t ever known to dish up bull - hadn’t been on the receiving end of a meaningful bet of any sort for probably half a decade.
1999		K. Sampson Powder 158: He was one for ambling over, or sticking his head round the door to dish out praise.
2000		Z. Smith White Teeth 24: It was the girls who chose the moniker and dished it out.
2001		K. Waterhouse Soho 152: That canteen bacon you dish up at that nick of yours is pigshit.
2006		B. Matthews Intractable [ebook] The magistrate wasn’t impressed and dished out additional time to all of them.
2011		IOL News (Western Cape) 9 May. 🌐 He went on to dish out his customary insults [...] calling DA leader Helen Zille a ‘dancing monkey’ from ‘monkey town’.
2018		G. Disher Kill Shot [ebook] ‘Was he dishing out a punishment, or was he after information?’.
2021		Breen & Conlon Hitmen 67: [H]e was known for dishing out serious hidings.

In phrases

dish out the gravy (v.) (also dish out the porridge) [puns + ironic use of gravy n. (3b)/ porridge n. (1)]

of a judge, to hand out a heavy sentence.

1950		P. Tempest Lag’s Lex. 97: gravy, dishing out the. During Quarter Sessions or Assizes, when a judge is giving heavy sentences, he is spoken of as ‘dishing out the gravy (or porridge)’. Thus, ‘Cor, he ain’ arf dishin’ aht the porridge.’ Meaning that, to the speaker, he appears to be giving heavy and excessive sentences to all who appear before him.
1989		J. Morton Lowspeak 50: Dish out the porridge – hand out prison sentences. [Ibid.] 68: dish out the gravy – hand out heavy sentences.