Green’s Dictionary of Slang

a vagrant who hangs around the docks, thus a dockside pilferer.

1844		Family of the Seisers 83/1: ‘Pooh! scoop me for a dock-rat! if I couldn’t lick a dozin sich children,’ observed the tall sailor,.
1849		Sam Sly 6 Jan. 3/1: It has been hinted to Sam that he is only what is called a dock-rat after all.
1864		Harper’s Mag. Feb. 341: We were often molested by the river-border citizens of the town [...] known as ‘dock rats.’ [DA].
1873		Overland Monthly (CA) Mar. 280: A ‘dock rat’ [...] his only world bounded by the wharf.
1882		Nat. Police Gaz. (NY) 2 Sept. 6/4: [T]he dock rats of New York, those vicious, devil-may-care urchins who have the brains of men and the bodies of imps.
1885		Hull Packet 9 Jan. 6/4: The ‘Dock Rats’’ Life: American Water ‘Pirates’ [...] The gangs that make a living by pilfering articles from boats and piers.
1891		J.A. Riis How the Other Half Lives 230: ‘Floaters’ come ashore every now and then with pockets turned inside out, not always evidence of a post-mortem inspection by dock-rats.
1904		Omaha Dly Bee 31 July 33/1: I have seen the negro boys diving for coins [...] and i think the New York dock rat is the best swimmer of them all.
1918		Sun (NY) 19 May 9/1: Of such in ‘The harbor’ are Sam, a dock rat of a boy.
1927		(con. mid-19C) H. Asbury Gangs of N.Y. 240: A gang of notorious little dock rats.
1930		E.H. Lavine Third Degree (1931) 179: At the North River he found a dock rat asleep on the string piece.
1936		K. Mackenzie Living Rough 183: I’ve seen the dock rats in West Street, New York, in the Embarcadero of ’Frisco [...] but I don’t think I’ve ever seen any worse than the Glasgow gangster.

a fellow sufferer in a venereal ward.

1823

Egan Grose’s Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.

1. an idler who frequents the waterfront, thus wallop (the) docks.

1831		Satirist (London) 4 Dec. 274/1: A meeting of Timber-merchants, cidevant Slave-dealers, Custom-house gaggers, (brokers,) [...] with a sprinkling of dock-wallopers and excise-waiters.
1832		NY Mirror 21 Jan. 227/3: This must be a regular man; neither a raggamuffin, barney-lofer, dock-walloper, nor roarer.
1838		N.Y. Advertiser and Express 28 Feb. 3/3: There is not a Dock Wolloper in New York, that would not feel insulted, if told he was no gentleman.
1859		Bartlett Dict. Americanisms (2nd edn).
1872		Schele De Vere Americanisms 344: A dock-walloper denotes a trifling, idle fellow, who loiters about the docks, and is an object of great contempt to Jack.
1878		Nat. Police Gaz. (NY) 27 Apr. 6/3: It is the boast of Buffalo that it has scattered more scabs broadcast than any city on this continent. Johnson was a ‘dock-wolluper’ there.
1877		in ‘Martin’ Hist. Great Riots 347: A party of dock-wallopers, as they are called here — loafers, bummers, and skalawags — gathered with the off-scourings of the city into a mob [DAE].
1892		St Paul Dly Globe 22 June 7/5: A Globe reporter [...] found the exact place where the ‘dock walloper’ slid down the bank.
1903		A.H. Lewis Boss 119: You don’t think that these dock-wallopers [...] are stuck on you personally, do you?
1911		D. Runyon ‘The Man Who Can’t Go Back’ 2 Oct. [synd. col.] He’s walloped docks in Lisbon, and I’ve seen him eat a meal / With natives in Tahiti.
1914		Day Book (Chicago) 19 Mar. 12/2: Hey, Charlie, do you think you’re at a dock walloper’s pink tea?
1916		Williams News (AZ) 30 Mar. 4/4: ‘The sneaking dock-walloper.’ [...] ‘A beach-comber, a dock-walloper if ever there was one’.
1922		B. Hecht A Thousand and One Afternoons [ebook] [T]he "skeeter scale" that the orchestra used to turn turn turn taaaa-tum [...] as the two dockwallopers and the leering Chinaman were climbing in through little Mabel's hall bedroom window to abduct her.
c.1930		(ref. to late 19C) N. Kimball Amer. Madam (1981) 219: It was a tough joint for sailors, shady peddlers of slock, dock wallopers.
1930		R.E. Howard ‘Champ of the Forecastle’ Fight Stories Nov. 🌐 You’re a bear-cat when it comes to fightin’ ignorant dock-wallopers and deck-hands which never seen a glove.
1952		(con. 1910s) ‘Harry Grey’ Hoods (1953) 15: We saw the Irish coming – about fifteen tough-looking dock wallopers.
1961		‘Duncan Lee’ Castro Assassinated (2009) 16: A cheap waterfront slut and a fat, dark dock-walloper. No one important.

2. a dock-worker, a longshoreman.

1879		Lumberman’s Gazette Apr. 2/6: A large number of men are employed in loading lumber vessels, and are denominated ‘dock-wallopers.’ [DAE].
1885		Thomas Co. Cat 10 Dec. 3/4: His hands, before whose blows the sturdiest dock-walloper retired in fear, were trembling.
1890–1904		Farmer & Henley Sl. and Its Analogues.
1912		Day Book (Chicago) 29 Apr. 29/1: Old Jim Beaty, the recluse, the dock-walloper [...] with the patched overalls, the calloused hands, the labor-stained face.
1918		C. Sandburg ‘Singing Nigger’ Cornhuskers 🌐 Your bony head, Jazbo, O dock walloper, / Those grappling hooks, those wheelbarrow handlers, / The dome and the wings of you, nigger.
1935		Peters & Sklar Stevedore II ii: I’m a dock-walloper, Sam, and I pull a truck on these wharves just the same as you do.
1947		S. Lewis Kingsblood Royal (2001) 87: The kinks of hair, the pushed-in nose [...] thin legs that Neil had seen in every picture of a black dock-walloper.
1955		B. Schulberg On the Waterfront (1964) 170: The ordinary dock wallopers were wondering [...] why he had to go pushing his nose into their business.
1960		I. Freeman Out of the Burning (1961) 16: No daughter of mine is going to throw herself away on a barefoot dock walloper.
1971		J.D. Horan Blue Messiah 16: A huge crowd of dock wallopers was gathered about the entrance to one pier.
1986		S. King It (1987) 111: He looked more like a dock-walloper than the president and general manager of Beverly Fashions, Inc.
1993		S. King Dolores Claiborne 29: She was apt to be swearin like a dock walloper.
2007		D. Lefer California Transit Stories 168: ‘I was an old-time dock walloper.’ I had no idea what a dock walloper was. I said, ‘My ex-husband was a scab once on the docks.’.

lazy.

1935

H.L. Davis Honey in the Horn 23: [as spelt] Dit through dreamin’ about them doddam women, or you’ll lose us every tockwallopin’ sheep we doddam well dot.

(UK Und.) a skulker.

1835		G. Kent Modern Flash Dict.
1848		Flash Dict. in Sinks of London Laid Open.

1. suffering financial problems.

1838

R.S. Surtees Jorrocks Jaunts (1874) 274: Let me be paymaster, or I know you’ll soon be into dock again.

2. ill, out of commission.

1894		Civil & Milit. Gaz. (Lahore) 18 Oct. 4/3: Dear Bill :—l’m in dock, ’ere in Poona, / ’Ad enteric,—a precious bad go.
1896		Regiment 22 Aug. 314/2: For oi tell yez straight, oi wont be bate, / Oi’m goin’ in dock in the marnin’ .
1959		F. Norman Stand on Me 52: When i was in dock the law came round and started asking a load of dodgey questions.