Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. to fire at, orig. with a machine gun.

1917		A.S.G. Lee No Parachute (1968) 138: The tracer was hosing him fine.
1935		A.J. Pollock Und. Speaks n.p.: Turn the hose on, to shoot with a pistol.
1937		(con. WW1) E.C. Parsons Great Adventure 99: They [i.e. fighter airplanes] got him in a cross fire and hosed lead at him from all angles.
1967		E. Shepard Doom Pussy 43: Those red-hot tracer slugs are hosing your ass off.
1992		J. Mowry Way Past Cool 255: Wait till we gots that Uzi in our hands. Then we hose both them suckers down.
1993		Lerner et al. Dict. of Today’s Words.

2. (US orig. police/Und.) to beat with a rubber hose, to punish.

[1940		E. O’Neill Iceman Cometh Act IV: If he pulls any rubber-hose tricks, you let me know!].
1929		Hostetter & Beesley It’s a Racket! 228: hose—To hose; to beat a suspect, or a captured criminal, with a piece of rubber hose in order to compel a confession or the disclosure of evidence. Hose is used because it inflicts severe punishment without leaving marks on the body.
1931		G. Milburn ‘Convicts’ Jargon’ in AS VI:6 439: hosin’, n. A ‘work-out’ with a hose.
1942		Berrey & Van den Bark Amer. Thes. Sl.
[1959		W. Brown Teen-Age Mafia 7: You gotta prove you can stand up to the cops [...] even if they use the hose on you].
2023		(con. 1962) J. Ellroy Enchanters 415: ‘They’ve got me at the Detective Bureau. They haven’t hosed me yet — but they might’.

3. (US) to cheat, to victimize.

1946		F. Eikel Jr ‘An Aggie Vocab. of Sl.’ AS XXI:1 34/1: hose, vit. To cheat or try very hard to beat or win.
1950		Goldin et al. DAUL 102/1: Hose, v. [...] 3. To cheat; to swindle.
1962		B. Veeck Veeck — as in Wreck 79: ‘I’d rather be dead than getting a hosing like you’re giving that live one of yours, poor Cox’.
1977		Eble Campus Sl. Apr. 2: hose – to take advantage of, fool, cheat.
1986		Eble Campus Sl. Oct. 3: hose – do a wrong to someone.
1994		M. Ribowsky Don’t Look Back 177: Satch years later pleaded guilty to hosing the customers in order to cash in his percentage.
2020		Twitter 15 Jan. 🌐 Your periodic reminder that we got hosed [i.e. by governmental lies].
2020		D. Winslow ‘Crime 101’ in Broken 77: The Irianian carpet merchants really hosed them back in the nineties.

4. (orig. US campus) to defeat.

1982		W. Safire What’s the Good Word? 304: I got hosed on the midterm.
2003		Eble Campus Sl. Nov. 4: hose – destroy, defeat: This guy just hosed me. Often said in game-playing competition.
2019		Guardian 22 Mar. 🌐 One small country getting a better deal from the any of the big players than the EU has? [...] Britain will get hosed.

5. (S.Afr.) to urinate in one’s underwear.

1986		P. Slabolepszy ‘Boo to the Moon’ in Mooi Street (1994) 104: myrtle: Who would’ve been laughing if one of us had won the trip to Mauritius? spider: I would, sweetheart. In fact I’d of hosed myself. The thought of any a’ you two bats trying to windsurf [...] would be enough to break me up for a week.
2003		McGill Reed Dict. of N.Z. Sl.

6. to lie.

1997–2001

Online Sl. Dict. 🌐 hose v 1. to lie to. (‘I wouldn’t hose you about a thing like that!’ ‘Don’t hose me!’).