Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. any form of illicit, underhand – but not necessarily criminal – money-making.

1865		National Police Gaz. (NY) 8 July 1/3: ’Twas handy that we were so related, as, when about a ‘graft’, or ‘doing stur’, both sisters could keep each other company .
1886		W. Newton Secrets of Tramp Life Revealed 14: This ‘Guide’ cannot work this ‘graft’ alone, for he has to have a good supply for stock, a bag of ‘snide’ or base coins.
1898		Sun (NY) 16 Nov. 2/6: You can make $10 to $15 a day on the side without interrupting your graft.
1899		C. Rook Hooligan Nights 42: He was coming round as usual [...] to organize the day’s graft.
1909		J. Washburn Und. Sewer 28: One of the most profitable grafts was the money they drew from the unfortunate women of the city. During the twelve years I was in ‘business’ there I paid a monthly fine of from $14.70 up to $29.70.
1917		‘A-No. 1’ From Coast to Coast with Jack London 80: The numerous ‘missions’ — establishments that were the rankest graft of them all as the professional begging was skillfully shrouded with the cloak of charity and religion.
1921		N. Putnam West Broadway 17: I will say of New York that the administration is fierce, and they say there's lots of graft going on; but that don’t affect the wonderful department stores any, does it?
1929		W.R. Burnett Little Caesar (1932) 122: Maybe he could muscle in on the North Side graft.
1930		R. Whitfield Green Ice (1988) 29: He was taking graft without splitting – on the wet stuff.
1944		N. Davis Rendezvous with Fear 26: Why, all cops take honest graft!
1959		C. MacInnes Absolute Beginners 15: I shall now disclose my graft, which is peculiar.
1962		R. Cook Crust on its Uppers 69: The neatest climax to a piece of graft I’ve seen.
1970		G.F. Newman Sir, You Bastard 8: Publicity wasn’t egotism, but graft and the quickest route to higher office.
1983		Frontline (S.Afr.) Oct. 61: The skate has his own dialect [...] ‘I got a graft, a cabbie, I got stukkies, booze, and I got zol. I tune you, mate, if I can get one mamba chow a day, I scheme life is kif.’.
2001		N. Barlay Hooky Gear 6: It was just for one night’s graft anyway.
2018		I. Welsh Dead Man’s Trousers 67: ‘Ah’ve got a wee bit ay graft, if yir interested’.

2. (UK Und.) one’s criminal speciality.

1865		Leaves from Diary of Celebrated Burglar 7/2: One half of the ‘cross-blokes’ there had ‘molls’ along with them, who did their ‘graft’ in the evening.
1879		Nat. Police Gaz. (NY) 15 Nov. 14/3: There are [...] such combinations as ‘dashboards’ and ‘whips’ but I am not well enough up in this particular ‘graft’ to clearly define its technicalities.
1889		Dead Bird (Sydney) 16 Nov. 4/4: I gone back to my old graft [i.e. pickpocketing].
1899		S.F. Call 2 Apr. 25/5: ‘Graft’ is a rogue’s line of business.
1901		J. Flynt World of Graft 4: In regard to the word ‘graft,’ which is used freely in the text, I desire to state that it is a generic slang term for all kinds of theft and illegal practices generally.
1902		St Paul Globe (MN) 3 June 5/6: ‘What’s Jimmie butler’s graft now?’ ‘Jimmie’s a stall for a dip’.
1910		‘O. Henry’ ‘The Poet and the Peasant’ in Strictly Business (1915) 76: Wish you success at your graft, whatever it is.
1916		J. Lait ‘The Gangster’s Elegy’ in Beef, Iron and Wine (1917) 246: We know Buck wasn’t in it when the shootin’ was pulled off, becus Buck was a quiet party an’ that wasn’ his graft.
1931		Irwin Amer. Tramp and Und. Sl. 89: Graft. — A generic term for any criminal activity or for any practice frowned on by the law.
1941		V. Davis Phenomena in Crime 120: A crook may change his ‘graft’ [...] but invariably there is a modicum of modus operandi attached to the new love to link him up with it.
1956		J. Curtis Look Long Upon a Monkey 186: He had to show the swede-bashing sods he was wide and knew his graft.
1977		S. Berkoff East in Decadence and Other Plays (1985) 47: Him that went so humble ’bout his nightly graft.

3. (US) an easy job or sinecure.

1890		Sporting Times 22 Feb. 2/3: His graft is thusly: he has to come in at stated hours and sit and badiner with the damsel, as per arrangement between the two sets of parents and guardians.
1902		E. Townsend Chimmie Fadden and Mr Paul 86: Why don’t she rig some graft she can woik [...] instead of sitting into a game where she can’t cut de cards.
1916		‘A-No. 1’ Snare of the Road 85: I was getting ready to brace the ex-bo who makes his kippings here for a chance to tell of the doings of the bums, when you moosed in and now are trying to spoil the graft.
1924		G. Henderson Keys to Crookdom 406: Graft [...] Easy graft – easy way of making money.
1933		C.W. Willemse Cop Remembers 114: Taking their pedigrees was my job and I also helped make out bail bonds, a very lucrative graft in the old days.
1949		Monteleone Criminal Sl. (rev. edn).

4. corruption; also attrib.

1900		Flynt & Walton Powers That Prey 64: The politicians ’a’ got the State by the throat, an’ you know as well as I do, that where they get their graft in guns can too.
1915		Wodehouse Psmith Journalist (1993) 203: It’s all graft here. You’ve got to let half a dozen brutes dip into every dollar you earn, or you don’t get a chance.
1928		M.C. Sharpe Chicago May (1929) 208: The experiences of Sam Weller’s old man with the shyster-lawyer, who pretended to have a pull with the judges, and had no pull at all, except for petty graft, was a scream.
1933		R. Chandler ‘Blackmailers Don’t Shoot’ in Red Wind (1946) 112: A big flattie who was taking graft money from the gang.
1949		W.R. Burnett Asphalt Jungle in Four Novels (1984) 126: Its activity [...] is not confined to shaking down prostitutes or taking graft from gambling.
1952		Lait & Mortimer USA Confidential 71: The boodle and graft make the waterside-take penny ante stuff by comparison.
1962		P. Crump Burn, Killer, Burn! 117: He had his fingers in every pie of vice and graft.
1972		P. Fordham Inside the Und. 112: The American situation, where political graft is an [...] accepted fact.
1988		D. Woodrell Muscle for the Wing 39: Taking over all the [...] daylight graft of an entire redneck town — that was something big.
1996		J. Cameron It Was An Accident 182: What we’re talking here is bent coppers [...] the best way to find out whether he was on the graft was like ask him.
2000		Guardian 4 May 22: Bogus mileage claims and illegible lunch receipts can lead quickly to more serious graft.
2004		L. Redhead Peepshow [ebook] He got a lot opf young coppers into the graft [...] and made sure he had proof of them doing it.
2010		Sun. Times Mag. 19 Dec. 63/3: A street-fighting lawyer who may his way up by graft.

5. (US Und.) an act of theft.

1879		Snares of N.Y. 66: Some of them look after graft but more of them for cops.
1904		‘Number 1500’ Life In Sing Sing 260: The gun had just lifted his mitt when the conny fell to the graft and tipped the sucker to the lay.
1909		I.L. Nascher Wretches of Povertyville 205: The pickpockets whose ‘graft’ or dishonest work is to rob women are called ‘moll buzzers’ or ‘moll wires’.
1953		C. Brossard Bold Saboteurs (1971) 226: She has brought home a pocketful of those miniature bars of perfumed soap. [...] Petty graft.

6. work, esp. in the context of working to take up or waste time; thus out of graft, unemployed.

1835		Worcester Herald 26 Dec. 4/3: Graft, work; I’ll peck the graft, I’ll never work any more.
1887		W.E. Henley ‘Villon’s Straight Tip’ in Farmer Musa Pedestris (1896) 177: For nix, for nix the dibbs you bag / At any graft, no matter what / Your merry goblins soon stravag.
1896		Clipper (Hobart, Tas.) 11 July 3/4: A few pore devils out of graft, / Sum other idlers, too.
1897		W.T. Goodge ‘Great Aus. Slanguage’ in Baker Aus. Lang. (1945) 117: And when looking for employment / He is out o’ blooming graft.
1898		(con. 1875) F.T. Bullen Cruise of the ‘Cachalot’ 330: I kin do my bit o’ grawft wiv enny on ’em – don’t chu make no bloomin’ herror.
1898		Leigh et al. [perf. Alec Hurley] ‘The best little woman in the world’ 🎵 When I get home from my graft of an evening / There she’s a waiting to give me my tea.
1901		Alec Hurley [perf. ] ‘’E’s Takin’ a Mean Advantage’ 🎵 When ’e fell out ’o graft, ‘Jim, my lad’ says I / ‘I can put you up while for work you looks about’.
1901		‘Rolf Boldrewood’ In Bad Company 9: Some [...] don’t care for ‘hard graft’.
1910		Sun. Times (Perth) 22 May 2nd sect. 9/1: They Say [...] That a dozen of Jones’s Comer cadgers have gone to graft. That a score more are looking anxiouslv in the direction of a shovel.
1912		Ade Knocking the Neighbors 150: The Graft had developed until the whole Outfit moved to an Apartment where Goods had to be delivered in the Rear.
1916		J. Hargrave At Suvla Bay Ch. ix: The ‘graft’ (work) was fearful. All day long we were at it.
1925		(con. WWI) Fraser & Gibbons Soldier and Sailor Words 108: Graft: Work. (An old Army term).
1935		Thieves Slang ms list from District Police Training Centre, Ryton-on-Dunsmore, Warwicks 5: Graft: work.
1936		J. Curtis Gilt Kid 117: Here’s your graft for to-night.
1950		K. Amis letter 7 Mar. in Leader (2000) 228: He has had a poem accepted by the NS&N, not a very good one I think, but a poem all the same. It’s all graft, of course.
1960		C. MacInnes Mr Love and Justice (1964) 191: He’s bound to speak against me, honey. After all why shouldn’t he? It’s his graft.
1970		G.F. Newman Sir, You Bastard 117: All the DI said amounted to nothing more than graft while he awaited his turn to fit one.
1986		F. Taylor Auf Wiedersehen Pet Two 107: I’ve got a team of lads and we’re doing a hard day’s graft, six days a week.
2000		Indep. on Sun. Real Life 16 Jan. 11: Entertaining clients over three-course dinners hardly sounds like tough graft to me.
2007		N. ‘Razor’ Smith Raiders 139: We put a lot of graft in on that [robbery].
2012		R. Milward Kimberly’s Capital Punishment (2023) 421: ‘You can have one [i.e. a can of beer] after you’ve done some fucking graft’.
2015		I. Welsh Decent Ride 178: Ah [...] banged her back tae sleep, but it wis some graft.

7. the proceeds of corruption, political bribery etc.

1906		A.H. Lewis Confessions of a Detective 48: The noble sergeant on the desk gets five of it every time. That’s his graft — his perquisite.
1910		‘O. Henry’ ‘Past One at Rooney’s’ in Strictly Business (1915) 272: You had your usual five-dollar graft at the usual corner at ten.
1924		G. Henderson Keys to Crookdom 317: He receives additional ‘graft’ from the construction of buildings and streets, schools and playgrounds.
1933		‘Goat’ Laven Rough Stuff 167: Even the ordinary patrolman on his beat in all the cities thro’ the U.S.A. is getting his little graft every week or month.
1942		C.R. Bond 20 Jan. in A Flying Tiger’s Diary (1984) 77: We got in a good bull session about the graft in China [...] Everyone seems to get his cut – ‘cumshaw’.
1956		H. Whittington Forgive Me, Killer (2000) 81: You’re not the first cop ever accepted graft.
1993		C. Hiaasen Strip Tease 65: The female [...] was his life’s passion, graft being a close second.
2000		F. Kellerman Stalker (2001) 488: So what if they [...] pocket a little graft to look the other way.

8. influence.

1915		J. Buchan Thirty-Nine Steps (1930) 74: I thought he probably had some kind of graft with the constabulary.
1916		J. Buchan Greenmantle (1930) 210: Once again we were alone in the carriage. Stumm must have had some colossal graft, for the train was crowded.
1921		Dos Passos Three Soldiers 14: ‘But you’re in luck.’ ‘Why?’ ‘Bein’ from New York. The corporal, Tim Sidis, is from New York, an’ all the New York fellers in the company got a graft with him.’.