Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(N.Z. prison) a pious, regular church attender.

2001

D. Looser Boobslang [U. Canterbury D.Phil. thesis] 89/1: holy diver n. an inmate who regularly attends church.

see holy terror n.

see separate entry .

see holy show n.

see separate entry.

(Irish) the end result.

1914		Joyce ‘Grace’ Dubliners (1956) 152: Such a sight! He’ll do for himself one day and that’s the holy alls of it. He’s been drinking since Friday.
1951		F. O’Connor Traveller’s Samples 79: Her view was that poetry, like drink, was a thing you couldn’t have knocked out of you, and that the holy-all of it would be that Coleman would ruin the business.

(Aus.) Adelaide, South Australia; thus Holy State, South Australia.

1869		Hamilton Spectator (Vic.) 13 feb. 3/1: ‘Holy city’ is the ‘surcussical’ term applied to this model metropolis by our irreverent neighbours.
1875		R. & F. Hill What we Saw in Aus. 264: We are at a loss to understand why Adelaide should, in virtue of her supposed superabundance [of churches], be nicknamed by her neighbours the Holy City.
1900		Bulletin (Sydney) 10 Nov. 11/2: The hansom cab is coming so much into favor in Adelaide that to ask a lady to ride in one would now no longer be construed into a reflection upon her respectability. This shows that the Holy City is becoming civilised.
1900–10		Stephens & O’Brien Materials for a Dict. of Aus. Sl. [unpub. ms.].
1910		Bulletin (Sydney) 22 Sept. 36/1: He bored so well that he punched a leak into the largest underground tank in the world. Straightway the Ma State, the Banana State, the Holy State, and Messrs. Jumbuck, Horny & Co. all started punching hundreds of holes into that big tan. [Ibid.] 22 Dec. 11/3: While thermometers shoot higher / Than a Holy City spire!
1919		Sun. Times (Perth) 26 Jan. 7/4: Such was the first colloquy the pre- sent writer had with an Adelaide business friend on leaching the Holy City recently.

Good Friday.

1909

J. Ware Passing Eng. of the Victorian Era.

(Aus.) a silver dollar out of which a circle (‘the dump’)has been punched (subseq. uses are only historical), thus holey sixpence.

1826		Australian (Sydney) 17 May 2/3: A dozen or two holy dollars were left to them for their consolation.
1836		Bent’s News (Tas.) 25 June 3/3: Above all, let His Excellency be honored with a piece of plate. We have a ‘Holy’ Dollar at the service of any of the Jannissary collectors, in aid of the same, if they choose to call for it.
1843		Sydney Morn. Herald 6 Dec. 4/4: In the time of General Macquarie there was a circulation issued by him, called the dump, and the holy dollar; the dump was a piece stamped out of the centre of the dollar, and passed for 1s. 3d., and the remainder passed for 4s., so that the holy dollar, by a proclamation of General Macquarie, circulated at 5s 3d.
[1848		Bell’s Life In Sydney 25 Nov. 3/3: I [...] got a bit o’ ground knocked down to me at Holey-doller, for I fancied the name because it sounded like silver].
1849		J.P. Townsend Rambles and Observations N.S.W. 11: It used to be the practice to cut the centre out of a dollar, and the middle piece was called ‘a dump’, and the remainder of the original coin ‘a holey dollar.’.
1857		D. Bunce Australasiatic Reminiscences 59: Our first change for a pound consisted of two dumps, two holy dollars, one Spanish dollar, one French coin, one half-crown, one shilling, and one sixpence.
1897		‘Price Warung’ Tales of the Old Regime 174: The ‘dump’ was worth 1s. 3d. currency. The ‘holey dollar,’ 5s.
1911		E.J. Brady Tom Pagdin Pirate 102: ‘It ain’t lucky’ ‘I wouldn’t wonder if that holey sixpence had something to do with it’ .
1948		R. Raven-hart Canoe in Aus. 199: ‘Holy dollar’ [...] is a pun: it was a silver dollar from the centre of which a ‘dump’, worth 1/3, had been punched out, to meet the need for smaller change.
1981		Bulletin (Sydney) 20 Jan. 103/1: Probably the best-known of the valuable Australian coins are the holey dollars [...] These are now worth $10,000 or more.

‘A butcher’s boy of St Patrick’s Market, Dublin or any other Irish blackguard’ (Grose, 1785).

1785, 1788, 1796		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue n.p: Holy father, a butcher’s boy of St. Patrick’s Market, Dublin, or other Irish blackguard; among whom the exclamation, or oath, by the Holy Father (meaning the Pope), is common.
1811		Lex. Balatronicum.
1997		Share Slanguage.

a church.

1909

J. Ware Passing Eng. of the Victorian Era.

see holy land n. (2)

marijuana.

1966		police report in L. Barrett Rastafarians (1977) 134: After a hard days work, we were all tired, thirsty, and dazed by the smoke of the holy herb.
1968		L. Barrett Rastafarians (1977) 197: They sing praises to Ras Tafari and of ganja, the ‘holy herb’.
1993		I. Jones Enemies of the State 🌐 I don’t know about you but I’m growing the flesh of the gods, blessed sacrament, a holy herb to assist our brothers and sisters in their quest for wholeness, oneness, contentment and clarity.
1999		Cannabis News 19 Sept. 🌐 Cannabis — drug of choice for millions through history — is mythologised and demonised in equal measure, earning a reputation as both ‘holy herb’ and ‘killer weed’.
2001		S. Liebke A Cannabis User’s Harm Reduction Hbk 🌐 48: There is certainly a bias in favour of the holy weed, though outright propaganda is kept to a relative (relieving) minimum.

see holy Joe n.

see separate entry.

see holy Joe n. (4)

see under lamb n.¹

see separate entry.

(Irish) of a man or woman, a religious hypocrite, one who pretends to great and showy religiosity.

1961		T. Murphy Whistle in the Dark Act I: Too many Holy Marys pulling strings, and talking merit.
1997		Share Slanguage.

1. a cuckold [paintings of Moses displayed him with a part-halo, the curves of which resemble horns protruding from his head].

1611

R. Cotgrave Dict. of Fr. and Eng. Tongues n.p.: Holie Moyses, whose ordinarie counterfeit having on either side of the head an eminence, or luster, arising somewhat in the forme of a horne, hath imboldened a prophane author to stile cuckolds parents de Moyse.

2. (US) a (street) preacher or religious fanatic.

1967

in S. Harris Hellhole 222: Outside, some Holy Moses was preaching, yelling ‘Coming, Lord.’.

see separate entries.

see separate entries.

(UK Und.) pea soup.

c.1850

Duncombe New and Improved Flash Dict.

see holy herb

1. (US) the time of menstruation.

1966		Trimble 5000 Adult Sex Words and Phrases 100: holy week (Sl.) The period of female Menstruation, in that it usually means abstinence from Sex Relations.
1972		R.A. Wilson Playboy’s Book of Forbidden Words.

2. (gay) any time one abstains from sex, e.g. when one has VD.

1972

B. Rodgers Queens’ Vernacular.

a sanctimonious, hypocritically pious person, thus attrib.

1842		John Bull 3 Sept. 7/1: [T]he [...] offence against good taste and right feeling, for which the ‘Holy Willies’ cannot be too severely censured,.
1852		Glasgow Gaz. 20 Nov. 2/5: [T]he doctrines of the highflying Non-intrusionists — the creed of the ‘Holy Willies’.
1857		letter in Mt Alexander Mail (Vic.) 20 Nov. 3/4: I am quite at a loss to know his object in thus writing, is it to expose his ‘Nebor's fauts and folly?’ — if so, I hope sincerely he is the only ‘Holy Willie’ in our community, in my opinion such a class of persons are a greater pest than the small pox.
1860		Dunfermline Press 26 Jan. 2/5: Holy Willies—men of great faith and little charity—intense believers in themselves, with no faith in others.
1866		Mercury (Hobart, Tas.) 7 Mar. 3/6: The Holy Willie Scot is an accomplished hypocrite [...] the caricature of Scottish Calvinism.
1870		Fife Herald 27 Jan. 2/3: His [i.e. Burns] humour and his wit scorched into cinders whole hecatombs of hypocrites and knaves, and his name is one at which Holy Willies [...] ought to tremble.
1871		S. Aus. Register (Adelaide) 27 May 6/2: [The] Kaiser, the Holy Willie of modern Machiavellianism.
1885		Bulletin (Sydney) 22 Aug. 20/1: The Rev. Laing considered The Bulletin ‘totally devoid of wit and humour.’ [...] The reason is probably that it criticises the actions of the heads of so-called religious sects [...] with a captivating frankness that doubles up the ‘Holy Wullies’ of society with horror.
1890		Falkirk Herald 1 Feb. 6/1: The sarcasm and scorn with which [Burns] exposed the duplicity and deceit, the cant and hypocrisy of his time, lashing the Holy Willies.
1900		Dundee Courier 17 Mar. 4/4: These prayers and graces such as Burns knew among the ‘Holy Wilies’ of his time.
1900		Sydney Sportsman (Surry Hills, NSW) 17 Oct. 2/4: It is a beautiful satire on the holy Willie, hanky-panky of democratic politics.
1910		Bulletin (Sydney) 13 Oct. 18/4: They call this scheme ‘siwashing’ over there, and its advantages are that it does away with the old, ponderous formality of trial or judicial investigation, and allows the brisk and fair-minded Rechabite or holy-Willie to be informer, prosecutor and practically judge. [...] Incidentally, it destroys a lot of liberty; but when the wowser comes in at the door liberty is thrown out the window.
1916		Sun. Times (Perth) 19 Nov. 5s/4: Hark! the holy Willies singing down the road!
1931		Aberdeen Jrnl 17 Apr. 7/3: Glsow was characterised as the ‘Holy Willie’ of Scottish municipalities.
1939		K. Tennant Foveaux 48: If you think you can come the Holy Willie over me, Jock, just because I come in to have a drink with a friend of my girl friend’s, while he waits for her to get off, you can...
1961		D. Behan Teems of Times and Happy Returns 5: The local priest will round up all the ‘Holy Willies’ [...] and send them to your Abbey to pelt you on the stage.
2002		Fitzrovia News Dec. 4: He would tease me for being a Holy Willy after I became a christian in 1983.