Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. excrement, filth; also attrib.

[1869		C.G. Leland ‘Breitmann in Politics’ in Hans Breitmann About Town 37: De dreeks ish ad de pottom / De skoom floads high inteed; / Boot das bier ish in de mittle, / Says an goot old Sherman lied].
1952		(con. 1920s) ‘Harry Grey’ Hoods (1953) 178: Did you say dreck for dinner?
1959		W. Burroughs Naked Lunch (1968) 202: A shipload of K.Y. made of genuine whale dreck.
1964		E. Sanders [title] Bugger! An Anthology of Anal Erotic, Pound Cake Cornhole, Arse-Freak and Dreck Poems.
1968		L. Rosten Joys of Yiddish 103: I would not recommend your using drek in front of my mother, much less yours, any more than I would approve of your using the sibilant four-letter English word for excrement.
1975		J. Roe The Same Old Grind 95: It suited his mood of doom a d dreck.
1977		D. Powis Signs of Crime 181: Dreck Low Yiddish word meaning excrement.
1989		H. Rawson Dict. of Invective (1991) 126: dreck. Junk, filth, or — the politest construction that can be put upon it — dung.
1996		H. Roth From Bondage 317: She doesn’t like walking on the roads there in the mountains, with cow dreck to step in.

2. anything or anyone worthless, second-rate, rubbishy.

1922		Joyce Ulysses 551: Fare thee well. Dreck!
1936		M. Levin Old Bunch (1946) 68: The old man was a dreck.
1941		B. Schulberg What Makes Sammy Run? (1992) 140: Six months from now the chances are that they won’t remember what kind of dreck it was.
1948		Kerouac letter 19 Oct. in Charters I (1995) 169: Just think what it would be to go to Paris with those guys! – as Burford says, ‘to show the existentialist drek the real meaning of anarchy’.
1957		A. Morgan in Playboy May 18: ‘Pictures! Drek! I am ashamed [...] you should have seen me in such drek!’ ‘Drek has made you a very famous woman. A star’ [W&F].
1957		‘Ed Lacy’ Lead With Your Left (1958) 127: Don’t bring me any candy or other dreck.
1967		R. Lowell ‘Waking Early Sunday Morning’ in Oxford Bk Contemporary Verse (1980) 97: No, put old clothes on, and explore / the corners of the woodshed for / its dregs and dreck: tools with no handle, / ten candle-ends not worth a candle.
1979		S.J. Perelman letter 12 Aug. in Crowther Don’t Tread on Me (1987) 357: The cover on the Heinemann paperback [...] won two prestigious art director’s awards; this one is Pure Dreck.
1984		P. Corris ‘Heroin Annie’ in Heroin Annie [e-book] I got back in the car and handed Samantha a banana. ‘Drek’, she said, so I gave her some chewing gum instead.
1989		H. Harrison Bill [...] on the Planet of Robot Slaves (1991) 37: Captain Bly [...] has stoned himelf unconscious on that cheap drek he smokes.
1989		J. Hobbs Thoughts in a Makeshift Mortuary 159: I won’t stand for foul language any more than the racist dreck you’ve been talking.
1995		J. Stahl Permanent Midnight 67: Saturated with [...] brain-drek from half-digested Odd Couples and old Twilight Zones.
1999		K. Sampson Powder 30: The packaged, niche-marketed, antiseptic dreck which constituted so much of his popmart world.
2002		‘Touré’ Portable Promised Land (ms.) 229: He knew it was dreck. Anything to postpone knocking.
2005		Mad mag. Apr. 34: Oh my God, I’ve sure made a lot of drek!
2015		S. King Finders Keepers (2016) 114: The students were given a [...] list of approved books to choose from. Most looked like dreck to Morris.
2018		J. Flanders Twitter 13 June 🌐 Oh god, more proof that the people who work at Twitter don’t use Twitter. Really, @Twitter? Who the fuck wants this drek?
2021		J. Meades in Critic June 6/1: Milord must, then, be delighted by the dreck he has stumped up for in Downing Street.
2023		(con. 1962) J. Ellroy Enchanters 44: This dreck couture was fat-lady capacious.
2023		(con. 1962) J. Ellroy Enchanters 212: Fuck decks were full color, beautifully produced [...] This is not dreck we’re talking about.
2024		J. Meades Empty Wigs (t/s) 960: Shtik drek!

3. (drugs) heroin.

1979		in Spears Sl. and Jargon of Drugs and Drink (1986).
2001		ONDCP Street Terms 8: Dreck — Heroin.