Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (also trading) prostitution, sexual intercourse.

1592		Greene Disputation Betweene a Hee and a Shee Conny-Catcher (1923) 39: Why Lawrence, the Gally would be moord and the blewe Boore so leane, that he would not be mans meate, if we of the Trade were not to supply his wants.
1607		G. Wilkins Miseries of an Enforced Marriage Act III: In troth, sister, we two to beg in the fields, / And you to betake yourself of the old trade, / Filling of small cans in the suburbs.
a.1618		J. Harington Epigrams (1930) No. 368 : I have vsd some traffique in the trade [...] My bark was sometimes steerd with forren ore.
1654		Mercurius Fumigosus 22 25 Oct.–1 Nov. 187: Of Sodom Ladies, and their Trades.
1654		New Brawle 10: But your honest house, and trade too, grew quickly too hott for you.
1663		Wandring whores complaint 4: Trading is so dead, that a Womans ware is hardly worth the whistling after.
1667		J. Lacey Sauny the Scot III i: These damn’d French-Men have got all the Trade in Town; if they get up all the handsom Women, the English must e’en march into Wales for Mistresses.
1676		Night-Walkers Declaration 8: An Embargo is laid on publick Trade.
1681		Whipping Tom – Brought to Light 2: He meeting with a demure Crack or Miss of the Town [...] so swinged her Tail, that ’tis thought, she will not be capable of her Trade for some considerable time.
1699		Farquhar Love and a Bottle IV ii: ’Sdeath! what a Coney-burrough’s here! The Trade goes swimmingly on. This is the great Empory of Lewdness.
1706		Answer to the Fifteen Comforts of Whoring 7: But now good lack-a-day our Trade’s so bad [...] Our common Whores can scarce their Livings get.
1710		J. Dunton ‘The He-Strumpets’ Athenianism – Project IV 94: [of gay men] Ye Jilts! ’tis prov’d, and must be said, Your Tails are grown to lewd and bad, That now Mens Tails have all the Trade.
1720		in D’Urfey Pills to Purge Melancholy VI 319: When we’re old and decay’d, / We procure for the Trade.
1733		Cibber Harlot’s Progress 10: Begone, you saucy Jade [...] Follow the Drury Trade.
1744		Machine 3: Goddess supreme! Protectress of the Trade!
1750		‘Doctor A--- Advice to his Patients’ Button Hole Garland 4: These common Jades, that make a Trade, / In humouring every lustful Blade.
c.1758		John F---g Epistle of a Reformed Rake 30: To prevent the Trade being distrest by Sharpers, or what are generally understood by the Technical-name of Bilks.
1772		G. Stevens ‘A Lesson of Love’ Songs Comic and Satyrical 245: Ye Busy in traffick [...] Can estimate justly all worth – but your Wives; / While th’ Interests of Trade you so anxious improve / You neglect their demands and are bankrupts to Love.
1775		‘Mrs alias Lady, Agnew’ Ranger’s Impartial List of the Ladies of Pleasure in Edinburgh n.p.: This drunken bundle of iniquity, is about 50 years of age, lusty and tall, and she has followed the old trade since she was about 13.
1787		Harris’s List of Covent-Garden Ladies 48: Miss N—b [...] has not been in trade more than a twelvemonth.
1795		‘Shale’s Rambles’ in A. Carpenter Verse in Eng. in 18C Ireland (1998) 504: So now you maids that love the trade, and now has took the notion, / Apply to me, we’ll soon agree, I’ll put your loom in motion.
1812		Spirit of Irish Wit 111: A humped back nobleman [...] told Peg [Plunket, a well-known bawd] it was surprsing that ‘so ugly a B— [...] ever thought of taking up her trade’.
1835		‘Parody on ‘The Maid of Judah’’ in Fanny Hill’s New Friskey Chanterr in Spedding & Watt (eds) Bawdy Songbooks (2011) III 339: This was the chaunt of a girl in full trade, / [...] / ’Twas a very long time since she’d been a maid.
1842		Whip & Satirist of NY & Brooklyn (NY) 8 Jan. n.p.: ‘The Procuress’ [...] Lor, Whip, why what a fuss you make / About our trade’s great impropriety.
1928		C. McKay Home to Harlem 30: ‘High yallers’ were scarce there. Except for such sweetmen that lived off the low-down dark trade.
1939		K. Tennant Foveaux 328: When three shrill, bepainted women climbed into Tommy’s cab one night, he took one genial glance at them and said: ‘How’s trade?’.
1952		Lait & Mortimer USA Confidential 40: When the FBI took over the enforcement of laws against white slavery in interstate commerce, the trade, for all practical purposes, was smashed.
1962		R. Hauser Homosexual Society 90: I did some trade on the side with his type.
1963		‘Geoffrey Tolhurst’ Flat 4 King’s Cross (1966) 86: ‘Carla,’ she said, as though tasting it. ‘That’s real fancy. Unusual, too. Should be a good name in the trade’.
1969		C. Sellers Where Have All the Soldiers Gone 156: ‘My old lady was a whore and my two older sisters took up the trade’.
1981		(con. 1870s) J. Weeks ‘Inverts, Perverts, & Mary-Annes’ in Journal Homosexuality (1980/81) VI Fall/Winter 120: By the 1870s, any sort of homosexual transaction, whether or not money was involved, was described as ‘trade.’.

2. a prostitute’s client.

1942		D. Burley N.Y. Amsterdam Star-News 30 May. 16: He’s [i.e. a white client of black prostitutes] just a piece of cheap trade himself.
1948		Dan Burley ‘Back Door Stuff’ 6 Nov. [synd. col.] This goes for those who bring ‘prospects’ or known ‘trade’ from Brooklyn, Long Island, Staten Island and in particular Mississippi, Georgia [etc].
1952		Lait & Mortimer USA Confidential 40: They take their trade to flea-bag hotels.
1964		H. Selby Jr Last Exit to Brooklyn 192: All her johns and trade were the same. They were all some kind of big shot.
1971		Winick & Kinsie Lively Commerce 41: Prostitutes call their clients ‘johns,’ ‘suckers,’ or trade.’.

3. (gay) a man with whom one has (commercial) sex, a male prostitute; a male prostitute’s customer; thus piece of trade under piece n.

1919		Transcript Foster Inq. L.R. Murphy Perverts by Official Order (1989) 42: Feiselman [...] accused him of frequently ‘calling for trade’ in the Y.M.C.A. lobby.
1927		M. West Drag (1997) Act II: Of course, I don’t go flouncing my hips up and down Broadway picking up trade or with a sign on my back advertising it.
1949		‘Swasarnt Nerf’ et al. Gay Girl’s Guide 16: trade: General term for one who wants to be ‘blown’ without reciprocating, and with no commercial implication per se. Divides into subordinate classes, such as gay trade, rough trade, commercial trade and possibly also dirt.
1959		J. Gielgud letter June in Mangan John Gielgud’s Letters (2004) 233: Gorgeous Italian boys, gents and trade alternately.
1963		J. Rechy City of Night 100: As long as the hustler goes only with queens [...] he is himself not considered ‘queer’ — he remains, in the vocabulary of that world, ‘trade.’.
1972		B. Rodgers Queens’ Vernacular 199: trade passive activist; nonreciprocal sex partner, usually straight.
1984		Flame : a Life on the Game 67: We ended up having trade. [Ibid.] 111: ‘If you want any trade,’ he said, ‘there’s always the Garden.’.
1993		R. Shell Iced 196: ‘Trade’ is a gay term for somebody who is willing to engage in sexual encounters with gay people.
2005		(con. 1950s) E. White My Lives 108: ‘Trade’ – men who could be ‘serviced’ though of course they’d never reciprocate since they were real men.
2010		W. Ings ‘Trolling the Beat to Working the Soob’ in Int’l Jrnl Lexicog. 23:1 71: In New Zealand there have been many terms for a young male street worker. These include school bag, street solicitor, merchandise, Kleenex, commercial, trade, street trick, and Illegal Tegel.
2019		P. Baker Fabulosa 298/2: trade a casual sexual partner.
2021		A. Parks April Dead 120: ‘[M]y days of chasing after trade are long gone. I’m too old and too tired’.
2023		R. Milward Man-Eating Typewriter 105: ‘Is that some bona fresh trade I can vada?’.

4. one who works as a prostitute.

1947

N. Algren Neon Wilderness (1986) 31: You’re just a piece of trade.