Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(US black) a dangerous and/or impoverished area.

1930

L. Green ‘Down on Death Alley Blues’ 🎵 I’m goin’ down in death alley, nothin’ down there buts clubs and bones.

(US teen) a report card.

1944		N. Pepper in Baltimore Sun (MD) 16 Jan. A2/2: Death Certificate — Report card.
1956		Bristol Dly Courier PA) 31 Oct. 23/4: We really have to skull-drag this year. I guess by the time you read this we will have our ‘Death Certificates’ (report cards).
1969		Summerfield Sun (KS) 9 Jan. 2/3: Teen Talk Glossary [...] Death certificate — Report card.

a fan of Goth music.

1998

K. Sampson Awaydays 64: A gaggle of leather-clad death-heads, each with fantastic black-varnished fingernails, black pomades and a multitude of skull rings and crucifixes, gathers in a conspiratorial hush by the counter.

(US) the execution chamber in a prison.

1917		F. Packard Adventures of Jimmie Dale (1918) II i: With one there was the death house at Sing Sing for the Gray Seal; with the other—well, there were many ways.
1925		Dos Passos Manhattan Transfer 352: In the deathhouse he met the demands of spring by writing a poem to his mother.
1933		C. Himes ‘Prison Mass’ in Coll. Stories (1990) 155: His voice was dull as a game of solitaire in a death house.
1945		J. Fishman Bullets for Two 18: Various stays kept him in the death house at Sing Sing for almost a year.
1956		H. Whittington Forgive Me, Killer (2000) 4: I could smell the death house on him.
2000		G. Pelecanos Shame the Devil 22: There wasn’t anyone else you’d want to be riding with when the death house was calling your name.

1. an undertaker.

1723		‘Whipping-Tom’ Democritus III 23: The Undertaker, (alias Death-hunter) will cheat both the Quick and the Dead.
1771		R. King New London Spy 132: [A] death-hunter, or undertaker of the conduct of funerals.
1785, 1788, 1796		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.
1793		Sporting Mag. July II 264: A Correspondent, who calls himself a Death Hunter [...] deserves our Thanks for his good Wishes, but we are a different sort of Undertakers from what he supposes us to be.
1812		Vaux Vocab. of the Flash Lang.
1823		Egan Grose’s Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.
1848		Paul Pry 11 Dec. n.p.: We advise Mrs. P—, the wife of a death-hunter in Little Britain, to abstain from her drinking propensity.
1859		Matsell Vocabulum.
1873		Sl. Dict.
1882		Dly Dispatch (Richmond, VA) 1 Nov. 3/3: A ‘land-broker’ or ‘death-hunter’ is an undertaker.
1895		Crowe Aus. Sl. Dict. 23: Death Hunter, an undertaker.

2. one who sells stories of interesting deaths to the press.

1738		in J.W. Jarvis and Son: Cat. No. 40 38: [title] Ramble through London, containing observations on Beggars, Pedlars, Petticoat Pensioners, Death Hunters, Humours of the Exchange, etc., by a True-born Englishman [F&H].
1776		Foote Capuchin in Works (1799) II 391: When you were the doer of the Scandalous Chronicle, was not I death-hunter to the very same paper?
1859, 1860		Hotten Dict. of Modern Sl. etc.
1861		(con. 1840s–50s) H. Mayhew London Labour and London Poor I 229/2: It is very easy to stigmatise the death-hunter when he sets off all the attractions of a real or pretended murder.
1873		Sl. Dict.

3. one who visits battlefields in order to scavenge for clothes and other saleable items.

1816

C. James Military Dict. (4th edn) 377/2: Death Hunters, followers of an army, who, after the engagement, look for dead bodies, in order to strip them . They chiefly consist of soldiers’ wives, &c.

4. a seller of the printed versions of dying speeches, usu. of those made on the gallows.

1859, 1860		Hotten Dict. of Modern Sl. etc.
1861		(con. 1840s–50s) H. Mayhew London Labour and London Poor I 214/2: The latter include the ‘running patterers’, or ‘death-hunters;’ being men (no women) engaged in vending last dying speeches and confessions.
1864		Glasgow Herald 28 Sept. 6/1: The running patterer [...] is known by another [...] cognomen — a ‘Death Hunter’.
1870		Hotten Sl. Dict.
1882		Sydney Sl. Dict. (2 edn) 3: Death-hunter - An undertaker. One who vends last dying speeches.

the passenger seat in a motorcar, shown statistically to be the seat most likely to bring death to its occupier when the car crashes.

1963		What Every Young Man Should Know (Esquire) 41: Which is the Death Seat?
1978		R. Price Ladies’ Man (1985) 110: I tossed my case in the rear and sat in the death seat.
1991		D. Gaines Teenage Wasteland 220: Heather is in the ‘death seat’ place of honor.
2000		J. Hawes Dead Long Enough 101: Ending up in the lumpy Death Seat, perfect for being fired out through the screen.

a miserable, impoverished, emaciated person; often ext. with on/upon a mopstick.

1785, 1788, 1796		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.
1811		Lex. Balatronicum.
1823		Egan Grose’s Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.
1834		(con. 1737–9) W.H. Ainsworth Rookwood (1857) 183: Ha, ha! Are you there, my old death’s head on a mop-stick?
1847		J.M. Field Drama in Pokerville 79: As for you, you d---d stolling death’s-head.
1886		Howard Goldsmid Dottings of a Dosser 79: A blear-eyed old woman [...] addressed as ‘Anna,’ ‘old death’s ’ead,’ and ‘old ’ooman’.
c.1895		F. Norris Vandover and the Brute (1914) 266: You look like a death’s-head, man! What’s gone wrong? Aren’t you well?

(Aus.) a battered saveloy.

1993

Aus. Word Map 🌐 death stick. another name for a battered sav: Nothing like a death stick after a night on the grog.

(drugs) phencyclidine.

1980

in Anita Pearl Dict. of Popular Sl.

in the end, in conclusion.

1900		Sydney Sportsman (Surry Hills, NSW) 24 Oct. 1/2: At the death knock the only man on the course who was not sure [...] was the pony’s owner.
1905		Sun. Times (Perth) 1 Oct. 9/8: He was favourite at the death.
1910		Sun. Times (Perth) 6 Mar. 2nd sect. 10/3: Only one local bookmaker, Bill Sparrow, laid Orline to any extent. At the ‘death-knock’ Bill accommodated two punters with fancy wagers about the Orzil horse.
1968		D. Cammell Performance [film script] At the death, who’s left holding the sodding baby?
1989		M. Amis London Fields 460: I know he’s got this funny habit. Of bottling it. At the death.
2013		T. Peacock More You Bet 5: The official price of those runners [...] at the start of any given race...or ‘at the death’ as it was, and is, more popularly know.

(Aus.) a place that is extremely far away.

1903

Bulletin (Sydney) 12 Nov. 16/4: Out-Back, Wayback, Rightback, Back-o’-Out-Back, Beyond-Out-Back, Behind-Out-Back, Set-o’-Sun, Death-o’-Day, Past-West, Westest-West, Beyond-Set-o’-Sun, Right-Behind-Death-o’-Day, and so on.

see under die v.

in the end.

1959		F. Norman Fings I i: Well, wot ’appened in the Death, then?
1961		J. Sparks Burglar to the Nobility 136: Was it Curly or his pal who in the death had proven themselves milkier than me.
1962		R. Cook Crust on its Uppers 43: In the death [...] we all go down with the heavy and nick the jam.
1984		‘Derek Raymond’ He Died with His Eyes Open 55: In the death we ad to get rid of him.

(US) a phr. used of someone who is holding on without the slightest weakening, e.g. he’s holding on like death to a...

1804		Literary Mag. and Amer. Register 2 178: He stuck to him like grim Death to a dead cat.
1851		‘How Sally Hooter Got Snake-Bit’ in T.A. Burke Polly Peablossom’s Wedding 73: She helt onto him like grim death to a dead nigger.
1862		‘Artemus Ward’ Artemus Ward, His Book 70: I’d try to do it but my tung would kerwollup up agin the roof of my mowth & stick thar, like deth to a deseast Afrikan or a country postmaster to his offiss.
1865		J. Horrocks letter 22 June in My Dear Parents 141: I was seaman enough to know that the vessel would soon strike and therefore held on to the lower rigging, like grim death to a dead nigger.
1886		Nat. Police Gaz. (NY) 31 July 14/2: Louisvllle’s big center-fielder has had many a hard fall out of that famous Iudian wrestler, ‘fire water,’ still he sticks to him like grim death lo a dead nigger.
1888		Thomas Co. Cat. (Colby, KS) 17 May 4/3: McGreevey is holding to that claim like ‘death to a niggah’.
1908		S.E. White Riverman 24: ‘Want to quit?’ he inquired, with mock solicitude. ‘Nary quit. [...] We’ll stick to ’em like death to a dead nigger.’.
1916		St John’s Herald & Apache News 20 July 2/1: The offcial hog keeps [...] encouraging the idea that the office should seek a man with some one holding onto it like grim death to a dead darkey.
1928		(con. 1918) L. Nason Sergeant Eadie 11: I’ve held on to ’em like grim death to a dead chink for nearly a year and I’d hate to lose ’em now.
2003		review at Amazon.co.uk 🌐 Grips you like death to a corpse.
2003		posting at Beatnik Pad 16 Sept. 🌐 Yup, and them’s is the kinds that can hang onto a job like death to a mummy whilst competent folks are being laid off.