crapper, n.¹ — Green’s Dictionary of Slang

crapper n.¹

[crap v.² ; popular and some scholarly sources (e.g. Seal, The Lingo, 1999) attribute the ety. to the eponymously named Thomas Crapper, inventor of the water closet, but this is more likely no more than a fortuitous coincidence, albeit a reinforcement of the actual root]

1. (US campus) a very unpleasant person.

1901		Monroe & Northup ‘College Words and Phrases’ in DN II:iii 138: crapper, n. A wealthy but stingy man.
1957		H. Ellison ‘Kid Killer’ in Deadly Streets (1983) 111: I’m sick and tired of this little crapper.
1960		P. Rabe Murder Me for Nickels (2004) 156: I turn my back [...] and in slides that crapper over there.

2. (US Und.) a prison.

1924

G. Henderson Keys to Crookdom 401: Crapper. Jail, prison.

3. a lavatory.

1927		Immortalia 142: She beshiteth herself in the crapper.
1935		J. Conroy World to Win 41: His half-brother [...] who couldn’t go to the crapper, Leo often sneered, without asking somebody to unbutton his pants.
1948		H. McCoy Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye in Four Novels (1983) 84: Ain’t you supposed to be in the crapper?
1959		C. Himes Crazy Kill 11: Mamie took Dulcy into the crapper and locked the door.
1967		M. Braly On the Yard (2002) 226: Chilly [...] found himself thinking of the fifty cartons he had invested in this cell [...] ten for a decent crapper.
1979		‘Iceberg Slim’ Airtight Willie and Me 36: I retreated into a booth [...] next to the ’ho crapper.
1989		R.G. Barrett Boys from Binjiwunyawunya 225: Don’t let them catch you sitting on the crapper with only your underpants on.
1990		S. Morgan Homeboy 165: It must cost plenty to make a crapper look this cheap.
2005		J. Stahl I, Fatty 98: I [...] was as lowbrow as a beer-hall crapper.
2012		T. Robinson ‘Legendary [...] Ralphie O’Malley’ in Dirty Words [ebook] ‘[P]ills and syrups to keep me from hemorrhaging [...] every time I sit on the crapper’.
2021		T. Pluck Boy from County Hell 41: ‘[T]hat high school fooling ’round you been doing in the craft yard crapper’.

4. a braggart; a liar.

1932		J.L. Kuethe ‘Johns Hopkins Jargon’ in AS VII:5 330: crapper — a user of empty, boastful terms.
1963		in T.I. Rubin Sweet Daddy 12: I got more than those crappers ever have.
1986		T. Winton That Eye, The Sky 127: Don’t try your religious crap on me, boy. Don’t come the crapper with me.
2006		D. Mitchell Black Swan Green 155: Poisonous little crappers!

5. the anus, the buttocks.

1972

B. Rodgers Queens’ Vernacular.

In compounds

crapper dick (n.) [dick n.⁵ (1)]

(US) a plainclothes policeman who specializes in hanging around public lavatories in the hope of entrapping gay men having sex; thus an extortionist who poses as a policeman to blackmail homosexuals.

1950		Goldin et al. DAUL 52/1: Crapper-dick. A detective who hunts rest-room perverts; an extortionist who victimizes rest-room perverts.
1972		B. Rodgers Queens’ Vernacular 55: crapper-dick 1. vice-squad officer on the washroom beat [...] 2. an extortionist who poses as a vice-squad official to extort a ‘bribe’ in exchange for forgetting about a sordid incident.

In phrases

down the crapper

see down the pan under down prep.

in crapper’s ditch

(N.Z.) in trouble.

2003

McGill Reed Dict. of N.Z. Sl.

in the crapper

(US) finished, failed, rejected, abandoned, rendered useless.

1950		Goldin et al. DAUL 51/2: Crapper. A toilet. (’In the crapper’ — lost; hopeless; profitless.) ‘We wound up in the crapper on that touch (robbery).’.
1953		W.L. Alderson ‘Carnie Talk’ in AS XXVIII:2 115: in the crapper, prep. phr. Of a concession, in the worst location on the show lot.
1991		(con. 1920s) O.D. Brooks Legs 157: He kept on walking [...] not telling me whether we were in the crapper or the clover.

crapper n.1

In compounds

In phrases

crapper n.¹