Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(US black/W.I.) too many, infinite or non-specific in number.

1830		Owl (NY) 11 Sept. n.p.: For further information [...] forty-’leven Shin Bone Alley, up stairs.
1843		Gleaner (Manchester, NH) 9 Dec. n.p.: Now be it known for the ‘forty-eleventh’ time that we never do any such thing [i.e. name names].
1859		T. Haliburton Nature and Human Nature 8: I am not like the black preacher that had forty-eleven divisions.
1862		J.R. Lowell Biglow Papers 2nd series (1880) 14: Forty-’leven new kinds o’ sarse. [Ibid.] 74: Forty-’leven weeks o’ jawin’. [Ibid.] 106: Nor don’t want forty-’leven weeks o’ jawin’ an expoundin’ / To prove a nigger hez a right to save him, ef he’s drownin’.
1872		Schele De Vere Americanisms 313: A forty-eleventh cousin, for instance, expresses an infinitesimal degree of relationship, one too small to be stated accurately.
1908		H. Green Maison De Shine 73: I got forty-’leven trunks down in the basemen now.
1911		Chicago Defender 17 June 1: [He will] go back to London and join the forty eleven colored actors who are now located and settled down in amalgamation row never to return to America.
1926		H. Ford in Dearborn Indep. Mag. 2 Jan. 7: Truth was he was tied up in Washington with forty-eleven committees.
1949		in Drew Middleton Struggle for Germany 34: I’m doing forty-eleven different things to get this burg running again.
a.1963		Josh White ‘Evil-hearted Me’ 🎵 Well, I don’t even care / If my baby leaves me flat / I got forty ’leven others / If it comes to that.
1989		H.F. Mosher A Stranger in the Kingdom 33: Elijah, we have been over this terrain forty-eleven times.
1994		in N.Y. Times 29 Oct. 24/3: I don’t see why my taxes should keep someone in jail for forty-eleven years.
2005		B.J. Myers August Webster and the Secret of Candy Rock Mountain 79: ‘Wow, there are forty-eleven frogs out here,’ screeched Leo in delight.

shameless; thus combs. forty-faced liar, forty-faced flirt.

1890–1904		Farmer & Henley Sl. and Its Analogues.
1956		N. Algren Walk on the Wild Side 145: He’ll mouse on me and he’ll mouse on you [...] He’s a forty-faced pigeon straight from Rat Row, quack from head to toe.
1981		A. Theroux Darconville’s Cat 315: You will do well to remember, however — and every other forty-faced Mason like you — that the Papacy is not the house of Orange-Nassau.

see under fit n.³

a fat man.

1859, 1860		Hotten Dict. of Modern Sl. etc.
1873		Sl. Dict.
1882		Sydney Sl. Dict. (2 edn) 4: Forty Guts - A vulgar term for a fat man.
1935		A.J. Pollock Und. Speaks.

loquacious, talkative.

1890–1904		Farmer & Henley Sl. and Its Analogues.
1915		M.G. Hayden ‘Terms Of Disparagement’ in DN IV:iii 218: forty-jawed, excessive talker.

powerfully loquacity.

1866		Sportsman 18 Sept. 2/1: Notes on News [...] For a forty-tongue power of unblushing Iying commend us to the Hebrew ‘knock ’em down’ gentlemen at one of those many mock auctions.
1867		Sportsman 31 Jan. 2/1: Notes on News [...] Sydney Smith [...] once spoke of some bore knew as having a forty parson-power of conversation.

(US) extremely large feet.

1950		WELS [DARE].
1968–69		in DARE.

a short person.

1864, 1867, 1870		Hotten Sl. Dict.
1873		Sl. Dict.
1882		Sydney Sl. Dict. (2 edn) 4: Forty Foot - An appellation of derision for a very short person.

(Aus.) substantial, very great.

1885

Bulletin (Sydney) 9 May 12/4: Why, the very fact that he had drunk, and was drunk yesterday, is a 40 h.p. argument in favour of drinking, and getting drunk again to-day, to-morrow, and the day after.

1. in carnival use, a novice who has fig. never gone more than 40 miles from their home.

2012

W. Keyser ‘Carny Lingo’ in http://goodmagic.com 🌐 Forty Miler — Newcomer to circus or carnival life, who (metaphorically speaking) never travels farther than 40 miles away from their home.

2. in carnival use, one who does not needd to travel so as to get all the work they need.

2012

W. Keyser ‘Carny Lingo’ in http://goodmagic.com 🌐 [A] performer or jointee who gets all the work he needs without traveling far from home.

see forty n. (3)

a policeman.

1840

(ref. to 1730s) H.D. Miles Dick Turpin in Partridge DU (1949) 264/2: The rascally forty-pounders [...] a cant name for [police] officers; who received that reward with each ‘Tyburn ticket.’.

cheap, strong whisky; cite 1918 refers to fortified, cheap red wine.

[1858		‘Q.K. Philander Doesticks’ Witches of N.Y. 224: Liquor [...] warranted to kill at forty rods].
[1859		Star (L.A.) 23 Apr. 4: Minnie rifle, Knock-’em stiff and flaming red-eye—Such as kills ’em at the counter, Forty rods or any distance].
1863		W.H. Russell Diary II 11: Their cries for water were incessant to allay the internal fires caused by ‘40 rod’ and ‘60 rod,’ as whiskey is called, which is supposed to kill people at those distances [DA].
[1870		B. Harte Luck of Roaring Camp (1873) 72: Earlier in the day some local satirist had erected a temporary tombstone at Sandy’s head, bearing the inscription, ‘Effects of McCorkle’s whiskey, – kills at forty rods’].
1879		Nat. Police Gaz. (NY) 13 Dec. 11/2: The lowest depth of destitution among tramps is [...] the inability to buy a glass of beer or ‘forty-rod’ whiskey.
1884		(con. c.1840) ‘Mark Twain’ Huckleberry Finn 43: In the night some time he got powerful thirsty and [...] traded his new coat for a jug of forty-rod.
1891		A. Day Mysterious Beggar 253: After pouring out a liberal sample of its ‘forty-rod’ capability, he slowly ‘absorbed’ the same.
1898		W.A. Sun. Times (Perth) 16 Jan. 7/1: ‘What’s your poison, gents?’ [...] ‘Forty-rod’.
1901		Monroe & Northup ‘College Words and Phrases’ in DN II:iii 140: forty-rod, adj. Applied to strong whiskey, as ‘forty-rod whiskey’.
1906		Sun (NY) 5 Mar. 4/6: He is [...] full of forty-rod booze.
1916		‘Anzac’ On the Anzac Trail 77: [W]hisky that takes the lining of your throat down with it [...] a soothing liquid that licks ‘forty-rod,’ ‘chained lightning,’ or ‘Cape smoke’ to the back of creation.
1918		Sun. Times (Perth) 3 Mar. 30/2: Not to mention other things, such as the prevalence of greasy aliens and forty-rod ‘pinky’ .
1921		P. & T. Casey Gay-cat 100: Wot brand o’ forty-rod does youse most fill up on, Crybaby?
1931		Ade Old-Time Saloon 31: He was supposed to have an array of grape beverages behind the bar to prove that he dealt in lady-like table wines as well as in forty-rod T.N.T. guaranteed to blow the hat off.
1946		(con. 1910s) J. Thompson Heed the Thunder (1994) 113: Ritten strained a hiccough through his chest-length beard, fumigating the hall with the aroma of forty-rod.
1947		C.J. Lovell ‘The Background of Mark Twain’s Vocab.’ in AS XXII:2 91: forty-rod whisky. Cheap and strong whisky. [1869] This use was foreshadowed by a number of facetious terms of like import.
1968		(con. mid-19C) S. Longstreet Wilder Shore 74: A jug of forty rod sure rousted Old Scratch out of a man.
1998		(con. 1919) Howard Hickson’s Histories 🌐 Out here in the wild and wooly West [...] alcohol sellers went underground. You could still get forty rod, gut warmer, and scamper juice, it just took a little more time and lot more money.

(W.I.) an obscene word, for the use of which one can be fined 40 shillings or £2.

1961		cited in Cassidy & LePage Dict. Jam. Eng. (1980).
1989		Jamaica Jrnl 39/1: Legend of Bun Down, bad word merchant, goes he is arrested, brought before her majesty's court for using decent language, indecently. Bun Down is fined for one forty shilling word.

see — miles of bad road n.

(US, orig. gambling) in every way possible.

1909		E. Walter Easiest Way in T.H. Dickinson Chief Contemp. Dramatists (1921) 192/2: It’s hell forty ways from the Jack. It's tough for me.
1911		D. Runyon ‘The Informal Execution of Soupbone Pew’ in From First to Last (1954) 69: ‘He was there forty ways with a sap and gat, and he’d shoot as quick as he’d slug.’.
1914		Ade ‘The New Fable of the Lonesome Camp’ in Ade’s Fables 276: This has got the Middle West skinned forty ways from the Jack.
1915		Atlanta Constitution 29 Aug. 42/4: As a detective he had old Nick Carter beaten ‘forty ways to the jack’.
1920		H.C. Witwer Kid Scanlon 273: Take it from me, that bird is there forty ways.
1925		Black Mask Aug. III 83: I can beat that forty ways.
1953		R. Chandler Long Good-Bye 195: He, Menendez could have done it two ways from the jack by lifting one finger, and done it much better.
1955		‘Hal Ellson’ Rock 99: She bitches him out forty different ways.
1982		(con. 1970) J.M. Del Vecchio 13th Valley (1983) 447: We gowin get our asses kicked seven ways ta hell.

the state of pregnancy, often in the context of an illegitimate child.

1608		Pennyless Parliament of Thread-bare Poets 53: Let Maidens take Heed how they fall on their Backs, lest they catch a forty Weeks favour.
1614		Cobbes Prophecies C3v: Iif ye keepe your beds Till ye loose your maiden heads, take heed of a forty weeks paiment.