lifer n.
1. one who has been transported for life.
![[Aus]](/static/img/flags/aus.png "Australia") | Present State of Aus. 201: Some were seven years’ men, and others were what they call ‘lifers’, to which class Edwards belonged . | |
![[UK]](/static/img/flags/uk.png "United Kingdom") | Oliver Twist (1966) 389: They know what a clever lad he is; he’ll be a lifer. | |
| Satirist & Sporting Chron. (Sydney) 8 Apr. 1/2: We are now particularly alluding to those to those who in Colonial fraseology [sic] are termed ‘Lifers’ [who have] committed an offense so serious as to have called for the heavy sentence of ‘Transportation for Life’. | |
| Rambles in New South Wales 221: When a ‘lifer’ had held a ticket-of-leave for six years [...] he was further indulged with a conditional pardon. | |
| Dict. of Modern Sl. etc. (2nd edn). | |
| Morn. Post 18 Dec. 3/3: As a lifer, alas! beyond the sea / They banished my fancy-man from me. | |
| Term of His Natural Life (1897) 195: Most of the prisoners are Lifers, you see, and a trip to Hobart Town is like a holiday for them. | |
![[US]](/static/img/flags/us.png "United States") | Encyc. Britannica xix 756: Lifers cannot claim any remission, but their cases are brought forward at the end of twenty years [F&H]. | |
| Bushranger’s Sweetheart 206: ‘He has money enough, I am sure, raking in the thousands as he does.’ ‘So he has, and so have many old “lifers”.’. | |
| ‘The Ballad of the Rouseabout’ in Roderick (1967–9) I 360: A ‘lifer’ sneaked from jail at home — the ‘straightest’ mate I met. |
2. a life sentence; also in non-prison sense (see cite 1901) and attrib.
| Fraser’s Mag. V. 530: Is it not a shame to give me a lifer, and they only a month each? | |
| Ticket-Of-Leave Man Act I: And how about the lagging! If I’m nailed it’s a lifer. | |
| Five Years’ Penal Servitude 42: The man sentenced just before me had a ‘lifer’. | |
| ‘Mister William’ Fifty ‘Bab’ Ballads 147: And William got a ‘lifer,’ which annoyed him very much. / For, ah! he never reconciled himself to life in gaol. | |
| Aus. Sl. Dict. 45: Lifer, imprisonment for life. | |
| Hooligan Nights 14: He was [...] given a lifer. | |
| Society Snapshots 126: That’s only for a fortnight, and this [i.e. marriage] is — a lifer. | |
| More Ex-Tank Tales 90: He’s doing his little lifer at a French penal settlement. | |
| Vultures of the City in Illus. Police News 15 Dec. 12/2: ‘We all know you’d like Stab to cop a lifer’. | |
| Marvel 15 Oct. 16: Quod doesn’t mean as much to me as it does for Mr. Harvey Davis, and I’ll have my revenge if I get a lifer for it. | |
| Punch 14 Feb. 102: And when the sentence seals his fate / He’ll get at least a lifer. | |
| ‘Red Wind’ in Red Wind (1946) 28: They make you be good in them lifer states. | |
| ‘The Dark Diceman’ in Bitten by the Tarantula (2005) 202: The judge has threatened him with a lifer. |
3. a prisoner serving a life sentence; also attrib.
 | Record (Emerald Hill, Vic.) 27 May 4/3: [A] number of convicts ‘lifers’ in gaol slang, have seen fit to prefer an application for a mitigation of their sentences. | |
| Vagabond Papers (3rd Ser.) 191: He is essentially vain, and is fond of the admiration of the ‘lifers’ and other hardened ruffians. | |
| Chronicles of Newgate 522: Numbers of men, ‘lifers,’ and others [...] can be trusted to work out of doors without bolts or bars. | |
| Bulletin (Sydney) 19 July 8/3: He was not going to fight with a Montagu or quarrel with a Chief Justice, if he knew it – especially over a ‘lifer.’. | |
| Marvel XIV:344 June 1: The two were convicts and ‘lifers’ – both condemned to imprisonment for life. | |
| Sun. Times (Perth) 9 Apr. 4/5: A clergyman visited the Fremantle gaol [...] ‘We are here to-day and gone tomorrow,’ he remarked. ‘I wish you meant it,’ fervently ejaculated one of the lifers. | |
| My Life out of Prison 166: Many of the old ‘lifers’. | |
| Man’s Grim Justice 110: Charley the lifer and I both shouted ‘Getting up’. | |
| ‘A Nose for News’ in Goulart (1967) 206: You want me to become a lifer in a Federal jug! | |
| Phenomena in Crime 126: The majority of murder ‘lifers’ go through this unhappy phase. | |
| Parson in Prison xv: That slight fellow with the neat, fair head is a murderer, a ‘lifer’. | |
| In For Life 9: There are no correspondence courses in how to be a lifer. | |
![[NZ]](/static/img/flags/nz.png "New Zealand") | Till Human Voices Wake Us 88: A true penitentiary, and the tough ones and the lifers all end up there. | |
| Scene (1996) 285: The screw went along, recognizing the Lifer look on his face. | |
| Frying-Pan 40: You ought to try and talk to a lifer [...] someone who’s been in for years. | |
| While We Have Prisons 68: [T]he scones [...] were baked by a female lifer whose penchant had been the poisoning of her rivals, using confections of one kind or another. | |
| Doing Time 192: lifer: a prisoner serving a life sentence. | |
| Gate Fever 30: Of the landings, the fours was the most fashionable, the lifers’ landing. | |
| ‘The Routine’Oz ser. 1 ep. 1 [TV script] You know why [...] I put lifers in with all the rest? | |
| ‘Boob Jargon’ in NZEJ 13 32: lifern. An inmate serving a life sentence. | |
| Layer Cake 154: He can’t apply for parole until about the year two thousand and fifty [...] Double-lifer. | |
| Boobslang [U. Canterbury D.Phil. thesis] 107/2: lifer n. an inmate serving a life sentence (in most cases, such a sentence is given for the crime of murder). | |
| Intractable [ebook] Lawson was a liferand a serious secko. | |
| ‘Lay Down Your Weapons’ 🎵 My bro died, he got hit up like lighting / My road dawg killing me in prison with the lifers. | |
| Lives Laid Away [ebook] ‘A lifer took the fall. Aryan Nation asshole affiliated with the Bruderschaft Motorcycle Club’. | |
| Boy from County Hell 47: Being a lifer in Angola was as good as dead. |
4. (US, orig. milit.) a career soldier.
| in Harper’s Mag. Feb. 38: The lifers (professionals) were glad to be getting out of something. | |
| (con. 1969) Grunts xiv: Most heavies were lifers, they were making a career of military service. | |
| Paco’s Story (1987) 12: Music nobody ever heard of but the gray-headed lifers. | |
| Finnegan’s Week 38: Having served in Korea as a dogface grunt, he knew a lifer when he saw one. | |
| Cherry 129: It was only our second time taking dead, and the lifers were still making a big deal out of it. |
5. a pej. term for anyone who appears excessively keen on discipline and its administration on their peers.
| Current Sl. V:1 16: Lifer, adj. Exhibiting characteristics of a career man. | |
| (con. 1970) 13th Valley (1983) 21: Fuckin lifer pig REMFs. |
6. a person unwilling to change their way of life, esp. a drug addict.
| Underground Dict. (1972). |
7. one who intends to stay in the same job or career until retirement.
| Radical Chic 110: [...] whatever you’re angry about, it doesn’t matter, he’s there to catch the flak. He’s a lifer. | |
| No Big Deal 15: Much of the talk is doubtless as it always has been—gravel-voiced baseball lifers benignly exchanging news and comparing notes over bourbon and cigars. | |
| Glitter Dome (1982) 308: [of a policeman] I figured you for a lifer. | |
| Vinnie Got Blown Away 154: Young kid Kamran and a lifer name of Lou. | |
| ‘Hot-Prowl Rape-O’ in Destination: Morgue! (2004) 270: We’re both L.A. lifers, and I know this place too well. | |
| Widespread Panic 201: They’re Hollywood Squad lifers — they’ve still got the same two desks. |
8. (US campus) an ironic term for someone who has committed a trivial offence.
| Campus Sl. Mar. 4: lifer – someone who has been arrested or given a ticket: You got arrested for public drunkeness? You lifer! | |
| Sl. and Sociability 66: Lifer is ‘someone who has committed a trivial offense’. |