Green’s Dictionary of Slang

to arrest a drug dealer’s customers immediately after they have bought their supplies.

1966

J. Mills Panic in Needle Park (1971) 154: We figure we’ll go up and angel off some of his customers. Angeling off is when you know someone’s dealing and you lay back some place and bust the customers coming out. Sometimes you do it to get information on exactly where the dealer is and sometimes you do it, like this time, just to make business rough for him.

a covert, undeclared male homosexual.

1941		G. Legman ‘Lang. of Homosexuality’ Appendix VII in Henry Sex Variants.
1965		Guild Dict. Homosexual Terms 1: angel with a dirty face (n.): A male homosexual who would like to indulge in homosexual practices but who is timid or hesitant about it. (Now obsolete, having its origin in mid-1930’s with the motion picture ‘Angels with Dirty Faces.’).
1972		(ref. to mid-1930s) B. Rodgers Queens’ Vernacular 21: angel with a dirty face (obs, mid-’30s, fr motion picture Angels with Dirty Faces) homosexual who is too timid to participate in homosexual acts.

(US) in insititutional confinement (e.g. prison or military lockup), bread and water.

1914		E. Genet letter 25 July in Channing War Letters of Edmond Genet 16: Last Friday (week) I lost my miserable temper while talking to one of the Chief Master-at-Arms and in consequence I spent all of last Saturday in the ship’s ‘pie-house’ munching angel-cake and white wine (bread & water).
1944		P. Kendall Dict. Service Sl. n.p.: angel cake and wine ... bread and water in confinement.
1949		Monteleone Criminal Sl. (rev. edn) 11: angel food cake and wine Prison fare of bread and water.
1950		Goldin et al. DAUL 19/1: (P) Angel cake and wine. A diet of bread and water prescribed as some form of punishment.
1968		J. Colebrook Cross of Lassitude 239: Landing in ‘the can, to live on angel cake and wine’.
1992		Bentley & Corbett Prison Sl. 11: Piss ’n’ Punk Rations of bread and water which are served in the hole or lockdown situations. This practice is not widespread today. (Archaic: angel cake & wine).

a wine made from marijuana.

2002

DRUG-ARM Aus. 🌐 Slang Terms: angel drink Marijuana alkaloid wine.

see separate entry.

(US) a seminary.

1930		J.A. Russell ‘Colgate University Sl.’ in AS V:3 238: Angel-factory: a name for the theological seminary. ‘Those theologs attend the angel-factory.’.
1985		in L.A. Times 24 Oct. IX 6: Public school opponents [...] like to dub Valley Christian the ‘Angel Factory’.
2003		R.M. Smith in Retort Mag. 🌐 The Angel Factory. [...] I had been going through puberty and drawing nudes in a huge study hall where 150 high-school students had to study various heresies and Catholic doctrines.

1. (US tramp) preaching, as experienced in a mission.

1926		N. Klein ‘Hobo Lingo’ in AS I:12 650: Angel food — mission preaching.
1936		Mencken Amer. Lang. (4th edn) 582: The discourse heard in mission-halls is angel-food, and the bum who listens to it is a mission-stiff.
1949		Monteleone Criminal Sl. (rev. edn).
1956		F.O. Beck Hobohemia 22: Scarcely had the soul aviator (that was the name the mission preacher was known by) begun to hand out angel-food (and that was the name his sermon was known by) than not a few drowsed off to sleep.
1964		(con. 1920s–40s) in J.L. Kornbluh Rebel Voices.

2. (US gay) an air force serviceman [as a flier, he reaches heaven; as a potential conquest he is someone one can eat v. (4)].

1972		(ref. to late 1960s) B. Rodgers Queens’ Vernacular 23: The air force [...] produced only one term for its men: angel food (kwn SF, late ’60s).
1988		H. Max Gay (S)language 2: Angel food — Air Force serviceman.

(drugs) phencyclidine.

1977		L. Young et al. Recreational Drugs.
1981		D.E. Miller Bk of Jargon 336: angel hair: PCP.
2001		ONDCP Street Terms 2: Angel hair — PCP.

freckles.

1972		E. Grogan Ringolevio 80: Ain’t you ever seen somebody with angel kisses on his face before?
1999		Katie Dresser ‘My Mother’s hands’ 🌐 Her hands are long and thin, with freckles. [...] Her nails are short, but not too short. They look great painted red. Her freckles are what she calls ‘angel kisses’.
2002		mybeck5 ‘Marks of Angel’s Kisses’ 🌐 I went to school the next day so proud of my Angel kisses and no longer hating my freckles / I told all the other children how sorry I was that they had not been / Kissed By The Angels.

1. a baby-farmer, a woman who took in (usu. illegitimate) babies on the pretext of bringing them up in return for a fee; thus angel-making, the starving to death of such unwanted children.

1874		Pall Mall Budget 4 Dec. 15/1: THE ‘ANGEL-MAKER.’ BABY-FARMING and angel-making are often convertible terms, and Rose Garou is an ‘angel-maker.’ You should have seen her come to Paris with her swimming blue eyes, teeth white as milk, and small frilled cap.
1892		newspaper cutting in Ware (1909) 8/1: ‘angel-making’ Another case of ‘baby-farming’ or ‘angel-making’ [...] has just been discovered by the Lemberg police, who have arrested three women on charges of systematically starving to death infants committed to their care.
1894		Truth (Sydney) 14 Jan. 1/6: Mrs Knorr, the condemned ‘angel-maker,’ was a member of a Chelsea church choir.
1896		Daily Tel. (UK) 7 Dec. n.p.: Every day a fresh charge is laid at their doors, and some people have even gone so far as to describe them as [...] what Parisians call ‘angel-makers.’.
1909		J. Ware Passing Eng. of the Victorian Era.

2. an abortionist.

1994		N. Lewis Book of Babel 151: ‘Abortionist’ (or faiseur d’ anges, ‘angel-maker’ in French).
2002		Leif’s Page of Various Things 🌐 Margot also works as a backstreet abortionist, a profession also known as angel maker.
[2024		J. Meades Empty Wigs (t/s) 171: He was a dandy quack, un faiseur des anges sanctioned by Mary having aborted the Son Of God].

(US drugs) phencyclidine.

1979

H. Feldman et al. Angel Dust 124: The large number of street names it has been accorded over the years: [...] angel puke.

(US) a pretty young woman, often used as an affectionate term of address.

1946		in Cosmopolitan CXXI 182: ‘It was signed shamelessly: Your own angel puss. Henry brought it to me. ... “Your own angel puss,”’ she spat out. ‘I think I’m going to be sick.’.
1949		Monteleone Criminal Sl. (rev. edn).
2003		R. Dahl Twits [play] 32: mr twit: Hey, my spaghetti is moving. mrs twit: What’s that, my angel-puss?

1. strong ale.

1587

W. Harrison Description of England 150: There is such headie ale [...] commonlie called huffe-cappe, the mad dog, father-whoresome, angels food, dragons milke, go-by-the-wall, stride-wide, and lift-leg.

2. (Aus. drugs) cocaine [? underpinned by the perceived whiteness (wings, robes) of SE angel].

1927		Burrowa News (NSW) 24 June 7/4: ‘Angie,’ is the vernacular expression for ‘angel’s food,’ or ‘coke,’ which is cocaine. Taken in the powder form, one packet usually contains enough for four ‘sniffs,’ and costs 10/-.
1929		Land (Sydney) 7 June 4/4: Cocaine is known as Angel’s Food: Fallen angels!
1941		Baker Popular Dict. Aus. Sl.

see oil of angels under oil of... n.

a ‘combination’ suit, offering a coat and waistcoat made in one, with the trousers buttoned onto it.

1889–90		Barrère & Leland Dict. of Sl., Jargon and Cant.
1890–1904		Farmer & Henley Sl. and Its Analogues.

(US) notably mellow whisky.

1946		Hamann ‘Stillers’ Argot’ AS XXI:3 194: ‘Angel teat,’ a mellowed whiskey with a rich bouquet.
1956		Labor’s Special Lang. n.p.: Distillery workers smack their lips over angel teat – a mellowed whiskey of good bouquet [W&F].
1960, 1975		Wentworth & Flexner DAS.

(S.Afr. gay) a man-to-man term of endearment.

2003

K. Cage Gayle.

(US drugs) caladium.

2002

D.H. Sterry Chicken (2003) 5: Six months ago I was guzzling rotgut and smoking angel wings at boarding school.