Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (UK Und.) a lookout, spec. for a team of lock-pickers.

1591		Greene Second Part of Conny-Catching in Grosart (1881–3) X 86: In Lifting Law. The Pickelocke is called a Charme. He that watcheth, a Stond [sic]. Their engins, Wresters. Picking the lock, Farsing. The gaines gotten, Pelfrey.
1608		Dekker Belman of London F4: He that watcheth if anybody come, is the Stand.
1630		J. Taylor ‘Travels of Twelve-pence’ in Works (1869) I 71: To Sharkes, Stales, Nims, Lifts, Foysts, Cheats, Stands, Decoyes / T’a Cut-purse, and a pocket picking Hound.

2. (also standing) an erection [cockstand n.].

1598		Florio Worlde of Wordes n.p.: Priapismo... the standing of a man’s yard .
c.1621		Middleton Women Beware Women I iii: ‘Get a standing for your mistress.’ ‘I have’t for her, sir; . . . ’Tis ready at her pleasure.’.
1639		J. Taylor Juniper Lecture 19: I will have a Husband that shall alwayes be provided like a Souldier, never not with standing [...] with his Match lighted and cocked bolt upright, and ready to do execution.
1654		Mercurius Fumigosus 13 23–30 Aug. 121: She after a slight wooing, easily consented to accompany him that Night in a Truckle-bed under his own standing; in a short time after they were marryed.
a.1661		‘The Rebells Reign’ Rump Poems and Songs (1662) I 315: Men were never so spic’d with the Sceptre of Christ / In the hands of a Saint in grain. / ’Twas brewed in their Hives by Citizens wives, / Who ventured their husbands far, / With Robin the fool, there was ne’re such a tool / To lead in the womens War. / He was ill at Command, but worse at a stand, / So they fought out another more able.
1681		A. Radcliffe Ovid Travestie 66: But when you can’t prolong the jest, And being at Stand, – kiss out the rest.
1834		‘Flare Up!’ Black Joke 5: And when he took her by the hand, / It brought his truncheon to a stand.
1841		‘Fanny’s Mill’ Gentleman’s Spicey Songster 13: At this young Roger made a stand, / As she saw a something in his hand; / She wished to know what use ’twas for.
1870		in G. Legman Limerick (1953) 244: There was a young Marquis of Landsdowne, / Who tried hard to keep his great stands down. / Said he, ‘But that I thought / I should break it off short, / My penis I’d hold with both hands down’.
1881		Sins of the Cities of the Plain 14: He was gently frigging himself as he spoke, and had a glorious stand by the time he had finished.
1889		Dead Bird (Sydney) 27 July 6/2: A special grandstand is to be erected for the Shah of Persia to view the Kempton [...] Race Meeting. It is said the Shah prefers a grandstand to a temporary erection.
1889		C. Deveureux Venus in India I 46: Wife or no wife, nothing short of death would, or should, prevent my fucking that heavenly girl again, and again, until I really could not raise a stand.
1930		in Randolph & Legman Ozark Folksongs and Folklore (1992) I 488: Johnnie Jumpup, he lost his manhood, / And he couldn’t get a stand.
1942		‘Lagos Lagoon’ in M. Page Kiss Me Goodnight, Sgt.-Major (1973) 55: He got grit in his barrel though getting a stand, / And eased it down with a belt in the sand.
1945		‘Cats on the Rooftops’ in Mess Songs & Rhymes of the RAAF 2: If you wake up in the morning with the devil of a stand, / And a funny sort of feeling in your semenary gland.
c.1950		in E. Cray Erotic Muse (1992) 369: Oh, you revel in the morning with an upright stand / (It’s urinary pressure on the prostate gland), / And you haven’t got a woman so you jerk it off by hand.
1964		P. White Burnt Ones 302: I couldn’t he said, I couldn’t get a stand, not if you was to give me the jackpot.
1973		(con. 1940s–60s) Hogbotel & ffuckes ‘Cats on the Rooftops’ in Snatches and Lays 27: If you wake up in the morning with a devil of a stand.
1980		Maledicta IV:2 (Winter) 195: A stand or a hardon is an erection or stargazer, which can also be a hedge-whore.
1984		(con. WW2) T. Jones Heart of Oak [ebook] As he strolls along the Bois Boulogne, / And his prick is on the stand, / The ladies think it’s grand, / To hold it in their hand.
2004		J. McCourt ‘Vilja de Tanquay Exults’ in Queer Street 314: Thrilled my little willy rigid, that it did / Into a right wicked stand.
2021		J. Ellroy Widespread Panic 21: ‘So Michael Wilding’s a gay caballero?’ ‘In spades, love. His house is known as the “Fruit Stand”’.

3. (UK/US Und.) a hold-up.

c.1800		Song No. 10 Papers of Francis Place (1819) n.p.: Here comes a bloody scamping blade [...] He’s flash to the cross roads and now makes a stand.
1929		W.R. Burnett Little Caesar (1932) 121: You got over a grand and a half out of that Casa Alvarado stand.

4. a prostitute who specializes in fellatio.

1937–84

Partridge DSUE (1984) 1143/2: late C.19–20.

5. (US teen) a single-combat fight.

1958

H. Ellison Web of the City (1983) 54: If it was a stand Candle wanted, all the rest of these sluggy bastards wanted, then that was what they’d get.