Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. urethritis.

c.1698		B.E. Dict. Canting Crew n.p.: Dripper, a sort of Clap, or veneeral gleating.
c.1700		‘Panegyrick upon Cundums’ n.p.: All feels the youth, or fancies that he feels, / Nay be it but a gleet’ or gentlest clap, / His ill foreboding fears deny him rest.
1716		Proceedings Old Bailey 13 July 5/2: That upon her complaining she was not well, she was search’d, and found to have a Gleet; one swore, That she had a Gonorrhea ever since the Day mentioned in the Indictment.
1731		Ordinary of Newgate Account 8 Mar. n.p.: [advert.] the Gleeting is only from a Laxity of the Glands in the Urethra, what leaks and drills away insensibly from them, through the Urinary Passage, and spots or smears the Linnen.
1732		Proc. Old Bailey 6 Dec. 24/1: Court. It may be proper for you to explain what you mean by a Gleet? Smith. A Running of soul Matter, which I suppose to be of a Venereal Nature [...] Juryman. Was the Boy examin'd as to his having any Disorder upon him? Smith. Yes, I found a foul Gleet upon him too.
1744		Machine 6: Be it but Gleet, or gentle Clap, his Fear.
1754		Proc. Old Bailey 30 May 216/1: Q. Might not a gleet make those marks on his linnen that you saw? Moffatt. It might, or it might not; [...] It is probable it might have happened from a venereal complaint.
1766		Proc. Old Bailey 3 Sept. 283/2: Q. from prisoner. Whether I had the foul disease, or whether it was a gleet or running?
1779		Proc. Old Bailey 20 Oct. 50/1: Was the discharge of a yellow colour or a white colour, like a gleet or weakness? - At the beginning it was of a yellow nature. [...] Did you give him any antivenereal medicine?
1785		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue n.p.: Dripper, a gleet.
c.1830		‘A Sporting Surgeon’ Waterfordiana 23: When urethris or gonorrhœa has nearly disappeared, there is often a thin, watery discharge from the urethra, which is termed gleet.
1839		Crim.-Con. Gaz. 20 July 142/3: [advert] A certain cure for Gonorrhoea, gleets, strictures, pains in the loins [etc].
1870		Cythera’s Hymnal 41: Capivi cannot cure my gleet.
1888–94		‘Walter’ My Secret Life (1966) II 250: I could not piss for it, the tip looked dry, as if gleet had ceased.
1889		Dead Bird (Sydney) 2 Nov. 3/2: [advert] Big G has given universal satisfaction in the cure of Gonorrhoea and Gleet.
1890		Nat. Police Gaz. (NY) 4 Jan. 14/3: Tarrants Extract of Cubebs and Copaiba is an old tried remedy for gonorrhoea, gleet, and all diseases of the urinary organs.
c.1904		A. Crowley Snowdrops from a Curate’s Garden 32: Her square push beggars description [...] Gaping like the crater of some active volcano, with a constant stream of gleet oozing from the raw and meaty orifice.
1922		Joyce Ulysses 517: I saw him, kipkeeper! Pox and gleet vendor!
1934		‘J.M. Hall’ Anecdota Americana II 119: Sometimes it’s the clap and / Again it’s the gleet.
1942		in Randolph & Legman Ozark Folksongs and Folklore (1992) I 156: ‘Oh, Brinzi O’Flynn has the pox and the gleet / And he stinks like a brothel down old Sackville Street.’ [...] Collected by Sam Erskin from the singing of a British seaman, probably Irish, in San Francisco, 1942.
1973		(con. 1940s–60s) Hogbotel & ffuckes ‘Heigh Ho Says Rowley’ in Snatches and Lays 31: G is for gonorrhea, gout and gleat.
2024		J. Meades Empty Wigs (t/s) 69: I thought of my father's library, of Prynne Owen Prynne’s forbidden classic Milady Gleet's Greeting To Pokey Jiggy-Boum.

2. (Aus.) venereal infection in the rectum.

1945

Mess Songs & Rhymes of R.A.A.F. 48: G is for gonnorrhoea [sic], gout, and for gleat .