Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(a) (orig. US Und., also kick) a payment (prob. illegal) made to a person who has facilitated a deal, a transaction, someone’s appointment to a job etc; also attrib.

1869		Hamilton Spectator (Vic.) 3 July 2/3: With us ‘kick’ is a novelty, but a drug at Ballarat. The essence of this facinating game is ‘bribery,’ and, of course, ‘corruption’.
1925		D. Hammett ‘Ruffian’s Wife’ in Nightmare Town (2001) 65: If you think you’ve got a kick coming, I’ll do what’s right. You can have half of the ten thousand.
1933		Ersine Und. and Prison Sl.
1949		Monteleone Criminal Sl. (rev. edn) 137: kick back A return of money.
1952		Lait & Mortimer USA Confidential 13: In some favored cases they are permitted to run some of their own operations without kickbacks.
1963		‘Geoffrey Tolhurst’ Flat 4 King’s Cross (1966) 117: About Johnny and the Rosebowl and the top room, and the small kickbacks that Nicky gave me.
1969		D. Pendleton Executioner (1973) 123: Payola for the deejays and kickbacks to the record shops if they sell a certain quota.
1977		(con. 1949) J.G. Dunne True Confessions (1979) 57: There’s a word for that seventy-five [thousand dollars] [...] Kickback is the one I had in mind.
1989		C. Hiaasen Skin Tight 81: The secondary income derived from bribes and kickbacks was substantial.
1997		G.V. Higgins Change of Gravity [ebook] ‘Not paying him kickbacks, anything like that just giving him lots of nice presents’.
1999		P. Temple Black Tide (2012) [ebook] Selling information to the opposition, taking kickbacks.
1999		K. Sampson Powder 226: We’ll put her on the guest list and make a fuss of her at the aftershow. That’s her kickback.
2001		Week (US) 29 June 6: He was only a scapegoat for a practice of accepting kickbacks that was common in the ’80s and ’90s.
2007		S. Maloney Sucked In 201: Gilpin channelled his kickback earnings through the accounts.
2008		T. Piccirilli Fever Kill 77: Get some kickback with smuggling over the border.
2014		D.B. Flowers Bangs 403: Joey and Brother snatched a few select diamonds for their own kick.
2021		C. Hammer Opal Country 291: ’He told me [...] that Topsoil had you on a lead, handing you kickbacks’.

(b) a portion of one’s profits that is handed over as ‘protection money’.

1930		J. Lait Put on the Spot 206: Kickback [...] Payment pro rata of loot.
1946		Drake & Cayton Black Metropolis 484: A ‘kickback’ of perhaps half a million dollars a year to ‘downtown’ makes the policy racket a lucrative one for the machine in power.
1956		Jess Stearn Sisters of the Night 54: These bar owners aren’t bothering with anything as obvious as kickbacks.
1977		(con. 1960s) D. Goines Black Gangster (1991) 155: Roman got me giving him a kickback on all the whiskey money I pick up.
1984		‘Derek Raymond’ He Died with His Eyes Open 97: The governor’s kick-backs for copping a deaf ’un were too big.
2017		A. Parks Bloody January 48: ‘[He] wouldn’t put that in jeopardy for the kickbacks of two girls on the game’.

(c) a commission on a payment made by the payee to the customer, usu. a genteel euph. for a bribe.

1940		F. Riesenberg Golden Gate 308: Longshoremen were finding it tougher than ever to get jobs, even through kick-backs of pay, bottles of liquor, and cigars [DA].
1955		B. Schulberg On the Waterfront (1964) 8: Pilferage, shakedowns, kickbacks, bribes, short-gangs [...] and a dozen other smart operations.
1976		R. Price Blood Brothers 195: Stony, how much kickback you get from the Greek’s today?
1987		W.T. Vollmann You Bright and Risen Angels (1988) 332: The kickback on three drinks is not going to pay her rent.
1999		Indep. Traveller 28 Aug. 1: Recommending approved priests to tourists – in return for kickbacks.
2001		(con. late 19C) C. Jeffords Shady Ladies of the Old West 🌐 Fraudulent champagne (which usually ran $1 a glass, an amount on which the girl commonly got a kickback).

(d) attrib. use of sense 2a.

1961

Mad mag. Sept. 34: A fair kickback fee is 25% of the Specialist’s regular fee.