Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. tears.

1848		Thackeray Vanity Fair I 187: The water-works again began to play.
1857		T. Hughes Tom Brown’s School-Days (1896) 237: Sneaking little brute [...] clapping on the water-works just in the hardest place.
1873		Dundee Courier 14 July 3/4: Can you bring the dead back to life even if you [...] contracted with the Chelsea waterworks for an unintermitting supply of tears.
1883		J. Greenwood Tag, Rag & Co. 93: She’s had the waterworks going all day.
1907		W.M. Raine Bucky O’Connor (1910) 49: Cut out the water works, kid.
1912		A. Brazil Fourth Form Friendship 23: ‘Do turn off the water-works, there’s a good girl’.
1916		G. Squiers Aerbut Paerks, of Baernegum 11: Then Gaertie’s old woman started the waterwaerks.
1926		Maines & Grant Wise-crack Dict. 14/1: Shut off the waterworks – Cease weeping.
1943		R. Llewellyn None But the Lonely Heart 226: Here come the waterworks again.
1959		M. Richler Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz (1964) 178: Will you stop the water-works, please?
1963–74		B. Humphries Barry McKenzie [comic strip] in Complete Barry McKenzie (1988) 96: I reckon I’d croak it too if my missus got the waterworks every time she thought about my measurements.
1972		P. Fordham Inside the Und. 169: That starts the waterworks off again.
1989		R.E. Tangney Other Days Around Me 188: It was easy to pick out the hardened travellers from the first-timers; the smiling groups contrasted strongly with those that were providing the water-works.
1998		I. Welsh Filth 328: Sorry Shirley, we say, rising, as she starts the waterworks.
2000		P. Howard Miseducation of Ross O’Carroll-Kelly (2004) 135: That starts her off, the old waterworks.
2011		J.J. DeCeglie Drawing Dead [ebook] She really turned it on then. Waterworks, sobs, gnashing of teeth, the whole third act.
2012		T. Robinson ‘Angelo Death’ in Dirty Words [ebook] [S]he started crying [...] It humiliated Joe [...] to be so weak as to not even be able to tell her to shut the waterworks off.
2012		R. Milward Kimberly’s Capital Punishment (2023) 417: [B]racing myself for Sean’s waterworks.
2021		S.A. Crosby Razorblade Tears 16: That pregnant pause was the prelude to the waterworks.

2. attrib. use of sense 1.

1867		‘Artemus Ward’ Artemus Ward in London in Complete Works (1922) 475: Sometimes the editor does the ‘vater vorks business,’ as Mr. Samuel Weller called weeping, and makes pathetic appeals to his subscribers.
1886		M.E. Kennard Girl in the Brown Habit II 13: Now don’t howl and cry your eyes out. The water-work business only annoys me.

3. the urinary organs; also attrib.

1732-1820		Order of the Beggar's Benison and Merryland (1892) 68: ’Tis month the first, when pipes do burst, / We often find precarious, / And danger lurks in waterworks’.
1857		Venus’ Miscellany (NY) 23 May n.p.: A pool of water, suggesting an overflow of private waterworks.
1870		Cythera’s Hymnal [as 1732].
1890–1904		Farmer & Henley Sl. and Its Analogues.
1902		F.W. Maitland letter 6 July in Letters (1965) 249: I gather from Albutt that the immediate cause of death was, as A. put it, ‘in the water works’ [OED].
1922		Joyce Ulysses 345: Cissy said thanks and came back with her tongue and said uncle said his waterworks were out of order.
1939		‘Flann O’Brien’ At Swim-Two-Birds 202: If you try that game I’ll take you [...] by the scruff of the bloody neck and give you a kick in the waterworks!
[1942		P. Jordan ‘I’m in the Army Now’ in People’s Voice (NY) 9 May 31/2: [Y]ou pass to the urinalysis where your water supply comes in handy].
1967		J. Orton Diaries (1986) 6 Apr. 132: I really didn’t come here to discuss your water-works.
1975		(con. 1900s) G. Swarthout Shootist 18: I have trouble with my waterworks. It hurts to piddle.
1980		Maledicta IV:2 (Winter) 182: We have recognised the effects of the flow of this letchwater by referring to the lady’s water-box, [...], -engine, -works or -mill.
1982		P. Barker Union Street 256: ‘I suppose she can manage the toilet all right?’ He looked at Mrs Bell for the first time and yelled, ‘How are your waterworks, dear?’.
1999		Indep. Rev. 19 June 17: Lemon Barley Water can be recommended for [...] waterworks complaints.
2005		P. Howard Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nightdress 135: Oh, she’s a martyr to her waterworks is Mrs Mulligan.

4. the vagina.

1785		Covent Garden Jester (2nd edn) 7: A pretty young woman being at Vauxhall to see the fire-works [...] and complaining of her shortness, a young man offered her to stand on his shoulders. Then, says she, you cannot see the fire-works. True, said he, but I shall see the water-works, which will please me much better.
1910		in Randolph & Legman Ozark Folksongs and Folklore (1992) I 579: It’s when I meet a pretty girl, you bet I will (or) try, / To slip it up her water-works, root, hog or die.

5. one who weeps, a ‘crybaby’.

2005

Salon.com 7 Nov. 🌐 She [Jennifer Aniston] also takes time to point out she’s not the waterworks she has been made out to be since her marriage went sour. ‘I’m pegged as a crier, aren’t I? I was upset about the Vanity Fair article. [...] It happened for a second and then it was over.’.