Green’s Dictionary of Slang

ham.

1896

Sun (N.Y.) 28 Mar. 2/6: Ham and eggs are called for as ‘Kansas City chicken’ and ‘Adam and Eve’.

(US) bacon.

1955

Great Bend Trib. (KS) 2 July 3/2: Then there’s bacon (fried chicken, chuck wagon chicken, or Kansas City fish).

(US black/gambling) a show bankroll in which one large-denomination note is exhibited on the outside, concealing a quantity of small bills.

c.1956		J. Thompson ‘The World, Then the Fireworks’ in Fireworks (1988) 238: It was a Kansas City roll, big bills, a couple of fifties on the outside; the inside, little stuff, ones and fives and a few tens.
1965		(con. 1940s) Malcolm X Autobiog. (1968) 176: There was a big, fat pimp we called ‘Dollarbill’. He loved to flash his ‘Kansas City roll’, probably fifty one-dollar bills folded with a twenty on the inside and a one-hundred dollar bill on the outside.
1974		R.F. Slatzer Life and Curious Death of Marilyn Monroe 129: ‘How much?’ I asked, pulling out a Kansas City roll from my pocket—a five-dollar bill wrapped around a bunch of singles.
2011		Preston & Child Gideon’ Sword n.p.: Gideon extracted from his pocket a massive, sodden roll of banknotes. ‘That’s a charming Kansas City roll you got there’.

(US gay) watching men go by.

1972

B. Rodgers Queens’ Vernacular 120: Kansas City workout (dated) 1. standing on the corner watching all the boys go by 2. to inspect something closely.

(US) a Bowie knife.

1868		Brooklyn Dly Eagle (NY) 17 Nov. 4/2: The same with a knife. Horsemen, when travelling, carry it in the boot, and footmen down the neck; hence a bowie-knife is popularly known as a ‘Kansas neck-blister’.
1883		All the Year Round [as 1868].
1909		J. Ware Passing Eng. of the Victorian Era.
1936		R.F. Adams Cowboy Lingo 172: A bowie knife or a large sheath knife was called [...] a ‘Kansas neck blister’.

(US) a young woman who proves hard to seduce; she need not necessarily come from Kansas, but the implication is of small-town/rural innocence and morality.

2000–04

Amatory Ink 🌐.