Green’s Dictionary of Slang

fragments of a pie that fall from the larger piece or slice when it is being cut up; plates of such fragments were sold at a halfpenny a plate in cookshops.

1909

J. Ware Passing Eng. of the Victorian Era.

(orig. US) to collapse in laughter.

1946		Mezzrow & Wolfe Really the Blues 98: They all fell about at this funny gag.
1958		J. Osborne Epitaph for George Dillon Act II: Can’t say I’ve heard you falling about with mirth since you came here.
1971		J. Mandelkau Buttons 89: She [...] ended up on her butt in the middle of the highway with us falling hysterically about.
1983		(con. 1940s) D. Nobbs Second From Last in the Sack Race 144: ‘Cricketer,’ said Webster, and everybody fell about.
1996		J. Cameron It Was An Accident 154: They all fell about. Only Jane fell about noisily, other two kept their smirking a bit quieter.
2000		Indep. on Sun. Rev. 19 Mar. 62: We all fell about laughing.

to make extreme, if chaotic, efforts to achieve what one or another wants.

1896

W.C. Gore Student Sl. in Cohen (1997) 13: fall all over one’s self To get confused.

to collapse emotionally, to lose control of one’s feelings.

1938		Pic (N.Y.) Mar. 8: beat to the socks. — all fogged out. Prima’s band falls apart between sessions.
1939		H. Miller Tropic of Capricorn (1964) 187: The smell of linoleum, for some reason, will always make me fall apart and collapse on the floor.
1953		J. Thompson Alcoholics (1993) 26: If I don’t get a drink fast I’m going to fall apart.
1953		T. Runyon In For Life 186: Some of them seemed to be coming apart from sheer outrage.
1962		S. Longstreet Flesh Peddlers (1964) 265: He’s fallen apart since his wife walked out on him.
1969		‘Iceberg Slim’ Pimp 98: I did tough bits, but I didn’t fall apart.
1976		R. Price Blood Brothers 116: When she showed us how to wipe the dummy’s ass MacDonald totally fell apart.
1987		T. Wolfe Bonfire of the Vanities 362: I see the guy starting to come apart.
1995		C. Hiaasen Stormy Weather 104: He slowly began to come apart.
1998		D. Hecht Skull Session 491: He fell to pieces in my hands, Paulie, he came apart.
1999		Indep. Information 21–27 Aug. 47: He can no longer take the unrelenting pressure of his job. ‘This is all I do, day after day, just to stop the whole thing falling apart,’ he shouts with increasing desperation.
2000		G. Pelecanos Shame the Devil 39: When Jimmy was killed, he pretty much fell apart.
2001		C. Stella Eddie’s World 143: Tommy is coming apart at the thought of doing time.

(US) to run off.

1812

‘Hector Bull-us’ Diverting Hist. of John Bull and Brother Jonathan 45: It was found necessary to fall back – a cant phrase of John Bull, who is famous for cant and slang – and which means running away as fast as legs can carry you.

1. (US) to fail, to blunder, to ‘come to grief’.

1873		J.H. Beadle Undeveloped West 704: We’ll reach Sioux City by 5 o’clock, if we don’t fall down.
1899–1900		C.L. Cullen Tales of the Ex-Tanks 122: I fell down pretty hard this afternoon on that Gotham thing.
1907		J. London Road 178: It was our turn to fall down, and we did, hard.
1920		F. Packard White Moll 183: You’re too old a bird to fall down, Nan.
1935		(con. 1920s) J.T. Farrell Judgement Day in Studs Lonigan (1936) 560: I never fell down on a job for Paddy Lonigan yet.
1947		‘Big Buffer’ ‘Boomerang’ in Eve. News (Trinidad) 19 Oct. in Selvon (1989) 83: Solly is really falling down on the job these days.
1953		J. Thompson Savage Night (1991) 50: If I fell down [...] I’d never live to fumble another one [i.e. a criminal ‘job’].
2000		C. Cook Robbers (2001) 137: Bathroom right in the kitchen, some kind of planning [...] Another thing Ruby fell down on.

2. (US gang/black) to attack.

1969

(ref. to 1950s) in R.L. Keiser Vice Lords 4: Now see, by him being tight with us, when the Cobras or the Imperials fall down on us, they going to fall down on him too.

3. (US) to experience, to enjoy.

1959

H. Ellison ‘No Game for Children’ in Gentleman Junkie (1961) 78: Hey, man, you wanna fall down on some laughs?

4. (US prison) to be stabbed.

1985

Southern Illinoisan (Carbondale, IL) 7 Apr. 4/1: Prison Slang [...] Fall down: Get stabbed.

(US) to get a haircut.

1950

WELS [DARE].

see separate entry.

(Aus.) to suffer, to encounter problems.

1908

Sun. Times (Perth) 29 Nov. 4/7: I’ve got me big punters an’ I ain’t goin’ ter see ’em fall in.

see under furrow n.

see under shit n.

see under thick n.

see separate entries .

see fall out v. (1)

1. (US campus) to be amazed.

1896

W.C. Gore Student Sl. in Cohen (1997) 13: fall off the Christmas tree To be very much surprised.

2. (also come down off the Christmas tree) to be stupid, to be foolish; usu. in neg. phrs., such as I didn’t fall off the Christmas tree, I’m not stupid, don’t take me for a fool.

1984		Partridge DSUE (8th edn) 588: since mid-1940s.
1996		J. Cameron It Was An Accident 173: You reckon I came down off the fuckin’ Christmas tree?

see under roof n.

1. to drink heavily, usu. in the context of resuming drinking after a period of abstinence.

1899		W.J. Kountz Billy Baxter’s Letters 15: The minute I got into that suit, I fell off the water wagon with an awful bump, although I hadn’t touched a drink for thirty-seven days.
1906		Salt Lake City (UT) 30 Mar. 4/5: He fell off the water cart .
1908		N.Y. Globe 20 May in Fleming Unforgettable Season (1981) 71: Mike Donlin had fallen off the water wagon with a dull thud.
1920		R. Lardner Big Town 188: I seen Mercer and you wouldn’t of never knew he’d fell off the wagon.
1923		Western Morn. News 25 May 5/5: Prohibition [...] America might all off the water wagon, but that did not mean that she would not get on it again.
1939		H. Miller Tropic of Capricorn (1964) 146: Uncle Ned, who was continually going on the water-waggon and continually falling off it again.
1942		R.L. Bellem ‘Color of Murder’ Dan Turner – Hollywood Detective Dec. 🌐 You paid her a stack of cabbage to make him fall off the wagon.
c.1943		‘Bill O. Lading’ You Chirped a Chinful!! n.p.: Flown the Pole: Off the water wagon. To start drinking again.
1953		A.J. Liebling Honest Rainmaker (1991) 62: Bartenders [...] say they never take a drink. But sooner or later [...] they fall off the wagon.
1979		B. Gutcheon New Girls (1982) 267: The mother’d been in AA for years, but she fell off the wagon and had to be locked up.
1989		A. Higgins ‘The Bird I Fancied’ in Helsingør Station and Other Departures 157: They fell off the wagon with a hell of a crash.
1992		B. Gifford Night People 159: Wes [...] immediately thereafter fell off the wagon on which he had been a brief passenger.
2000		G. Pelecanos Shame the Devil 245: The writers would send the main character into a bar so that he could fall off the wagon again for an episode or so.
2010		K. Richards Life 372: Perhaps that’s why he’s always falling off the wagon. He doesn’t like being dry.

2. in ext. use, to abandon any good resolution.

1905

‘Hugh McHugh’ Get Next 14: I’m going to fall off the sense wagon and break a five dollar bill.

3. to resume drug taking, after a period of abstinence [as sense 1 in context of drug addiction].

2010

K. Richards Life 394: He told them that his client had fallen off the wagon, had a medical problem.

see under leaf n.

see separate entries .

see bend over backwards under bend v.¹

to go out of one’s way to do something (usu. altruistic).

1900		Bulletin (Sydney) 22 Dec. 11/4: And then Fortune frowns, and the wide-awake landlady produces the letters, and – the man’s counsel falls over himself in his rush to accept a nonsuit.
1904		Brooklyn Standard Union 2 Aug. 6: The bonafide independent element is not falling over itself to come to Parker’s assistance [DA].
1914		Bulletin (Sydney) 26 Nov. 44/1: I knew what cruelled me. I didn’t look a bloke what used fifty quids for mornin’ beers; but if I had a new suit on an’ a cigar stuck in me face they’d bin fallin’ over themselves ter serve me.
1917		‘A-No. 1’ From Coast to Coast with Jack London 112: Folks fairly fell over each other to pay homage to Buffalo Bill.
1921		R.D. Paine Comrades of the Rolling Ocean 130: The thirsty outlaws fall over themselves to hand you ten or twelve dollars a quart for it [DA].
1934		S.N. Behrman Three Plays 157: They fall all over themselves to buy the stock. You can’t print the paper fast enough.
1989		T. Blacker Fixx 131: The new generation of City spivs fell over themselves [...] to overpay.

see under asshole n.

1. (US Und.) to notice.

1904

Number 1500 Life In Sing Sing 260: The gun had just lifted his mitt when the conny fell to the graft and tipped the sucker to the lay.

2. see fall for v. (2)

to go into labour, to give birth.

1652		Laughing Mercury 8-16 Sept. 184: She [...] being stung very happily in a place that nothing endangered her life; some are of the judgement that she is poysoned; others that the sweling may go down again in a little time [...] Such Monsters dreadless Women fight withal, / But being stung, they soon to pieces fall.
1896		Mirror of Life 29 Aug. 7/3: [A] young lady [...] fell to pieces recently in this Kentish village [...] to the astonishment of all parties concerned the lady was delivered of a little copper-coloured bantling with a woolly head.
1900–10		Stephens & O’Brien Materials for a Dict. of Aus. Sl. [unpub. ms.] 75: FELL TO PIECES: vulgar slang meaning that the woman alluded to has undergone confinement in childbed.
1935		Thieves Slang ms list from District Police Training Centre, Ryton-on-Dunsmore, Warwicks 4: Fall to pieces: Give birth.
1941		Baker Popular Dict. Aus. Sl. 28: Fall to pieces, [...] to undergo confinement, to give birth to a child.
1980		Maledicta IV:2 (Winter) 197: If, though, she should be afraid of getting clucky and falling to pieces, she may be satisfied with French kissing.

(US) a dismissive excl.

1893

S. Crane Maggie, a Girl of the Streets (2001) 41: ‘Oh, hell,’ said Pete, easily. ‘Go fall on yerself.’.