Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(US) a cook.

1941		Philadelphia Enquirer (PA) 19 Oct. 102/3: Cooks, as might be expected, are called ‘hashburners’.
1944		H.B. Hersey G.I. Laughs 171: Hashburner, cook.

(Aus./N.Z./US) a cheap café or restaurant, a ‘greasy spoon’; a boarding house.

1860		N.E. Police Gaz. (Boston, MA) 18 Aug. 5/1: Tom Hastings [...] fed him [...] from the scrapings of the plates in Mose Pearson’s ‘hash factory’.
1863		Criminal Life (NY) 19 Dec. n.p.: Whiskerando Randell, of Mose Pearson’s hash factory, had better [...] take his wife out of that brothel.
1887		Bulletin (Sydney) 15 Oct. 18/2: The other day, Mr. Arthur De Vere Somerset was ‘pulled’ by the engineer of a St. Kilda (Vic.) hash-foundry to show just cause why he should not pay his board bill.
1895		Coburg Leader (Vic.) 13 July 1/6: Coolgardie Jack says it’s all rabbit and tablecloth at the hash factory. What does he expect for ten bob?
1898		W.C. Brann Brann the Iconoclast 56: His wife [...] appears to have been general manager of a miner’s hash-factory.
1900–10		Stephens & O’Brien Materials for a Dict. of Aus. Sl. [unpub. ms.] 84: HASH-FOUNDRY: humorous skit on boarding houses, which are supposed to have as their principal business the compounding of hash.
1904		G.V. Hobart Jim Hickey 35: We can't pull our freights away from here and leave the little woman and the kid alone in that Rube hash foundry.
1908		B. Fisher A. Mutt in Blackbeard Compilation (1977) 22: This eating in the hash bazaar is tough.
1908		N.Z. Truth 22 Feb. 2/4: Seal was standing outside the hash foundry when the girl arrived.
1913		Advance Advocate XXII 314: Fill up the lunch–bucket, too, because It’s a long drag to the next hash factory.
1919		A. Baer Two and Three 23 Mar. [synd. col.] If you ordered a two-bit meal in a hash garage you something on your plate beside the polish.
1919		Sun. Times (Perth) 9 Mar. 7/3: A restaurant is a hash-foundry.
1931		Amer. Mercury XXII 487: I became dishwasher in his hash factory on the six-to-six day shift.
1940		O. Strange Sudden Takes the Trail 167: What with the kid an’ the hash emporium she don’t hardly have time to say ‘Howdy’.
1966		G.S. Schuyler Black and Conservative 109: It helped to enliven the frenzied pace of the hash factory where we dishwashers [...] toiled for $22.50 a week, with all we could eat.

(US) a fork.

1910		in F.J. Wilstach Sl. Dict. Stage (1924) 46: Pull in your ‘hash-hook’ and ask for what ‘eats’ you desire.
1945		F.H. Hubbard Railroad Avenue 345: Railroad eating house [...] fork is hook.

see hash-house n.

(US) anyone notably keen on their food, a glutton.

1915

T.A. Dorgan in Zwilling TAD Lex. (1993) 43: Dance Sunday night Crowley’s Hash Hounds.

see separate entry.

(US) a knifing, a razoring.

1959

W. Brown Teen-Age Mafia 117: She’d had a hash job done on her [...] The whole side of her face was a mass of red-ridged scars.

see hash-house n.

(Aus.) working as a waiter/waitress.

1900–10

Stephens & O’Brien Materials for a Dict. of Aus. Sl. [unpub. ms.].

a boarding-house landlady.

1889

Music Hall & Theatre Rev. 23 Mar. 86/2: He would have to hasten to be in time for breakfast at his hash-lady’s.

(US) a restaurant owner.

1876		Butte (MT) Miner 8 June 1/3: I was bound to make a scratch, being down to my seams, as it were, with the hashman and the landlady.
1906		Sun. Times (Perth) 15 Apr. 1/1: The food supplied by some Dago hashmen should be condemned.

see separate entry.

(US) the mouth.

1880		Nat. Police Gaz. (NY) 13 Nov. 4/1: big hash traps / [...] /The Latest Fashion in Mouths.
1950		Goldin et al. DAUL 91/2: Hash trap. The mouth.
1996		(con. 1949) G. Pelecanos Big Blowdown (1999) 211: I don’t have time to stand here listenin’ to you run your hash-trap all night.

(US) a phr. meaning something makes no impression or is of no importance.

1905

Wash. Post 15 Jan. 4/3: The young man of tender years [...] has a vocabulary which would put Webster to shame [...] Affairs which do not interest him ‘cut no ice’ or ‘chop no hash.’.

to beat comprehensively.

1931		R.E. Howard ‘Texas Fists’ Fight Stories May 🌐 Ride over and tell ’em we got a man as can make hash outa their longhorn.
1965		D.G. Moorer Log of a 20th Century Cowboy 17: Keough was an old cavalry post in the days when our troops were trying to make hash out of the Sioux and other plains tribes.
1998		C. Coulter Maze 268: Come on, Savich, do you think Big John will make hash out of Sherlock?

1. (also cook the hash, fix the/someone’s..., settle the hashie, ...someone’s gruel, ...hash) to deal with someone who has wronged you, to take revenge.

1803		I. Cruikshank Olympic Games 16 June [caption] I think the first round will settle his hash [OED].
1809		T.G. Fessenden Pills Poetical 114: We therefore mean to make a dash, / To settle fighting Europe’s hash [OED].
1815		‘The Ghost of a Scrag of Mutton’ in Vocal Mag. 1 June 196: So don’t be in a stew, for I’ll settle the hash / Of this Ghost of a grim Scrag of Mutton.
1829		Life and Death of Robert Kirkwood 35: She took a bottle and cut for a gill and a bottle o’ beer, and settled the hashie.
1836		A. Thornton Don Juan in London II 221: He planted a misty caster under the right listener of his man, which [...] settled his hash.
1837		Marryat Snarleyyow II 37: That dog I’ll settle the hash of some way or the other, if it be the devil’s own cousin.
1842		S. Lover Handy Andy 15: I’ll settle your hash!
1845		Bell’s Life in Sydney 6 Sept. 4/2: ‘Sambo, of woolly nob,’ said he, ‘be pleased to stow your chaff, / I know whoever wins to-day may claim a right to laugh; / Once, as all present are aware, I prov’d your dingy mottle, / And, unless reason good there tis, to-day your hash I’ll settle’.
1847		Bell’s Life in Sydney 13 Feb. 2/2: Placing a rum ’un in the vicinity of the jugular, which completely cooked his hash.
1856		C. Reade It Is Never Too Late to Mend III 148: ‘Kick his life out!’ ‘Settle his hash!’.
1867		‘Johnny Cross’ ‘Jolly Sam Johnson’ in Orig. Pontoon Songster 15: With a fish-ball revolver, I settled his gruel.
1869		J.R. Browne Adventures in Apache Country 422: Here’s a dog that’ll settle his hash!
1879		G.R. Sims Dagonet Ballads 76: He reads out aloud, and I hears him a-talkin’ the awfullest trash / About earls as goes mad in their castles, and females what settles their hash.
1885		Bulletin (Sydney) 31 Jan. 7/3: Mr. Pel’s stay on this sublunary sphere is apt to be rather limited, as he in now awaiting his trial for cooking the hash of his female cook, with whom he was on a sort of a huggin acquaintance, at Montreuil, near Paris.
1887		G. Devol Forty Years a Gambler 181: That game settled our hash, for he proved to be one of the directors of the road.
1893		‘Oliver Optic’ Fighting Joe (1911) 102: That’s the way a Texican settles yer hash!
1895		C. Crowe Aus. Sl. Dict. 33: Goose, to kill, as‘cook his goose,’‘settle his hash,’‘give him his gruel’.
1900		Marvel XIV: Oct. 12: I’ll give that rogue something that will settle his hash.
1907		Truth (Wellington) 16 Feb. 7/5: I’ll soon fix their hash for them.
1910		‘Doss Chiderdoss’ ‘Gifted’ Sporting Times 9 July 1/4: His ‘fork and knife’ soon settled William’s hash.
1922		‘Sapper’ Black Gang 363: That has settled the hash of one Hugh Drummond.
1938		N. Lindsay Age Of Consent 157: Well, it’s settled his hash too.
1943		‘Myles na gCopaleen’ Faustus Kelly in ‘Flann O’Brien’ Stories & Plays (1973) 194: I have fixed the hash of that customer gone out, who ever the hell he is.
1952		W.R. Burnett Little Men, Big World 139: If you have any trouble with him, call me. I’ll settle his hash.
1955		B. Hill Boss of Britain’s Underworld 134: I was ddtermined that I would get the first shot in, if only to settle his hash and permit our escape [Ibid.] 135: I swung him a right-hander [...] straight to his chin. That settled his hash.
1964		N.B. Harvey Any Old Dollars, Mister? 74: If he starts throwing his weight around punch him on the nose – that’ll fix his hash.
1977		L. Heinemann Close Quarters (1987) 159: That settles his fucken hash.
1989		H. Leonard Out After Dark 113: Having settled my hash, he bathed the others in the soup-kitchen glow of his affection.
1993		S. King Dolores Claiborne 34: When I get ready to settle your hash, I won’t bother makin it look like an accident.
2002		J. Cameron Hell on Hoe Street 137: I want you to shoot him [...] Settle his hash.
2024		J. Meades Empty Wigs (t/s) 136: He knew his hash was settled.

2. to deal with a situation.

1807		Mass. Spy 14 Oct. 4/1: This settles all the hash.
1821–6		‘Bill Truck’ Man o’ War’s Man (1843) 109: Two brave fellows, determined to settle the hash once and for all.
1844		‘Jonathan Slick’ High Life in N.Y. II 8: I may as well own up, and settle the hash.
1865		Leaves from Diary of Celebrated Burglar 23/2: Blows were exchanged, and a general scratch-and-tare fight ensued, in the middle of which a company of gendarmes appeared and settled the hash by taking about thirty or forty to the guardhouse.

3. (also settle one’s hash) to resolve one’s difficulties.

1835		W. Otter Hist. of My Own Times (1995) 91: I consented finally to settle the hash, [...] upon which we made good friends.
1889		C. Deveureux Venus in India I 87: By God! sir! the sight of such lovely charms settled my hash.
1943		R. Llewellyn None But the Lonely Heart 96: Two sirloins and chips, and two halfs’ll just about settle our hash.
1958		A. Sillitoe Saturday Night and Sunday Morning 114: They think they’ve settled our hashes with their insurance cards and television sets.
2005		J. Stahl I, Fatty 61: Maybe a nip [of rum] would settle my hash.

(US) to dine, esp. in fig. phr. wrestle one’s hash in hell, to suffer, to face punishment .

1871		J. Hay ‘Banty Tim’ in Pike County Ballads 24: He’ll wrastle his hash to-night in hell.
1893		Harper’s Mag. 87 July 307/2: To wrestle one’s hash is not an elegant expression, one must admit, and it is not likely to be adopted into the literary language; but it is forcible at least, and not stupid.
1916		V.P. Mooney Hist. Butler Country Kansas 254: If any of them had an ambition to ‘wrestle his hash in hell,’ let them interfere with him.