lick, n.¹ — Green’s Dictionary of Slang

lick n.¹

[? East Anglian dial. lick-up, a miserably small pittance of any thing]

1. a slight and hasty wash, a quick tidy-up.

1780		Thomas Gray Candidate 1: When sly Jemmy Twitcher had smugg’d up his face With a lick of court white-wash, and pious grimace, A wooing he went.
1900		Boy’s Own Paper 15 Dec. 167: When the pots and pans had been given a cat’s lick.
1949		R. Park Poor Man’s Orange 41: [She] took the child from her husband’s unresisting grasp and put on her pyjamas. ‘Here, would you take her downstairs and give her a bit of a lick, Dol?’.

2. a casual amount of work.

1868		Putnam’s Mag. June I 715/1: The father [...] cultivated a little patch of corn, and did an occasional ‘lick of work’ for some well-to-do neighbor [DA].
1887		G. Devol Forty Years a Gambler 14: I looked up, a little sheepish, and said it was the last lick of work I would ever do.
1893		Big Stone Gap Post (Wise Co., VA) 13 Apr. 1/6: He ‘never done a lick o’ work ’less I had to’ in his life.
1906		H.D. Pittman Belle of Blue Grass C. 224: I’ll have to take care of the whole gang, and never get a lick of work out of one of them .
1916		‘A-No. 1’ Snare of the Road 10: ‘I ain’t done a lick of work in all my days,’ protested the able-bodied beggar.
1933		Z.N. Hurston Gilded Six-Bits (1995) 989: He say dey wouldn’t leave ’im hit a lick of work.
1948		Z.N. Hurston Seraph on the Suwanee (1995) 822: ’Course I don’t expect to get a lick of work out of you.
1986		L. Heinemann Paco’s Story (1987) 30: The all-night aid-station gofer and housecat — a job that didn’t require a lick of work.

3. (orig. US) a bit, a cursory amount.

1849		J.J. Hooper ‘The Muscadine Story’ in Chittick Ring-Tailed Roarers (1941) 253: I can’t swim a lick — how deep is it?
1857		T.H. Gladstone Englishman in Kansas 206: He was ‘took aback some, just a spot; he’d never sot eyes on such a salvagerous set of coons; he was nary lick afeared, not by a long sight’.
1902		J. Masefield ‘Fever-Chills’ in Salt-Water Ballads 17: ‘I’ve a lick of fever-chills,’ he said.
1913–14		Van Loan ‘No Business’ in Taking the Count 159: He hasn’t trained a lick.
1926		K.S. Prichard Working Bullocks 78: He can’t fight a lick.
1933		W.R. Burnett Dark Hazard (1934) 162: Val, let’s get going. I can’t do a lick of good here.
1946		Mezzrow & Wolfe Really the Blues 67: One of them had a gang of beautiful evening gowns, but couldn’t sing a lick.
1959		C. Himes Crazy Kill 22: I’m getting so old I can’t see a lick.
1970		B. Seale Seize the Time 100: He wouldn’t drink a lick.
1972		(con. 1916) G. Swarthout Tin Lizzie Troop (1978) 234: No matter that she was a head taller and had never danced a lick in her life.
1987		R. Campbell Alice in La-La Land (1999) 29: There was a young man from Wick / Who had a marvellous prick. / It was two inches long, / But if you sang it a song, / It grew to be ten in a lick.
1999		Dallas Morning News 28 Nov. 6P: One young man, carrying a guitar, is sure he’ll be a rock star. ‘But he can’t sing or play a lick,’ Mrs. Dailey says.
2000		C. Cook Robbers (2001) 179: The telephone hung on the outside wall [...] in the open, not a lick of shade.
2010		K. Barry ‘Fjord of Killary’ in New Yorker 24 Jan. 🌐 ‘[W]e went on our hands and fuckin’ knees before Brussels, to be given the lick of a fuckin’ butter voucher’.
2011		J.J. DeCeglie Drawing Dead [ebook] Word it at will amigo, it don’t matter a lick to me.
2013		T. Robinson Hard Bounce [ebook] I’ve seen more than my share of junkies [...] and felt not a lick of pity for their weaknesses.

4. a pace; usu. with comb. adj.

1847		W.T. Porter Quarter Race in Kentucky 104: He went up the opposite bank at the same lick, and disappeared .
1947		J. Maclaren-Ross Of Love And Hunger 178: Then I saw her right at the top of the road, she was doing the hell of a lick.
1989		H. Leonard Out After Dark 48: I took the corner of Rockford Avenue at a tremendous lick.

5. a portion, e.g. of liquor; a drinking bout.

1886		Daily Tel. 3 Mar. n.p.: More frequently the ‘sowker’ wound up his big lick in an attack of delirium tremens [F&H].
1916		G. Jennings Poached Eggs and Pearls (1917) 19: You take a lick, old pal. Just take a good long lick.
1968		A. Salkey Late Emancipation of Jerry Stover (1982) 42: If I don’t charge a damn’ good lick, somebody else will.
1992		in R. Graef Living Dangerously 96: [of crack] The next day [...] you want a lick.
1997		N. Barlay Curvy Lovebox 171: Eatin’ pizza. A few licks of vodka.
2001		Source Aug. 198: The string-laden ode to sticky green and licks, ‘Weed & Drinks’.

6. see licker n.² (2)

In compounds

lick boxer (n.) [play on SE kick boxer + box n.¹ (1a)]

(N.Z. prison) a lesbian.

2001

D. Looser Boobslang [U. Canterbury D.Phil. thesis] 107/2: lick boxer n. a lesbian.

In phrases

can’t hit a lick [sense 3 above]

(US black) used of an inability to succeed in a given aim, esp. that of making money either legally or otherwise.

1926		Odum & Johnson Negro Workaday Songs 181: Bait in de can, hook on de stick, Fishin’ spell done got me, I can't hit a lick.
1983		R. Klein Jailhouse Jargon and Street Sl. [unpub. ms.].
2009		J.J. Ogden Island 118: How can a young girl hope to marry if she can’t hit a lick in the kitchen?

lick of the tarbrush (n.)

see touch of the tarbrush under tarbrush n.

throw a lick (v.)

(W.I.) to give someone a drink of liquor, esp. a ‘shot’ from a bottle.

1958

cited in Cassidy & LePage Dict. Jam. Eng. (1980).

lick n.1

In compounds

In phrases

lick n.¹