Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (UK Und.; post-WWII chiefly US black) a dwelling house, an apartment.

c.1597		Shakespeare Henry IV Pt 2 III i: Why, rather, sleep, liest thou in smoky cribs, Upon uneasy pallets.
1772		Bridges Burlesque Homer (3rd edn) 14: I’ll rummage all your cribs of whores.
1817		A.N. Royall Letters from Alabama 22 Dec. 109: There is my crib, and there is my smoke house; use them as your own.
1821		J. Burrowes Life in St George’s Fields 20: Two men and a woman [...] hailed them to enquire if they were going to the crib.
1826		Sydney Gaz. 19 July 3/2: Having proceeded to a neighbouring public-house to regale herself with a strong potation of an elevating tendency, she retired to her ‘crib’ at the dead hour of midnight.
1838		‘Paul Pry’ Oddities of London Life 11: I’ll go into this here good gemman’s crib and ax him for a ‘box’.
1841		‘Joe Buggins’ in Gentleman’s Spicey Songster 37: But if you call at my crib tomorrow, my wife is at your service quite.
1850		Fast Man 14:1 n.p.: ‘What a cold, miserable crib,’ said Sam, as soon as he entered the room, ‘"why it's enough to give a fellow the horrors’.
1863		T. Taylor Ticket-Of-Leave Man Act IV: You’ve the tools ready to jump that crib in St. Nicholas Lane?
1874		J. Greenwood Wilds of London (1881) 110: I’ll have a spell in the day time when I’ve got the crib to myself.
1882		Dundee Courier (Scot.) 13 Oct. 6/6: You’ll take me to your crib, won’t you? There was no help for it.
1888		‘Rolf Boldrewood’ Robbery Under Arms (1922) 256: We know your mob’s got some crib up in the mountains that no one knows about.
1891		F.W. Carew Autobiog. of a Gipsey 415: A sportin’, flashy sort ’er gent [...] ’ad a snug little crib, ’bout four mile out’er town.
1895		Crowe Aus. Sl. Dict. 20: Crib, [...] a house.
1904		Wodehouse Gold Bat [ebook] ‘Rummy old crib, this’.
1906		E. Dyson Fact’ry ’Ands 180: Er man learns er bit ’nout women in er crib like this.
1913		H. Lawson ‘Benno and his Old ’Uns’ in Roderick (1972) 804: The Old ’Uns’ crib never seems to be troubled with heat or dust on the hottest and dustiest days.
1924		C.J. Dennis ‘Crusaders’ in Chisholm (1951) 83: But we sail past the Chow without a stop, / Straight for the little crib up near the top.
1934		D.L. Sayers Nine Tailors (1984) 244: He wrote me a letter [...] Sent it to the old crib, and it was forwarded on.
1957		H. Simmons Corner Boy 86: It was a crazy crib costing sixty-five a month.
1961		J.A. Williams Night Song (1962) 180: You’d better run over to my crib and stay there till I come.
1977		(con. 1960s) D. Goines Black Gangster (1991) 167: I’ll stop by the crib today.
1980		E. Folb Runnin’ Down Some Lines 40: You be knowin’ them, but you never invite them over the crib.
1993		R. Shell Iced 126: They’d stop by my crib, evenings after work.
2004		J. Ellroy ‘Hollywood Fuck Pad’ in Destination: Morgue! (2004) 222: I want a Bel Air crib owned by some hebe in the movie biz.
2010		A. Steinberg Running the Books 79: It was a night that started at that Jamaican joint and ended at his crib.
2014		Sydney Morn. Herald 17 May 🌐 Ashton Kutcher and Mila Kunis have purchased a new crib.
2016		V. McDermid Out of Bounds (2017) 320: ‘I don’t care if you’ve got smuggled fags or dodgy vodka in your crib’.
2019		D. Winslow Border [ebook] They’re in one of Darnell’s cribs in Harlem. Sugar Hill.
2023		(con. 1962) J. Ellroy Enchanters 29: It’s some boss crib. As in sixteen rooms.

2. (UK Und.) a thieves’ hideout.

1809		J. Mackcoull Abuses of Justice 30: Damn your eyes, you bloody thief [...] I will frisk you and your crib.
1848		‘Ned Buntline’ Mysteries & Miseries of NY 12: ‘I’m agoin’ to the crib; see if you can't pick up some cove as wants to see the elephant’.
c.1850		G. Thompson Anna Mowbray 9: John Carr (the cripple) [...] requested to be conveyed to Boy Jack’s crib, (the name of a thieves’ den,) where he soon drank himself insensible.
1860		N.E. Police Gaz. (Boston, MA) 18 Aug. 6/3: We will meet him [...] at the crib in Thomas street, in the basement.
1865		H. Kingsley Hillyars and Burtons (1870) 226: Keeping a cove hanging about a crib as has been blow’d on.
1877		Five Years’ Penal Servitude 245: Well, we started next day, after shutting up the crib where we hung out.
1884		Dundee Courier (Scot.) 12 Feb. 7/6: The most notorious of these ‘cribs’ are in Flower and Dean Street, Southwark, and in Baldwin’s Gardens, Shoreditch.
1907		D. Stewart Shadows of the Night in Illus. Police News 15 June 12/3: ‘Any of the family (thieves) at the old crib?’.

3. a bed.

1817		W. Scott Rob Roy (1883) 315: Cribs there were of different dimensions beside the walls, formed, some of fractured boards, some of shattered wicker-work or plaited boughs, in which slumbered the family of the house.
1829		‘Pickpocket’s Chaunt’ (translation of ‘En roulant de vergne en vergne’) in Vidocq 1829) IV 260: You may have a crib to stow in [...] Welcome, my pal, as the flowers of May.
1833		‘Poll Of Drury’ in Lummy Chaunter 60: The old bawd soon gave her consent, / And to a crib we quickly went.
1861		(con. 1840s–50s) H. Mayhew London Labour and London Poor (1968) II 375/2: I have a crib in a corner of mother’s room.
1911		S. Smith ‘Buck Nix’ [comic strip] Buck [...] prepared to tuck himself in his little crib.
1915		F. Garrett diary 18 May 🌐 Chalmers and I have been lucky enough to secure a very decent crib.
1944		in ‘Jiver’s Bible’ in D. Burley Orig. Hbk of Harlem Jive.
1968		‘Hy Lit’ Hy Lit’s Unbelievable Dict. of Hip Words 10: crib – Bed.
1989		M. Amis London Fields 45: The thinner bird often made it up to you in the crib.
1991		(con. 1920s) O.D. Brooks Legs 99: The guy in the next crib, a loud teeth gnasher, woke me up.
2001		Source Aug. 68: Wait for the video to come out on this one, get a shorty, and watch it at the crib.

4. a burial ground.

1811

in J.B. Bailey Diary of a Resurrectionist (1896) 139: At night went out and got 3, Jack & me Hospital Crib,* Benjn, Danl & Bill to Harpers. [*Slang for burial-ground].

5. a tavern, inn, public house, all prob. down-market.

1827		London Eve. Standard 6 Sept. 1/2: A gang of thieves assemble to plunder the struggling crowd. As soon as the press is over, they return to their ‘smoking crib,’ [...] and enjoy themselves.
c.1828		‘A Fancy Elegy on the death of Jack Randall’ in C. Hindley James Catnach (1878) 178: The Hole-in-the-Wall was once his stall, / His crib the Fancy name it.
1840		Era (London) 18 Oct. 5/4: The Deaf-un and me was having a drain at the Magpie and Stump in Newgate-street. Your worship knows the crib, p’rhaps.
1847		Bell’s Life in Sydney 20 Mar. 2/6: The locality of the aforesaid crib presented the usual scene of bustle and excitement [...] and the roudy [sic] landlord was as busy as we could wish.
1848		G.W.M. Reynolds Mysteries of London II (2nd series) 391: There’s a crib here where they sell capital ale.
c.1850		(ref. to 1820s) Peeping Tom (London) 33 130/1: The great charm of Bestall’s was that it combined all sorts of blackguard life in one establishment and under one roof.
1851		Manchester Spy (NH) 17 May n.p.: Look at the cribs and dens where these young men were beaten [...] and ask who they belong to.
1858		Bell’s Life in Sydney 17 July 3/2: I used to refresh his memory by ‘chi-hoicking’ him whenever he passed my crib.

6. a brothel (usu. small and cheap) or ‘low’ saloon; also attrib.; thus crib-girl, a prostitute.

1821		Egan Life in London (1869) 322: There was no doubt they voud stand a drap of summat to make them all cumfurable, and likewise prove good customers of the crib.
1837–8		‘Lamentation Of The Bawds Of London’ in Cuckold’s Nest 16: No cribs like ‘the key’ are now to be seen, sirs, / Where a swell took his mot, and to snooze there, I ween, sirs.
1843		Satirist & Sporting Chron. (Sydney) 25 Mar. 2/1: His sister, Mother Samuels, is well known to have more girls lag’d out of her crib than any baud in Shoemaker’s Row.
1845		Subterranean 13 Sept. 3/1: [A drunkard] had been propelling to such an extent that he was incapable of leaving the crib where he got pulverized.
1853		N.Y. Daily Trib. 18 Sept. 5/6: God help any man who attempts to enter the above ‘crib’ alone, to deposit his ballot without their sanction.
1859		Wkly Varieties (Boston, MA) 3 Sept. 7/3: Liza Haycraft, the ‘Queen of St. Louis,’ has built a splendid palace on Green street [...] The women are far the prettiest women ever exhibited in any ‘crib’ in the city.
1868		J.D. McCabe Secrets of the Great City 312: This saloon is one of the most notorious assignation houses in New York. [...] So, let us leave the murky atmosphere of the ‘crib,’ and once more breathe the pure air of heaven.
1871		Galaxy (N.Y.) Mar. 196: One of them went to the house with the story of a conversation he had overheard in a ‘crib,’ during which ‘Stutter Jack,’ ‘Glimmer George,’ and sundry others with similar improbable names, had arranged the preliminaries for ‘cracking’ the house on a night then some time in the future.
1882		Sydney Sl. Dict. (2 edn) 3: Crib - House of ill repute.
1890		Dead Bird (Sydney) 25 Jan. 5/2: Last week a crib in Sussex-street was raided, and some startling discoveries made. The place was occupied by Chinese as a sort of lodging-house, and [...] there was very little to show its real character.
1904		Sydney Sportsman (Surry Hills, NSW) 12 Oct. 8/6: Painted on the wall of a Woolloomooloo ‘crib’ is the sign: ‘Second-hand goods on hire. Inspection invited’.
1906		A.H. Lewis Confessions of a Detective 206: You in nothing for the job but four or five bottles of vinegar [...] because [they] [...] won’t stay to turn out the crib.
1909		J. Washburn Und. Sewer 654: The girls who occupy the crib are always under the influence of a lover, who fleeces them of all money above their bare living expenses.
1912		D. Runyon ‘Ballad of Big George’ 16 May [synd. col.]You know, George has a line o’ cribs an’ twenty gals or more.
1926		J. Black You Can’t Win (2000) 163: I’ll make the cribs myself. I’m dynamite with them old brums in the cribs.
c.1930		(ref. to late 19C) N. Kimball Amer. Madam (1981) 21: I ran at first a fine twenty-dollar luxury house with clean pretty whores. Prices went down from there till you got to the fifteen-cent, two-bit nigrah cribs.
1935		Thieves Slang ms list from District Police Training Centre, Ryton-on-Dunsmore, Warwicks n.p.: Crib: Brothel.
1940		J.H. O’Hara Pal Joey 22: I am singing for coffee and cakes at a crib on Cottage Grove Ave.
1956		N. Algren Walk on the Wild Side 178: The girls in the crib doors plucked at their blouses to peel them off their breasts.
1966		Trimble 5000 Adult Sex Words and Phrases.
1972		R.A. Wilson Playboy’s Book of Forbidden Words.
1986		S. King It (1987) 868: One old campaigner [...] told me of taking a slat-thin prostitute in a crib on Baker Street.
1992		Randolph & Legman Ozark Folksongs and Folklore II 716: Low-level prostitutes in working-class ‘cribs’ [...] may service sexually as many as fifty men in one working day.
2001		(con. late 19C) C. Jeffords Shady Ladies of the Old West 🌐 The euphemisms for prostitution were many [...] ‘crib/parlor-house girls’, ‘Cyprians’, ‘nymphs of the pave’ [etc.].
2010		J. Ellroy Hilliker Curse 15: I tailed her to a crib on Arizona.

7. a shop.

1829		Reading Mercury 6 Apr. 4/5: Having renewed the lease of my little crib, and at great expense enlarged my shop.
1840		Flash Mirror 18: R. Simpkins [...] has just open’d a cribb in the Hosiery game.
1840		Courier (Hobart, Tas.) 27 Oct. 3/1: [from UK source] [N]ow safe landed at my little crib, I can turn out Summer Toggery or all descriptions.
1857		advert in ‘Ducange Anglicus’ Vulgar Tongue (1857) 45: Having some ready in his kick – [he] grabbed the chance – stepped home with the swag – and is now safely landed at his crib [i.e. shop].

8. the vagina.

1833

‘A Game at All Fours’ in Convivialist in Spedding & Watt (eds) Bawdy Songbooks (2011) IV 21: But when at night, if I play with my Rib, / If she has six in her hand, she wants nine in her crib .

9. (UK/US Und.) a prison cell, a prison.

1831		Satirist (London) 29 May 58/2: ‘When I get’s out of the crib I’ll sarve you out’.
1834		York Herald 3 May 4/3: Damn my eyes (said Taylor) if I leave this blasted crib [...] You are governor, but I’ll fix you.
1842		Boston Satirist (MA) 21 Oct. n.p.: In the precincts of the prison, / In his cold crib Colin lies.
1855		Broadway Belle (N.Y.) 29 Oct. 1/3–4: The crib is ruled by mokes and Micks. My health is rummy.
1906		New Boys’ World 29 Dec. 100: I’d get out of a crib like this with my eyes shut.
1929		Clarence ‘Pine Top’ Smith ‘Big Boy, They Can’t Do That’ 🎵 Now, they entered me into that crib of misery, / Down in their old county jail.
1956		H. Whittington Forgive Me, Killer (2000) 3: He led me into this crib. It was completely bare except for two chairs.
1971–2		C. Shafer ‘Catheads [...] and Cho-Cho Sticks’ in Abernethy Bounty of Texas (1990) 202: crib, n. – a cell.
1992		Bentley & Corbett Prison Sl. 49: Crib An inmate’s cell or living area.
2001		D. Looser Boobslang [U. Canterbury D.Phil. thesis] 49/1: crib n. a cell.
2002		J. Lerner You Got Nothing Coming 205: I takes my showers, keeps myself clean . . . I ain’t be havin’ no nasty-ass crib neither.
2022		J. Hannaham Didn’t Nobody Give a Shit 45: I couldn’t even keep my damn crib clean.

10. (Aus.) an outback lodging house.

1847

[A. Harris] (con. 1820s) Settlers & Convicts 43: Alone in the middle of the wilderness, one of these little ‘cribs’ necessarily becomes the nightly rendezvous of numbers of travellers.

11. a lodging house that may double as a venu for ‘short-time’ sexual encounters.

c.1850

(ref. to 1820s) Peeping Tom (London) 33 129/1: Old Bestell’s crib, as a crib, no longer exists, and he himself has been dead these twenty years.

12. a berth, a situation, a job, e.g. a snug crib, a safe place.

1859, 1860		Hotten Dict. of Modern Sl. etc.
1866		J. Greenwood Little Ragamuffin 304: Comfor’ble crib it is; eighteen-pence a week and all my wittles.
1873		Sl. Dict.
1887		‘’Arry on the Jubilee’ in Punch 25 June 305/1: Wot with dynimite, Charlie, and duffers like Hyndman, Kropotkin & Co. / [...] / kings’ cribs are not wuth ’arf a blow.
1895		‘’Arry on Derby Day’ in Punch 1 June 258/1: The young ’un whose crib I succeeded to skinned the old bloke’s petty cash.
1900		‘Doss Chiderdoss’ ‘An Ungrateful “Missis”’ Sporting Times 25 Aug. 1/4: I’ve been out of a crib / For a matter of six years or so; / In fact, since we’ve been married, I’m telling no fib, / I’ve been out of work, that’s why the show / Has been run by the missis with her bit of brass.
1905		H.G. Wells Kipps (1952) 91: There would be paper and stamps needed in some abundance for answering advertisements [...] when he went ‘crib hunting’.

13. (UK/US Und.) a casino.

1847		‘Epistle from Joe Muggins’s Dog’ in Era (London) 7 Mar. 3/2: [A]all the first-rate swells bad gone to some new fangled club house in St. James’ street (a crib that was once in the faking line), because they. would’nt be legged any longer at the corner.
1856		Life in Boston & N.Y. (Boston, MA) 22 Nov. n.p.: [T]o entice the young men of the corner to his crib, to cheat them at cards, after getting them tight .
1865		Leaves from Diary of Celebrated Burglar 96/1: We ‘cut’ from there and went over to the Nick. This was the best patronised ‘crib’ around the neighborhood [...] On entering the room we saw about fifty players there, engaged in rouge et noir, throwing hazards and vingtun.
1872		E. Crapsey Nether Side of NY 93: [W]hether guided by the better class of ropers into the first-class saloons, or by these viler ones into the low cribs [...] they are the vivification of all gambling.
1931		Irwin Amer. Tramp and Und. Sl. 57: Crib. – [...] A gambling dive.
1962		Ragen & Finston World’s Toughest Prison 796: crib – A gambling dive.

14. a theatre, esp. cheap.

1842		Bell’s Penny Dispatch 10 Apr. 3/5: ‘The Minor Theatre?’ said Josh, reading the ticket; ‘why you don’t surely mean that low crib in Catherine Street?’.
1858		Broadway Belle (NY) 6 Nov. n.p.: Academy of Music — This crib continues to be well patronised by the snobs.
1866		J. Greenwood Little Ragamuffin 303: There was a ‘gaff’ near Whitechapel turnpike [...] ‘I’ll have a turn at the old crib,’ I suddenly resolved.

15. a place that is a target for a break-in or robbery.

1881		Newcastle Courant 2 Sept. 6/5: In the guise of a mushroom-faker he had been out to take stock of a likely crib.
1897		Dundee Courier 13 Nov. 5/6: The fancy warehouse [...] also came in for a share of the cracksmen’s attention, but there they could not work the oracle to their satisfaction, and the crib was drawn blank.
1899		E.W. Hornung Amateur Cracksman (1992) 25: The Bank of England, for example, is the ideal crib.
1941		V. Davis Phenomena in Crime 194: Prospecting ‘cribs’ for male cracksmen.
1950		P. Hoskins No Hiding Place! 189/2: Crib. Place singled out for robbery.

16. (US Und.) a safe.

1895		Mirror of Life 15 June 14/3: When he ‘stalls’ the casket, otherwise the crib, in which is enshrined her ladyship's jewels, or a diamond merchant's stock [...] the modern crack sman has only to put himself in communication with the moneyed man.
1918		H. Simon ‘Prison Dict.’ in AS VIII:3 (1933) 26/1: CRIB. Safe or vault.
1927		H. Yenne ‘Prison Lingo’ in AS II:6 282: Crib, box, pete — A safe.
1936		(ref. to 1920s) L. Duncan Over the Wall 160: A safe in underworld parlance is called a box, crate, crib, can and other names.
1950		Goldin et al. DAUL 52/2: Crib. 1. A vault, safe, or strong-box.
1962		Ragen & Finston World’s Toughest Prison 796: crib – A safe or money box.
1970		‘Red’ Rudensky Gonif 20: I was boasting [...] how good I was with the locks and even better at blowing cribs.
1989		J. Morton Lowspeak.
2000		(con. 1940s–60s) Décharné Straight from the Fridge Dad 39: Crib [...] 2. A safe.

17. (Aus./US) a cheap café or restaurant.

1904		C. Connors Bowery Life [ebook] Well, wot d'yer t'ink uv dat. A feedin’ crib widout no spuds.
1914		E. Dyson Spats’ Fact’ry (1922) 143: Sid [...] watched Nettie from one of the dark little cribs in which Panzacchi’s dubious oysters were eaten.
2001		(con. 1964–8) J. Ellroy Cold Six Thousand 206: De Ridder was shit city [...] Chicken-fried-steak joints and rib cribs.

18. (Aus.) a non-specified place.

1913		Truth (Sydney) 15 June 9/4: Leicester Square, dear Mister Norton, / Are a giddy sorter crib.
1914		Sydney Sportsman (Surry Hills, NSW) 15 July 3/2: Now Australia, Mr Norton, / Ain’t a crib what’s cold, dear Sir.

19. (US Und.) a room kept by a streetwalker or call-girl to which she could take her clients for sex; note also cit. 1961.

1931		Irwin Amer. Tramp and Und. Sl. 57: Crib. – [...] A harlot’s house or room, usually one of many in a group, rented from the same owner or agent.
1940		H. Asbury Gangs of Chicago (2002) 112: Hell’s Half-Acre, in which every building was occupied by a groggery, a bordello, a concert saloon, a low gambling den, an assignation house, or streetwalkers’ cribs.
1961		‘Lou Rand’ Gay Detective (2003) 95: [in a gay bath-house] ‘You go on back to those little rooms. Of course, all the girls call ’em cribs!’.
2001		(con. late 19C) C. Jeffords Shady Ladies of the Old West 🌐 At the bottom of the scale were the girls who operated independently, [...] these ultimately tended [...] to live in segregated districts where their little cabins or ‘cribs’ [...] were illuminated by red lamps and curtains.
2021		J. Ellroy Widespread Panic 82: ‘His building’s full of call-girl cribs’.

20. the room in a brothel where a prostitute services her clients.

1950		Goldin et al. DAUL 52/2: Crib. [...] 2. A house of prostitution; one of a row of shuttered or curtained booths in brazenly open prostitution districts.
1952		A.S. Fleischman Look behind You, Lady (2006) 66: The girls can rent cribs from a joint [...] by the hour, week, or year.
1958		E. Gilbert Vice Trap 105: It was a trick bar, with the cribs out in back.

21. (US gay) a private cubicle rented out at a gay bath-house.

1972

B. Rodgers Queens’ Vernacular 28: crib (fr pros sl = apartment) cubicle rented out to a customer at the baths for more private fun.