job n.2
1. in Und. uses.
(a) (orig. UK Und.) any form of criminal activity, esp. a robbery, often with a qualifying name, e.g. the Barclays Bank job.
![[UK]](/static/img/flags/uk.png "United Kingdom") | cited in Roxburghe Ballads (1897) VIII ix: She rode about seven miles firther, and then a Stage Coach she did rob; / The passengers all cry’d out ‘Murther!’; but this was Fifty-pound jobb. | |
| Vulgus Britannicus IX 103: The Thieves in London seldom Rob / By Night, or undertake a Job, / But that they may the better do it, / They make a Watchman privy to it. | |
| Humours of Oxford IV i: But I have another Job for you; and if my Stratagem takes there, my Fortune’s made. | |
| Trial of Charles Drew 14: The Prisoner told me, the Jobb was done. | |
| Adventures of a Speculist I 67: In our august House of Parliament, the word Job is never made use of but to express an action thoroughly base. | |
![[Aus]](/static/img/flags/aus.png "Australia") | Vocab. of the Flash Lang. in McLachlan (1964) 247: job: any concerted robbery, which is to be executed at a certain time, is spoken of by the parties as the job, or having a job to do at such a place; and in this case as regular preparations are made, and as great debates held, as about any legal business undertaken by the industrious part of the community. | |
| Morn. Post (London) 20 July 4/1: The sound of the glass breaking was soon after heard, and the ‘job’ being completed, the parties were about to escape. | |
| Memoirs (trans. W. McGinn) II 160: When you are not used to a job of the kind, you feel queerish a bit. | |
![[US]](/static/img/flags/us.png "United States") | Nat. Police Gaz. (NY) 22 Nov. 105/2: They had already, previous to his release, planned two or three good ‘jobs’. | |
| [G. Thompson] Bristol Bill 12/1: ‘We’ll have a pot of ’alf and ’alC and then come down and do the job’. | |
 | Political Portraits 219: His (Mr. Disraeli’s) representation of the Reform Bill of 1832 as a Whig job is a silliness [F&H]. | |
| Ticket-Of-Leave Man Act I: He’s taken his oath [...] to be square wih me for that Peckham job. | |
| Nat. Police Gaz. (NY) 7 Sept. n.p.: There is one man yet to arrest who put up the ‘job’ and why he is not ‘copped’ is a mystery. | |
| Curiosities of Street Lit. 49: I was on my way to London, but hearing of this suicide job, I thought I’d work ’em. | |
| Chronicles of Newgate 112: Inn-keepers and ostelers [...] put them [i.e. highwaymen] in the way of ‘likely jobs’ to be done. | |
| Eve. News (Sydney) 27 Apr. 7/3: Joe [...] has had a constitution of iron and nerves of steel. He was always ready for any ‘job’. | |
| Truth (Sydney) 22 July 2/7: ‘Do you know of any job we could do together?’ ‘I know of a dead gift if you care to do it; a branch of the Union Bank’. | |
| Hooligan Nights 17: You need have small fear that the job will be bungled. | |
| Marvel 21 Apr. 352: The Portland Place ‘job’. | |
| Enemy to Society 279: Typical ‘pete-man’s’ job [...]. Three holes bored through the combination. | |
| Brooklyn Murders (1933) 12: Don’t disturb a thing. If we’re not careful one of us may get run in for this job. | |
| Smith’s Wkly (Sydney) 11 Aug. 15/1: To the eminent buster planning a job, close attention to those details Is of paramount importance. | |
| Little Caesar (1932) 12: That’s up to Rico. He’s bossing the job. | |
| Sharpe of the Flying Squad 33: A stolen car was used for doing a smash-and-grab job. | |
| Amboy Dukes 3: The dough you could make from one sweet job. | |
![[Scot]](/static/img/flags/sco.png "Scotland") | Aberdeen Eve. Express 20 Dec. 5/6: Their heroes are the older boys who have ‘done a stretch’, maybe for a ‘lorry job’ or for ‘blagging’ which is robbery with violence. | |
![[Ire]](/static/img/flags/ire.png "Ireland") | (con. 1940s) Borstal Boy 18: I was picked up for some screwing jobs. [Ibid.] 226: ’E’d [...] do a creeping job and screw the gaff. | |
| Murder Me for Nickels (2004) 65: By seven I had lined up five bozos for a quick job on Bonetti’s depot [...] large of muscle and small of head. | |
| Loot Act I: What was your motive in confessing to the bank job? | |
| Tell Morning This 202: ‘This job’s a pushover’. | |
| Friends of Eddie Coyle 14: You tell me about some fellows they’re planning a bank job. | |
![[WI]](/static/img/flags/wi.png "West Indies") | Harder They Come 201: Everyone knew a boy, just like them, who had [...] pulled off a ‘big job’. | |
| GBH 7: I know you weren’t on that job, but it was your kind of job, and [...] I could fit you up for being on the job you weren’t on. | |
| Doing Time 111: [T]here is a tendency, if one or the other is a bit low, to think about a ‘job’. | |
| Paydirt [ebook] Wyatt had turned up on her doorstep six weeks earlier, on the run from a Melbourne job that had gone sour. | |
| (con. late 1950s) Amaze Your Friends (2019) 79: Les [...] rang me [...] to ask if I was still sweet for the job. | |
| Happy Like Murderers 98: Graham’s wife would send him out to do jobs: burglaries, shoplifting. | |
| Mr Blue 307: I’m tellin’ you, man, it’s a taxi job. | |
| Guardian G2 14 Mar. 17: You’ve got to show big stuff happening – a bank job or domestic slaying. | |
![[NZ]](/static/img/flags/nz.png "New Zealand") | Boobslang [U. Canterbury D.Phil. thesis] 95/2: job n. a robbery, burglary, hold up, etc. | |
| Winter of Frankie Machine (2007) 82: Drive slow, not fast [...] Always drive the speed limit leaving a job. Last thing you want is to get stopped for speeding. | |
| Vanity Fair 16 Mar. 🌐 Reader had generally managed to ‘walk’ away until the Brinks-Mat Job, named for the high-security warehouse at Heathrow Airport hit by a group of bandits on November 26, 1983. | |
| (con. 1962) Enchanters 8: Chief Bill bootjacked the kidnap job. |
(b) a trick, a hoax.
| ‘Juggling Johnny’ in Blackwood’s Edin. Mag. 786: You may button up your fob / Against the swell-mob, / But not against a job of my juggling Johnny. | |
| Wanderings of a Vagabond 407: And so Jake Bowles has caught another brace of fools! [...] he’s worked a job on you, and run you off. | |
| Tales of the Early Days 278: The man [...] took advantage of the opportunity to declare in plain, audible terms that ‘it wor all a cokumed job!’. | |
| Truth (Sydney) 20 Jan. 5/7: Slowly he begins to tumble / To the job he’s put upon. | |
| Lustful Memoirs of a Young and Passionated Girl 17–18: Hay was getting all he wanted of the girl and her mother found it out and she put up the job on him. | |
| ‘Sanguinary Jeremiah’ in Old Man Curry 135: The judges are more than usually alert, scenting outward indications of a ‘job’. | |
| Miss Pym Disposes (1954) 62: ‘I don’t know how the job was worked, but that it is a job I am certain’. |
(c) a jab; a blow; a physical assault.
| Sl. Dict. 204: Job a sudden blow, as ‘a job in the eye.’. | |
| ‘Words from Northwest Arkansas’ in DN III:ii 143: job, v. and n. Jab [...] ‘He gave me a job in the ribs.’. | |
| (con. WWI) Gloss. of Sl. [...] in the A.I.F. 1921–1924 (rev. t/s) n.p.: job. [...] a hit or punch. |
2. a type, a variety or a procedure, e.g. the desk was a teak-oiled job, his moustache was a bushy brown job, a boob job, a nose job.
| ‘Plaintive Epistle to Mr. Pitt’ Works (1796) IV 50: Boldly run the gauntlope through a mob, / That execrates, that damns the Powder job. | |
| Bell’s Life in Sydney 28 Apr. 3/1: Serve her out Poll but don’t quite murder, cos it will be a court job for me. | |
| Season Ticket 165: ‘Black jobs, sir – black as ink.’ [...] Sure enough, there were between eighty and ninety coal-black horses. | |
| Life on the Mississippi (1914) 320: ‘Carried the whole town away?’ [...] ‘Everything. Just a fifteen-minute job.’. | |
| ‘Bail Up!’ 256: If the police do take you, it’s a hanging job, as you know. | |
| Proc. Old Bailey 14 Nov. 107: He said he would take twenty years for his bleeding chance, several times—he said he did not care so long as it did not come to a hanging job. | |
| In London’s Heart 295: When the women saw that the man they were carrying looked as if he were dead, and the men called out ‘Hospital job!’ the mob drew back. | |
| ‘Saltbush Bill’s Second Fight’ Rio Grande’s Last Race (1904) 81: It’s a five-pound job if you belt him well – do anything short of kill. | |
| Buln-Buln and the Brolga (1948) 🌐 [of a crime] ‘This is a five years’ job, if we’re found out.’ ‘Life, more like,’ I replied . | |
| (con. 1917) ‘A Flier’s War’ in Longstreet Canvas Falcons (1970) 283: The staff cars – Rolls [...] Fiats, and fancy French jobs. | |
| Bound for Glory (1969) 320: Limousines, sporty jobs, the big V-16’s. | |
| 27 July [synd. col.] She can look at any lady’s schnozz, tell whether it’s her own or a ‘job,’ and if it’s a ‘job,’ state which doctor bobbed it. | |
| Bluey & Curley 5 Jan. [synd. cartoon] I regret to say the patient is not responding to treatment. It looks like a penicillin job! | |
| World So Wide 101: A ‘new Chevvy, a swell two-tone-colour job’. | |
| Troubling of a Star 119: ‘Sometimes have Chinese egg,’ she said. ‘You mean those thousand-year-old jobs?’. | |
| On The Road (1972) 255: We stopped at a gas station to get a grease job. | |
| letter 21 Mar. in Groucho Letters (1967) 215: Listen to a lady friend of mine whine about the bad bleach job she gets at her favorite beauty parlor. | |
| Mad mag. July 36: Actually a Field Mouse with a bad due job. | |
| Current Sl. II:1 6: Scrape job, n. An inexpensive abortion. | |
| Apprentices (1970) II ii: We’re having the reception in the Co-op Hall, it’s a sit-down job. | |
| Grease 70: Just wait ’till I give it a paint job and soup up the engine. | |
| ‘Heroin Annie’ in Heroin Annie [e-book] [of a building] The next stop was outside a newish three-storey job with a lot of white stones to slip on and the sort of trees that have the bark peeling off them. | |
| Skin Tight 18: Tummy tucks, nose jobs, boob jobs, butt jobs, fat suctions, face lifts, you name it. | |
| Filth 255: He tried to top himself again [...] Pills and voddy job! | |
| Goodoo Goodoo 133: It [i.e. a yacht] was a white timber job with heaps of character. | |
| Indep. on Sun. Rev. 12 Sept. 24: The maintenance stuff: the sunbed job, the rug job, the nail job. | |
| Layer Cake 65: In this end of town it’s all young babes with tit jobs. | |
| Jack of Jumps (2007) 63: He didn’t say much at all. Side of the mouth job. | |
| Snitch Jacket 7: My watch? Emporio Armani job, cutting edge. | |
| ‘–30–’ Wire ser. 5 ep. 10 [TV script] Some I juked as strangle jobs. | |
| Thrill City [ebook] The place looked like a one-room job. | |
| ‘Extras’ in ThugLit Nov.-Dec. [ebook] [A]n auto transport trailer, a massive double-decker job. | |
| Empty Wigs (t/s) 147: [T]he fairy tale in question was one of those X-rated jobs which are said to do untold harm to the little ‘uns. |
3. a bowel movement; usu. as do a job , to defecate [euph.].
| Satirist (London) 17 June 191/2: Between too [sic] rival Pleni-pos, / Two valets of pretension. / The one, among the Royal nobs, / Was privy to each motion, / While of some dirty Ducal jobs / The other had a notion. | |
| implied in do a job | |
| (con. 1890s) Pictures in the Hallway 204: Noisy kids, half fed [...] doing quick and sudden jobs in the hall, fit to break a body’s neck, if he happened to step on it. | |
| (con. 1940s) Second From Last in the Sack Race 28: Pooh-Dried-Up-Dog-Jobs. | |
| Roger’s Profanisaurus in Viz 87 Dec. n.p.: job n. A Richard (qv). |
4. of a person.
(a) (orig. US) a person of either sex, a type of person, with adj. e.g. a cute little job, a first-class job; cit. 1974 refers to a fish.
| ‘$106,000 Blood Money’ Story Omnibus (1966) 327: She’s a tough little job who was probably fired for dropping her chewing gum in the soup. | |
| (con. 1928) Mad in Pursuit 110: Nice job with the blond hair, whatsername? Phoebe something. Nice, rounded job with long legs. | |
| Battle Cry (1964) 402: It was mostly the fourteen-to-sixteen-year-olds jobs that caused the greatest commotion. | |
| White with Wire Wheels (1973) 156: mal: There are other jobs I’d prefer. simon: Such as? rod: Such as this little job here. (Displaying his magazine) Just get a geek at those lines, gentlemen. mal: What a set. | |
| Blood Brothers 240: Check out the sickos who come in here, the six-foot-eight jobs wit’ the peachpuff this an’ the peter pan that. | |
| Tracks (Aus.) Oct. 82: The one that roots is fourteen. The gangy is thirteen. And the head job [i.e. fellatrix] is twelve [Moore 1993]. | |
| Hard Bounce [ebook] He wasn’t a complete flake job like Twitch. |
(b) (Aus.) a drunkard.
| Popular Dict. Aus. Sl. |
(c) (Aus.) a fool, a poor worker.
| DSUE (8th edn) 622/1: since ca. 1930. |
(d) (N.Z.) a prostitute.
| (con. 1940s) Gun in My Hand 132: She must think we had nothing to do over there but prowl around the streets looking for fur-coat jobs. | |
| (con. 1940s) Pagan Game (1969) 175: The due mille jobs, the fur coat jobs on the batter. |
5. an effort, a problem.
| Secret Agent (1994) 78: A local constable in uniform cast a sidelong glance, and said with stolid simplicity: ‘He's [i.e. the victim of an explosion] all there. Every bit of him. It was a job’. | |
| [trans.] Bernanos Diary of a Country Priest 275: I had a job to prevent her lighting the stove. | |
| in Mass-Observation War Factory: Report 2: The girls laugh ‘It’s a job getting up these mornings, isn’t it?’ says one of them. | |
| (con. 1940s) Autobiog. (1968) 144: She would make a thirty-minute job of that daily dish of banana split. |
6. (orig. US) an aircraft, a motorcar or any other vehicle; of a vehicle, a brand, a make, a style.
| Daily Mail 7 May 6/4: [U.S. slang] A job, always used when a particular aeroplane is mentioned. | |
| Dark Hazard (1934) 105: He parked his car against the fence [...] then got out and stood looking at it. ‘Some job, you bet.’. | |
| Walk in Sun 92: These jobs don’t weight more than a couple of tons. A grenade under her belly ought to lift her right off the road. | |
| Tomboy (1952) 84: They [...] went out, stopping to admire a new Buick at the curb. ‘Now that’s a sweet job.’. | |
| Skyvers I ii: Wot if ’e’s a famous footballer [...] Runnin’ a natty little sports job and busy as ’ell with the wimmen. | |
| Hazell Plays Solomon (1976) 95: Across the road the two Pakistanis tried to start the rust-job. | |
| Flame : a Life on the Game 84: It was a big Mercedes job with a chauffeur. | |
| Paydirt [ebook] The sign outside said Jap Job. The proprietor of Jap Job gestured with the watermelon at the motorcycle parts, tools and greasy rags that surrounded him. | |
| Scotland on Sun. Mag. 7 Nov. 19: BMWs. Flashy American jobs. Ordinary family saloons. | |
| (con. 1964–8) Cold Six Thousand 419: Boats: Charter jobs. Teak hulls and big motors. |
7. (US) a way of life.
| Pimp 76: Bitch, you sure got a filthy, sassy ‘job’. It could get your ass ruptured. |
8. see blow job n.1 (1)
In phrases
1. (US) murder, assassination; thus do the big job, to kill [euph.].
| (con. 1880s) Gangs of N.Y. 228: The police found this list in his pocket: [...] Doing the big job ... $100 and up. |
2. anything notably large of its type, e.g. an automobile.
| Thieves Like Us (1999) 84: Get one of them big jobs and everybody will be big-eyeing you. |
1. (UK Und.) to commit a crime, esp. a robbery.
| Life and Trial of James Mackcoull 85: Ha! little one, tip us your daddle, we’ve done the job, and cleanly too – all’s bob! | |
| Tales of the Ex-Tanks 165: I did a job up that way a few weeks ago, and nearly all the rest o’ the gang’s doin’ their bits now. | |
| There Ain’t No Justice 47: Christ, I thought you’d done a job. | |
| Swag, the Spy and the Soldier in Lehmann Penguin New Writing No. 26 40: I done a job. | |
| Scrambled Yeggs 41: I hire the organization to do a job for me. Murder somebody. | |
| Adolescent Boys of East London (1969) 28: Sometimes we do a job, do a warehouse, nick a load of fags. | |
| Doing Time 191: job: to commit a crime, especially a burglary or robbery; for example, to do a ‘job’. |
2. to have sexual intercourse.
| ‘Guess the Rest’ in Flash Minstrel! in Spedding & Watt (eds) Bawdy Songbooks (2011) I 105: The dustman, it is true, / Turn’d up a court just by, / As he wanted a job to do: / This, Peggy did not shock / [...] / In fact, she saw his —. | |
| Bagnio Misc. 38: Betsy [...] found herself so worked up that I suspect she had applied to the footman to do a little job for her. |
3. to defecate.
| ‘Roger and Doll’ in Ri-tum Ti-tum Songster 9: She said she was taken short, / And was going to do a job. | |
| in Ozark Folksongs and Folklore (1992) I 265: Oh when they do a job in Arkansas, / Oh when they do a job, / They go up on Gobbler’s Knob, / An’ they wipe it with a cob in Arkansas. | |
| in Ozark Folksongs and Folklore (1992) I 66: ‘Old woman got up to do a little job, An’ the blamed old sea crab got her by the cock.’ [...] He heard it about 1892. | |
| All Looks Yellow to the Jaundiced Eye 47: ‘Excuse me, my Lord [...] Bran always does a little job here.’ He peered closely as the dog scissored itself into position. | |
| ‘Razorback Sl.’ in AS L:1/2 62: He did a job in his pants. | |
| Ozark Folksongs and Folklore I 67: To do a little job (in England ‘jobs’), refers to going to the toilet. |
4. (Aus.) to make pregnant.
| Aus. Lang. |
to defecate.
| DSUE (8th edn) 317/1: C.20. |
1. (also do a job for, do the job on) to beat up, to murder.
| A Dict. of the Turf, The Ring, The Chase, etc. | |
| Shadows of the Night in Illus. Police News 3 Aug. 12/3: ‘Murder?’ ‘Looks deucedly like it, gal. They mean a’doin’ a job for that sailor cove’. | |
| ‘Murder in the Ring’ in Black Mask Stories (2010) 367/1: Connors did the job on Pardo, with a Maxim-silenced gun under a towel. | |
| Rumble on the Docks (1955) 156: Maybe Brindo wants Bluenose to do a job on the kid? | |
| (con. 1940s) Confessions 15: He [...] had stopped some of the younger, more enthusiastic members of the Force from doing a job on me. | |
| Godfather 153: Did you do the job on Sollozzo? | |
| Dealer 108: Then one time we really had to put a job on a cop in the subway. | |
| Jones Men 130: It will be a pleasure to do a job on him. | |
| (con. 1970) 13th Valley (1983) 161: What did him a J-O-B? | |
| Boys from Binjiwunyawunya 308: You sure did a job on your head, didn’t you. |
2. to make someone the victim of a confidence trick or allied hoax or deception.
| Tomboy (1952) 138: That’s it, do a job on him. | |
| ‘About This Thing Called Ghetto Education’ in Szwed Black America 243: The system did a superb ‘job’ on us; it made us as was intended—white. What most of my generation failed to deal with, though, was the notion that white in America for a black man is an impossibility. |
3. to cause trouble for, to harass, to persecute.
| Swell-Looking Babe 43: They can go on and do the same kind of job on another guy. | |
| Fields of Fire (1980) 350: Someone did ’em a Job, huh? Busted their asses? | |
| ‘Snowed Under’ in What Do You Reckon (1997) [ebook] [of drunkeness] [I] trudged across to ‘The Man’ to do a complete job on myself. |
4. (US) of a man, to have sexual intercourse.
| Bacchanalian Mag. 97: Tho’, in doing the job, round about went both hands, / Yet tho’ set a going his stiff time-piece stands. | |
| [ | | ‘They’re All Shooting’ in Cuckold’s Nest 36: She says his bodkin’s good, he’s the man to do the job]. |
| Teen-Age Mafia 71: Why not let Dun Dum do a job on her. | |
| Godfather 153: To do a job on a woman meant seducing her. | |
| Between the Devlin 161: [H]e was doing a job on one of the waitresses who was nineteen. |
5. to curse, to place a spell on.
| Carlito’s Way 62: If they done a trabajo (a job) on you, you’re in trouble. |
(Aus.) to become obsessed (with).
| Numurkah Leader (Vic.) 13 Dec. 3/2: [H]e had looked round before he threw the offal to the pigs and could not see anyone about. He added that he ‘had done his job over it’. | |
| Glass Canoe (1982) 87: I went out with her for five months. Did me job over her. |
to ruin.
| Adventures of a Speculist I 68: Is it not a phrase in common to say, ‘I’ll do his job,’? which signifies doing him a piece of mischief secretly. |
to have sexual intercourse.
| Mercurius Fumigosus 12 16–23 Aug. 113: Another [...] wanting a Hoop for her Bucking-tub, had provided a Coopers man in Lime-street to do the Jobb for her. | |
| ‘Song’ in Pills to Purge Melancholy II 276: Faith I did the Job. | |
| Burlesque Homer (3rd edn) 268: I stay’d, if I the truth must tell ye, / To do a little job for Nelly. | |
| Burlesque Homer (4th edn) I 358: [as cit. 1772]. | |
| ‘Tear Duff Billy’ Ri-tum Ti-tum Songster 17: Twelve more shoots I had, / Till I could not do the job, sir. | |
| (con. c.1887) in Ozark Folksongs and Folklore (1992) II 639: Every time I gave a job / She farted like the devil. | |
| (ref. to 1941) Virgin Fleet 122: Think what it would be like if I tried to do the job. | |
| Godfather 27: He was doing the job on other girls. | |
| San Diego Sailor 7: I don’t know where she’d learned all the tricks, but [...] we could do a swell job together. | |
| Great Santini (1977) 314: What about you, Meecham, how many times you do the job? | |
| Chopper 4 137: One lady was caught doing the job under the desk. |
(US black) to concentrate on one’s life, involvements, pursuits.
| Runnin’ Down Some Lines 239: get on (one’s) job/j.o.b. Attend to business. |
any form of criminal enterprise.
| Memoirs (trans. W. McGinn) II 215: [She] was consequently looked upon as a ‘mother of robbers’ [...] she carried her complaisance so far as to seek ‘jobs of work’ for them. |
(US Und.) to distribute counterfeit money to criminal associates and dealers.
| Memoirs of the US Secret Service 64: It was his habit, in those times, to ‘job out’ most of the counterfeit stock. |
(Aus.) to beat up, to defeat severely.
| Exp. & Teleg. (Adelaide) 12 Mar. 15/7: He would have punched anybody who was walking arm-in-arm with his wife. [...] ‘You made a proper job of him?’ ‘I don’t know that I did’. | |
| Teleg. (Brisbane) 8 Sept. 10/3: Mr Pain’s four made a proper job of Bale’s team, winning by 30 up. | |
| Arrow (Sydney) 15 Apr. 16/4: The Wedge one [a horse] made a proper job of the Newcastle Tommies. Some of them are still paying out. | |
| ‘That Summer’ in Coll. Stories (1965) 223: I’ll make a proper job of you if I start this time, he said. | |
| News (Adelaide) 25 Apr. 4/7: ‘We ran into some strife [...] They ambushed us with a machine gun. It made a proper job of poor old Hec. Almost chopped him in two’. | |
| Whistle in the Dark Act III: Iggy made a right job of ‘King’. |
(US black) alert, in control; successful at a given task.
| ‘Pimp in a Clothing Store’ in Milner & Milner (1972) 288: Boy, looka here, he had a pot of gold sitting out there ’cause he was a rainbow, yeah. That Mark II white on white in white with plum and blue and more plum and red and white, aw man, he was on his job. | |
| Jones Men 23: Hey, you really on your J, man. | |
| Runnin’ Down Some Lines 248: on (one’s) job/j.o.b. 1. In control. 2. Successful. |
1. a euph. for engaged in sexual activity.
| ‘’Arry on Marriage’ in Punch 29 Sept. 156/1: I’m fair on the job, / As you know, with the ladies all round. | |
| Crissie 71: ‘You must have split her up to the navel! A jackass ain’t in it when your Lordship’s on the job!’. | |
| Sun. Times (Perth) 19 May 4/8: ’Ees rival’s on the job / With ees own pertickler, private bit of coke. | |
| Truth (Sydney) 7 Sept. 12/4: There you see them [i.e. teenage prostitutes] out on ‘business,’ / [...] / Hundreds of them on the job. | |
| Ulysses 449: She’s on the job herself tonight with the vet, her tipster, that gives her all the winners and pays for her son in Oxford. | |
| ‘The Four Wives’ in Mess Songs & Rhymes of the RAAF 26: And in the other corner was an airman on the job. | |
| Riverslake 62: She wants a couple of kids [...] He ought to get on the job. | |
| Owning Up (1974) 27: Nor am I interested in his unflowing jabber whilst ‘on the job’. | |
| Enderby Outside in Complete Enderby (2002) 279: I’ll just get it [i.e. a [poem] down on paper [...] and then back on the job again. | |
| Family Arsenal 220: He tried to laugh. ‘I hope you wasn’t on the job.’. | |
| Traveller’s Tool 27: If you’re on the job with a little raver. | |
| Foetal Attraction (1994) 135: He shuffled off his mortal coil on the job, you know. | |
| Theft 108: I interrupted Butcher on the job with Marlene. | |
| Braywatch 181: ‘[R]andom shit just pops out of my mouth when I’m on the job’. |
2. working properly, performing well.
| Sporting Gaz. (London) 2 Apr. 353/2: Someone, too, has landed Peter in the front rank; but even if he is ‘on the job,’ to use a slang phrase, [...] I do not think be will win or beat his stable companion Elf King. | |
| Licensed Victuallers’ Gazette 23 Jan. n.p.: there was a long wrangle over the choice of referee, for no one cared to occupy that thankless post when the Lambs were on the job [F&H]. | |
| Signor Lippo 9: Being ‘on the job’ we hoped to improve. | |
| Aus. Sl. Dict. 54: On the Job, when a horse is backed and does his best to win. | |
| ‘Incredulity of Juries’ Sporting Times 18 Mar. 1/4: That’s a frequent dictum from the bench, and it was on the job. | |
| ‘Done for the Double’ in Three Elephant Power 137: Nostrils has won his race, and Tin Can, if on the job, can win the second half of the double. | |
| Inimitable Jeeves 93: Something to do with why Bill’s ‘blues’ weren’t on the job. | |
| Gilt Kid 44: I s’pose I’d better be getting back on the job. | |
| Come in Spinner (1960) 171: I’m on the job this morning, so I got to be on my way. | |
| ‘Time and cool people’ in Trans-action 4 6/2: On the other hand, the employed, the part-time hustlers, usually said, ‘A dude could make it better on the job than on the street’. | |
| Bulletin (Sydney) 1 Dec. 24/1: In one race several good performers started, but the ultimate winner only was labelled ‘on the job.’. |
3. in the process of doing something.
| ‘’Arry on Woman Rights’ Punch 2 Apr. 156/2: They’re regular scorchers, these women, when fair on the job, don’t yer know. | |
| ‘What Cheer ’Ria’ 🎵 What cheer Ria! Ria’s on the job, / What cheer Ria! did you speculate a bob? | |
| Bird o’ Freedom 22 Jan. 2: Waiting in droves to be hired, directly a ship arrives they are put on the job. | |
| A. Mutt in Blackbeard Compilation (1977) 17: As old kid Cicero once said, ‘If at first you don’t succeed, try another bet.’ Hence Mutt is on the job again. | |
| Brand Blotters (1912) 34: You’re a woman that needs help, and any old time J. F. meets up with such a one he’s on the job. | |
| Zone Policeman 88 220: At work, ‘on the job’ there is a genuine American freedom of wear-what-you-please. | |
| From Coast to Coast with Jack London 95: The station agent [...] bet the depot loafer that we would not leave town aboard a train — not while he, the agent, was on the job. | |
| Hand-made Fables 167: You don’t catch one of them loafing on his Job. | |
| Capricornia (1939) 363: Feller’t put off for boozin’ heavy on the job. | |
| Rebellion of Leo McGuire (1953) 87: Maybe someday [...] they’ll pass a national Sullivan law so a guy isn’t running the risk of lead poisoning on the job. | |
| Look Long Upon a Monkey 167: ‘Answer that, Tony, will you?’ ‘O.K., O.K.! I’m on the job!’. | |
| Get Your Ass in the Water (1974) 74: Now the Hoosier mob got on the job / boy, I didn’t have a chance to run, / I stood on the brinks and tried to think, / but they outwitted me, son. | |
| Lowspeak 81: On the job – committing a criminal act. | |
| Hooky Gear 305: No falling asleep on the job. No accident. This time awake. More wider awake. Enough awake. Kill the cunt so help me. |
4. aware, au fait.
| ‘’Arry’ 🎵 For ’Arry’s fairly ‘on the job’ / Singing his ‘La-di-da’. | |
| ‘’Arry on His Critics and Champions’ in Punch 14 Apr. 180/1: Lor’, Charlie, they’re [i.e. Wilde and Whistler] fair on the job! | |
| Society Snapshots 180: He gets ‘certs’ — information, I mean — straight tips, . . . and when anything specially big is coming off he’s on the job. | |
| Rigby’s Romance (1921) Ch. viii: 🌐 ‘Hold on,’ says the Jews. ‘We’re on the (adj.) job. We’ll go an’ possess the land.’. | |
| Eve. Star. (Wash., DC) 26 Mar. 22/2: He’s keen and alert, full of pep and snap, and usually ‘on the job’. |
(orig. US) to carry out a robbery or other criminal act.
| St Andrew’s Cross 28 361/1: Loaded down with burglar’s tools and nitroglycerine, ready to pull a job. | |
| Adventures of Jimmie Dale (1918) I xi: The neater the story the more they’ll think it shows brains enough on your part to have pulled a job like this! | |
| Black Mask Aug. III 94: He didn’t pull the job himself [...] because he’d be recognized. | |
| Rover 13 Jan. 31: Whenever a job is pulled in this town we usually know the gang responsible. | |
| Phenomena in Crime 134: Third-rate crooks who pull their jobs on the take-a-chance method. | |
| Tomboy (1952) 10: We could pull the job together. | |
| Mad mag. Oct.–Nov. 21: Every time we pull a job, you fumble. | |
| Last Exit to Brooklyn 44: They may be here in an hour or so, if they don’t pull a job. | |
| Gonif 91: Smitty drove to Muskegon where he’d promised a friend he’d pull a job. | |
| (con. 1940s–60s) ‘Detroit Redhead’ Eve. Sun Turned Crimson (1998) 110: When one or two of them had a job they intended pulling – breaking and entering a store – they would take her along. | |
| Native Tongue 107: At this point Bob Schwartz considered ditching the dumb shit altogether and pulling the job alone. | |
| Outlaws (ms.) 6: A lot of the time since then I have felt chocker about some of the jobs we’ve pulled. | |
| Fever Kill 65: You were going to pull a job and grab the cash. | |
| Life 204: We were basically gangsters. Not that we pulled any jobs. | |
| ‘Happy Ending’ in ThugLit Apr. [ebook] We would pull the job on the third visit. | |
| (con. 1962) Enchanters 8: Stein said [...] They pulled the job, not him. |
1. to trick, to deceive (someone).
| Nether Side of NY 122: In police parlance, they ‘put up a job on her.’ Captain Thorne was secreted in a closet in the office the next time she called, and the gentleman talked to her as previously arranged. | |
| Daily Trib. (Bismarck, N.D.) 5 Sept. 11/5: ‘When I’d got him interested in the game, I put up a job on him. ’Twas my deal and I monkeyed with the cards.’. | |
| Bulletin (Sydney) 31 Jan. 14/4: Before long the much-fleeced racing public will learn the whole truth of one or two, or perhaps more, palpable turf ‘jobs’ that have been ‘put up’ on them during the last three or four months. | |
| Chimmie Fadden Explains 45: Den all de men dey begins t’ put up jobs t’ get de ladies t’ walk from one room t’ de odder. | |
| Sydney Sportsman (Surry Hills, NSW) 24 Oct. 1/4: The club would probably be swamped by unprincipled punting people, who would only be too willing to put up a job on a bookmaker. | |
| Bowery Life [ebook] Sum odder bloke wot ain't bin so lucky, or ain't worked so hard, will put up er job on him an’ trim him--yer know, rob him. | |
| ‘A Slow Bus to Chingford’ Only Fools and Horses [TV script] Are you putting me up Del? |
2. to concoct an injurious story.
| Bill Nye and Boomerang 38: The ‘Gypsy Queen,’ who is jealous of ‘Arline,’ puts up a job on her to get her arrested. | |
| Lustful Memoirs of a Young and Passionated Girl in Victorian Erotic Tales 1995 234: Hay was getting all he wanted of the girl and her mother found out and she put up the job on him. |
SE in slang uses
In phrases
(Aus.) a phr. used of a complete inadequate/incompetent.
| Lingo 128: One may be simply totally beyond redemption, as in these less than flattering comparisons and descriptions: couldn’t get a job on a shithouse cart. |
In exclamations
(US campus) find something constructive to do with yourself!
| Picture Palace 333: Get a job, Frank! | |
| Campus Sl. Fall 3: get a job – to stop bothering someone: Would you go get a job for awhile because I’m sort of busy. | |
| Sl. and Sociability 55: Get a job is a command to ‘act mature’ that is, act in the mature way expected of someone who has the responsibility of a job. |