heater n.
1. a foot.
Life’s Painter 167: Feet. Heaters – if his shoes are broke and his feet seen through them, you’ll hear one say to the other, twig his heaters out of their box-irons; box-irons being cant for shoes. | ||
note in Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue (c.1786) ms. additions n.p.: Heaters. Feet (Flash). |
2. (US) an overcoat.
Sat. Eve. Post 15 Mar. 10: He had a brown heater and a stiff lid and patent-leather gums [HDAS]. | ||
Let Tomorrow Come 149: What’re you supposed to do with the fin – buy a new front and a new heater? | ||
Und. Speaks. | ||
Augie March (1996) 307: His snappy man-about-town suit and his Baltimore heater. |
3. (US) a cigar.
TAD Lex. (1993) 44: He’ll never quit — He can smoke anything a tall [sic] — Say some of the heaters that he mooches would kill a horse. | in Zwilling||
Runyon on Broadway (1954) 574: Blind Benny is smoking a big heater. | ‘For a Pal’||
Mine Enemy Grows Older (1959) 75: He [...] shoved an eight-inch heater into his mouth. |
4. (also heatrola) a pistol, a revolver; a weapon (see cite 1941).
Maltese Falcon (1965) 415: The boy advanced from the doorway [...] The pistol in his hand still hung at his side [...] He said to Spade in a voice cramped by passion: ‘You bastard, get up on your feet and go for your heater!’. | ||
Red Wind (1946) 187: Shed the heater. | ‘Goldfish’||
N.Y. Amsterdam Star-News 21 June 13: The Square didn’t cop the first plea about lettin’ you and me turn loose with the heavy heaters. | ||
Asphalt Jungle in Four Novels (1984) 203: You better take the heater. | ||
Criminal Sl. (rev. edn) 15: heatrola A revolver or pistol. | ||
Crazy Kill 115: Johnny’s laying in there in the dark with his heater. | ||
Mama Black Widow 70: I [...] took the heater. | ||
Gonif 12: I had drawn a fifteen year sentence [...] for accidentally shooting a Negro to death in a gory tavern fight. He had tried to take my heater away. | ||
Brown’s Requiem 239: He kept glancing furtively at my left armpit, no doubt trying to determine whether or not I was carrying a heater. | ||
(con. 1920s) Legs 77: One of them whipped out a nickel-plated heater [...] and pistol-whipped the poor bastard. | ||
Official and Doubtful 316: Callum Macleod doesn’t strike me as the type to look a gift heater in the mouth. | ||
Triggerfish Twist (2002) 270: ‘He pulled out his piece.’ ‘You mean his rod?’ ‘No, his heater.’. | ||
What It Was 42: Jones was [...] using an oiled cloth to polish one of the two .45s he owned [...] ‘Where you about to go with that heater?’ said Coco. | (con. 1972)||
Widespread Panic 14: I hid my heater in a shoulder rig. |
5. (US) the female genitals.
Und. Speaks n.p.: Peeping the heater, a lewd act. | ||
Narcotics and Narcotic Addiction in Maurer Lang. Und. (1981). |
6. (US campus) an exceptionally attractive man.
Campus Sl. Apr. |
In compounds
(US police) a crime or criminal case that attracts a lot of media attention.
When Corruption Was King 174: [The judge] might welcome a plea to get out from under this heater case. |
In phrases
(US) to carry a gun.
Let Tomorrow Come 41: I’m packin’ a heater, see, an’ I don’t wanta stand no frisk. | ||
(con. 1920s) Legs 76: Raise your arms as high as your shoulders [...] and hold them there until my mate’s finished fanning you to see if anyone’s packing a heater. |