Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. one who is suffering from lung disease (i.e. tuberculosis) or has been wounded in the lungs.

1893		K. Sanborn A Truthful Woman in Southern Calif. 14: The rainy season is necessary [...] to the land-owners, hard as it is for ‘lungers’.
1902		Imperial Press & Farmer (San Diego, CA) 1 Feb. 7/2: Blooming health shall mantle oe’r the ‘lunger’ thin and bony.
1910		C. Meredith Peggy of Cape Town 31: Hotel proprietors shook their heads and said they were ‘full up’ when they learnt that Kenneth Megrath was a ‘lunger’.
1913		Madison Jrnl (LA) 30 Aug. 3/1: The Old Man [...] was a one-lunger.
1916		‘Anzac’ On the Anzac Trail 7: I reckon the morning programme alone in the Army would fetch a double ‘lunger’ back from the hearse door, if it didn’t kill him outright.
1925		D. Hammett ‘Corkscrew’ Story Omnibus (1966) 221: ‘What are you doing out here in the sticks?’ ‘Lunger!’ she tapped her chest.
1927		(con. WW1) P. MacDonald Patrol 102: ‘What about Mendoza? He was half your size and a lunger’.
1937		E. Anderson Thieves Like Us (1999) 109: Either you or me will suppose to be a lunger, you know, with t.b.
1943		W. Guthrie Bound for Glory (1969) 271: Hot sun’s good for sick folks. Lungers.
1956		N. Algren Walk on the Wild Side 14: Byron smoked too much potiguaya bush for a lunger.
1968		T. Wolfe Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test (1969) 381: The lunger heads are slithering up and down the store fronts on Haight Street.
1972		(con. 1916) G. Swarthout Tin Lizzie Troop (1978) 75: These unfortunates wheezed that they were ‘lungers,’ unable to work.
2005		J. Stahl I, Fatty 270: I was gasping like a gut-punched lunger.

2. (also lungee) a mouthful of spit, a gob of phlegm; thus hack up a lunger, to spit.

1946		Mezzrow & Wolfe Really the Blues 41: I want you to go back in the TB ward and slip [a sputum cup] to the sickest cat in there and tell him to cough up a lunger.
1950		Goldin et al. DAUL 130/2: Lunger. [...] 2. The act of expectorating noisily.
1966		M. Rumaker Exit 3 and Other Stories 168: Wally spit a lunger into the gutter and wiped his mouth slowly.
1977		H. Crews Feast of Snakes 142: Coach Tump Walker hacked up a lunger.
1986		S. King It (1987) 478: He hawked, rolled down his window, and spat an extremely large yellow-green lunger into the rainy air.
1999		J. Maple Crime Fighter 218: I once had a prisoner launch a lungee right into my eye as I was putting cuffs on him.

3. a strong cigarette.

1984

S. King Thinner (1986) 50: There’s Yard doing a pack and a half of low-tar cigarettes a day, and there’s Duncan doing three packs of black lungers every day.