Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (orig. Aus., also pin-grease) butter.

1880		Portsmouth Eve. News 15 Dec. n.p.: Cow’s butter is no longer fashionable. I wanted some of this oleomargarine, made up [...] of axle-grease [...] that looks like butter.
1884		Leeds Obs. 28 June 2/7: ‘What is the price of this axle-grease,’ asked the clerk of a Chicago grocery [...] ‘It depends on your customer. If he asks for axle-grease, charge him fifteen cents a pound; but if he wants butter, make it thirty-eight cents.
1892		Evelyn Observer (Vic.) 8 July 25: Keeping cows to make axle grease butter is living next door to the poorhouse.
1897		L.A. Times 9 Apr. 5: ‘Wake up,’ he cried, ‘one brown stone front, side of a funeral; two Irish lemons with all clothes on; plate of punk; an easy smear of axle grease and draw one in the dark, cap it all off with a farmer’s alliance.’.
1905		H. Green Actors’ Boarding House (1906) 58: Pass the axle-grease!
1919		W.H. Downing Digger Dialects 9: axle-grease — Butter.
1919		Lima (OH) News 5 June 6/3: Butter is ‘axle grease.’.
1931		Irwin Amer. Tramp and Und. Sl. 75: In a railroad eating-house, [...] ‘a string of flats, plenty of pin grease and a tank of murk,’ would be merely an order for a plate of griddle or pancakes with plenty of butter, and a cup of coffee.
1931		Sydney Mail 14 Oct. 2/4: You'll find some more damper in there, flybog, cocky’s joy, bullocky’s delight, axle grease, and a bit o’ junk. That day we had some doughboys and ‘underground mutton’.
1934		W.R. Burnett (con. 1893) Goodbye to the Past 144: ‘Junius says he uses more axle-grease than a spring wagon’.
1936		Mencken Amer. Lang. (4th edn) 582: Milk is cow-juice, butter is salve or axle-grease.
1949		Monteleone Criminal Sl. (rev. edn).
1960		(con. 1950-1960) R.A. Freeman Dict. Inmate Sl. (Walla Walla, WA) 4: Axlegrease – butter.

2. semen.

1983

R. Klein Jailhouse Jargon and Street Sl. [unpub. ms.].

3. (Aus., also axle) money.

1941		Baker Popular Dict. Aus. Sl. 6: axlegrease: money.
1989		J. Morton Lowspeak 14: Axle grease – a bribe. The shortened version axle is more common.

4. a thick application used for one’s hair.

1984

Partridge DSUE (8th edn) 33/2: since late 1930.