Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. to pay over money, to spend money.

1676		Wycherley Plain-Dealer III i: After a tedious fretting and wrangling, they drop away all their money on both sides.
1789		G. Parker Life’s Painter 134: It won’t do I say, to stand here for nicks — all hearers and no buyers — what, will none of you drop your loose kelter?
1812		Vaux Vocab. of the Flash Lang. in McLachlan (1964) 237: drop: to give or present a person with money, as, he dropp’d me a quid, he gave me a guinea. A kid who delivers his bundle to a sharper without hesitation, or a shopkeeper who is easily duped of his goods by means of a forged order or false pretence, is said to drop the swag in good twig, meaning, to part with it freely.
1821		Egan Life in London (1869) 324: The covess of the ken [...] was quite pleased with the Corinthian, from the very liberal manner in which he had dropped his blunt at her house.
c.1830		‘Smith’s Frolic’ in Holloway & Black II (1979) 61: I told her in plain I would drop but six win.
1837		‘Sal Stuff’ in Ri-tum Ti-tum Songster 12: Only drop the browns, and I’m game to the backbone yet.
1847		‘Epistle from Joe Muggins’s Dog’ in Era (London) 24 Jan. 4/1: He was told it [i.e. a racehorse] was a first chop good thing, and he dropped heavily.
1849		Bell’s Life in Sydney 22 Dec. 3/2: [I] was a depending mostly on what the gennelmen used to tip me; some of ’em would drop me a shilling or so now and them, but most of 'em was uncommon scaly.
c.1864		‘So, I Said to Myself’ in Rakish Rhymer (1917) 48: Says I, my old gal, you must think people funny men, / Who’d drop you a crown for a fly in a dunniken.
1870		London Figaro 7 June n.p.: The money dropped by the turf prophets [...] is quickly returned to them [F&H].
1884		Caldwell Journal 16 Oct. in Miller & Snell Why the West was Wild 515: Their first break was to ‘drop their wad’ on the wrong horses.
1903		A. Binstead Pitcher in Paradise 184: He’ll probably drop for almost any amount.
1910		‘Doss Chiderdoss’ ‘His Lincoln Form’ Sporting Times 12 Mar. 1/4: To see good coin dropped makes me weary.
1934		J. Franklyn This Gutter Life 68: I know you’ll enjoy it, and I want you to ‘drop’ a bit after.
1946		S. Jackson Indiscreet Guide to Soho 62: Clubmen [...] often stopped to chat and drop him a bob or two.
1959		F. Norman Fings II i: I want to be the chap who drops / Instead of me (who only cops).
1965		E. Bond Saved Scene vi: Drop ’er a few bob.
1972		B. Rodgers Queens’ Vernacular 69: It’s a gamble for me to spend the money for the tubs; I don’t think I can afford to drop five tonight.
1989		A. Higgins ‘The Bird I Fancied’ in Helsingør Station and Other Departures 149: Drop him the hundred, Beamish said, and see what he’ll say.
2001		G. Pelecanos Right As Rain 128: Hey, Nestor [...] how much you drop on that suit, a buck?
2008		J. Niven Kill Your Friends (2009) 16: Why isn’t the dribbling megamongol spending his entire salary [...] Why isn’t he dropping stacks of dough?
2016		J.D. Vance Hillbilly Elegy 137: If Mamaw could drop $180 on a graphing calculator [...] then I had better take schoolwork more seriously.

2. to lose money.

1832		Satirist (London) 10 June 191/1: [T]hey are paid according to what they make for the bank; and in proportion to what the ‘flats’ drop, whom they have allured to the den.
1832		Egan Bk of Sports 49: Some to look after the blunt — others to ‘drop it,’ as the sporting folks say.
1849		Thackeray Pendennis I 42: We played hazard on the dining-table. And I dropped all the money I had from you in the morning.
1851		Stamford Mercury 18 July 3/3: As usual ‘flats’ were picked up, and we heard that one person [...] was seen to ‘drop’ as much as 40l.
1873		J. O’Connor Wanderings of a Vagabond 144: I’ve dropped agin them fellers eight hundred, and damn me if I hadn’t rather chucked it into the river than them thieves should have it.
1874		‘Old Calabar’ Won in a Canter II 270: ‘[T]hen he increased his stud and made a book, that cooked him, for he dropped heavily on his first Two Thousand [Guineas]’.
1881		Bulletin (Sydney) 5 Feb. 13/2: A gentleman had dropped £50 by backing the ‘out’ at the wrong time, and he got up in disgust.
1884		H. Smart Post to Finish I 24: ‘They do say [...] that the Squire’s dropped a power of brass over the race.’.
1887		Wichita Eagle (KS) 11 Nov. 7/1: I saw old Mike McDonald [...] drop $100 simply becauise he was bound to win a seventy-five cent cravat.
1890		‘Doss Chiderdoss’ ‘A Genteel Occupation’ Sporting Times 22 Feb. 1/2: Elizabeth went with her aunt to a shop / Where the loveliest gems that spondulicks can buy / Were on sale to all those who had money to drop.
1903		A. Binstead Pitcher in Paradise 184: I’d rather drop a few thousands to Bob Sinclair than I’d get it off of some of the burglars [...] that passes for workmen nowadays.
1913		J. London Valley of the Moon (1914) 181: Dick Golden and I dropped four hundred thousand francs in a week’s play at Monte Carlo.
1923		Wodehouse Inimitable Jeeves 44: I dropped my entire month’s allowance.
1929		E. Dahlberg Bottom Dogs 257: Max Maxwell, who played a highhanded bluff game of klondike and had once dropped four thousand bucks, four year’s savings, in Nogales.
1935		D. Lamson We Who Are About to Die 187: He’s scared to tell the wife he dropped the fifty in a crap game.
1946		T. Heggen Mister Roberts 54: I went in with a hundred and I dropped that. I borrowed fifty [...] I came back a little, but then I dropped that too.
1958		R. Prather Scrambled Yeggs 73: Once in a while he makes a package, but mostly he drops it.
1967		J. Wynnum I’m a Jack, All Right 10: If you can place any reliance on the buzzes flashing round this hooker [...] the Jimmie has also dropped a roll.
1968		T. Thackrey Gambling Secrets of Nick The Greek 136: They dropped a bundle.
1969		M. Puzo Godfather 375: The casino has been dropping money lately, which shouldn’t be.
1973		G.V. Higgins Digger’s Game (1981) 31: They go to Vegas and drop six [thousand dollars].
1985		N. Pileggi Wiseguy (2001) 98: Tommy, and I, took a trip to Vegas, dropped about twenty grand.
1993		(con. 1945) S. McAughtry Touch and Go 81: How much have you dropped?
1996		J. Byrell Lairs, Urgers & Coat-Tuggers 110: [I]t was nothing for ‘Baron Bob’ who bet like a toff [...] to win or drop £40 000 in a single afternoon’s betting.
2001		(con. 1964–8) J. Ellroy Cold Six Thousand 122: If King Farouk of the Congo wants to drop a hundred G’s at the Sands, I say let him.

3. (US Und.) to sell something inferior for more than it is worth.

1837		A. Greene Glance at N.Y. II i: jake: He made a dive for his pocket-book, but couldn’t make it out. mike: So much the better; we might have got the one I dropped on him this morning.
1961		B. Crump Hang On a Minute, Mate (1963) 92: We’ll see if we can drop her [a faulty gun] off in a pub somewhere for a fiver. No flies on Fred, eh!

4. (US Und.) to sell stolen property to a receiver.

a.1859		in Bartlett Dict. Americanisms (2nd edn) 424: I’d stuff watches, drop pocket-books, [...] but I’d never condescend to snug dogs .
1874		Manchester Eve. News 16 Oct. 4/1: We used to drop nearly all the stuff at Bob Macfarlane’s, and a good fence he was then.
1926		J. Black You Can’t Win (2000) 127: If I try to drop the stones here, I have to take what the first man offers me.
1933		‘Goat’ Laven Rough Stuff 61: I asked him where I could drop some slum (sell stolen jewelry).
1960, 1975		Wentworth & Flexner DAS.

5. to bribe.

1908		D. Stewart Wild Tribes of London in Illus. Police News 22 Feb. 12/4: ‘De damt police always think I got notning to do [...] but to drop ’em garnish’.
1956		‘Charles Raven’ Und. Nights 92: At this stage they may try to drop you.

6. (orig. US) to pass dud cheques or counterfeit money; thus dropping n.

1925		N. Lucas Autobiog. of a Thief 198: I was wanted [...] for the ‘kites’ (worthless cheques) which I had ‘dropped’ in various places.
1938		F.D. Sharpe Sharpe of the Flying Squad 330: dropping: Uttering forged cheques.
1956		‘Charles Raven’ Und. Nights 81: Then comes the basic penmanship, and after that the dropping – i.e., presenting the cheque at the bank. Dropping is dodgy work, so dodgy that the penman, who never drops himself, has to send a minder, known as a topper, to keep an eye on the dropper.
1982		G. Newbold Big Huey 247: drop (v) 1. Deposit contraband or money. British slang dating from about 1912.

7. to hand over drugs.

1935

A.J. Pollock Und. Speaks n.p.: Drop, to deliver ‘dope’ to buyer.

8. (US) to lower an automobile’s suspension.

1976

D. Hall Dock Ellis 67: Dock had this fifty-nine Impala. He done dropped it, and put the mags on it.

9. (N.Z. prison) to deliver or pass contraband.

1999		D. Looser ‘Boob Jargon’ in NZEJ 13 29: drop v. 1. To deposit money or contraband in a chosen place for pickup.
2001		D. Looser Boobslang [U. Canterbury D.Phil. thesis] 62/1: drop v. 1 to ferry money or contraband into a prison by giving it to an inmate personally through visits, or by leaving it in or near the prison to be collected by an inmate.

10. to give.

2006

G. Pelecanos Night Gardener 105: I gotta drop a urine every week.