Green’s Dictionary of Slang

the vagina; thus a woman in a sexual context.

1736		Prompter 6 Feb. 1/1: I am a Basket-Maker by trade [...] My Mistress having discover’d I had an excellent Talent for carrying on the Trade of Basket-Making, thought proper to transfer over to me the same Right and Title to all she has.
1772		G. Stevens ‘The Sentiment Song’ in Songs Comic and Satyrical 126: The Brown Female-Reaper, who dares undertake her? / And the Wife of Will Wattle – The neat Basket-maker.
1890–1904		Farmer & Henley Sl. and Its Analogues.
1896		Farmer Vocabula Amatoria (1966) 78: Corbillon, m. The female pudendum; ‘the basket-maker’.

sexual intercourse; usu. in phr. the trade of basket-making, prostitution.

1694		Comforts of Whoreing 8: [She] takes lodgings in Salisbury Court, and sets up the old Trade of Basket-making.
1700		Devil and the Strumpet 3: She soon set up for her self an invincible Nanny-House [...] where the Trade of Basket-making went on for a considerable time.
1709		N. Ward Compleat and Humorous Account of Remarkable Clubs (1756) 269: For the better Promotion of the good old Trade of basket-Making, she got an experienced Covy of Salacious Wag-Tails to settle a Club at her Cuniculary Ware-House.
1717		N. Ward British Wonders 10: [They] Took up the Trade of basket-making. And humbly ply’d for small Rewards, Among His majesty’s Foot-Guards.
1733		Laugh and Be Fat 27: The talkative Congregation might be undeceiv’d, and return home to their warm Beds, and there with their Husbands, fall to the old Trade of Basket-making.
1736		Prompter 6 Feb. 1/1: My Mistress having discover’d I had an excellent Talent for carrying on the Trade of Basket-Making, thought proper to transfer over to me the same Right and Title to all she has, her deceased Spouse enjoy’d. In short, Sir, I am marry’d to her.
1771		R. King New London Spy 50: These dressed up ladies [...] who carry on the old business of basket making, under the sign of the Three Nuns.
1785, 1788, 1796		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.
1811		Lex. Balatronicum.
1823		‘Jon Bee’ Dict. of the Turf, the Ring, the Chase, etc. 7: Children unborn are said to be in the basket [...] ‘The old trade of basket-making’ alludes to the same kind of thing.
1988		(ref. to 18C) J. McDonald Dict. of Obscenity etc. 67: As far back as the eighteenth century we have [...] basket (i.e. bastard) making.

(gay) to wander the streets gazing at male genitals; this can provide some men with adequate satisfaction, others may be simply sizing up the available talent for later developments; also as n.

1941		G. Legman ‘Lang. of Homosexuality’ Appendix VII in Henry Sex Variants.
1965		Guild Dict. Homosexual Terms 3: basketeer (n.): One who looks over the genitals of men as they show through their trousers.
1972		B. Rodgers Queens’ Vernacular.

(US gay) a spell of fine weather, permitting one to wear light clothes that reveal one’s genitals.

1965		Guild Dict. Homosexual Terms 3: basket days (n.): A period of mild weather that permits men to wear garments light enough to reveal the contours of their baskets.
1972		R.A. Farrell ‘Argot of the Homosexual Subculture’ in Anthropological Linguistics 98: BASKET DAYS (n.): A period of mild weather that permits persons to wear clothing that reveals the contours of their genitals or ‘baskets’.
1972		B. Rodgers Queens’ Vernacular.

(mainly gay) fellatio.

1972		B. Rodgers Queens’ Vernacular.
1989		J. Morton Lowspeak.

(US gay) a man with large genitals.

1972

B. Rodgers Queens’ Vernacular.

(gay) staring at other men’s genitals while wandering the streets.

1941		G. Legman ‘Lang. of Homosexuality’ Appendix VII in Henry Sex Variants.
1965		Guild Dict. Homosexual Terms 3: basket picnic (n.): An expedition of basketeering; some homosexuals derive an erotic satisfaction from looking at the genitals of men as they show through the trousers.
1972		B. Rodgers Queens’ Vernacular.

(gay) staring at passing men, focussing on their genital area.

1972

R.A. Wilson Playboy’s Book of Forbidden Words 28: Basket shopping means looking over passing men as heterosexuals look over the ladies.

(gay) to wander the streets gazing at male genitals; thus basket-watcher n.

1966		Trimble 5000 Adult Sex Words and Phrases.
1972		B. Rodgers Queens’ Vernacular 207: one who isn’t very secretive about eyeing others [...] basket-watcher.

(US gay) one who wears tight trousers for sexual display; thus basket-weaving, wearing tight trousers; basket-weaves, tight trousers.

1965		Guild Dict. Homosexual Terms 3: basket weaver (n:) One who habitually wears skintight pants with a view to display; the penis is frequently kept semierect or hard, either through youthful vigor or frequent groping or fondling of the crotch.
1972		B. Rodgers Queens’ Vernacular 28: basket-weaving wearing tight pants.
1978		(ref. to 1960s) D. Hebdige Subculture 53: The hard-core Soho mod of 1964 [...] encased in ‘basket weaves’ or Rael’s originals.

see sense 2 above.

see sense 2 above.

see sense 2 above.

1. (also basket) a cripple, either mentally or physically.

1919		C.A. Smith New Words Self-Defined 19: ‘The Surgeon General of the Army [...] emphatically denies [...] the existence of “basket cases” in our hospitals. A basket case is a soldier who has lost both legs and arms and therefore can not be carried on a stretcher.’.
1925		F.A. March Thesaurus Dict. Eng. Lang. n.p.: Words from Warfare [...] basket case: soldier who has lost both arms and legs.
1935		Man in Arms 224: ‘And poor Tommy is a basket case — both legs and both arms gone?’ I started. ‘Yes, and the game little devil is quite cheerful about it because his eyes are as good as ever!’.
1944		E. Wilson 13 Mar. [synd. col.] I asked him about ‘basket cases’ — the few limbless boys who must be caried in special stretchers.
1958		H.E. Bates Darling Buds of May (1985) 52: Always was a basket.
1966		H.S. Thompson letter 8 Dec. in Proud Highway (1997) 592: I slid down a shale cliff during an elk hunt and almost turned into a basket case.
1974		Graphic 25 July 6: There are various degrees of mental illness and a person needn’t be a basket case before he decides he should talk things over with a professional.
1976		R. Price Blood Brothers 201: Don’t get no heart attack on me! I get all the fuckin’ basket cases!
1983		A-Team Storybook 18: You don’t want me to become a basket case, do you?
1993		T. Jones Pugilist at Rest 122: I’m a walking basket case, Dana.
1999		Dandy 18 Sept. n.p.: That’s how we deal with a basket case!
1999		R.G. Barrett Wind & Monkey (2013) [ebook] Les and Mr Wobbly were both basket cases.
2001		A. Sillitoe Birthday 33: If he had survived as a basket case there would have been no one like Jenny to look after him.
2006		C. Hiaasen Nature Girl 68: Not all guys thought she was a basket case.
2007		L. Redhead Cherry Pie [ebook] ‘Shed’s running around interviewing every basket case who calls’.
2019		M. Herron Joe Country [ebook] ‘Fuck-ups, basket-cases, druggies and drunks’.

2. one who is incapable of tackling a situation; also in non-human contexts.

1953		P. Adler House is Not a Home 245: By New Year’s, 1935, after three months in the new house, I realized I’d wind up a basket case if I didn’t take a vacation.
1969		Adams & Fyffe Corporate Promotables 113: I don’t run a basket case like some other plants were in the past. Some had a complete basket case on their hands. Interviewer: Basket case? Dictator: Yes, no procedural control, no discipline.
1977		Manchester Guardian Weekly 22 May 16: Country-by-country investigations, even of the so-called basket cases like Bangladesh.
1982		Newsweek 1 Nov. n.p.: Spain is not yet an economic basket case [R].
1988		Totally True Diaries of an Eighties Roller Queen 🌐 8 May I was a basket case and didn’t sleep a wink. When I got home I tried to work and then went to bed.
1991		B. Hamper Rivethead (1992) 104: I slouched next to him fumbling for cigarettes, a complete basket case.
1997		C. Hiaasen Lucky You 160: Bode Gazzer was a basket case; any second he expected the blue flash of police lights.
2008		Mail & Guardian (Johannesburg) 3 Mar. 🌐 South Africa is just another African basket case.
2014		T. Black Artefacts of the Dead [ebook] Every time you go out that door you become a basket case with the stress and strain.
2020		A. Trebek The Answer Is 277: It’s the strangest thing now with cancer: there are days when I’m just a basket case before we tape.

3. in fig. use, something extremely shocking, moving etc.

1965

L. Bruce How to Talk Dirty 85: If it was the ‘Basket Case’ (the act which had the most dramatic impact), you would get $50.

4. one who behaves in a notably eccentric manner.

1972		Sat. Rev. (US) 22 Jan. 16: Dad’s a basket case by the time he gets out to Yellowstone from the East.
2000		Observer Mag. 12 Mar. 10: I’m [...] a fucking basket case, a lunatic.
2012		M. McBride Frank Sinatra in a Blender [ebook] He was a basket case, couldn’t take the stress .

(US prison) a solitary confinement cell.

1912

A. Berkman Prison Memoirs of an Anarchist (1926) 219: The whole week I look forward to the brief respite from the terrible ‘basket’ cell [...] The torture of the ‘basket’ is maddening.

1. (UK und.) in a pickpocket team, the member to whom the plunder is immediate passed by the actual pickpocket.

1823

Observer 26 May 2: He was soon surrounded, and on being properly stalled up and felt [...] the cash [...] was transferred to the basket man, so called from his being the receiver of the swag [...] and safely deposited.

2. (US Und.) a graft collector for a criminal gang.

1935		A.J. Pollock Und. Speaks.
1936		H. Corey Farewell, Mr Gangster! 276: Basket man – a graft collector.

used in phrs., usu. grin/smile like a basket of chips v., to grin broadly.

1712		A Certain information 28: But what is it makes you Smile, Philologus, so like a Basket of Chips.
1715		T. Burnet Second Tale of a Tub 194: When he smil’d — ’Twas like a Basket of Chips.
c.1786		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue ms. additions n.p.: Basket. He grins like a Basket of Chips.
1788, 1796		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue (2nd, 3rd edn).
1806		Spirit of the Public Journals 115: She smiled like a basket of chips, / As tall as a hay-pole her size, / As sweet as molasses her lips, / As bright as a button her eyes.
1811		Lex. Balatronicum.
1819		‘One of the Fancy’ Tom Crib’s Memorial to Congress 25: On which the whole Populace flash’d the white grin / Like a basket of chips, and poor GEORGY gave in.
1821		R. Waln Hermit in America on Visit to Phila. 2nd series 27: ‘He grins like a basket of chips;’ cried a fifth.
1835		Knickerbocker (N.Y.) V:5 May 436: When one is good humored, it is apt to be remarked that ‘He is as smiling as a basket of chips.’ Now reader, is there anything so very humorous in a basket of chips? Does it wear a smile? I never could perceive that it did.
1847		‘Epistle from Joe Muggins’s Dog’ in Era (London) 18 Apr. 4/1: Charley Liley, the play man [...] looking as savage as a basket of chips.
1848		Boston Blade 10 June n.p.: I saw some very pretty girls [...] as pleasant to me as a basket of chips.
1855		Olympia (Wash. Territory) Pioneer 17 Mar. n.p.: Mr. Slidell is lying back in his chair, smiling like a basket of chips.
1861		Richmond Enquirer (VA) 17 Oct. n.p.: Blanche Martin, nymph du pave, who appeared in Court, in the exquisite language of a Western poet, ‘as smiling as a basket of chips’.
1871		Appleton’s Journal (N.Y.) 9 Dec. 669: There is another class of similes scarcely as pertinent; as, for instance: [...] talk to him like a Dutch uncle; smiling as a basket of chips; odd as Dick’s hatband; happy as a clam at high water; quicker than you can say Jack Robinson; like all possessed; like fury; like all natur’; like all sixty; as quick as anything; mad as hops; mad as Halifax; sleep like a top; run like thunder; deader than a door-nail.
1878		R.T. Cooke Happy Dodd Ch. xxvi: They’ll make up to-night, and she’ll be as pleasant as a basket of chips.
1880		Hull Packet 25 June 3/1: The Bud still went at it, as mad as hops, and as smiling as a basket of chips.
1908		E.C. Hall Aunt Jane of Kentucky 45: There he was, as smilin’ as a basket o’ chips, if he did have to walk with a cane.

(orig. Aus.) an attractive woman.

1909

J. Ware Passing Eng. of the Victorian Era.

sent to prison.

1732

Gentleman Instructed Pt I 6: God be praised! I am not brought to the basket, though I had rather live on charity than rapine .

(UK Und.) to steal a parcel or luggage from the basket, or rear part, of a stage coach.

1777

J. Fielding Thieving Detected 43: Flying the Basket. [...] there is not a stage coach or machine which comes to London, but hath been robbed in this manner.

to go to prison.

c.1618

Massinger & Field Fatal Dowry (1632) V i: Arrested? [...] He is not worth your pitty, nor my anger. Goe to the basket, and repent.

confused, nonplussed.

1806		T. Creevey letter 10 July in Gore Creevey Papers (1948) 48: Poor Charlotte was rather ‘in the basket,’ for you know Ogles and Greys do not take much pains to make a stranger comfortable.
1821–6		‘Bill Truck’ Man o’ War’s Man (1843) 253: Aha, Ned, you’re completely in the basket.
1830		Bell’s Life in London 17 Oct. 3/1: Bill Atkinson feels vexed that Dick Curtis was not sharp enough to discover that he is quite ‘in the basket’ respecting his (Bill’s) challenge.