glim, n. — Green’s Dictionary of Slang

glim n.

[SE gleam]

1. a look, a glimpse.

c.1620		A. Hume Orthographie etc. of the Britan Tongue (1865) 2: If the way might be found to draue your eie, set on high materes of state, to take a glim of a thing of so mean contemplation.
1796		Sporting Mag. Aug. VIII 252/2: Take a glim at your duds.
1821		Egan Life in London (1869) 56: ’Twas sterling Moll, who with each glim, / Bung’d up excited Jack Junk’s whim.
1932		(con. WWI) L. Mann Flesh in Armour 257: ‘Hardly a glim of a light [...] anywhere’.

2. a lantern, esp. a dark lantern used by thieves (later a gaslight, flashlight or torch).

1676		‘A Newgate ex-prisoner’ A Warning for House-Keepers 4: They carry in one hand a dark Glim, and in the other a Poller, which is a dark Lanthorn and a Pistol.
c.1698		B.E. Dict. Canting Crew n.p.: Glim c. a Dark-Lanthorn used in Robbing Houses.
1703		in Hell Upon Earth n.p.: Glim a Candle.
1719		A. Smith Lives of Most Notorious Highway-men, etc. (1926) 206: Glim, a dark lanthorn used in robbing houses; also to burn in the hand. As the cull was glimmed, he gangs to the nubb, i.e., if the fellow has been burnt in the hand, he’ll be hanged now. Glimstick, a candlestck.
1725		New Canting Dict. [as cit. c.1698].
1737, 1759, 1760, 1776		Bailey Universal Etym. Eng. Dict. [as cit. c.1698].
1753		J. Poulter Discoveries (1774) 43: A dark Glim; a dark Lantern.
1785, 1788, 1796		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue n.p.: Glim, a candle, or dark lantern, used in housebreaking.
1809		G. Andrewes Dict. Sl. and Cant.
1811		Lex. Balatronicum [as cit. 1785].
1821		W.T. Moncrieff Tom and Jerry II ii: Then catch – here’s the gentleman’s tooth picker, and here’s his glim.
1831		Navy at Home I 10: The purser’s glim and six inches of day-light, with rays oblique, struggled for the mastery.
1838		Dickens Oliver Twist (1966) 161: Let’s have a glim [...] or we shall go breaking our necks, or treading on the dog.
1848		‘Ned Buntline’ Mysteries and Miseries of N.Y. I 37: Then old Jack bade Harriet trim the glim.
1856		C. Reade It Is Never Too Late to Mend II 257: Lucky I would not work till the glim was out.
1863		T. Taylor Ticket-Of-Leave Man IV ii: Give me the glim.
1873		W.H. Thomes Bushrangers 402: ‘Bring hither a glim!’ roared the commissioner, for it was hardly light.
1883		R.L. Stevenson Treasure Island 39: Sure enough, they left their glim here.
1894		S. Wales Echo 8 Dec. 4/2: Skivvy produced a dark lantern [...] ‘Now.’ he said, ‘I’m to ’ave the glim in one ’and an’ the barker in t’other’.
1900		Flynt & Walton Powers That Prey 213: ‘Let’s swap looks at each other under this glim here.’ And the robber drew Pankerd toward the street-lamp.
1901		W.A. Sun. Times (Perth) 15 Sept. 1/1: The ‘illuminant’ in Iocal railway carriages is reminiscent of a nigger's fire stick [...] what the lamps lack in flame they make up in foul-smelling fumes [and] the greasy glim last week resulted in the wrong man squeezing the right woman.
1901		Argus (Melbourne) 20 Sept. 6/4: He carries, his a rule, his faked turns, or skeleton keys, and his shady glim, or a dark lantern.
1908		‘Old Sleuth’ Dock Rats of N.Y. (2006) 35: Ahoy there, bring a glim here, quick! Here’s stranger, and by all that’s fatal, I believe Tom’s enemy!
1919		‘Sax Rohmer’ Dope 140: ‘Fetch a glim, Sin Sin,’ he cried. ‘I’ll never get out if I don’t jump to it.’ Sin Sin Wa took the lantern from the counter and followed.
1928		J. Callahan Man’s Grim Justice 49: Red put the ‘glim’ (flash light) up against the keyhole.
1937		E. Raymond Marsh 233: He followed Meyer into the blackness of a crib, with Meyer’s electric torch, or ‘glim’.
1944		C. Fluck ‘Bubbles’ of the Old Kent Road 26: If he wakes up, so that he won’t get the wind up, I’ll leave on the glim (gas light).
1945		F.H. Hubbard Railroad Avenue 344: Glim – Switchman’s or trainman’s lantern.
1950		Goldin et al. DAUL 82/2: Glim. 1. A light, especially a burglar’s shielded torch.
1977		D. Powis Signs of Crime 186: Glim A torch, especially a miniature torch.

3. a candle; any form of light, e.g. a star, a vehicle light.

1703		Hell Upon Earth 5: Glim, a Candle.
1718		C. Hitchin Regulator 20: Glim, alias Candle.
1728		Defoe Street Robberies Considered 32: Glim, Light.
1768		(con. 1710–25) Tyburn Chronicle II in Groom (1999) xxix: A Glim A Candle.
1781		G. Parker View of Society II 69: If you hear, Out glim, which is flash for ‘put out the candle’.
1807		H. Tufts Autobiog. (1930) 292: Glims . . . the stars.
1812		Vaux Vocab. of the Flash Lang.
c.1816		‘The Night Before Larry Was Stretched’ in Farmer Musa Pedestris (1896) 80: Six glims round his coffin they placed.
1827		Commercial Advertiser (N.Y.) 1 Feb. 2/3: After roystering at the Theatre, they broomed to a neighboring bousing ken [...] one told the landlord to flick him some panea and cassan, [...] while the others commenced smashing the flickers and glims.
1834		(con. 1737–9) W.H. Ainsworth Rookwood (1857) 186: Now Oliver puts his black nightcap on / And every star its glim is hiding.
1842		‘The Night Squall’ in Nobby Songster 3: She shone in the light of a penny glim, / As she pinched and played with her hairy q--m!
1843		Whip & Satirist of NY & Brooklyn (NY) 21 Jan. n.p.: He struck a glim and groped his way up the stairs.
1858		A. Mayhew Paved with Gold 118: The last in bed blows out the glim.
1870		Hotten Sl. Dict.
1884		Henley & Stevenson Admiral Guinea II vi: Now, here you see, is my little glim; it aint for me, because I’m blind.
1895		Crowe Aus. Sl. Dict. 32: Glim, a light.
1896		F. Hutcheson Barkeep Stories 141: ‘[I] get it t’roo me nut dat I’m pinched on account o’ me glim [i.e. a bicycle light] bein’ out’.
1899		C. Rook Hooligan Nights 61: There was a glim burning in the room.
1904		Sun. Times (Perth) 25 Dec. 1/1: The Busselton slops have temporarily suppressed their slugging once the ‘Times’ shed its glim.
1911		D. Runyon ‘The Informal Execution of Soupbone Pew’ From First to Last (1954) 79: A big arc outside threw a little glim through the sidewalk grating, so I could see what I was doing.
1924		E.G. Murphy ‘’Is ’Arp’ Dryblower’s Verses 10: I see ’im now a-singin’ ’imms / Among the clouds and starry glims.
1930		G. Milburn ‘De Night Before Christmas’ Hobo’s Hornbook 258: De glims in de winders was shinin’ and bright.
1989		J. Morton Lowspeak 66: Glim – a match, or a light.

4. a ‘fiery’ drink.

1756

W. Toldervy Hist. of the Two Orphans III 112: Taking a dirty paper out of her bosom, in which was written the following words: Tape, glim, rushlight, white port, rasher of bacon, gunpowder, slug, wild-fire, knock-me-down, and strip-me-naked.

5. (UK Und.) fire.

1741		Canting Academy, or the Pedlar’s-French Dict.
c.1750–1882		B.M. Carew Life and Adventures.
1785, 1788, 1796		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.
1811		Lex. Balatronicum.
1823		Egan Grose’s Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.
1835		Worcester Herald 26 Dec. 4/3: A glim, a fire.
1885		Grantham Jrnl 25 July 3/2: They neared the terrible fire [...] We’ll show you the way to ‘douse a glim!’.

6. (also glimm) often in pl., the eye.

1789		G. Parker Life’s Painter 158: Glims. Eyes.
c.1790		‘Lord Altham’s Bull’ in Walsh Ireland Ninety Years Ago (1885) 88: Oh! boys, your sowls, I tought de life ud leave Mosety Creathorn’s glimms, when he saw his bitch in de air.
1809		G. Andrewes Dict. Sl. and Cant.
c.1810		‘The Blind Sailor’ in Holloway & Black (1975) I 30: A cartridge burst, and douted / Both my two precious glims.
1823		‘Jon Bee’ Dict. of the Turf, the Ring, the Chase, etc. 206: Glimms — the eyes.
1824		Egan Boxiana IV 417: His glims I’ve made to look like a couple of rainbows.
1830		Lytton Paul Clifford I 130: Queer my glims, if that be n’t little Paul!
1840		R. Barham ‘The House-Warming’ Ingoldsby Legends (1847) 288: Harold escaped with the loss of a ‘glim’.
c.1850		Duncombe New and Improved Flash Dict.
1878		‘’Arry on Pooty Women’ Punch 21 Sept. in P. Marks (2006) 149: A pooty gal, gentle, or simple, as carn’t use her glims is a flat.
1900		Flynt & Walton Powers That Prey 174: The captain asked him what in the name of things unprintable ‘his glims were for’ and told him pointblank that any one not an ass could say whether a man that he had passed was the prisoner or not.
1905		Sun. Times (Perth) 5 Feb. 1/1: He strolls along with bible in hand what time the beauties bathe in the briny [and] the gloat in his glims isn’t quite so saintly as the scriptural volume.
1910		Truth (Perth) 17 Dec. 6/8: Which his nose are summat reddish, / And his eyes is dusky glims.
1915		T.A. Dorgan Indoor Sports 9 Jan. [synd. cartoon] The guy with the bum glim is the Alfred de Oro of the town. Some slick feller.
1924		Hecht & Bodenheim Cutie 23: The kippered herring at his side opened one of its glims.
c.1935		‘Mae West in “The Hip Flipper”’ [comic strip] in B. Adelman Tijuana Bibles (1997) 93: That dying duck look in his limpid, pale green glims.
1943		R.L. Bellem ‘Dead Man’s Shakedown’ in Dan Turner Detective Mar. 🌐 A handsome mugg with dreamy glims, flaring nostrils and a smile that made dames go off the deep end.
1944		C. Himes ‘Let Me at the Enemy’ in Coll. Stories (1990) 40: I raised my neck and skinned my glims.
1944		D. Runyon Runyon à la Carte 72: In the dark Johnny One-Eye’s good glim shines like a big spark.
1951		D. Dressler Parole Chief 228: ‘For heaven’s sake! [...] An artificial eye!’ [...] The merchant [...] held out his hand for the glim.
1970		‘Troy Conway’ Cunning Linguist (1973) 108: He couldn’t get his glims unglued from the slinky, sloping convoluted magnificence of Magda’s hills.

7. a venereal disease.

1790		‘Bumper Allnight. Esquire’ Honest Fellow 154: I pick’d your pocket of fourscore pound / [...] / And into the bargain I gave you the glim.
1890–1904		Farmer & Henley Sl. and Its Analogues.

8. (mainly US, in pl., spectacles, eye-glasses; thus Aus.) glim-faking, selling spectacles at inflated prices.

1845		G.W.M. Reynolds Mysteries of London vol. 2 142: Glims Spectacles.
1902		Wash. Times (DC) 14 Sept. 10/3: Glim— Spectacles.
1909		W.H. Davies Beggars 104: Spectacles – glims.
1919		St Louis Post-Despatch 16 Jan. 25/2: You can’t even tell when it’s daylight without [...] a pair of glims.
1924		G. Henderson Keys to Crookdom 404: Eyglasses – googs, glims.
1949		Monteleone Criminal Sl. (rev. edn).
1966		Baker Aus. Lang. (2nd edn) 144: glimfaking [...] selling spectacles at an inflated profit.
1984		Partridge DSUE (8th edn) 471: ca. 1860–1920.

9. a fake account of a dramatic fire, as sold in the streets.

1858		A. Mayhew Paved with Gold 267: I’m thinking of working the ‘glim’ and going on the dreadful conflagrashun lurk.
1861		(con. 1840s–50s) H. Mayhew London Labour and London Poor I 219/2: Shipwreck is called a ‘shake lurk;’ loss by fire is a ‘glim’.

10. (also shade-glim) a window.

1848		Ladies’ Repository (N.Y.) Oct. VIII:37 317/1: Shade glim, a door, or window.
1904		Marvel 12 Nov. 6: ‘You can see the boy thieves at work through that glim, Dick.’ Dick Hope peered through the window.

11. a match.

c.1880		‘US Army Sl. 1870s–1880s’ [compiled by R. Bunting, San Diego CA, 2001] Glim or Lucifer A light, or match.
1935		A.J. Pollock Und. Speaks.
1949		Monteleone Criminal Sl. (rev. edn).

12. (US tramp) in pl., dawn.

1934

T. Minehan Boy and Girl Tramps of America (1976) 217: I carries the banner slinking harness bulls. Until glims. Then I batters private.

13. (US tramp) an eyeglass.

1931

Irwin Amer. Tramp and Und. Sl. 86: Glim. – [...] an eye-glass.

14. a lighter.

1949

Monteleone Criminal Sl. (rev. edn).

15. (US) in pl., opera glasses.

1947

J. Lardner ‘This Was Pugilism’ in New Yorker 6 Dec. 71: They [...] manipulated the concessions for the fight—ice cream, near beer, seat cushions, cigarettes, lemonade, glims (opera glasses), and others.

In compounds

glim-dropper (n.) [gold-dropper n.]

(US Und.) a confidence trick whereby a trickster allegedly drops an artificial eye in a shop. He offers a reward if it is found. The merchant cannot do so, but a second conman arrives, only to find the eye. He then says he will claim the reward, until the merchant, who also wants it, buys it from him. There is no reward.

1928		J. O’Connor Broadway Racketeers 49: [ch. title] The Glim Dropper.
1951		D. Dressler Parole Chief 229: After considerable dickering, the shopkeeper, remembering the five-hundred dollar promise, parted with two hundred for the eye. The Glim Dropper’s confederate departed. [...] that’s all.

glim-fenders (n.) (UK Und.)

1. andirons.

1674		Head Canting Academy (2nd edn).
c.1698		B.E. Dict. Canting Crew n.p.: Glimfenders, c. Andirons. Rum Glimfenders, Silver Andirons.
1725		New Canting Dict. [as cit. c.1698].
1737, 1759, 1760, 1776		Bailey Universal Etym. Eng. Dict. [as cit. c.1698].
c.1750–1882		B.M. Carew Life and Adventures.
1754		Scoundrel’s Dict.
1785, 1788, 1796		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.
1795		H.T. Potter New Dict. Cant (2nd edn).
1809		G. Andrewes Dict. Sl. and Cant.
1811		Lex. Balatronicum.
1823		Egan Grose’s Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.
1835		G. Kent Modern Flash Dict.
1848		Flash Dict. in Sinks of London Laid Open.
c.1850		Duncombe New and Improved Flash Dict.

2. handcuffs [puns on sense 1 as ‘hand irons’].

1823

‘Jon Bee’ Dict. of the Turf, the Ring, the Chase, etc.

glim-flashy (adj.) (also glimflashey, glimflashly, grimflushly) [one fig. flashes a glim]

angry, impassioned.

1674		Head Canting Academy (2nd edn).
c.1698		B.E. Dict. Canting Crew n.p.: Glimflashy c. angry or in a Passion. The Cull is Glimflashy, c. the Fellow is in a Heat.
1725		New Canting Dict. [as cit. c.1698].
1737, 1759, 1760, 1776		Bailey Universal Etym. Eng. Dict. [as cit. c.1698].
1754		Scoundrel’s Dict. 15: Angry – Glim flushly.
1785, 1788, 1796		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.
1809		G. Andrewes Dict. Sl. and Cant.
1811		Lex. Balatronicum.
1828		Lytton Pelham III 295: ‘What ho, my kiddy,’ cried Job, ‘don’t be glimflashy.’.
1830		Lytton Paul Clifford III 110: No, Captain, don’t be glimflashey! You have not heard all yet. [Ibid.] 245: Now don’t be glimflashy, but let me go on smack right about.
1848		Flash Dict. in Sinks of London Laid Open.
1859		Matsell Vocabulum 37: glim flashy In a passion; savage.
1881		Trumble Sl. Dict. (1890).

glim-glibber (n.) [? fig. use of sense 2 above as generic for underworld + SE gibber, to mutter, to talk incomprehensibly]

1. a particular jargon or professional slang.

1844

Lord Brougham Albert Lunel III 180: The Sieur Gaspar [...] assured him that all of the same caste (or, as he jocosely termed it, of the same cant) had a glimglibber of their own, and quite understood one another.

2. intelligence.

1860

J.P. Kay-Shuttleworth Scarsdale I 220: If the letter is in cursed parley vous, use your ‘glim gibber’ to turn it into good roast-beef lingo.".

glim-jack (n.) (also glym jack) [generic proper name Jack]

a link boy, hired to guide people to a destination through dark streets.

1674		Head Canting Academy (2nd edn) 174: Glym Jack A Link boy.
c.1698		B.E. Dict. Canting Crew n.p.: Glimjack c. a Link-boy.
1725		New Canting Dict. [as cit. c.1698].
1737, 1759, 1760, 1776		Bailey Universal Etym. Eng. Dict. [as cit. c.1698].
1754		Scoundrel’s Dict. 18: Link boy – Moon-curser or Glim-jack.
1785, 1788, 1796		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.
1811		Lex. Balatronicum.
1823		Egan Grose’s Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.
1835		G. Kent Modern Flash Dict.
1848		Flash Dict. in Sinks of London Laid Open.
c.1850		Duncombe New and Improved Flash Dict.

glim-lurk (n.) [lurk n. (1)]

(UK Und.) the pleading for alms after suffering a supposed fire.

1859, 1860		Hotten Dict. of Modern Sl. etc.
1861		(con. 1840s–50s) H. Mayhew London Labour and London Poor I 312/2: William as got a month along with Cockny Harry for a glim lurk and they kum out nex Mundie.
1873		Sl. Dict.
1884		‘Career of a Scapegrace’ in Leicester Chron. 10 May 12/1: A greasey-looking individual, one side of his face bearing terrible marks of burns, doing the ‘glim lurk’.

glim star (n.) [like a SE star it gives off light]

(UK Und.) a ring, usu. a diamond ring.

1741		Ordinary of Newgate Account of the Malefactors executed at Tyburn 18th March 1740 part II 7: She observ’d a Gentleman [...] who had a very handsome GlimStar, (that is, a Ring) upon his Feme, (that is, Hand).
1764		Bloody Register III 169: [as cit. 1741].

glim-stick (n.) (also glym stick)

(UK Und.) a candlestick; thus rum glimstick, a silver candlestick; queer glimstick, a brass or pewter candlestick.

1674		Head Canting Academy (2nd edn) 174: Glym stick A Candlestick.
c.1698		B.E. Dict. Canting Crew n.p.: Glimstick c. a Candlestick.
1719		A. Smith Lives of Most Notorious Highway-men, etc. (1926) 206: Glim, a dark lanthorn used in robbing houses; also to burn in the hand [...] Glimstick, a candlestick.
1725		New Canting Dict. [as cit. c.1698].
1737, 1759, 1760, 1776		Bailey Universal Etym. Eng. Dict. [as cit. c.1698].
1741		Canting Academy, or the Pedlar’s-French Dict. 115: Candlestick Glimstick.
1768		(con. 1710–25) Tyburn Chronicle II in Groom (1999) xxix: A Glimstick A Candlestick, or Dark Lanthorn.
1785, 1788, 1796		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.
1809		G. Andrewes Dict. Sl. and Cant.
1812		Vaux Vocab. of the Flash Lang.
1835		G. Kent Modern Flash Dict.
1848		Flash Dict. in Sinks of London Laid Open.
1859		Matsell Vocabulum 37: glimsticks Candlesticks.
1881		Trumble Sl. Dict. (1890).

In phrases

dark glim (n.)

see under dark adj.

douse someone’s glim (v.)

1. (US Und.) to give someone a black eye; thus doused glim n., a black eye, douse a glim, to suffer a black eye.

1832		Spirit of the Times (NY) 4 Feb. 1/2: Never mind lee shores; douse his glims [...] give him a broadside.
1833		‘Polly Cox’ in Corinthian in Spedding & Watt (eds) Bawdy Songbooks (2011) IV 50: He fighting didn’t like at all, / As dows’d was both his glims.
1845		D. Corcoran Pickings from N.O. Picayune (1847) 175: Avast there, you piratical looking old landshark [...] or I’ll douse your glims while you’d be saying Jack Robinson.
1900		Truth (Sydney) 28 Oct. 5/5: One had got his jaw in slings, / The other cove had doused a glim.
1907		Sun. Times (Perth) 3 Feb. 1/1: He took to his boat with one of his glims considerably doused.
1924		G. Henderson Keys to Crookdom 399: A black eye. Also called a ‘smoked lamp,’ doused glim.

2. used as excl.

1863

Caledonian Mercury 13 Mar. 4/4: Yoho, there! Dowse my glims!

3. (also douse someone’s light) to kill someone or knock them unonscious.

1871		L. Lewis Brave Boy’s Battle in Brisbane Courier (Qld) 11 Nov. 2/6: ‘Better put out the youngster’s light, hadn’t I?’ queried the other [...] ‘When I speak the word, you douse his glim’ .
1890		Sporting Times 8 Mar. 1/3: Inhuman Monster! [...] why not Douse his Glim at once?
1900		Marvel 12 Dec. 11: We’d have some fun out of the prisoner we’ve got over there – douse his light.
1904		G.M. Hewett Rat 200: I cannot think that I robbed the world of any ‘bright particular star’ when I ‘dowsed his glim,’ as he would have expressed it.

douse the glim (v.) (also douse the glimmer, out the glim, shoot the glim, top the glim)

to turn off the light; usu. as imper.

1753		J. Poulter Discoveries (1774) 43: Douss the Glims; put out the Candles.
1786		Whole Art of Thieving .
c.1786		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue ms. additions n.p.: Out the Glim. Put out the Candle.
1801		Sporting Mag. June XVIII 162/2: Dowse the glim and be damned to ye!
1807		H. Tufts Autobiog. (1930) 293: douse the glin [sic] put out the light.
1815		(con. 18C) W. Scott Guy Mannering (1999) 18: On the light [...] being observed, a halloo from the vessel, of ‘Ware hawk! Douse the glim!’.
1818		‘A. Burton’ Adventures of Johnny Newcome I 40: The first Lieutenant’s Mercury [...] Had ‘douced the glim,’ and quell’d the riot.
1825		C.M. Westmacott Eng. Spy I 389: The traps! the traps! [...] Douse the glims! stash it – stash it!
1832		Launceston Advertiser (Tas) 25 Oct. 344/3: ‘Dowse the glim,’ cried a fourth; and instantly we were in total darkness.
1834		Ely’s Hawk & Buzzard (NY) Mar. 22 3/3: [They] passed the night very agreeable with being disurbed by [...] dousing the glim.
1837		Roscommon Jrnl 16 Sept. 2/3: Jack finished his ‘cold without’ and aimed his empty tumbler with sufficient accuracy to smash the lamp, douse the glimmer.
1837		Marryat Snarleyyow II 158: ‘I can douse a glim, anyhow,’ cried Jemmy.
1837		Morn. Post (London) 2 Sept. 3/2: Jack finished his ‘cold without’, and aimed his empty tumbler [...] to smash the lamp, douse the glimmer and break up the company.
1840		Marryat Poor Jack 162: Do top that glim, Bill.
1842		Whip & Satirist of NY & Brooklyn (NY) 10 Dec. n.p.: It was near the hour of 12, and [...] Mortimer mounted tye table to ‘douce the glim’.
1842		Era 11 Dec. 10/2: When a lantern was presented [...] at one corner of the ring, the cry rushed, like the blast of a Sirocco, of ‘douse the glim!’.
1852		G.C. Mundy Our Antipodes II 46: I can’t and wont go to the table to ‘douse the glim’.
1864		Western Dly Press 24 Oct. 4/3: Amongst thieves douse the glim signifies ‘put out the light’.
1865		Leaves from Diary of Celebrated Burglar 47/1: Joe clutched his ‘neddy’ and whispered, ‘Douce the glimmer, Jack!’.
1866		J. Greenwood Little Ragamuffin 118: Dowse the glim! here come the nippers.
1867		W.H. Smyth Sailor’s Word-Bk (1991) 689: Top the glim, to. To snuff the candle.
1870		Hotten Sl. Dict.
1876		Luton Times 7 Oct. 8/3: The captain called out, ‘ouse that glim’ — and out went the candle.
1882		Sydney Sl. Dict. (2 edn) 3: Douse the Glim - Put out the light.
1883		J. Keane On Blue Water 200: After that, we thought it was time to douse the glim and turn over in our pews for a doss.
1884		Sheffield Indep. 29 Nov. 16/3: ‘Here’s Cheadle, douse the glim,’ and as that gentleman entered they both pretended to be asleep.
1892		H. Lawson ‘Constable M’Carty’s Investigations’ in Roderick (1967–9) I 195: Or, if he was up to mischief, he’d be sure to douse the glim.
1894		J. Astley Fifty Years (2nd edn) I 301: He made a lovely shot and ‘doused the glim’.
1904		Sydney Sportsman (Surry Hills, NSW) 6 July 4/3: Two kept their lanterns alight, but one— the winner — finished with his light out, and then there was trouble as to whether the winner had ‘doused his glim’ to work a point, or whether his darkness was accidental.
1906		A. McCormick Tinkler-Gypsies of Galloway 104: The following words appear to be still in use in one form or another amongst Galwegian tinkler-gypsies – Douse the glim.
1906		Marvel 6 Jan. 683: Douse the glim, sharp, an’ follow me!
1917		W.Y. Stevenson At the Front in a Flivver 10 June 🌐 They want all lights out at ten o’clock, so we said if they would stop talking at nine, we would ‘douse the glim’ at eleven.
1920		F. Packard White Moll 28: Shoot the glim, and get me to the door.
1924		(con. WWI) A.G. Pretty Gloss. of Sl. [...] in the A.I.F. 1921–1924 (rev. t/s) n.p.: douse the glim. Put out the light.
1933		M. Marshall Tramp-Royal on the Toby 79: Without so much as a cheep he doused the glim.
1949		H.C. Bosman Cold Stone Jug (1981) II 66: I douses the glim and goes up to bed.
1950		Goldin et al. DAUL 61/2: Douse. To put out, as a light. ‘Douse the glim, Turk.’.
1954		T. Ronan Vision Splendid 309: ‘Before you go out, Top, douse that bloody glim.’ Mr. Toppingham put out the light.