Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (orig. US) to search.

1861

187018801890

1900

1861		Calif. Police Gazette 31 Mar. 2/4: Upon ‘going through him’, over $2,000 was found upon his person [DA].
1900		Flynt & Walton Powers That Prey 212: Keep yer han’s up: I can go t’rough you without help.

2. (US) to thrash, to beat up; to attack or defeat, both lit. and fig.

1871

190019502000

2014

1871		Sun (Baltimore) Apr. in Schele De Vere (1872) 606: It was a grand sight to see Farnsworth go through him; he did not leave him a single leg to stand upon.
1901		Bulletin (Sydney) 28 Dec. 13/3: Now’s our time for a big haul, Beatty. Give the word and we’ll go through ’em like rotten cheese.
1940		R. Chandler Farewell, My Lovely (1949) 193: They went through me, took me away in their car [...] and socked me with a sap as I got out.
1945		Baker Aus. Lang. 88: Of additional similes peculiarly our own, the following are among the best: [...] to go through something (or someone) like a packet of salts, to perform a task swiftly, to defeat a person soundly.
2001		K. Sampson Outlaws (ms.) 21: We went through them like marge.
2014		T. Black Artefacts of the Dead [ebook] Leanne if you don’t open this bloody door, I’ll knock it down and I’ll go through Danny Gillon next!’.

3. (US) to suffer, to be defeated.

1934

1940195019601970

1977

1934		Wodehouse Right Ho, Jeeves 41: I hear you’ve been through it a bit.
1959		A. Sillitoe ‘The Fishing-Boat Picture’ Loneliness of the Long-Distance Runner (1960) 79: She must have been through it, I thought.
1977		S. Galvin Operation Sadie 20: Fellows were coming into the hospital from all over the world, fellows who had really been through it, terrible cases.

4. (US/Aus.) to rifle through someone’s clothes, to rob, after searching the victim’s clothes.

1859

186018701880189019001910192019301940

1949

1859		Calif. Police Gazette 23 Jan. 2/3: Once more at liberty, he renewed his former habits, consisting of ‘cly faking,’ ‘going through lushes,’ and not staying in one place more than eight days, to avoid prosecution for ‘vagrancy.’.
1865		Leaves from Diary of Celebrated Burglar 109/1: Many were the queer ‘mugs’ put on by those who had been ‘gone through’.
1866		Border Watch (Mt Gambier, SA) 31 Oct. 3/2: THE LATEST SLANG CREATION IN NEW YORK [...] when [‘a fast young man’] steals he ‘goes through somebody’.
1869		Sun (Baltimore) 13 Nov. He was garroted, and the two robbers went through him before the police could reach the spot.
1872		Sydney Morn. Herald 11 jan. 3/5: [A] third [contributor to a US feminist paper] coaches the sex in the latest forms of slang, impressing upon the feminine mind that the newest name for money is ‘spondulix,’ that ‘fusil oil’ stands for whisky, ‘going through you’ for robbery, ‘he’s upon his back’ for bankruptcy.
1874		Cultivator and Country Gentleman (US) 10 Dec. 799/1: We hear of a house being ‘burgled,’ and that two foot-pads ‘went through’ a belated traveler.
1885		Bulletin (Sydney) 31 Oct. 10/4: Why, here no more’n a month ago I was goin’ up the Gayndah road and I see a cove lyin’ down drunk and the end of a roll of notes stickin’ out of his pocket. Some fellows would have gone through him, but that ain’t my style.
1887		Chicago Street Gazette 13 Oct. Little drunken May Willard, the pocket-book snatcher and lager-beer guzzler, went through a granger on the West Side lately.
1892		H. Lawson ‘The Captain of the Push’ in Roderick (1967–9) I 188: The stranger had been through him for the stuff his ‘moll’ had earned.
1900		T.J. Carey Hebrew Yarns and Dialect Humor 81/2: While robbing they call ‘going through you,’ / And ‘go for him’ means an attack.
1901		Sydney Sportsman (Surry Hills, NSW) 5 June 1/6: ‘Why didn’t you hold him until I could go through him?’.
1914		Bulletin (Sydney) 24 Dec. 14: [cartoon caption] Constable: ‘Here, yez can’t lay here on the pathway, me friend. Ye’re makin’ all the people go round yer.’ / Inebriated one: ‘Not all, conshable. Some of ’em have gone through me.’.
1928		Truth (Brisbane) 1 Jan. 18/3: No one over ‘robs.’ The technical term [...] is to ‘go through a joker’.
1929		Hall & Niles One Man’s War 39: The Italian [...] could ‘go through’ a dead German and come away with everything of value, hardly losing his place in a file of marching men.
1933		‘Goat’ Laven Rough Stuff 14: When they have picked their mark, they hit him on the head [...] go through him, then walk away casually.
1941		A. Gurney Bluey & Curley 5 Nov. [synd. cartoon] He didn’t have a razoo on him when I went through him!
1945		R. Service Ploughman of the Moon 194: The girls were ‘going through’ a drunken sailor.
1949		Monteleone Criminal Sl. (rev. edn).

5. to rob; lit. and fig.

1882

18901900191019201930194019501960

1963

1882		Leeds Times 25 Mar. 6/5: ‘Went through you too, did he?’ ‘Did he!’.
1885		Bulletin (Sydney) 15 Aug. 13/3: We never heard of Mr. and Miss Wales before; but from the manner in which they went straight at the pockets of the hearers, it is pretty evident that they are up to their work. [...] Mr. Wales, in comparison with Peter, is but a feeble performer, though he exercises a wise discretion in always ‘putting up’ Miss W. before ‘going through’ the rustics.
1897		W.A. Sun. Times (Perth) 19 Dec. 7/1: He had gone through his money in Melbourne, he said, though I suspect that someone had ‘gone through’ him.
1902		Ade Forty Modern Fables 130: He was from the U.S.A., where the Currency grows on Bushes, and they felt at Liberty to go through him.
1914		E. Pugh Cockney At Home 164: Someone’s got to go through it, for beet I will ’ave.
1963		(con. 1944) L. Glassop Rats in New Guinea 17: Tell him about the technique you perfected to go through on the gharry drivers in Cairo.

6. of a man, to have sexual intercourse; sometimes extended to go through like a dose/packet of salts.

1890

190019502000

2019

1890–1904		Farmer & Henley Sl. and Its Analogues.
1909		G.R. Bacchus Pleasure Bound ‘Ashore’ 66: He meant to go through those other two little darlings before he was finished.
1922		Joyce Ulysses 526: You can apply your eye to the keyhole and play with yourself while I just go through her a few times.
1963		K. Waterhouse Jubb (1966) 30: I’ve been through her more times than you’ve had happy birthdays.
1974		D. Ireland Burn 10: Shut the gate. He’d go through this town like a packet of salts.
1979		Lette & Carey Puberty Blues 44: Yeah, twenty of us went frew ’er.
1998		I. Welsh Filth 75: That wee Sylvia and Estelle. I’d go through them in a minute.
2001		K. Waterhouse Soho 77: The number of men who muster gone through her in her time.
2019		M. Herron Joe Country [ebook] ‘What’s she doing in Wales [...] Has she seriously been through everyone closer than that?’.

7. (US Und.) to fool, to trick.

1908

1908

‘Old Sleuth’ Dock Rats of N.Y. (2006) 17: ‘How was it the boys chanced to “drop” to him?’ ‘Renie did the business.’ ‘Renie did the business?’ ejaculated the man. ‘Yes, sir; she went through him.’.

8. (US) to work out, to succeed.

1902

1902

C.L. Cullen More Ex-Tank Tales 112: You can rig up more get-away plays that don’t go through in California than in any other State in the Union.

9. (Aus.) to give up, to desist.

1944

1944

L. Glassop We Were the Rats 6: We’ll go through on them two milk-bar sorts.

10. to leave, esp. without giving prior warning; to abscond.

1937

194019501960

1967

1937–84		Partridge DSUE.
1948		S.L. Elliott Rusty Bugles 85: He went through at Alice but the Provosts picked him up.
1949		L. Glassop Lucky Palmer 155: Suppose you think I know nothing about [...] how you went through to Sydney just afterwards. Run away from home when you was only a kid.
1959		‘David Forrest’ Last Blue Sea 70: I thought you blokes weren’t coming. I thought you’d gone through. Like the Greyhounds.
1967		K. Tennant Tell Morning This 289: ‘I went right through. I’d got plenty of smash’.

11. (Aus.) to avoid punishment, to let off.

1946

1946

Singleton Argus (NSW) 4/2: ‘Listen, let us go through and I’ll drop a spin your way; these things you found in my port are hot all right’.

12. to go absent without leave.

1943

19431944194519461947194819491950

1951

1943		Baker Popular Dict. Aus. Sl. (2nd edn) 35: go through, to desert from a northern base to the south. War slang.
1951		E. Lambert Twenty Thousand Thieves (1952) 112: The whole battalion knew him as Go Through, due to his having been absent without leave more times than any other six soldiers together.

13. to escape from prison or abscond while on bail.

1944

194419451946194719481949

1950

1944		T. Hartley gloss. in Simes DAUS (1993) 96/1: go through To escape, to abscond, to depart. Thus ‘He went through on bail.’ ‘He went through from a prison camp. etc.’ ‘He went through like a Bondi tram.’.
1948		S.L. Elliott Rusty Bugles (1980) 86: keghead: I’ll go through when I get to Melbourne, you see. They’ll never find me — .
1950		‘No. 35’ Argot in G. Simes DAUS (1993) n.p.: Go through To move off expeditiously; hence, to escape from lawful custody.

14. (orig. milit.) to desert one’s responsibilities, to shirk one’s work.

1949

1949

L. Glassop Lucky Palmer 79: Here it is twenty to twelve and you blokes are still believing he’ll be here. Can’t you see he’s gone through?