Green’s Dictionary of Slang

tripe n.²

nonsense, utter rubbish; also attrib.

1892		Spectator 24 Dec. 930/2: This book [...] very vulgar [...] it is a dish of literary and artistic ‘tripe-and-onions’ .
1900		Bulletin (Sydney) 20 Oct. 10/3: Think of the garish foreign ‘tripe’ that would result from the Imperialistic inspiration now in the air – a Kiplingesque yap mainly about motherland, Joe Chamberlain, African slaughter, and Duke of York.
1909		J. Ware Passing Eng. of the Victorian Era.
1910		Sun. Times (Perth) 15 May 2nd sect. 12/8: For all their blasted tommy-rot / And all their soppy tripe, / There’s comfort in the wallop-pot, / And solace in the pipe.
1914		Nottingham Eve. Post 30 Apr. 3/3: ‘Tripe jewellry [...] It is not fit for Southend,’ he said, holding up the ring, ‘but only for the worst part of Whitechapel. This is tripe, that is all it is’.
1925		Wodehouse Carry on, Jeeves 201: Rosie M. Banks, author of some of the most pronounced and widely read tripe ever put on the market.
1935		Ted Yates This Is New York 29 Mar. [synd. col.] Harlem, as this tripe is being knocked out, is a hot bed.
1938		S. Beckett Murphy (1963) 44: Sometimes you talk as great tripe as Murphy.
1940		F.S. Fitzgerald ‘Boil Some Water’ in Pat Hobby Stories (1967) 48: It’s the lousiest tripe I ever seen shot in Hollywood.
1941		A. Gurney Bluey & Curley 3 May [synd. cartoon strip] Our boys is th’ mustard pot [...] There’s Musso’s mob — this ’ere plate of tripe.
1949		Wodehouse Mating Season 153: Mrs Bingo wrote the world’s worst tripe.
1953		I. Hamilton Till Human Voices Wake Us 106: You hear such a lot of tripe in jail.
1958		W. Talsman Gaudy Image (1966) 189: You think I care to listen to your tripe night after night?
1966		C. Stead Cotters’ England (1980) 247: Do you want to cut her mind to pieces with such rubbish [...] I foresaw some such tripe.
1976		H. Selby Jr Demon (1979) 88: He continued to thank people with a bunch of meaningless tripe.
1989		H. Rawson Dict. of Invective (1991) 14: Foods also serve as metaphors for nonsense, e.g., applesauce, baloney, banana oil, beans, mush, pap, and tripe.
1999		Observer Rev. 4 July 11: How else do writers [...] produce such witless tripe.
2002		in ‘Ben Trovato’ On the Run (2007) 21: I can only say that I have not come across a bigger load of tripe in my life.

In compounds

tripe merchant (n.)

a purveyor of nonsense.

1917

‘Ian Hay’ Carrying On 155: How does one choke off a tripe-merchant of this type?

In phrases

up to tripe (adj.)

worthless, unpleasant, distasteful.

1918		Aussie (France) VI Aug. 9/1: He wasn’t with us long before he got his maiden stripe, / And the Sergeant-Major’s hand was seen in that; / And the other gunners reckoned it was fairly up to tripe; / But Green he only grinned beneath his hat.
1925		(con. WWI) in Fraser & Gibbons Soldier and Sailor Words.