Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. a swindler, a fraud, a card-sharp, a crooked gambler; thus speelering adj., swindling [ the underlying implication is a sense of humour behind the cheating; thus Henry Lawson (1895): ‘He was [...] good-natured in his way; he was a “spieler” pure and simple, and did things in humorous style’].

1859		Matsell Vocabulum 83: spealers Gamblers. [...] speiler A gambler.
1865		Leaves from Diary of Celebrated Burglar 108/1: In we went to the Bold captain’s, and asking if any of the ‘spielers’ were up stairs, was answered in the affirmative.
1867		Nat. Police Gaz. (NY) 5 Oct. n.p.: The ‘flats’ pinched some of the ‘speilers’.
1880		Bulletin (Sydney) 12 June 2/3: The gambling mania has reached Auckland. Michael Gallagher, who keeps a ‘sporting’ house in that town, has been fined in the Police Court for allowing professional ‘speelers’ to play in his house; and the light-fingered gentry were ordered by the Bench to ‘ seek fresh scenes and pastures new’.
1886		W. Newton Secrets of Tramp Life Revealed 11: I will now draw your attention to the ‘Speeler,’ or Gambler.
1886		Sporting Times 10 Apr. 3/3: I orders a toothful o’ rumbo, /And wishes the shpielers good luck.
1887		Bulletin (Sydney) 15 Oct. 14/1: In common decency our bookmakers and ‘spielers’ should roll up in force and heartily welcome the Marquis of Drogheda, who is coming to us by the Clyde.
1894		G. Boothby On the Wallaby 254: The racing code is lax [...] we met men who made it their sole business [...] to tramp the bush with a likely animal, practically living on what he earned them, either by winning, or what is technically termed, ‘running stiff.’ These men are called Forties, otherwise Spielers or Blacklegs.
1898		Binstead & Wells Pink ’Un and Pelican 198: In less than twenty minutes they’d skinned ‘The Lout,’ who, after all, was more of a bonnet than a spieler.
1900		‘The Wayback Family’ in Sun. Times (Sydney) 16 Dec. 5/1: ‘Sydney’s full of spielers, and you’ve got to sleep with both eyes open, or get your eye teeth drawn’.
1905		Little Falls Herald (MN) 31 Mar. 3/3: [of the operator of a shell game under shell n.] How to Operate the Shell Game with Profit [...] If the spieler should happen to fumble the pill while the dough is up, it is best to cop and blow at once.
1907		Lone Hand (Sydney) Oct. 635/1: A collection of spieler’s tools was exhibited on the table. Double-headed and double-tailed pennies, box kips for two up [etc].
1908		Sporting Times 4 July 1/3: We comes to a spieler workin’ the walnut an’ the pea.
1919		Mirror (Sydney) 31 Aug. 8/1: Hazards or dice, two up, and several well-known card games afford the spieler who knows his game wonderful opportunities to make easy money.
1924		C.J. Dennis ‘The Knight’s Return’ in Chisholm (1951) 85: ’E grabs ’is bag, an’ views me battered dile / With sudden fears uv spielers an’ their larks.
1931		‘William Hatfield’ Sheepmates 172: He’s a dirty ‘come-on’ for that speelerin’ Fritz [...] I fell for it, and Fritz wipes me down for two quid. On’y a dirty bloody speeler, and all yous mugs crawlin’ to ’im.
1935		Thieves Slang ms list from District Police Training Centre, Ryton-on-Dunsmore, Warwicks 10: Spealer [sic]: Card player.
1947		F. Brown Fabulous Clipjoint (1949) 119: Hoagy’s a sex spieler.
1955		N. Pulliam I Travelled a Lonely Land (1957) 239/2: speeler (spieler) – [...] a card shark or a crook.
1964		J.A. Lee Shiner Slattery 170: He knew the type. Not swaggers looking for work. City spielers, magsmen.
1966		J. Holledge Great Aust. Gamble 151: [C]ampbell Street, Surry Hills, was crowded with its usual clientele of spielers, gamblers, spivs, ‘jazz babies’ and general crooks.
1970		E. Thompson Garden of Sand (1981) 126: I’m a low-pressure spieler and a four-square dealer was his brag.
1988		McGill Dict. of Kiwi Sl. 32/2: cross-eyed spieler a glib or crafty fellow, encountered in Frank S. Anthony’s Me and Gus, could be originally from Australia, c.1905; from Yiddish ‘spiel’, to play, used generally in English to mean sales patter or swindling, usually at cards.
2003		McGill Reed Dict. of N.Z. Sl. [as cit. 1988].

2. attrib. use of sense 1.

1892		H. Lawson ‘Jones’s Alley’ in Roderick (1972) 39: I got sick of my step-father waitin’ outside for me on pay-day, with a dirty, drunken spieler pal of his waitin’ round the corner.
1896		Riverina Recorder (Moulamein, NSW) 1 Jan. 2/6: The spieler element was conspicuous by its absence.
1924		C.J. Dennis ‘The Faltering Knight’ in Chisholm (1951) 72: An’ when I ’ear she’s like to come to ’arm / Amongst a push uv naughty spieler men, / I gets the wind up.

3. (Aus.) a bookmaker.

1885		Bulletin (Sydney) 25 Apr. 10/3: When the settling day arrived, the stumped spieler made some scriptural allusion to the fact that it was impossible to get blood out of a stone, upon which the disgusted backers of the winners remarked that although Bible quotations were good enough for the little heathen, they weren’t worth a condemned cent to them.
1902		Sun. Times (Perth) 1 June 4/6: He found [...] a gang of shifty spielers.

4. (Aus./US) a fluent talker; a plausible, ‘sharp’ individual.

1886		Nat. Police Gaz. (NY) 23 Oct. 14/2: Talk about your speelers. Mike Shine takes the cake. As usual he had his little dog with him.
1899		E. Townshend ‘Chimmie Fadden Recognises...Some Old Friends’ 5 Feb. [synd. col.] [She is] one of the best spielers dat ever happened.
1903		J. Furphy Such is Life 25: My ’pinion, he’s a spieler.
1903		Inter Ocean (Chicago) 25 Jan. 34/2: [An] ex-Congressman touched me for $20 [...] a smooth spieler.
1920		S. Lewis Main Street (1921) 285: You’re a fair spieler, child.
1936		Archie Seale Man About Harlem 18 Apr. [synd. col.] [A] fine dinner breezed in and started to gumbeat [...] This streamlined beauty can spiel with the best stratosphere spielers.
1945		E. Wilson 24 Jan. [synd. col.] Morey Amsterdam, who’s a Broadway, Hollywood and Frisco spieler.
1962		Ragen & Finston World’s Toughest Prison 819: spieler – A ‘grinder’ or ballyhoo man.
1979		E. Torres After Hours 61: If they didn’t have a spieler with balls like Kleinfeld around.
1984		W. Ammon et al. Working Lives 57: I wouldn’t even risk cashing her with you mob of spielers around.
1999		G. Seal Lingo 2: Although mostly taken for granted, the importance of the vernacular in everyday life is apparent from the number of Lingoisms describing or referring to it [...] spieler; chiack; barrack; sledge; spitting chips, magging.

5. (Aus. Und.) a pickpocket.

1894

Truth (Sydney) 15 Apr. 1/6: One of the shining lights of the W.C.T.U. had her pcket picked recently. When the professional gentleman who had opened her purse opened it, he found it with tracts [...] spielers have since passed a resolution deciding to let Temperance folk severely alone.

6. a shop tout or fairground stall-holder.

1894		S.F. Midwinter Appeal 19 May 15/1: Some spielers for the Midway who attempted to lick the Camp gate keeper were sent up for 24 hours [DA].
1908		B. Fisher A. Mutt in Blackbeard Compilation (1977) 45: Upon hearing Beany’s great speech [he] immediately forwarded a contract [...] offering him a position as a spieler for a nickelodeon.
1913		Van Loan ‘Butterfly Boggs: Pitcher’ in Lucky Seventh (2004) 248: ‘Step right up, men!’ yelled a spieler.
1920		Capt. Billy’s Whiz Bang Oct. 28: No more will the gossip-hungry tourists be fed on the scandal of the movie colony from a megaphone in the hands of a husky-voiced ‘spieler’.
c.1921		T. Norman Penny Showman 8: Telling the tale, etc, by the Speiler, or Doorsman, generally a man with a voice like that of a roaring lion.
1936		C. Sandburg People, Yes 80: They enjoy the oily slant-eyed spieler with his slick bazoo selling tickets and gabbing.
1942		W. Winchell On Broadway 17 Apr. [synd. col.] The artist, usually a femme from the Paris spots, carries a spieler to build up the entrance .
1943		Baker ‘Influence of Amer. Sl. on Aus.’ in AS XVIII:4 255: A spieler to Americans (we call him a spruiker) does the talking outside a sideshow to rally patronage; to Australians the spieler is a crook or gambler.
1950		P. Hoskins No Hiding Place! 192/1: Spieler. [A] barker.
1952		J. Jones From Here to Eternity (1998) 332: The spielers hired for a buck an hour called unceasingly like cicus barkers from before each shed to ‘Come inside, boys’.
1961		T. Taylor Baron’s Court All Change (2011) 91: The spieler at a side-show, up on a rostrum, introducing the performers.
1992		R.G. Barrett White Shoes 32: Asian spielers jumped out of jewellery shop doors at the Japanese tourists.
2001		N. Tosches Where Dead Voices Gather (ms.) 213: Keith and Albee had similar backgrounds as circus grifters and sideshow spielers.
2012		W. Keyser ‘Carny Lingo’ in http://goodmagic.com 🌐 After the ‘turn’ the bally talker might [...] even hand the microphone to a ‘spieler’ or ‘grind man’ who would, as they say, ‘grind’: continue the sense of urgency.

7. a persuasive talker, e.g. an evangelical preacher.

1905		F. Hutchison Philosophy of Johnny the Gent 60: ‘You’d ought to heard the squawk! It’d make the beef of one o’ them [...] political spielers sound like a mother’s lullaby’.
1906		H. Lawson ‘The bards Who Lived at Manly’ in Roderick (1967–9) II 167: The camp of high-class spielers, / Who sneered in summer dress.
1921		P. & T. Casey Gay-cat 186: Yuh was allus lissenin’ with open mouth to them soap-box spielers, an’ then comin’ blabbin’ back ter me about Indoostrial Freedom.
1927		(con. 1910s) S. Lewis Elmer Gantry 255: Not a bad spieler, that woman. Puts it all over this guy Reverend Golding up-town.
1935		Sun (N.Y.) 19 Feb. 28/1: Real estate developers use the ‘lunch and lecture’ system, carrying the prospects by bus or train to the property, feeding them and subjecting them to a talk by a ‘spieler’.
1950		(con. 1936–46) K.S. Prichard Winged Seeds (1984) 106: I don’t blame the workers for [...] letting themselves be pushed around by religious bigots and political spielers.
1991		K.C. Kearns Dublin Street Life and Lore 131: I’m a spieler. We ‘spiel’ them. Spieling means to get out and actually do it differently than just standing there selling,... to give a speech, a good line of speech.
2024		J. Meades Empty Wigs (t/s) 251: [T]hat vulgar little spieler William Joyce.

8. (US) a young, lower-class single woman, esp. as found frequenting dance-halls; also applied to male dancers.

c.1885		J.L. Feeney ‘The Spielers’ 🎵 They go to parties and soirees, and almost every ball; / You’re sure to find the ‘spielers’ there who take the shine of all.
1900		E.H. Babbitt ‘College Words and Phrases’ in DN II:i 63: spieler n. Dancer.
1903		H. Hapgood Autobiog. of a Thief 91: A section famous for the many shop girls who were fine spielers (dancers).
1910		Committee of Fourteen Social Evil in N.Y. City 54: In all of these places the spieler is present. He is an expert dancer and is very popular because of this fact. He usually belongs to a gang or immoral class of young men, and his influence for the most part is bad. [...] The female spielers are nearly all immoral, and their influence upon the young men and girls is also bad.
1922–24		O.O. McIntyre White Light Nights 19: A self-appointed ‘Mayor,’ [...] and his ‘skoit’ Nellie, the best ‘spieler’ in the dance halls.
1942		‘Spielers’ in Botkin Sidewalks of America (1954) 563: While dancing in the mazy waltz the ‘spielers’ reign supreme.
1962		Ragen & Finston World’s Toughest Prison 819: spieler – [...] a fast, able dancer.
1993		(con. c.1900) I.L. Allen City in Sl. (1995) 67: The dance itself was called the spiel and to do the dance was to spiel, whence the gerund spieling and the agentive form spieler.

9. an illegal gambling club.

1937		R. Westerby Wide Boys Never Work (1938) 181: Mr. Rix, who owned thirteen spielers.
1938		F.D. Sharpe Sharpe of the Flying Squad 333: speeler : Gaming-house.
1946		S. Jackson An Indiscreet Guide to Soho 94: Another type of club that is really ‘private’ is the ‘spieler’ or gambling joint.
1956		‘Charles Raven’ Und. Nights 41: Just then there steamed into the spieler a very friendly and amiable grafter by the name of Peter Gurney.
1958		F. Norman in Bristol Eve. Post 27 Nov. in Norman’s London (1969) 43: First I got a job in a shpeiler, where I stayed for about a year.
1959		F. Norman Fings I Prologue: The main set is the shpieler (gambling den) which is in a very bad state of repair.
1962		R. Cook Crust on its Uppers 64: Mind you don’t drop too much loot [...] on them spielers of yours.
1972		P. Fordham Inside the Und. 49: I never enter a spieler south of the river without finding mutual acquaintances.
1978		F. Norman Dead Butler Caper 30: I [...] fetched up at last outside a sleazy basement shpieler in Berwick Street.
1981		(con. c.1910) A. Harding in Samuel East End Und. 119: It was about 1910 that we started on the Jewish spielers [...] When we raided a club, we were all armed.
1999		Indep. Rev. 13 July 8: Casino games or other gambling took place in ‘spielers’ back-room premises.
2000		J.J. Connolly Layer Cake 34: Getting a good hiding for wrecking some spieler.

10. (US Und.) a corrupt lawyer.

1939

Howsley Argot: Dict. of Und. Sl.

11. a street seller, e.g. of perfumes.

c.1930		(ref. to 1900s) N. Kimball Amer. Madam (1981) 149: The small rogue, he’s a dip (pickpocket) or a keister spieler (sidewalk salesman).
1975		‘P.B. Yuill’ Hazell and the Three-card Trick (1977) 11: There aren’t enough men in the force to grab all the spielers flogging junk in Oxford Street.
1991		K.C. Kearns Dublin Street Life and Lore 131: Then I decided to go into jewelry like Bimbo (another spieler).

12. (Aus.) a fast horse.

1941		Baker Popular Dict. Aus. Sl.
1955		N. Pulliam I Travelled a Lonely Land (1957) 239/2: speeler (spieler) – a fast horse.