Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (US tramp) a lodging house or criminal rendezvous.

1899		J. Flynt Tramping with Tramps 393: DUMP: a lodging house or restaurant.
1904		Salt Lake Trib. (UT) 27 Nov. 4/3: De guy w’at runs de dump where Finnegan an’ me was goin’ to doss says I’m a room robber.
1905		H. Green Actors’ Boarding House (1906) 59: Pugnose himself conducted a dump within the confines of Chinatown.
1917		‘A-No. 1’ From Coast to Coast with Jack London 78: It was the east side of the street only which held the ‘cafes’, the dime flopping dumps, [...] and the ‘missions’ patronized by the uncouth hoboes.
1921		P. & T. Casey Gay-cat 302: Dump — a lodging-house or restaurant.
1935		W. Smith Bessie Cotter 6: [a brothel] She’d go back to them four-bit Hunyok dumps where she belongs.
1949		Monteleone Criminal Sl. (rev. edn).
1953		‘Curt Cannon’ ‘The Death of Me’ in I Like ’Em Tough (1958) 106: I took a room in a dump three blocks away.
1962		Ragen & Finston World’s Toughest Prison 797: dump – A hangout or place of refuge.

2. an unpleasant, disgusting and unappealing place.

1878–9		A. Garcia Tough Trip Through Paradise (1977) 103: The Beaver Tom Trading and Trapping Company Limited was sure to God a sad-looking dump.
1905		H. Green Actors’ Boarding House (1906) 120: Same as when yuh was doin’ twelve shows a day in a Third Avenoo dump.
1913–14		E. O’Neill The Web in Ten ‘Lost’ Plays (1995) 56: A fine mother you are and dis is a swell dump to bring up a family in.
1917		Variety 16 Mar. 15/4: There is one cabaret in particular, always a ‘dump,’ regardless of the names it has employed, where the girls in the show are obliged to accept introductions to male friends of the house staff, for the purpose of pushing up the bar business, if the girls want to retain employment.
1926		Van Vechten Nigger Heaven 122: Great! Luxury for me. I’m living in a dump.
1937		R. Westerby Wide Boys Never Work (1938) 35: We’d better get out of this dump, hadn’t we, boss?
1941		K. Tennant Battlers 192: These little ‘dumps’ of towns.
1957		G. Kersh Fowlers End (2001) 5: I found this place a dump, and I turned it into a little paradise.
1965		W. Dick Bunch of Ratbags 40: Jeez, what a bloody dump of a joint. Fancy lining the bathroom with bloody sugar-bags!
1975		Sun. Times Mag. 12 Oct. 25: This is Manchester now, [...] and the whole of England for that matter. One big dump.
1982		P. Bailey An Eng. Madam 69: Sam and his wife and their two kids had been living in a terrible dump in the East End.
1990		(con. early 1950s) J. Ellroy L.A. Confidential 151: The dump was a known grifter hangout.
1991		R. Doyle Van (1998) 367: The Grove was a dump. It usen’t to be that bad but there were just kids there now and the music was pitiful.
1999		K. Sampson Powder 458: He’ll never set foot in this dump again when he hears about this.
1999		P. Temple Black Tide (2012) [ebook] What’s to do in this dump at night?
2000		W. Shaw Westsiders 287: He thinks the place is a dump.
2019		A. Parks February’s Son 261: She looked around [the pub]. ‘Should have known it would be a dump.’.
2021		A. Parks April Dead 99: ‘Memen Road’s a dump, hasn’t even got hot water’.

3. a place in general.

1904		C. Connors Bowery Life [ebook] [He] tips me off dat he wants ter take me an’ me gal up to er swell dump w’ere dere’s er racket.
1907		News & Courier (Charleston, SC) 14 Apr. 18/1: I could mazurka around the dump with that in my hand.
1908		B. Fisher A. Mutt in Blackbeard Compilation (1977) 29: Ha! There’s the dump. I shall approacheth.
1915		T.A. Dorgan in Zwilling TAD Lex. (1993) 121: When Dillon did connect with Weinert’s pantry you could hear it all over the dump.
1929		W.R. Burnett Little Caesar (1932) 111: Had some pictures of the swells, see, and the dumps where they live.
1933		J. Spenser Limey 25: They took me along to a garage [...] ‘This is our dump, Limey,’ he said. ‘Any time you wanna a car just come here and grab one.’.
1949		I. Shulman Cry Tough! 106: Isn’t this a plush dump?
1956		I. Fleming Diamonds Are Forever (1958) 106: These dumps are wired for everything except smell.
1965		R.L. Pike Mute Witness (1997) 56: When they changed brownstone-fronts from decent houses to these chi-chi dumps.
1989		Kirk & Madsen After The Ball 309: Why can’t a Harvard boy go to the john in this dump without being groped by a seedy queer!?
2023		(con. 1962) J. Ellroy Enchanters 10: Swinger joints. Schmooze pits. Stewardess crash pads. Fag cribs and bachelorette dumps for kept women.

4. (US Und.) a prison or police station.

1903		H. Hapgood Autobiog. of a Thief 118: I am determined to make my elegant, (escape) come what will. Do you know the weak spots of this dump?
1909		‘The Lang. of Crooks’ in Wash. Post 20 June 4/1: [paraphrasing J. Sullivan] A dump is a police station, as is an Irish clubhouse.
1912		D. Lowrie My Life in Prison 58: He’s the oldest prisoner in the dump.
1929		A.J. Barr Let Tomorrow Come 259: One of those bums in the bighouse said that dump puts something on you that’ll never come off.
1936		(ref. to 1920s) L. Duncan Over the Wall 57: It’s stuff like this that makes a monkey stir-simple. We all get dingier’n a pet coon inside these dumps.
1999		D. Looser ‘Boob Jargon’ in NZEJ 13 29: dump n. Prison .

5. (US Und.) a restaurant.

1910		J. Sullivan ‘Criminal Sl.’ in Amer. Law Rev. LII (1918) 890: A restaurant is a ‘dump’ or ‘beanery.’.
1931		W.R. Burnett Silver Eagle 74: ‘I used to spend a lot of money over at the Alvarado [restaurant]. Swell dump’.

6. one’s home, irrespective of its appearance.

1910		Spokane Press (WA) 22 Sept. 7/3: The gun tumbled out of her dump and glommed the rocks after using a screw on the lock.
1927		H.C. Witwer Classics in Sl. 56: K.O. Macbeth’s wife tunes in on WXYZ, begins shakin’ a nasty shoulder and fin’ly vamps the champ into stayin’ over the night at the challenger’s dump.
1930		J. Lait Gangster Girl 29: You’re goin’ to my dump.
1947		‘F. Bonnamy’ Self Portrait of Murder (1951) 172: There would probably be a dick watching her dump.
1952		L. Lariar Day I Died 214: My place is just up the road [...] Like you to see the dump.
1963–74		B. Humphries Barry McKenzie [comic strip] in Complete Barry McKenzie (1988) 90: Fair enough — it’s your dump I s’pose.
1978		R. Price Ladies’ Man (1985) 223: I nodded my head in approval at Donny’s dump, a one-room kitchenette with a loft bed.

7. (Aus.) a rest, a sleep.

1967

‘Whisper All Aussie Dict.’ in Kings Cross Whisper (Sydney) xxxiv 4/4: dump: A rest, a sleep.

8. (N.Z. prison) a prison.

2001

D. Looser Boobslang [U. Canterbury D.Phil. thesis] 63/1: dump n. 1a prison.