Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (W.I./UK black) to think about.

1899		C. Chesnutt ‘The Gray Wolf’s Ha’nt’ in Conjure Woman 173: En Dan kep’ on studyin’ ’bout dis ’tel he got so he did n’ ha’dly das’ ter eat er drink fer fear dis cunjuh man had p’isen de vittles er de water.
1928		R. Fisher Walls Of Jericho 14: Aw go ’haid, drabble-tail. Ain’ nobody studyin’ yo’ family.
1938		J. Curtis They Drive by Night 223: You want to study me a bit and all. It’s all very well for you. You don’t seem to mind having a game of hide and seek. Where do I come in?
1943		J.W. Work III interviewee in Work Ms in Gordon & Nemerov Lost Delta Found (2005) 78: ‘When a man gets broke [. . . .] [h]e’s settin' roun’ thinkin’ then, you see, about, money [...] Long as he’s got money he ain’t studyin’ ’about nothin’ but bettin’’.
1956		S. Selvon Lonely Londoners 139: He must be still studying that girl what let him down.
1963		M. Braly Shake Him Till He Rattles (1964) 121: I’m not studying no oil-burner of a habit and a hundred-dollar nut every day.
1997		D.H. Edwards The World Don’t Owe Me Nothing 192: He studied drinking all the time [...] every day he'd wake up and say, ‘Partner, I got to have a bottle of wine’.

2. (gay) to appraise a potential sexual conquest or partner.

1970

J.P. Stanley ‘Homosexual Sl.’ in AS XLV:1/2 58: study v Look someone over with sexual intent in an obvious manner.

3. (US campus) to indulge in sexual caresses short of intercourse.

1967–8

Baker et al. CUSS 205: Study To neck.