Green’s Dictionary of Slang

the stalls in a theatre.

1909

J. Ware Passing Eng. of the Victorian Era 242/1: Ten bob squats (Theatrical). Stalls in a theatre. About 1880 going to the theatre had become so fashionable, owing possibly to the steady patronage of the Prince of Wales, that the price of stalls in most of the best houses was raised.

(Aus.) a police car.

1967		‘Whisper All Aussie Dict.’ in Kings Cross Whisper (Sydney) xli 4/2: ten bob taxi: A police trawler. Ten being the amount a person is required to pay for bail for being sloshed on lunatic soup.
1983		R. Aven-Bray Ridgey-Didge Oz Jack Lang 47: Ten Bob Taxi Police trawler.

see two-cent adj.

(drugs) a $10 bag of marijuana or any other drug, e.g. crack cocaine.

1971		E.E. Landy Underground Dict. (1972).
1980		E. Folb Runnin’ Down Some Lines 257: ten-cent bag Ten-dollar plastic bag’s worth of marijuana.
1993		R. Shell Iced 71: He [...] gave me five ten-cent bags (fifty dollars’ worth of rock).

a woman’s fingernails, esp. in the context of scratching someone’s face.

c.1540		J. Heywood Four P.P. in Farmer Dramatic Writings (1905) 59: Now ten times I beseech him that high sits, Thy wife’s ten commandments may search thy five wits.
1542		Udall (trans.) Erasmus’ Apophthegms (1564) Bk I 27: His familiar companions gaue hym a by warnyng, to auenge soche a naughtie touche or pranke, with his tenne commaundmentes.
c.1575		Ane Ballat of Matrymonie in Laing Early Pop. Poetry Scotland II 76: She [...] pylled the barke even of hys face With her commaundements ten.
1595		‘W.S.’ Lamentable Tragedie of Locrine IV iii: I trembled fearing she would set her ten commandments in my face.
1607		Dekker & Webster Westward Hoe V i: Your Harpy that set his ten commandments vpon my backe.
1814		W. Scott Waverley (1877) 92/1: I’ll set my ten commandments in the face o’ the first loon that lays a finger on him.
1830		Marryat King’s Own II 322: I’ll write the ten commandments on your face, I will.
1843		T. Haliburton Sam Slick in England II 254: We have a cant tarm with us boys of Slickville, sayin’ she gave him her ten commandments.
1864, 1867, 1870		Hotten Sl. Dict. 255: Ten commandments a virago’s fingers, or nails. Often heard in a female street disturbance.
1873		Sl. Dict.
1880		R. Rowe Picked Up in the Streets 229: She druv him from her by her tantrums. [...] She’s drink the gin fust and give her ten commandments arterwards, when she’d aggerawated him to try it on.
1903		Pall Mall Gazette 6 Apr. 2/3: The mother attacked the unfortunate master, and began the time-honoured but painful ceremony of setting her ten commandments in his face, while her hopeful offspring got the school cane and belaboured his instructor [F&H].
1910		P.W. Joyce Eng. As We Speak It In Ireland (1979) 339: ‘She put her ten commandments on his face,’ i.e. she scratched his face with her ten finger-nails.

(US) any form of writing or speech seen as exceeding the style or vocabulary limits of a ‘normal’ person; the number of dollars is variable.

1947		B. Schulberg Harder They Fall (1971) 122: Only he used ten-dollar words like ‘enticing mystery’ and ‘bewilderment of the night.’.
1975		J. Wambaugh Choirboys (1976) 149: Roscoe often drunkenly accused Baxter of using ten dollar words just to show off.
1993		(con. 1969) N.L. Russell Suicide Charlie 40: He was pretty good with the fifty-dollar words, himself.
2000		Dallas Morning News 6 Jan. 7F: We noticed that the hosts enjoy posting those high-falootin’ $3 words found in crosswords. We just wouldn’t recommend that you test-drive what you learned here at a biker bar.
2000		Snoop Dogg ‘Game Court’ 🎵 All you jerks with eleven-dollar words coming out of your two-dollar mouths.

see twelve inches under twelve adj.

see four-letter word n.

(W.I.) a bloated, fat stomach.

1943

cited in Cassidy & LePage Dict. Jam. Eng. (1980).

(US Und.) $1000.

1949

Monteleone Criminal Sl. (rev. edn).

not very intelligent, slightly eccentric, odd.

1860		Hotten Dict. of Modern Sl. etc. (2nd edn).
1873		Sl. Dict.
1937–84		Partridge DSUE (1984) 1213: [...] s. (—1860), ca. 1900, coll.

(US) anything considered ugly, esp. someone obese or overweight.

1994		T. Willocks Green River Rising 309: ‘This white motherfucka’ [...] ‘looks like ten pounds of shit in a five-pound bag.’.
2003		J. Kjenner Gateway 23 Jan. XCII:30 🌐 If my morning routine consists of scratching deez nuts, my peers don’t consider me particularly behind in the grooming department. However, if a girl tried to pull this same stunt (substituting, of course, ‘deez nuts’ with other things), she’d probably be told by several of her more blunt friends that she looked like ten pounds of shit in a five pound bag.