Green’s Dictionary of Slang

see under blue pigeon n.

1. a tricycle.

1902

H. Baumann ‘Sl. Ditty’ Londinismen (2nd edn).

2. (US) a deserter.

1930		‘Dean Stiff’ Milk and Honey Route 205: Fly-away – A deserter from the army or navy.
2000		Guardian G2 13 Jan. 2: The HSBC high-flyers and the Hong Kong ‘fly aways’ came calling in such droves that even the liberals sold up.

3. (US prison) a fugitive.

1949

Monteleone Criminal Sl. (rev. edn).

see separate entry.

any form of street stall or other place where goods are sold in the open air; thus fly-pitcher, a street-seller.

1934		Eve. News 9 July 11/2: There are the ‘fly pitches’, spots [...] where the cheap-jacks take their stand [...] Whenever you see a really big crowd collected [...] you can be sure that one or other of the familiar fly-pitchers of London is doing his stuff.
1981		(con. c.1900) A. Harding in Samuel East End Und. 35: A lot of them were what we call ‘fly pitchers’ – they didn’t have a regular stand but found a vacant place.
1983		J. Sullivan ‘May the Force be with You’ Only Fools and Horses [TV script] Yes, I bet these developing nations are crying out for fly-pitchers!

to send a letter.

1846

Darwin letter in Life and Letters (1887) I 351: Immediately that I hear I will fly you a line, , for the chance of your being able to come.

see under tile n.

see under mouth n.

see under basket n.¹

see under coop n.¹

see under mag n.³

(Aus.) in greyhound racing, to open the starting gates and ste the race in motion.

1996

J. Byrell Lairs, Urgers & Coat-Tuggers 334: However, in an open event where there are no dead-set super-starters who will ‘fly the lids’ [...] it’s also not a bad idea to avoid the 3, 4 and 5 ‘squeeze’ boxes since those yappers tend to get ‘squeezed out’ by the dogs underneath them .

1. (US tramp) a city detective.

1926		N. Klein ‘Hobo Lingo’ in AS I:12 651/1: Fly-ball – detective.
1930		G. Milburn ‘They Can’t Do That’ in Hobo’s Hornbook 233: And a fly-ball comes and drags you out / And fans you with a loaded bat.
1931		Irwin Amer. Tramp and Und. Sl. 78: Fly Ball.–A detective, especially one who is a member of a city police force.

2. (US) a male homosexual.

1966		Trimble 5000 Adult Sex Words and Phrases.
1972		B. Rodgers Queens’ Vernacular.

see under kite n.

(US) those states of the US over which one passes in an aeroplane flying from coast to coast; ‘middle America’; thus fly-over people, the inhabitants of such states.

2000		A. Crouch in Regeneration RQ 6.2 Summer 🌐 Why add further fuel to the urban arrogance which in its secular versions consigns most of the United States to the category of ‘flyover people.’.
2006		LewRockwell.com 🌐 But what if a substantial segment of ‘fly-over people’ became heated enough to abandon their apathy and form a mutiny against this tyrannical captain: the cultural elites?
2019		V.D. Hanson Case for Trump 269: Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter were both emblematic of fly-over state, rock-solid values.

1. see under flag n.²

2. see flag v.² (3)

see under kite n.

see flip a/the bird under bird n.²

see separate entries.

1. to fly an aircraft using natural ability and daring rather than instruments and technology; thus fig. to gamble with one’s life, to take extravagant risks.

1958		Listener 20 Nov. 835/3: That’s no help to the man who’s driving by the seat of his pants, as we used to say in the R.A.F. police .
1973		L. Shecter On the Pad 306: I’m sure that your Honor has lectured that a lawyer cross examining off the seat of his pants, ought to have his ticket lifted [...] 310: Bailey [...] picked jurors, some of them at least, by the seat of his pants and didn’t like hard rules.
1977		J. Langone Life at the Bottom 201: You really have to fly with your ass, says Garcia.
1978		R.D. Pharr Giveadamn Brown (1997) 202: ‘She’s been flying around here by the seat of her bare ass’.
1983		S. King Christine 218: I’ve been trying to restore the car more the way he had it than the way Detroit meant it to be. So I’ve just been flying by the seat of my pants.
1999		Rottenberg & Shuman Rhythm of Business 15: You don’t have to fly solo or fly by the seat of your pants. A lot of help is available from people, from books, and from courses.
2002		Cox & Hoover Leadership When the Heat’s On 116: I’ve done it in supersonic fighters and I’m here to say that it’s no smarter to fly by the seat of your pants at 60000 feet than it is behind your desk.
2019		S.M. Jones Lives Laid Away [ebook] ‘We really are flying by our ass-hairs on this one’.

2. attrib. use of sense 1.

1999		D.C. Sawyer Getting It Right 56: The Fly-by-the-Seat-of-Your-Pants decision makers are equally inclined to sabotage their companies’ futures by ignoring information.
2003		M. Edelman Borden Baffled Parent’s Guide to Sibling Rivalry 4: Because [...] raising kids is often a fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants experience.

whipped at the cart’s tail or in the stocks.

c.1786		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue ms. additions n.p.: Fly-Flapped. Whipt in the Stocks, or at the Whipping Post.
1788, 1796		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue (2nd, 3rd edn) n.p.: Fly-Flapped. Whipt in the stocks, or at the cart’s tail.
1811		Lex. Balatronicum.
1823		Egan Grose’s Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.

(US black) to lose one’s temper suddenly.

1942

Z.N. Hurston Dust Tracks On a Road (1995) 572: Papa always flew hot when Mama said that.

drunk.

1933		‘William Juniper’ True Drunkard’s Delight 227: He has been [...] flying rather high.
1969		Current Sl. III:4.
1990		(con. early 1950s) J. Ellroy L.A. Confidential 200: Stens flying high on raisinjack.
1997		G. Sikes 8 Ball Chicks (1998) 163: The group of Eight balls who had stayed away from the summit and were now flying high on coke.

(US tramp) hungry; unencumbered by a pack or similar possessions.

1931		Irwin Amer. Tramp and Und. Sl. 78: Flying Light.–Hungry; without food; travelling without any excess impediment such as a ‘bindle.’.
1962		Ragen & Finston World’s Toughest Prison 799: flying light – Hungry; without food; traveling without any excess impediment.

(Irish) having one’s flies open.

1968–69		in DARE.
2001		G. Coughlan Everyday Eng. and Sl. 🌐 Flying low, you’re (phr): your zip is undone.

a cheat who approaches the victim of robbery, tells him that he can regain the stolen goods for him and demands a payment for fetching them.

1781		G. Parker View of Society II 164: Flying Porter is a fellow dressed like a Porter; a pen and ink and sheet of paper set him up. He watches the ale-houses which sell purl early in the morning, where he looks over the yesterday’s Daily Advertiser, and drinks a penny-worth. He looks for some robbery that has been committed.
c.1786		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue ms. additions n.p.: Flying Porters. Cheats who obtain Money by pretending to persons who have been lately robbed, that they may come from persons who can give them some information respecting the goods stolen from them, and demand payment as porters.
1788, 1796		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue (2nd, 3rd edn) n.p.: Flying Porters. Cheats who obtain money by pretending to persons who have been lately robbed, that they may come from a place or party where, and from whom, they may receive information respecting the goods stolen from them, and demand payment as porters.
1811		Lex. Balatronicum [as cit. 1788].
1823		Egan Grose’s Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.

a street seller of cheap ballads, criminal ‘confessions’ and similar popular material.

1796		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue (3rd edn) n.p.: Flying Stationers. Ballad-singers and hawkers of penny histories.
1814		Lancaster Gaz. 22 Oct. 4/3: A hawker, or flying stationer, [...] was shouting with all his might and main, ‘Here is the whole trial and sentence of the Crown and Prisoners’.
1823		Egan Grose’s Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.
1839		John O’Groat Jrnl 8 Mar. 3/3: A table of the proposed fees or customs to be levied from parties resorting to the market [...] Ballad Singer, or Flying Stationer, 6d.
1841		York Herald 13 Mar. 3/2: Michael Morgan, an Irishman, a ‘flying stationer’ [...] brought up on a very serious charge of stabbing.
1848		Dundee Courier 12 Apr. 2/6: Mr Harney was lately a ‘flying stationer,’ and is now a violent mouthpiece of rabid democracy.
1854		Fife Herald 1 June 5/5: The history of Wallace or Douglas, or Ballads [...] purchases from the sltying stationer.
1861		(con. 1840s–50s) H. Mayhew London Labour and London Poor I 214/2: That order or species of the pattering genus known as ‘running patterers,’ or ‘flying stationers’ from the fact of their being continually on the move while describing the attractions of the ‘papers’ they have to sell.
1866		Stirling Obs. 15 Nov. 8/6: O’Neill, a tramp or flying stationer [...] was sentenced to pay a fine of 10s.
1878		C. Hindley Life and Times of James Catnach 104: Those was the days [...] for the flying stationers and standing patterers, sir.
1880		Henley & Stevenson Deacon Brodie I tab.III i: He is disguised as a ‘flying stationer,’ with a patch over his eye.
1882		Sydney Sl. Dict. (2 edn) 4: Flying-Stationer - Hawker of penny ballads, etc.
1895		Crowe Aus. Sl. Dict. 30: Flying Stationer, a street vendor of newspapers.
1886		Athenaeum 31 July 139: Scores of tracts were issued in the Newgate region, from Giltspur Street to Blowbladder Street, whence numbers of flying stationers drew their supplies long before either of the Catnachs were born [F&H].
1899		Falkirk Herald 14 Jan. 5/4: A ‘flying stationer’ [...] began to hawk a paper containing an account of the events at Tower Hill.
1901		Cheltenham Chron. 30 Nov. 1/1: Catnach of the Seven Dials [was] the printer of sheets that were hawked and sold by ‘flying stationers’.
1920		‘Old Broadside Ballads’ in C. Lovat Fraser Chap Book Sept. 4: The itinerant Chapmen, ‘flying stationers’ or pedlars, who included Broadside ballads among their stock of ribbons, laces etc.
1927		(con. 1835–40) P. Herring Bold Bendigo 10: Such eccentricity of dress was well fitted to the trade of a flying stationer, or peddler of chapbooks and news sheets.
1935		A.J. Pollock Und. Speaks 41/1: Flying stationers, newsboys whose shouting disturbs residents of the district.

(US) to economize.

1904

Ade ‘The Fable of Another Brave Effort’ in True Bills 57: He suspected that it would be a very foxy Move to begin to economize, but he [...] couldn’t bear the Thought of having it said that he was Piking and flying low.

(drugs) to smoke marijuana.

1972		B. Rodgers Queens’ Vernacular 210: to smoke marijuana [...] fly Mexican Airlines.
1986–7		Maledicta IX 58: Mexican airlines, to fly v phr [R] Smoke marijuana; from the fact that much marijuana smoked in the U.S. is grown in Mexico.
2001		ONDCP Street Terms 9: Fly Mexican airlines — To smoke marijuana.

(W.I.) to lose control, to become extremely angry.

1996

Allsopp Dict. Carib. Eng. Usage.

(W.I.) to become violently excited.

1996

Allsopp Dict. Carib. Eng. Usage.

see jump salty under jump v.

see separate entries.

see fly a kite under kite n.

to be menstruating.

1925		AS I 24: The function of menstruation is described by dozens of evasive terms, [including] ‘flying the red flag’.
1949		Monteleone Criminal Sl. (rev. edn).
1954		‘Misc.’ AS XXIX:4 298: Reference to the Color Red [...] fly the bean flag or the red flag.
1967–8		Baker et al. CUSS.
1979		‘The Red Flag’ in Bold (1979) 193: But then he saw to his despair / She had the red flag flying there.
1989		J. Morton Lowspeak 121: The red flag is up – menstruation.
1999		J. Randall ‘A Visit from Aunt Rose’ in Verbatim XXV:1 Winter 25: Codes that refer to blood include the red flag is up (sometimes shortened to just the flag is up or the flag is flying; also sometimes flying Baker, since Baker is the Navy code for B, and the B flag is red).
2000		J.J. Connolly Layer Cake 266: You can come over, but I’m flying the red flag.

(N.Z. prison) to be found guilty in court (rather than pleading guilty).

2001

D. Looser Boobslang [U. Canterbury D.Phil. thesis] 72/1: fly through it v. to be found guilty of one's crime during a court trial, rather than pleading guilty.

(US) to lose one’s temper, to lose control.

1833		S. Smith Major Downing (1834) 94: The Advertiser flies up, and says, you no business to be a republikin, you’re a Jacksonite.
1884		J.C. Harris Mingo 203: I skeer’d ter tell you, Mars. George; kaze you mought fly up en git mad.
1896		J.C. Harris Sister Jane 171: An then she flew up like wimmen will.
1908		J.C. Lincoln Cy Whittaker’s Place 56: You needn’t fly up like a settin’ hen.
1923		W. Holtby Anderby Wold (1981) 199: And Mike, ’e flies up all at once like ’e do at times.
1949		H.S. Arnow Hunter’s Horn 71: An Pop, he’d jist fly up an tell her to mind her own business.
1950		WELS n.p.: (When a person becomes over-excited, and loses control) [...] Fly up.
1966–68		in DARE.

(W.I.) of alcohol, to go to one’s head, to make one extremely and thus dangerously drunk.

1975

cited in Allsopp Dict. Carib. Eng. Usage (1996).

(US) phr. of dismissal.

1967

R. Conot Rivers of Blood 359: Shit, man! You got no soul. I’d ’a told that white motherfucker to fly up his own ass!