Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (US) an infantryman.

1898		L.G. Tisdale Three Years behind the Guns 277: The ‘gravel agitators’ (soldiers) nursed the thought [...] that we were unable to do anything until they came to show us how.
1911		D. Runyon Tents of Trouble 86: Gravel agitators on a long, hard hike.
1919		F.R. Witt Riding to War with ‘A’ 159: Gravel-agitators, fall in.
1940		Phila. Eve. Ledger 20 July n.p.: ‘Gravel agitator’ and ‘red leg’ – artillerymen.
1945		Popular Science Jan. 268: Get a ‘flatfoot’ (a soldier's term for a sailor), a ‘gravel agitator’ (infantryman), and a ‘gyrene’ (marine, to you) all together and they'll sound off about everything!
1949		Nat. Guardsman 3 2/2: Translated into the forthright language of the gravel agitator, these reasons mean simply that it now will be possible to work out procedures, signals, codes, and — most important — ‘know how’.
1977		(ref. to WWII) Chilton’s Commercial Car Jrnl 133 95/1: He served with the U.S. infantry during World War II. He says he was what was then commonly referred to as a ‘gravel agitator’.
1984		A.E. Cornebise Stars & Stripes 103: He insisted that the term doughboy, ‘as applied to a gravel agitator,’ had not originated in the Philippines, as some alleged, but earlier, in the Indian campaigns following the Civil Wa.
2000		T. Harris Clearance and Fair and Just Reward 49: I joined the Navy to keep from being a gravel-agitator.

2. see agitate v.

a submissive, hen-pecked male; thus gravel-pit, the place such men supposedly live.

1655		Mercurius Fumigosus 65 15-22 Aug. 3: Our fleet of land Friggats are so lusty in this Roade, that they Hen-peck all their men, making them Gravel-carriers, insomuch that Night and morning they crow over them whilst the poor hen-pecken wretches lie sprawling in the Hole.
1655		Mercurius Fumigosus 68 5-12 Sept. : That they may Peck their Husbands into Witt, / And make them travell to the Gravell Pitt.

1. (also gravel-cruncher, mud-crusher) an infantryman, occas. a US marine (see cite 1911); thus gravel-crushing n., marching.

1864		J. Horrocks letter in My Dear Parents 29 May 84: The mud-crushers (or infantry) must be quite envious to see [...] me and other mounted gentlemen gallop past.
1865		in Jrnl of US Cavalry Assocation Nov. 1888 10: ‘We’ve got a feller that can fight all around you mud crushers,’ was the reply of a Michigan trooper.
1889–90		Barrère & Leland Dict. of Sl., Jargon and Cant.
1899		Sketch 24 525/1: When we got into cantonments [...] I walked down after him, and, as I got outside the hut, he saw me coming along and called out, ‘Hallo, Gravel-crusher!’.
1911		El Paso Herald (TX) 30 Aug. 4/2: The union station was charged and taken [...] by a squad of ‘gravel crunchers’ known technically in the US service as marines of the navy.
1912		Bulletin (Sydney) 19 Dec. 13/4: I have had seven years in the Force, and have done a little ‘gravel-crushing’ in the various States in that time, and I know which uniform I prefer for field work.
1917		Rising Sun 4 Jan. 1/2: I s’pose yer think yer the only ryebuck dinkum gravelcrusher in this muddy country, think yerself blinkin’ funny, doncher?
1918		L.N. Smith Lingo of No Man’s Land 41: GRAVEL CRUSHER An infantryman, always walking, so named, it is explained, from his big feet.
1921		N&Q 12 Ser. IX 383: Mud-Crusher. A soldier.
1925		(con. WWI) Fraser & Gibbons Soldier and Sailor Words 109: Gravel crusher: An old Cavalry nickname for an infantryman.
1929		E.S. McCartney ‘Sl. and Idioms of World War’ Papers Michigan Academy of Arts & Sciences 10 n.p.: mud-crunchers, infantrymen.
1930		(con. 1910s) L. Nason A Corporal Once 277: You mean I got to hike all day on foot like a god-damned mud-crusher.
1941		D. Burley N.Y. Amsterdam Star-News 20 Sept. 15: The Cat with the Heavy Bark starts ’em crunching gravel in the early bright.
1944		P. Kendall Dict. Service Sl. n.p.: Infantry [...] gravel crushers.
1976		P. Conroy Great Santini (1977) 465: You’re not bad for a gravel cruncher, Captain.
1988		(con. WWII) S. Hynes Flights of Passage 209: Our Marine infantrymen were a different species, called Gravel-crunchers or Crunchies.

2. (Anglo-Irish) a tramp.

1916

R.W. Campbell Private Spud Tamsan in DSUE (1984).

3. (Anglo-Irish) a heavy boot, typically worn by a farmer or agricultural worker.

1937–84

Partridge DSUE (1984) 496/2: C.20.

an agile dancer.

1835		G. Kent Modern Flash Dict.
1848		Flash Dict. in Sinks of London Laid Open.
1890		C. Hindley Vocab. and Gloss. in True Hist. of Tom and Jerry 175: Gravel digger. A sharp toe’d dancer.

1. a drunkard, esp. one who has a drunken fall and scratches their face.

1864, 1867, 1870

Hotten Sl. Dict.

2. (US) an infantryman.

1890–1904		Farmer & Henley Sl. and Its Analogues.
1942		E. Colby Army Talk 147: Close to the plain gravel grinder where heavier guns never go, / You will find us, the one-pounder section, taking our part in the show.
c.1964		(con. WWII) K. Cook Other Capri 46: I’d like to see that paddlefooted gravelgrinder fly an airplane [HDAS].

(Aus.) the human hair.

1903

Bulletin (Sydney) 2 July 14/4: Correctness of deportment in the hair is a strong point with Yankee manhood. It is the worst of form to turn up, even at a lynching, with your pate’s gravel-path in disorder.

abrasions caused by a fall on a gravelly or uneven surface, esp. in the context of drunkenness; cit. 1885 seems to imply a wound that looks similar.

1857		‘Ducange Anglicus’ Vulgar Tongue 16: The gravel rash Said to any one who has a scratched face; generally applied to drunkards.
1864		London Standard 13 Dec. 3/3: When he has lapped the Gutter, and Got the Gravel Rash [...] not till then is he entitled, in vulgar society, to the title of Lushington, or recommended to Put in the Pin.
1874		Manchester Eve. News 3 Nov. 4/2: They got cut up heavily [...] Tabby won, though he’d got the gravel-rash (cut face) from the bricks.
1885		Bulletin (Sydney) 18 July 22/2: He is dreaming of love, gore, scalps, and general ghastliness; and presently we will creep from our couch, and with the assistance of a stiff-hair brush, cover the tenderest part of his person with gravelly-rash.
1891		Standard (London) 21 Oct. 3/1: I admitted him and then saw he had the gravel-rash .
1895		Crowe Aus. Sl. Dict. 33: Gravel Rash, a scratched face from a drunken fall.
1902		Bulletin (Sydney) 13 Dec. 18/2: Later C.M. shouts half-a-dozen times, but after a brief spasm of violence, in which he gets a bad attack of gravel-rash, subsides into slumber.
1906		Sun (NY) 5 Mar. 4/6: He has got the gravel rash [...] he has lapped the gutter.
1916		C.J. Dennis ‘The Battle of the Wazzir’ in Moods of Ginger Mick [unpub. unrevised proof version] An’ they might ’ave left ’is Kingship nursin’ gravel-rash in bed.
1931		D.L. Sayers Suspicious Characters 302: I had gravel-rash all over my face. The brute had rolled me on the rough ground, blast him!
1942		‘A List of Briticisms’ in AS XVII:1 Feb. 6/1: gravel-rash. Abrasions caused by contact with gravel or any rough surface.
2001		T. O’Farrell Behind Enemy Lines 7: His ride down the steepest hill around our patch [...] culminating in numerous minor wounds and a bloody gravel rash.

see scratch (the) gravel

(UK Und.) the proceeds of street robbery.

1826		‘Boby & His Mary’ in Farmer Musa Pedestris (1896) 94: For her he’d nightly pad the hoof, / And gravel tax collect.
1835		G. Kent Modern Flash Dict.
1848		Flash Dict. in Sinks of London Laid Open.

a pair of boots or shoes.

1828

‘A Flat Enlightened’ Life in the West II 127: The ‘gravel teazers’ were made [...] The boot-maker was ushered into the drawing-room, with the bag of boots and shoes.

1. (US Und.) a go-between of lobbyists who buy up legislators.

1909		‘The Lang. of Crooks’ in Wash. Post 20 June 4/2: [paraphrasing J. Sullivan] The go-between of lobbyists is a gravel train.
1910		J. Sullivan ‘Criminal Sl.’ in Amer. Law Rev. LII (1918) 890: The go-between of lobbyists who buys up legislators is called the ‘gravel train’ because he has the ‘rocks’ whereby he can debauch legislators.
1949		Monteleone Criminal Sl. (rev. edn) 106: gravel train The go-between of lobbyists who buys up legislators.

2. (US) a sugar bowl [sense 1 above].

1936

H.W. Bentley ‘Linguistic Concoctions of the Soda Jerker’ in AS XI:1 43: GRAVEL TRAIN. Sugar bowl.

(US) an infantryman.

1907

D. Runyon ‘The Defence of Strikerville’ in From First To Last (1954) 11: I had an idea then that you came from the state gravel wallopers.

(US) to have sexual intercourse.

1953

Randolph & Wilson Down in the Holler 110: ‘To git some gravels for my goose,’ meaning that he is in search of sexual satisfaction.

see hit the grit under grit n.²

1. (also chuck up the gravel, throw gravel) to leave hurriedly, to move very fast.

1832		Albany Microscope (NY) 2 June n.p.: E. Whipple [...] ‘scratch’d gravel’ for Michigan.
1848		H. Smith Life and Adventures 63: The crowd laughed, and the rake was compelled to scratch gravel.
1859		White Cloud Kansas (KS) 6 Oct. 2/5: It was Mr Larzelere’s watermelon patch from which a woman made him ‘scratch gravel’.
1868		M.J. Holmes Tempest & Sunshine 103: You'd better scratch gravel for home, and if I catch you here again dickerin’ after Fanny, I'll pull every corn-colored har out of your head!
1877		E.L. Wheeler Deadwood Dick in Beadle’s Half Dime Library I:1 80/1: Come along [...] we’ll have to scratch gravel.
1900		Bulletin (Sydney) 8 Dec. 19/3: Gawsake, Matilda, chuck up the gravel a bit! If I ain’t to be pitied between the two o’ yer!
1907		W.M. Raine Wyoming (1908) 69: Y’u better roll your trail, seh; and if y’u take my advice, you’ll throw gravel lively.
1908		Bulletin (Sydney) 13 Aug. 40/2: She was spry, and she was active, / And assisted in the chase / When they had to ‘scratch the gravel’ for their grub; / But, however fleet the quarry, / Or however hot the pace, / Why, she always kept one eye upon the club.
c.1916		‘Banjo’ Paterson ‘The Uplift’ in Poems of the Bush (1987) 56: If your nag’s too poor to travel / Then get down and scratch the gravel. / For you’ll get there if you walk it.
1917		‘Banjo’ Paterson ‘Victor Second’ in Three Elephant Power 115: The populace immediately went for him with stones, bottles, and other missiles, and he had to scratch gravel to save his life.
1934		O. Strange Sudden 12: Yu busted that fella wide open, an’ his bronc’ll be throwin’ gravel plenty-industrious just now.
1935		‘The Pig and the Inebriate’ 🎵 I began to scratch the gravel, / on all my fours did travel.
1963		C.L. Edson ‘Ravin’s of a Piute Poet Poe’ in Scholastic Mag. n.p.: You shall travel! On the level! Scratch the gravel now, and travel.
1968		‘Hy Lit’ Hy Lit’s Unbelievable Dict. of Hip Words 51: scratch gravel – Split quickly.

2. (also scratch for gravel) to work hard; thus gravel-scratcher n., a working man.

1850		Wool Grower (Buffalo, NY) Nov. 117/2: Thousands, like him, 'scratch gravel’ for naught, all their days.
1864		Genesee Farmer (US) 25 79: Everybody who has ever farmed in the West knows that well-bound, dry wheat can be stacked so as to stand any weather [...] even by a New Hampshire gravel-scratcher, who saves every kernel.
1892		Caldwell trib. (ID) 5 Nov. 5/1: No wonder the farmer has to scratch gravel to pay his taxes.
1898		E.N. Westcott David Harum 226: Till I was consid’able older ’n you be I had to scratch grav’l like all possessed.
1915		Truth (Brisbane) 25 July 3/4: ‘I didn’t come ail this way to scratch gravel [i.e. to march] and dodge lead’.
1924		E.G. Murphy ‘Snores’ Dryblower’s Verses 93: Now he scratched for gravel / Serving drinks to midnight drunks.
1932		‘William Hatfield’ Ginger Murdoch 100: I always thought you wase a decent sorta coot, Kelly [...] a plain ord’n’ary gravel-scratcher like meself.
1937		W.M. Raine Cool Customer 135: They claim he’s spread out darned thin and if anything cracked he would have to scratch gravel considerable.