Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (US) a waiter or waitress.

1873		A.S. Evans A la Calif. 299: Rooms, which are let, furnished at so much per month, to the ‘pretty beer-slingers’ and their male companions.
1907		Sun. Times (Perth) 2 June 1/1: A senior footballer vows vengeance on Curly Con, the soup-slinger [...] the sporting waiter is laps ahead of the muddied oaf for the girlie’s giggles.
1911		T.A. Dorgan in Zwilling TAD Lex. (1993) 74: It was the third act in the thrilling drama called ‘Susie the Soup Slinger’.
1931		Greenwood Commonwealth (MS) 11 Dec. 4/2: Music Soup Slinger [...] When I wanted a cup of coffee [...] the musician was none other than the counter man.
1941		J. Smiley Hash House Lingo 6: a slang slinger urged on by appreciative audiences would be induced to bring forth all the fresh expressions his wits might concoct.
1952		(con. 1948) G. Mandel Flee the Angry Strangers 435: Slinger! [...] Some coffee, if I may call it that.
1959		Greenwood Commonwealth (MS) 2 Sept. 1/2: The Dish Washers [...] were leading the Soup Slingers [...] by two points.

2. as sfx, denoting a variety of worker.

1912		Bulletin (Sydney) 29 Aug. 13/2: What price a staff captain’s ‘pidgin’ on some of the lines that carry coons as hash-, plate- and coal-slingers.
1926		J. Tully Jarnegan (1928) 84: Fellow dirt slingers – you’ve got nothing to lose but your pick and shovel – let’s all strike.
2011		BObserver 24 July 🌐 There’s a rare and widespread artistic consensus that the previous paint slinger, a Frenchman called Nicolas poussin, had actually improved their appearance.

3. (UK Und.) one who passes forged notes .

1950

P. Tempest Lag’s Lex. 192: slinger. One who passes counterfeit – ‘a slush slinger’.

4. (US Und., a drug dealer; thus S.Afr.) bum-slinger, a seller of second-rate drugs.

1974		J. Matthews The Park and Other Stories (1983) 21: I never make any business wit’ all yer bum-slingers.
1987		King Tee & Mixmaster Spade ‘Ya Better Bring a Gun’ 🎵 But they took control, slingers walk real tall / While real down gangbangers write their set on the wall.
1997		Simon & Burns Corner (1998) 6: No touts, no slingers, no fiends on Mount Street.
2001		J. Stahl Plainclothes Naked (2002) 207: Tony copped from L’il Pepe all the time, so he naturally figured the slinger would be bitch-happy one of his best customers had some stuff for him.
2004		Simon & Price ‘All Due Respect’ Wire ser. 3 ep. 2 [TV script] You better watch out, ’cos the slingers out here, they’re like the crack babies’ babies.
2017		D. Winslow The Force [ebook] [T]he slingers and the gangs and the robbers and the rapists and the wiseguys, they don’t take time off to grieve.
2020		D. Winslow ‘Broken’ in Broken 11: This was going to be Oscar’s shot—to rise from the middle ranks of drug slingers to the top tier.