Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (also death after, death for, death upon) very fond of.

1839		Spirit of the Times (N.Y.) 5 Oct. 368/3: [His] nose is so red that no musquito can stand the blaze of it. It’s death upon gallinipers, too.
1847		J.M. Field Drama in Pokerville 35: Dr. Slunk was ‘death on poker’.
1848		Bartlett Dict. Americanisms 110: death. To be death for, or go one’s death for a thing, is to be in favor of it or pursue it to the last extremity.
1850		W.K. Northall Life and Recollections of Yankee Hill 23: Don’t the bill say that you’ve got a Olio? now I want to see the critter; I never heard of the animal afore, and I’m death on critters.
1865		G.A. Sala My Diary in America I 59: He went in for the turkey and cranberry sass. He was death on squash.
1872		Schele De Vere Americanisms 596: It may, however, also mean to love passionately, in which sense it is used in Sam Slick: ‘Your friend Silas is death on sherry and gin-slings, and Sally on lace, and old Aunt Thankful goes the whole figure for furs.’.
1880		‘Ouida’ Moths I 231: I’m death on sport.
1886		‘Ned Buntline’ Buffalo Bill 28: ‘[T]hey’re purtier than any pictur that was ever painted, and I know he’s death after that kind of game’.
1889-90		D. Sladen in Barrère & Leland Sl., Jargon and Cant I 302/1: Death on (Australian), good at. The metaphor is probably that of completeness. Vide DEAD FINISH. ‘Death on rabbits,’ would mean a very good rabbit shot; ‘death on peaches,’ greedy of peaches.
1889		H. Smart Long Odds I 110: ‘I don’t suppose he ever knew a real lord before, and he's just simply death upon knowing one now’.
1895		Truth (Sydney) 14 Apr. 3/5: ‘But why didn’t he knock off the booze?’ ‘For the principle of the thing [...] He’s death on principle, is Boppiter’.
1899		‘Pot’ & ‘Swears’ Scarlet City 212: I could see by the way in which he eyed your parcel pi.e of cash] that he’s death on getting to lot.
1900–10		Stephens & O’Brien Materials for a Dict. of Aus. Sl. [unpub. ms.] 59: DEATH ON [...] The phrase ‘death on’ implies a degree of absolute certainty. ‘He’s death on long beers’ would imply a drinking man who was constantly drinking long beers.
1909		Van Loan ‘The Crab’ in Big League (2004) 8: He was sure death on foul tips back of third base.
1939		D. Burley N.Y. Amsterdam News 30 Sept. 16: We’re death on the cake [...] Yep, give it to us right side up and everything is mellow.
1965		W. King ‘The Game’ in King Black Short Story Anthol. (1972) 309: This doll is a champ on the sheets! She is brutal; death on sheets, man!

2. (orig. US, also death against, death-and-all on, murder on) dealing very strictly and severely with a situation or person; very good at dealing with.

1842		Spirit of Times (N.Y.)10 Mar. n.p.: We need not say that this medicine is death on colds [DA].
1848		Satirist & Blade (Boston, MA) 19 Feb. n.p.: Remember you sell rot gut on the Sabbath and the boys are death against you.
1854		E.R. Sullivan Bungalow or Tent 208: That everlasting kite was death upon snakes and no mistake.
1863		‘Edmund Kirke’ Life in Dixie’s Land 191: However they have their uses; they make excellent bacon, and are ‘death on snakes’.
1874		J.H. Carter Log of Commodore Rollingpin 101: Reese will fetch you up if there’s any hope for you. He’s death on wrecks.
1887		F. Francis Jr Saddle and Mocassin 123: The boys are death on cactus when they get scared.
1891		Sporting Times 7 Feb. 3/1: The [...] militiamen prided themselves particularly on their discipline, and they were death-and-all on sentry-go.
1895		J. Kirby Old Times in Bush 142: Nip [a dog] was death on snakes.
1900		Bulletin (Sydney) 2 Jun. 14/2: Strange, too, that in some localities magpies and butcher-birds are death on young chickens, while in others they never touch them.
1912		D. Lowrie My Life in Prison 282: The judge in this county is a crackerjack, and he’s death on burglars.
1928		J. Callahan Man’s Grim Justice 98: Those Tar Heels were death on safe crackers.
1938		C. Himes ‘Pork Chop Paradise’ in Coll. Stories (1990) 256: The guerrilla bands of convicts were death on rats.
1940		W.R. Burnett High Sierra in Four Novels (1984) 335: We got a D.A. that don’t want guys like Roy Earle around. He’s death on big-timers.
1951		D. Dressler Parole Chief 265: And is he murder on boosters, the lousy crum!
1953		Lynn Doyle Back to Ballygullion 51: But his girl was death on drink. He had to give it up.
1954		M. Millar Wives & Lovers (2016) 129: ‘Naturally I didn’t tell her about you — she’s death to men anyway’.
1966		J. Mills Panic in Needle Park (1971) 66: It was before she started using, and like she was death on drugs. She was death.
1973		E. Bunker No Beast So Fierce 218: She’s death on spooks.
1989		(con. 1982–6) T. Williams Cocaine Kids (1990) 44: He had been death on basing before he went to the joint – he would always say to me that people who based was weak and simple-minded.
1999		N. Cohn Yes We Have No 59: I was death on moggies.

3. (US) finding abhorrent or being opposed to.

1905		‘Central Connecticut Word-List’ in DN III:i 7: death, n. ‘To be death on a thing,’ to be opposed to it.
1938		C. Himes ‘Pork Chop Paradise’ in Coll. Stories (1990) 256: [T]he guerrilla bands of convicts were death on rats.
1967		J. Breslin World of Jimmy Breslin (1968) 159: You don’t find any of them taking sunbaths [...] He’s death on sunburns, a Vietnamese.
1986		S. King It (1987) 576: She was death on rock and roll. Chuck Berry terrified her [...] Little Richard made her want to ‘barf like a chicken’.