Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (US) the state of pregnancy.

1859

Wkly Varieties (Boston, MA) 3 Sept. 7/3: The clerk in [...] Weber’s music store had better let the servant girls alone. We think one of them is troubled with the ‘dropsy’ and if she don’t look out it will drop in her arms.

2. a bribe.

1913		Sport (Adelaide) 17 May 11/3: Mr T, commonly known as the dropsy king [...] has dropped in for the storekeeper’s job .
1934		P. Allingham Cheapjack 94: I always thought he took the dropsy. If you’d made it half-a-dollar he might have taken it.
1937		J. Curtis There Ain’t No Justice 238: Dropsy’s done it. The fight game’s all cop and no drop from the promoter’s angle.
1957		G. Kersh Fowlers End (2001) 24: Once upon a time you could slip the sanitary inspector a couple quid an’ a cigar, an’ for all ’e cared you could ’ave snakes in the up’olstery. But now the capitalist system come in, you can’t get ’em to take dropsy any more.
1969		R. Rendell Best Man To Die (1981) 52: Sure it wasn’t McCloy’s little dropsy for services rendered?
1979		F. Norman Too Many Crooks Spoil the Caper 12: The nearest pub [...] was full of CID and a few underworld types who’d put in an appearance to grass their mates, pass the weekly dropsy or sell their mothers down the river.
1989		in G. Tremlett Little Legs 54: Most policemen are bent, and a little bit of dropsy will get you out of trouble every time.
1996		RTÉ TV Nationwide 19 Feb. This kind of backhander is known in the business as dropsey [BS].
2001		K. Sampson Outlaws (ms.) 10: With all the gimmes and dropsies and once we’ve factored in Eli’s take we’ll be left with a good half million.

3. a bank-note.

1927

Chronicle (Adelaide, SA) 12 Mar. 45/5: He could, however, only produce one newly-minted piece of slang [...] ‘Dropsies’ for bank notes.

4. the habit of dropping things; usu. as the dropsy [SE drop off].

1935

C. Odets Awake and Sing! II ii: (hennie drops a knife, and picks it up again) bessie: You got dropsy tonight.

5. a tip.

1945		‘Henry Green’ Loving (1978) 42: He’ll have had the old dropsy out of her.
1963		B. Naughton Alfie I ii: There’ll be plenty of dropsy. (He mimes collecting tips).
1997		(con. 1950s) D. Farson Never a Normal Man 178: As we neared Australia the talking point was the ‘dropsy from the bloods’, the tips expected from the passengers.
2001		K. Sampson Outlaws (ms.) 23: I tries to slip Fonzie a dropsie on the way out but he shakes his head.

6. money.

1956		‘Charles Raven’ Und. Nights 155: He either had to pay up some substantial dropsey or be nicked in possession. Mostly he paid up.
1981		(con. 1900–30) A. Harding in Samuel East End Und. 282: Dropsy – Money.
1984		‘Derek Raymond’ He Died with His Eyes Open 55: You gotter say lick your arse, sir, touch the hat, bit of the abdabs, morning madam, fine day, then stick the old hand out for a bit of the dropsy.
1998		K. Sampson Awaydays 128: Dja reckon you can see us right for a bit of dropsy?
2013		K. Sampson Killing Pool 157: He’s letting the lad know there’s no dropsy in it for him, no matter how good his info may turn out to be.

7. (US police) of a criminal charge, based on an officer’s contention that he saw the defendant throw contraband to the ground.

1969		P. Chevigny Police Power 187: The first sign of the crisis was an extraordinary rise in the number of ‘dropsy’ cases—in which the arresting officer’s affidavit showed that the defendant was not searched but had abandoned the contraband, usually by dropping it when he saw the officer coming.
1990		D. Heilbroner Rough Justice 29: In dropsy cases, officers justify a search by the oldest of means: they lie about the facts. As I was coming around the corner I saw the defendant drop the drugs on the sidewalk, so I arrested him.
1996		(con. 1970s) J. Lardner Crusader 206: [H]e and his fellow jurists had often talked among themselves about the frequency of ‘dropsy cases,’ in which a defendant supposedly threw drugs or other contraband to the ground in the full view of a pursuing police officer.