Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. to raise a hue and cry.

1737, 1759, 1760, 1776		Bailey Universal Etym. Eng. Dict.
a.1790		H.T. Potter New Dict. Cant (1795).
1809		G. Andrewes Dict. Sl. and Cant.
1812		Vaux Vocab. of the Flash Lang. in McLachlan (1964) 226: beef: stop thief! to beef a person, is to raise a hue and cry after him, in order to get him stopped.
1821		Flash Dict.
1835		Metropolitan Mag. XIV Sept. 334: Beefing, however, they were lustily; when, at the turning of the road, I was brought down by a roller with a stroke of his long chiv over my head.
1835		G. Kent Modern Flash Dict. 5: Beef, to alarm, to discover, to pursue.
1848		Flash Dict. in Sinks of London Laid Open.
1865		Leaves from Diary of Celebrated Burglar 33/1: I thought Jack was going to get ‘pinched,’ and he would have been, too, for she ‘beefed’ terribly.

2. to raise an alarm (other than over a crime).

1865

Leaves from Diary of Celebrated Burglar 81/2: ‘Si thee, whip thau frightened ’ead out o’ t’ duer an’ thau ’ll ’eer t’ coppers beefin’ an’ running tu t’ fire.’ I did so, and plainly heard the cry of fire! fire! fire!

3. (orig. theatre) to shout.

1865		Leaves from Diary of Celebrated Burglar 18/1: And amid all, poor Ikey Rowe ‘beefing’ for assistance, while Taunton Call was laying into him with a stone wrapped in a handkerchief.
1914		Bulletin (Sydney) 26 Nov. 44/2: ‘Boys, it’s my shout! All up to the bar.’ / Some of them never turned their heads. ‘I got the stuff,’ I beefed, wavin’ my fifty.
1936		Queenslander (Brisbane) 2 July 4/4: Into the courtroom through a heavy gate / I went. And on the Bench old Bleareyes sate. / A ‘Jack’ steps up and says his piece, / And then His Nibs beefs out my fate.
1942		R.L. Bellem ‘Broken Melody’ in Dan Turner – Hollywood Detective Dec. 🌐 ‘Stow it!’ I beefed at him. ‘I’m Dan Turner, private dick!’.
1963		R. McGregor-Hastie Compleat Migrant 105: Beef it out: to shout.

4. to complain.

1865		Leaves from Diary of Celebrated Burglar 139/1: With the intention of finding out whether he was likely to ‘beef’ or not, Tom asked his sister Til how much his ‘poke’ was ‘up to’.
1888		N.Y. World 13 May in Farmer Americanisms (1889) 290: He’ll beef an’ kick like a steer an’ let on he won’t never wear ’em.
1896		Ade Artie (1963) 9: Everybody [...] beefin’ about the way the hands was runnin’.
1902		Ade Forty Modern Fables 207: I don’t like to Beef [...] but I feel like the Farm Hand from Muscatine.
1905		H. Green Actors’ Boarding House (1906) 316: Is he still beefin’?
1914		M. Glass Potash And Perlmutter 209: Always you’re beefing about something happening what ain’t going to happen.
1922		S. Lewis Babbitt (1974) 53: Course I wouldn’t beef about it to the fellows at the Roughnecks’ Table.
1931		D. Runyon ‘Breach of Promise’ in Runyon on Broadway (1954) 27: My friend [...] is beefing no little about the way his fenders are bent.
1935		(con. 1920s) J.T. Farrell Judgement Day in Studs Lonigan (1936) 577: Let’s can the beefing and get going!
1940		D. Maurer Big Con 15: The mark beefed, but the fix was secure.
1953		‘William Lee’ Junkie (1966) 88: He was always beefing how he couldn’t clear anything, he had to put out so much for hotel rooms.
1959		C. Himes Crazy Kill 55: He just come in to gape at the chippies and beef about the cooking.
1968		N. Heard Howard Street 65: So quit beefin’, man. You must be gittin’ scared or somethin’.
1973		Billy Conn in Heller In This Corner (1974) 223: I hit Pastor in the balls so he started beefing.
1999		Guardian Rev. 3 July 10: The Irish are hard to beat and boy, how can they beef! ...
2000		Eminem ‘Kill You’ 🎵 Bitch I’ma kill you! You ain’t got the balls to beef / We ain’t gon’ never stop beefin I don’t squash the beef.
2023		Rayman & Blau Riker’s 34: And it’s just, man, you know, dudes is beefing about shit,.

5. (US) to bully.

1997

Simon & Burns Corner (1998) 119: Boys Village is [...] filled with D.C. niggers who like to beef with Baltimore boys.

6. (US tramp) to give someone away, to betray to the authorities; to own up; thus beefer, an informant, one who complains to the authorities.

1899		J. Flynt Tramping with Tramps 388: When a man denounces to the police a beggar who has accosted him in the street, the latter, in relating the experience [...] says that the ‘bloke beefed’ on him (gave him away).
1899		S.F. Call 2 Apr. 25/5: Victims of the rogues are called ‘suckers,’ unless they ‘squeal’ when they are called ‘beefers’.
1921		P. & T. Casey Gay-cat 238: Wot d’yuh say now Kid? Gonna beef where it’s hid?
1925		Black Mask Aug. III 108: The fellows [...] only found an old house that’s no more like the place you beefed about than this is like a pickle factory.
1926		N. Klein ‘Hobo Lingo’ in AS I:12 650: Beefer—informer (to ‘beef’ is to inform).
1931		Irwin Amer. Tramp and Und. Sl. 25: Beef.—To complain or inform; to turn State’s or King’s evidence.
1949		Monteleone Criminal Sl. (rev. edn).
1950		Goldin et al. DAUL 25/2: Beef, v. [...] 3. To implicate accomplices through a confession of guilt; to inform upon.
1962		S. Longstreet Flesh Peddlers (1964) 114: I don’t rat, amigo. I don’t beef.

7. (US) to argue.

1896		W.C. Gore Student Sl. in Cohen (1997) 4: beef 1. vi. To make an unsuccessful bluff.
1919		Van Loan ‘Excess Baggage’ in Score by Innings (2004) 399: There was jawing in the clubhouse, crabbing on the bench and beefing on the field.
1947		M.H. Boulware Jive and Sl.
1958		E. Gilbert Vice Trap 13: I was going to have to beef with the kid that was on nights.
1969		C. Brown Mr Jive-Ass Nigger 60: [D]uring slavery times every plantation had a bad nigger, and the slave masters would be beefing about who had the baddest nigger.
1997		Simon & Burns Corner (1998) 490: He’d been beefing with Dinky over some short vials.
2001		(con. 1990s) in J. Miller One of the Guys 86: Sometimes they beef and everything.
2005		G. Pelecanos Drama City 104: He wasn’t about beefing with no one.
2010		Codella and Bennett Alphaville (2011) 29: When these guys [...] beef with each other or with other crews they settle it fast.

8. (US) to talk loudly (esp. to no real purpose).

1900		E.H. Babbitt ‘College Words and Phrases’ in DN II:i 22: beef, v. To talk without saying anything.
1921		P. & T. Casey Gay-cat 98: Aw, Crybaby [...] What yer beefin’ about, anyway?
1928		M.C. Sharpe Chicago May (1929) 32: I relieved him of about six hundred bucks. You might have thought it was a million, the way the sucker was beefing about making his getaway.
1934		(con. 1920s) J.T. Farrell Young Manhood in Studs Lonigan (1936) 167: We need you with us. And we ain’t beefing.
1939		V. Davis Gentlemen of the Broad Arrows 220: Don’t beef it around.
1944		D. Runyon Runyon à la Carte 142: I am wondering why you keep beefing about the pay-off thing when I do not even dream of connecting you with it.
1950		Goldin et al. DAUL 25/2: Beef, v. [...] 4. To gossip.
1966		B. Jackson Get Your Ass in the Water (1974) 136: There stand a old broad in the courtroom you maybe done forgot all about, / starts to beefin’ to the judge, ‘I’ll bail him out.’.

9. (US) to waste time.

1900

‘College Words and Phrases’ in DN II:i 22: Beef, v. t. and i. To loaf; waste time.

10. (US) to blunder, to make a mistake.

1900		‘College Words and Phrases’ DN II:i 22: Beef, v. To make a mistake.
1915		R. Bolwell ‘College Sl. Words and Phrases’ in DN IV:iii 231: beef, v. To make an error; to ‘bull.’ ‘He beefed his recitation.’.

11. to say, to declare.

1915		C.J. Dennis ‘Hitched’ in Songs of a Sentimental Bloke 78: An’ once I missed me turn; an’ Ginger Mick, / ’Oo’s my best-man, ’e ups an’ beefs it out.
1938		Pittsburgh Courier (PA) 27 Aug. 11/1: You stache your frame back to the P.A. and beef to the gang that the ‘Dark Eagle’ is in port.
1944		Cab Calloway New Hepsters Dict. in Calloway (1976) 253: beef (v.): to say, to state. Ex., ‘He beefed to me that, etc.’.
1955		‘Blackie’ Audett Rap Sheet 239: He done quite a lot of beefing about being the first man ever to use the chain.

12. (US prison) to charge with a crime.

1976

M. Braly False Starts 186: I was beefed under the section of rules and regs that ordered each inmate to wear a regulation haircut.

13. (orig. US black) to argue, to pick a fight (with someone).

1941		‘Digg Mee’ ‘Observation Post’ in N.Y. Age 12 Apr. 9/6: For the ‘sneefers’ of the ‘reefers’, for the windbags and the ‘beefers’.
1993		Source May 43: I would always be beefin’ with him.
1995		L. Stavsky et al. A2Z 7/1: beefin’ – looking for trouble, spoiling for a fight; arguing: He’s been beefin’ ever since his cousin got shot.
2000		Ebonics Primer at www.dolemite.com 🌐 beef Definition: to have a problem with Example: Ho, get my extra clip, fo’ Im’a beef wit a nigga.
2005		L. Theroux Call of the Weird (2006) 181: Feuding – ‘beefing’ as it’s called – was back, too. [...] the most prolific beefer of all was [...] 50 Cent. The inside sleeve of his latest album, The Massacre, contained coded death threats on rival artists.
2008		‘Grandmaster Flash’ Adventures 32: ‘[M]y writing style was foul, and my name wasn’t getting around. I wasn’t beefin’ with other writers or taking any other risks to get a rep’.
2008		G. Pelecanos Way Home (2009) 176: Time was, in his youth, him and his boys at Parkchester would have been beefing with those at the Farms.
2017		hubpages.com ‘Roadman Slang 4 Jun. 🌐 Beef - to be rude/hostile to someone.
2019		D. Winslow Border [ebook] [I]t’s all around the facility that Santi and Nico are beefing. They play it up—stink eyes at each other in the hallway.
2023		Rayman & Blau Riker’s 59: They’d beef on each other. Harlem would side with the Bronx, and Queens would side with Brooklyn [etc].

14. to make an official complaint against someone.

1970		J. Wambaugh New Centurions 58: Some bitch in Newton Division beefed a policeman last week. Says he took her in a park and tried to lay her.
1985		J. Wambaugh Secrets of Harry Bright (1986) 169: We’ll be lucky if we don’t get beefed over that one.
1990		J. Wambaugh Golden Orange (1991) 185: I was figurin he probably called in to beef me.
2023		(con. 1962) J. Ellroy Enchanters 178: The burglar-breather that Monroe beefed to Pat.

15. (UK black/gang) to attack; to fight with.

2012		Guardian 27 Mar. 🌐 When Lil Zac died, because he was related to ABM they joined up with Tulse Hill and that’s when ABM started to beef Brixton as well.
2015		Section Boyz ‘Trapping Ain’t Dead’ 🎵 Put your hand on my friend / Why you tryna beef me?
2016		F. Stuart ‘Dispatches from the Rap Wars’ in chicagomag.com 🌐 Every time they were in the car with me, they would give me different directions based on who they were beefing with that week.
2020		G. Krauze What They Was 159: Them man have been beefing SK from time.