Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. the circumstances, the event.

1573		T. Tusser Five Hundred Pointes of Good Husbandrie (1878) 168: Breakfast doings. To breakfast that come, Giue erie one some.
1604		Dekker Honest Whore Pt 1 III ii: I ha not eaten one goode meale this three and thirty dayes [...] but now those dayes are past: we had as good doings, Madona Fingerlocke she within dores and I without, as any poore yong couple.
1607		A Knight’s Conjuring cap V F4: Feeling hee had such doings [....] he must needs take a seruant.
1633		J. Howell Familiar Letters I (1737) 1 Apr. 249: There are odd doings in France, and ’tis no new thing for the French to be always a doing.
1652		Jonson, Fletcher & Middleton Widdow IV ii: All trades have their dead times wee see; Thee very, poor takings, And Lecherie cold doings.
1678		J. Ray Proverbs (2nd edn) 72: Great doings at Gregories, heat the oven twice for a custard.
1681		Dialogue Between Sam, Ferry-man etc. Upon a Parliament at Oxford in Harleian Misc. II (1809) 121: But, pray thee, Will, some more of their doings.
1696		Motteux (trans.) Gargantua and Pantagruel (1927) II Bk IV 285: Here is to be swingeing doings; we have a wedding in the house.
1702		Cibber She Would and She Would Not II i: Here has been rare Doings!
1734		Pretty Doings in a Protestant Nation [title].
1745		Bath’s Musical Garland 2: [song title] There’s Rare Dowings [sic] at Bath .
1753		Foote Englishman in Paris in Works (1799) I 34: So, the old doings, Roger; what time did your master come home?
1762		G. Colman Musical Lady II ii: Here have been rare doings!
1771		Smollett Humphrey Clinker (1925) I 27: These are fine doings, truly [...] monstrous! incongruous!
1780		‘Grubstreticus’ Parody on the Rosciad 9: Fine doings! Will replies to Ned.
1800		M. Edgeworth Castle Rackrent (1832) 23: There were no balls, no dinners, no doings.
1802		R. Anderson ‘The Worton Wedding’ Cumberland Ballads (1805) 9: Priest and clark, and aw gat drunk – / Rare deins there were there.
1817		W. Scott Rob Roy (1883) 320: I had muckle reason to doubt frae the doings o’ your house.
1827		T. Morton School For Grown Children II i: Oh, such grand genteel doings at the Squire’s!
1837		Thackeray Yellowplush Papers Works III (1898) 277: Fair Play asks us if we know of the gambling doings of the notorious Deuceace?
1841		Sporting Mag. Nov. 11: The weather in the morning was fine [...] therefore my task in recording the doings is easy enough.
1842		S. Lover Handy Andy 300: Am I to see nothing but the evidence of death’s doings this night?
1855		Yokel’s Preceptor title page: The Flat’s Ogles Opened – A Book for Every Greenhorn! [...] Being a Regular and Curious Show-Up of all the Rigs and Doings of the Flash Cribs In this Great Metropolis.
1861		(con. 1840s–50s) H. Mayhew London Labour and London Poor I 392/1: A mean cretur she is. It’s grand doings before faces, and pinchings behind backs, at our house.
1872		Illus. Police News 11 May 2/5: Doings in the Divorce Court - Extraordinary Case.
1878		J.H. Beadle Western Wilds 41: But if the country was like heaven, the folks was like the other place [...] Such sights – such doins’! I’d never a’ believed men would carry on so.
1885		C.A. Siringo Texas Cow Boy (1950) 110: I intend to give you a brief sketch of Billy’s doings.
1892		Punch 3 Dec. 256: Prof. (with affected rapture). Oh dear! Oh lor! What doins!
1899		W.J. Kountz Billy Baxter’s Letters 18: Then there were doings. I had wasted a wad of cries that would float the Maine, and I was sore for fair.
1903		‘Hugh McHugh’ Out for the Coin 17: Bow yourself out of D.Q. & N. There are doings.
1911		S. Ford Torchy 215: I shoves the invitation card at her. ‘Say, Marie,’ says I, ‘where’s the doin’s?’.
1914		C. Holme Lonely Plough (1931) 230: Great doings, I hear!
1921		Truth (Wellington) 27 Aug. 5: [headline] Alleged Love in a Cowshed [...] A Story of Domestic Doings The Hutt.
1928		D. Hammett ‘This King Business’ Story Omnibus (1966) 128: We want five million American dollars for our abdication. Grantham put in three to finance the doings, and he deserves a profit.
1935		Z.N. Hurston Mules and Men (1995) 63: They paid off twice a month and pay night is big doings.
1936		(con. 1830s–60s) ‘Miles Franklin’ All That Swagger 85: He bawled an order to put the horses in over night in readiness for big doings.
1940		V. Hodgson Diaries (1999) 15 Dec. 94: Queer doings in France and Italy.
1950		B. Spicer Blues for the Prince (1989) 179: Large evening at Manny’s. All-Prince Night. Big doings.
1960		Wodehouse Jeeves in the Offing 35: Mixed up in the doings, life has become one damn thing after another.
1978		R. Price Ladies’ Man (1985) 130: This was big doings.
1995		J. Cameron Vinnie Got Blown Away 157: She sat there told me the doings.
2001		N. Barlay Hooky Gear 217: Dont take nothin, no torture, no pliers, no nothin to get M & G to proper fess up their doins.

2. (orig. milit.) anything for which the precise name cannot be recalled at the moment of speaking.

1696		D’Urfey Comical Hist. of Don Quixote Pt 3 III i: Why, here has been mad doings in the Meadows yonder.
1773		Harris’s List of Covent-Garden Ladies 80: Her character too, as a housekeeper, has been always decent, and she has had the address to prevent – ‘any knock-me-down doings in her house’.
c.1790		‘Peter Pindar’ ‘Odes of Importance’ Works (1794) III 207: What a grunting, dirty pack of doings!
1864		‘Edmund Kirke’ Down in Tennessee 151: We hain’t nothin’ ’cept common doin’s, but we’s ’nuff o’ them.
1919		W.H. Downing Digger Dialects 20: doings (n.) — (1) A place, billet or trench; (2) a circumstance; (3) an affair; (4) anything else.
1929		N. Jacob Man Who Found Himself (1952) 131: Ah, here’s the lad with the doings.
1938		G. Greene Brighton Rock (1943) 137: You’ve got the doings, haven’t you?
1943		R. Llewellyn None But the Lonely Heart 187: But what about the doings?
1959		H.E. Bates Breath of French Air (1985) 150: There must be a doings in the bedroom somewhere.
1968		G. Slatter Pagan Game (1969) 151: Just as well a man has the grog to fall back on. And what a lovely drop of doings.
1975		K. Willey Ghosts of the Big Country 166: An English gentleman down on his luck, whose liking for ‘a drop of the doings’ had brought him before the Stipendiary Magistrate.
1978		S. King Stand (1990) 671: I don’t want to cut his doins any worse than I have to.

3. (US) the trimming or ornaments that enhance a dress.

1847		W.T. Porter Quarter Race in Kentucky 84: [The girls] came pourin out of the woods [...] fixed out in all sorts of fancy doings, from the broad-striped home-spun to the sunflower calico .
1856		Knickerbocker (N.Y.) XLVII 406: Pretty girl that in the black fixings and white arrangements, with blue doings [DA].
1912		E. Pugh City Of The World 49: In gaudy scarves about his neck and peacock’s feathers in his hat, in ‘doings’ down the back of his coat and pearl-buttons on his vest and pocket-flaps.

4. the components, e.g. of a meal, of a piece of engineering.

1838		E. Flagg Far West II 72: The first enquiry made of the guest by the village landlord is [...] ‘Well, stranger, what’ll ye take: wheat-bread and chicken fixens, or corn-bread and common doins?’ by the latter being signified bacon.
1843		R. Carlton New Purchase II 58: A snug breakfast of chicken fixens, eggs, ham-doins, and even slapjacks.
1859		Knickerbocker (N.Y.) liii Mar. 317: Tell Sal to [...] have some flour-doins and chicken-fixins for the stranger.
1863		‘Edmund Kirke’ Life in Dixie’s Land 58: The stores disclosed boiled chicken [...] corn-bread, buttered waffles, and ‘common doin’s’. [Ibid.] 67: That struck me as ‘rather steep’ for ‘common doin’s;’ particularly as we had furnished the food.
1894		M.H. Foote Coeur d’Alene 88: Big doin’s to-night, eh? [...] What’s all this truck for, anyhow?
1907		Wash. Times (DC) 15 Dec. 46/7: ‘Common doin’s’, ordinary food.
1921		D.L. Sayers Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club (1977) 37: I’ve got my man here with a camera. D’you mind [...] givin’ him your official blessin’ while he totters round with the doings?
1933		M. Marshall Tramp-Royal on the Toby 174: Them there blokes in white jackets wot’s bringing in the doings.

5. the testicles; the male genitals.

1888–94		‘Walter’ My Secret Life (1966) VIII 1599: Whose eyes I could see had been glancing at my doddle and my doings.
1922		‘J.H. Ross’ Mint (1955) 147: With three swift passes of a boot-brush [he] painted his doings jet-black.
1977		(con. 1940s) S. McAughtry Sinking of the Kenbane Head 89: This sadistic MO on FFI used to pick up each man’s doings on the end of his walking cane. After he had examined it to see if it was free from infection [...] he would give it a sharp slap with his cane.
2014		http://theresmoretolifethanheavenandearth.wordpress.com 12 May 🌐 I reamember this guy whom I cought looking at the others ones doings and I said [...] I saw thee looking at that guys chopper .

6. a condom.

1992

M. Frayn Now You Know 66: ‘Don’t worry,’ I whisper in her ear. ‘I got a doings’.

7. the equipment and drugs used for a narcotic injection; also the drugs alone.

2012		J.D. Hibbits ‘The First day of Hell Week’ in ThugLit Dec. [ebook] ‘Stuff you see here [i.e. methedrine] is the last of my doings’.
2013		K. Sampson Killing Pool 72: The absurdity of the situation — me about to crank and the boss at the door. I stow the doings [...] and wait for the knock.