Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. honest, legitimate, above-board, thus antithesis unkosher.

1890		‘Morris the Mohel’ ‘Houndsditch Day By Day’ in Sporting Times 11 Jan. 3: [He] took ’er away vith his father’s geldt to get her geuristered, all Kosher, so to shpeak.
1900		Sydney Sportsman (Surry Hills, NSW) 24 Oct. 1/1: This is a kosher paper; everything the other papers smother The Sportsman chats.
1905		Sporting Times 27 May 1/5: Once outside, it seemed to the pug a sin and a shame to squander two reds in Piccadilly on that which could be obtained down Gravel Lane for two whites — with a kosher smoke thrown in!
1929		H.C. Witwer Yes Man’s Land 101: Without which no motion picture is considered kosher.
1939		R. Chandler ‘Pearls Are a Nuisance’ in Spanish Blood (1946) 132: There is just two things I would like you to know and they are both kosher.
1947		B. Schulberg Harder They Fall (1971) 14: I suppose you never write stuff it ain’t a hunert percent kosher!
1957		Mad mag. Sept.–Oct. 48: I go ball with you. More kosher for PTA if you chaperoned.
1962		R. Cook Crust on its Uppers 21: All the rest of the so-called kosher establishments are really down to the snob angle.
1972		G.V. Higgins Friends of Eddie Coyle 97: You can go some place [...] and if everthing’s kosher, I’ll tell you where we meet.
1984		P. Slabolepszy ‘Over the Hill’ in Mooi Street (1994) 52: You reckon it’s genuine? [...] Genuine? Kosher? Halaal?
1992		I. Rankin Wolfman 141: We think it’s kosher.
1999		P. Temple Black Tide (2012) [ebook] I got in touch with the companies [...] Klostermann’s kosher.
2002		R.G. Barrett Mystery Bay Blues 21: ‘Are these tickets kosher?’ ‘One hundred and ten per cent’.
2004		K. Bruen ‘Fade To . . . Brooklyn’ in Brooklyn Noir 308: I’m no dumbass, I’ve learned a lot of stuff, not all of it kosher.
2012		C. Stella Rough Riders 12: I’d like to make sure everything is kosher before I return.
2018		G. Gilmore Base Nature [ebook] ‘It [i.e. a medicine] looks kosher enough’.
2018		I. Welsh Dead Man’s Trousers 69: — This is aw kosher, buddy boy. We’ve goat a certificate.
2020		(con. 1991-94) W. Boyle City of Margins 14: ‘You’re what, fifteen? He’s eighteen, nineteen, right? That ain’t kosher’.
2022		A. Parks May God Forgive 87: He’d interviewed the prison van driver, seemed kosher.
2023		R. Milward Man-Eating Typewriter 226: ‘It wouldn’t be kosher ravaging your bod after ogling that horrific sketch’.
2023		(con. 1962) J. Ellroy Enchanters 9: ‘It’s a put-up job.’ The snatch played unkosher.

2. (US) Jewish.

[1859		G.A. Sala Gaslight and Daylight 95: Old Cosher sits smilingly by his blooming daughter, smoking; old Mrs. Cosher (very fat, and with a quintuple chin) is frying fish in a remarkably strong-smelling oil [...] and Master Rabshekah Cosher, aged eight, is officiating as waiter].
1901		W. Irwin Love Sonnets of a Hoodlum XVIII n.p.: Sleep, like a bunco artist, rubbed it in, Sold me his ten-cent oil stocks, though he knew It was a Kosher trick to take the tin.
1901		Sydney Sportsman (Surry Hills, NSW) 6 Feb. 2/5: Payin’, shvettin’, sadly cursin’, / Countin’ out his Kosher gold.
1910		Sun. Times (Perth) 31 July 2nd sect. 12/7: No doubt unto each pious Jew / He heaved the Hebrew decalogue, / Advising all the Kosher crew / To ‘Go and Syn(no more)agogue’.
1915		S. Ford Shorty McCabe on the Job 160: A five-piece Hungarian orchestra, four parts kosher.
1939		W. Winchell ‘On Broadway’ 27 Oct. [synd. col.] The fist fight Sunday afternoon [...] between a kosher boy and a member of the Kuhn-Klux-Klan.
1943		R. Llewellyn None But the Lonely Heart 261: You pair of dirty, connivering Kosher crooks, you.
1951		(con. 1920) S. Longstreet Pedlocks (1971) 273: Shut up, Jewboy, this isn’t your kosher neck of the woods.
1963		A. Baron Lowlife (2001) 19: The kosher restaurant down the road.
1972		B. Rodgers Queens’ Vernacular 76: Jewish homosexual [...] kosher boy.
1979		Monty Python Life of Brian [film script] I’m kosher, mum, I’m a Red Sea pedestrian, and proud of it!
1982		W. Wharton Midnight Clear 56: Shutzer, our kosher gourmet.
2004		J. Ellroy ‘Hot-Prowl Rape-O’ in Destination: Morgue! (2004) 267: Beverlywood [...] Peaceful and pastrol. A kalm Kosher Kanyon.
2019		P. Baker Fabulosa 294/1: kosher homie a Jewish man.
2021		J. Ellroy Widespread Panic 76: The kosher cowboys [...] all zany Zionists.

3. (US prison) not guilty.

1936

San Quentin Bulletin in L.A. Times 6 May 7: KOSHER, not guilty.

4. clean, pure; in cit. 1990, teetotal.

1936		San Quentin Bulletin in L.A. Times 6 May 7: KOSHER, [...] clean.
1977		(con. 1941) R. Beilby Gunner 164: There, you see, it’s all very kosher.
1983		N. Heard House of Slammers 102: None of us are too kosher.
1990		(con. early 1950s) J. Ellroy L.A. Confidential 227: Jack downed it – cutting off five years kosher.

5. satisfactory, good.

1942		W.R. Burnett Quick Brown Fox 138: ‘I begin to get the idea that things weren’t so kosher with Norm’ .
1963		in T.I. Rubin Sweet Daddy 22: No tricks – because something aint kosher upstairs.
1974		‘P.B. Yuill’ Hazell Plays Solomon (1976) 33: I was getting the notion his own marriage might not be too kosher.
1987		Eble Campus Sl. Oct. 4: kosher – good, pleasing, chic.
1997–2001		Online Sl. Dict. 🌐 kosher adj 1. very good, excellent, new; COOL, FRESH.
2001		K. Sampson Outlaws (ms.) 107: I need a quick pop in to the office to check everything’s kosher with Trudi.

6. lit. or fig. safe; thus unkosher, dangerous, unsafe.

1973		G.V. Higgins Digger’s Game (1981) 139: Kosher [...] No alarm switch.
1981		M. Baker Nam (1982) 218: I didn’t like the whole idea of being stripped of a weapon [...] It was very unkosher.
1989		M. Amis London Fields 51: All completely kosher and Bristol-fashion because she’d had her tubes done.
1990		S.B. Cohen Jewish Wry: Essays on Jewish Humor 105: [heading] THE UNKOSHER COMEDIENNES From Sophie Tucker to Joan Rivers.
1996		(con. 1949) G. Pelecanos Big Blowdown (1999) 186: It just ain’t kosher for cops to be pulling bounce jobs out these clubs any more.
2009		(con. 1960s) J. Ellroy Blood’s a Rover 24: Clyde said window-peeping was kosher but nixed B&E.
2021		J. Ellroy Widespread Panic 9: Harry Fremont [passed the word. Freddy O. is kosher.