Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(a) (also hol) the anus.

c.1386		Chaucer Miller’s Tale line 604: And at the wyndow out she putte hir hole, And Absolon, hym fil no bet ne wers, But with his mouth he kiste hir naked ers.
1465–71		Mankind line 338: newgyse nowadays. he that schtyth wyth hys hoyll cetera nought. But he wyppe hys ars clen cetera.
1533		J. Heywood Play of Weather in Farmer Dramatic Writings (1905) 101: As lief ye kist mine arse as blow my hole!
1540		D. Lyndsay Satyre of Thrie Estaits (1604) 72: Lift up hir clais, kis hir hoill with your hart, sowtar I pray zow sir forbid hir for to fart.
1614		Jonson Bartholomew Fair V iv: A pox o’ your manners, kiss my hole here and smell.
1640		‘Cock-Lorrel’s Strange Banquet’ in Ebsworth Roxburghe Ballads (1893) VII:1 217: And there he made such a breach with the wind, / The hole too standing open the while.
1687		‘Lovers’ Session’ in Wilson Court Satires of the Restoration (1976) 189: The sodomite’s hole so his fancy did sway.
1707		‘As the Fryer He Went Along’ in Farmer Merry Songs and Ballads (1897) I 197: The Maid she sh-- and a Jolly brown T--- / out of her Jolly brown Hole.
1722		Arse Musica 3: The Tyranny and Oppression of some of your Sex, who had a Mind to Bung us all up in the Hole.
1744		‘Nurse Lovechild’ Tommy Thumb’s Songbook (1788) 31: Little Robin Red Breast, / Sitting on a Pole, / Niddle, Noddle went his Head, / And Poop went his Hole.
1812		Spirit of Irish Wit 158: ‘Pooh; Pooh! [...] I suppose you won’t believe you have a hole behind because you can’t see it .
1837		‘The Extinguisher’ Ri-tum Ti-tum Songster 25: In less that a minute, the impudent soul / Thrust the light bang into the bachelor’s hole.
c.1850		Peeping Tom (London) 3 12/2: A scoffing gallant [...] overtook a milkmaid [who was] barelegged. ‘Fair maid, how long have you had those stockings?’ ‘Sir [...] I have worn these three and twenty years and have but one hole in them, which you may put your nose in’ .
1889		Dead Bird (Sydney) 10 Aug. 2/2: Mrs Piper said her house was over-run with vermin and Miss Jones suggested she place a lot of arsenic in their holes, to which I added, ‘You will have to catch the rats first’.
1898		P. Norroy Art of Child-Love 100: Wetting his middle finger in his mouth [he] gently pressed it well up her hole, I mean that hole which boys as well as girls often place at the disposal of the throbbing prick.
1900–10		Stephens & O’Brien Materials for a Dict. of Aus. Sl. [unpub. ms.] 146: He would suck the boss’s hole if he asked him to.
1934		H. Roth Call It Sleep (1977) 248: Peugh! Wadda stink! [...] Who opened his hole?
1942		in G. Legman Limerick (1953) 99: There was a young fellow named Kelly / Who preferred his wife’s ass to her belly. / He shrieked with delight / As he ploughed through the shite, / And filled up her hole with his jelly.
1955		J.P. Donleavy Ginger Man (1958) 165: I told the manager to stuff his kip up his hole.
1959		D. Hewett Bobbin Up (1961) 186: Ol’ Ma Croll With a pimple in ’er ’ole.
1965		Auden ‘The Platonic Blow’ in Mills (1983) 324: His thighs squirmed as my tongue wormed in his hole.
1975		E. Torres Carlito’s Way 21: Yo’ hole and yo’ soul is buck neck-id in the joint.
1988		R. Doyle Commitments 80: If yeh ever call me a fuckin’ eejit again you’ll go home with a drumstick up your hole. The one yeh don’t sing ou’ of.
1990		P.-D. Uys Part Hate Part Love 40: [They] laughed at his few words of Afrikaans: kak/shit, poep/fart, hol/arse.
1994		G. Indiana Rent Boy 72: He churns his hole like a chorus girl doing the can-can.
1996		(con. 1970) G. Moxley Danti-Dan in McGuinness Dazzling Dark (1996) I ix: Ol’ King Cole stucka penny up his hole but he never got his ha’penny change, he pulled his knob and he got five bob but he never got his ha’penny change.
1998		I. Welsh Filth 198: Stopping off at the bogs where I give my hole a good clawing.
2000		N. Griffiths Grits 121: Ut stahts off wuth me needin te shite, urgently like, ah mean ah need te consciously hould me hole together.
2014		T. Black Artefacts of the Dead [ebook] If he was a stoat then a victim would want to [...] stick it up his hole.
2014		Alakaline ‘A Bagga Tings’ 🎵 Mi piss clean, mi batty clean / [...] / Mi hole clean / And mi mouth bloodcaat clean.
2017		T. Pluck Bad Boy Boogie [ebook] ‘Y’all kiss your mother with that mouth, or just use it to lick her dirty hole?’.
2018		G. Gilmore Class Act [ebook] ‘Every time someone says “Happy Christmas” to me, I pretend they’re saying “I want to lick your hole”’.

(b) the vagina; note many cits. are double entendres, the male subject being a wandering and stereotypically lecherous tinker.

c.1591		Shakespeare Two Gentlemen of Verona II iii: This left shoe is my mother [...] yes it is so; it hath the worst sole. This shoe, with the hole in it, is my mother, and this my father, a vengeance on’t!
1593		Nashe Choise of Valentines (1899) 22: Sufficeth all I haue, I yeald hir hole Which, for a poore man, is a princlie dole.
1600		Dr. Dodypoll in Bullen III (1884) I i: What thing is love? for sure I am it is a thing. It is a prick, it is a thing, it is a prettie, prettie thing; It is a fire, it is a cole, whose flame creeps in at every hoale.
1608		Machin & Markham Dumbe Knight II i: Indeed mistresse, if my master should breake his arrow with foule shooting or so, I would bee glad if mine might supply the whole [sic].
1614		R. Taylor Hog Hath Lost His Pearl II i: I can tell you newes, your fellow virgin-hole player, my sister, is stolne away to night.
1624		Middleton Game at Chess II i: Yet there’s no eminent trader deals in hole-sale But she and I have clapped a bargain up, Let in at watergate.
1635		H. Glapthorne Hollander IV i: A woman has ever a hole open to receive a man’s tale.
1655		J. Cotgrave Wits Interpreter 269: Here six foot deep in his fast sleep / The Lord of Lampasse lyas, / Who his end made with his own blade, / Betwixt his Mistris thighs; / If through that hole to heaven he stole.
c.1660		‘A Man and a Young Maid’ in Furnivall & Hales Bishop Percy’s Folio Manuscript of Loose and Humorous Songs (1868) 51–2: He light in a hole ere he was aware! [...] But shee fell a-kissing, hye! / & he lay drooping, hoe, and he lay drooping, hoe. / ‘My Billy, my pilly! how now?’ quoth she; / ‘gett vp againe, Billy, if that thou louest me;’ [...] He thought Mickle shame to lye soe longe; / he gott vp againe & grew very strong.
1671		‘L.B.’ New Academy of Complements 187: When to the Town the Tinker doth come, / Oh how the wanton Wenches run. / Some bring him Basons, some bring him Bowls, / All Wenches pray him to stop up their holes.
a.1680		Rochester ‘A Satire which the King took out of his Pocket’ Works (1721) 20: The Seaman’s Needle nimbly points the Pole; / But thine still turns to ev’ry craving Hole.
1691		‘The Tinker of Turvey’ in Ebsworth Merry Drollery Compleat (1875) 29: Room for a Jovial Tinker, / He’ll stop one hole and make two.
1709		N. Ward Compleat and Humorous Account of Remarkable Clubs (1756) 283: Bess Dumbleton [...] was got with Child by a Travelling Tinker, who, being called into the House to mend the old Brewing Kettle [...] stop’d a Hole too much.
1713		A Dreadful Fire 5: He thrust the Key in Hole.
1721		Penkethman’s Jests 72: A Gentleman who had married a lady, and instead of a Maidenhead, found her endu’d with an extraordinary Capacity [...] thank’d God, That now he had a Hole to put his Head in.
c.1731		‘You Fair, Who Play Tricks’ in Farmer Merry Songs and Ballads (1897) V 197: And for G--’s sake take care to grease well the Machine. / For your Thing is so stiff, and my Hole is so small.
a.1742		W. Somerville ‘A Dainty New Ballad’ in Chalmers Eng. Poets (1810) XI 207/1: At length a youth full smart, Who oft by magic art Had div’d in many a hole [...] He’d sound it with his pole.
1763		J. Wilkes Essay on Woman 17: Sylphs and Gnomes may fuck in woman’s hole.
1787		Harris’s List of Covent-Garden Ladies 127: She will endeavour [...] to wriggle you out of her hole with her bottom.
1790		Banquet of Wit 15: I’ll take care not to leave a hole open.
c.1800		‘The Reels O’Bogie’ in Bold (1979) 194: The lads ne’er think it is amiss / To bang the holes whereout they piss.
1833		‘Poor Dirty Bet’ Lummy Chaunter 49: All her clothes were rent in twain, Poor dirty Bet! That you might see the whole quite plain, Poor dirty Bet!
c.1840		‘Cat’ [broadsheet ballad] Then Nelly she opened her lily white thighs / [...] / He stroked down the hair as black as a coal / She catched his finger right snap in her hole.
1842		Whip & Satirist of NY & Brooklyn (NY) 23 July n.p.: ‘Search the bed, search every hole above and beneath the sheets, perhaps if you cannot find the rat, you may succeed in finding his hole’ .
1842		Wkly Rake (NY) 9 July n.p.: The first [toast] [...] was:— ‘The ladies the whole of them’ [...] Mr O.E.T [...] arose and gave the following:— ‘The small circle of all our female acquaintance’.
1843		Satirist & Sporting Chron. (Sydney) 1 Apr. 3/2: He says he goes there becase they keep the best half-and-half in town; but we know that he goes there after Harriett’s whole-and-whole.
1850		Man of Pleasure’s Illus. Pocket-book n.p.: A tidy lot of men-tailors work here on a new principle, as the men work all the eyelet-holes, and do all the punching and pressing.
c.1864		‘The Water-Spout’ Rakish Rhymer (1917) 73: Miss Cox’s hole he could not stop, / For the wedge was a deal too little!
1870		Cythera’s Hymnal 12: The hole near her breech had a permanent itch / To be plugged.
1884		Randiana 87: ‘I really must have it now, I can’t wait,’ and pulling me on to her, my prick found the already well-greased hole.
1888–94		‘Walter’ My Secret Life (1966) I 43: Oh, I’d like to feel your hole.
c.1900		‘Ramrod’ Family Connections 40: He fingered my hole and detected its looseness.
1909		Joyce letter 15 Dec. to Nora Barnacle in Ellman Sel. Letters (1975) 189: Letting him stick his dirty red lumpy pole in through the split of her drawers and up up up in the darling little hole.
c.1918		‘Cock and Broomstick’ in Bold (1979) 54: Found the hole at last, Sir, underneath her frock.
1922		Joyce Ulysses 714: My hole is itching me always when I think of him I feel I want to.
1934		H. Miller Tropic of Cancer (1963) 249: If anyone knew what it meant to read the riddle of that thing which today is called a ‘crack’ or a ‘hole’.
1949		H. Miller Sexus (1969) 352: I can put another inch or two on that when I ram it up that hole of yours.
1952		J. Jones From Here to Eternity (1998) 519: You and your goddam kitchen like a couple of dry hole old maids.
1966		A. Green in Oliver Screening the Blues (1968) 174: I’m not the plumber [...] But I’ll plug your hole, / Till the plumber comes.
1970		T. Parker Frying-Pan 139: Any time she wants money she just lies on her back and flogs her hole.
1985		O. Hawkins Chili 44: This one gorgeous-juicy hole down between these fantastic columns.
1990		(con. early 1950s) J. Ellroy L.A. Confidential 178: Old stag books: T.J. venues, women sucking cock, boys sucking cock, up-the-hole close-ups.
2000		T. Udo Vatican Bloodbath 12: Kill all the women first [...] the thought of all their vile mucal...secretions from their...holes.
2005		Jade LB Keisha the Sket (2021) 32: He started [...] movin his hands dwn 2 ma hole.
2013		T. Black Ringer [ebook] n.p.: A lassie thinks you’re going for your hole and you’re sent packing.
2016		Guardian G2 10 May 10/1: Don’t worry [...] you just have to cork up your hole with this thing [...] made of cotton.

(c) the mouth; usu. as shut one’s hole

1837		‘Nights At Sea’ Bentley’s Misc. June 626: ‘Wharra you mean by dat, Massa Jack?’ exclaimed Mungo Pearl [...] ‘Just shut you black-hole,’ answered Jack.
1850		Manchester Spy (NH) 21 Sept. n.p.: [I]f Sukey McGuckin should a happened to seen that hole in your countenance [etc] .
1910		F. Murray [perf. Harry Champion] ‘Don’t do it again Matilda’ 🎵 Put ’em [i.e. a set of false teeth] back in their place in that hole in your face.
1914		Sport (Adelaide) 6 Nov. 5/7: The hole in her face (known as her mouth).
1947		I. Shulman Amboy Dukes 16: Shut your hole about my old man.
1955		J.P. Donleavy Ginger Man (1958) 371: Now Danger, would you ever shut your hole for a second.
1975		E. Torres Carlito’s Way 124: broke his hole — cock-sucker.
1983		S. King Christine 48: You sound like a goddam sheep. Just baa, baa, baa, that’s all I hear comin out’n your hole.
2000		P. Howard Miseducation of Ross O’Carroll-Kelly (2004) 52: I look away, roysh, doing my best not to crack my hole laughing.
2005		P. Howard Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nightdress 7: They all [...] cracked their holes laughing.
2014		T. Black Artefacts of the Dead [ebook] You better keep your hole shut about him.
2015		L. McInerney Glorious Heresies 93: I’m breaking my hole laughing.

(d) the buttocks.

1955		J.P. Donleavy Ginger Man (1958) 170: Give your woman a good boot in the hole.
1990		R. Doyle Snapper 93: My client he wants to wash his hole, so – I’ll wash it for him meself if he pays me enough.
1999		(con. 1917) R. Doyle A Star Called Henry (2000) 192: You’ll soon catch the bastard. And you can give him a root in the hole from me.

(e) sexual intercourse; usu. in phr. get one’s hole

1937–84		Partridge DSUE (1984) 561: It has come to signify co?tion or women viewed as sexual potentialities.
2015		L. McInerney Glorious Heresies 126: ‘God was challenging me to deny my son’s father his hole [...] so off my drawers came’.

(f) (US) a (promiscuous) woman, a prostitute.

[1683		London Jilt pt 1 18: Wretched then are those Widdowers who are not able to give those old toothless Creatures their belly full, for those old Holes must be satisfied] .
1942		Berrey & Van den Bark Amer. Thes. Sl.
1952		E. Brown Trespass 158: Who you callin’ a common old hole, you puss-filled sewer pipe.
1969		Cressey & Ward Delinquency, Crime, and Social Process 817: Nearly all young Negro players aspire to reach the position of a ‘big mack,’ but few are qualified to be anything more than a ‘lousy pop corn pimp’ who claims to have a ‘gang of holes’.
1977		A. Brooke Last Toke 46: That jive hole got you wrapped up tighter ’n I gots Mae.
1981		H. Gould Fort Apache, The Bronx 96: I mean you know the game. I put the chick to work and she don’t come back with nothin’. And she used to be the main hole on the set.
1991		W.T. Vollmann Whores for Gloria 139: Ho or hole – Prostitute.
2003		A.N. LeBlanc Random Family 47: Former girlfriends – whom they called project holes.

(g) (US) a passive homosexual man, esp. when promiscuous.

1972		B. Rodgers Queens’ Vernacular 146: passive partner [...] hole.
1992		Bentley & Corbett Prison Sl. 59: Hole A passive, feminine homosexual. A hole usually does not belong to one particular individual, but rather, has sex with many different men.

(h) an underage girl used for paedophile exploitation.

2000

Willowall ‘Amanda Gets Zipped’ 🌐 Bob recently adopted a 6 year old hole from Taiwan, and Fred is doing a 9 year old he bought online.

(i) (Irish) used generically as 'one’s self’.

2021

P Howard Braywatch 125: I didn’t bother my hole listening.

(a) (orig. UK prison, also cold hole, dark hole) the punishment cells [the orig. Hole was found in the Counter or Compter debtors’ prison in Wood Street, London, where it was the nickname for that cell, a notably squalid one, in which the poorest prisoners were confined. The rich enjoyed the ‘masters’ side’, while the middle classes went to the ‘knights’ side’; all were entered in the prison’s Black Book. William Fennor’s Counter’s Commonwealth (1617) gives an extensive survey of life within the prison. A similar form of dungeon, not apparently sl., was the hell, cited by the OED and Nares, Glossary (1822), who suggests it was ‘something worse than the hole’].

1540		D. Lyndsay Satyre of Thrie Estaits (1604) 33: Wee haue gart bind him with ane poill, And send him to the theifis hoill.
1604		Middleton Black Book line 78: For they’re as dark within [...] As is the Hole at Newgate.
1611		J. Cook Greenes Tu Quoque Scene xv: A prisoner to the Holl, take charge of him.
1628		R. Speed Counter-Rat E3: Aske any how such newes I tell, Of Wood-streets Hole, or Poultries Hell?
1630		J. Taylor ‘A Brood of Cormorants’ Works (1869) III 10: But if he cannot pay, or doth deny, / He thrusts him in the hole, there lets him lye.
c.1642		T. Killigrew Parson’s Wedding (1664) IV ii: This is better than Newgate hole yet, Bridewell hemp, brown bread, and whipcord.
1654		J. Webster Appius and Virginia III i: The Lord Appius hath committed her to Ward [...] he means to put her in the Hole.
1666		Pepys Diary 2 July n.p.: He was clapped up in the Hole.
1676		Ordinary of Newgate Account 17 May 5: She was carried with the rest into the Hole, and ordered for Execution.
1682		Execution of Eleven Notorious Offenders at Sessions-House Old Bailey 8 Dec. 3: These miserable Wretches [...] were conveyed to the Hole in Newgate Loaden with Irons.
1734		C. Johnson Hist. of Highwaymen &c 350: Johnny committed him to the Hole [...] living only upon the Allowance of Bread and Water for fourteen Days.
1750		F. Coventry Hist. of Pompey Little (1785) I 40/2: I was dragged back to my prison! Excellent lodging in the condemned-hole!
1781		R. King Modern London Spy 38: Men taken up for assaults or night-brawls were termed Rats, and the harlots or women [...] were there [Wood Street Compter] called Mice, and at locking up hours, crammed into a hole.
1822		R. Nares Gloss. (1888) I 427: The hole. One of the meanest apartments in the Counter prison, in Woodstreet, was so called [...] Perhaps the term was common to many prisons. We still hear of the condemned hole in Newgate.
1836		Westmorland Gaz. 2 Jan. 1/4: Silence in Court — shove ’em all in the hole as kicks up sitch a blessed row.
1837		‘The Romance of a Day’ Bentley’s Misc. June 573: The fellow has been [...] rubbed down with vinegar and set in the black-hole to dry.
1844		Lloyd's Wkly Newspaper 7 Jan. 5/3: He will be punished by having his 'rations' stopped [and] put in the 'dark-hole' for eight days on 3/4 lbs. of bread.
1851		Manchester Spy (NH) 17 May n.p.: Three or four yankees [were] arrested [and] sent to the cold hole.
1865		‘The County Jail’ in I. Beadle Comic and Sentimental Song Bk 55: Sometimes when a feller feels a-bit droll, / We pop him into Pompie’s hole!
1869		Armagh Guardian 26 Nov. 7/1: I’d as soon be in a chain-gang at Sing-Sing as in this hole.
c.1880		‘O’Reilly’ [US army poem] O’Reilly hit the bottle, after six years up the pole, / He blew himself at Casey’s Place and then went in the hole.
1886		M.E. Braddon Mohawks III 154: Marjory’s! What, the sponging-house in Shoe-Lane! [...] ’tis an execrable den, but not a whit worse than their other holes.
1898		Boy’s Own Paper 29 Oct. 67: Leading out of the school-room was a class-room known as ‘The Hole,’ to the authorities as the punishment room.
1898		E.S. Mott Mingled Yarn 62: [of RMA Sandhurst] [S]olitary confinement — more familiarly known in College as ‘the Black Hole’ or ‘the Hole’.
1898		Omaha Dly Bee (NE) 15 Nov. 5/3: ‘Kid’ Ewing is in the ‘hole’ for giving Davenport the heavy mitt.
1907		W.M. Raine Bucky O’Connor (1910) 67: In that horrible hole an innocent man had been confined for fifteen years.
1912		D. Lowrie My Life in Prison 65: The rule was that a man should go to the ‘hole’ on bread and water.
1929		A.J. Barr Let Tomorrow Come 5: And pipe down when nine o’clock comes, or it’s the hole.
1935		D. Lamson We Who Are About to Die 100: The Hole is just what its name implies. You get bread and water, and once a week a bucket of mainline chow. I have heard that you do, and that you do not, get a blanket and/or some straw to sleep on [...] No tobacco, no reading privileges — although reading privileges would avail little since there is no light.
1949		Monteleone Criminal Sl. (rev. edn).
1953		T. Runyon In For Life 66: The Hole, solitary cells where the mattress was a plank and the menu one slice of bread each twenty-four hours plus water when an unsympathetic guard cared to bring it.
1961		M. Braly Felony Tank (1962) 58: The Hole was a small cell, bare of any but the most essential features.
1961		(con. 1920s) J. Sparks Burglar to the Nobility 73: If you was given justice, nobody’d ever see you again. You’d rot [...] in the hole.
1975		E. Torres Carlito’s Way 46: They gave me thirty days in the hole.
1982		G. Newbold Big Huey 48: I’d been in the hole eight days in total, but I was amazed at how it affcted my visual perception.
1987		‘Joe Bob Briggs’ Joe Bob Goes to the Drive-In 129: We get everything here. One lesbo scene, two visits to the Hole, one old hag who gets offed.
1990		S. Morgan Homeboy 216: Del Rio got sent to the Hole by the same rookie that gaffled Moonpie up.
1996		P. Temple Bad Debts (2012) [ebook] I even resorted to ringing that filthy hole you drink in.
1999		Guardian G2 17 Nov. 12: He soon found himself banged up in the hole.
2001		D. Looser Boobslang [U. Canterbury D.Phil. thesis] 88/2: hole n. 1 a cell 2 (the hole) the solitary confinement punishment cell.
2002		(con. 1998–2000) J. Lerner You Got Nothing Coming 38: Failure to produce your ID card when ordered to do so [...] will result in disciplinary action, which could include solitary confinement in the Hole.
2019		D. Winslow Border [ebook] The monkeys threw him in the hole every chance they got.
2022		J. Hannaham Didn’t Nobody Give a Shit 33: ‘You could get killed while you in the hole’.

(b) a derog. description of any small, dirty, clandestine place, often one where illegal occupations were planned or carried out; also used of larger areas, e.g. cites 1826, 1839, 1865, 1894.

1639		J. Taylor Juniper Lecture 123: I marvaile whither you went, or in what new hole you had entertainment.
1709		N. Ward Compleat and Humorous Account of Remarkable Clubs (1756) 61: [They] are soon taught to lavish away their small remains in smoaky Holes and lewd Company.
1732		Delightful Adventures of Honest John Cole 3: His Intrigues with several Black-ey’d Girls at Black-Mary’s-Hole.
1744		Bog-House and Glass- Window Misc. 38: What Beast alive could bear to swink / In such a filthy Hole as this is.
1826		Lafitte 7: May I never see the white cliffs of old England again, if I am not heartily glad to escape from this horrid hole!
1838		Dickens Oliver Twist (1966) 243: Look sharp with the light, or I shall knock my brains out against something in this confounded hole.
1839		Crim.-Con. Gaz. 12 Jan. 13/1: It serve him right for acting in such dirty hole [i.e. Garrick Theatre].
1842		Whip & Satirist of NY & Brooklyn (NY) 12 Mar. n.p.: There is one of these dens of inquity [i.e. brothels] in Duane street [...] Each of these holes has a bully.
1843		N.Y. Sporting Whip 25 Feb. n.p.: Dutch Dram Shops [...] sacrilegious German people who keep Sabbath breaking holes.
1844		New Sprees of London 21: This ken, like most of the holes about here, is an extensive fence, and swag to any amount is taken in.
1851		Life in Boston & N.Y. (Boston, MA) 28 June n.p.: [of a brothel] Frank Forester, keeper of a hole [...] where all sorts of evil things are practised.
1857		in Punch ‘Dear Bill, This Stone-Jug’ 31 Jan. n.p.: Dear Bill, this stone-jug at which flats dare to rail, [...] Is still the same snug, free-and-easy old hole.
1859		G.F. Atkinson Curry & Rice (3 edn) n.p.: [A] hotter and a duller hole is not to be discovered by the most enterprising [...] tropical traveller.
1861		(con. 1840s–50s) H. Mayhew London Labour and London Poor I 343/2: They puts him into a hole of a place that would stifle a rat.
1865		Leaves from Diary of Celebrated Burglar 147/2: To blazes wi’ Waike-feel [...] blarsted starvin’ ’ole.
1871		O. Logan Mimic World, and Public Exhibitions 192: The Refugee House, indeed! Do you think we would go to such a horrid hole as that?
1882		Dundee Courier (Scot.) 8 Sept. 7/3: I was ‘reckoning up’ the ‘stingy hole of a town’.
1888		‘Rolf Boldrewood’ Robbery Under Arms (1922) 118: By and by we got to Nomah, a regular hot hole of a place.
1894		Truth (Sydney) 25 Nov. 2/5: Alice May has gone to that ’orrid, ’ot ’ole, Brisbane.
1897		Boy’s Own Paper 20 Nov. 122: The mate was sadly disappointed with the place and remarked, ‘What a hole to get into!’.
1900–01		H. Lawson ‘The House that was Never Built’ in Roderick (1972) 431: I allers let my tongue run a bit when I get out of that hole we’re living in.
1906		D. Stewart Vultures of the City in Illus. Police News 15 Dec. 12/1: It was a gruesome, horrible hole, smelling vilely of foul tobacco, onions, fish, cheese, and fried bacon.
1910		E. Rosen In the Foreign Legion 31: We were assigned a nasty little hole of a room.
1915		S. Ford Shorty McCabe on the Job 122: Comes from some absurd little hole out West.
1915		Wodehouse Psmith Journalist (1993) 192: It must be awful living in a hole like this.
1929		(con. 1916) F. Manning Her Privates We (1986) 235: Thought we might go out an’ see what was doin’ in this bloody ’ole.
1930		(con. 1900s–10s) Dos Passos 42nd Parallel in USA (1966) 258: I’ve been in this lousy hole fifteen years.
1936		D. Stivens Tramp and Other Stories 23: A lousy one-horse town! God, what a hole! I wouldn’t live here for a thousand a year.
1948		K. Williams Diaries 15 May 29: I’m sick of this bloody dead and alive hole they call Newquay.
1951		(con. 1941) E. Lambert Twenty Thousand Thieves 38: They’ll be glad to be leaving this hole.
1959		C. Himes Crazy Kill 75: Let us out of this hole, we’re in a hurry.
1966		T. Keyes All Night Stand 26: We started at nine in the hot old hole of the disused mission hall.
1977		J. Rosenthal Spend, Spend, Spend Scene 65: It was a right rough hole, was Dallas.
1982		P. Bailey An English Madam 56: I was living in a dirty rotten hole in Holloway Road.
1996		P. Beatty White Boy Shuffle 87: Everybody starts out an orphan in this hole [i.e. the ghetto].
1999		N. Cohn Yes We have No 291: An inspector came the other day. He said it’s a hole.
2002		J. Ridley Conversation with the Mann 73: It was a hole of a joint where comics [...] could go and do their thing for what constituted an audience.

(c) (US) the lowest level of drinking place.

1771		R. King New London Spy 137: The droll incidents and characters that occured in this sot’s hole.
1867		Nat. Police Gaz. (NY) 21 Dec. 2/5: [N]ight after night he has left all [his family] alone, while he himself resorted to some whiskey hole.
1944		E. Wilson 11 Dec. [synd. col.] Finding myself in a hole today — a nice little bar over on 3d ave.
1994		T. Wolff In Pharoah’s Army 204: TI took her to the bar [...] The moment I saw Jan inside the place, in her white dress and cool, manifest sanity, I saw it for what it was—a hole.
2017		M. Forsyth Short History of Drunkenness 186: The first saloon that was called a saloon was Brown’s hole.

(d) (US campus) a student’s room.

1934		H. Sebastian ‘Negro Sl. at Lincoln University’ AS IX:4 290/2: Open up your hole! Usually a command to the occupant of a room to open the door.
1967		Current Sl. II:2 17: Hole, n. Cadet room (Air Force Academy).

(e) (US Und.) a hideout.

1933		Ersine Und. and Prison Sl.
1937		E. Anderson Thieves Like Us (1999) 6: Chicamaw had been saving this Hole for eight years.
1949		Monteleone Criminal Sl. (rev. edn).
1959		E. De Roo Go, Man, Go! 142: 3-B it said in the lobby. That your hole? You take us up the back way, you piece of cheese.
1970		J. Wambaugh New Centurions 150: [of a policeman sleeping on duty] He hated ‘going to the hole’ which meant hiding your car in some bleak alley or concealed parking lot, sleeping the fitful frantic half-awake sleep of the morning watch policeman, more nerve-racking than restful.

(f) (US) the subway or one of its stations.

1933		Ersine Und. and Prison Sl.
1949		Monteleone Criminal Sl. (rev. edn).
1953		A.J. Liebling Honest Rainmaker (1991) 158: We rode the East Side subway. [...] When we came up out of the hole we were just outside City Hall Park.
1973		L. Shecter On the Pad 159: New York City policemen actually sold franchises to pickpockets in the subways. That’s why there was so much fury when they were taken out of ‘the hole’ and replaced by Transit Authority cops.

(g) (US) a space or slot, a position, e.g. in a race.

1942		Berrey & Van den Bark Amer. Thes. Sl.
1999		E. Bunker Mr Blue 47: The jailer shook a lever that made all the cell gates vibrate loudly. ‘Grab a hold a one! Grab a hole!’.

(h) a grave.

1960

R. Buckley Hiparama 16: Caesar was his Main-Day Buddy Cat and they were putting Caesar in the hole.

(i) (US Und.) a railroad side track.

1991

O.D. Brooks Legs 22: The crews not only boot scenic bums off the train, but usually wait until they take the hole for a meet with another train.

(j) (Aus./US) a prison.

1990		Tupper & Wortley Aus. Prison Sl. Gloss. 🌐 Hole. Gaol. As in ‘in the hole’.
1992		A. Duff One Night Out Stealing 14: ‘[W]e get done with a gun involved, it's a long time in the hole’.
1997		Da Bomb (Cal. Poly. Sl. Research Project) 14: Hole: Jail.
2001		D. Looser Boobslang [U. Canterbury D.Phil. thesis] 88/2: the hole n. 2 a prison.
2006		D. Winslow Winter of Frankie Machine (2007) 117: Cocksucker is leading the good life while friends of his are in the hole.