galloping, adj. — Green’s Dictionary of Slang

galloping adj.

(orig. US) worsening or increasing.

1622		Massinger Virgin-Martyr II i: If any coxcomb has a galloping desire to ride, here’s a gelding, if he can but sit him.
1674		R. Godfrey Inj. and Ab. Physic 130: Having for many months laboured under a Galloping Consumption and made use of diverse Physicians in vain [OED].
1727		N. Robinson New Method of Treating Consumptions 57: the Difeafe is quick, acute, and the Patient wastes apace, which for that Reason, by the Vulgar, is often call'd the Galloping Consumption.
1739		E. Smith Complete Housewife 285: [heading] An infallible Cure for the galloping Consumption.
1785		L. Macnally Fashionable Levities II i: You have [...] reduced my fortune to galloping decay.
1795		C.B. Wadström Essay on Colonization 174: [note] I have since viewed the wretched apartment [...] and was informed b[...] that the debtors confined in it, are generally seized with a galloping consumption.
1802–12		Bentham Rationale Judicial Evidence in Works (1843) VII 402/1: Sixpence a-year settled on the son, the father in full vigour, the son in a galloping consumption .
1815		‘Quack Doctor’ in Brahamian Songster 4: I [...] cured their purses of a plethora and my own of a galloping consumption.
1824		R.B. Peake Americans Abroad I ii: There goes Jemmy in a galloping consumption.
1834		W.A. Caruthers Kentuckian in N.Y. I 28: He would go into a gallopin consumption! or die of the solemncholies.
1838		T. Haliburton Clockmaker II 72: Clappin’ it right on the hot coals: what a gallopin’ boil it would soon come into.
1843		Comic Almanack June 365: The animal is more like thorough bone [...] The creature’s in a galloping consumption.
1861		(con. 1840s–50s) H. Mayhew London Labour and London Poor I 237/1: At the time of Harry the stout, when Popery was in a galloping consumption the people protested against the supremacy and instalence of the Pope.
1879		C.J. Kickham Knocknagow 481: The doctor would be wanted to cure every ailment ever known, ‘from a bone-lock to a galloping consumption’.
1880		G.R. Sims Three Brass Balls 176: The doctor said it was galloping consumption.
1905		‘Hugh McHugh’ You Can Search Me 87: Deacon Spring decided that Uncle Peter had galloping asthma.
1911		L. Stone Jonah 84: ’E told ’im ’e was in a gallopin’ consumption.
1922		Joyce Ulysses 708: I suppose he died of galloping drink ages ago.
1937		J. Tully Bruiser 155: She died quick of gallopin’ consumption.
1945		Lindsay & Crouse State of the Union III ii: You said he was getting another one of his attacks of gallopin’ self-importance.
1958		J. Osborne Epitaph for George Dillon Act II: Galloping – like a consumption.
1969		N. Spinrad Bug Jack Barron 19: Purposefully building himself up into the galloping nasties.
1973		A. Bennett Habeus Corpus Act I: And what’s happened to the galloping consumption you had last Thursday?
1983		J. Sullivan ‘Thicker than Water’ Only Fools and Horses [TV script] He’s had everything from Galloping Lurgy to Saturday Night Fever!
1997		M. Walters Echo 71: Listen, mate, the poor bastard had galloping schizophrenia, just like Walt here.

SE in slang uses

In compounds

galloping cubes (n.) (also animated cubes, ...ivories) [cube n.¹ (1)/ivory n. (1)]

(US gambling) dice.

1926		Wood & Goddard Dict. Amer. Sl. 3: animated ivories or cubes. Dice.
1945		C. Sandburg The People, Yes 125: Galloping cubes of fate hand us sevens elevens hand us the pretty numbers.
1963		J. Scarne Dict. Gambling 6: Animated Cubes (dice) A pair of dice.
1966		J.R. Platt Step to Man 143: The physicist believes that the galloping cubes and the clicking wheel obey the laws of mechanics quite accurately.

galloping dandruff (n.) (also crawling dandruff, leaping..., mechanized..., mobile..., walking...)

(Aus./N.Z./US) head or body lice.

1918		D.G. Rowse Doughboy Dope 53: According to the location of the phenomenon it is described either as ‘leaping dandruff’ or ‘shirt rats’.
1925		G.H. Mullin Adventures of a Scholar Tramp 36: I got galloping dandruff so bad I used to jerk along like I had locomotor ataxia.
1941		‘More Tennessee Expressions’ in AS XVI:1 Feb. 447/1: crawling dandruff. Head-lice. ‘The baby’s head is full of crawling dandruff.’.
c.1943		‘Bill O. Lading’ You Chirped a Chinful!! n.p.: Mechanized Moles: Cooties. Also Mobile Dandruff; Motorized Freckles; Walking Dandruff.
1949		(con. 1943) A. Murphy To Hell and Back (1950) 19: I thought that dame in Palermo was perfectly OK until I woke up with the mechanized dandruff.
1972		R.A. Wilson Playboy’s Book of Forbidden Words 78: Body lice [...] called mechanized dandruff in the army.
1983		R. Aven-Bray Ridgey-Didge Oz Jack Lang 36: Mobile Dandruff Crab Lice.
1988		McGill Dict. of Kiwi Sl. 72/2: mechanised dandruff crabs or body lice active in pubic region, first identified so by WWII soldiers.
2003		Gill & O’Brien Paediatric Clinical Examination Made Easy (4th edn) 133: A paediatric predecessor of ours used to refer to head lice as ‘mechanized dandruff’.

galloping dominoes (n.) (also flying dominoes) [domino n.¹ (3)]

(US) dice.

1920		H. Wiley Wildcat 59: Gallopin’ dominoes where you collects on seven, ’leven an’ yo’ point.
1920		T.A. Dorgan Judge Rummy’s Court 25 Feb. [synd. strip cartoon] "I caught this guy [...] tossin’ the flyin’ dominoes.’ ‘Just a slight crap game, Judge’.
1926		Wood & Goddard Dict. Amer. Sl. 7: bones. Dice, the ivory cubes, the galloping dominoes.
1935		E. Freeman ‘The Whirling Hub’ in Afro-American (Baltimore, MD) 23 Mar. 15/1: To you [...] who delight in talking to the galloping dominoes, recent statistics reveal that 100,000 pairs of dice are sold [...] every year.
c.1943		‘Bill O. Lading’ You Chirped a Chinful!! n.p.: Galloping Dominoes; Dice.
1949		Monteleone Criminal Sl. (rev. edn).
1952		Lait & Mortimer USA Confidential 187: The galloping dominoes and whirring slot-machines were invested with official approval.
1968		K. Brasselle Cannibals 19: His only vice was throwing the galloping dominoes for strong stakes.
1972		D. Claerbaut Black Jargon in White America 65: galloping dominoesn. dice.

galloping freckles (n.)

(US) head or body lice.

1922

Amer. Legion Weekly 7 July 31: I’m gonna change my style and quit writing about galloping freckles, speckled dominoes, top kickers, gold fish and slum [HDAS].

galloping horse (n.) (also gallup) [play on SE horse/horse n. (7)]

(drugs) heroin.

1959		J.E. Schmidt Narcotics Lingo and Lore.
2001		ONDCP Street Terms 10: Galloping horse — Heroin; Gallup — Heroin.

galloping snapshots (n.)

the movies; also attrib.

1942		Diesel News n.p.: We wound up at the Auburn on South St. We sat there in the dark watching the galloping snapshots flicker.
1945		R.L. Bellem ‘Coffin for a Coward’ Hollywood Detective Dec. 🌐 He’d spent twenty of those years in the galloping-snapshot industry; had made himself one of the most respected independent producers in town.
1976		P.D. Anderson In Its Own Image 106: The glitter of the movies (she calls them ‘galloping snapshots’) [...] make Dixie as excited.

galloping tintypes (n.)

the movies.

1943

R.L. Bellem ‘Dead Man’s Guilt’ Dan Turner – Hollywood Detective May 🌐 Lew Blake, the Paravox producer—one of the biggest shots in the galloping tintypes.