alley n.1
1. the vagina; one of a number of terms equating the vagina with a road or path.
![[UK]](/static/img/flags/uk.png "United Kingdom") | Honest Fellow 9: There’s Eagle-court Sally, / When Jack’s in her alley, / And pouring his gravy all into her dish. | |
| ‘The Swell Coves Alphabet’ in Nobby Songster 29: P, stands for patent pills, Phoenix Alley and the P---. | |
| Sl. and Its Analogues. |
2. (US Und.) a place where illicit beer is brewed.
![[US]](/static/img/flags/us.png "United States") | Phila. Eve. Bulletin 5 Oct. 40/3: Here are a few more terms and definitions from the ‘Racket’ vocabulary: [...] ‘alley,’ a place where beer is made illegally. |
3. the anus.
| Anecdota Americana II 23: Murphy ran into the doctor’s office and Jesus his prick was scratched up to beat old hell. The doctor bandaged him up properly and asked, ‘Where the hell have you been Murphy?’ ‘I’ve been up in Hogan’s alley,’ said Murphy. |
4. (US black) a hospital corridor [northeastern urban use; the image is of poor people crowding the hospitals as they do their own slums; but note cit. 1969].
| Drugs from A to Z (1970) 27: alley Inmates’ name for a dormitory corridor at the U.S. Public Health Service (Narcotics) Hospital, Lexington, Kentucky. | |
| Juba to Jive. |
5. (US Und.) the open area outside a row of cells.
| Carlito’s Way 21: ‘Like Earl used to say, yo’ hole and yo’ soul is buck neck-id in the Joint. So that’s how come three cats from different alleys got close and stayed close’. | |
| Prison Sl. 5: Alley The corridor in front of a row of cells or between rows of cells. |
SE in slang uses
In compounds
1. (US) a brick or stone when used as a missile [pun on SE apple].
| Dly Gate City (Keokuk, IA) 16 June 14/4: Dade is the fellow who had an alley apple bounced off his head recently. | |
| New York Day by Day 21 July [synd. col.] A big, yaller man [...] bus’ me right in d’ eye with a alley apple. | |
| (con. 1917–18) Three Lights from a Match 16: A stone sailed toward the liaison detail [...] ‘Hey, Lay off the alley lilies!’ he called sleepily. | |
| ‘Argot of the Vagabond’ in AS II:9 390: A rock is an alley-apple. | |
| Amer. Tramp and Und. Sl. 18: Alley apple. — A stone or piece of brick or paving stone used as a missile in street fighting. | |
| 14 Sept. [synd. col.] A fellow’s blonde usually stepped in [...] and slugged the other gee with an alley apple or a ground biscuit, meaning a rock done up in a stocking. | |
| Criminal Sl. (rev. edn). | |
| World’s Toughest Prison 789: alley apple – Stone or brick used in street fighting. | |
| Playboy’s Book of Forbidden Words. | |
| City in Sl. (1995) 46: By the 1920s Irish confetti [i.e. bricks] was also known as alley apples, referring similarly to violent lower-class behavior associated with brawls in alleys and with back-alley ways of life. |
2. (US) horse manure, excrement [horse apple under horse n.].
| , | | DAS. |
| in DARE. | |
| Playboy’s Book of Forbidden Words. | |
 | Probert Encyc. 🌐 Alley apple is American slang for a lump of horse manure. | |
| ‘Last Waltz in Hobohemia’ 🌐 My high heel catches on an alley apple, but I don’t even break pace. |
(US) a promiscuous woman, a prostitute; also used as a general term of abuse.
| ‘Fighting Ben’ in Mss. from the Federal Writers’ Project 🌐 Well, sir, that old alley bat came within an inch of spitting that gob of snuff amber in my face. She made me so mad I saw red. | |
| (con. late 19C) City in Sl. (1995) 46: An utterly fallen woman [...] was less often called an alley bat, the bat being a prostitute who works the street by night. |
a nagging woman.
| Fumblers-Hall 22: Sir, here’s all the Scolds and Alley-birds in London and the Suburbs. |
(US) a riot gun, usu. a shotgun with a wide blast and thus used to disperse a mob.
| ‘Some Colloquialisms of the Handgunner’ in AS XXXII:3 192: alley cleaner, n. A handgun. Originally applied to a riot gun. |
a thug; a street robber.
| ‘It Could Only Happen to Willie’ in Popular Detective Apr. 🌐 Why was Kelly set upon by alley commandos if he wasn’t mixed up with the crooks? |
1. a particularly unpleasant, villainous and impoverished person.
| Chariton Courier (Keytesville, MO) 22 Aug. 3/5: Jim Patrick, a worthless, colored ‘alley rat’, was sentenced to sixty days in jail. | |
| Day Book (Chicago) 8 June 2/2: Take an ‘alley rat’, a boy forced to play two-ol’-cat in an alley [...] He developed into a first-class little crook. | |
| ‘Carmen’ in Gullible’s Travels 16: The Chinaman from Janesville and some more soldiers and some alley rats comes in to help out the singin’. | |
| Eve. World (NY) 28 May 10/3: On a four-day hike, making towards Verdun in 1918, it was noticeable that the Big Ones would do a brodie on the road from exhaustion [...] and the undernourished alley rat of New York kept on and on. | |
| J. Blythe [song title] Alley Rat . | |
| (con. 1920s) Young Manhood in Studs Lonigan (1936) 229: The kid was just a goddamn alley-rat. | |
| World I Never Made 349: ‘Go on, you alley rats!’ Margaret yelled at the kids. |
2. a thief who robs people in alleyways; sometimes by deluding them that they were taking them to a prostitute (see cite 1993).
| Topeka State Jrnl (KS) 23 Aug. 7/4: He had been robbed and deprived of all his valuables by an ‘alley rat’. | |
| Public ledger (Maysville, KY) 9 June 4/1: The remarkable adventures of a girl burglar — from an alley rat to a high-stepping village Belle. | |
| Argot: Dict. of Und. Sl. 5: alley rat – a robber who lures victims, or forces them into an alley for robbery; holdups who frequent alley-ways. | |
| Criminal Sl. (rev. edn) 10: alley rat A night prowler; a thief who looks for his victims in alleys or takes them there to be robbed. | |
| et al. DAUL 18/1: Alley rat. A petty thief who robs his victims in alleys and hallways. | |
| (ref. to 1930s) City in Sl. (1995) 46: [A prostitute’s] male companion in the 1930s might have been called an alley rat, a low criminal who lured or forced victims into alleys and robbed them. |
1. (US) the throat, in the context of drinking.
| in Zwilling TAD Lex. (1993) 44: Drinking is the king of indoor sports and the king has many subjects — Here’s down the old alley way. |
2. (US gay) the anus.
| Queens’ Vernacular. |
(US) unpaid (or robbed of one’s pay) despite having done the work required.
| Online Hookers 🌐 Usually, if I do a gangbang type of deal like that, even with twenty-five guys, I rarely make more than one or two grand. And I usually would have been taken out back and alley-whipped afterwards. |
(US black) a prostitute.
| [song title] Alley Woman Blues. |
In phrases
(orig. US tramp) the main street.
| On Broadway 17 Feb. [synd. col.] Dime movies, cafeterias and hot dawg stands – wrinkles on the face of the Big Alley. | |
| (ref. to 1930s) City in Sl. (1995) 41: The main street in hobo talk was sometimes the big alley or the main alley. Each term was an image of Main Street and other city streets in the eyes of homeless men. |
In exclamations
(US) a general excl. of dismissal.
| More Fables in Sl. (1960) 98: ‘Up an Alley,’ said the Policeman. | |
| People You Know 74: Mosy! Duck! Up an Alley! |
(US) broken, collapsed, ‘finished’.
| Dingbat Family 8 Apr. [synd. cartoon strip] Ike ollies, it looked like it was all up the alley with the expedition for a minute, did n’t it? |
a general excl. of rude dismissal.
![[Aus]](/static/img/flags/aus.png "Australia") | With Hooves of Brass 75: He moved slightly, blocking her view of the players. ‘Not up my alley!’ she said, harsh with annoyance. | |
| DSUE (8th edn) 18/1: 1976. |