Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(US tramp) food and accommodation, esp. in transient camps, typically those set up by an oil-drilling company.

1967

(con. 1920s) J. Thompson South of Heaven (1994) 52: Your wages were docked a dollar day for room and board (’slop and flop’).

(US gay) the anus.

1972

(ref. to late 1960s) B. Rodgers Queens’ Vernacular 19: the rectal opening, anus [...] slopchute (late ’60s).

(US) a menial task.

1953

E. Hunter ‘Vicious Circle’ in Jungle Kids (1967) 31: He was getting slop details.

a teaspoon.

1812		Vaux Vocab. of the Flash Lang.
1823		Egan Grose’s Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.

(US Und.) a cheap restaurant.

c.1936		in P. Smith Letter from My Father (1978) 371: The bowery slop houses.
1949		Monteleone Criminal Sl. (rev. edn).
1975		Delta Democratic-Times (Greenville, MS) 16 June 2/3: Dr R.L. Jordan said [...] he wished to apologize for calling balck-owned restaurants [...] ‘slophouses’.
1981		Miami News (FL) 22 Dec. 1/1: Bernie is proprietor and manager of the Worst Food in Oregon, a seedy little slophouse between Stinkingwater Creek and Calamity Pass.

a garrulous, self-opinionated talker.

1951		Kerouac On the Road (The Orig. Scroll) (2007) 216: Ah, our holy American slop-jaws in Washington are planning further inconveniences.
1957		Kerouac On The Road (1972) 110: Ah, our holy American slop-jaws in Washington are planning further inconveniences.

a cheap, unappetizing restaurant.

1928		N.I. White Amer. Negro Folk-Songs 326: [reported from Auburn, AL, 1915–1916] I went down to de ‘slop’ joint / Wid a razor in my han’. / Open up dis gang way, / I’m lookin’ fo’ my man.
1939		Howsley Argot: Dict. of Und. Sl.
1965		H. Rhodes Chosen Few (1966) 19: I’ll hafta buy him a brew at the slopchute one night soon.

(US black) coffee and doughnuts.

1944

D. Burley Orig. Hbk of Harlem Jive 76: Coffee and doughnuts—Slops and slugs.

a tea-service.

1823

Egan Grose’s Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue n.p.: slop-tubs Tea-things. Come, Moll, cut the slop-tubs; come, Mary, put away the tea-things. Cant.

(Aus.) to be punished, thus give slops, to punish.

1869		Queenslander (Brisbane) 16 Oct. 12/6: Such little games don’t at all times go down with handicappers, but it did in one instance, when a certain horse from this quarter ‘got slops’.
1882		Queanbeyan Age (NSW) 22 Aug. 2/4: A successful wallaby drive [...] took place about a fortnight back; the marsupials ‘got slops’.
1890		Dead Bird (Sydney) 3 May 2/1: My wife has given me slops about the powder on my shoulder.
1896		Dubbo Liberal (NSW) 17 June 3/3: When a resident ‘got slops,’ / The ‘Trinity’ he’d blame.
1902		Bulletin (Sydney) 27 Sept. 15/4: [H]e who married the Court’s nice girl-ward without the Court’s permission ‘got slops’ if the Court could capture him. He was imprisoned for an indefinite period, and talked to death by the Court at intervals, [...] and otherwise knocked endways.
1902		‘Dads Wayback’ in Sun. Times (Sydney) 7 Sept. 5/5: ‘[T]hey’d [i.e. female judges or magistrates] give some o’ ther gals as now go laughin’ out of Court perticler slops’.
1908		Williamstown Chron. (Vic.) 14 Mar. 3/3: Some of his colleagues got ‘slops’ from their Footscray comrades.
1911		Indep. (Footscray, Vic.) 18 Mar. 3/2: Smith’s bowling encountered much ‘paste’, or rather it ‘got slops,’ a rather disappointing feature just as the final is approaching.
1920		Cairns Post (Qld) 16 June 7/3: I got slops from the missus who wanted to know what kept me.

(UK prison) to empty a chamberpot, also as n.; thus slopping-out/slops out n.; in weaker sense, to clean up one’s cell (see cite 2001).

1942		B. Behan ‘I Became a Borstal Boy’ in After the Wake (1981) 24: I heard the shout ‘Right, all doors open. Slop out’.
1956		‘Charles Raven’ Und. Nights 100: I learned that at Parkstone, too, after a tiff at Slops Out.
1958		(con. 1940s) B. Behan Borstal Boy 53: Mornings we were wakened at six and slopped out.
1974		Clement & La Frenais ‘New Faces, Old Hands’ Porridge [TV script] Eight o’clock slop out, eight ten breakfast.
1992		A. Duff One Night Out Stealing 28: The stink of forty-odd men slopping out at the same time each morning was terrible.
1998		J. Hoskison Inside 21: OK [...] As long as you slop out for me in the morning.
2001		D. Looser Boobslang [U. Canterbury D.Phil. thesis] 170/1: slop out v. to clean one’s cell, to empty one’s cell chamberpot.
2004		N. ‘Razor’ Smith A Few Kind Words and a Loaded Gun 128: Slopping-out was a terrible, degrading business that was still going on in British prisons up until the late 1990s.
2024		J. Meades Empty Wigs (t/s) 617: Tronk was piss and slopping out [...] being held down by Lag A so that Lags B, C, D [...] could travel the Bovril Turnpike.

to treat with exaggerated, mawkish sentiment.

1861		Browne Works (1867) 117: The prevailin weakness of most public men is to slop over! [DA].
1872		Congressional Globe 23 Jan. 524/2: Amnesty [...] is magnanimity slopping over [DA].
1888		Harper’s Mag. lxxviii 818: One of his great distinctions was his moderation... he never slopped over [F&H].
1902		D.G. Phillips A Woman’s Ventures 103: She felt that she had told the facts, and that she had avoided ‘slopping over’ [DA].
1910		N.Y. Eve. Post 10 Mar. n.p.: It may be that a republic which unguardedly slopped over in connection with the wrong man feels particularly tongue-tied when it comes to expressing thanks to the right man.
1927		(con. 1900s) S. Lewis Elmer Gantry 183: Then he goes [...] and slops all over some old dame that’s probably saved already, that you, by golly! couldn’t unsave with a carload of gin.

to drink heavily, to become drunk.

1895		J. London ‘’Frisco Kid’s Story’ in High School Aegis X 15 Feb. 2–3: Leary Joe got to sloppin’ up on white line, an wuz orioide.
1901		J. Flynt World of Graft 72: I beg here, we all beg, an’ we slop up ev’ry now an’ then, too.
1916		Wellington Scott Seventeen Years in the Und. 64: The illgotten gains are spent ‘slopping up’ (getting drunk) in the jungles (outside the city).
1926		J. Black You Can’t Win (2000) 96: No use takin’ a bunch of thirsty bums along and stealin’ money for them to slop up in some saloon.
1930		‘Dean Stiff’ Milk and Honey Route 117: A hobo may go to town with a stake and blow it during two or three nights of slopping it up.
1949		Monteleone Criminal Sl. (rev. edn).
1950		N. Cassady letter in Charters (1993) 201: I got my drinks and still had a short period of grace in which to slop up more.
1962		Ragen & Finston World’s Toughest Prison 818: slop up – To become intoxicated.
1981		J. Ellroy Brown’s Requiem 38: He slopped up some more beer.