slop n.1
1. as a drink.
(a) a non-alcoholic drink taken for medicinal purposes.
Sl. and Its Analogues VI 254/2: The sick husband here wanted for neither slops nor doctors. | cited in Farmer & Henley
(b) (later use Aus.) tea; thus slop-bowl, a teacup.
Double Gallant IV i: I wou’d advise you to throw away your Juleps, your Cordials, and Slops. | ||
in Pills to Purge Melancholy II 138: Pox what care I, drink your Slops ’till you dye. | ||
Discoveries (1774) 42: I am a Locker, and a Dudder, and Fencer of Slop; I leave Goods at a House, and borrow Money on them, pretending they are Rum Goods, Goods made in London, and sell Tea. | ||
Falkirk Herald 30 May 3/6: I put it in my slop-bowl to soak. | ||
Sporting Mag. Mar. I 349/2: Those degrading slops, tea, coffee, or chocolate. [Ibid.] May II 125/2: Let fops with ladies lisp o’er slops and tea. | ||
Sporting Mag. Apr. XVI 26/1: Got up at eight o’clock [...] drank two dishes of slop with spouse. | ||
Vocab. of the Flash Lang. in McLachlan (1964) 264: I shook a chest of slop, I stole a chest of tea. | ||
Real Life in Ireland 60: As empty as a member mug when it is half full of slops. | ||
Doings in London 154: A chest full of slop (tea), £15. | ||
‘The Teetotal Society’ Dublin Comic Songster 86: He got dull and mopish, drank slops to satiety. | ||
Young Tom Hall (1926) 73: We’ll have a light breakfast here — slops (catlap, you know) and so on — then drive there and have a regular tuck-out. | ||
Dict. of Modern Sl. etc. 95: SLOPS, chests or packages of tea. | ||
Vocabulum. | ||
, , | Sl. Dict. | |
Sl. Dict. | ||
Queenscliff Sentinel (Vic.) 30 Mar. 2/6: He got dull and mopish, drank slops to satiety, / Which made the dame curse the tee-totalist society. | ||
Aus. Sl. Dict. 75: Slops, [...] an effeminate drink. | ||
Call Me When the Cross Turns Over (1958) 218: ‘Dice that slops, you sheilas, there’s a fight on’ [...] Merle, draining her cup, started after them. | ||
Fish Factory 108: You’d have been lining up now for a mug of slops in the clink. |
(c) attrib. use of sense 1a.
Burlesque Homer (3rd edn) 205: One kept a slop-shop in Rag-fair. | ||
Mint (1955) 53: Slop tea tastes better from a cup than from a mug. |
(d) (Aus./N.Z./US) usu. in pl., alcohol; usu. beer; also attrib.
Whip & Satirist of NY & Brooklyn (NY) 5 Mar. n.p.: A curse on root beer and slops, I hope they’ll burst their corking. | ||
Diggings, the Bush, and Melbourne 15: These [shearers] having been made debtors for ‘slop’ goods, and for liquor supplied to them at the rate of twenty shillings a bottle, felt themselves on the wrong side of the law for showing airs, having no money to pay off their score [...] they gladly for the sake of two bottles more agreed to the terms he now imposed on them. | ||
Record Union (Sacramento, CA) 26 Oct. 4/3: He called for a drink of belly-wash (which is the vulgar term [...] used to designate temperance drinks) and the barkeeper [...] dished him up a glass of slops from beneath the counter. | ||
Times (Shreveport, LA) 12 May 3/5: The money is always spent on ‘slop’ or ‘skat’. | ||
Bowery Life [ebook] A big chunk uv corned beef an’ cabbage, t'ree times er day, an’ erbout sixteen scuttles uv slops at Barney’s. | ||
Salt Lake Herald (UT) 30 Mar. 4/5: He is full of [...] slops. | ||
DN V 42: Slops, beer. | ||
in ‘Jargon of the Und.’ in DN V. | ||
Rampant Age 223: There’s a wop down on Vine Street puttin’ out dago red for three dollars a gallon. One helluva wallop in the slop, too. | ||
Hobo’s Hornbook 34: There was Sammy Slop and Philly Hop. | ||
Amer. Tramp and Und. Sl. 173: slops.—Beer. | ||
Townsville Daily Bull. (Qld) 7 July 11/6: Spare me days, you’d be the world dishin’ out slops to them ringers. | ||
Amer. Lang. (4th edn) 582: Beer is slops. | ||
L. We Were the Rats 120: Gee if I ever get ter Germany I’ll have a go at their slops. In one er them beer gardens with them big mugs. | ||
Lucky Palmer 5: Keep your shirt on. There’s no harm in having a jug of slops, now is there? | ||
I, Mobster 60: Keep on their tail to see they didn’t hand you nothing but needled slop. | ||
Riverslake 197: They reckon that’s what sent him onto the slops. | ||
Gun in My Hand 226: All they do now is cart slops around in tankers and squirt it out of plastic tubes. | ||
Riot (1967) 243: Lousy slop gives me heartburn. | ||
Holy Smoke 47: A schooner of slops apiece in their mitts! | ||
S.R.O. (1998) 116: ‘What’s the name of that slop you and Charlie were drinking?’. | ||
It’s Your Shout, Mate! 91: The others voted it ‘a good drop o’ slops’. | ||
Boys from the Blackstuff (1985) [TV script] 264: Those dick-heads over there slipped some speed into the slops. | ‘George’s last Ride’ in||
G’DAY 108: Marshall has his buck's night the night before the wedding. The dillbrains he is with get him on the slops and put him on a train. | ||
Reed Dict. of N.Z. Sl. 192: slop back Guzzle booze or slops, beer ANZ from 1920s. |
(e) (US) food in general, usu. second-rate; also attrib.
Ingoldsby Legends (1840) 177: Instead of our slops / They had cutlets and chops. | ‘Witches’ Frolic’ in||
Dly News (London) 19 Aug. 3/3: Inmates of the workhouse were [...] deprived of their beer and cheese [substituting] seventeen slop meals a week for their former substantial food. | ||
Delhi Sketch Bk 1 Mar. 35/1: Major Walters: Let me advise you to take very weak broth [...] Ensign Fresh: I hate your slops. | ||
Rebel Yell and The Yankee Hurrah (1985) 276: We tried to fill up on slops, but call it soup because that title makes it seem more filling. | ||
Mercury (Hobart, Tas.) 12 Dec. 3/3: You cannot purchase flour or anything in the shape of slops here. | ||
Barrack-Room Ballads (1893) 149: Don’t mess about the cook-room slops, but prove it to our face. | ‘Tommy’ in||
‘’Arry on Harry’ in Punch 24 Aug. 90/2: All yer mincey-wince mealy-mouthed haspirates is nothing but slop and cold scran. | ||
People of the Abyss 75: They each drank two pints of it, and I assure you that it was slops. It resembled tea less than lager beer resembles champagne. | ||
Dead End Act III: dippy: Dey git mickeys in rifawm school, don’ dey? t.b.: Slop, dey git slop. | ||
Billy Bennett’s Fourth Souvenir Budget 7: Call me early, mother dear, / For I’m to be Queen of the slops. | ‘The Call of the Yukon’ in||
(con. 1944) Naked and Dead 70: Whatever slop had been delivered to them that day. | ||
I, Mobster 27: They can stand over you [...] making sure that you eat every bit of slop on your tray. | ||
Lore and Lang. of Schoolchildren (1977) 182: School dinners are [...] ‘slops’. | ||
Big Rumble 118: The old ladies got slop ready. | ||
Exit 3 and Other Stories 119: Slops done. | ||
Choirboys (1976) 37: Not like that nigger slop you see in all these greasy spoons in town. | ||
Outside In I i: C’mon princess. Let’s get to the slops. | ||
Heroin Annie (e-book) A minute ago you were going to cook some slop for me . | ‘Marriages Are Made in Heaven’ in||
Breakfast on Pluto 161: Hughie’s idea of running a pub seemed to be to pack them in and throw any sort of old slops at them. | ||
(con. 1975–6) Steel Toes 12: I’m shoveling the slop into my mouth as fast as possible. | ||
Disassembled Man [ebook] Normally I would have politely declined the slop that Ruth had concoted, but I was hungrier than a fasting Ethiopian. |
(f) attrib. use of sense 1d.
Aus. Sl. Dict. 76: Slop Shop, a shop whom inferior tailoring and clothing are to be had. | ||
Sporting Times 11 Feb. 3/1: [I] have sampled tinned rabbit, kidney soup, bacon and onions, in a slop-basin in the very chops of the Channel. | ||
Campus Sl. Mar. 6: slop shop – any campus snack bar. |
(g) (US) coffee.
Sun (NY) 28 Mar. 2/6: ‘Slop and sinkers,’ means coffee and doughnuts. | ||
Disinherited 168: I git tard o’ Lena’s slop. | ||
Among Thieves 181: Just having a cup of slop. |
(h) (Aus.) brandy.
(con. WWII) And Then We Heard The Thunder (1964) 369: ‘I have some slop if you’d care to have some.’ He said ‘Slop?’ She said, ‘Whiskey, I mean brandy.’. |
2. in senses of emotional or intellectual weakness.
(a) sentimentality, mawkish emotion.
High Life in London 17 Feb. 5/4: [T]he Morning Post; with its fashionable slop [...] the Long Shore (Ledger), and Tap-tub (Morning Advertiser) . | ||
Letter from Hawaii (1967) 33: You can go on writing that slop about balmy breezes and fragrant flowers, and all that sort of truck. | ||
N.Y. Sporting Times 3 Oct. 9: The crank who created a sensation in the N.Y. Cathedral last Sunday morning by shouting to Archbishop Corigan: ‘Out of my way, Pontius Pilate! I am the Lord’s anointed and you are not in it with me,’ has evidently been feeding on the slop. | ||
‘’Arry on Spring-Time and Sport’ in Punch 18 Apr. 184/3: Sentiment’s slop as I spurn. | ||
letter Mar. in Paige (1971) 55: ‘The difference between enthusiastic slop and great art’ – there’s a text to preach on in your glorious unfettered desert for the next forty years. | ||
Rampant Age 194: You mushy mutts make me sick! [...] Christ, what slop! | ||
(con. 1937) Mad in Pursuit 217: All this magazine rot, all the movie slop and crooning about it – wrapping Luv up in silver paper. | ||
Teachers (1962) 243: Well it’s all a lot of slop – and I’ve had a gutful, right up to there. | ||
(con. 1930s) Shawlies, Echo Boys, the Marsh and the Lanes 131: We had no interest in women being kissed. That was all slop. We wanted action. |
(b) attrib. use of sense 2a.
Awopbop. (1970) 30: There have been more slop-ballads as singles and his film career has ground to a temporary halt. |
(c) nonsensical talk.
‘’Arry on the Battle of Life’ in Punch 21 Sept. in (2006) 136: Mere ink-slinging slop. | ||
‘’Arry on Blues and Bluestockings’ in Punch 21 Mar. 135/1: It’s fair monstrous, the way we get worried and vext [...] / by Women’s Rights ’umbug and slop. | ||
Hairy Ape Act VI: We don’t want to listen to no more of that slop. | ||
letter 27 Mar. in Paige (1971) 231: Agree that transition was mainly slop, but the review was useful. | ||
Men from the Boys (1967) 20: You really believe this slop you’re handing me? [Ibid.] 21: Where do you get that if-you-don’t-mind slop? | ||
Custody 279: When someone throws that kind of slop around, they don’t feel very good about themselves. | ||
(con. 1964–8) Cold Six Thousand 12: A talkathon – bad work – pure mass-witness slop. | ||
Mad mag. Aug. 8: New Age slop like Enya that would make a unicorn throw up its moonbeams. |
(d) a weak, insignificant person.
None But the Lonely Heart 180: You get shoved around [...] People think you’re a slop, and they treat you like one. [Ibid.] 263: He was no slop with his mitts. [Ibid.] 350: You pudding headed old slop, you. |
3. the essence, the ‘daylights’.
Best that Ever Did It (1957) 121: I think you’ll beat the slop out of Cliff, make life miserable for the girl. | ||
Lead With Your Left (1958) 88: I’ll beat the slop out of you if you keep annoying Miss Henderson. |
In compounds
(US tramp) food and accommodation, esp. in transient camps, typically those set up by an oil-drilling company.
(con. 1920s) South of Heaven (1994) 52: Your wages were docked a dollar day for room and board (’slop and flop’). |
(US gay) the anus.
(ref. to late 1960s) Queens’ Vernacular 19: the rectal opening, anus [...] slopchute (late ’60s). |
(US) a menial task.
Jungle Kids (1967) 31: He was getting slop details. | ‘Vicious Circle’ in
a teaspoon.
Vocab. of the Flash Lang. | ||
Grose’s Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue. |
(US Und.) a cheap restaurant.
in Letter from My Father (1978) 371: The bowery slop houses. | ||
Criminal Sl. (rev. edn). | ||
Delta Democratic-Times (Greenville, MS) 16 June 2/3: Dr R.L. Jordan said [...] he wished to apologize for calling balck-owned restaurants [...] ‘slophouses’. | ||
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.
On the Road (The Orig. Scroll) (2007) 216: Ah, our holy American slop-jaws in Washington are planning further inconveniences. | ||
On The Road (1972) 110: Ah, our holy American slop-jaws in Washington are planning further inconveniences. |
a cheap, unappetizing restaurant.
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. | ||
Argot: Dict. of Und. Sl. | ||
Chosen Few (1966) 19: I’ll hafta buy him a brew at the slopchute one night soon. |
(US black) coffee and doughnuts.
Orig. Hbk of Harlem Jive 76: Coffee and doughnuts—Slops and slugs. |
a tea-service.
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. |
In phrases
(Aus.) to be punished, thus give slops, to punish.
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’. | ||
Queanbeyan Age (NSW) 22 Aug. 2/4: A successful wallaby drive [...] took place about a fortnight back; the marsupials ‘got slops’. | ||
Dead Bird (Sydney) 3 May 2/1: My wife has given me slops about the powder on my shoulder. | ||
Dubbo Liberal (NSW) 17 June 3/3: When a resident ‘got slops,’ / The ‘Trinity’ he’d blame. | ||
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. | ||
‘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’. | ||
Williamstown Chron. (Vic.) 14 Mar. 3/3: Some of his colleagues got ‘slops’ from their Footscray comrades. | ||
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. | ||
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).
After the Wake (1981) 24: I heard the shout ‘Right, all doors open. Slop out’. | ‘I Became a Borstal Boy’ in||
Und. Nights 100: I learned that at Parkstone, too, after a tiff at Slops Out. | ||
(con. 1940s) Borstal Boy 53: Mornings we were wakened at six and slopped out. | ||
Porridge [TV script] Eight o’clock slop out, eight ten breakfast. | ‘New Faces, Old Hands’||
One Night Out Stealing 28: The stink of forty-odd men slopping out at the same time each morning was terrible. | ||
Inside 21: OK [...] As long as you slop out for me in the morning. | ||
NZEJ 13 35: slop outv. To empty out cell chamberpots. | ‘Boob Jargon’ in||
Boobslang [U. Canterbury D.Phil. thesis] 170/1: slop out v. to clean one’s cell, to empty one’s cell chamberpot. | ||
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. | ||
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.
Works (1867) 117: The prevailin weakness of most public men is to slop over! [DA]. | ||
Congressional Globe 23 Jan. 524/2: Amnesty [...] is magnanimity slopping over [DA]. | ||
Harper’s Mag. lxxviii 818: One of his great distinctions was his moderation... he never slopped over [F&H]. | ||
A Woman’s Ventures 103: She felt that she had told the facts, and that she had avoided ‘slopping over’ [DA]. | ||
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. | ||
(con. 1900s) 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.
High School Aegis X 15 Feb. 2–3: Leary Joe got to sloppin’ up on white line, an wuz orioide. | ‘’Frisco Kid’s Story’ in||
World of Graft 72: I beg here, we all beg, an’ we slop up ev’ry now an’ then, too. | ||
Seventeen Years in the Und. 64: The illgotten gains are spent ‘slopping up’ (getting drunk) in the jungles (outside the city). | ||
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. | ||
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. | ||
Criminal Sl. (rev. edn). | ||
letter in Charters (1993) 201: I got my drinks and still had a short period of grace in which to slop up more. | ||
World’s Toughest Prison 818: slop up – To become intoxicated. | ||
Brown’s Requiem 38: He slopped up some more beer. |