slave n.
1. (US campus) a college servant.
![[US]](/static/img/flags/us.png "United States") | ‘College Words and Phrases’ in DN II:i 60: slave, n. A servant in a college. |
2. (US black/campus) work, any form of job.
| ‘Jargon of the Und.’ in DN V 463: slave, A wage earner. | |
| Pittsburgh Courier (PA) 6 Aug. 11/1: [of a musical performance] We beat out a couple of slaves [...] one for the sepias and one for the grays. | |
| ‘Let Me at the Enemy’ in Coll. Stories (1990) 41: I got a piece a slave in a pool room and figure I’m settin’ solid. | |
| Jives of Dr. Hepcat (1989) 2: On the late bright after you have put down your easy slave you drape yourself in shape and tamp on the cuts where the cats are putting down much trash and everything is much solid. | |
| Manchild in the Promised Land (1969) 192: Cats used to call it [i.e. work] a ‘slave’. | |
| Vulture (1996) 108: All of them had been blessed with seventy-five-dollar-a-week slaves because they had their high-school diplomas. | |
| Drylongso xvii: slave – job. | |
 | Dope Sick 27: ]J]ust another broke-sick fool begging for a slave. |
In compounds
cheap employment agencies, offering menial jobs for poor wages.
| Hobo 4–5: It is the slave market because here most of the employment agencies are located. | |
| Milk and Honey Route 214: Slave market – That part of the main stem where jobs are sold. | |
| (con. early 1930s) Harlem Glory (1990) 66: Colored women used to gravitate to certain points in the Bronx and wait there for white matrons to come and hire them [...] the main point of congregation became notorious as the Bronx Slave Market. | |
| in Hellhole 112: The Bronx, where the worst of the domestic ‘slave markets’ existed. | |
| Blood on the Moon 108: ‘I hire these wetbacks from the slave market on Skid Row’. | |
![[Can]](/static/img/flags/can.png "Canada") | (con. 1920s) Legs 85: Scattered among these shops were the numerous employment agencies – called slave markets. |
(US black) work.
| ‘Jiver’s Bible’ in Orig. Hbk of Harlem Jive. |
In phrases
(US black) to perform a job.
| Man About Harlem 7 Dec. [synd. col.] The breakast dance [...] is just what the doctor ordered [...] if you have to collar Jim Slave the same day. |
(US black) to work, to go out and find work.
| Book of Negro Folklore 482: cop a slave: To go to work. It’s time to cop a slave. | |
| Down These Mean Streets (1970) 98: Hell, with our gift of labia we’re a mother-hopping cinch to cop a slave. | |
| (con. 1940s–60s) Straight from the Fridge Dad. |