send v.
1. (orig. US) to excite emotionally.
![]() | Melody Maker Oct. 836/1: I enclose the following wire which Louis (Musicmouth) Armstrong sent to Big John [...] ‘My boy Earl was marvellous as ever yessir he sent me.’ [OED]. | |
![]() | Charleston Dly Mail (WV) 27 Mar. 6/7: ‘The rhythm sends me’ is a swing lover’s ecstatic way of saying that he is pleased with the perfectly balanced orchestration. | |
![]() | 🎵 There’s one thing we want to know, / Are we solid; do we send you, Joe? | ‘Are You All Reet’|
![]() | New Hepsters Dict. in Calloway (1976) 259: send (v.): to arouse the emotions. (joyfuI). Ex., ‘That sends me!’. | |
![]() | Speed Detective Feb. 🌐 She was that kind of cookie; she sent you. | ‘Fomicide Surprise’ in|
![]() | Price Is Right 178: You mean it doesn’t send you? | |
![]() | Hiparama of the Classics 15: Solid sent upon the Ace Lick that all Cats and Kitties, Red, White, or Blue are created level, in front. | |
![]() | Address: Kings Cross 17: I joined the teenagers who pretended they were really Way Out; wore Way Out fashions; discovered that jazz really sent me. | |
![]() | Inside Daisy Clover (1966) 80: Our second number comes on and it really sends them. | |
![]() | Brown’s Requiem 93: Interior decoration doesn’t send me, but I can recognize superb design when I see it. | |
![]() | Widespread Panic 121: This mock marriage sends them, Daddy-O. |
2. (US black) to get intoxicated by alcohol.
![]() | Coll. Stories (1990) 245: He put the Scotch on top of the beer. It sent him. | ‘Every Opportunity’ in
3. (US drugs) to get intoxicated by smoking marijuana, or heroin, i.e. the effect equates with sense 1.
![]() | Lang. Und. (1981). | ‘Lang. of the Und. Narcotic Addict’ Pt 2 in|
![]() | Amer. Thes. Sl. | |
![]() | Police Headquarters (1956) 266: Reefers didn’t do a thing for me, so I tried H. That sent me. |
SE in slang uses
In compounds
(Aus.) a beating.
![]() | He Who Shoots Last 28: ‘Didn’t think no one ’ed rat on a kid. Wot a rotten germ [...] Ya gonna give him a send orf Jack?’. |
(UK black) an errand boy.
![]() | What They Was 32: Reuben said fuck dat go shop yourself I’m not some sendout. |
In phrases
(US) to send to prison.
![]() | Keys to Crookdom 416: Send across. Send to prison. | |
![]() | We Who Are About to Die 190: So we plead guilty, an’ the judge sends us across. | |
![]() | Criminal Sl. (rev. edn). |
to kill.
![]() | Wyoming (1908) 18: Bump me off—send me across the divide. |
(N.Z. prison) to send or pass an unsanctioned note to a fellow inmate.
![]() | Boobslang [U. Canterbury D.Phil. thesis] 162/1: send a fax v. 1 = go fishing 2 to give an item (usually a letter) to an inmate about to be transferred, to ensure that the item reaches someone in another prison send a line (also pass down a line or send a fishing line) = go fishing. send a telegram = go fishing. send the mail = go fishing. |
to dismiss.
![]() | Drummer III i: Marry him! [...] there would be no staying in this house for us if she did. That young rake-hell would send all the old servants a grazing. | |
![]() | Penkethman’s Jests 59: A Widow and the Government are ready upon all Occasions to tax the new Husband and the Prince; unless the former Husband was hang’d, and the former King sent to Grass, and then they bid them take fair Warning by their Destiny. |
1. (Aus.) to have someone arrested, to send to prison.
![]() | Sydney Sportsman (Surry Hills, NSW) 12 Oct. 3/5: Next day the Beak said: ‘Such a nice time ought to be worth something to you. I’ll just send you along for three months . | |
![]() | (con. WWI) Gloss. Sl. [...] in the A.I.F. 1921–1924 (rev. t/s) n.p.: send along. See ‘Put up’. |
2. (Aus.) to criticize severely.
![]() | Bulletin (Sydney) 5 Sept. 6/3: The ‘Vagabond’ has been lecturing at Charters Towers, and is thus ‘sent along’ by the remorseless Thadeus O’Kane. |
3. (US) to cost, to charge.
![]() | Billy Baxter’s Letters 59: I figured it up on the back of the invitation, and that lady sent me along for just two hundred and ten dollars, not counting what I owe Johnny Black’s brother-in-law. |
(UK Und.) a phr. of affirmation: on my honour; I swear.
![]() | Swell’s Night Guide 60: Why, send I may live, if she was to tumble to you widding about her, she’d mug you like a shot. Wouldn’t she Sall? | |
![]() | Illus. Police News 25 June 4/2: ‘Tommy Toff! — well, send I may live!’. |
to imprison, to have someone imprisoned.
![]() | Mr. Jackson 226: She’s makin’ frens with a woman in the next apartment, an’ the udder one’s pumpin’ her. She’ll git us all sent away yet. | |
![]() | Enemy to Society 289: They can’t send me away for more than seven years. | |
![]() | Me – Gangster 138: Nobody can send me away. | |
![]() | Memoirs of a Murder Man 27: He pleaded guilty to possessing burglar’s tools and was sent away. | |
![]() | (con. 1905–25) Professional Thief (1956) 92: If the coppers did not send the amateurs away [...] they could not sandwich in the professionals whom they turn loose. | |
![]() | letter 16 April in Harris (1993) 47: One stick, one cap now could send me away for 7 years as a second offender. | |
![]() | Parole Chief 87: We send them [i.e. criminals] away for safe custody until they no longer are menaces. | |
![]() | Mr Love and Justice (1964) 177: I may as well help press the charge hard and get you both sent away as long as possible. | |
![]() | A Prisoner’s Tale 133: ‘How come a bright boy like you ever got sent away, Brian?’ he asked. | |
![]() | Spike Island (1981) 334: Then they started disappearing off the streets; they were being sent away for burglary, theft and all that. | |
![]() | Guardian G2 10 Nov. 8: What they wanted to do was put him in the electric chair or send him away for life. | |
![]() | Viva La Madness 106: Guys are getting sent away without the customs seizing product. |
to imprison.
![]() | N.O. Picayune 2 Aug. 2/5: She scorned to find surety in $500 to keep the peace, so she was sent down. | |
![]() | Picking from N.O. Picayune 122: I’ll send you down for thirty days. | |
![]() | Wkly Varieties (Boston, MA) 29 Oct. 7/2: [T]he poor drunkards whom they [i.e. magistrates] send ‘below’ for ten days. | |
![]() | Leaves from Diary of Celebrated Burglar 55/2: Tom became acquainted with two [thieves] of his own age, who were being sent down on suspicion of the ‘dip’. | |
![]() | Truth (Perth) 19 Oct. 4/6: But a white man resenting a nigger is rash. / And is sure to be ‘sent’ for a fiver. | |
![]() | Squeaker (1950) 23: There was a man in the prison laundry who had been sent down for ten years on a ‘squeak’. | |
![]() | Cockney Cavalcade 36: I s’pose you want to see your mates get sent ‘downstairs’ for a ‘sixer’. | |
![]() | Cotton Comes to Harlem (1967) 22: He confessed he hadn’t paid any taxes either. So he got sent down too. | |
![]() | Villain’s Tale 27: Both of them would have had it, if only to provide for their families while they were away – it was a million they were going to be sent down. | |
![]() | Doing Time 106: send down: he was ‘sent down’ for three years means he was sent to prison for three years. | |
![]() | (con. 1950s–60s) Little Legs 97: I [...] was sent down for a seven, a four, a three, a two and an eighteen months. | |
![]() | Indep. Rev. 2 July 1: I won’t be sent down. I’ll take as long as it takes to prove that I’m totally innocent. | |
![]() | Westsiders 273: He was sent down the last time for supposedly dealing cocaine. | |
![]() | Pulp Ink [ebook] Penhaligon was sent down for playing hide the salami with an under-aged student. | ‘Lady and the Gimp’ in
1. (N.Z.) to dismiss from employment; thus go down the road, to be dismissed; down the track, dismissal.
![]() | (Otago) postcard in DNZE (1998) 708/2: To be sent down the road [...] Expressions heard used in Central Otago and Fiord Country, by people engaged in gold-mining or bush work. In the beginning, I should imagine, it was a literal description of what happened to the man since there was only one road leading out of the community... It is now used in isolated communities to describe someone being dismissed, even if he can get another job that keeps him in the community. | |
![]() | Station Days in Maoriland 52: If the blinkin’ boss is hangin’ round, you’re next for down the track. | ‘Sheds That Banned The Singing Rousey’s Song’|
![]() | Gun in My Hand 91: You’ll go down the road if ya don’t wake ya ideas up, I said. | |
![]() | Pagan Game (1969) 220: You’d better not criticise boys’ schools like that in front of our Head. He might send you down the road. | |
![]() | Metro (Auckland) July 82: But it didn’t compensate for the [...] slack period when workers went down the road [DNZE]. | |
![]() | Blackball 08 85: By God, he’d keep a close eye on Master Hickey and at the first opportunity [...] he’d be sent down the road so fast he’d wonder what hit him [DNZE]. | |
![]() | Confessions of a Caddie 65: At most other clubs, a caddie would be down the road, permanently, for such behavior. He got lucky the Riv [Riviera Country Club] only suspended him. |
2. (US Und.) to send to prison.
![]() | (con. 1975–6) Steel Toes 151: Thought it would be better just to send ya down the road for a bit, rather than end your days. |
(UK black) to challenge.
![]() | www.reddit.com/r/hiphopheads Grime Terminology Guide 🌐 To send for someone - To call out someone on a track, start beef. |
1. (Aus./N.Z.) a general appeal to the gods for rain.
![]() | Bulletin (Sydney) 14 Nov. 16/3: Up in Queensland shearers invoke Providence for rain, when it is a fair thing for a holiday, thus: ‘Send it down, Hughie.’ Thought it was purely local until I happened on Manly Beach the other day, when a storm-cloud banked up and a sun-browning nude arose and remarked to the sky, ‘What’s the game, Hughie?’ Does any Abo-liar know the origin of the term? I believe the Queensland black’s word for cloud is ‘ugon,’ and the shearers and surf-bathers may have misapplied it to the man behind the gun. If that is not the explanation, what in fury is? | |
![]() | N&Q 12 Ser. IX 417: ‘Send it down David!’ greeted every shower of rain. | |
![]() | (con. WWI) Gloss. Sl. [...] in the A.I.F. 1921–1924 (rev. t/s) n.p.: send her down steve. Let it rain on. | |
![]() | (con. WWI) Soldier and Sailor Words 72: David (or Davy), Send It Down: A soldiers’ greeting to a shower of rain likely to postpone a parade. | |
![]() | (con. 1918) Sergeant Eadie 321: Hurray! Send her down, Davie, no drill today! | |
![]() | Roaring Nineties 30: Miners and prospectors would turn out and yell to a dull, dirty sky clouded with red dust: ‘Send her down! Send her down, Hughie!’. | |
![]() | Gun in My Hand 147: Wife says send her down hughie but I says cut it out. Can’t rain for the footie. | |
![]() | Holy Smoke 54: Wot’s the use? Send ’er down, Hughie. A man might just as well be drowned where he stands as wait for this rotten old tub to sink. | |
![]() | Eng. Lang. in Aus. and N.Z. 114: In indigenous slang the nearest to a religious concept is the use of Hughie in Send her down, Hughie said to be the source of rain. | |
![]() | Dict. of Kiwi Sl. 59/2: Hughie God, matily addressed in phr. send her down, Hughie a request for rain. | |
![]() | Reed Dict. of N.Z. Sl. [as cit. 1988]. | |
![]() | ‘Blind Freddie at the end of the cord’ in Passing Strange (2015) 37: ‘So send her down, Hughie!’. |
2. used as a toast.
![]() | (con. 1945–6) Devil’s Jump (2008) 244: Every so often one of them would make an idle remark when he took a drink – ‘Send ’em down, Hughie!’ or ‘here’s cheers!’. |
1. (US) to place a bet.
![]() | Indoor Sports 13 May [synd. cartoon] I’m no piker. I send in each time. |
2. (Aus.) to imprison.
![]() | Age (Melbourne) 18 Dec. 13/7: [headline] A ‘COCKATOO’ GAOLED. Armed Thieves' Lookout Sent in for Two Years. |
see under check n.1
1. to push in, to drive something home.
![]() | Lex. Balatronicum. | |
![]() | Grose’s Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue. |
2. (US gambling) to make big bets.
![]() | Complete Guide to Gambling. |
(Aus.) to steal.
![]() | Argot in DAUS (1993). | |
![]() | Aus. Lang. (2nd edn). |
(US black) to send on a wild goose chase, a fool’s errand.
![]() | Runnin’ Down Some Lines 253: send on a hombug (humbug)/merry-go-round/trip Send someone on a wild goose chase. |
1. (US Und.) to imprison.
![]() | Six Days in the Metropolis 77: The magistrate [...] had sent her ‘over’ once for a similar offence. |
2. (US Und.) to betray to the authorities.
![]() | Red Harvest (1965) 48: ‘And I put my last thirty-five bucks in the world on that rat on his say-so. Me, that could send him over for — ’ . | |
![]() | Maltese Falcon (1965) 436: ‘I’m going to send you over. The chances are you’ll get off with life. That means you’ll be out again in twenty years’. | |
![]() | Love Is a Racket 287: You got the money [...] when you sent him over to the cops for that bank job he pulled. |
3. see send up
(US) to get rid of a person; to terminate a relationship.
![]() | Hy Lit’s Unbelievable Dict. of Hip Words 34: send you south – To end; to dissolve, or sever a friendship; to cut off a love affair. |
to administer a flogging.
![]() | Gloss. (1888) I 79: birching-Lane. To send a person to Birching-Lane, a proverbial phrase for ordering him to be whipped, or otherwise punished. |
1. (orig. boxing) to knock down, thus to kill [boxing orig. took place on grass].
![]() | Whip & Satirist of NY & Brooklyn (NY) 22 Jan. n.p.: Although Crawley one-twoed his man, he caught toco for his pains [...] and was sent to grass. | |
![]() | Bell’s Life in Tasmania 13 Sept. 3/6: A [illegible] on the bread basket, which sent the Polisher to grass. | |
![]() | Sportsman 5 Nov. 2/1: Notes on News [...] One of O’Baldwin’s henchmen [...] was also sent to grass. or to the cobble-stones of Houston-street. | |
![]() | Life and Adventures of a Cheap Jack 237: The stranger did ‘let go his left’ [...] Elias was sent to grass to rise no more off it. | |
![]() | Abilene Reflector (KS) 19 May 7/3: If he knocks his opponent down he will say [...] that he ‘sent him to grass’. | |
![]() | in Bird o’ Freedom (Sydney) 7 Mar. 6/3: It’s true the old Pi-ute was sent to grass, and blood let out — a perfect flood. | |
![]() | Bulletin (Sydney) 31 Mar. 13/3: [H]is intended victim instantly propped him viciously on the point of the jaw, and, sending him to grass, scampered yelling ‘To hell with the Pope!’. |
2. see send a-grazing
(US/L.A. drugs) to flush drugs down the lavatory before or during a drugs raid.
![]() | ‘Sl. of Watts’ Current Sl. III:2. |
to dispose of, to bring to an end.
![]() | Sporting Mag. Sept. VI 333/1: But a skilful young dentist her torture dispell’d, / And so soon sent her anguish to pot. |
to bring down in the world.
![]() | Chelmsford Chron. (Essex) 10 May 7/4: The NY Herald says [...] Mr Greenley, as president, would send the country to the dogs. | |
![]() | Morpeth Herald (Northumberland) 18 Feb. 6/4: I know who the lady is. The fellow who lives in that house is awfully spooney on her, and if he don’t look out she’ll soon send him to the dogs. | |
![]() | Coll. Stories (1990) 265: Then he met a high-yellah gal, a three-quarter keltz, from down Harlem way, and she sent him to the dogs. | ‘Pork Chop Paradise’
(US) to kill, to murder.
![]() | Razorblade Tears 128: They had turned their backs on him. Inside that was a sign of disrespect so egregious it might get you sent to the farm. |
(Aus./N.Z.) to discard, to dismiss.
![]() | Songs of a Sentimental Bloke gloss. 🌐 Pack, to send to the – To relegate to obscurity. | |
![]() | Rose of Spadgers 105: ’Urts like one thing. To git sent to the pack. | ‘The Also-Ran’
1. (US Und.) to imprison [abbr. SE send up for punishment, or SE send up the river under river n.].
![]() | N.Y. Transcript 15 Feb. 2/4: [Cornelia Latting, a young colored woman, sentenced to 2 years, 6 months; she tells the court] that she did not care a d—n if they had sent her up for forty-eleven years. | |
![]() | Mysteries and Miseries of N.Y. III 56: No more yourn, than the last swag you lifted, and when the coppers were arter you, left at my door so’s to get me sent up. | |
![]() | Secrets of the Great City 316: ‘It is a hard case, Mary, but stealing is stealing, and I shall have to send you up for twenty days.’ And so Mary is sent to the Penitentiary on Blackwell’s Island. | |
![]() | Memoirs of the US Secret Service 86: The result was the whole concern was nabbed, and two or three of the operators were ‘sent over’. | |
![]() | Nat. Police Gaz. (NY) 18 Oct. 3/4: Bill was taken care of — sent up for two years; but afterwards got caught again at some other job and was sent up for fourteen years. | |
![]() | Bristol Magpie 18 Jan. 6/1: I’d be glad if you’d send me up for a month. | |
![]() | Bulletin (Sydney) 31 Jan. 20/1: A peripatetic Nooze agent [...] had the misfortune to be tried at noon, just as the stipendiary’s stomach was beginning to ask what about that roast duck and chartereau, and as a natural result [...] was sent up for three months without the option. | |
![]() | Forty Years a Gambler 293: The fellow was sent up for three years. | |
![]() | Stories of Chinatown 41: They would have hung him or sent him up for life. | |
![]() | Truth (Sydney) 28 Jan. 1/3: Colonel Brown, who is so constantly ‘sent up’ for passing valueless cheques . | |
![]() | Sydney Sportsman (Surry Hills, NSW) 14 Aug. 1/2: ‘The square chivvied cow will be sent up for his gory natural’. | |
![]() | Boss 95: To leave an impression on these people, you must send a party up for what he hasn’t done. | |
![]() | N.Z. Truth 4 Aug. 5/7: He [...] stoushed t’other chap and was run in for assault and sent up. | |
![]() | Truth (Sydney) 15 June 2/5: [headline] SCURVY SKUNK SENT UP FOR A SIXER. | |
![]() | Day Book (Chicago) 5 Mar. 8/1: Maria is a widder lady, whose husband died in jale after he had been sent up. | |
![]() | God’s Man 146: These exhibits he thrust beneath the Quinnian nose when the party was seated in the prison omnibus, adding vindictive prophecies as to their ‘sending up’ powers. | |
![]() | Gay-cat 65: As soon as a bull gives him th’ third degree, a kid will toin stool an’ peach on us guns an’ the whole works an’ send us up. | |
![]() | Missing Link 🌐 Ch. 16: You can’t send a bloke up on th’ say so of a Missin’ Link. | |
![]() | Story Omnibus (1966) 275: This little fat guy will do anything for anybody, as long as he can send ’em over for life in the end. | ‘The Big Knockover’|
![]() | We Who Are About to Die 237: Clyde Stevens was sent over to Quentin in 1931. | |
![]() | This Is New York 12 Apr. [synd. col.] Young being sent up to serve from 10 to 20 years. | |
![]() | Capricornia (1939) 342: It just looks like old-man Larsney’s goin’ to send him up, when Con gets a brainwave. | |
![]() | Really the Blues 268: He was sent up to Sing-Sing for seven-and-a-half to fifteen years. | |
![]() | Little Men, Big World 137: He was a Criminal Courts Judge at one time. He sent a lot of guys up. | |
![]() | Last Exit to Brooklyn 26: He was sent up for his first real bit when he was 16. | |
![]() | Giveadamn Brown (1997) 135: ‘I was sent up for dealing, not using’. | |
![]() | (con. 1940s–60s) Eve. Sun Turned Crimson (1998) 127: Shortly before we had been sent over to the Island there had been a big drive against the junk pushers. | ‘Ed Leary’|
![]() | Do or Die (1992) 6: Once you got sent up the only way to get along was to do your own time. | |
![]() | Shame the Devil 11: Frank got sent up for another eight. | |
![]() | ‘Soul Collection’ in ThugLit July-Aug. [ebook] [T]he older generation got pinched and sent up for ten-to-twenty. | |
![]() | California Bear 23: [A] guy who’d been sent up for a murder he didn’t commit. |
2. (Aus.) to cheat, to defraud.
![]() | Three Elephant Power 137: The poor lady regularly punts on his ponies, and just as regularly is ‘sent up’ — in other words, loses her money. | ‘Done for the Double’
(US Und.) to imprison.
![]() | World of Graft 98: He was doin’ fence work in York, an’ I helped send ’im up the river for eight years. | |
![]() | 🌐 ‘Sammy!’ she exclaimed. ‘He’s a lobbygow of mine. He’s worked for me for years. I could send him up the river if I liked.’. | Frame Up|
![]() | Classics in Sl. 97: Then he causes the wife of the judge which sent him up the river to poison herself and her young infant baby. | |
![]() | Limey 8: The convict is just ‘sent up the river to the Big House’. | |
![]() | Chicago Daily News 5 Mar. 8/3: I done it. Send me up the river. Give me the hot seat [DA]. | |
![]() | (con. 1923) Schnozzola 129: He maintained he had been sent up the river on a bum rap. | |
![]() | Mad mag. Oct. 42: Then you’re thee guy what send my brudder up de river. | |
![]() | Hang On a Minute, Mate (1963) 68: They sent him up the hill for six months. | |
![]() | 🎵 The judge that sent me got capped by my nigga C / And now his ass is sent up the river next to me. | ‘Pocket Full of Stones’|
![]() | Fever Kill 111: Somebody might [...] send him up the river for a nickel. |
to kill, to murder.
![]() | Hell on Hoe Street 172: Some Pakistan geezer reckons I going to waste him [...] told i was after sending him up the road. |