Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(Aus.) one who spends their time in bars, a ‘barfly’.

1908		H. Lawson ‘The Blanky Papers’ in Roderick (1972) 786: I boozed in blanky low pubs and Jimmy Woodser’d, like a blanky dirty old bar bummer.
1921–2		(?) H. Lawson ‘The Last Rose of Winter’ in Roderick (1972) 909: He took that bar-bummer’s chin between his thumb and forefinger and looked at his teeth.

(US, Western) a bartender; thus bardogging, tending bar.

1907		Virginia Enterprise (MN) 5 July 5/2: It seems fishy to read of two west range saloons being robbed while the bartenders slept [...] In this law-abiding community the bar-dog is kept awake by the continuous rush of business throughout the night hours.
1909		Virginia Enterprise (MN) 28 May 4/3: The booze vendors have caused the arrest of the members [...] each of the bardogs claiming his till was short.
1936		C. Martin Tie-fast Hombre 195: He knew that the bardog was trying to tell him something, something that he could not understand.
1944		R.F. Adams Western Words (1968) 12/2: bar dog A cowboy’s term for a bartender. Many bartenders were former cowboys too stove-up for riding.
1967		N. Nye Riders on the Roan 36: ‘Hold it,’ growled a beefy weather-coarsened countenance three shapes down as the bardog reached for the private stock. ‘I’m a guy that likes to know who the hell he drinks with’.
1971		(con. mid-19C) W.D. Jennings Cowboys 162: He’d settle down somewhere and leam a nice trade, maybe, like bar-dogging [...] Drinkers always seemed to like bartenders.
2002		(con. 1886) A. Lynch ‘Been Done Wrong’ [unpub.] Cornett groaned, waved his hand at Frank and went to the bar, where he knew at least the bardog, Jasper, wouldn’t be so mentally lost.
2015		S. King Finders Keepers (2016) 76: Freddy had purchased the Chevvy from a half-drunk bar-bitch in a Lynn taproom.

see separate entries.

(US campus) the practice of going from bar to bar drinking.

1988		Eble Campus Sl. Oct. 1: bar golf – game where someone will go to 18 different bars or ‘holes’ in one night.
1996		Eble Sl. and Sociability 16: These slang items seem just as fresh and viable as 1992’s [...] bar golf for ‘going from bar (watering hole) to bar drinking’.

an excess of fat around one’s stomach, a ‘spare tyre’ (cf. love handles under love n.).

1972		(ref. to late 1960s) B. Rodgers Queens’ Vernacular 27: bar handle (kwn NYC, late ’60s) fleshy sides of the waist; a spare tire [...] Syn: fuck handles; goodyear; love handles.
1989–2003		R.O. Scott Gay Sl. Dict. 🌐.

the habitual occupier of a bar.

1916		Tacoma Times 4 Apr. 6/3: A baseball manager had to be a sort of combination bar-hound and detective in order to keep his rookies from becoming too saturated.
1923		R. McAlmon Companion Volume 193: What are you, a lady or a bar-hound?
1954		Westward 83/1: Learning to understand his fellow man, whether he found him as a fisherman or thief, brigand or barhound, miner or mariner.
1962		Library Congress Catalog 1052: [song title] Barhound Blues.
1981		J.D. Tumpane Scotch & Holy Water 125: A simple bank clerk by day, but a marauding barhound by night.
1991		B. Hamper Rivethead (1992) 186: A bar-hound like you will never beat the clock.

1. (US) a heavy drinker who spends most of their time in the bar.

1933

(con. 1904) F. Riesenberg Log of the Sea 183: The stevies from the other hatches began to pile in behind the bar-hogs.

2. (US) a part-time prostitute, who frequents bars and uses them as a base for soliciting.

1966		Letter 18 May in Edelman Dear America (1985) 107: This is the usual approach of a bar-hog! [...] A girl will be sitting next to you and she’ll begin with ‘Hello. What is your name?’.
2001		Haze Gray and Underway ‘Naval Terminology’ 🌐 Bar Hog – A woman who hangs out in bars.

see separate entries.

(orig. Aus.) a hard drinker.

1894		Truth (Sydney) 26 Aug. 5/4: When a [‘brewer’s] traveller visits a hotel to take an order he always ‘shouts’ for the people in the bar. [...] A large army of ‘bar polishers’ [...] look forward to the visit of the traveller with a vast amount of pleasure.
2000		(con. 1940s–60s) Décharné Straight from the Fridge Dad 7: Bar-polisher Habitual drinker, frequenter of gin-joints.

see separate entry.

(US) a ‘regular’ in a given bar.

1919

A. Baer Two and Three 17 Jan. [synd. col.] The long established bar rag who has been swallowing ’em in the same place for forty years.

see separate entry.

to buy drinks for everyone in a bar or public house.

1852		Ovid Bolus Esq. in Southern Lit. Messenger XVIII July 435: Bolus was no niggard. [...] He would as soon treat a regiment, or charter the grocery for the day, as any other way.
1889–90		Barrère & Leland Dict. of Sl., Jargon and Cant I 238/1: Charter the bar, charter the grocery, to (American), to buy all the liquor in a groggery or ‘rum-mill’ and give it away freely to all comers.
1933		‘William Juniper’ True Drunkard’s Delight.