Green’s Dictionary of Slang

an annual butchers’ ball.

1909

J. Ware Passing Eng. of the Victorian Era.

(Aus./US) an ambulance.

1974		Lieberman & Rhodes CB (2nd edn) 123: Blood Box — Ambulance.
1980		in Anita Pearl Dict. of Popular Sl.
1992		Bentley & Corbett Prison Sl. 104: Blood Box [...] An ambulance.
2002		Registry of Ex-Military Land-Rovers (Aus.) 🌐 The R.A.A.M.C. Series 2A Ambulances served around Australia from 1963 to the early 1990’s [...] As an aside here, we should record the famed servicesmen’s nickname for the ambulance: ‘The Blood-box’.

1. (US) a notably tough saloon or bar.

1916		Northwestern Christian Advocate 64 1070: This building was formerly the old Hotel European and saloon, which was known in the days gone by as the ‘blood bucket’ of Chicago. but is now consecrated to God's service.
1966		‘Petronius’ N.Y. Unexp. 144: Keep away from Bowery bars. Slow motion falls and no blows. Some good blood buckets below 14th on Third Ave. and above 85th on Second and Third .
1976		Ebony June 108/3: [pic. caption] McTear likes to shoot pool at a neighborhood center (right). ‘I call it the Blood Bucket,’ says McTear, half in jest.
1984		M. Bane Willie 56: Those [...] ’tonks [...] had names like Blood Bucket and The County Dump [HDAS].
1984		(con. WWII) T. Jones Heart of Oak 215: We called it [i.e. a pub] the ‘Blood Bucket’ because the outside walls of brick were painted bright scarlet, supposedly to hide bloodstains from the frequent fights.
1995		H.L. Richardson Devil’s Eye 210: He was seen drinking pretty heavy at the Lucky Dog Saloon, the town's leading blood-bucket.
2000		R. & L. Williams & J. Clark ‘Bar Band in Hillbilly Heaven’ 🎵 He’d been playing way too long / In a hundred blood bucket dives / He sang a thousand hillbilly songs / For drunk husbands and cheating wives.
2001		Juneau Empire Online (AK) 14 Oct. 🌐 The steering committee borrowed the idea of the coffee house and founded the first Glory Hole in the former Occidental Bar, nicknamed Blood Bucket because of its history of fights.

2. in attrib. uses of sense 1.

1989		Williams & Vinicur Still in Love with You 84: The ‘blood bucket’ circuit of roadside clubs throughout the rural South.
1991		B.F. Berkey Keys to Tulsa 121: He could hang out in a blood-bucket bar while his good buddy Ronnie shot and sold some felony narcotics.
1995		P. Carr Illus. Hist. Country Music 219: Williams was a scarred survivor of southern Alabama’s rowdy, blood-bucket honky tonks.

3. a theatre or cinema that specialises in extreme melodrama.

1941		H.V. Morton (con. 19C) H. V. Morton’s London 403: Regular blood bucket it [i.e. the Old Vic theatre] was in them days. A couple of murders in every act, and dead baronets all over the stage, and the gallery trying to throw things at the villain .
1991		(con. 1910s) R.D. Altick Of a Place and a Time 118: This was Lancaster’s blood bucket, specializing in cheap thrillers and serialized Westerns.

see separate entries.

a hospital.

2000

J.J. Connolly Layer Cake 92: A couple of them went to the blood factory.

the penis.

2000

M. Manning Get Your Cock Out 6: The effete singer [...] pulled her face even further onto his bloodhammer, almost choking her.

(W.I.) the vagina; used as a negative intensifier.

1981

N. Farki Countryman Karl Black 68: ‘Come on, baby. Let’s split this scene. [...] Gal, why the blood-hole you no come on?’ he shouted pulling the woman by the hand.

1. one who perjures themselves for money.

1818		W. Perry London Guide 77: The perpetrators have twice double objects in view, viz. the commision of crime, the detection, the death of the culprit, and the payment for their villainy. Of these we shall hereafter speak, under their [...] most appropriate title of Blood hounds.
1823		‘Jon Bee’ Dict. of the Turf, the Ring, the Chase, etc. 12: Bloodhounds — those who for statutable rewards (now abrogated) or to extort money, accuse wrongfully innocent persons.

2. a policeman.

1818		W. Scott Heart of Mid-Lothian (1883) 347: The bloodhounds of the law were so close after me.
1822		(con. early 17C) W. Scott Fortunes of Nigel III 17: If you would give the blood-hounds the slip, why, you may.
1845		J. Lindridge Sixteen-String Jack 367: Are the bloodhounds of the law again upon my track?
1865		H. Kingsley Hillyars and Burtons (1870) 101: Here were five of these accursed bloodhounds [...] five policemen.
1892		H. Nisbet Bushranger’s Sweetheart 81: Wonderful bloodhounds these detectives are!
1917		‘Henry Handel Richardson’ Aus. Felix (1971) 10: The ‘bloodhounds’ had begun to track their prey.
1925		D. Hammett ‘Dead Yellow Women’ Story Omnibus (1966) 167: If it pleases the Grandfather of Bloodhounds to flatter Chang Li Chang.
1933		M. Marshall Tramp-Royal on the Toby 195: A couple of splits, two blinking bloodhounds of the blooming Law, were hot on my trail!
1949		Monteleone Criminal Sl. (rev. edn) 26: bloodhound A detective.
1956		‘Toney Betts’ Across the Board 64: The TRPB bloodhounds had a suspicion Lamont was a gambler.
1963		A.E. Farrell Vengeance 87: Sergeant Harris and his bloodhound, Charlie Warrior.

1. (Aus./N.Z.) a public house with a reputation for violence.

1900		Newsletter (Sydney) 13 OCt. 11: But one of these men appears to be losing his head, and the miners now call his hotel ‘The Blood House’.
1907		Sun. Times (Perth) 18 Aug. 1/1: The pub of a horse-owning bung could do with more police visits [...] last week blasphemy and bottles new in abundance [and] directly and indirectly this blood-house keeps the P.M. from accumulating cobwebs.
1911		E. Dyson ‘On a Bender’ in Benno and Some of the Push 80: That ginger pot-polisher’s bin through all the blood-’ouses in town.
1953		K. Tennant Joyful Condemned 371: Why, David, you old boob rat! [...] What you doing in this blood-house?
1961		T. Ronan Only a Short Walk 3: Some sort of pub or lodgin’ house – not a silvertail joint, but not a bloodhouse, either.
1977		(con. 1941) R. Beilby Gunner 128: I’ve hauled you out of every boozer and blood house from here to Perth.
1984		V. Darroch On Coast 134: Blood House: One of several public houses of low repute.
1984		P. Corris ‘Marriages Are Made in Heaven’ in Heroin Annie [e-book] ‘There was a pub he used to call his local. [...] The Wattletree, know it?’ ‘I know it. A bloodhouse’.
1991		M.B. ‘Chopper’ Read Chopper From The Inside 26: Back in 1987 Bojangles was the biggest bloodhouse in Melbourne.
2005		J.D. McLaren Not in Tranquility 71: Carmichael’s, a blood house at the river end of town.

2. in ext. use, any very tough place.

2005		M.B. ‘Chopper’ Read Chopper 4 143: I did 10 ½ years in ‘H’ [i.e. the high-security division of Pentridge prison], the so-called blood house of the system.
2006		B. Matthews Intractable [ebook] Grafton continued as the New South Wales bloodhouse for intractable prisoners.
2011		G. Hayward Corruption Officer [ebk] cap. 40: I heard that they jumped him and killed him when he was trying to take over the phones - ya’ know that was a blood house.

(Aus.) nickname for a red-headed man.

1989		R.G. Barrett Boys from Binjiwunyawunya 97: That’s the way we work, bloodnut. If you don’t like it — stiff shit.
1992		M. Coleman Fatty 41: Tradition would dictate it [Vautin’s nickname] should have been Bluey, or Bloodnut or Ginger, but Fred Jones had never been a traditionalist.

a crimson handkerchief, as worn by costermongers.

1839		W.A. Miles Poverty, Mendicity and Crime; Report 115: The new term for handkerchiefs is a Billy, for which pickpockets have peculiar terms known only in the trade. blood red fancy, all red.
1847		G.W.M. Reynolds Mysteries of London III 85/1: Six snooze-cases, three narps, and a blood red fancy .
1857		‘Ducange Anglicus’ Vulgar Tongue.
1864, 1867, 1870		Hotten Sl. Dict.
1873		Sl. Dict.
1882		Sydney Sl. Dict. (2 edn) 1: Blooded [sic] Fancy - Red-silk pocket-handkerchief.
1905		Southern Echo 11 Aug. 2/2: To-day [...] the ‘Blood-red Fancy’ is a red handkerchief.

a cigarette.

1927		(con. WW1) P. MacDonald Patrol 164: ‘I got four blood-spitters an’ ’bout a halfounce o’ twist’.
1937		Blackwood’s Mag. 241 357/2: ‘Have a blood-spitter, sir?’ One of the cavaliers offered me his cigarette case with evident friendliness.

performing cunnilingus on a woman who is menstruating.

1993–2002

Probert Encyc. 🌐 Blood sports is slang for performing cunnilingus on a menstruating woman.

1. a thug, a tough, a street gangster; thus blood-tubism, thuggery.

1858		Glasgow Wkly Times (MO) 29 Apr. 1/6: Roderiego the Blood-Tub is on thy track, beware, beware!
1859		C. Mackay Life & Liberty in America 106: The streets of London where a ‘Plug-ugly,’' a ‘Dead Rabbit,’ or a ‘Blood-tub’ would stand no chance against the police.
1861		‘Song of the Irish Legion’ in Bartlett Dict. Americanisms (1877) 48: Blood-tubs and plug-uglies, and others galore, / Are sick for a thrashing in sweet Baltimore; / Be jabers! That same I’d be proud to inform / Of the terrible force of an Irishman’s arm.
1861		Vanity Fair 4 May 209/2: The five ‘pious’ young humbugs who had the impudence to represent Plug Ugly-ism and Blood Tub-ism the other day,.
1885		H.C. Bradsby Hist. of Bureau Co., Il 341: He who imagines the ‘blood tub’ element has been eliminated from among men can undeceive himself by a little observation.
1886		Jrnl Speculative Philosophy 20 43: He is a rough, a blood-tub, a bummer, and a tough cuss all around.
1897		Executive Documents of the State of Minnesota 174: The best men and women [...] shun the poisonous ‘Billy-the-Blood-Tub’ literature almost everywhere offered for sale].

2. a theatre presenting lurid melodrama; popularized by its use as a nickname for the Coburg Theatre, South London (now The Old Vic), which specialised in such material.

1910		A. Bennett Clayhanger (1925) 155: The Bulgarian Atrocities had served to give new life to all penny gaffs and blood-tubs .
1911		D.H. Lawrence White Peacock (1997) 74: They sat openmouthed in the theatre, gloriously nicknamed the ‘Blood-Tub,’ watching heroes die with much writhing.
1963		Times 25 Apr. 16/2: In its 145 years of life [...] making successive come-backs as a burlesque house, a home of melodrama, a notorious blood-tub, and a centre of moral uplift.
1977		(con. early 20C) B.I. Payne A Life in a Wooden O 102: He was the genial owner of the Queen's Theatre, the blood-tub.
1993		L.S. Clifton (con. mid-19C) Terrible Fitzball 43: The Coburg, known as ‘The Blood Tub’ [...] indicates what type of entertainment appeared the most popular.
1995		(con. 1880) P. Ackroyd Dan Leno and the Limehouse Golem 204: Acting as if he were in a blood tub off the Old Kent Road.

3. in attrib. use of sense 1.

1879		Dodge City Times (KS) 29 Nov. 1/4: There is too much [...] pistol shooting and general blood-tub devilry in Kansas City, [...] the rowdies must be cleared out.
1912		Mount Tom mag. 7 576: All the typographical trappings of a blood-tub dime novel.
1912		Smart Set 37 158/1: One day, in sore straits, he is tempted to write a blood tub melodrama.

4. fig., a dangerous place or situation.

1933

(con. WWI) F. Richards Old Soldiers Never Die (1964) 222: We were [...] getting all the enjoyment we could before going back to the blood-tub [i.e. the front line].

an ambulance; orig. used of an air ambulance.

[1923		(ref. 1919-20) US Naval Medical Bull. 340: The adaptation of the airplane itself to accommodate the ordinary stretcher was carried out during the Somaliland expedition of 1919-20, when a machine, known among the troops as the ‘blood-wagon,’ was altered so as to take one stretcher ].
1937		J.A. Mollison Playboy of the Air 69: The futile hurry of fire engines and the blood wagon, as the ambulance is dubbed.
1943		Hunt & Pringle Service Sl.
1961		(con. WWII) P. Elstob Warriors for Working Day 77: ‘Get the blood wagon over here as quick as you can. Out.’ The ambulance had never been called ‘the blood wagon’ on schemes.
1966		J. Leasor Passport to Peril (1980) 15: I’ll ski on down and fetch the blood wagon. Is he very badly hurt?
1976		P. Scott Division of Spoils 79: Perhaps a couple of the fellows outside will help me get him on to the bed while you ring for the blood-wagon?
1993–2002		Probert Encyc. 🌐 Blood wagon is slang for an ambulance.
2008		R. Bush Heil, Heil Rock ’n’ Roll 195: I think he’s a goner mate; I can’t feel a thing. Where’s the nearest phone, we need a blood wagon here fast.
2012		M. Carter Perfect Mate 44: This was the guy who’d laughed in the blood wagon when Jack's guts were on display.

a sausage, esp. a black pudding.

1859		Hotten Dict. of Modern Sl. etc.
1861		J. Hollingshead Ragged London 19: A place called Sharp’s Alley was once famous for making common sausages of refuse meat, known in the slang of the district as ‘bloodworms’.
1870		Hotten Sl. Dict.
1890–1904		Farmer & Henley Sl. and Its Analogues.
1909		J. Ware Passing Eng. of the Victorian Era 35/2: Bloodworms (London 19 cent.). Sausages in general, but a black pudding of boiled hog’s blood in particular.
2006		Michael Moorcock in Sinclair London: City of Disapearances 183: The New Moon and Stars [...] is notable for its ‘blood worms’ – the black sausages that are still sold, on request.

(US Und.) a ritual phr. meaning that to join a prison or street gang you must kill, and you may leave it (other than finishing your sentence) only by being killed yourself.

1978		Asssoc. Press 1 Jan. [press bulletin] Law officials investigating the case said, ‘It’s a blood in, blood out organization. . . . You've got to spill someone's blood to get in’.
1985		A. Mirandé Chicano Experience 86: There’s no retirement from the Mexican Mafia [...] It’s a blood in, blood out organization.
1988		M. Palmiotto (ed.) Critical Issues in Criminal Investigation 121: The slogan of the gang is ‘Blood in, Blood out’ meaning that a brother must spill someone's blood coming into the Brotherhood and his blood will, in turn, be spilled if he attempts to leave the organization.
1992		Bentley & Corbett Prison Sl. 41: Blood In, Blood Out An expression which means only those who take a life can be a member of a particular gang and the only way to leave the gang is to be killed.
1999		T. Fontana and B. Winters ‘Unnatural Disasters’ Oz ser. 3 ep. 4 [TV script] Blood in blood out, Alvarez. You made a pledge.
1998		DMX ‘Damien’ 🎵 But we gotta stay friends, blood out, blood in.
2000		Texas Lawyer [journal] Gloss. of Texas Prison Sl. 8 Feb. n.p.: Blood-In, Blood-Out – Term for the requirement of performing some task for a gang (such as carrying contraband, hurting or killing someone) to gain admission into the gang, and the requirement to perform a similar act to get out of the gang. A gang member who attempts to get out of the gang without following the blood-out requirement will have a hit placed on him by the gang.
2009		K. Wild Firefight 224: ‘Blood in, blood out.’ [...] It was gang talk. The rules went like this: You had to shed someone else’s blood to get in, but if you wanted to leave, it’d be your own blood you'd be shedding.
2015		P. Beatty Sellout (2016) 13: Blood in, blood out . . . Minuo in, minuo sicco.

see hair of the dog (that bit one) n.

(Aus.) a state of anger, antagonism.

1901		Sydney Sportsman (Surry Hills, NSW) 28 Aug. 1/6: From the word ‘go’ it was obvious that there was ‘blood on the moon’ and [...] feathers began to fly.
1933		S. Walker Night Club Era 24: There was, clearly, blood on the moon. Something ominous was in the air.

see bottling adj.

1. (US Und.) tomato ketchup.

1949

Monteleone Criminal Sl. (rev. edn).

2. see bloody bucket under bloody adj.

to be in a furious temper.

1976

R. Price Blood Brothers 240: I was so fuckin’ pissed I was spittin’ blood.

1. to work very hard.

1911		G. Stratton-Porter Harvester (2015) 405: He just sweat blood to pacify her, but he couldn’t make it .
1978		R. Charles Brother Ray 265: A dollar means a hell of a lot more when you got to sweat a little blood for it.

2. to be terrified.

1924		D.H. Lawrence in Magnus Memoirs Foreign Legion 53: I sweat blood every time anybody comes through the door .
1948		N. Mailer Naked and Dead 293: There was a couple of days [...] I was sweating blood.

(US) a condition of listlessness.

2003

Atlanta Journal-Constitution 23 Sept. 🌐 Thanks to advertisements for the once-popular tonic Geritol, most people of a certain age know about ‘tired blood,’ a disorder more accurately called anemia, involving a shortage of healthy red blood cells to carry oxygen to body tissues and cleanse them of carbon dioxide.

see bloody bucket under bloody adj.

see separate entry.

(US) a mild excl.

1846

D. Corcoran Pickings from N.O. Picayune 200: O, blud-in-ages but it’s yoursel’ is the fine armful.

see my bloody oath! under my oath! excl.

a street challenge, albeit usu. jocular, i.e. ‘will you fight or buy a round?’.

1894		Dorking & Leatherhead Advertiser 10 May 3/4: Let ’em march through the streets yelin’ ‘Beer or Blood!’ an’ we’d all join in.
1909		J. Ware Passing Eng. of the Victorian Era.