Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(N.Z. prison) an inmate considered, through their apparent mental instability, very low in the prison hierarchy [they are ‘not all there’].

2001

D. Looser Boobslang [U. Canterbury D.Phil. thesis] 187/2: <b>ten-centern. a person deemed wholly unworthy to associate with, as his character and behaviour are so repugnant, crazy or dangerous that he borders on mental instability.

see ten and two

(N.Z. prison) to beat up skinheads.

2001

D. Looser Boobslang [U. Canterbury D.Phil. thesis] 188/1: go ten skin bowling n. to beat up skinheads.

(US Und.) a prostitute’s charge: $10 for herself plus $2 for a hotel room.

1981		(con. 1945) E. Bunker Little Boy Blue (1995) 217: She’s ten and two, ten for her and two for the room.
1989		A. Vachss Hard Candy (1990) 109: You wanna have a party, honey? [...] Ten and two, baby. I french, I do it all.
1991		W.T. Vollmann Whores for Gloria 140: Ten/two – Old term for in a trick pad.

(Aus.) 10 x 50 strength binoculars.

1983		J. Byrell (con. 1959) Up the Cross 31: [E]xpensive looking Jap ten-fifties hanging round his neck.
1996		J. Byrell Lairs, Urgers & Coat-Tuggers xii: With my trusty ten-fifties I’ve looked at millions of faces [ibid.] 70: This’ll do, thought Big Oscar peering through his ten-fifties.

a usurer; also attrib.

1592		Greene Quip for an Upstart Courtier G: When the poore gentleman came to sell againe, he could not make threescore and ten in the hundred beside the usurie.
1618		Epitaph for J. Combe (a Notable Usurer) in R. Brathwait Remains after Death ad fin: Ten in the hundred must lie in his graue, /But a hundred to ten whether God will him haue?
1648		R. Herrick ‘Upon Snare, an Usurer’ Hesperides 257: Snare ten i’ th’ hundred calls his wife, and why? / Shee brings in much, by carnall usury.
1700		T. Brown Amusements Serious and Comical in Works (1744) III 65: Old ten in the hundred fathers damning themselves to raise their posterities.
1731		Beau’s Misc. 55: Here lies ten in the Hundred in the Ground Fast-ram’d, ’Tis a hundred to Ten, if he is not damn’d.
1785, 1788, 1796		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue n.p.: ten in the hundred an usurer, more than five in the hundred, being deemed usurious interest.
1811		Lex. Balatronicum.
1822		R. Nares Gloss. (1888) II 871: ten in the hundred, i.e. ten per cent. A current name for a usurer, from their commonly exacting such interest for their money, before the legal limitation to five.

(N.Z. prison) to murder an indiviual then completely dispose of their body.

2001

D. Looser Boobslang [U. Canterbury D.Phil. thesis] 188/1: ten pin alley v. to kill a person and dispose of his body completely (e.g. dissolve it in acid).

a London prostitute.

1984

Partridge DSUE (8th edn) 1213: [...] since ca. 1930.

(Aus.) the regular weekly ration of food, as issued to hands on a rural property.

1862		Golden Age (Queenbeyan, NSW) 14 Aug. 3/3: [H]e dispenses weekly rations, or as it is sometimes beautifully expressed ‘whacks out the ten, ten, two and a quarter’.
1885		Bulletin (Sydney) 15 Aug. 14/2: What scorn of the old ‘ten, twelve, two, and a quarter of beef, flour, and sugar, and tea’ that was served out on Monday mornings when the ‘drum’ was dumped down and the week’s monkey-shearing commenced!
1898		H.P. Whitmarsh World’s Rough Hand 33: The boundary rider’s weekly ration is ‘ten, ten, two, and a quarter,’ which, being interpreted, means ten pounds of mutton, ten pounds of flour, two pounds of sugar, and one quarter of a pound of tea.
1900–10		Stephens & O’Brien Materials for a Dict. of Aus. Sl. [unpub. ms.] 156: TEN, TWELVE, TWO AND A QUARTER: this is an old formula for a man’s rations on farms or stations – ten pounds of flour, twelve pounds of meat, two pounds of sugar, and a quarter-pound of tea, and nothing else.
1903		Bulletin (Sydney) 30 July 36/2: It never occurs to him that man cannot live on ‘ten, ten, two and a quarter’ alone; that an occasional spree is as necessary to his existence as a holiday to the well-being of any hard-working citizen.
1910		Bulletin (Sydney) 22 Dec. 13/3: On several stations upon which writer grafted and otherwise worked we were allowed a fairly liberal scale of rations. Not the old ‘10, eight, two and a quarter’; but a bit over and ‘extras.’.

(US) $100.

1848

‘Ned Buntline’ Mysteries and Miseries of N.Y. I 37: Got a clear ten times ten out of him.

(US) a cheap theatre, also attrib.

1897		Medical Mirror 8 83/2: I took my ten year old partner to the ‘ten, twenty, thirty theatre’ the other night .
1905		F. Hutchison Philosophy of Johnny the Gent 45: They wouldn't pay no attention to one o’ them ten-twenty-thirty troupers even if he had a smallpox sign hung on him!
1906		Nassau Herald (Princeton) 42: The ten-twenty-thirty theatre of the town where a high-class vaudeville show was in progress.
1908		T.A. Dorgan in Zwilling TAD Lex. (1993) 82: Billy Papke is killing the country sherrif every night in Frisco at the ten twenty, and thirty joints.
1913		McBride’s Mag. 92 766: Speculating about the new bills of the moving-picture shows and the ten-twenty-thirty theatre.
1928		Chicago Trib. 9 July 10/4: Dick Ferris’ Comedians was one of the leading ten-twenty-thirty cent shows touring the middle west [DA].
1939		S. Leacock Too Much College 125: Those of us who have read crime stories for twenty or thirty years have got in our minds a collection of scenes like what they call the ‘sets’ in a ten- twenty-thirty theatre.
1949		Chicago Trib. 26 Nov. 10/3: If I drop dead from overwork, it will not be inside a 10-20-30 vaudeville theater [DA].
1961		J. Lovell Digests of Great Amer. Plays 132: The Ten-Twenty-Thirty Theatre, which this play epitomizes, took its name from its comfortable admission prices 10¢, 20¢, 30¢ and its catering to the tastes of those who could not afford higher price.