-spot sfx
1. (orig. US) a term of imprisonment, usu. one year; thus usu. preceded by the number of years.
![[US]](/static/img/flags/us.png "United States") | Prison Gates Ajar 8: I was again settled for a ‘four-spot,’ (four months). | |
| Road 84: He had never been in the particular penitentiary to which we were going, but he had done ‘one- . . . two-,’ and ‘five-spots’ in various other penitentiaries (a ‘spot’ is a year), and he was filled with wisdom. | |
| Prison Memoirs of an Anarchist (1926) 131: He’s got a twenty-one spot. | |
| My Life out of Prison 236: It beat that twenty-five spot I did back in Sing Sing all holler. | |
| ‘I’ll Be Waiting’ in Red Wind (1946) 132: He did a three-spot for manslaughter. | |
| Cool Hand Luke (1967) 86: Doing a three-spot for stealing a cow. | |
![[NZ]](/static/img/flags/nz.png "New Zealand") | Big Huey 62: He was just an old junkie, he said, doing a three-spot for trying to make a buck. |
2. a dollar, a pound, as a denomination of a note; in combs. below; note also spot n.2
| Whip & Satirist of NY & Brooklyn (NY) 22 Oct. n.p.: [M]onkey-jacket Simon [...] says he will give another ‘fifty-spot’ to any one who will tell him [etc]. | |
| Six Days in the Metropolis 15: He takes the loss of a fifty spot very coolly. | |
 | Ballou’s Mag. Nov. 398/1: He pulled out a fifty spot, the largest bill he had, and offered to bet that on the game [DA]. | |
| Straight Dope [ebook] [T]hat’s another forty-spot on top of the five hundred I’ve already seen. |
In phrases
1. (also V-spot) a $5 or £5 note.
| Stories of Chinatown 63: Strike me blind, but it’s a five-spot. | |
| Down the Line 15: Me with nothing but a five-spot in my jeans. | |
| You Know Me Al (1984) 39: I only got about ten left including the five spot I won in the poker game. | |
| Black Mask Aug. III 19: I [...] shot each of the colored boys a five-spot. | |
| Dict. Amer. Sl. 58: V or V spot. A five dollar bill. | |
| What’s In It For Me? 261: I’ll slip you another five spot. | |
| Sexus (1969) 47: If there were a five-spot left over I’d probably go to the dance hall. | |
| On The Road (1972) 236: I saw him wish a well-to-do man Merry Christmas so volubly a five-spot in change for twenty was never missed. | |
| Get Your Ass in the Water (1974) 81: They walks off two tens and a five-spot richer, / Well I got the whore pimpin’ for me. | |
| Brown’s Requiem 38: I took a five spot out of my wallet and laid it on the bar. | |
| (con. 1986) Sweet Forever 88: He had given Anthony a five-spot for sweeping the place out. | |
| Tattoo of a Naked Lady 11: I plucked a five-spot from my wallet and waved it like a flag of surrender. | |
![[Scot]](/static/img/flags/sco.png "Scotland") | (con. 1980s) Skagboys 142: He pills a five spot oot ay his poakit. | |
| ‘Sounding’ in ThugLit Mar. [ebook] I [...] slipped him a five-spot for his trouble. | |
| Widespread Panic 52: I fobbed them off with a five-spot apiece. |
2. (US) a five-year prison sentence.
| World of Graft 97: I got a five spot up in Connecticut. | |
| My Life out of Prison 298: They’ll probably let him off with a five-spot if he pleads guilty. | |
| Keys to Crookdom 418: A term in prison – five spot means five years. | |
| Und. and Prison Sl. | |
| Criminal Sl. (rev. edn). | |
| Long Good-Bye 54: Section Thirty-two. Accessory after the fact. A felony. It rates up to a five spot in Quentin. | |
| Thief’s Primer 135: I’ll take a five-spot and go on down. |
3. (US) a five-dollar gold piece.
| ‘Won Off the Diamond’ in Lucky Seventh (2004) 278: ‘I’ll write the date of the five-dollar gold piece on a piece of paper [...] and the man it’s found on – ’ [...] ‘Some one might happen to have a five-spot of the same date.’. |
4. (N.Z.) NZ$500.
| Big Huey 144: A convicted heroin dealer and I’m sprung with nearly five spot in cash and a hypodermic syringe. |
1. (US) a $1 bill.
| Tales of the Ex-Tanks 81: I was slowly stripping bills from that little bundle of one-spots. | |
| Sun (NY) 9 Sept. 3/2: [I] dig up three one spots to nudge through the main gate. | |
| Tattoo of a Naked Lady 39: He peeled off a one-spot. |
2. (US Und., also one-spot sleep) a one-year prison sentence.
| Amer. Tramp and Und. Sl. 179: SPOT.–A term in prison, more definitely as ‘a one spot,’ one year, etc. | |
| Criminal Sl. (rev. edn) 168: one spot [...] one spot sleep A one year sentence. |
3. (Aus. drugs) A$100 worth of heroin.
![[Aus]](/static/img/flags/aus.png "Australia") | Candy 90: He looked at me and raised his eyebrows in a question. ‘A one-spot,’ I murmured. |
1. (US) a $10 bill or £10 note.
| Stray Subjects (1848) 165: It was worth a ten-spot to see the cuss weep. | |
| Harper’s Mag. Sept. 568/2: I’ll take that ten spot, if you please [DA]. | |
| Tales of the Ex-Tanks 137: Two days’ meals and a ten-spot in sight. | |
| Shorty McCabe 170: I’d passed him a ten-spot, and he’d bowed and scraped. | |
| God’s Man 73: I showed him a ten-spot. | |
| Chicago May (1929) 288: He must have been robbed before, by some Bolshevik, for I only pulled a couple of dirty ten-spots out of him. | |
| Gangster Girl 128: [He] elbowed aside the shyster and tossed the fawning clerk a ten-spot as he strode out. | |
| Never Come Morning (1988) 5: He learned that a boy [...] could bring an occasional ten-spot home. | |
| One Lonely Night 69: The waiter [...] took away a ten-spot for his trouble. | |
| America’s Homosexual Underground 71: Now here’s a ten spot, just to show you I’m on the level. | |
| (con. 1940s) Tattoo (1977) 22: Two dollars, sometimes three [...] But once there had been an amazing ten spot. | |
| Christine 33: ‘Here,’ he said, holding out a ten-spot. | |
| Homeboy 63: A tenspot was his toll, more than twice the going rate. | |
| Trainspotting 121: The double ten-spot feels good in ma poakit. | |
![[UK]](/static/img/flags/uk.png "United Kingdom") | Grits 30: Sub us a ten-spot then, mun. | |
| Skinny Dip 153: If Tool had been carrying even a ten spot [etc.]. | |
| All the Colours 74: The money poured in: loose change, folded fivers and ten-spots. | |
| ‘Zed’s Dead, Baby’ in Pulp Ink [ebook] Not that it would take much more than a ten-spot to shut up some of the citizens I’d been talking to. | |
| (con. 1962) Enchanters 282: I’m the chump detective. I dispense ten-spots. |
2. (US campus, also ten-strike) a perfect recitation [f. sense 1, but also the idea of ten out of ten].
| ‘College Words and Phrases’ in DN II:i 66: ten-spot, n. A perfect recitation. [...] ten-strike, n. A perfect recitation. |
3. (US prison) a ten-year prison sentence.
| Salt Lake Herald (UT) 19 Oct. 5/1: A ten-spot in the bandhouse from the beak when the worst should have been a jacket (an order to leave town). | |
| White Slavery 70: Can you imagine some poor ignorant ‘stiff’ going out and ‘prowling’ some house, takin’ a chance on gettin’ his ‘roof blowed off,’ or gettin’ ‘slowed’ and ‘slammed’ in the stir for a ‘ten spot’. | |
| ‘Canada Kid’ in Beef, Iron and Wine (1917) 154: I gets away wit’ the work for a while an’ then Kelly and Kiernan jobs me an’ I go down for a ten-spot, outta which I done six honest years in the big house. | |
| ‘Facing the Mob’ in Gangland Stories Feb. 🌐 Smooth, before going to Ossining for a ten spot jolt, [etc.]. | |
| Criminal Sl. (rev. edn). | |
| In For Life 165: A fish [...] who was kicking a ten-spot for burglary. | |
| Get Your Ass in the Water (1974) 141: Now New York give my girl a ten-spot and the matron led her by her hand, / just thinkin’ of ten long years in prison just for breakin’ the laws of man. | |
| Night People 159: This swindle landed Wes a ten spot at the Atchafalaya Correctional Facility. | |
| Bad Boy Boogie [ebook] ‘I did a ten-spot up in Ossining’. |
a £20 note or $20 bill.
| Flash (NY) 23 June n.p.: If you don’t do it soon, we will [...] offer that 20 spot to the informer. | |
| Sharps and Flats; or, The Perils of City Life 47/2: Dick, I’ll give the fifty, and you a twenty spot, if you will put it down to me. | |
| Observer Rev. 3 Oct. 5: I bet a 20-spot. | |
| Stalker (2001) 359: You wanna loan me a twenty spot, aqua boy? |
1. (US) a $2 bill.
| N.E. Police Gaz. (Boston, MA) 5 Oct. 7/3: Old Begg [...] has five or six fancy boarders. Call in, boys. Price, only a two spot. | |
| Tales of the Ex-Tanks 246: A two-spot’ll be enough. | |
| Roads of Destiny 305: We get the heelers out with crackly two-spots, and coal-tickets. | |
| ‘Three Without, Doubled’ in Gullible’s Travels 235: I noticed some o’ the other men was slippin’ her their ante; so I parted with a two-spot. | |
| New York Day by Day 25 Sept. [synd. col.] It is told of one producer who wanted to rid his cast of a comedian, and paid him in two-spots. | |
| ‘Sl. Terms for Money’ in AS IV:5 358: A two-dollar bill is a two-spot. | |
| Criminal Sl. (rev. edn). |
2. any low-value playing card.
| Narragansett Historical Register III 213: We were shown a play-card, the two-spot of clubs [DA]. | |
| Don Balasco vii: Señor Balasco builds up in his vivid imagination a palace of cards that will some day fall down and crush him as fatally as if each two-spot were a great marble column [DA]. | |
| ‘The New Fable of the Private Agitator’ in Ade’s Fables 12: Anybody with less than a Million is a Two-Spot in a soiled Deck. | |
| ‘Crapshooters’ in Smoke and Steel 34: We are all bones the High Thrower rolled: some are two spots, some double sixes. | |
| ‘The Stew-Bum’ in Hobo’s Hornbook 137: Just driftin’ on the sea of life, a two-spot in the deck. |
3. thus in fig. use, an insignificant person.
| Artie 50: You’re nothin’ but a two-spot. | |
| Billy Baxter’s Letters 18: I cried so hard that the bartender had to ask me to stop three different times. I made Niobe look like a two spot. | |
| Sun (NY) 10 May 8/2: Another type of two-spot is the goop who is always shouldering around tell everybody he gave the house thunder for doing this or that. | |
| Sudden 171: Yu won’t be no more’n a two-spot when it comes to a show-down. |
4. (US prison/Und., also two-spotter) a two-year sentence.
| World of Graft 184: Well, they convicted me at last and I got a two-spot. | |
| Green Ice (1988) 13: She’s only the gal I did the two-spot for. | |
| Criminal Sl. (rev. edn). | |
| Prison Sl. 19: Deuce A two-year prison sentence. (Archaic: two spaces, twospotter). |
5. (Aus. Und.) A$200.
| Bulletin (Sydney) 26 Apr. 44: When I got buckled they asked for two spot for the no-bake, but I put ’em on the arse bit for being big askers. | |
| Big Huey 19: I said OK, they could have it for twelve hundred. I was still scoring for a grand so it seemed like an easy two-spot. | |
| Mystery Bay Blues 21: Pulverising me might be good [...] but it’s not getting you your two-spot back. |
6. (Aus. drugs) A$200 worth of heroin.
| Candy 55: I got a two-spot off Ellie May. |
SE in slang uses
In phrases
(US) a nonentity.
| Checkers 107: He never in his life ran across two pretty girls that trotted together. If one of ’em was a queen, her partner was safe to be about a nine-spot. | |
| Sporting Times 25 Feb. 1/4: He was a nine-spot, now he’s a two. |