Green’s Dictionary of Slang

see separate entries.

1. (Aus.) an item of crockery or cutlery laid out on the table but still unused.

1976

in Aus. Pocket Oxon. Dict.

2. see sunshine n. (3)

see separate entries.

(Aus./US) one who loiters around in the hope of hand-outs, which will save them from having to earn a living.

1915		T.A. Dorgan Indoor Sports 16 July [synd. cartoon] I’ll be back about midnight. I’, going to meet some sun dodgers at a tango palace.
1915		T.A. Dorgan in Zwilling TAD Lex. (1993) 80: {Men in a bar:} Sun dodgers and ale hounds.
1949		Monteleone Criminal Sl. (rev. edn) 230: sun dodger A night pleasure seeker.

see separate entries.

(N.Z. prison) one who has a pair of black eyes.

2001

D. Looser Boobslang [U. Canterbury D.Phil. thesis] 181/2: sunglasses n. an inmate with two black eyes.

(US Und.) to jail a tramp overnight, prior to expelling him from town in the morning.

1949

Monteleone Criminal Sl. (rev. edn).

see shade n.¹ (7)

see separate entry.

sunglasses.

2002

Guardian 20 July 🌐 The ultimate in minimalist eye protection, these sporty-looking sunspecs have ultra-light rimless wraparound frames.

1. (US) shorts.

1968

in J.P. Spradley You Owe Yourself a Drunk (1988) 229: I put on a T-shirt and suntans.

2. a military tan shirt.

1963

M. Braly Shake Him Till He Rattles (2005) 121: He wore a white turtle-neck sweater instead of his usual suntans.

(US Black) the hours of daylight, a day.

1938		Pittsburgh Courier (PA) 5 Mar. 11/1: Velma Middleton definitely left her musician hubby the other sun-time.
1940		Pittsburgh Courier (PA) 17 Feb. 7/1: Firemen [...] raced to his apartment to douse a fire the other sun-time.
1950		Pittsburgh Courier (PA) 18 Mar. 20/1: Ann Porter [...] strolling along B’way the other sun time.

(US black) an African-American.

1936

D. Burley in Chicago Defender 4 Apr. 8: White people like to match up sun-stints and expect affairs where none may ever take place.

(US Black) the hours of daylight, a day.

1935

Ted Yates This Is New York 3 May [synd. col.] Dick Drewery was seen with a cutie the other sun-up.

to be drunk.

1785		Grose Classical Dict. Vulgar Tongue n.p.: To have been in the sun, said of one that is drunk.
1796		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.
1804		C.L. Lewes Comic Sketches 26: While others would say he had, ‘Bung’d his eye — Was knocked up — How came ye so — Had got his little hat on — Top-Heavy — Pot- Valiant — That he had been in the sun — That he was in for it’.
1811		Lex. Balatronicum [as cit. 1785].
1823		Egan Grose’s Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue [as cit. 1785].
1841		Dickens Old Curiosity Shop (1999) 22: Last night he had had ‘the sun very strong in his eyes’; by which expression he was understood to convey [...] that he had been extremely drunk.
1857		‘George Eliot’ Janet’s Repentance i n.p.: He was in that condition which his groom indicated with poetic ambiguity by saying that ‘master had been in the sunshine’ [F&H].
1864, 1867, 1870		Hotten Sl. Dict.
1897		Marshall Pomes 75: She was thick in the clear, fairly sosselled on beer – In the sun is poetical license [F&H].
1984		Partridge DSUE (8th edn) 1176/1: to be drunk [...] have been standing too long in the sun (–1874).