Green’s Dictionary of Slang

the penis.

1997

Roger’s Profanisaurus in Viz 87 Dec. n.p.: bacon bazooka euph. Penis; pork sword; the pink oboe (qv).

see separate entry.

stupid.

1855		Knickerbocker Gallery 401: [T]he ‘bacon-brained’ boors of the middle ages.
1997		P. Wrede Magician’s Ward : Well, of all the bacon-brained, sapskulled, squirish, buffle-headed nodcocks!
2022		Twitter 27 Apr. 🌐 ‘[B]acon-brained’ is a new one on me.

fat-faced, heavily jowled; thus bacon-face n., a term of abuse.

1600		J. Day Blind Beggar of Bednall-Green Act II: I’de hang this bacon-fac’d slave orethwart his shanks.
c.1605		Middleton More Dissemblers Besides Women IV ii: Faith, then there’s a company of bacon-faces.
a.1661		‘Saint George and the Dragon’ in Rump Poems and Songs (1662) II 181: And take in that Bull-headed, splay-footed Member of Circumcision, / You Bacon-fac’d Jew, Corbet: that Son of Perdition.
1721		Penkethman’s Jests 94: A strammelling two-handed Harlot, Grenadier-height, and limb’d like a Bacon-fac’d Dutchman.
1785, 1788, 1796		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.
1795		Sporting Mag. Aug. VI 269/2: ‘What have you got to say, old Bacon-face?’ said a counsellor to a farmer.
1809		G. Andrewes Dict. Sl. and Cant.
1811		Lex. Balatronicum.
1821		W.T. Moncrieff Tom and Jerry II ii: But good night, for I suppose as how you won’t stand a drop o’ nothing, old Bacon-face?
1823		‘Jon Bee’ Dict. of the Turf, the Ring, the Chase, etc. 5: Bacon face — fat chops, full and brawney.
1836		H.M. Milner Turpin’s Ride to York II vi: He, he – I were thinking that my bacon face and thy calf’s head would make a capital dish.
1840		A.A. Park Book of Jests 11: ‘What have you got to say old Bacon-face?’ [...] ‘Why,’ answered the farmer, ‘I am thinking my bacon-face and your calf’s-head would make a very good dish!’.
1848		Flash Dict. in Sinks of London Laid Open.
c.1850		Duncombe New and Improved Flash Dict.
1855		Bell’s Life in Sydney 3 Feb. 3/3: The professional skill of a Peggy-bacon-faced sort of old woman.
1876		C. Hindley Life and Adventures of a Cheap Jack 24: What do you say, old Bacon-face, that I never got it?

fat, greasy.

c.1597		Shakespeare Henry IV Pt 1 II ii: Ah! whoreson caterpillars! bacon-fed knaves!
1785, 1788, 1796		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.
1811		Lex. Balatronicum.
1823		Egan Grose’s Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.
1830		W.H. Williams Wreck I iii: You bacon-fed four-foot-and-a half of farmhouse stupidity.

the mouth.

1984

Partridge DSUE (8th edn) 38/2: since ca. 1940.

a glutton.

1653

Urquhart (trans.) Gargantua and Pantagruel (1927) I Bk I xxxvi: A certaine gulligut friar and true bacon-picker.

the vagina; one of a number of terms that equate the vagina with raw meat.

2003

UrbanDictionary.com 🌐 bacon sandwich. female genitalia.

a rustic, a yokel.

1653

Urquhart (trans.) Gargantua and Pantagruel (1927) I Bk I [note]: Bacon-slicer is as much as to say, a worthless fellow, though strictly a braggadochio, a vapourer, a beater of a fast-tied cow, a breaker-down of open doors.

the labia majora.

1999

Roger’s Profanisaurus 3 in Viz 98 Oct. 3: bacon stripsn. Female external genitalia, presumably with the word ‘danish’ printed on in blue ink; a ragman’s coat (qv).

see as useful/useless as a pork chop at a Jewish wedding under pork chop at a Jewish wedding phr.

to take off one’s clothes.

1812

Spirit of Irish Wit 102: Peeling or blanching his bacon, meant stripping naked.

to deliver whatever is requested and required.

1906		Santa Fe Employees Mag. 354: Dykes says next time he will use his dark ball, which they can’t see, and will bring home the bacon.
1909		T.A. Dorgan in Zwilling TAD Lex. (1993) 15: He will have to go a long way to land him, but he’ll bring home the bacon as sure as you’re wearing a hat.
1912		Bulletin (Sydney) 11 July 26/1: Thousands of people trained from all parts of the United States to New Mexico, in the cheerful hope that the fireman might by one lucky wallop transfer the bacon from the camp of the black race to that of the white.
1917		A. Conan Doyle His Last Bow in Baring-Gould (1968) II 796: The man waved a small brown-paper parcel triumphantly above his head. ‘You can give me the glad hand to-night, mister,’ he cried. ‘I’m bringin’ home the bacon at last.’.
1924		C.S. Montanye ‘The Dizzy Dumb-Bell’ in Top Notch 1 Aug. 🌐 He’s an egg that’s brought home the bacon!
1934		Wodehouse Right Ho, Jeeves 76: It cannot fail to bring home the gravy.
1937		J. Curtis There Ain’t No Justice 46: I know big blokes, real gamblers. Blokes what’ll speculate a thousand pound on a good chance and you can meet ’em, see. Just so long as you bring home the bacon.
1948		C. Day Lewis Otterbury Incident 89: Johnny Sharp stopped me and said, ‘Brought home the bacon?’.
1958		Murtagh & Harris Cast the First Stone 163: She does her job, which is to keep our home running smoothly, and I do mine of bringing home the bacon.
1967		I. Rosenthal Sheeper 118: Tall Gary Cooper dikes are comely and well hung. I wish I had a tall G.C. dike to bring home the bacon. Yummy.
1983		J. Ciardi A Second Browser’s Dict. 13: Bring home the bacon [...] 2. To succeed. To triumph.
1996		J. Tapp in J. Byrell Lairs, Urgers & Coat-Tuggers xii: [T]he kind of unbridled happiness you’ll get only on the faces of battling owners whose dreams have all just come true inside of the minute or so it took for their neddy to bring home the bacon.
2018		G. Disher Kill Shot [ebook] ‘Lazar’s business is failing [...] it isn’t bringing in the bacon’.

(US) to ruin, to cause difficulties or unhappiness for someone else.

1868		‘Richard the Third’ in Rootle-Tum Songster 50: De Duck of Buckingham am taken, / Quickly let us cook his bacon.
1909		R. Service ‘The Black Sheep’ in Ballads of a Cheechako 101: But the one that cooked my bacon was Grubbe, of the City Patrol.

the gesture of ‘thumbing one’s nose’; thus make/pull long bacon.

1933		M. Edgar ‘Three Ha’pence a Foot’ 🎵 But neither would budge in the bargain; / When whole daft thing were kind of a jam, / So Sam put ’is tongue out at Noah, / And Noah made ‘Long Bacon’ at Sam.
1984		Partridge DSUE (8th edn) 932/1: pull long bacon. To ‘cock snooks’.
1998		Nelson Almanac 163/1: The Austrians [...] teased their victors with the news, as did prisoners of war in France, who made long bacon at their captors.
2000		R. Giedroyc PCGS (Collectors Universe mag.) 🌐 How many collectors with some experience in the hobby have encountered coins that [...] are down right counterfeits, only to have the guy selling them make long bacon at you when you try to explain to him there is a serious problem with his wares.

1. (Irish) to guarantee.

1922

Joyce Ulysses 169: – He doesn’t buy cream on the ads he picks up. You can make bacon on that.

2. (US) to have sexual intercourse [the first recorded ‘citation’ (HDAS) in 1973 is of a T-shirt picturing copulating pigs, captioned ‘Making Bacon’, but note pork v. (2); pork sword under pork n. etc].

1973		oral testimony in Lighter HDAS I.
1992		Simpsons [Fox-TV] She liked makin’ bacon on the beach [HDAS].

to thumb one’s nose.

1886		Household Words 2 Oct. 453: [This] peculiar action has, I believe, almost invariably been described as taking a sight. A solicitor, however, in a recent police case at Manchester, described it as pulling bacon [F&H].
1895		J. Caminada Twenty-Five Years of Detective Life I 369: Showing me bacon, they placed themselves in all kinds of ignoble attitudes.
1940		M. Marples Public School Slang 163: To cock (1702) or more usually today to pull a snook ( =nose), to make a gesture of derision by applying the thumb to the nose and extending the fingers [...] known also ( [...] as taking a sight, working the coffee-mill, taking a grinder, pulling bacon, making a long nose and making Queen Anne’s fan.
1963		W.H. Canaway My Feet upon a Rock 197: ‘He did it as you might put your fingers to your nose and pull bacon.’ ‘Pull bacon?’ said the magistrate. ‘Oh, I see. What a revolting expression!’.
2003		Armstrong & Wagner Field Guide to Gestures 132: Some of its most common English monikers are cock a snook [...] make a long nose, take a sight, Queen Anne's fan, Japanese fan, Spanish fan, pull bacon, coffee-mill, and the five-fingered salute.

to have sexual intercourse.

1890–1904		Farmer & Henley Sl. and Its Analogues.
1896		Farmer Vocabula Amatoria (1966) 172: Larder. To copulate; ‘to rub bacons’.
1971		L. Sanders Pleasures of Helen 83: ‘I think you love me’ ‘Do you?’ ‘You wouldn’t rub the bacon with me if you didn’t’.

to escape safely from a place or situation; thus anton. lose one’s bacon, to fail to escape safely.

1654		T. Ireland Momus Elenticus 5: Some fellowes there [...] To save their bacon penn’d many a smooth song .
1680		M. Stevenson Wits Paraphras’d 79: If you shou’d on nice scruples reckon, / I’ll find a way to save your Bacon.
1694		Motteux (trans.) Rabelais V iv: Your gaol-birds, who [...] warily scour off and come here to save their bacon.
1703		Hell Upon Earth 10: Such as can read [...] are forc’d (upon the account of clearing the land of Villains) to save their Bacon by Lifting too.
1705–7		N. Ward Hudibras Redivivus I:2 21: Before, a Man may be mistaken, / And ’stead of saving, lose his Bacon.
1719		in D’Urfey Pills to Purge Melancholy I 161: Then whilst my Capital’s my own, / I’ll make Peace, and save my Bacon.
1737		Bailey Universal Etym. Eng. Dict. II n.p.: bacon, the Prize, or whatever kind which Robbers make in their Enterprizes. He has saved his Bacon; i.e. He has himself escaped with the Prize, whence it is commonly used for any narrow Escape.
1741		in H. Walpole ballad Letters I (1891) 86: ‘O, ho!’ says Nol Bluff, ‘I have saved my own bacon.’.
a.1749		Robertson of Struan ‘The Careless Good-Fellow’ Poems (1752) 238: Let the poor Herd of German Princes / Their Bacon save.
1779		in F. Moore Songs and Ballads of the Amer. Revolution (1855) 276: We found ourselves mistaken, / And were glad to save our bacon.
1787		Hereford Jrnl 16 Aug. 4/2: I must here meet my grave. / For my bacon I fancy I never shall save.
1803		‘A Pembrochian’ Ode to the unambitious & undistinguished Bachelors’ Gradus ad Cantabrigiam 97: I fear, full many of you must confess, / That ye have barely sav’d your bacon.
1827		Southern Reporter (Cork) 14 Apr. 4/1: We [...] contriv’d to save our bacon.
1829		‘Lag’s Lament’ (trans. of an untitled cant poem) in Vidocq Memoirs (1829) IV 265: ‘Stop thief’ vas the cry, and she vas taken, / I cuts and runs and saves my bacon.
1830		W.T. Moncrieff Heart of London II i: Hasn’t been able to save his bacon for all that.
1837		A. Greene Glance at N.Y. I iv: Ha! ha! ha! we escaped just in time to save our bacon!
1841		‘The New Policemen Of Dublin’ Dublin Comic Songster 51: For nought on earth will save your bacon.
1841		Flash (NY) 26 Sept. n.p.: His wit did not save his bacon.
1849		Bell’s Life in Sydney 6 Jan. 2/4: The pig het my greens and now I’ve cooked his tater and you’ll be hoff too Murphy if you want to save your bacon.
1850		F.E. Smedley Frank Fairlegh (1878) 130: Well, I thought it was to be a regular case of Herod, and that there would be at least half-a-dozen of them spifflicated, but they all managed to save their bacon.
1854		Delhi Sketch Bk 1 Apr. 39/2: And now to save my bacon, I some bouncing fib must tell!
1859		Wkly Varieties (Boston, MA) 3 Sept. 7/1: Prayers won’t save his foul bacon.
1860		Bell’s Life in Sydney 9 June 3/3: Jack, to ‘save his bacon,’ dropped the pork .
1862		E. de la Bédollière Londres et les Anglais 312/2: bacon, [...] D’un voleur qui a évité les poursuites, on dit : He has saved his bacon (il a sauvé son lard), pour dire : il s’est sauvé.
1872		Schele De Vere Americanisms 630: Save one’s bacon, to, a slang phrase very frequently heard in spite of its objectionable character — for bacon does not mean smoked meat in this case — suggests a lucky escape from danger.
1877		H. Hartigan Stray Leaves (1st ser.) 131: There are many men yet alive [...] whose ‘bacon has been saved’ by the old fellow.
1881		Bulletin (Sydney) 26 Mar. 9/3: We’re afraid that your offer your bacon won’t save, / It is really, dear David, too thin!
1884		M.V. Fuller Mrs Rasher’s Curtain Lectures 94: I tried hard, but I couldn’t ‘save my bacon’.
1899		C.J.C. Hyne Further Adventures of Captain Kettle 287: By Jove! Skipper, we’ve saved our bacon.
1901		E.W. Hornung Black Mask (1992) 142: You’ve saved your bacon.
1910		P.W. Joyce Eng. As We Speak It In Ireland.
1911		G. Formby Sr. [perf.] ‘Animal Language’ 🎵 Though we all thought he was dead / For the farmer cured him - saved his bacon now.
1926		M. Forrest Hibiscus Heart 234: If he saves his bacon he won’t care whether he’s cooped up or not.
1954		J.D. MacDonald All These Condemned (2001) 140: I might have been able to wriggle things around so as to save my own bacon.

to rescue someone from difficulties; to rescue a situation from disaster.

a.1704		T. Brown in Works (1720) I 150: E’en get your Friends, the Jews, to save your bacon.
1714		A. Smith Lives of Most Noted Highway-men, etc. I 37: I was going to say the same to you, would never save his Bacon again.
1734		C. Johnson Hist. of Highwaymen &c. 127: That, says Jack, is a common Thread-bare Excuse, and will not save your Bacon.
1765		H. Howard Choice Spirits Museum 76: And the Pit sav’d the Old Lion’s Bacon.
1773		‘Geoffrey Wildgoose’ Spiritual Quixote II Bk viii 243: ‘What the Devil do you mean by saving my bacon,’ says Tugwell.
1785		‘Peter Pindar’ ‘The Lousiad’ Works (1794) I 253: I’ve cook’d up a Petition: This carries weight with it, or I’m mistaken, Shall shake the Monarch’s soul, and save our bacon.
1794		‘Peter Pindar’ ‘Subjects for Painters’ Works (1794) II 285: They plumply damn’d him for a liar, And said such stories should not save his beef.
1796		J.G. Holman Abroad and At Home II iv: ’Tis heaven’s mercy I was a likely lad. My beauty has sav’d my bacon.
1812		W. Combe Doctor Syntax, Picturesque (1868) 54/2: The rascal, if I’m not mistaken, / Will ask his legs to save his bacon.
c.1823		‘The Good Old Days of Adam & Eve’ in Holloway & Black II (1979) 218: Get in rows and have long parleys, / And to save their bacon floor the Charleys.
1833		M. Scott Tom Cringle’s Log (1862) 105: You know I saved your bacon in that awkward affair.
1853		Southern Literary Messenger Apr. 56 2: His client, who seems to be pretty well up to the business of saving other people’s bacon.
1866		Wild Boys of London I 331/2: You’ve saved my bacon and I’m your chum.
1879		C.J. Kickham Knocknagow 94: Bob never writes letters; and perhaps, as he would say himself, that saves his bacon.
1899		F.E. Daniel Recollections of a Rebel Surgeon 101: He soon decided that if taken by our hands we’d save his bacon.
1900		Marvel XIV:344 June 12: Just saved their bacon by the skin of their teeth!
1917		Boy’s Own Paper XL:3 148: Yoo’ sho’ saved my bacon that time, kid. Why, that thar Slashah dawg – he’d of et me alive.
1931		B. Lubbock Bully Hayes 199: What’s all this about Godeffroy’s traders being chased outer the Line Islands an’ Bully Hayes savin’ their bacon?
1942		Whizzbang Comics 29: ‘You’ve saved my bacon, boys!’ he cried.
1951		D. Stivens Jimmy Brockett 81: I was down ten quid until the last race, when Firefly came home and saved the bacon, and I went home twelve notes up.
1969		N. Spinrad Bug Jack Barron 29: You finally spat it out, saved the bacon.
1979		F. Norman Too Many Crooks Spoil the Caper 17: He remembered that I owed him one for the time he saved my bacon.
1989		T. Blacker Fixx 144: She saved your bacon, God knows why.
1993		S. McAughtry Touch and Go 5: Johnny had saved my bacon a good few times on the HQ campus after piss-up balls-ups.
2001		S. King Dreamcatcher 252: You saved our bacon, boss. Thanks.
2009		Financial Times Weekend Mag. 10–11 Jan. 44/1: All the touring bikes share a new, stiffer frame, and all have anti-lock braking – which saved my bacon when I saw, very late, a speed bump.
2012		L. Berney Whiplash River [ebook] ‘You saved my bacon back there, Shake’.
2024		J. Meades Empty Wigs (t/s) 618: ‘You don’t know me... but you saved my bacon. Captain Sir. Can’t tell you how grateful I am’.

to masturbate.

2003

Number One Adult Sexual Health Terms Advisor 🌐 Masturbation Slang Male Terms: [...] slakin’ the bacon.

see bring home the bacon

(US) the labia majora.

1997		Roger’s Profanisaurus in Viz 87 Dec. n.p.: vertical bacon sandwich n. That which is clearly visible in hamburger shots (qv). Also vertical smile, vertical taco.
1997–2002		Alt. Eng. Dict. 🌐 vertical bacon sandwich labia. Used to describe a particularly hanging vagina.
2002		rtw132 Maureen’s Lusty Confessions 🌐 Won’t you munch of my vertical bacon sandwich... part my beef curtains and have your way with me like a frenzied riding of my hobby horse.