Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (orig. US) to leave, to move off.

1827		see below slope off
1839		Times-Picayune (New Orleans, LA) 8 June 2/3: He has left town — gone — decamped — evacuated — sloped — absquatulated — cut dirt — Swartiwouted.
1845		Commercial Advertiser (N.Y.) 22 Aug. 2/4: The rascal dropped his prize and ‘sloped’.
1853		Bell’s Life in Sydney 12 Feb. 2/6: The ‘other lady’ and the coloured gentlemen had sloped.
1855		T. Haliburton Nature and Human Nature I 273: So slope, if you please.
1857		H.S. Brown Manliness 17: He never goes away or withdraws, but he ‘bolts’ – he ‘slopes’.
1866		Wild Boys of London I 7/2: I wasn’t there when the peelers come, cos I sloped before.
1867		Ballarat Star (Vic.) 18 Mar. 1/5: Some persons seem to have regarded the occurrence of this calamity as a convenient opportunity for what, in the expressive language of slang, is called ‘sloping’.
1871		Hamilton Spectator (Vic.) 7 Jan. 1/7: A young gentleman gets into ‘little difficulties,’ [...] He fears he will have to ‘absquatulate,’ ‘ missle,’ ‘ slope,’ ‘ cut’ ‘ dodge,’ ‘make tracks,’ ‘make himself scarce,’ unless the governor ‘shells out’.
1875		M. Thompson Hoosier Mosaics 125: Made me pray. Heard train a coming. Took me to swamp. Tied me and sloped. Lord but I’m glad to see you all!
a.1877		J. Read [perf. J. Read] ‘All for Her’ 🎵 I sold the home, and her machine / Then with a blessing, and the quids, I sloped and left the thirteen kids.
1880		R. Rowe Picked Up in the Streets 231: Mother Brimstone sartinly did slope pretty quick when she caught sight o’ me.
1882		Sydney Sl. Dict. (2 edn) 5: Slope - To get away.
1884		Ally Sloper’s Half Holiday 21 June 58/3: A butcher [said] if he found any shoulders sloping off from his place, it would be bad for some people.
1893		P.H. Emerson Signor Lippo 58: Well, my old pot switched with the cook, my old donah, and then she had to slope the kitchen and go to his carsey over the stables.
1895		‘Banjo’ Paterson ‘Conroy’s Gap’ in Man from Snowy River (1902) 30: He sloped across to the Queensland side.
1899		J. Flynt Tramping with Tramps 353: Then he ‘sloped’ once more.
1904		Marvel 12 Nov. 5: The papers is sellin’ orl right, but Spider’s sloped [...] ’e’s garn away.
1904		‘Dryblower’ ‘His Quest’ in Sun. Times (Perth) 3 Apr. 4/7: There’s one goes down at night-time when the stoney-brokers slope.
1914		C.J. Dennis ‘The Play’ in Bulletin (Sydney) 16 July 47/1: Aw! Fate me foot! Instid of slopin’ soon / As ’e was wed, off on ’is ‘oneymoon, / ‘Im an’ ’is cobber, called Mick Curio, / They ’ave to go / An’ mix it wiv that push o’ Capulets.
1921		P. & T. Casey Gay-cat 122: Git there before the Twenty-fifth. Slope!
1929		J.B. Priestley Good Companions 525: Remember Tommy, ’im an’ the tart? – ’e sloped agen.
1933		Ersine Und. and Prison Sl.
1943		R. Llewellyn None But the Lonely Heart 205: Jim gave Him half a wink to slope.
1953		T.A.G. Hungerford Riverslake 239: I’m sloping soon, but I won’t forget you.
2007		R. Milward Apples (2023) 62: [W]e sloped towards Henry Taylor Court and the scruffy bungalows.
2020		G. Armstrong Young Team 36: Me, Broonie n Addison sloped as soon as the [...] bell went.

2. to cheat, e.g. a publican, a shopkeeper; to avoid payment.

1862		Golden Age (Queenbeyan, NSW) 14 Aug. 3/3: [W]ould he hear anything about molasses the storekeeper, being victimized, owing to sloper ‘levanting’?
1879		Barman & Barmaid 12 July 4/2: Who once heard of us fighting? No one — we slope, and good business too!
1900–10		Stephens & O’Brien Materials for a Dict. of Aus. Sl. [unpub. ms.] 143: SLOPE slang to clear out without paying one’s debts; mostly applied in boarding houses.
1903		Bulletin (Sydney) 27 Aug. 16/4: Chow storekeeper wasn’t a bad sort; he let us have tucker and paid for our licences. Two or three had tried to slope him – they were unsuccessful – and we were on the same lay. [...] 27 Aug. 17/1: We slunk away in silence – we were too full up to speak; / For though we ‘sloped’ the butcher and the grocer-man, we found / We had earned – for all our toiling – only half-a-quid a week.
1950		S. Murphy Stone Mad (1966) 188: Sure Danny Melt there will tell you how we sloped a publican in Claremorris.
1993		(con. 1930s) M. Verdon Shawlies, Echo Boys, the Marsh and the Lanes 61: There’s great sport in trying to slope the publican, cheat him out of a drink or two.

3. (US Und.) to escape from prison.

1901		J. Flynt World of Graft 167: My advice to you is to slope and forfeit your bail, unless you want to enter into negotiations with the district attorney’s office.
1924		G. Henderson Keys to Crookdom 405: Flight. Escape – ditch out, blow, bolt, give police the raspberry, scoot, spring a man, hot foot, slope, flagged.
1929		V.W. Saul ‘Vocab. of Bums’ in AS IV:5 344: Slope—To [...] break jail.

4. to leave one’s lodgings without paying.

1950

S. Murphy Stone Mad (1966) 190: What beats me [...] is why ye had to shave off ye’re moustaches in order to slope in the middle of the night?

5. (Scots teen) to abandon, to desert, to ‘leave in the lurch’.

2020

G. Armstrong Young Team 63: Yi cannae slope yir troops at times like these.