mattress n.
1. (US) a beard.
![[US]](/static/img/flags/us.png "United States") | ‘Who Said I Was a Bum?’ in Hobo’s Hornbook 143: I haven’t shaved for nearly a year, [...] A cop gave me a chase. / I thought I heard him holler, / ‘Take that mattress off yer face!’. |
2. (US) pubic hair.
| Americana Sexualis 28: Mattress. n. The pubic hair. |
3. (US) the face.
| Criminal Sl. (rev. edn). |
4. (Aus./US, also mattrass) a woman as a sexual partner; a girlfriend, usu. derog.; also attrib. [the man ‘lies’ on her].
| ‘Wayne University Sl.’ AS XXX:4 302: mattress mary [...] n. Woman of loose morals. | |
![[UK]](/static/img/flags/uk.png "United Kingdom") | (con. 1940s) Dark Sea Running 43: Ray was cocky good-looking guy. In every port we hit he was the big mattress man around town. | |
 | Short End 218: Bertha was just one great big warm mattress. | |
| Same Old Grind 172: You old flabgut, you old mat[t]ress, you lard-ass old swing-tit, you blubber-bellied old bag. | |
| Blood Posse 64: Nadine’s the mattress for the whole football team. | |
![[WI]](/static/img/flags/wi.png "West Indies") | Official Dancehall Dict. 33: Mattrass someone, usually female who sleeps around. |
5. (US Und.) a war between US Mafia families [backform. f. go to the mattresses ].
| (ref. to 1931) Chillicothe (MO) Constitution-Trib. 2 Oct. 1/2: Valachi said the ‘Boss of Bosses,’ Salvatore Maranzano told him there was going to be another gang war, a ‘mattress.’. |
SE in slang uses
In compounds
1. (Aus./US) a sexually promiscuous woman.
| Sot-Weed Factor (1965) 461: Whore! [...] ‘Poupinette!’ ‘Mattressback!’ ‘Brimballeuse!’. | |
| Come Monday Morning 128: Even if he got drunk enough endin’ up givin’ ole mattressback Carol a fast jab or two. | |
![[Aus]](/static/img/flags/aus.png "Australia") | Aus. Prison Sl. Gloss. 🌐 Mattress back. 1. A woman, particularly one of easy virtue. | |
| Lex. of Cadet Lang. 227: usage: ‘I hear the new mess maggot is a bit of a mattress-back’. |
2. (Aus. prison) a prisoner who spends a lot of time in their cell.
| Aus. Prison Sl. Gloss. 🌐 Mattress back. 2. A prisoner who spends a lot of time in his cell. |
(US) sexual intercourse.
![[Ire]](/static/img/flags/ire.png "Ireland") | Ulysses 404: If she who seduced me had left but the name. What do you want for ninepence. Machree, Macruiskeen. Smutty Moll for a mattress jig. And a pull alltogether. Ex! |
a beating by police to persuade a person to make a confession. The victim is placed under a mattress and then jumped and stamped upon, so no visible marks are left on the victim’s body.
| A Few Kind Words and a Loaded Gun 48: At the police station I was given a ‘mattress job’. |
(orig. Aus.) a passive homosexual man; thus much the mattress v.
| Traveller’s Tool 21: Any bloke who […] uses the adjectives ‘bizarre’ and ‘stunning’ in the same sentence munches the mattress. | |
| Complete Barry McKenzie v: The Australian Cultural Scene, which is, let’s face it, largely run by pillow biters and raving mattress munchers. | |
| I-94Bar 3:11 🌐 Yep, when you hear a poof joke, you might bite your tongue in these politically correct days, but these guys bite their pillows. They’re mattress munchers – and proud of it. Turd burglars. Drillers for Vegimite. |
(US) sexual intercourse.
| Gas-House McGinty 221: We’re all professional mattress polo players, Casy replied; they leered and snickered. |
In phrases
(orig. US Und.) to hide, to take refuge, esp. when under siege from another gang.
| Godfather 104: Their job today was to find an apartment in case the Family decided to ‘go to the mattresses’. | |
| Target Blue 205: The Gallo mob was getting thinned out so fast that the survivors and their lion had taken to the mattresses. | |
| Glitter Dome (1982) 1891: And all we’re trying to do is stop the button men from hitting the mattresses. | |
| Drama City 77: Lee had fathered a couple of children, what they called beef babies, [...] when he’d gone to the mattresses, Corleone-style. | |
| ? (Pronounced Que) [ebook] he the fuck we ’posed to go to the mattresses wit’ these Jersey nigguhs and the feds on us hard? | |
| Boy from County Hell 219: ‘This [gang] war’s in the papers. [...] I suggest you go to the mattresses’. | |
| Empty Wigs (t/s) 62: I needed a bandage, a suture, something [...] Certainly a place to hide. I had to go to the mattresses. |
(US) to sleep.
| In Nine Kinds of Pain [ebook] [H]e probably would have ridden the mattress train to Sadville for the next few days, this time with stops at Dumpsburg and Loser City. |
(US) to work as a (brothel) prostitute.
| Life in Boston & N.Y. (Boston, MA) 14 Apr. n.p.: Where did that white bonnet and fancy cloak come from? Does she work on mattresses? |