Green’s Dictionary of Slang

flying adj.

[fly v.]

(drugs) under the influence of drink or drugs.

[US]Lannoy & Masterson ‘Teen-age Hophead Jargon’ AS XXVII:1 25: FLYING, vbl. Feeling elated under influence of drug.
[US](con. 1958) R. Farina Been Down So Long (1972) 68: The eyes on the kid [...] stoned, flying.
[US]Baker et al. CUSS 120: Flying Drunk.
[US]N. Thornburg Cutter and Bone (2001) 119: The careless laughing girl, happy stoned, flying on her meth and beer.
[US]A. Rodriguez Spidertown (1994) 135: Sometime after midnight, Firebug returned with Amelia. They were both flying.
[US]ONDCP Street Terms 9: Flying — Under the influence of drugs.
M. Wilkerson ‘A Clean White Sun’ in ThugLit Sept./Oct. [ebook] ‘Cats be strapped and straight up flyin’’.
[Ire]Breen & Conlon Hitmen 230: ‘You’re just flying, Joey [...] Just fucking chill out’.

SE in slang uses

In compounds

flying axehandles (n.)

(Can.) diarrhoea.

[Can]Nanaimo Dly News (BC) 18 Nov. 26/4: There I was shivering from stepmother’s breathand sufering from flying axehandles.
flying baker (n.)

see separate entry.

flying bedstead (n.) [note WWI milit. flying bedstead, a military bicycle or mortobike]

a cart/stall used by a bric-a-brac dealer.

[UK]A. Smith Adventures of Mr Ledbury II 291: The light-cart with the covered top, so poetically denominated a ‘flying bedstead,’ licensed to carry no end.
[UK]London Standard 1 June 2/1: Vehicles of every type, from the aristocratic four-in-hand to the ‘flying bedstead’ of the coster.
[UK]Dover Exp. 19 June 2/2: The light cart with the covered top, so poetically named as flying bedstead, licensed to carry no end.
[UK]H. Baumann Londinismen (2nd edn).
flying camps (n.) [SE flying camp, ‘a little army of horse and foot, that keeps the field, and is continually in motion’ (Phillips, The New World of Words, 1671)]

a group of beggars who work as a team at funerals.

[UK]B.E. Dict. Canting Crew n.p.: Flying-Camps, Beggers plying in Bodies at Funerals.
[UK]New Canting Dict. [as cit. c.1698].
[UK]Bailey Universal Etym. Eng. Dict. [as cit. c.1698].
[UK]Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.
[UK]Lex. Balatronicum.
[UK]Egan Grose’s Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.
flying cove (n.) [cove n. (1)]

(US Und.) a type of confidence trickster (see cit. 1859).

[US]Matsell Vocabulum 34: flying coves Fellows who obtain money by pretending to persons who have been robbed, that they can give them information that will be the means of recovering their lost goods.
flying dustman (n.) [pun on the Flying Dutchman]

a ‘pirate’ dustman, who collects garbage before the contracted dustman can arrive.

[UK]P. Egan Key to the Picture of the Fancy going to a Fight 34: A flying dustman, whose trade had not spoilt the sympathetic use of his sparklers [...] doffed his topper .
[UK]Egan Life in London (1869) 263: Costardmongers and flying dustmen were also ‘blowing a cloud’ with their fancy women.
[UK]London Standard 16 June 1/6: A horse of the cart of a flying dustman was being driven a a furious rate.
[UK]‘Paul Pry’ Oddities of London Life I 46: Two of that once-celebrated fraternity, known as ‘flying dustmen,’ were charged with having emptied a dusthole in Frith-street, without leave or licence of the contractor. The worthies [...] were not unknown in Old Bailey annals, and in the palmy days of dust-prigging, fearlessly encountered the perils of Tothillfields and the treadmill, in pursuit of their unlawful vocation.
[UK]London Standard 12 Nov. 4/3: The word ‘Newgate’ struck upon the feelings of the flying dustman. His wife too, who [...] bustled up to him and said, in an under-tone, ‘Here, Harry, I’ve got the blunt. Dub up, you beggar, and cut these here dangerous spot’.
[UK]Lincs Chron. 9 Feb. 8/5: Other partook more of the character of the ‘flying dustman,’ [...] occasionally snatching the more valuable deposits, causing thereby much dissatisfaction to the regular collector.
[UK]Hastings & St. Leonards Obs. 13 Jan. 3/2: He had known him working as a ‘flying dustman.’ The prisoner was sentenced for nine calendar months.
Tuer & Fagan First Year of a Silken Reign 79: The transportation of the renowned Bob Bonner, first of dust-prigs, added to the great fall in breeze, have caused this consummation; and a ‘flying dustman’ in a short time bids fair to be as great a rarity as a Red Indian.
flying fornicator (n.) [the image of drunken couples necking on their way home]

1. the last express train from London to a provincial town.

M. Barsley Wolf at the Door 85: You took days off and spent them in town, coming back by the late train, known as the ‘Flying Fornicator’, and let your friends guess what you’d been up to.
N. Monsarrat My Brother Denys 91: For shorter [...] London excursions we used the railway, returning by the last available train, the 10.12 from Liverpool Street, which thus earned the dubious nickname of the Flying Fornicator.
M. Marples Univ. Sl. 95: Fornicator (1920+) or Flying Fornicator, The last train from London to Oxford or Cambridge.
C. Higham (con. 1930s) Aus. Writing Today 50: There were a few affluent and dashing undergraduates who made sorties to London, returning by the night train known as the ‘Flying Fornicator’.
D. Ogilvy Blood, Brains & Beer 26: Expeditions to London [...] returning to Oxford on the last train, which was known as the Flying Fornicator.
(ref. to 1930s) The Eagle (St John’s College, Cantab.) 🌐 We were also told an entertaining story about a certain eminent historian, and the late train to London, known rather charmingly in the 1930s as the ‘Flying Fornicator’.
(con. WWII) D.A. Breen Young Men at War Ch. xix: Once in a while, we caught the last train home. This our delightful Wrens had christened, the ‘Flying Fornicator’.

2. (Aus.) the last train from Sydney to Wollongong on Saturday night, primarily patronized by young people.

[Aus]Sun-Herald (Sydney) 1 July 43: The last train back from Sydney [to Wollongong] on Sundays is packed with young people and known to some as the Flying Fornicator [GAW4].
flying fuck (n.)

see separate entry.

flying horse (n.) [the person who sits on it ‘flies’]

(W.I.) a bent pin or similar sharp object placed on a chair.

[WI]cited in Cassidy & LePage Dict. Jam. Eng. (1980).
flying lessons (n.)

(UK/US prison) the throwing of a guard or fellow inmate off the balcony of a cell tier.

[US]Bentley & Corbett Prison Sl. 90: Flying Lessons Throwing a guard or inmate off of a cell-block tier.
[UK]J. Cameron Vinnie Got Blown Away 9: Otherwise I might want flying lessons too.
flying pasty (n.)

1. a packet of excrement wrapped in paper and flung over a neighbour’s wall.

[UK]Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue (3rd edn) n.p.: Flying Pasty. Sirreverence wrapped in paper and thrown over a neighbour’s wall.
[UK]Lex. Balatronicum.
[UK]Egan Grose’s Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.

2. (US prison) a similar package wrapped in newspaper and tossed out of one’s cell window.

[UK]A. Devlin Prison Patter 52/2: flying pasty bag of excrement thrown from cell window (more common before sanitation installed in cells).
flying saucer (n.)

see separate entry.

flying sixty-nine (n.) [sixty-nine n.]

mutual oral-genital stimulation.

Movie Films Fest ‘Chow Down’ Rev. on Excalibur Films 🌐 After a bit of the blow, Tedeschi flips her up into a flying 69 and starts with some good double digit finger fucking.