Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(UK und.) poultry stealing at a market.

1851		‘Adventures of Mr and Mrs Sandboys’ in Bells New Wkly Messenger 9 Mar. 6/2: The lady and gentleman racket, or stealing cocks and hens from the markets; and bug-hunting, or looking out for drunken men [i.e. to rob].
1882		Sydney Sl. Dict. (2 edn) 5: Lady and gentlemen Racket Men - Hen and Chicken thieves.

a brothel.

1984

Partridge DSUE (8th edn) 661/1: C.18–early 19.

the penis.

1890–1904

Farmer & Henley Sl. and Its Analogues.

the penis.

1660		Practical Part of Love 62: [A] Fool finding his tool limber [...] did verily believe he had lost his play things.
1684		‘News from Tunbridge’ Harleian Mss. 7319.356: Some indeed so young, they’re still call’d Miss That cry for Playthings.
1725		Venus in the Cloister Pt IV 144: I saw him throw himself upon the Bed, and handle his Play-Thing with a very deep Sigh or two.
1736		St James’s Register 13: Did never any poor Woman lose her Play-thing before?
1798		‘An Extraordinary Fish’ in Hilaria 127: ‘Pull out,’ said a friend, ‘all the ladies’ delight, sir,’ / He did, and exhibited two inches more.
1831		Satirist (London) 24 July 127/3: The Plaything, by the Countess of Warwick.—The size of the ‘plaything,’ in our opinion, is rather too large: otherwise, it is an angelic production. A young girl is seen in the background, learning Ware’s song, ‘Tell me, have you seen a toy?’.
1890–1904		Farmer & Henley Sl. and Its Analogues IV 140/1: Ladies’ Treasure (Delight or Plaything) [...] The penis.
1901		More Forbidden Fruit 83: It is the ladies’ darling; they call it my prick, or my cock.

sexual intercourse.

1890–1904

Farmer & Henley Sl. and Its Analogues.

a ladies’ lavatory.

1838		R. Nicholson Cockney Adventures 27 Jan. 102: He instantly perceived that the boys had thrown his hat into what is significantly called the ladies’ walk [...] ‘There’s a fellow gone into the ladies’ walk, Bob!’ said a mischievous thin lad to a laughing fat boy.
1877		Bartlett Dict. Americanisms (4th edn) 736: Walk. As ‘Ladies’ Walk,’ ‘Gentlemen’s Walk,’ i.e. a privy. This absurd piece of squeamishness is common at hotels and at railroad-stations.

see abbess n.

see hackney n. (1)

see hot-bot under hot adj.

to engage in lesbian behaviour.

1934		V.G. Burns Female Convict 77: They’ve been lady-loving — and they don’t want the bull to catch them at it!
2002		Carpet Munching Coeds 🌐 Women in high heels get naked for some lady loving.

a lesbian, thus adj. lady-loving.

1931		C.W. Willemse Behind The Green Lights 251: Women degenerates and male degenerates – ‘lady lovers’ and ‘fags’ in police description – are mental cases.
1935		E. Freeman ‘The Whirling Hub’ in Afro-American (Baltimore, MD) 16 Mar. 15/1: What lady-loving femme who openly boasts of this habit was recently assisted in making a get-away [etc].
1937		‘Boxcar Bertha’ Sister of the Road (1975) 94: See those two girls there with the short hair? [...] They’re lady lovers.
1941		G. Legman ‘Lang. of Homosexuality’ Appendix VII in Henry Sex Variants.
1952		Lait & Mortimer USA Confidential 43: The lady-lovers are now so firmly entrenched they no longer hesitate to try to take pretty young girls away from high ranking male brass.
1968		J. Colebrook Cross of Lassitude 155: Beppo is a ‘bull-dagger,’ a ‘low dyke,’ a ‘lady-lover,’ a ‘Les-wolf,’ and a ‘double-barreled broad’.
1972		B. Rodgers Queens’ Vernacular.

(US prison) a transsexual.

2022

J. Hannaham Didn’t Nobody Give a Shit 67: ‘Ladyman’s gonna cut your stupid ass if you don’t come correct’.

see baby-maker under baby n.

any alohol, e.g. cheap wine, that sets up women for a night out.

2010		Urban Dict. 15 Aug. 🌐 The girls were getting on the lady petrol for the pre lash before hitting the town on a heavy night out.
2013		Twitter 11 Aug. 🌐 I’m drinking a glass of lady petrol.
2022		M. Hyde in Guardian 25 May 🌐 Johnson could have been kicking himself to death while holding aloft a glass of lady petrol, and any number of specialist officers would have found a way of not noticing it.

see maiden’s blush under maiden n.

the testicles.

1748–49

Cleland Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure (1985) 81: That enormous machine of his [...] together with its bottom dependence, the inestimable bulse [i.e. package] of lady’s jewels, form’d a grand show out of goods indeed!

(N.Z.) a liqueur bottle.

2003

McGill Reed Dict. of N.Z. Sl. 125: lady’s leg Liqueur bottle, from the shape of its neck as much as any male expectation.

the pubic hair.

1721		in D’Urfey Pills to Purge Melancholy n.p.: With my curling tongs so hot, sir, So well as you may see, And so well I can dress up, A lady’s low toppie [F&H].
1999		Roger’s Profanisaurus 3 in Viz 98 Oct. 18: lady’s low toupee n. A merkin; a cunt rug. An all-weather ladygarden (qv).

1. (also lady’s finger, lady’s wish) a slender beer glass, with an hour-glass shape.

1914		Dly Teleg. (Sydney) 16 Dec. 8/6: What is to be charged for the ‘long,’ the ‘medium,’ the ‘pony,’ the ‘lady’s waist’ of lager, and so on? Barmen were asked these questions yesterday, and for answer many of them could only scratch their heads, look puzzled, and say they were blowed if they knew.
1920		Maitland Dly Mercury (NSW) 14 Feb. 5: [advert] 7 OZ. LADIES’ WAIST TUMBLERS 6/6.
1930		Dly Mercury (Mackay, Qld) 1 Mar. 3: [advert] 1 Lady’s Waist, : 5oz. " 8/6 " . 6/6 doz. / Lady’s Waist, 8oz. " 10/- " " 7/9 doz. / Lady’s Waist, l0oz. " 11/- " 8/6 doz.
1933		‘William Juniper’ True Drunkard’s Delight 249: Lady’s finger or wish – A tapering glass of spirits, especially gin.
1934		Bulletin (Sydney) 4 Apr. 20/1: A daintier goblet I never fingered than the hourglass shape of a lady’s waist.
1941		Baker Popular Dict. Aus. Sl.
1956		S. Hope Diggers’ Paradise 232: What is called a ‘lady’s waist’ in some parts of the country is generally known as a ‘butcher’ .
1980		B. Hornadge Aus. Slanguage 230: The old terms of lady’s waist (Sydney) and pixie (Melbourne) for small glasses appear to have disappeared from the scene .
2003		McGill Reed Dict. of N.Z. Sl.

2. a measure of alcohol, usu. beer served in such a glass.

1924		Nepean Times (NSW) 19 Jan. 4/3: Anyone who knows anything about tankards, pewters, ‘Jimmy-woodsers,’ and ‘lady’s-waists’ ought to have some knowledge of liquid measure. But beer is not always discussed in terms of pints, quarts, and gallons.
1929		Scone Advocate (NSW) 15 Nov. 7/5: [He] calls for a ‘lager, ladies waist.’ Cripes, - that riles yer. A bloke what can’t drink a pint don't want a drink.
1934		Dandenong Jrnl (Vic.) 8 Feb. 5/2: The three beers which the barman called lady’s waists (laughter) were all he had, and he had driven 20 miles since taking them.
1943		Bulletin (Sydney) 5 Jan. 12/1: Whatever you think of a Lady’s Waist Or a Barmaid Blush or a Horse’s Neck, A bull-whale’s Crush or a Slippery Deck, There’s nothing solid in what ghosts drink.
1948		Sun (Sydney) 27 may 5/3: Frank Albert Podesta, licensee of the Randwick Hotel [...] was fined £20 in the Special Federal Court today for over-charging on two ‘ladies’ waists’ (small beers).
1972		B. Wannan Folklore of the Aus. Pub 127: Lady’s waist: a 5 oz. glass of beer.
1986		R. Beckett Dinkum Aussie Dict. 33: A Lady’s Waist used to be either a 5- or 7-ounce measure of beer once served only in the parlour of a pub in New South Wales, but in Queensland was known as a glass because it was taken as a chaser to a glass or shot of neat rum.
2002		(ref. to 1946) Lidcombe Catholic Working Men’s Club (NSW) 🌐 In these early days a ‘Lady’s waist’ (or 7oz beer) was the drink of choice for most. A lady’s waist sold for Ninepence (10$).

1. the penis (and testes).

1592		T. Kyd Soliman and Perseda G3: The ladies of Rhodes, hearing that you have lost a capital part of your lady-ware have made their petition to Cupid to plague you above all other, as one prejudicial to their muliebrity.
1890–1904		Farmer & Henley Sl. and Its Analogues.

2. the vagina.

1656

‘Will Bagnall’s Ballad’ in Wardroper (1969) 132: Your faces tricked and painted be, / Your breasts all open bare / So far that a man may almost see / Unto your lady-ware.

(US tramp) to ride on the ‘gunnels’ or ‘rods’ beneath the wagons while a fast train is passing over a bumpy stretch of track.

1931

Irwin Amer. Tramp and Und. Sl. 101: Holding The Lady Down. – Riding on the ‘rods’ or ‘gunnels’ over a rough stretch of track or on a fast train.

a prostitute.

1680		T. Betterton Match in Newgate I ii: A Whore! Oh call her a Miss, a Ladie of the Town, a Beautie of delight, or any thing. Whore! ’tis a nauseous name.
1694		Comforts of Whoreing 14: The Amorous prevailing Glances of our Town Ladies ... Animates the Vigour, and melts down the Modesty of our Young Country Esquire.
1700		S. Centlivre Perjur’d Husband Epilogue: Mimick no more Town-Ladies in a Mask.
1700		T. Brown Amusements Serious and Comical in Works (1744) III 46: There is the politick nation of your ladies of the town.
1703		T. Baker Tunbridge Walks V: I heard of a fine Town-Lady, who Painted her Face with that variety, she was pick’d up by a Purblind Lord, Six Nights together for a fresh Mistress.
1728		J. Dalton Narrative of Street-Robberies 49: He saw a Lady of the Town.
1733		Laugh and Be Fat 122: The Town Lady [is] neither Saint, nor Angel, but a Whore.
1761		Nancy Dawson’s Jests 9: A man meeting with a lady of the town offered her a Shilling to let him feel her private parts.
1786		Mr Thompson Female Amazon 21: Her beauty and modest demeanour proving favourable to her calling, as a lady of the town.
1790		Banquet of Wit 32: A gentleman who had given a lady of the town a purse of guineas, was disgusted [etc.].
1795		Fortnights Ramble through London 61: They fare sumptuously [...] being well provided for by their town ladies.
1829		‘The Parson and His Wench’ in Universal Songster II 89/2: The gay Miss Brown, / A lady of the town, / Was beloved by this clerical spark.
1833		Morn. Chron. (London) 30 July 4/3: Margaret Williams, a young lady about town, was charged.
1888		Dundee Courier 20 Apr. 5/5: William Joseph, seaman [...] and Bridget Taylor, the former a ‘nigger’ and the other a lady about town, were brought before the Court.

the theft of barnyard fowls.

1861

H. Mayhew London Labour and London Poor IV 26: Those who steal animals. [...] vi. ‘Lady and Gentlemen Racket Men,’ or those who steal cocks and hens.

masturbation.

1969		‘Iceberg Slim’ Pimp 47: I wondered if it were a capital crime [...] to get caught having an affair with ‘lady five fingers’.
1972		B. Rodgers Queens’ Vernacular 116: the masturbator’s best girl friend – his hand: the thumb is the mother to the four fingers. [...] old lady five fingers.

(UK Und.) a black woman.

1835		G. Kent Modern Flash Dict. 20: Lady in mourning – hottentot girl.
1848		Flash Dict. in Sinks of London Laid Open [as cit. 1835].

a prostitute (cf. pleasure-lady under pleasure n.).

1578		J. Whetstone Promos and Cassandra II ii: Set forth thy selfe to brauest show [...] accompt thou thy selfe the cheefe, of Lady Pleasures traine. [...] Thy weedes are braue, thy face is fine, & who for this doth paye?
1637		T. Nabbes Microcosmus Act V: A desperate piece of neglected mortality, that have been a Lady of pleasure, and kept an open house.
1654		Mercurius Fumigosus 6 5 July 48: So the said Coach-men will [...] be carefull of their Black-patches, Mirkins or Dildoes, to take them up, if by chance they drop them in their Coach-box, as lately a Lady of Pleasure voiding a Worm in the Coach-box, bigger than a Polony Sassage, which the Coachman seeing smoaking hot, with the butt end of his whip, removed it away, to the shame as well great discredit of the Lady, who was then going a clicketting into the Red Lyons Den in Whitecross Street.
1668		‘P.R.’ Whores Dialogue 5: We were Ladies of Pleasure, so we had a very pleasurable house, Gardens of pleasure, Arbors of pleasure, hang’d Rooms of pleasure, and beds of pleasures, where Gentlemen for their Money had their pleasure with us.
1678		J. Ray Proverbs (2nd edn) 90: A Whore [...] A Lady of pleasure. As errant a wh... as ever pist.
1683		Whores Rhetorick 19: I my self in my younger years, was one of those the World calls a Lady of Pleasure.
1696		Motteux (trans.) Pantagruelian Prognostications (1927) II 694: Those whom Venus is said to rule, as punks, jilts, [...] wag-tails, cockatrices [...] ladies of pleasure.
1701		N. Ward ‘A Walk to Islington’ in Writings (1704) 63: Then I, like my Neigbours, to sweeten my Life / [...] / Was forc’d to take up with a Lady of Pleasure.
1723		C. Walker Authentick Memoirs of Sally Salisbury Dedicatory: The young Ladies of Pleasure under her Care.
1733		Cibber Harlot’s Progress 11: Attended by Bess Brindle (a Runner to the Ladies of Pleasure).
1747		Life and Character of Moll King 8: Here you might see ladies of Pleasure, who appear’d apparelled like Persons of Quality.
a.1749		Robertson of Struan ‘On a Lady of Pleasure’ in Poems (1752) 80: [title].
1751		Smollett Peregrine Pickle (1964) 290: Her sentiments were espoused by all the company, except the French lady of pleasure.
1756		Memoirs of an Oxford Scholar 24: They are the Gudgeons the Women of Pleasure angle for.
1765		Harris’s List of Covent Garden Ladies v: [I]t would, doubtless, be thought a paradox, if we wedre to assert that Ladies of Pleasure are public benefits.
1773		Leeds intelligencer 20 July 2/2: A Lady of Pleasure about town well known by the fictitious title of Lady M— [etc.].
1788		G.A. Stevens Adventures of a Speculist I 137: The most famous woman of pleasure upon the town. [Ibid.] 259: Its Ladies of Pleasure are as vulgar and as ugly as superannuated cinder-sifters.
1795		Sporting Mag. Apr. VI 41/1: A daughter of pleasure, who had followed a party of soldiers from Lincoln towards Hull, tired of her military companions [etc.].
1796		Sporting Mag. Jan. VII 203/2: Prostitutes have very improperly been styled, women of pleasure; they are women of pain, of sorrow, of grief [etc.].
1825		Pierce Egan’s Life in London 17 Apr. 94/3: ‘Then b—st her! I’ll smash her to hell!screamed the ‘woman of pleasure;’ at the same time making a desperate attempt to leap over the bar, at the shrinking landlady.
1825		C.M. Westmacott Eng. Spy I 392: Covent Garden [...] is grown as dull as modern Athens, and its ladies of pleasure almost as vulgar as Scotch landladies.
1830		Whore’s Catechism [trans.] 91: That fault [i.e. failing to save for retirement], which is almost universal with women of pleasure, is not then to be remedied.
1830		Ely’s Hawk & Buzzard (NY) 3 July 1/3: If he is not more careful how he is caught in the company of certain ladies of pleasure [etc].
1838		Paul Pry 30 Sept. 182/4: [S]he took a house, the York, at that time, being full of ladies of pleasure, did I say?—no! but ladies of sorrow!
1842		Whip & Satirist of NY & Brooklyn (NY) 28 May n.p.: I was accosted by one of the ‘ladies of pleasure’ [...] the customary conversation ensued about hard times, no money, no company, &c.
1850		Man of Pleasure’s Illus. Pocket-book n.p.: [S]he possesses a mind and heart rarely — very rarely to be met with in the frail daughters of pleasure.
1853		N.Y. Clipper 23 July 2/4: Women of pleasure who walk Broaday during the day [...] take their seats in [...] the jashionable theatre*side by side with the wife of the millionaire.
1858		G. Thompson Gay Girls of N.Y. 24: Industrious and sleep-despising ‘ladies of pleasure’ were still to be seen, wandering about.
1889		C. Deveureux Venus in India I 48: In every place where there is a ‘bazaar’ or shops, there are establishments for ladies of pleasure, these latter earn a good many four anna bits.
1907		N.Z. Truth 26 Jan. 6/5: The term ‘woman of pleasure’ [...] infers a woman of the town, otherwise a harlot.
1949		Monteleone Criminal Sl. (rev. edn).
1973		R. Todasco Intelligent Woman’s Guide to Dirty Words.

see under evening n.

a prostitute.

1678		T. Rawlins Tunbridge-Wells I ii: O the dear time when Misses came up first in fashion: then half the Town were Novices in love; and not so many Ladies of the game.
1723		C. Walker Authentick Memoirs of Sally Salisbury 139: I took more Pleasure to be in the Appartment of a Female of the Game than in my own Chambers.

a prostitute.

1654		Mercurius Fumigosus 21 18–25 Oct. 182: On the left hand the Ticklers, next them the Bobbers, and over aginst the Groapers, the Ladies of the Lake, viz. Oyster-women, Mussle-women, Perriwinkle-women, and Crab-women, all sitting at a side-table by the men.
1673		W. Davenant Siege Act V: Thou Lady o’th’ Lake: A pox a whispering!
1678		S. Butler Hudibras Pt III canto 1 line 868: All women would be of one piece / But for the difference marriage makes / ’Twixt wives and ladies of the lakes.

a prostitute.

1713

W. King York Spy 25: Wild Apprentices, and Wanton Ladies of the Town.

see under sweet adj.¹