suds n.1
1. (US) beer.
![[US]](/static/img/flags/us.png "United States") | Billy Baxter’s Letters 75: Brandy and soda being fifty a throw and beer five a copy, we told her to behave, and ordered the waiter to back her up a tub of suds, Texas size. | |
| Actors’ Boarding House (1906) 39: I got three corned beef sandwiches an’ a kittle of suds. | |
| Zone Policeman 88 47: Shiny-haired bartenders gave up their biographies in nasal monosyllables amid the slop of ‘suds’ and the scrape of celluloid froth-eradicators. | |
| Gay-cat 213: We was havin’ the second schooner o’ suds. | |
| Mt Sterling Advocate (KY) 24 Oct. 6/6: If old Pil has the coin to fill the proletariat with enough of the sudski to get them seeing things his way he will beat Paderewski by a moonlight sonata. | |
![[Aus]](/static/img/flags/aus.png "Australia") | Smith’s Wkly (Sydney) 20 Aug. 11/2: Slanguage [...] Arithy. [...] A bloke pads the ’oof ’tween Melbin and Sydney and dips ’is lid [to] every third tabbie ’e dekkos, ’ow far would he be from, Bourke before he does ’is block? Answer to nearest ’arf tin o’ suds . | |
![[UK]](/static/img/flags/uk.png "United Kingdom") | [perf.] ‘All in Favour’ 🎵 Watering the fountain in Trafalgar Square / Fill ’em up with suds and we’ll all go there. | |
| Old-Time Saloon 43: You would naturally believe that about a gallon of beer in combination with apple, huckleberry or cocoa-nut pie might form a dangerous explosive. Nevertheless, many of the boys liked pastry with their suds. | |
| Arizona Republic (Phoenix, AZ) 15 Aug. 3/2: He dipped his spacious nose into a glass of suds. | |
| USA Confidential 193: The biggest brewer in the state is Howard Hughes, whose income from suds is perhaps even larger than his return from the fabulous Hughes Tool Company. | |
![[NZ]](/static/img/flags/nz.png "New Zealand") | Gun in My Hand 91: All those busy mouths slopping back the suds. | |
| [ | | (con. 1920s) Burglar to the Nobility 16: [He’d] wipe the beer-suds off his big black moustache]. |
| Pimp 86: I sat sipping on a bottle of suds. | |
| Grease 35: The T-Birds would bring the sixes-of-suds along. | |
| Muscle for the Wing 99: Shade [...] sucked down some suds. | |
| Finnegan’s Week 156: I was kinda lying about the beer [...] Actually their suds is the kinda stuff they use in Germany to kill potato bugs with. | |
| Stalker (2001) 37: Cindy took another sip of suds, then licked the foam off her lips. | |
| Frank Sinatra in a Blender [ebook] I dropped the empty bottle into my aluminum wastebasket and the unfinished suds spewed out. |
2. drink in general.
| Down the Line 103: When the suds rolled up I gave the Vichy stuff the sad eye and Lionel caught the gaze. | |
| Get Next 89: Cornelius Sudslifter, the well known inventor of the patent chowless chow chow. | |
| You Should Worry cap. 1: ‘A quart of Happysuds,’ Bunch ordered. |
3. coffee.
| ‘The Current Expansion of Sl.’ in AS II:3 146: Doughnuts and coffee, ‘sinkers and suds’. | |
| ‘Linguistic Concoctions of the Soda Jerker’ in AS XI:1 45: SINKERS AND SUDS. Doughnuts and coffee. |
In compounds
(US) champagne.
| Inter Ocean (Chicago) 25 Jan. 34/7: I couldn’t see anything but the French suds, and I dropped into John L’s [where] I met a bundle of booze grafters [...] and executed the Rube stunt of purchasing a few quarts for them. |
(Aus.) a regular drinker.
| Aussie Swearers Guide 25: Suds Artist. A beer-fancier with a hard-working elbow. |
a bar.
| We Are the Public Enemies 126: The beer was a product of a local suds factory. |
a barman; a waiter.
| Side-stepping with Shorty 33: I felt sorry for them suds slingers that travels around the deck singin’ out, ‘Who wants the waiter?’. | |
 | Buffalo Courier (NY) 16 Feb. 47/4: He got the two ‘ex-suds slingers’ to purchase things. | |
| Argot: Dict. of Und. Sl. 50: suds slinger, suds jerker – a bartender. |
(Aus.) a hotel, i.e. a public house.
| Dict. of Aus. Words And Terms 🌐 SUDS SHOP—Hotel. |
In phrases
(orig. US black) to open and drink a can of beer.
| Campus Sl. Apr. 2: crack some suds – to open a can of beer. | |
| (con. 1940s–60s) Straight from the Fridge Dad 38: Crack some suds Drink beer. | |
| Missoula Indep. (MO) 20 Feb. A29/3: Crack some suds and dig the mellow kicks at Thunderground. |
(Aus.) to drink beer.
| (con. 1959) Up the Cross 41: Heavy Harold didn’t hit the suds, even in small quantities. |
1. in trouble, in a disagreeable situation [SE suds, filth, muck].
| Bartholomew Fair IV iv: Why, where are you, zurs? Do you vlinch, and leave us i’ the zuds, now? | |
| Good Newes and Bad Newes 12: Now land is sold and money gone in goods, / He cals out, Andrew, I am in the suddes. | |
| Virgil Travestie (1765) Bk IV 97: For nought more vexes Womens Bloods, / Than to be left so in the Suds. | |
| ‘The Forsaken Maid’s Frolick’ in Roxburghe Ballads (1891) VII:2 381: The flattering fauning Elf, when he had got all my pelf, / And squand’red my goods, he left me i’ th’ sudds. | |
| Wooden World 7: He makes no tiresome stay with her. Farewell, he leaves her in the suds. | |
| Lives of Most Noted Highway-men, etc. I 206: Tom Sharp, being in the Suds again [...] was oblig’d to employ all the Powers of his Wit and Invention. | |
| Death and Daphne n.p.: Away the frighted spectre scuds, And leaves my lady in the suds [F&H]. | |
| , , | | Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue. |
| Sporting Mag. Aug. VIII 252/2: Remember that your country is at war, and if you do not ‘war [sic] hawk,’ you will find yourselves in the suds. | |
| Comic Sketches 26: A Barber would say he was ‘In the suds,’ or ‘Terribly cut’. | |
| Lex. Balatronicum. | |
| Grose’s Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue. | |
| Hist. of My Own Times (1995) 78: Let me inform all those [who may think otherwise] that they are in the suds. | |
| Comic Almanack Jan. 302: West Middlesex Assurance bubble burst. Creditors in the suds. | |
| Paved with Gold 343: I never see an old pal in the suds but my spirit’s willing to give him a hist up’ards. |
2. tipsy.
| ‘Drinkers Dict.’ in Pennsylvania Gazette 6 Jan. in AS XII:2 92: They come to be well understood to signify plainly that A MAN IS DRUNK. [...] In the Sudds. | |
| Gent.’s Mag. Dec. 559/2: To express the condition of an Honest Fellow [...] under the Effects of good Fellowship, it is said that he is [...] 46. A little in the suds. | |
| ‘Jack Oakum in the Suds’ in I (1975) [title]. |
food and beer.
| Salt Lake Herald (UT) 19 Oct. 5/1: All he wants now is soog and suds. |
(US) to drink beer.
| Pittsburgh Courier (PA) 22 Aug. 7/7: Sucking suds — (drinking beer). | |
| ‘Gator Sl.’ AS XXXIV:2 156: Gators never merely drink; instead, they sop or slop suds, [etc.]. | |
| Current Sl. III:4. |
SE in slang uses
In phrases
(US black) to work as a washer-up.
| Detroit Free Press (MI) 3 Nov. 10/2: [advert] ‘Busting’ Suds! Big ‘busting,’ bubbling, dirt-chasing suds! [...] Grandma’s Powdered Soap. | |
| N.Y. Age 6 Aug. 16/2: All she finds is [...] busting suds or cooking, none of which duties she can perform. | |
| Room to Swing 20: She was cooking and busting suds in a white house. | |
| (con. 1945) Gather Together In My Name 13: ‘Busting some goddam suds.’ Disgust wrinkled his face. | |
| Drylongso 144: He could see me busting the white man’s suds and mopping the white man’s floors. | |
| Atlanta Consit. (GA) 8 July R4/1: She plunges her arms into an elbow-deep sink of soap suds. Dey’s enthusiasm for busting suds may seem unusual. | |
| Chicago Trib. 23 May sect. 51: [headline] Dishwasher Pele. Read how our hero traveled the US ‘busting suds’ for twelve years. |
(US black) unaware, unsophisticated.
| ‘Idioms of the Present-Day American Negro’ in AS XIII:4 Dec. 314/1: LOST IN THE SUDS. Unhipped. |
to provide a drink of beer.
| Simply Heavenly II i: Barman, untap your key. Suds us up! Lets drink to it. |