Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(Aus.) a detoxification facility.

1983

J. Byrell (con. 1959) Up the Cross 51: A dry dock is [...] where alkies and dipsos flee to when they get really browned off with the spiders, centipedes [...] and similar crawlies which keep pestering them .

the state of being intoxicated by drugs, not alcohol.

1968

N. von Hoffman We are the People Our Parents Warned Us Against 249: Back in the days when pot was called a ‘dry drunk,’ a déclassé high for people who didn’t have the bread for booze.

narcotics, esp. as a fig. ‘killer of pain’.

1986–7

Maledicta IX 54: Dutch courage, dry n [D] Narcotics; contemporary play on Dutch courage.

(W.I.) marijuana.

1936

cited in Cassidy & LePage Dict. Jam. Eng. (1980).

(US drugs) narcotics.

1942		Berrey & Van den Bark Amer. Thes. Sl.
1953		Anslinger & Tompkins Traffic In Narcotics 308: dry grog. Drugs.
1959		J.E. Schmidt Narcotics Lingo and Lore.

1. (Aus.) delirium tremens; in weak sense, any degree of hangover.

1905–06		(?) H. Lawson ‘Triangles of Life’ in Roderick (1972) 623: Bogan was left in camp [...] to look after poor Little Billy and his dry horrors.
1933		(ref. to 1890–1910) L.G.D. Acland Early Canterbury Runs (1951) 375: Dry horrors – State of a shepherd when back from a bust in town.
1960		N. Hilliard Maori Girl 120: You got the dry horrors?
2003		McGill Reed Dict. of N.Z. Sl. 69: dry horrors Hangover, where dehydration is apparent. ANZ early C20.
2004		L. Redhead Peepshow [ebook] I bought a bottle of water to combat the dry horrors.

2. a negative reaction to alcohol, due to one’s having been without drink for a long period.

1912

Bulletin (Sydney) 10 Oct. 48/2: ‘No bloomin’ fear. He’s rather a stiddy bloke, but he’s sufferin’ fr’m th’ dry ’orrors.’ / ‘The what?’ / ‘The dry ’orrers. Y’ see he’s bin’ out on a back station all through this drooght, tank-sinkin’, an’ ’is innards is got all parched tup. The firs’ beer only got down tabout ’ere’ (indicating the top button of the vest).

(US) a sense of brief excitement similar to that produced by alcohol, but without any drinking.

1901		C.M. Flandrau Diary of a Freshman 250: He has what he calls a ‘dry jag,’ and hardly ever stopped talking.
1965		C. Himes Cotton Comes to Harlem (1967) 182: They stood at the bar like two cats having a sip of something cold to dampen their dry jag.

1. (Aus.) qualified with a given (absurd) n., extremely thirsty (occas. lit., e.g. cite 1977, 1998, 2005).

1893		H. Lawson in Worker (Wagga Wagga) 2 Sept. 1/4: A sun-struck bone ain’t drier than my throat this blessed day!
1901		‘San Juan’ in Lingenfelter et al. Songs of the Amer. West (1968) 111: Trot around with that beer when you can; / I’m as dry as a fish.
1907		H. Lawson in Sun (Kalgoorlie) 22 Seot. 5/3: ‘I got a thirst on me like a sun-struck bone, an’, for God sake, put up a couple o’ beers for me an’ my mate, an’ I’ll fix it up with yer when I come back after shearin’’.
1917		R. Lardner ‘Carmen’ Gullible’s Travels 22: ‘Got anything on the hip?’ says Don. ‘You took the words out o’ my mouth,’ says Bill. ‘I’m drier than St. Petersgrad.’.
1921		Independent (Melbourne) 2 Apr. 2/5: Another well-known member of the local club, whose neck is analogous to a sunstruck bone (in the matter of dryness, not whiteness), also made the trip, but returned next day, because he could not get his teeth into the Bendigo beer.
1948		M. Raymond ‘Smiley Gets A Gun’ in Manjimup Mail (WA) 3 Mar. 4/2: ‘Don’t - don’t you think we’d better boil the billy?’ he asked chokingly. ‘Too right,’ agreed the boy with alacrity. ‘My throat’s as dry as a sunstruck bone.’.
1951		Cusack & James Come in Spinner (1960) 328: ‘All I’m after’s a beer. I got a thirst on me like a sunstruck bone and I’m dead motherless broke’.
1962		(con. WWII) J.O. Killens And Then We Heard The Thunder (1964) 374: The Southern Cross was dry as a chip, but Worm led Solly to the men’s rest room and wet his whistle with apple brandy from his hip pocket.
1966		S.J. Baker Aus. Lang. (2 edn) 90: dry as a sunstruck bone, utterly parched.
1967		J. Wynnum I’m a Jack, All Right 129: ‘You must be dry as a chip [...] Here, take this [i.e. a beer]’.
1974		q. in T. Spicer Good Girl Stripped Bare (2017) 10: ‘Bloody water everywhere and I’m as dry as a dead dingo’s donger,’ Mack says. ‘Better get a beer’.
1983		J. Byrell (con. 1959) Up the Cross 7: W‘e’re dry as a witch’s tit’.
1985		R.G. Barrett You Wouldn’t Be Dead for Quids (1989) 99: I’m drier than a dead dingo’s derrick.
1988		L. Johansen Dinkum Dict. 111/3: dry as a sun-struck bone .. 2. extremely thirsty.
1996		J. Byrell Lairs, Urgers & Coat-Tuggers 162: [I]t was about time for him to hit his kick because he was in the chair and everyone was as dry as a wart on an Arab’s donger from waiting for him to do the trick.
2016		N. Cummins Adventures of the Honey Badger [ebook] In the guts of summer [...] a two-and-a-half-hour on-field training session is enough to leave you as dry as a dead dingo’s donger.
2018		R. O’Neill ‘Ocker’ in The Drover’s Wives (2019) 180: So out near Woop Woop, there’s this bodgy two-room place in the scrub.

2. (Aus.) of weather conditions, extremely dry.

1977		F.A. Reeder Diary of a Rat 39: Hot as a couple of hells, dry as a sunstruck bone, with huge sandhills everywhere.
1988		L. Johansen Dinkum Dict. 111/3: dry as a sun-struck bone .. 1. extremely dry.
2005		T. Flannery Country: A Continent, a Scientist and a Kangaroo 112: The whole region north of the Cooper was as dry as a sunstruck bone during out visit.
2018		R. O’Neill ‘Ocker’ in The Drover’s Wives (2019) 180: [N]ext to a billabong that’s as a dry as a dead dingo’s dick.

see dry ride

sex without ejaculation by the man; also as v.

1599		H. Porter Two Angry Women of Abington D4: Sheele persecute the poore wit-beaten man, And so bebang him with dry bobs and scoffes.
1671		‘Haymarket Hectors’ in Lord Poems on Affairs of State (1963) I 169: And he, our amorous Jove, / Whilst she lay dry-bobb’d under, / To repair the defects of his love, / Must lend her his lightning and thunder.
a.1674		Rochester ‘The Argument’ in Poems on Several Occasions (1685) 36: The cheating Jilt, at the Twelfth, A dry bob cries.
1684		N. Tate Duke and No Duke Prologue: Venus and Mars, I find in Aries are, In the Ninth House, – a dull dry Bobbing Year.
1689		‘Vox Clero, Lilli burlero’ in Lord Poems on Affairs of State (1971) V 134: Grave Tennison thought things obscenely expressed / And fain would have left out the cream of the jest. / But ’twould not be decreed / To leave the word ‘seed’, / For ’twould dry-bob our marriage, and mar all the breed.
1696		Motteux (trans.) Gargantua and Pantagruel (1927) II Bk V 623: Do you never commit dry-bobs or flashes in the pan?
a.1700		‘Comical Wager’ n.p.: A Lawyer’s Wife [...] laid a Guinea with her Husband’s Clerk, that he did not Flourish her over Seven times in an Hour: And how the lusty Rogue perform’d Six of the times effectually; but the Seventh time happening to be a dry Bob, she pretended he had not won the Wager.
1786		C. Morris ‘The Great Plenipotentiary’ Collection of Songs (1788) 42: I’ll make up, please the Pigs, for dry Bobs and Frigs, / With the great Plenipotentiary.
1796		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.
1798		‘Actresses’ in Hilaria 106: Most titled things I’ve heard her say, / Are dry b—s next door neighbours, / Before such husky pipes can play, / Their bums are bang’d like tabors.
1811		Lex. Balatronicum.
1823		Egan Grose’s Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.
1831		Satirist (London) 24 Apr. 22/1: ‘Can you tell me what the Satirist means by calling my friend peel ‘Sir Dry Bob?’ ‘1 really cannot, my dear; I dare say it is some political allusion’.
1896		Farmer Vocabula Amatoria (1966) 21: Avaler le poisson sans sauce = to copulate with a man who fails to ejaculate; ‘to get a dry bob’.
c.1904		A. Crowley Snowdrops from a Curate’s Garden 34: I was able at leisure to achieve the fourteen fucks and a dry-bob.
1905–07		Bawdy N.Y. State MS. n.p.: COMMON OLD FASHIONED FUCK, – – – – – – $2.20. DIDDLING ON THE EDGE of the BED, – – – $3.10. DRY BOB, – $1.50.
1956		‘Count P. Vicarion’ ‘The Great Plenipotentiary’ Bawdy Ballads II: ‘Good God,’ cried Her Grace, ‘its head’s like a mace! [...] I’ll make up – please the pigs – for dry-bobs and frigs, / With the Great Plenipotentiary.’.
1997		Roger’s Profanisaurus in Viz 87 Dec. n.p.: dry bob n. Sex without male ejaculation.

(US gay) a platonic date; any appointment other than a sexual one; pornography.

1972

B. Rodgers Queens’ Vernacular 69: dry date 1. a platonic date ‘Yeah I went out with him once, but I still don’t know if he digs goin’ down. He was a dry date’ 2. any nonerotic appointment ‘You have a dry date today, Queen: with the dentist’ 3. sexy photographs.

see separate entries.

see separate entries.

in the context of masturbation, the hand (as opposed to the vagina).

1971

(con. WWII) B. Aldiss Soldier Erect 44: In there [i.e. ‘the shithouse’] I went to a regular evening rendezvous with my dry-mouthed widow.

a simulated act of sexual intercourse, without penetration and usu. without removing the clothes.

1986		B. Geldof Is That It? 37: You could get a ‘wear’, a kiss with an open mouth; a ‘feel’; a ‘dry ride’, a crunching of pubic bones, or a ‘ride’.
1987		(con. 1930s) L. Redmond Emerald Square 295: The girls were too frightened to open their legs and the boys resorted to masturbation, or what was known as a ‘dry ride’.
1995		A. Higgins Donkey’s Years 144: Certain Lower Line tacks had dry-bangs (a ride without the trousers removed) with passing Third Line sows.

see dry hump v. (1)

see dry fuck n. (1)

see separate entry.

1. an act of sexual intercourse using a contraceptive.

1960, 1975

Wentworth & Flexner DAS.

2. (US gay) sex without ejaculation; frottage.

1955		E. Hunter Blackboard Jungle 197: You know what a dry run is, huh, boy?
1972		B. Rodgers Queens’ Vernacular 69: dry run 1. dancing or some other close contact, with thighs rubbing together 2. fucking without ejaculating.

see dry hump v. (1)

see separate entries.

a period without (penetrative) sex.

2021

Betoota-isms 267: ‘After a three-month dry spell, Blake was toey as a Roman sandal’.

(US) to smuggle (oneself) across the US border from Mexico in a vehicle.

1958

E. Gilbert Vice Trap 148: He dry-backed him over from Santa Lucia, in the trunk of his car.

see separate entries.

(UK Und.) the search of a prisoner who has been first stripped naked; or a prison cell.

1924		S. Scott Human Side of Crook and Convict Life 74: On certain days a ‘dry bath’ — i.e. visit to the baths to be stripped and searched for contraband tobacco, newspapers, files or letters.
1939		V. Davis Gentlemen of the Broad Arrows 27: A dry bath [...] This is a search, you mug.
1941		V. Davis Phenomena in Crime 235: A system of searching known as ‘dry-bathing’ was modified.
1956		‘Charles Raven’ Und. Nights 137: They gave him a very perfunctory searching instead of the thorough and humiliating going over, known as the ‘dry bath’.
1989		J. Morton Lowspeak 53: Dry bath – search of a prison cell by warders.

‘a contemptuous or familiar term for a thin or withered person, who has little flesh on his bones’ (OED).

1653		‘Oliver routing the Rump’ in Ebsworth Merry Drollery Compleat (1875) 63: An Act he did not expect from a King, / Much less from a dry-bone as he.
1675		Fumblers-Hall 12: Clerk: Kate Knock-well and William Dry-bones appear in the Court.
1697		Art of Cuckoldom in C.C. Mish Restoration Prose Fiction (1970) 192: A young Spark [...] naturally imagining that such dry Bones as her old Husband, could not be over-extraordinary satisfactory to such young Veins.
1709		R. Steele Tatler No. 24: Tom. Drybones, for his generous Loss of Youth and Health.
1713		J. Gay Wife of Bath I i: Slidikins! – Old, old! – pray do not measure my Corn with your Bushel, old dry Bones.
1741		Litigious Suitor Defeated 215: Dost thou prate, old dry Bones, dost thou want that mouldy Nose, unscrew’d from thy moth-eated Face.
1796		G. Colman Yngr Iron Chest I ii: Age has so overdone this old dry-bones.
1827		Hamel, Obeah Man II 8: That Negro Drybones – or, as we call him, Nimrod.
1845		G.P.R. James Arrah Neil III 189: Ha! ha! old dry-bones! [...] have I caught thee at length?

‘a sly, humorous fellow’ (Grose, 1785).

c.1698		B.E. Dict. Canting Crew n.p.: Dry-boots, a sly, close, cunning Fellow.
1725		New Canting Dict. [as cit. c.1698].
1737, 1759, 1760, 1776		Bailey Universal Etym. Eng. Dict. [as cit. c.1698].
1785, 1788, 1796		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.
1811		Lex. Balatronicum.
1823		Egan Grose’s Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.

(US tramp) a piece of cake and a sandwich, i.e. no drink.

1950

Goldin et al. DAUL 63/1: Dry combo. (Hobo) A piece of cake and a sandwich, as a handout in door-to-door begging.

(W.I.) daring, dauntless.

1995

Francis-Jackson Official Dancehall Dict. 16: Dry-eye barefaced; daring: u. a dry-eye person.

see separate entries.

1. to murder; thus dry-gulcher n., a murderer; dry-gulching n., murdering.

1930		Raine & Barnes Cattle 51: Ben Turner, an ally of the Harrells, was dry-gulched.
1937		W.M. Raine Cool Customer 46: They would have dry-gulched my uncle.
1947		W.D. Overholser Buckaroo’s Code (1948) 37: Somebody tried to drygulch him in town.
1952		W.D. Overholser Fabulous Gunman 53: Looked for a while like he might be the big gun on this range till one day he got himself dry-gulched. [Ibid.] 64: I’m thinking it’s too bad your dry-gulcher didn’t shoot straight.
1968		(con. mid-late19C) S. Longstreet Wilder Shore 40: Some who tried were murdered up a lonely trail, or shot from ambush in sinister games called dry gulching and bushwacking.
1975		Bulletin (Sydney) 26 Apr. 44: Gulcher earned his name many years ago when he shot a man in the back. [...] And so Gulcher earned the name of Drygulcher. Constant usage and perhaps a little charity shortened it to Gulcher.
2005		M.B. ‘Chopper’ Read Chopper 4 211: He was the sneakiest gunslinger in the West. A back shooting, dry gulching son of a bitch.

2. to assault.

1940		R. Chandler Farewell, My Lovely (1949) 68: Then one of them got into the car and dry-gulched me.
1956		J. Blake letter 22 Jan. in Joint (1972) 76: This year I got dry-gulched.
1987		(con. 1920s) L. Redmond Emerald Square 41: Bang-Bang had been dry gulched by bounty hunters and was fighting grimly.

3. to ambush, to take by surprise.

1989		T. Wolff (con. mid-1950s) This Boy’s Life 113: ‘That was your fault,’ Dwight told me. ‘You must have had your guard down. There’s no excuse for getting dry-gulched’.
2021		‘Aidan Truhen’ Seven Demons 219: I dry-gulched those fuckers so that we got rich and they got the other thing.

1. (Aus.) dullness, ill-temper; a morose individual; also attrib.

1887		‘Aus. Colloquialisms’ in All Year Round 30 July 66/1: The ‘sundowner’ may be further described as a ‘dry hash,’ or a ‘stringybark,’ that is, a ne’er-do-weel, a fellow not good for much.
1889-90		D. Sladen in Barrère & Leland Sl., Jargon and Cant I 333/1: Dry hash (Australian), a man who will not ‘shout,’ i.e., pay for drinks.
1900–10		Stephens & O’Brien Materials for a Dict. of Aus. Sl. [unpub. ms.] 64: DRY HASH: slang mean, morose, dull [...] The word also applies to persons or parties or entertainments that are dull.
1911		Truth (Sydney) 12 Mar. 12/5: Fancy livin with a feemale / What are boney and are thin. / Quoting miles of dry hash slobber, / Every time she do begin. / Skitin on the rights of wimmen, / Yelping, likewise on their wrongs.

2. (Aus.) a waste of time.

1886		N.Z. Observer and Free Lance (Auckland) 20 Mar. 23/1: That Tradesmen’s Athletic meeting was a regular dry hash [...] but the members made up for that by having a ‘bob in’ after.
1889		Dead Bird (Sydney) 16 Nov. 4/4: I got my hand, accidentally, into a old joker's kick, but ’e had nothing [...] and a nother bloke got ’is five finger exercises on to me, which was dry hash, as [...] I’d left my I staff at ’ome.
1903		‘Dads Wayback’ in Sun. Times (Sydney) 4 Jan. 9/3: ‘[F]olks won’t listen to ’em, they’s dry hash, so they is passed over ter ther black feller, or ther yaller feller, as [...] job lines’.

see separate entries.

(US) a fruitless project.

1978		H.R. Haldeman Ends of Power 103: [T]he [wire] taps never produced anything. As Nixon said gloomily, later, ‘A dry hole. Just globs and globs of crap’.
1980		G. Liddy Will 170: I wasn't discouraged by the failure of the Fielding job to produce results—in that line of work there are as many dry holes as there are in the oil business.

(US Und.) a dungeon.

1848

Ladies’ Repository (N.Y.) Oct. VIII:37 316/1: Dry House, a dungeon.

see separate entries.

lodging without inclusive board.

1873		Sl. Dict. 151: Dry lodging sleeping and sitting accommodation only, without board. This is lodging-house keepers’ slang, and is generally used in reference to rooms let to lodgers who take their meals at their clubs, or in the City, according to their social positions.
1895		Crowe Aus. Sl. Dict. 25: Dry Lodging, accommodation without board.

(W.I.) to ignore someone deliberately, even to the extent of communicating through a third party.

1995

Francis-Jackson Official Dancehall Dict. 16: Dry malice to pointedly ignore someone by using a third party to communicate, even when within hearing of each other.

(Irish) cash, ready money.

1908		J. Guinan Soggarth Aroon 236: Kerrigan thus lost every penny of ‘dry money’ he had in the world.
1979		F. Kelly Annals of Ballykilferret 45: The drinker merely saves his coupons [...] and he may exchange them with the manager for what is known locally as ‘dry money’.

(UK Und.) committed for trial.

c.1850

Duncombe New and Improved Flash Dict.

1. a prison; the inference is that its cells are damp.

1890–1904

Farmer & Henley Sl. and Its Analogues.

2. (also drying room) an interrogation room.

1935		A.J. Pollock Und. Speaks 34/2: Dry room, a room in police headquarters where prisoners and suspects are questioned.
1936		H. Corey Farewell, Mr Gangster! 278: Drying room – police third-degree room.

(UK Und.) a Jew who sells second-hand clothes.

c.1850

Duncombe New and Improved Flash Dict.

see separate entries.

(Irish) a boring, unpopular person.

1994		J. O’Connor Secret World of the Irish Male (1995) 222: ‘Ah don’t be such a dry shite,’ he says.
2001		G. Coughlan Everyday Eng. and Sl. 🌐 Dry Shite (n): a dull, boring person.

(W.I.) a completely bald person.

1956

cited in Cassidy & LePage Dict. Jam. Eng. (1980).

see separate entries.

see under stick n.