boob n.1
1. (orig. Aus.) orig. milit. use, a prison; thus (all Aus./N.Z.) boob dot, a small blue dot tattooed beneath the eye, indicating a spell in borstal or prison; boob gear, prison uniform; boob slang/talk, prison jargon; boob tat, a prison tattoo; boob tea, weak, prison-brewed tea; boob weed, prison-issue tobacco; also a vb. see cite 1908.
![[Aus]](/static/img/flags/aus.png "Australia") | Sun. Times (Perth) 6 May 10/2: [headline] Pampered Prisoners. Banquets in Bunbury Boob. | |
| Sun. Times (Perth) 25 Oct. 4/8: He must get some lodgers new for Bailey’s booby. | |
![[US]](/static/img/flags/us.png "United States") | Enemy to Society 159: Rats, who was well-named, many declared, being suspected of ‘stooling for the coppers and swearing many a right guy into the boob’. | |
![[NZ]](/static/img/flags/nz.png "New Zealand") | N.Z. Truth 23 Aug. 5/7: [headline] How He Bade Good-Bye to the Boob. | |
| Aussie (France) 8 Oct. 14/2: Again, the last time I was over in Blighty I got clinked for emphasising an argument with a Jack. In the boob next morning they were sorting out the sore and sorry when in came a parson pot with a couple of Emma-Pips. | |
| Man’s Grim Justice 138: There never was a grifter that had a steady cow that didn’t land in the boob. | |
![[UK]](/static/img/flags/uk.png "United Kingdom") | Gentlemen of the Broad Arrows 220: I’ll find it, if it’s in the boob. | |
| Western Mail (Perth) 13 June 2/3: A boob [...] is really a gaol for crooked soldiers. | |
| Battlers 107: I thought you was in boob by now. | |
![[SA]](/static/img/flags/sa.png "South Africa") | Cold Stone Jug (1981) II 20: In South Africa, there was actually a class of person who spoke an argot that was known only to his kind. Boob slang, they called it. Boob, and not jug, being the Swartklei prison word for prison. | |
| Poor Man’s Orange 38: That dirty old cow, always making up to kids. Only been out of boob a few weeks. | |
| (con. 1941) Twenty Thousand Thieves 141: Blokes who’ve been in Jerusalem boob reckon it’s ten times worse than Pentridge, Boggo Road and Long Bay put together. | |
| Till Human Voices Wake Us 72: They’re the best, the tankblowers, and the more boob they’ve done the better usually. | |
| Guntz 15 I had [...] the dead needle to them screws in the boob. | |
| ‘Whisper All Aussie Dict.’ in Kings Cross Whisper (Sydney) xxxii 7/1: boobs [sic] weed: Poor quality prison issue tobacco. | |
| He who Shoots Last 125: Gee, thanks, Ragged. Da stuff’s like gold in here . . . gees, it’s da grouse weed too – we gits a coupla ounces a week, but boob weed is like smokin’ horse dung. | |
| Bullshit and Jelly Beans 11: I lay awake, it was my first Saturday night in boob. | |
| Parramatta Jail Gloss. B. Moore (ed.) (2023) 63: boob tea weak gaol made tea [...] boob tobacco low grade gaol issued tobacco. | |
| (con. 1941) Gunner 164: He was a bad one, Gunner felt, the sweatiest of Old Sweats, probably done time in every military boob from the Glasshouse to Abbassia. | |
| First Offender 24: ‘[T]he knitting shop [...] The best lurk in the boob’. | |
| Kullark 55: Every night in the boob was worth it. | |
| Ridgey-Didge Oz Jack Lang 19: Boob Weed Poor quality tobacco. | |
| Aus. Prison Sl. Gloss. 🌐 Boob. Prison. Term also employed as adjective to describe things associated with prison, usually denoting inferior quality, eg ‘boob clothes’, ‘boob tea’, ‘boob talk’, etc. [Ibid.] Boob shit. Prison issue tobacco. [...] Sometimes ‘boob weed’. [Ibid.] Boob tats. Amateur tattoos enscribed in prison. | |
| One Night Out Stealing 10: With their obvious histories tatooed all over em, and the rare ones that had none or hardly any, like Sonny here who only had a very old boob dot under his right eye. | |
| ‘Boob Jargon’ in NZEJ 13 28: boobsmoke n. Prison tobacco [...] boobweed n. Prison tobacco. | |
| Layer Cake 16: What he does have going for him is the connections he’s built up over the years, in the boob and out. | |
| Boobslang [U. Canterbury D.Phil. thesis] 23/2: boob (also the boob) n. prison. | |
| Reed Dict. of N.Z. Sl. 30: boob tat A tattoo acquired in prison. | |
| Intractable [ebook] [K]nuckle-dragging six-foot sinners with broken noses and crew cuts, covered in boob tattoos. | |
| ‘Trolling the Beat to Working the Soob’ in Int’l Jrnl Lexicog. 23:1 59: Boobslang from boob (prison) is an argot used among New Zealand prison inmates. |
2. (US) a police station, esp. the police cells, a local or city prison.
| Criminal Sl. 4: Boob, the lockup, station house, or city prison. | |
| ‘Canada Kid’ in Beef, Iron and Wine (1917) 175: Shovin’ two-bit queers — ‘Silk’ Tavannes, the silk-lined terror o’ the rural boob. | |
| ‘Short Shift Saturday’ in Mann Coast to Coast 232: I’ll always remember as a good sight, seeing Don get chucked out of the Ballarat and carted off to the boob. | |
| Crime in S. Afr. 107: A ‘boob’ is a police station. | |
| Bunch of Ratbags 158: Quite frequently he spent the weekend in the boob and had to appear in court on the Monday. | |
| Lowspeak. |
3. (N.Z. prison) a sentence, a period in prison.
| Till Human Voices Wake Us 134: They’ll do their boob [...] tell you it’s inevoitable . |
In compounds
(N.Z. prison) alcohol made from brasso metal polisher, drunk mixed with milk or raro fruit cordial.
| Outside In I ii: A drop of the Ol’ Boob Blue! | |
| Boobslang [U. Canterbury D.Phil. thesis] 24/1: boob blue alcohol obtained by straining Brasso (metal polish) through bread. |
(N.Z. prison) a prison uniform.
 | ‘Broken Arse’ in Into the World of Light: An Anthology of Maori Writing 165: Even while he was being stripped and even while they shore off his yellow hair, gave him a number, a well-pissed mattress, his boob blues - he still raved on. | |
| Boobslang [U. Canterbury D.Phil. thesis] 24/1: boob blues an inmate's prison uniform. |
(N.Z. prison) a home for young offenders.
| Boobslang [U. Canterbury D.Phil. thesis] 23/1: boob camp a children's home for young offenders, a borstal, a youth prison. |
(Aus. prison) a prisoner who suspends his usual heterosexuality for a homosexual life while in jail.
| Aus. Prison Sl. Gloss. 🌐 Boob cat. A prisoner who is usually heterosexual but engages in homosexual activities while in prison. |
(N.Z. prison) prison-issued clothing.
| Till Human Voices Wake Us 128: [W]hen I saw him in boob clothes I hardly recognised him. | |
| Big Huey 45: [S]ets of boob gear waiting for us to put on - one baggy singlet, one pair of short-legged underpants, one khaki shirt, one pair of blue denim jeans, and a pair of plastic sandals. | |
| ‘Boob Jargon’ in NZEJ 13 28: boob gear n. Institution clothing - prison uniform. | |
| Boobslang [U. Canterbury D.Phil. thesis] 24/1: boob clothes institution clothing, an inmate's prison uniform. |
(N.Z. prison) a weapon composed of cakes of soap, first soaked, moulded together then, when dry and hard, placed in a sock; similar weapons are based on batteries or a pool ball.
| Boobslang [U. Canterbury D.Phil. thesis] 24/1: boob cosh a weapon made from cakes of soap in a sock [...] Instead of soap, batteries or a pool ball may be used. |
(N.Z. prison) a tattooed dot under or to the side of the eye that indicates a stay in prison or borstal.
| One Night Out Stealing 10: Sonny [...] had a very old boob dot under his right eye from his first borstal lag. | |
| Boobslang [U. Canterbury D.Phil. thesis] 24/2: boob dot a small tattoo under or at the side of the eye, indicating a stay in a borstal or prison. |
(N.Z. prison) heavy tattooing on the back of the hands, covering the flesh up to the middle joint of each finger.
| Boobslang [U. Canterbury D.Phil. thesis] 24/2: boob glove a heavy tattoo [...] covering the whole of the back of the hand as far as the middle joint of each finger, resembling a fingerless glove. |
(N.Z. prison) a home-made tattoo machine.
| Boobslang [U. Canterbury D.Phil. thesis] 24/2: boob gun a tattoo machine. |
(Aus. prison) institutionalized; no longer able to survive outside the prison environment.
| in Simes DAUS 19: Boob happy, mentally unbalanced because of imprisonment. | |
| Argot in Simes DAUS 19: ‘He’s a boob rat’, or ‘he’s boob happy’, i.e. imprisonment has sent him off balance. | |
| He who Shoots Last 122: They approached the forbidding grey walls [...] which strike terror into the hearts of first offenders, which bring despair to the revisitors and which are home to the boob-happy or stir-crazy. | |
| Jack in Coll. Plays (1987) 208: He’s been pretty strange, probably goin’ boob-happy. | |
| For Simmo 147: I realized I was starting to go ‘Boob happy’ or in the words of [Prisons] Department ‘institutionalized’. | |
| Aus. Prison Sl. Gloss. 🌐 Boob happy. Used to describe an institutionalised prisoner. Someone who has done too much prison, who has given up, who cannot survive outside. |
1. (Aus./N.Z. prison) a prisoner, esp. an influential one, thus attrib.
| Till Human Voices Wake Us (pre-pub. ms) in Here and Now Nov. 14: A boobhead is a prisoner; a screw is a warder; a topper is a toady or an informer. | |
| Till Human Voices Wake Us 57: God help all boobheads when the codfishes of this world take charge. | |
| Till Human Voices Wake Us 38: Most of the boobhead drivers went for the lick of their lives. | |
| ‘Whisper All Aussie Dict.’ in Kings Cross Whisper (Sydney) xxxii 7/1: boob head: A prison organiser. Usually a tough type or prisoner. | |
| Big Huey 238: The only people I knew well now were boobheads and ex-boobheads. | |
| Aus. Prison Sl. Gloss. 🌐 Boob head. 1. A loutish or prisonised person. 2. The most influential prisoner in a division (Vic). | |
| One Night Out Stealing 147: [B]oobheads, they seize on anything elaborate to justify their stupid existences. | |
| ‘Boob Jargon’ in NZEJ 13 28: boobhead n.Inmate. |
2. (N.Z. prison) a experienced prisoner, an ‘old lag’.
| Till Human Voices Wake Us 66: [O]ld boob heads who are let out after so many years, burst into tears when you reach the world outside the gate. | |
| While We Have Prisons 79: He lived in Mt Eden jail for many years, to become an accepted ‘boob-head’ character. | |
| What Becomes of the Broken Hearted? 18: [T]he old codger boobheads, stuck in the past of when the big gate closed on ’em. |
3. (N.Z. prison) a recidivist.
| Boobslang [U. Canterbury D.Phil. thesis] 26/1: boobhead 2 a recidivist. |
4. (N.Z. prison) one whose whole life has been spent in various forms of carceral institution.
| Boobslang [U. Canterbury D.Phil. thesis] 26/2: boobhead 4 an inmate who has made a career out of prison, e.g. one who from an early age has come up through boys’ homes, borstal and corrective training before coming to prison. |
5. (N.Z. prison) a prisoner who has become wholly institutionalized.
| Big Huey 245: Boobhead (n) ... prisonised [sic] person. | |
| Boobslang [U. Canterbury D.Phil. thesis] 26/2: boobhead 5 a person who prefers prison to the outside, an institutionalised person. |
6. (N.Z. prison) that prisoner on a given wing who is serving the longest sentence.
| Boobslang [U. Canterbury D.Phil. thesis] 26/2: boobhead 6 the inmate in the wing currently serving the longest sentence. |
(N.Z. prison) anything supplied to inmates by the prison authorities.
| Boobslang [U. Canterbury D.Phil. thesis] 25/1: boob issue any item provided by the prison, e.g. toiletries, clothes,. |
(N.Z. prison) a very thinly rolled marijuana cigarette, designed to eke out one’s drug supply.
| Boobslang [U. Canterbury D.Phil. thesis] 25/1: boob joint a tiny marijuana cigarette rolled in prison to eke out an inmate's cannabis. |
(Aus. Und.) a prisoner, esp. a recidivist.
| Joyful Condemned 371: Why, David, you old boob rat! [...] What you doing in this blood-house? |
1. a ‘war story’ told by a veteran prisoner.
| Till Human Voices Wake Us 39: The interminable boob stories, jobs done or jobs contemplated, fights with coppers or demons, and smut. |
2. a prison ‘character’, typically one who is far into a life sentence [the telling of stories noted in sense 1].
| Boobslang [U. Canterbury D.Phil. thesis] 25/1: boob story an inmate who has spent most of his life in prison, or an inmate serving a life sentence. |
1. (N.Z. prison) a form of prison language (but not slang), based on manipulation and reordering of SE and including sign language.
| Poor Behaviour 123: [A] low hum, whispered staccato boob-talk fuelled by tales of pig injustice and oaths of bloody revenge. | |
| Boobslang [U. Canterbury D.Phil. thesis] 25/2: boob talk1 the 'gibberish' language and/or sign language used by inmates [...] a form of language that focuses upon a reordering of existing Standard English words and incorporates non-verbal communication. |
2. (N.Z. prison) prison slang.
| Boobslang [U. Canterbury D.Phil. thesis] 25/2: boob talk 2. = boobslang. |
(N.Z. prison) an exaggerated saunter, based on body-building’s ‘front lat spread’, which aims to make the prisoner appear more intimdating.
| One Night Out Stealing 85: Jube [...] with an exercise-yard-style sway to him and wearing his smokylensed shades...Boob-walkin, shaded, fat walrus mo and a few days’ stubble. | |
| Boobslang [U. Canterbury D.Phil. thesis] 25/2: boob walk a saunter that inmates adopt [...] during which the chest, back and shoulder muscles are arranged in a ‘front lat spread’ in an attempt to make the inmate look bigger, tougher and more intimidating. |
1. (N.Z. prison) marijuana.
| Boobslang [U. Canterbury D.Phil. thesis] 25/2: boob weed 1 marijuana. |
2. (Aus./N.Z. prison) prison-issued tobacco.
| in Simes DAUS 19: Boob weed, tobacco issued in gaol. | |
| Big Huey 254: Boobweed (n) Prison tobacco. | |
| 42: Piggyscrew: Look, have a seat. Make yourself comfortable. HENRY ppulls out his boob weed Not those. Have a roundy. | |
| Boobslang [U. Canterbury D.Phil. thesis] 25/2: boob weed 2 prison tobacco. |
(N.Z. prison) a prison-applied tattoo.
| Boobslang [U. Canterbury D.Phil. thesis] 26/1: boob work tattoo(s) applied either in prison, or with a boob gun. |
In phrases
(Aus. prison) to serve time in prison.
| Argot in DAUS (1993) 19: He’s doing boob. |