Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. gonorrhoea; thus a glueing, a case of gonorrhoea.

1833		‘The Amiable Family’ in Fal-Lal Songster in Spedding & Watt (eds) Bawdy Songbooks (2011) III 9: He’s been with some mot, / And the glue he has got .
1835		‘The Spring Bedstead’ in Knowing Chaunter 18: I think I’d cause to rue, / The fun I had requested, / For, besides, I got the glue.
1842		‘The Chaffing Family’ in Nobby Songster 13: And Poll she chaffs Dick pretty handsomely too, / Because he’s laid up very bad with the glue. [Ibid.] ‘The Charming Mot’ 42: But if you gents, you care for a glueing, / Beware of this good looking mot.
c.1864		‘So, I Said to Myself’ in Rakish Rhymer (1917) 48: For I went to a doctor who said ’twas a / Shocking bad case as ever he knew, / And then I discovered that I had the glue.
1870		Cythera’s Hymnal 28: This is / A time when you may catch the glue.

2. (US tramp) in fig. use, money.

1893

Sun (NY) 21 May 28/1: ‘How does dem Sisters run de hawspitals? W’ere do dey get de stuff? It takes a lot of glue t’ run one. Who puts up fer it?’.

3. semen.

1896		Farmer Vocabula Amatoria (1966) 70: Colle, f. semen; ‘glue’.
2013		F. Bill Donnybrook [ebook] ‘The dumb bastard was getting fucked when some gal decided to shoot him just before he wasted his glue’.
2012		(con. 1943) G.S. Manson Irish Fandango [ebook] [T]his [magazine] had been cut to pieces – whether to protect the little dears from the sight of some cannibal’s missus in the nuddy or just in the process of slopping glue.

4. (US) money.

1887		Daily Trib. (Bismarck, ND) 23 Oct. 4/1: Money is ‘glue,’ ‘sugar,’ ‘rocks,’ ‘melty’, ‘brads’ and ‘wherewith.’.
1896		Anaconda Standard (MO) 23 Sept. 5/3: W’en dere is glue dey’s always someone to spend it.
1905		Bluefield Daily Tel. (WV) 11 Mar. 4/2: In addition [...] the following [names for money] are given: Soap, Long Green, Stuff, Duff, Dust, Wherewith, Plunks, Grease, Mejum, Glue, ...Nuggets, Cadewy, Wampum.
1935		A.J. Pollock Und. Speaks.
1944		P. Kendall Dict. Service Sl. n.p.: Glue...money.

5. (US) beer.

1925

Dos Passos Manhattan Transfer 238: Stick around awhile, we’ll open a bottle of glue.

6. (US) alcohol.

1941

M. Prenner ‘Drunk in Sl.’ in AS XVI:1 Jan. 70/2: liquor [...] glue.

7. (US) blood.

1967

P. Thomas Down These Mean Streets (1970) 222: I threw the wad of bills on the table. They stuck together with the old man’s glue.

8. (Aus. prison) porridge.

1990

Tupper & Wortley Aus. Prison Sl. Gloss. 🌐 Glue. Porridge.

9. (N.Z. prison) a pornographic magazine [? play on stick-book].

2001

D. Looser Boobslang [U. Canterbury D.Phil. thesis] 78/2: glue n. a pornographic magazine.