Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(US) a variety of (cheap) beer.

1877

N.Y. Dly Herald 9 Sept. 6/3: Clowns out of luck [...] and ready cash are sharing a pewter of ‘six-ball’.

see under bit n.¹

see under bit n.¹

see two-dollar words under two-dollar adj.

(US) a complex and many-worded oath.

1883

N.Y. Mercury Sept. in Ware (1909) 225/1: Since we are going to have German opera this season, it is high time to explain that Die Gotterdammerung is not a six-cornered German oath but an opera.

1. (US) a grave.

1920

San Antonio Eve. News (TX) 18 Feb. 8: We are a believer in peddling flowers ante-mortem, instead of waiting until they dig the ‘six-foo byungalow’.

2. (US) a coffin.

1936		L. Pound ‘American Euphemisms for Dying’ in AS XI:3 201: Six-foot bungalow.
1944		Star Trib. (Minneapolis, MN) 18 May 4/4: When they out you in that six-foot bungalow, you’re through and that’s that.
1976		Pensacola News Jrnl (FL) 2 June D1/5: It has been tagged as a crate, a bone-box, an oak overcoat, a six-foot bungalow, a shell. Chicago gangland mentioned it [...] as a wooden kimono.
1989		Dly Trib. (Wisconsin Rapids, WI) 17 Jan. 4/5: More of the trees began to [...] sicken and die [...] Some were quickly turned into wooden kimonos, six-foot bungalows.

(US black) a grave.

1947

M.H. Boulware Jive and Sl.

see four-letter word n.

(Can. prison) a lookout.

1978

R. Caron Go-Boy! 316: six man – lookout.

a severe magistrate, who, whenever possible, gives the longest sentence, six months, that the law allows.

1909

J. Ware Passing Eng. of the Victorian Era 225/1: Six-monthser (Police). A stipendiary magistrate of a savage nature who always gives, where he can, the full term (six months) allowed him by law.

see separate entry.

see separate entries.

a maid.

1785, 1788, 1796

Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.

(US) lengthy, extended.

1930

M. Fiaschetti You Gotta Be Rough 265: I sat down on the bed, and [...] unreeled a six-reel yarn.

1. (US) strong coffee.

1955		Republic (Columbia, IN) 29 June 16/1: Real ‘six-shooter’ coffee [...] is supposed to be strong enough to float a shooting iron.
1964		Casper Morn. Star (WY) 13 Nov. 1/2: Draught beer was dispensed [...] iced tea and six shooter coffee.

2. (S.Afr., also six-man can) a bottle of cheap wine.

2005

A. Lovejoy Acid Alex 166: A six-shooter is also known as a six-man can and is a bottle of cheap wine. Every now and then he stops and takes a lekker sluk.

a grave.

1922		Joyce Ulysses 102: – I am the resurrection and the life. That touches a man’s inmost heart. / – It does, Mr Bloom said. / Your heart perhaps but what price the fellow in the six feet by two with his toes to the daisies? No touching that.
1943		W. Guthrie Bound for Glory (1969) 301: That was the closest to the 6x3 that I’ve ever been. My mind ran back to a million of things.

(orig. US) dead and buried.

[1933		‘Goat’ Laven Rough Stuff 189: By that time he was already four feet, or whatever the number is, underground].
1939		H. Miller Tropic of Capricorn (1964) 53: She’s six feet under and by now perhaps picked clean by the worms.
1957		(con. 1943) A. Myrer Big War 103: You’d just love to see me six feet deep.
1960		B. Kops Dream of Peter Mann Act I: Only trouble, mister, is that I shall be in a box and no good to anyone six feet under.
1965		L. Dunne Goodbye to the Hill (1986) 33: Prayers and flowers [...] won’t do them much good when they’re six feet under.
1977		K. Gilbert Living Black 129: Mum said by the time they build me a house I’ll be six foot under the ground.
1979		D. Maitland Breaking Out 292: By rights he could have been six feet under by now.
1994		M. Montague Dread Culture 95: Yuh better not, else yuh gwine end up six foot deep.
1997		G. Sikes 8 Ball Chicks (1998) 22: We kill people, too. You know — six feet under, no more Mommy for you.
2000		Observer Rev. 13 Feb. 4: I fire back my own questions, inquiring after so and so. ‘Six feet under’, ‘banged up’ [...] come the replies.
2006		C. Hiaasen Nature Girl 209: It’s just as well I’ll be six feet under when the shit hits.

(US black) obese.

1942

Z.N. Hurston ‘Story in Harlem Sl.’ in Novels and Stories (1995) 1003: She look-ted like she had seventy-five pounds of clear bosom, guts in her feet, and she look-ted like six months in front and nine months behind.

(Aus./N.Z.) the rushed orders of drinks that, between 1916 and 1955 (before a change in the laws), took place in pubs in New South Wales and parts of N.Z. before ‘last orders’; occas. attrib.

1944		Teleg. (Brisbane) 4 Oct. 8/2: A more rational approach to drinking with the elimination of the ‘six o'clock swill,’ through stagger hours, was advocated today by the United Licensed Victuallers' Association president.
1952		A.W. Upfield New Shoe 107: It wanted ten minutes to the fatal hour of six, and the enforced National Swill was in full flood.
1955		Alan Ross Australian 55 81: This evening ritual, known amongst Australians as the ‘six o’clock swill’.
1963		R. McGregor-Hastie Compleat Migrant 108: Swill, the 6 o’clock: the last drinks before closing time.
1971		D. Horne Next Aus. 160: The ‘six o’clock swill’ before the lavatory-tiled bars closed was one of the continuing tests of masculinity.
1972		B. Wannan Folklore of the Aus. Pub.
1980		Sun. Mail (Brisbane) 10 Feb. 12: Are southerners appalled at the one o’clock and six o’clock ‘swills’ which Queensland’s two-session policy causes at some hotels? [GAW4].
1988		McGill Dict. of Kiwi Sl. 103/1: six o’clock swill rapid male drinking in male-only public bars in the lead-up to 6 pm pub closing time, usually from end of work at 5 pm. [...] The practice ended in New South Wales after 39 years in 1955, New Zealand finally following suit when we voted, on 23 September 1967, to extend hotel opening hours.
1993		Indep. Herald (Johnsonville, NZ) 20 Jan. 1: They have become booze barns run by a private company which is still in the six o’clock swill mode [DNZE].
1999		Guardian 15 Sept. 🌐 In 1917 [the N.Z.] parliament had adopted 6pm closing as a ‘temporary war-time measure’. It lasted until 1967. The grotesque excesses of the one-hour ‘six o’clock swill’ reduced drinking to its most utilitarian – the most beer to the most drinkers at the greatest possible speed.
2003		McGill Reed Dict. of N.Z. Sl. [as cit. 1988].
2020		D. Whish-Wilson Shore Leave 32: [F]ights [...] spilt out onto the terrace so regularly that you could set your clock to ten minutes before the six o’clock swill.

see six feet by two

see under Sunday n.¹