Green’s Dictionary of Slang

an ‘earful’, a sufficiency in being talked to, or in overhearing.

1982

P. Barker Union Street 183: Let ’em listen. They’ll have a proper lugful by the time I’m finished.

(Aus.) talking effusively, preaching, thus as v. bash (someone’s) lugs.

1954		(con. 1940s) T.A.G. Hungerford Sowers of the Wind 176: He blew the tripes outa me for nothing at all, and then he kicks a Nip in the coit, and then he gives me a lug-bashing about drinking and wogging.
1957		D. Niland Call Me When the Cross Turns Over (1958) 173: Old Resurrection’s lug-bashing tonight. Coming down to hear him?
1972		J. McNeill Old Familiar Juice (1973) 88: : Wodder those ones in the Bible they’re always bashing lugs about?

(Aus.) to cadge, to ask for a loan; thus lug-biter, a cadger; lug-biting, cadging.

1900		Bulletin (Sydney) 21 Jul. 24/1: Mo., fearing that the ‘skinner’ was slipping from his grasp, started howling as he only can howl for the mistake to be rectified. His big retinue of ‘guns,’ ‘whisperers,’ ‘lug-biters,’ &c., &c., joined in, and things were very hot until the change was made.
1900–10		Stephens & O’Brien Materials for a Dict. of Aus. Sl. [unpub. ms.] 16: Lug-biters – spongers, cadgers.
1905		Sun. Times (Perth) 8 Jan. 1/1: A well-dressed Terrace lugbiter turned the fall of Port Arthur to profit.
1905		Sun. Times (Perth) 27 Aug. 1/4: The latter has bitten the department’s collective lug in gratifying her expensive tastes.
1905		Sun. Times (Perth) 8 Oct. 1/3: Last week witnessed an alarming outbreak of lugbiting [...] the closing of the ’Moscows’ induced the impecunious to bite friends’ ears.
1906		Sun. Times (Perth) 18 Aug. 4/8: He swagged it down to lugbite Jimmy Nicholas once again.
1909		N.Z. Truth 30 Jan. 5/3: The word of the lug-biting ‘expert’.
1911		L. Stone Jonah 218: The boxer cried out, ‘No one to leave for five minutes,’ following the custom when a big winner left the room to prevent a swarm of cadgers, lug-biters, and spielers begging a tram fare, a bed, a cup of coffee from the winner. [Ibid.] 223: Joe Grant, a loafer by trade and a lug-biter by circumstance.
1933		L. Stone Larrikin 307: Lug-biter – a panhandler.

(N.Z.) a friendly chat.

2003

McGill Reed Dict. of N.Z. Sl.

to borrow money.

1889		Dead Bird (Sydney) 21 Dec. 8/4: I’ll try and bite some joker’s lug.
1897		W.T. Goodge ‘Great Aus. Slanguage’ in Baker Aus. Lang. (1945) 117: If he borrows money from you / He will say he bit your lug.
1900–10		Stephens & O’Brien Materials for a Dict. of Aus. Sl. [unpub. ms.] 16: BITE HIS LUG: [...] to accost a person for a loan or alms [...] ‘Biting a bit out of his lug’ is a variant.
1919		Smith’s Wkly (Sydney) 10 May 20/3: Or if yer goes out racein’ / An’ a spieler ‘bites yer lug,’ / An' puts yer on a ‘stiff-'un,’ / Well, yer calls yerself a ‘mug’.
1924		G.H. Lawson Dict. of Aus. Words And Terms 🌐 BITE HIS LUG — To cadge.
1968		S. Gore Holy Smoke 26: He manages to bite Joe senior’s lug for a few bob outa what’s coming to him when the old boy kicks the bucket.

(Aus.) to nag, to assail with words.

1931		Truth (Sydney) 11 Jan. 2: [L]et us blow down your lug that she’s [i.e. a racehorse] on the right road to being one of the fastest things this side of the lighthouse.
1953		K. Tennant Joyful Condemned 341: She blows down my lug, see? Gets me to shift her things in the truck.
1967		K. Tennant Tell Morning This 95: ‘[S]he nearly had me sobbing [...] She blows down my lug to that extent’.
1972		Parramatta Jail Gloss. B. Moore (ed.) (2023) 59: blow down their lug ear bash.

1. to beg.

1893–4		H. Lawson ‘Stiffner and Jim’ in Roderick (1972) 124: We’ll have to sharpen our teeth, that’s all, and chew somebody’s lug.
1901		H. Lawson ‘A Bush Publican’s Lament’ n.p.: [H]e hangs over the bar an’ chews me lug [...] an’ he says, ’For Mother o’ Christ’s sake, giv’ me a drink!’.

2. (Aus.) to bore.

1904

Sydney Sportsman (Surry Hills, NSW) 22 June 4/2: [H]is teeth will have to be drawn to prevent him chewing the lugs off all the followers of the game he mis-reports.

(US black) to confront someone either as to their character or actions, to criticize, both seriously and in fun.

a.1963		‘The Fall’ in D. Wepman et al. Life (1976) 86: I’m hip to the way you pimps try to play / And the lugs you drop on a frail.
1973		D. Goines Street Players 10: It always ends with both of you trying to drop lugs on each other.
1980		E. Folb Runnin’ Down Some Lines 92: The terms to [...] drop lugs on someone generally refer to cracking jokes at someone else’s expense.
2002		R. Gordon Can’t Be Satisfied 348: Howlin] Wolf dropped a real good lug on me. [...] The Wolf looked at me and he said, ‘Why don’t you take them wah-wahs and all that other shit and go throw it off in the lake’.

(Aus.) assailing verbally.

1914

Sport (Adelaide) 7 Aug. 4/5: Turn it up, Doc, or you will have brother Jack on your lug .

(Aus.) to make a loud noise.

1972

J. McNeill Old Familiar Juice (1973) 104: bulla: I s’pose that was a new song yer just punished our lugs with.

(US) to ask for or spend someone’s money.

1904

Ade ‘The Fable of What Horace Stood For’ in True Bills 36: Those who never had been strong enough to throw on the Lugs while they were living at Home, were the very ones who put Crimps into the Bank Account before the Honeymoon played out.