Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. a thorough criticism; verbal hostility, heavy teasing.

1828		‘A Flat Enlightened’ Life in the West I 124: ‘[H]e stands the roasting, he is always receiving about [wearing false whiskers] in tolerably good part’.
1843		Bellew Memoirs of a Griffin I 15: ‘Tom’ [...] and myself, received diurnal roastings at his hands.
1854		G.J. Whyte-Melville General Bounce (1891) 191: Let them but lay a finger on my ‘Medea,’ and I’ll give them such a roasting as they haven’t had since the days of the ‘Dunciad’.
1861		N.E. Police Gaz. (Boston, MA) 5 Oct. 7/1: If he does not clear his place of those roughs [...] he may find an eye upon him that will give him that kind of a roasting that will purify the moral atmosphere.
1868		Bradford Obs. 16 July 6/1: The lecturer was much interrupted by drunken people [...] Some of whom got a good ‘roasting’.
1881		Aberdeen Press 21 Jan. 5/1: Sir Wilfred got a roasting all round for inopportunely bringing forward the matter.
1897		Progress (Shreveport, LA) 30 Oct, 4/1: Dr Guiteras got a roasting [...] and the Progress believes he got about what he deserved.
1905		Indep. (Honolulu, HI) 19 Aug. 3/1: He also got a roasting from the Judge.
1912		Day Book (Chicago) 4 Sept. 17/1: The performance [...] was a ‘frost’ [...] They expected a fearful roasting from the reporter of the paper.
1917		A.S.G. Lee letter in No Parachute (1968) 24 May 18: It put me in an awful stew to get another roasting.
1929		E. Booth Stealing Through Life 250: What a roasting I got while that name hung on me!
1931		Yorks Post 13 Nov. 7/6: He regretted Mr Snowden was not in the House. He would have got a roasting if he had been.
1949		Monteleone Criminal Sl. (rev. edn).
1955		D. Niland Shiralee 104: The slut, in a savage mood, ready to start in on the roasting.
1957		D. Niland Call Me When the Cross Turns Over (1958) 52: I expect a roasting, the length and breadth of her tongue.
1986		R.G. Barrett Real Thing 19: Despite the veiled threats, the roasting and the tension in the air he felt safer than a mouse in a malt heap.
2006		D. Seabrook Jack of Jumps (2007) 8: The mortuary keeper [...] gave me a roasting for leaving the body out.
2013		K. Sampson Killing Pool 56: I can only begin to imagine the roasting the jockey will get from Lanky’s gang.
2016		Dly Teleg. (London) 25 July 🌐 [headline] Girls are ganging up on boys in a new cyberbullying craze called ‘roasting’ [...] The new bullying takes place via mobile apps [...] where girls pick on a boy and vent the most offensive abuse until the victim ‘completely cracks’.

2. (US Und.) police surveillance.

1879		‘Autobiog. of a Thief’ in Macmillan’s Mag. (London) XL 504: I see a reeler giving me a roasting (watching me), so I began to count my pieces for a jolly (pretence).
1950		P. Hoskins No Hiding Place! 192/1: To give him a Roasting. To watch him.

3. a severe defeat, usu. sporting.

1938		Arbroath Herald 30 Sept. 7/2: The ’keeper got a roasting [...] He could do nothing to stem the tide.
1947		Dundee Courier 6 Mar. 4/2: Rangers got a roasting at Dens Park.
1947		Dundee Courier 14 Feb. 5/4: The former got a roasting when the Royals put everything they had into the last 20 minutes.

4. (US Und.) the ‘third degree’.

1949

V.J. Monteleone Criminal Sl. (rev. edn).

5. a state of being held in suspense; also attrib.

1915		G. Bronson-Howard God’s Man 131: ‘Listen, broad,’ I’d say, then, ‘you got your roasting clothes on to-day and you better take ’em off quick or I’ll slam you one in the kisser.’.
2000		J.J. Connolly Layer Cake 211: ‘I think they’re keepin us roasting so we take any price they give us.’ ‘Roasting?’ ‘Waiting, sitting on our hands, in suspense.’.

6. group sex, spec. the simultaneous penetration of a woman by two men, one by the mouth, one by the vagina; she is thus ‘on the spit’.

2003		Guardian 12 Oct. 🌐 Off-the-pitch fixtures linked to other leading players included revelations by Nicholas Meikle, a party organiser, about group sex or ‘roasting’.
2004		Indep. 9 Feb. 🌐 [...] premiership footballers taking turns to rape or ‘roast’ a 17-year-old girl in a smart London hotel.