Green’s Dictionary of Slang

well-off, in funds.

1850

‘Epistle from Joe Muggins’s Dog’ in Era (London) 3 Nov. 5/3: I spoze Muster Gratwicke wosnt minde Muster kent buying another farme now, for all ov ’em’s well ‘korned’ for ther winter.

(US) alcohol.

1941

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

(US) whisky, whether legally or illicitly distilled; thus corn-juicy, drunk.

1836		S. Lee Sheppard Lee 33: There was just light enough to discern a black jug lying broken at his side, from which arose the odour of corn-juice, but by no means of the true Monongahela savour.
1845		G.W. Harris ‘The Knob Dance’ Spirit of the Times (N.Y.) XV July in Inge (1967) 46: He can belt six shillins worth of corn-juice at still-house rates and travel.
1850		W.K. Northall Life and Recollections of Yankee Hill 153: The Ingins knew heow to use it in the rough, but, oh! Johnny cakes and corn juice, tew what parfection it was finally brought by the descendants of the primitive fathers.
1861		R.F. Burton City of the Saints 30: He can do nothing without whisky, which he loves to call tarantula-juice, strychnine, red-eye, corn-juice, Jersey lightning, leg-stretcher, ‘tangle-leg,’ and many other hard and grotesque names.
1863		in T.P. Lowry Stories the Soldiers Wouldn’t Tell (1994) 35: The boys got hold of some corn liquid and about a dozen of them got slightly inebriated.
1873		J. Mair Hbk of Phrases 101: Corn-juice, whisky.
1882		Nat. Police Gaz. (NY) 21 Oct. 10/4: He managed to reach the boiler and seize a dipper of boiling corn juice, which he hurled at his assailants.
1884		Donaldson Chief (LA) 27 Sept. 2/3: The corn-juicy cowboy.
1892		Durham Dly Globe 7 Nov. 1/2: Mike Jenkins, white, contributed $5.00 to the town treasury for drinking too much cornjuice.
1907		C.E. Mulford Bar-20 xxv: Tex swaggered over to the bar and tossed a quarter upon it: ‘Corn juice,’ he laconically exclaimed.
1912		Ade Knocking the Neighbors 42: [He] wore a Coon-Skin Cap and drank Corn Juice out of a Jug.
1920		L.A. Times 15 Aug. 25/2: Colored valet has New Name for Hip Adornment [...] ‘He had a Kaintuicky bustle on both hips [...] stuffed with good old corn juice from Louisville’.
1922		Joyce Ulysses 572: Stephen [...] though he was not in any sober state himself, recognisd Corley’s breath redolent of rotten cornjuice.
c.1930		(ref. mid-19C) N. Kimball Amer. Madam (1981) 24: My father didn’t sit drinking corn-moon.
1934		R.E. Howard ‘Mountain Man’ in Action Stories Mar.–Apr. 🌐 Drink in reason; half a gallon of corn juice is enough for any man.

(UK black) an illegal money-making scheme, e.g. a robbery.

2001

(con. 1981) A. Wheatle East of Acre Lane 186: Your corn missions are too dodgy, man. I gotta keep outta jailhouse mission.

see under mule n.

(Aus. prison) a veteran prisoner.

1847

Launceston Examiner 12 May 5: The prisoners had a slang amongst themselves which was sometimes expressive; the old prisoners they called ‘corn sacks’.

(US) illicitly distilled whisky.

1935		B. de Beck Barney Google [synd. cartoon strip] Ax th’ varmints ef they fotched any corn squeezin’s.
1940		Austin American-Statesman (TX) 19 Jan. 15/8: Tyler officers [...] arrested a negro [...] and seven jars of corn squeezings.
1959		George Jones ‘White Lightning’ 🎵 Mighty, mighty pleasin’ / Pappy’s corn squeezings, / Mmm . . . white lightnin’.
1961		R.S. Prather Dig that Crazy Grave 82: But when it comes to drinking, I've got everything from lime juice and little pearl onions to Obawalla Scotch [...] and fermented corn squeezings.
1975		V. Randolph Who Blowed up the Church House? 51: Sometimes the husband has got a jug of corn-squeezings hid somewhere outside, where the menfolks can take a little snort,.
1989		(ref. to 1900) P.T. Maiken Night Trains 161/1: Peoria had been a major distillery center since the mid-1880's. By this century it was producing a greater volume of corn squeezings than any other American city.
1995		R. Stewart Boy Meets Horn 97: Joe tossed my luggage in the car, gave me a big drink of corn squeezings (corn whiskey), ran over a chicken and informed me that I was to live at the Country Club.
2000		B. Bilger Noodling for Flatheads (2001) 71: Old stories [...] of judges going home from court half-drunk on ‘corn squeezin’s’.

(US) to get drunk.

1899–1900

C.L. Cullen Tales of the Ex-Tanks 88: It got so that every time I corned up I just long to get on a train and ride to the middle of the country.

(Aus. prison) serving time in prison.

1949		L. Glassop Lucky Palmer 76: ‘We look like doing three months on the corn.’ ‘The corn?’ ‘Yeah. The prison porridge.’.
1967		‘Whisper All Aussie Dict.’ in Kings Cross Whisper (Sydney) xxxiv 4/4: eating corn: Doing time.

(W.I.) to make a very foolish decision, to trust someone unwisely.

1996

Allsopp Dict. Carib. Eng. Usage.

see separate entries.

see separate entries.

(US) $1.

1961

J. Cannon Nobody Asked Me 141: You’d think we heisted a poorbox instead of trying to make a few corncakes [HDAS].

see separate entries.

1. a poor white farmer, a rustic.

1837		Ripley Transcript (MS) 30 Nov. 2/4: Take notice, all ye [...] Corn crackers, Yankees, Flat Heads [...] Land Pirates or what not, that if anyone has squatted on my improvements [...] I will row you up salt creek.
1840		T. Haliburton Clockmaker III 237: Such corn-crackers as that, let them be who they may, arn’t over safe in the dark.
1848		G.F. Ruxton Life in the Far West (1849) 18: Them diggings gets too over-crowded now-a-days, and it’s hard to fetch breath amongst them big bands of corncrackers.
1863		‘Edmund Kirke’ Life in Dixie’s Land 169: He’s a North Carolina corn-cracker one of the ugliest specimens of humanity extant. They’re as thick as fleas in this part of the state.
1968		in DARE.

2. natives of Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Tennessee, or Virginia.

1834		Republican Banner (Gettysburg, PA) 2 Sept. 2/6: The Illinois Pioneer gives the following list of nick names adopted to distinguish the citizens of the Western states. In Kentucky they are call’d Corn Crackers.
1840		Cincinnati Chronicle 26 Aug. n.p.: People in the Atlantic States know as little about the high and beating heart of the Mississippi Valley, as we Buckeyes, Corn-Crackers, and Hoosiers do about Nova Zembla.
1863		‘Edmund Kirke’ My Southern Friends 63: No corncracker ever held sech doctrines as them.
1885		North Amer. Rev. Nov. 433: Among the rank and file, both armies, it was very general to speak of the different States they came from by their slang names. Those from Maine were called Foxes; [...] Kentucky, Corn Crackers.
1907		C. M’Govern By Bolo and Krag 37: A really pretty young native woman was married to Clarke, as this ‘Virginia gentleman, sah, corn-cracker’ was named.
1915		M.G. Hayden ‘Terms Of Disparagement’ in DN IV:iii 200: The suckers of Illinoy, the pukes of Missouri, and the corn-crackers of Virginia. (Thorn).
1946		C. McWilliams Southern Calif. Country 172: Marylanders are ‘crawthumpers’; Kentuckians, ‘corncrackers’; Mississippians, ‘tadpoles,’ and so forth [DA].
1952		D. Shulman ‘Nicknames of States and Their Inhabitants’ in AS XXVII:3 183: The following nicknames may be included with those given by Mencken: Pennemites for Pennsylvanians, Tuckahoes for Virginians, and Corn Crackers for Tennesseans.

see separate entries.

see separate entries.

see separate entries.

(US) the teeth.

1843		T. Haliburton Sam Slick in England II 259: He grinned so, he showed his corncrackers from ear to ear. She said he stript his teeth like a catamount, he look’d so all mouth.
1844		‘Jonathan Slick’ High Life in N.Y. II 197: I jest bent over a trifle, and grinned jest enough to show my corn-grinders.
1855		T. Haliburton Nature and Human Nature I 261: It is apt to hit her in the mouth, which is a great matter, if she has tooth-ache, for it will extract corn-crackers a plaguey sight quicker that a dentist.

see cornhole v.

see separate entries.

1. (US) a farmer, a peasant.

1916		A. Stringer Door of Dread 84: Hand it to the corn-rustlers who ain’t hep to a crook from the gyp-game days! For it don’t go wit’ me! I know who yuh are.
1925		R. Lardner ‘Mr. & Mrs. Fix-It’ Coll. Short Stories (1941) 414: Her dogs hadn’t fretted her once since this cornhusker started tendin’ to them.
1944		G. Fowler Good Night, Sweet Prince 401: Barrymore made a radio broadcast in Omaha on this May 1, and in it offended many corn-huskers.
1958		L.F. Cooley Run For Home (1959) 317: If you want to buy that corn-husker a toy [...] get it yourself!
1973		in DARE.

2. a native of Nebraska.

1913		Dly Gate City (Keokuk, IA) 16 Nov. 9/5: Towles scored a place kick for the Cornhuskers [i.e. U. Nebraska football team].
1962		(con. WWII) J.O. Killens And Then We Heard The Thunder (1964) 411: He was [...] medium-sized and corn-fed and Midwestern Yankee. A Minnesota gopher maybe. Nebraska cornhusker.
1968		(con. c.1900) J. Thompson King Blood (1989) 74: Sooner [...] was to become an affectionate second-name for Oklahoma [...] as was Jayhawk for Kansas and Cornhusker for Nebraska.

(US black) second-rate, unsophisticated; also as n.

1930		S.J. Perelman letter 26 Feb. in Crowther Don’t Tread on Me (1987) 23: Organized effort to show him up for the cornpone Hitler he is.
1944		D. Burley Orig. Hbk of Harlem Jive 18: Grey studs on the unglamorous side of the cornpone riff.
1973		J. Wambaugh Onion Field 120: Jesus, he thought, how much longer can I take this fuckin paddy cornpone with his fuckin family.
1989		T. Wolff (con. mid-1950s) This Boy’s Life 105: He said the stupid cornpones had no idea what it [i.e. a piano] was worth.
2012		Dabbler 13 June 🌐 Yeah, your dumb iPhone will also do this, but imagine what some corn-pone who used to pilot a big aluminum dump truck like the B-17 made of this!

1. a large truck.

1940

R. Chandler Farewell, My Lovely (1949) 55: On the highway the lights of the streaming cars made an almost solid beam in both directions. The big corn-poppers were rolling north growling as they went and festooned all over with green and yellow overhang lights.

2. a cheap car.

1972

(con. 1916) G. Swarthout Tin Lizzie Troop (1978) 18: You pulled good stock all the way from El Paso behind those corn poppers?

(US, Southern) a euph. for damned adj.

1835		A.B. Longstreet Georgia Scenes (1848) 11: Now, blast your corn-shucking soul.
1836		D. Crockett Exploits and Adventures (1934) 140: ‘Now blast your corn-shucking soul,’ said the victor.

see separate entries.

the human hand.

1827		Mass. Spy 24 Oct. n.p.: Give us a shake of your corn-stealer [DA].
1845		in N.E. Eliason Tarheel Talk (1956) 266: Hoping the time is not far distant when I shall have the exquisite pleasure of shaking your corn stealer.
1857		S.H. Hammond Wild Northern Scenes 167: I reckon I had a time of it with the old buck that [scarred] my corn-stealer, as they say out West.
1880		Congressional. Record 22 Jan. 488/1: His phalangers or metacarpus, or, rather, corn-stealers, are bigger than those of any other member [DA].
1890–1904		Farmer & Henley Sl. and Its Analogues.

(US) a farmer, a rustic.

1829		Vidocq Memoirs (trans. W. McGinn) I 217: If I had done for all the corn-threshers (farmers) whom I have only singed, I should have nothing to funk about now.
1859		Matsell Vocabulum.
1895		Crowe Aus. Sl. Dict. 20: Corn-thrashers, farmers.

(Aus./US) a prison sentence, cited variously as one month, twelve months or simply ‘plenty’.

1935		A.J. Pollock Und. Speaks 2/2: An acre, a month (prison).
1955		‘No. 35’ Argot in G. Simes DAUS (1993).

(sufficient) money or other needs.

1873		Sl. Dict. 129: Corn in Egypt a popular expression which means a plentiful supply of materials for a dinner, &c., or a good supply of money. Its origin is of course Biblical.
1882		Sydney Sl. Dict. (2 edn) 2: Corn in Egypt - A good supply of money; a plentiful supply of materials for a dinner, etc.
1890–1904		Farmer & Henley Sl. and Its Analogues.
1895		Crowe Aus. Sl. Dict. [as 1882].

(US black) sexual intercourse in which the partners are partially clad.

1983

R. Klein Jailhouse Jargon and Street Sl. [unpub. ms.].

to suffer; to get one’s deserts.

1841

N.Y. Herald 2/1: Some were so uncharitable as to say ‘I hope in God both [duellists] may get their hot corn’.

to be drunk.

1737

B. Franklin ‘Drinkers Dictionary’ in Pennsylvania Gazette 6 Jan. in AS XII:2 90: They come to be well understood to signify plainly that A MAN IS DRUNK. [...] Got Corns in his Head.

(US) to have sexual intercourse.

1800

Amorous Songster 91: Sir, I must have my corn ground, I must and I will.

a phr. used of a recidivist.

1944, 1955

in G. Simes DAUS (1993).