dot, n.² — Green’s Dictionary of Slang

dot n.²

[lit. or fig. resemblance]

1. (US Und.) a useless person.

1848		Ladies’ Repository (N.Y.) Oct. VIII:37 316/1: Dot, a worthless fellow.
1870		E. Greey Queen’s Sailors II 160: You in-fer-nal old dot.

2. the face.

1885		Bulletin (Sydney) 16 May 10/1: I could always depend on your shot, / And so could old hell-fire Cox, / For he used to look round for your dot / The moment he stepped on his box.
1899		Howard & Everard [perf. Gus Elen] ‘’e ’as my symperfy’ 🎵 If I wos in ’is shoes, I know I’d go clean off my dot.

3. (Aus./US) an attractive young woman.

1891		A. Day Mysterious Beggar 336: Y’ know my little dot, I’m dead gone on yer.
1914		Sport (Adelaide) 4 Sept. 5/6: V is for Vera, a quaint little dot.
1940		‘Digg Mee’ ‘Observation Post’ in N.Y. Age 21 Sept. 10/6: Maybe he should be on his way, ’cause ‘his’ dot and the ‘duke’ Robertson still do play.

4. (Aus.) the anus.

1959		D. Niland Big Smoke 41: Shove it up your black dot.
1966		Trimble 5000 Adult Sex Words and Phrases.
1972		B. Rodgers Queens’ Vernacular.
1981		A. Weller Day of the Dog 18: That car was ’ot like Polly’s dot.
1999		G. Seal Lingo 88: The extent and variety of the Lingo terms for genitals and other body areas hints at a determined, if perverse, use of euphemism [...] Such terms, though, seem sterile and colourless to the Lingoist who prefers such delights as [...] [...] bum dot, backside (spot your dot being an affectlonate invitation to take a seat).

5. (lesbian) the clitoris.

1966		Trimble 5000 Adult Sex Words and Phrases.
1972		B. Rodgers Queens’ Vernacular.
1982		Maledicta VI:1+2 (Summer/Winter) 131: Boy in the boat (clitoris, button, dot, joy buzzer, cockpit).

In exclamations

shove it up your dot!

see shove it up your arse! excl.

In phrases

dot (in the eye) (n.)

a punch (in the eye).

1900

S. Mackenzie [perf. Arthur Roberts] ‘Aftr You With That’ 🎵 I said, when I gave him a dot, [Chorus] 'After you with that! / After you with that! / Pardon my little intrusion, / I think there's a little delusion,.

SE in slang uses

In compounds

dothead (n.) [the Hindu bindi or caste mark worn by married women]

(US) a derog. term for an Indian.

1987		N.Y. Times 12 Oct. n.p.: A group of teenagers giggled and joked about the beatings of ‘dotheads’ [R].
1992		R. Price Clockers 157: The manager says nothing’s going on there, but I think he’s a lying dothead geek.
2002		posting at www.sternfannetwork.com 🌐 Well i already have that mag so i put it back and the fucking TowelHead Dothead asshole makes me buy it.
2017		D. Winslow The Force [ebook] ‘They’re sucking up to Latinos, Asians, the dotheads’.

In phrases

dot on the card (n.) [image of making a form of notation, e.g. on a register]

1. (UK Und.) a well-known person, usu. meaning too well-known for a criminal.

1989

(con. 1950s–60s) in G. Tremlett Little Legs 193: dot on the card someone well known, often meaning that he/she is too well known in criminal terms.

2. a certainty.

1965

L. Dunne Goodbye to The Hill (1966) 97: With him being in the Army it was a dot on the card that the mot was a domestic of some kind.

put the dot on (v.)

(US) to murder.

1953

S. Sterling ‘The Kiss and Tell Murders’ Popular Detective May 🌐 But then we’d get you sooner or later [...] Even if Clem didn’t put the dot on you first.

spot your dot (v.) [billiards jargon spot, to place a ball ]

(Aus.) an invitation to sit down.

1999

G. Seal Lingo 88: The extent and variety of the Lingo terms for genitals and other body areas hints at a determined, if perverse, use of euphemism to avoid the use of perfectly respectable words like testicles, penis, vagina, and posterior [...] spot your dot being an affectionate invitation to take a seat).

to a dot (adv.)

(US) completely.

1882		A. Trumble Mysteries of N.Y. 43: This suggestion evidently suits Black Eyes to a dot.
1895		Mirror of Life 23 Mar. 10/3: But the old saying, ‘there is many a slip between the bridge and Andy Horn's,’ suited the occasion to a dot.
1937		(con. WW1) E.C. Parsons Great Adventure 255: [T]the French knew to a dot just what was going on in front of them .

year dot (n.) (also day dot, year one)

a very long time ago; usu. from the year dot, for ever.

1895		W. Pett Ridge Minor Dialogues 166: I reckon he was born in the year dot, that ’orse was.
1928		E. Wallace Again Sanders 109: He was constantly rediscovering obvious things, or revivifying theories that had been decently interred in the year dot.
1939		P.G. Brewster ‘Folk “Sayings” From Indiana’ in AS XIV:4 264: Time expressions commonly heard include [...] ‘since the year One’.
c.1968		‘Old Zebra Dun’ in G. Logsdon Whorehouse Bells Were Ringing (1995) 81: If you can whirl a lasso like you rode old Zebra Dun, / You’re the man I’ve been looking for every since the year of one.
1975		T. Berger Sneaky People (1980) 156: You been married since the Year One.
1976		D. Ireland Glass Canoe (1982) 12: Danny knew every football statistic of Rugby League from the year dot.
1997		S. Armitage ‘The Ship’ in CloudCuckooLand 19: Travellers in time from the year dot.
2001		K. Waterhouse Soho 101: Old crones who were artists’ models in the year dot.
2005		DJ Cameo 1Xtra [BBC radio] Busting new talent. That’s what we’ve been doing from day dot.
2012		(con. 1980s) I. Welsh Skagboys 395: The rash ay warehouses, cobbled streets and tenemented dwellings adores its sons and hates auld flatfoot who’s brought nowt but grief doon here since the year dot.
2020		G. Krauze What They Was 310: You’ve been programmed from day dot.

dot n.2

In exclamations

In phrases

SE in slang uses

In compounds

In phrases

dot n.²