Green’s Dictionary of Slang

playing with one’s genitals through a trouser pocket; thus masturbating.

[1833		‘A Game at All Fours’ in Convivialist in Spedding & Watt (eds) Bawdy Songbooks (2011) IV 21: At Billiards / [...] / when playing with females the method’s quite new, / For you shove with your balls and pocket your cue].
c.1943		S.J. Baker Aus. Vulgarisms [t/s] 12: play pocket billiards: Descriptive of the unpleasant masculine of toying with the testicles through the trouser’s pocket.
1968		A. Burgess Enderby Outside in Complete Enderby (2002) 263: He had both hands in his trouser pockets and seemed to Enderby to be playing the solitaire game known as pocket billiards.
1984		Partridge DSUE (8th edn) 902/2: since ca. 1910.
1988		J. McDonald Dict. of Obscenity etc. 11: Play billiards means to fondle or play with the testicles. In modern usage it is [...] pocket billiards.
1995		A. Higgins Donkey’s Years 153: Glancing down at my fly-buttons undone. ‘Playing pocket-billiards again, old son? Pulling the old wire, eh?’ he gave me a nudge.
1999		K. Bonfiglioli Great Mortdecai Moustache Mystery 69: I put a baffled look on my face and a hand into my trouser pocket [...] The bank manager may well have thought that I was playing pocket-billiards.
2004		R.G. Barrett Rosa Marie’s Baby (2013) [ebook] Les watched Uriah slip one hand inside his overalls then start stumbling along behind her, having a full-blown game of pocket billiards.

(orig. US) playing with one’s genitals through a trouser pocket; thus masturbating.

1997–99

AllAboutSex.org 🌐 ‘Words for Masturbation’ [...] 204. Pocket pinball. 205. Pocket pool. 206. Pocket the rocket.

playing with one’s genitals through a trouser pocket; thus masturbating.

1942		in G. Legman Limerick (1953) 276: He played pocket pool / With his happy old tool / Till his shorts and his pants were all comey.
1963		in Randolph & Legman Ozark Folksongs and Folklore (1992) I 230: And on days when we go to school, / We watch the teacher play pocket-pool (Oh, horse shit!) / We like the way he handles his tool, / We are the Pi Phi girls.
1969		‘Iceberg Slim’ Pimp 100: He was playing ‘pocket pool’ with his other hand.
1970		(con. 1950s) H. Junker ‘The Fifties’ in Eisen Age of Rock 2 (1970) 103: In other words, circle jerk, pocket pool, home and away. (Gang bang.).
1987		W.T. Vollmann You Bright and Risen Angels (1988) 76: He’s making crib notes or mebbe playing pocket pool.
1990		R. Campbell Sweet La-La Land (1999) 50: You playing with yourself? You playing pocket pool.
2002		D.H. Sterry Chicken (2003) 163: Loads of lone wolves [...] play pocket pool, ogle the magazines, and fondle the Plastic Love Dolls.
2005		Mad mag. Sept. 16: Getting an up-close view of Yao Ming playing pocket pool.

(UK juv.) the erect penis.

2001		OnLine Dict. of Playground Sl. 🌐 pocket rocket n. an erection.
2002		D.H. Sterry Chicken (2003) 41: A pumped-up teenboy with a rocket in my pocket.

(US) money.

1944		P. Kendall Dict. Service Sl. n.p.: pocket lettuce . . . currency.
1986		Chapman NDAS.

(US black) a roll of paper money kept in the pocket.

1983

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

(US) a term used to describe a seemingly endless amount of cash that an organization or person can provide; thus deep pocket n., the person who provides such money.

1888		E. Bellamy Looking Backward (2008) 100: No man could afford the expense of publishing a newspaper every day in the year. It took the deep pockets of our private capitalists to do that.
1954		Hepster’s Dict. 2: Deep pocket lad – Father.
1976		Business Week 1 Nov. 64: Loews was a new, deep pocket [HDAS].
1986		Amer. Motorcyclist June 30/2: Deep pockets wwill more than likely become a household term in the near future [...] It indicates the person or organization with the most assets.
1999		Financial Express (India) 22 Mar. 🌐 [headline] Kotak Securities eyes Bollywood stars deep pockets, lines up portfolio scheme.
2002		Micro Fiber Products at www.eskimo.com 🌐 Are you a small WWW business owner who finds it difficult to compete with the big boys and their deep pockets.
2015		(con. 1919) C. Fountain Betrayal 185: Brooklyn Tip Tops owner Robert Ward, who had the deepest pockets in the league.
2022		G.M. Graff Watergate 146: Kalmbach [...] leaned hard on deep pockets, crisscrossing the country to meet informally with corporate leaders and influential Republicans.

(Aus.) to be extremely mean.

1926		L. Esson Bride of Gospel Place 137: Master: I collcted a quid from Spiro. Smithy: Blime! I thought he had snakes in his pocket.
1942		Argus (Melbourne) 18 Apr. 3s/5: How many of us know that [...] ‘to have death adders in your pocket,’ is to be mean with money?
1944		L. Glassop We Were the Rats 118: Why doancher buy a drink? Get them death adders outa ya pockets.
1945		Baker Aus. Lang. 91: To have death adders in one’s pocket, to be mean with money.
1949		L. Glassop Lucky Palmer 230: You can’t put the nips into old Alf. He’s got death adders in his pockets.
1951		D. Stivens Jimmy Brockett 230: Fuller was meaner than Dargan, if that was possible. He had death adders in his pocket.
1965		J. O’Grady Aussie Eng. 53: If you won’t put your hand in your pocket, you have ‘death adders in your kick’, and are afraid of being bitten.
1967		J. Wynnum I’m a Jack, All Right 127: You’d swear he had alligators in his pockets the way he carries on [i.e. about donating money].
1968		J. Alard He Who Shoots Last 216: ‘I’ve hearda blokes wif death adders in deir pockets, but [...] you’d strangle one wot had da nerve ta get into yours’.
1982		N. Keesing Lily on the Dustbin 100: Cec was alleged ‘to have a scorpion [or death adder] in his pocket’.
1997		D. Ireland Chosen 290: I’m still trying to think of a way to make it sound interesting to a knockabout copper of seventy with death adders in his pockets.
2003		McGill Reed Dict. of N.Z. Sl. 137: mousetraps in your pocket, to have Mean with money.

(US) to be particularly mean and miserly.

[1908		N.-Y. Tribune 27 Dec. 6/1: ‘My husband is so very unreasonable [...] He fixed a fishhook in one of his pockets because he pretended to suppose that I robbed him at night’].
1915		T.A. Dorgan Indoor Sports 30 Mar. [synd. cartoon] You can’t get a nickel out of him. He has his pockets lined with fish hooks.
1916		O.O. McIntyre New York Day By Day 15 Sept. [synd. col.] The largest tip that was given was five cents and [...] most of the young bloods had their pockets lined with fish-hooks when it came to settling the bill.
1922		B. Hecht A Thousand and One Afternoons [ebook] ‘[T]hey're a pack of selfish, mushy-headed tin horns with fishhook pockets, the kind you can't pull anything out of’.
1933		W.R. Burnett Dark Hazard (1934) 15: You know this guy [...] he’s got fish-hooks in his pockets.
1972		E. Ogilvie Storm Tide 40: Ralph pays you out money like he had fish hooks in his pockets.
1998		J. Cleary Endpeace 190: He bought it every Christmas for Lisa, bought it with love in his heart while the fish-hooks in his pockets grappled with the hand trying to get out the cash.
2002		R.D. Kostoff Garing Summer Place 175: Why don’t you buy a drink? [...] Fish hooks in your pockets.
2014		D.B. Flowers Bangs 23: Fishhooks in his pockets, squeezing a buffalo nickel ‘til it shit [...] everyone knew that Jerry worshipped money.

(Aus./N.Z.) to be miserly, mean.

1976		T. Fishlock Talking of Wales 45: The Cardis, it is said, have long pockets and short arms; and when a Cardi is found, apparently dead, a silver coin should be placed in his palm : if the fingers do not clench to grasp the coin within a minute or two then life may be pronounced extinct .
1976		D. Ireland Glass Canoe (1982) 68: It was his shout. His pockets were long and his arms got shorter and shorter.
1984		P. Corris ‘Stockyards at Jerilderie’ in Heroin Annie [e-book] [I] promised to pay for the drinks. That made it a must for Harry, who is just a bit on the short-armed side.
2002		R.D. Kostoff Garing Summer Place 175: Why don’t you buy a drink? Got long pockets and short arms.
2003		McGill Reed Dict. of N.Z. Sl.
2005		J. Kelvin Travelling with Buddy Holly 19: Drew was not only a man with long pockets and short arms but a serial Lothario to boot.

to be in receipt of bribes.

1920		Ade Hand-made Fables 186: [He] had it in every Pocket because he was a Good Man.
1942		R. Chandler High Window 109: ‘All right,’ I said. ‘Talk it up whoever you are. Whose pocket have I got my hand in now?’.

(US gambling) successfully defeating a rival .

1974

D. Jenkins Dead Solid Perfect 22: He thought he could play golf some, but he couldn't play so good that he needed to carry around as much money as he always did. I'd been in his pocket.

to make money, e.g. as a street-seller.

1866

J. Greenwood Little Ragamuffin 123: With half a sieve of ripe greengages under her arm, and making a pretty pocket by strolling around the squares with them.

see rocks n. (1)

out of money, impoverished.

1821		‘Battle’ in Fancy I XVII 406: Another such a tickler will send all the Chatamites to Gravesend with pockets to let. Why, it’s the three Lords to a dump.
1830		Egan Finish to the Adventures of Tom and Jerry (1889) 310: To prevent mistakes respecting my bit, I have not a bit to leave; it having been with me, for some time past – pockets to let, unfurnished.
1835		N.Y. Transcript 27 Oct. 2/5: I’m [...] pockets to let, used up to the stump, not got a stiver.
1848		Flash Dict. in Sinks of London Laid Open.
1849		Sporting Mag. July 2: [He] had broken both his legs; ditto arms; was never without a dislocated collar-bone, and ‘pockets to let’.
1855		C. Burdett Mary Grover 136: Cash out; pockets to let.
1859		W. Russell Recollections of a Detective Police-officer 218: I was completely out of luck, both pockets to let, grub scarce, and the fluids not comeatable.
1863		F. Durivage ‘Jack Withers’ in Three Brides & Other Tales 292: At twenty-five, our friend Jack was minus; or, in the elegant phraseology of the day, ‘a gentleman at large with pockets to let’.
1874		‘Old Calabar’ Won in a Canter I 11: Wretched dupes, they will not open their eyes till it is too late, and they find they have ‘pockets to let’.
1879		S. Austin Ben Cramer 196: I’ve spent all my money [...] and thanks to this beastie, I am a young man at large with pockets to let.

(W.I.) to pay with difficulty.

1996

Allsopp Dict. Carib. Eng. Usage.

1. (W.I.) a large, flat, fried dumpling [resemblance].

1958

cited in Cassidy & LePage Dict. Jam. Eng. (1980).

2. (US black) the vagina [var. on purse n. (2)].

1977

J.L. Dillard Lex. Black Eng. 33: A disguise form, like poly-nussy for pussy, is frequently attested, so too is pocketbook.

1. a dram flask, a hip-flask [it gives one a ‘shot in the arm’].

c.1597		Shakespeare Henry IV Pt 1 V iii: But take my pistol if thou wilt [...] [The Prince draws it out and finds it to be a bottle of sack].
1726		E. Burt Letters from Scotland II (1754) 298: I had always on my Journeys a Pocket-Pistol loaded with Brandy, mix’d with Juice of Lemons.
1821		P. Stansbury Pedestrian Tour (1822) 111: I sat within this hermit-like cave, and dined upon the contents of the ‘case and pistol’ with which every true pedestrian should be provided [DA].
1830		J.B. Buckstone Wreck Ashore I ii: My pistol is drain’d. (Turning down an empty spirit pistol.).
1832		Spirit of the Times (NY) 31 Mar. 2/3: [P]ulling out our pocket pistol and luncheon, we enjoyed a good dinner.
1837		R. Nicholson Cockney Adventures 18 Nov. 21: A pocket pistol of Geneva mixture.
1848		Thackeray Vanity Fair II 56: A wicker-covered flask or pocket-pistol, containing near a pint of a remarkably sound Cognac brandy.
1861		‘George Eliot’ Silas Marner 65: The inclination for a run, encouraged by [...] a draught of brandy from his pocket-pistol at the conclusion of the bargain, was not easy to overcome.
1873		W.H. Thomes Bushrangers 266: Hez, who [...] had only kept up his spirits by the aid of a pocket ‘pistol,’ [...] drew his bottle and threw back his head.
1881		Tuapeka Times (N.Z.) 14 Sept. 6/3: A flask, empty but smelling strongly of the atrocious drinking stuff [...] Glued on to the ‘pocket pistol’ was a strip of vellum.
1889		Bellevue Press 31 Aug. 3/5: Lambert [...] came out with a pocket flask of whiskey—commonly called a ‘pistol’—in his hand [DA].
1895		C. Crowe Aus. Sl. Dict. 59: Pocket Pistol, a dram flask.
1905		Sporting Times 11 Mar. 1/3: Walking with a friend, he produced a pocket pistol and proceeded to refresh himself.

2. (W.I.) a roasted corn on the cob [resemblance of shapes].

1970

F. Collymore Notes for Gloss. of Barbadian Dial. 89: Pocket pistol. Roasted corn on the cob.

(drugs) marijuana.

1987		‘Joe Bob Briggs’ Joe Bob Goes to the Drive-In 46: Artie doesnt know what this chick is talkin about when she stands up in Senior Problems class and starts in about pocket rockets.
2001		ONDCP Street Terms 17: Pocket rocket — Marijuana; marijuana cigarette.

(N.Z. prison) to be a regular scrounger.

2001

D. Looser Boobslang [U. Canterbury D.Phil. thesis] 152/2: have a relationship with someone’s pocket n. to bludge money or goods from a fellow inmate.

1. (US black) acting in an unacceptable, tasteless manner; also as adj.

1972		Milner & Milner Black Players 264: If you get caught smoking pot, you’re totally out of pocket, you know what I mean?
1972		O. Hawkins Ghetto Sketches 133: Bessie always has been outspoken. Even if it was outta pocket, she’d still say it.
1990		Dangerous Dame ‘City of Macks’ 🎵 Some punk get out of pocket, I don’t put him in place.
1992		Bentley & Corbett Prison Sl. 33: Out of the Pocket A person who acts abnormally or contrary to his usual behavior.
1993		Capital Tax ‘The Masha’ 🎵 Gutter sniper get outta pocket with the piper.
1997–2000		College Sl. Research Project (Cal. State Poly. Uni., Pomona) 🌐 Out of pocket (Outta Pocket) (adj.) Crazy; off; not right in the head.
2003		Westside Connection ‘Don’t Get Outta Pocket’ 🎵 Get outta pocket, we might just whup yo ass.
2012		Lupe Fiasco ‘Form Follows Function’ 🎵 Get out of pocket, have a horse’s head in your bed.
2015		P. Beatty Sellout (2016) 273: No one of any persuasion seems to have any difficulty talking out-of-pocket shit about Native Americans.
2021		S.A. Crosby Razorblade Tears 163: ‘I don’t care if they gay and shit, but why they gotta be all over the place with it? They getting out of pocket with that shit’.

2. (US) absent from a regular haunt, away from home or office.

1980		G. Liddy Will 248: I was advised that Magruder was with Mr. Mitchell in California, where, of course, it was 4 A.M. With both Magruder and Mitchell out of pocket temporarily, I drove to CRP headquarters .
2006		Burns & Overmeyer ‘Misgivings’ Wire ser. 4 ep. 10 [TV script] You out of pocket for a few days.

3. (US black gang) using a gun.

1991

L. Bing Do or Die (1992) 54: ‘So you walk down the street . . . ’ ‘. . . and just hit ’em, bam! From out the pocket, from anything.’.