Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. to take a packed lunch to work or school.

1946		Morn. Herald (Hagerstown, MD) 21 Jan. 36/5: If the boss is so dumb, how come he eats lunch at the hotel and you’re still brown-bagging it?
1956		implied in brownbagger n. (1)
1971		Time 8 Feb. 6: The mistrustful Russians brown-bagged their own caviar and vodka. The Americans [...] served hamburgers.
1974		(con. late 1930s) E.H. Hunt Undercover 15: [T]hose unfortunate townies who brown-bagged it daily up the hill.
1983		S. King Christine 167: ‘Did you bring your lunch?’ ‘Yeah, brown-bagging it.’.
1994		N. McCall Makes Me Wanna Holler (1995) 34: I got a complex and stopped brown-bagging it.
2003		N. Green Angel of Montague Street (2004) 185: You ever see the guy go out for lunch? Brown-bags it every stinkin’ day.

2. to drink liquor from a bottle ‘hidden’ in the (brown-paper) bag in which it is bought from the liquor store and which is necessary in US states where drinking in the street is illegal; also to take one’s own supply of alcohol to a restaurant; thus brown-bag adj., pertaining to street drinking, usu. of a tramp.

1967		Sat. Rev. (US) 17 June 14: Brown-bagging is the genteel disguise adopted by a patron to furnish his won liquor when he dines at the local restaurant.
1974		R. Blount Jr About Three Bricks Shy of a Load 178: ‘We got some wine ahead of time and brown-bagged it down there’.
1983		R. Price Breaks 312: The brownbag quartet moved on from ‘Johnny B. Goode’.
2001		J. Stahl Plainclothes Naked (2002) 113: Leaning against the door, blocking the comedy from the brown-bag party-boys.
2019		C.D. Rosales Word Is Bone [ebook] He took a drink from the brownbagged bottle.