Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (also pung, punquetto) a young female prostitute.

a.1575		‘Old Simon the Kinge’ in Farmer Merry Songs and Ballads (1897) III 4: Soe fellowes, if you be drunke, / of ffrailtye itt is a sinne, / as itt is to keepe a puncke.
c.1590		Jeronimo in Dodsley IV (1874) 358: Chink / Makes the punk wanton and the bawd to wink.
1603		Shakespeare Measure for Measure V i: She may be a punk; for many of them are neither maid, widow, nor wife.
1607		Middleton Michaelmas Term III i: salewood: Is she but your underput, Master Lethe? lethe: No more [...] I may grace her with the name of a courtesan, a backslider, a prostitution, or such a toy; but [...] ’tis but a plain pung.
1614		Jonson Bartholomew Fair II ii: The drunkards they are wading, / The punks and chapmen trading.
1627		G. Peele Merrie Conceited Jests 17: How George Gulled a Punk, otherwise called a croshabell.
1630		J. Taylor ‘Taylors Motto’ in Works (1869) II 49: A Gallant drinkes a health vnto his Punke.
a.1640		R. Brome New Academy I i: Your privy lodgings for your trunks and punks.
1654		Mercurius Fumigosus 26 22–30 Nov. 225: Where many a Whore, a Bawde, a Punk, / She may traine up, to make them drunk.
1661		‘Old England turned New’ in Ebsworth Merry Drollery Compleat (1875) 266: New captains are come that never did fight, / But with pots in the day, and Punks in the Night.
1671		‘L.B.’ New Academy of Complements 173: The Pimp, the Punk, and the Doctor are three / Which cannot but thrive when united they be. / The Pimp brings in custom, the Punk she gets treasures / Of which the Physician is sure of his measure, / For work which she makes him in sale of her pleasure.
1682		‘Satire’ in Lord Poems on Affairs of State (1968) V 385: Papillion pimp’d with a punk away.
1698		N. Ward ‘A Satyr upon Derby-Ale’ in Writings (1704) 34: One hearty Draught prepares for Pipe of Funk, / Three Tankards whets my Appetite for Punk.
1699		A great & famous scoldling-match 3: Out upon you, you old fulsom Punk you.
1709		‘Would You Have a Young Virgin’ in Farmer Merry Songs and Ballads (1897) I 209: Do ye fancy a Punk of a Humour free, / That’s kept by a Fumbler of Quality.
1713		W. King York Spy 11: As fast as a Citizen’s Punk does [...] when treated by her Stallion.
1720		‘The Saint turn’d Sinner’ in Ebsworth Bagford Ballads (1878) I 32: Whose Business ’tis to catch Men, / In leudness with a Punk.
1733		Laugh and Be Fat 105: Near to the Rose, where Punks in Number flock / To pick up Cullies to increase their Stock.
1737, 1759, 1760, 1776		Bailey Universal Etym. Eng. Dict. n.p.: Punk a little Whore.
1740		Poor Robin n.p.: Some gallants will this month be so penurious that they will not part with a crackd groat to a poor body, but on their cockatrice or punquetto will bestow half a dozen taffety gowns, who in requittal bestows on him the French pox [F&H].
1764		C. Churchill The Times 30: Give him no Tutor — throw him to a punk, / Rather than trust his morals to a Monk.
1772		Bridges Burlesque Homer (3rd edn) 21: By Jove, says he, thou’rt always drunk, / And always squabbling for a punk.
1785		‘Peter Pindar’ ‘The Lousiad’ Works (1794) I 271: When bawd, meets bawd, blaspheming, swearing, drunk, Pimp knocks down pimp, and punk abuses punk.
1790		‘Bumper Allnight. Esquire’ Honest Fellow 96: Tom took up his purse, and away crept the monk, / One sneak’d to his gruel, and one to his punk.
1812		J. Bell Jr. (ed.) Rhymes of Northern Bards 254: Vassals of vicious invention / A pander, two punks, and a priest / Their pastimes and sports are pollution, / Each minx is unmarry’d - each man prefers to his spouse prostitution.
1823		Egan Grose’s Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.
1830		Ely’s Hawk & Buzzard (NY) 26 June 1/1: If he could detect the old punk in any act of infidelity, he would then leave her.
1833		‘The Fancy’ in Swell!!! or, Slap-Up Chaunter 7: Do you fancy a punk of a humor free, / That’s kept by a fumbler of quality.
1846		New Swell’s Night Guide to the Bowers of Venus 20: Well satisfied ye seek the ‘truckle bed,’ or ‘stagger to some punk’.
1859		‘Scene in a London Flash-Panny’ Matsell Vocabulum 100: Mizzle, you punk.
1888–94		‘Walter’ My Secret Life (1966) VI 1273: At London I at first took fancy again for women in the suburbs, punks who would let me have them for half a crown.
c.1904		A. Crowley Snowdrops from a Curate’s Garden 5: The crapulous punk whom he also speaks of in the following pages under the pseudonym of ‘Sal B.....s’.
1922		Joyce Ulysses 380: Some randy quip he had from a punk or whatnot that every mother’s son of them would burst their sides.
1929		M. Levin Reporter 312: The poor hunky [...] can’t even speak English and hasn’t even enough guts to accost a punk on Madison Street.
1973		R. Todasco Intelligent Woman’s Guide to Dirty Words.

2. an adolescent boy.

1832		Albany Microscope (NY) 1 Dec. n.p.: His son, generally distinguished by the appellation of ‘Master Punk’.
1917		Ogden Standard (UT) 28 Apr. 22/1: The ‘young punk’ is a boy between 16 and 21 years old, awkward, callow, hoarse-voiced, inconceivably untidy, more inconceivably rude and [...] conceited.
1926		Maines & Grant Wise-crack Dict. 12/1: Punk – Child in show business.
1934		(con. 1920s) J.T. Farrell Young Manhood in Studs Lonigan (1936) 338: Everyone in the joint was probably a boy scout when he was a punk.
1949		F. Brown Dead Ringer 26: I was just a carney punk with eighteen bucks in my pocket and to my name.
1955		B. Schulberg On the Waterfront (1964) 179: That’s how a lot of these neighbourhood punks feel.
1968		J. Hersey Algiers Motel Incident 105: Little punk, eighteen years old when he started out.
1972		D. Jenkins Semi-Tough 82: Could you tell me just what you think of these two punks here who got you into all this?
1981		J. Ellroy Brown’s Requiem 72: My brother was a punk, but he got around.
1999		Guardian Rev. 26 June 9: Teenage punk dreams turned real and wreathed in gunsmoke.
2000		Guardian G2 21 Feb. 22: ‘You listen to me, you young punk’, he told Michael.
2011		D.R. Pollock Devil All the Time 302: It would be easy to make the punk out to be a cold-blooded maniac.
2021		P. Papathanasiou Stoning 25: He thought to collar the punks, drag their skinny arses in for vandalism.

3. (UK Und.) a girlfriend.

1835

‘Cock-Eyed Sukey’ in Cove in Spedding & Watt (eds) Bawdy Songbooks (2011) IV 219: Tho’ trapsmen roar, yet free from harms, / William shall sneak home to his punk.

4. (US, also punkie, punky) a young criminal or street gang member.

1902		Wash. Times (DC) 14 Sept. 10/4: Punk – A boy criminal.
1904		Tacoma Times (Wash.) 7 June 3/3: They recognized in me a ‘punk’ or greenhorn who was willing to learn [...] they were known thieves.
1928		J. Callahan Man’s Grim Justice 31: If I catch y’ smiling at dat punk [...] I’ll bust y’ one in the mug.
1931		C.B. Yorke ‘Snowbound’ in Gangster Stories Oct. n.p.: ‘Next time I catch one of your punks around here you pick him up at the morgue’.
1933		C.W. Willemse Cop Remembers 285: Send for their parents. No rough stuff. Just young punks on their first tumble.
1949		N. Algren Man with the Golden Arm 210: Screwy punks and tough punks, wise punks and dumb punks, dirty punks and clean punks, little punks and big punks, skinny punks and fat punks: here comes the wagon and we’ll all take a ride.
1953		W. Brown Monkey On My Back (1954) 78: They were a bunch of punks, always making trouble.
1958		H. Ellison Web of the City (1983) 35: I don’t back off for no man, specially not that punky.
1959		H. Ellison ‘No Game for Children’ in Gentleman Junkie (1961) 78: This wasn’t some stud punkie from uptown.
1963		L.F. Freed Crime in S. Afr. 94: Teen-age girls [...] soon found themselves romantically overwhelmed by the flashy aura which surrounded the young ‘punks’.
1969		‘Iceberg Slim’ Pimp 57: I was just a hep punk.
1972		(con. 1960s) R. Price ‘Big Playground’ in Antaeus Aut. 36: [T]he guys on Lester Ave. were all ex-cons or Mob punks.
1974		(con. 1960s) R. Price Wanderers 3: The guys on Lester Avenue were all ex-cons or Mafia punks.
1978		D. Marechera House of Hunger (2013) [ebook] [S]tuck-up students and get-rich-fast bastards and live-now-think-later punks who are just as bad.
1987		T. Wolfe Bonfire of the Vanities 17: I’m not giving way for any street punks!
1990		S. Morgan Homeboy 99: If the wrong cop finds those punks with the diamond [...] he’ll trace the ice to the shvartze.
1994		G. Disher Crosskill [ebook] ‘[I’m] wondering if every punk I meet intends to prove himself by going up against me’.
2000		G.V. Higgins At End of Day (2001) 34: Some young punk put a bullet in him.
2000		Observer Screen 26 Mar. 11: The streets are populated by punks.
2004		R.G. Barrett Rosa Marie’s Baby (2013) [ebook]‘Punks like you are a dime a dozen’.
2012		T. Piccirilli Last Kind Words 144: [H]e was a punk working for Danny Thompson who might be a little too eager to step up?

5. (US prison, also jailhouse punk, penitentiary punk, punkie) a young inmate used for sex by older, stronger peers; thus an inmate’s ‘boyfriend’ or ‘wife’; thus punkfucker, the active partner in such a relationship; punk tank, a segration zone for punks in a prison; similarly used by US tramps.

[1698		‘The Women’s Complaint to Venus’ [broadside ballad] The Beaus too, whom most we rely’d on / At Night make a punk / Of him that’s first drunk].
1904		Number 1500 Life In Sing Sing 251: Punk. a pervert.
1912		A. Berkman Prison Memoirs of an Anarchist (1926) 170: ‘He’s neither man nor woman; he’s punk.’ Well, Billy knew. A punk’s a boy that’ll... [...] give himself to a man.
1928		C. Panzram Journal of Murder in Gaddis & Long (2002) 71: I thought he must be a bit queer sexually [...] a punk or some kind of fruit.
1935		J. Fishman Sex in Prison 59: They are of the passive type, known variously as ‘punks,’ ‘girls,’ ‘fags,’ ‘pansies,’ or ‘fairies,’ as distinguished from their inmates who take advantage of their favors, that is the active participants. These are known in prison slang as ‘top men’ or ‘wolves’.
1946		Mezzrow & Wolfe Really the Blues 15: A punk, if you want it in plain English, is a boy with smooth skin who takes the place of a woman in a jailbird’s life.
1953		T. Runyon In For Life 99: I’ve seen the patient papas carrying sacks of canteen stuff for their boys — also known as bronchos, gunsels [...] and, mostly, punks.
1963		V. Hallinan Lion in Court 305: When the prisoner graduates into the adult prison he arrives accompanied by the reputation of a ‘jailhouse punk’, and becomes fair game for older [...] prisoners.
1969		B. Jackson Thief’s Primer 39: There are three basic participating sexual roles in prisons for men: stud [...] punk (penitentiary punk, penitentiary turnout, kid; the person who plays the ‘passive’ or insertee role and who adopts that role in prison only). [Ibid.] 174: My fall partner was a notorious punkfucker in the penitentiary. [Ibid.] 175: When they get caught, the boss will usually shift one [...] and put the other one in the punk tank. They’ll put him in there and he’ll be just as happy as he was.
1972		B. Rodgers Queens’ Vernacular 45: Any boy under the age of consent [...] punkie (’40s-early ‘50s).
1975		Williams & Fish Convicts, Codes & Contraband 61: The hacks would hear about it and they would put Tico on A-l tier where all the faggots were, and he'd be a jailhouse punk.
1976		M. Braly False Starts 105: Bob had become a commissary punk, a boy literally bought by a wealthy convict for the extra food and few luxuries he’s able to provide. The commissary punk is not a homosexual and doesn’t necessarily like his work.
1977		P. Hamill Flesh & Blood 30: They gonna come on strong, the Fagola Army, and try and make you a jailhouse punk. Buy your ass with a pack of smokes.
1980		E. Folb Runnin’ Down Some Lines 158: Dat happen a lot in jail. Turn a dude into a freak. Make a woman outa him. Like some men thank they women, I cain’t stand dem punks.
1982		Stone & Hirliman Hate Factory 42: If you don’t stand up to them now, they’re gonna go ahead and fuck you and you’re gonna end up a jailhouse punk; [...] I seen a lot of white boys get fucked by the blacks and the Chicanos.
1992		S.L. Hills Tragic Magic 126: Punk, you gonna be mine, you gonna be my wife.
2002		J. Lerner You Got Nothing Coming 74: A punk [...] is someone you make suck your dick and lick it clean. Over time you got yourself what we call a punk-ass bitch. He wants to suck dick.
2009		R. Williams Night Hunter [ebook] He said you was a jailhouse punk up at Brushy and worked as a male whore while you lived in Denver. He let on how you was a faggot and just hang around women to put up a front.
2010		A. Steinberg Running the Books 114: You are not a badass, my friend. You are, at best, a punk.
2015		in G. Adelsberg et al. (eds) Death and Other Penalties 228: I was put in solitary confinement for protection, so said the officials. I was being punished for not wanting to be a jailhouse punk.
2016		Mother Jones July/Aug. 🌐 Once a punk, always a punk. Miss Carter [...] told us she's seen just two inmates reverse their punk status in the eight years she's been here, and both cases involved stabbing a lot of people.
2021		J. Ellroy Widespread Panic 173: [in non-prison context] I’m Chief Bill Parker’s back-room bitch and punk pawn.

6. a general term of disparagement.

1904		T.A. Dorgan in Zwilling TAD Lex. (1993) 67: (Cartoonist TAD Shows How A Piker Feels When The First Race Takes His Dollar) The poor punk that lost.
1917		E.E. Cummings in Dupee & Stade Sel. Letters (1972) 26: By failing to get up at the hour of 5.45 AM I escaped departing with the bums mutts and jeffs (not to say ginks, slobs, and punks) who came over with us.
1922		Appleton Post-Crescent (WI) 10 May 13/6–7: Flapper Dictionary punk – Any sort of undesirable.
1930		D. Ahearn Confessions of a Gunman 28: I wouldn’t work with a guy that’s known as a punk or a rat. I hate them. [...] The Police Department have them on their payrolls.
1932		(con. 1917–19) Dos Passos Nineteen Nineteen in USA (1966) 377: The runner was a pale ratfaced punk.
1941		J.M. Cain Mildred Pierce (1985) 489: You start out a Wunderkind, then find out you’re just a goddam punk.
1959		C. Himes Crazy Kill 44: Can you imagine a Harlem punk going downtown and paying twenty bucks for an imported hunter’s knife.
1963		H.S. Thompson letter 6 Nov. in Proud Highway (1997) 411: A watery gang of punks with body odor and double-breasted suits.
1973		D. Goines Street Players 103: The detectives are going to be mad as hell. They really wanted us to hold onto this punk.
1983		A-Team Storybook 56: What you’ve got to ask yourself, punk, is ‘Do I feel stupid?’.
1990		S. Morgan Homeboy 34: ‘I know the drill.’ ‘Shut up, punk.’.
1996		(con. 1964-65) B. Thorpe Sex and Thugs and Rock ’n’ Roll 133: Joey the punk from the [...] Canberra Oriental.
2001		(con. 1964–8) J. Ellroy Cold Six Thousand 7: The punk was Lee Harvey Oswald. The punk shot JFK and Tippit.
2006		D. Winslow Winter of Frankie Machine (2007) 95: There is the dumb little punk, with his dumber wingman.
2019		N. Walker Cherry 45: He’d start talking about this punk and that peckerhead and the other turkey.

7. (US) a person, irrespective of character.

1904		T.A. Dorgan in Zwilling TAD Lex. (1993) 124: All kinds of swell punks wid dere gals downstairs.
1943		R.L. Bellem ‘Feature Snatch!’ Dan Turner - Hollywood Detective Feb. 🌐 The jockey-sized punk panted up to me.

8. (US) a tramp’s younger companion; usu. a catamite.

1907		J. London Road 173: A boy on The Road, on the other hand, no matter how green he is, is never a gay-cat; he is a road-kid or a ‘punk,’ and if he travels with a ‘profesh,’ he is known possessively as a ‘prushun.’.
1918		‘A-No. 1’ Mother of the Hoboes 44: The Rating Of The Tramps 46 Punk: youth not yet adopted by jocker.
1926		J. Black You Can’t Win (2000) 111: Formerly kegs of beer were rolled into the jungle and the ‘punks,’ young bums, were sent for ‘mickies,’ bottles of alcohol. ‘Mulligans’ of chicken or beef were put to cooking on big fires.
1930		G. Milburn ‘The Big Rock Candy Mountains’ in Hobo’s Hornbook 62: The punk rolled up his big blue eyes, / And he said to the jocker, ‘Sandy, / I’ve hiked and hiked and counted ties, / But I ain’t seen no candy’.
1949		Monteleone Criminal Sl. (rev. edn).
1953		F. Brown Madball (2019) 10: [of carnival workers] Jesse and his punk, Sammy the halfwit [...] would doss down under one of the bally platforms.
1967		(con. 1920s) J. Thompson South of Heaven (1994) 4: You and me rubber-tramp it together, but that doesn’t make me your punk.
1991		O.D. Brooks Legs 3: ‘Yuh think yur pretty goddamn smart for a punk that hasn’t stopped shittin’ yellow yet,’ he snarled.
2002		D.H. Sterry Chicken (2003) 10: He’s calling me a punk and a bitch and a faggot as he rapes me.

9. (US/W.I.) a coward, a weakling.

1930		D. Ahearn How to Commit a Murder 224: Sing a song, you punk, you.
1937		J. Curtis There Ain’t No Justice 159: ‘Don’t know who you’re fighting yet?’ [...] ‘B-be someone g-good, of c-course,’ said Ernie. ‘Yeah,’ boasted Tommy. ‘They don’t have no punks on there.’.
1948		H. McCoy Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye in Four Novels (1983) 105: Toko a murderer; that punk ranked in the First ten, a mad-dog killer. I damn near laughed out loud.
1953		Kramer & Karr Teen-Age Gangs 46: Any boy was called a chicken – a coward – who failed to retaliate lost pride and position. To be called a punk was even worse. It meant general worthlessness and in addition cowardice.
1968		N. Heard Howard Street 196: Abruptly he cursed himself for being a punk.
1972		(con. 1950s) D. Goines Whoreson 75: Now I was flipping over to punk’s role.
1980		E. Folb Runnin’ Down Some Lines 127: Dude’ll turn you out if you let ’im. Make a punk outa ’im.
1997		G. Sikes 8 Ball Chicks (1998) 44: My mama put the heart in me, she’s the one who took all the fear out of me. She said, ‘Don’t be no punk.’.
2000		Ebonics Primer at www.dolemite.com 🌐 punk Definition: 1. [...] a snitch, a coward, a weak and/or scared person who pretends that he is strong and/or brave, etc. [...] Example 1: Hey, I’m-a put you on yo back cuz you a mark-ass, punk muthafuckah.
2001		(con. 1990s) in J. Miller One of the Guys 75: ‘If you’re a punk, or if you scared of stuff like that [i.e. violence], then don’t join’.
2011		W. Henderson City of Nightmares pt 2 v: When you pop your shots in the street it was fun, / got to use your hands now punk ain’t got no guns.
2013		C. Dundas ‘Rightful King of Wrestling’ in ThugLit Nov.-Dec. [ebook] ‘You’ve always been a punk [...] Without your daddy you'd still be setting up the ring’.

10. a youngster, a child.

1931		D. Runyon ‘Gentlemen, the King!’ in Runyon on Broadway (1954) 179: This is a pretty fresh punk.
1946		J.E. Dadswell Hey, Sucker 96: punk ... boy or girl with the show.

11. (US) a male homosexual.

1945		Kerouac letter 6 Sept. in Charters I (1995) 94: I know you don’t represent the average intellectual softy. Or punk.
1964		A. Baraka Slave in Three Negro Plays (1969) Act I: When we used to chase that kind of frail little sissy-punk down Raymond Boulevard.
1972		(con. 1950s) D. Goines Whoreson 181: Punks went to work with their hands and lips.
1980		E. Folb Runnin’ Down Some Lines 161: Like some men dey jus’ like bitches. Dem punks is righteously fucked up in dey haid. Dey more like women den a young lady.
1999		E. Bunker Mr Blue 146: I’m no fruiter . . . no faggot . . . no punk.
2019		P. Baker Fabulosa 296/2: punk a gay man .

12. (US) a sexually forward teenage girl.

1953

S. Bellow Augie March (1996) 86: The hot little punks I see around the street – just pass them by.

13. (US, also punkie) a male prostitute.

1961		A. Reiss in Cressey & Ward Delinquency, Crime, and Social Process (1969) 1002: All but those who had the status of ‘punks’ denied they had engaged in behaviour associated with the queer role.
1963		J. Rechy City of Night 28: You’ll become part of the 42nd Street army of punks [...] everybody’s had you: the day’ll come nobody wants you.
1965		K. Worthy Homosexual Generation Ch. xvi: Punkies: Young homosexuals, 14 to 20 years old, who are new at the game.
1970		E. Thompson Garden of Sand (1981) 437: ’Fraid I was goin to make a punk uh yuh? You crazy fuckin Swedish peapicker, crawlin your little ass out of bed actin like I was some kind of queer.