Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (orig. US black) unpleasant, contemptible, aggressive, vulgar.

1728		J. Dalton Narrative of Street-Robberies 24: They went to the Beggar’s Opera, and carried a Bottle of that Low-Life Liquor Gin, to keep their Hearts up, under the Low-Life Performance.
1794		‘Peter Pindar’ ‘Ode to Certain Foreign Soldiers’ Works III 388: Behold Saint Crispin’s picture, strange to tell / The low-life cobbler’s tutelary Saint.
1862		q. in Wiley Life of Billy Yank (1952) 199: You God-damned low-lived son of a bitch.
1869		Orangeburg News (SC) 23 Oct. 4/3: A crowd of low-life, dirty rogues.
1875		Daily Phoenix (Columbia, SC) 6 Feb. 2/4: Orders emanating from weak, ambitious, vain-minded [...] low-life satraps.
1883		Dodge City Times (KS) 15 Mar. 3/4: The morbid public craving for scandal and low-life incidents.
1893		M.A. Owen Voodoo Tales 64: Who gwine ter tek de trouble ter cunjer sitch er low-life, sneakin’ ole aig-sucker ez yo’?
1905		N.Y. Tribune 10 Dec. 39/2: Git outen my sight, yo’ low-life scamp.
1914		M. Glass Abe And Mawruss 102: If nobody would tell that feller Koblin what a lowlife bum he got it for a son, Mawruss [...] I will.
1921		Z.N. Hurston John Redding Goes to Sea (1995) 927: Ain’t Ah done tol’ you forty times not tuh tahk dat lowlife mess in front of mah boy?
1937		Z.N. Hurston Their Eyes Were Watching God (1998) 32: Ah guess some low-lifed nigger is grinnin’ in yo’ face and lyin’ tuh yuh.
1947		D. Burley N.Y. Amsterdam News 3 May 21: Grandma? If she looks at a bottle she’s a lowlife old hag, although she’s but 35.
1959		G. Slatter Gun in My Hand 195: Couldn’t care less about that low-life scum.
1968		P. Barnes Ruling Class II vii: Are you a low-life leveller? An East End agitator?
1973		D. Goines Street Players 97: You lowlife bastard.
1985		J. Wambaugh Secrets of Harry Bright (1986) 173: Crystal’s their thing. A lowlife drug.
1995		C. Hiaasen Stormy Weather 170: Low-life hustlers, slick-talking scammers and cold-blooded opportunists.
1996		(con. 1964-65) B. Thorpe Sex and Thugs and Rock ’n’ Roll 316: ‘The low-life fuck’.
2000		T. Blacker Kill Your Darlings 83: His vulgar charisma and violent, low-life past.
2002		A. Duff Jake’s Long Shadow 31: I’m looking for fellow lowlife soul(less) brothers and sisters.
2011		IOL News 11 May 🌐 Fuckin’ low life piece of shit. Get a job.
2013		J. Stahl Bad Sex on Speed 29: God made a lower place in hell for lowlife drug thieves than kiddie diddlers.
2021		P. Papathanasiou Stoning 286: ‘That lowlife scumbag’.

2. in criminal terms, second-rate.

1990

in D. Campbell That Was Business, This Is Personal 15: I got nicked with another guy syphoning petrol. Pretty low-life stuff, this — I was skint.