Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(US) a drink provided free in a bar to a customer who has paid for others.

2020

L. Lungaro The 3-0 115: It was a typical Irish bar with good food and drinks at a reasonable price and some buybacks on every third drink.

(Aus. prison) a prisoner’s weekly allowance and the purchases they make.

1983		R. Aven-Bray Ridgey-Didge Oz Jack Lang 21: Buy Up Prisoners weekly spend.
1990		Tupper & Wortley Aus. Prison Sl. Gloss. 🌐 Buy-up. Weekly purchase by prisoners.
2006		B. Matthews Intractable [ebook] ‘You will be put in a cell with a radio. And each week you can have a weekly buy-up’.

see also under relevant n.

(US) to pour a drink.

1942		R. Chandler High Window 191: Go on out to the kitchen and buy yourself a drink.
1947		B. Schulberg Harder They Fall (1971) 125: I bought myself another drink.

(US drugs) to use MDMA [play on E n.].

2001

Newark Advocate (OH) 21 Oct. 5A/4: Buy a vowel: to use Ecstasy.

(US black) to capitulate to verbal intimidation.

1980		E. Folb Runnin’ Down Some Lines 98: Looky here brother, I don’ sell wolf tickets and I sho’ ain’ buyin’ none. So you jettin’ him know you sho’ am’ goin’ for what he sayin’. Either he shut up or he be fightin.
1992		Bentley & Corbett Prison Sl. 94: If, in fact, you get into a fight over these threats or you are not intimidated in any way, then you have not bought the wolf tickets. If you let these threats frighten you, then you have bought the wolf tickets.
2002		‘Touré’ Portable Promised Land (ms.) 160: We Words (My Favorite Things) [...] Big pimpin. Woof ticket.

see sense 1 above.

to suffer a mishap, esp. to die or be badly hurt; thus bought it, to be killed, usu. in battle.

1825		W.N. Glascock Naval Sketch-Bk (1826) I 30: Never mind, in closing with Crappo, if we didn’t buy it with his raking broadsides.
1920		(con. WWI) W. Noble in Wide World Mag. 20/2: The wings and fuselage, with fifty-three bullet holes, caused us to realize on our return how near we had been to ‘buying it’ .
1965		(con. 1940s) B. Behan Confessions 28: I think Maureen has bought it.
1974		J. Charyn Marilyn The Wild (2003) 148: Wadsworth bought it in the neck.
1978		(con. 1940s) O. Manning Battle Lost and Won 260: They bought it – all except me. I’d gone for a walk.
1983		S. Gee Never in My Lifetime in Best Radio Play (1984) 53: Thought I’d bought it, but no. Just my legs, the legs, they don’t move.
1990		S. Morgan Homeboy 52: He’d heard some scuttlebutt in the tank about Gloria Monday buying it.
1996		J. Cameron It Was An Accident 195: ‘Sadly DS Grant was overcome.’ ‘Bought it,’ went Jimmy. ‘Blown away,’ went Dean.
2002		(ref. 1940s) B. Morrison Things My Mother Never Told Me 87: The dead, meanwhile, have simply bought it.
2007		C. Goffard Snitch Jacket 104: He emitted a high-pitched groan of surrender: ‘Am I gonna buy it?’.
2012		T. Piccirilli Last Kind Words 99: ‘She was hooked on her own product and undoubtedly shorted her supplier. That’s why she bought it’.
2013		M. Pruett ‘Extras’ in ThugLit Nov.-Dec. [ebook] When Maxwell buys it on the highway tomorrow morning, I'll be home in bed.
2023		Rayman & Blau Riker’s 115: She lost her life. Maybe had the officer been doing their job, maybe she wouldn’t have bought it.

see under shoe n.

to have bandy legs.

1796		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue (3rd edn) n.p.: He buys his boots in Crooked Lane, and his stockings in Bandy-legged Walk; his legs grew in the night, therefore could not see to grow straight; jeering sayings of men with crooked legs.
1811		Lex. Balatronicum.

see under tick n.³

(US) to escape, to avoid a predicament.

1959

J. Thompson Getaway in Four Novels (1983) 23: I’m holding aces and you’re trying to buy out with hot air.

(orig. US) to pay for someone’s drink.

1909

J. Ware Passing Eng. of the Victorian Era.

see under shoe n.

see separate entry.

to get drunk.

1725		New Canting Dict. n.p.: He bought the Sack; i.e. He got drunk.
1737, 1759, 1760, 1776		Bailey Universal Etym. Eng. Dict. [as cit. 1725].
1785		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.
1811		Lex. Balatronicum.
1823		Egan Grose’s Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.