Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (also agony, Chinese agony) a generic term for Chinese immigrants to Australia.

1875		Sat. Rev. of Politics 30 Oct. 558/1: The negro difliculty is called the Black Agony; Chinese immigration the Yellow Agony.
1879		Fortnightly Rev. 32 85: The slang name for this invasion of the celestial children is sufficiently excpressive. It is called the Yellow Agony.
1885		Bulletin (Sydney) 29 Aug. 5/3: The white men had an incorporated junk of yellow agony suspended by the neck from a she-oak, and were seated around on stumps betting drinks on how many kicks the son of Confucius would give before stiffening.
1895		Citizen (NZ) 1 87: Some time or other the yellow man would wipe the white man out of existence. The cheapest producers, ‘Japs,’ and ‘Chows,’ are too unpleasantly near our doors. We must, in New Zealand, protect ourselves against the Yellow Agony.
1898		W.A. Sun. Times (Perth) 2 Jan. 4/5: Their [i.e. America’s] Yellow Agony [...] the incursion of a hundred and fifty thousand Mongolian creatures - semi-human, semi-vampire, and all unfit to live in a white man's country.
1901		Sydney Sportsman (Surrey Hills, NSW) 6 Nov. 4/1: Not only is it the ‘mean white’ that brings himself down to the level of the Chinese agony, but intelligent and apparently reputable citizens.
1904		Sun. Times (Perth) 3 Jan. 4/4: The Yellow Chow seems to be a most favoured individual [...] Any white strikers running riot with knives and knuckledusters [...] as the ‘Agony’ did last month [etc].
1905		J.P. Boucaut Arab: Horse of the Future 78: We have heard a good deal of the Yellow Agony of late, and Australia is keenly alive to the question.
1910		Bulletin (Sydney) 8 Dec. 36/2: One time Mungana was like the rest of the North, yellow in the tucker department; but the miners who board at the pubs decided to put their feet down with a firm hand on the agony. They delivered their ultimatum that Pong must go.

2. a single immigrant.

1890		E. Dyson ‘Golden Shanty’ in Golden Shanty (2003) 11: [...] pointing out to the Yellow Agony [...] the gross wickedness of robbing a struggling man of his house and home.
1900		Bulletin (Sydney) 8 Dec. 29/4: I’m a gardener by trade, and that yellow agony down there is just ruining that garden. I don’t want to jump another man’s job, but I’ve got a wife and kids to support.
1910		Bulletin (Sydney) 8 Sept. 13/3: The poor old turtle flounders ashore to deposit her eggs in the sand; and as Mrs. Turtle is practically helpless on land she is easily captured by the Yellow Agony, who does not wait for nature to perform its task, but slashes open the poor brute’s flank and extracts the eggs. [...] [I]t is a species of fiendish and diabolical cruelty of which only an Asiatic would be guilty.

(Aus.) an Aboriginal.

1885

Bulletin (Sydney) 7 Feb. 13/4: Five darkies and one moon-faced heathen were sentenced to death for thinning the population with axes, spears, and waddies, and eight other ‘yellows and blacks’ were boosted up to various terms of imprisonment for assault and unlawful wounding.

(US) a light-coloured black woman.

1967

A. Baraka Tales (1969) 12: Remember when [...] you fell in the punch bowl puking, and let that sweet yellow ass get away?

(US Und.) a mixed-race person.

1949

Monteleone Criminal Sl. (rev. edn).

(US) a mixed-race person.

1818		in H.B. Fearon Sketches of America 152: mayor: Yellow boy! what have you to say against this charge, are you guilty or not guilty? prisoner: Not guilty, gentiman .
1836		D. Crockett Exploits and Adventures (1934) 187: The politician now went in pursuit of his horse and his woman, taking his yellow boy with him.
1838		Southern Sun (Jackson, Miss.) 22 Sept. n.p.: Was committed to jail, a yellow boy named Jim — had on a large lock chain around his neck.
1856		G.G. Foster N.Y. by Gas-Light (1990) 145: There are something under a dozen ‘yellow-boys’ in the neighborhood who have a strong resemblance to Pete.
1903		D.S. Crumb ‘Dialect of Southeastern Missouri’ in DN II:v 337: yellow-gal, yellow boy, n. Mulatto.

a Chinese person, usu. derog.

1892		W. Norr Stories of Chinatown 23: Old Yallerface, I’ve come after a little gal’s trunk and stuff.
1900		Boy’s Own Paper 15 Dec. 167: The yellow faces were never quiet for long together.

(US/Aus.) a mixed-race, a half-white, half-Aborigine man.

1834		West. Mthly Mag. Oct. 557: The lover is a likely yellow fellow [...] And be his skin as white as lawn, That fatal drop from Afric drawn, Shall always speak as foulest blot.
1857		F.L. Olmsted Journey Through Texas 78: ‘Yallow fellow,’ for a mulatto. (Why yellow fellow, but black man?).
1915		Lindeman & Taylor [song title] ‘When That Little Yellow Fellow Plays Piano.’.
1938		X. Herbert Capricornia (1939) 25: A halfcaste — a yeller-feller!
1941		F. Swados House of Fury (1959) 117: If you live on the hill and got straight hair so you don’t have to get your naps busted and kin marry a yella fella and git your pitcher in the paper, sassiety, then you can chew the fat all day long.
1951		E. Hill Territory 387: Was he a Macassar or a yella-fella?
1958		G. Casey Snowball 146: They remembered vaguely the big yeller-feller to whom she was, presumably, married.
1961		X. Herbert Seven Emus 140: This ’nother kind, only belong to yeller-feller, half-carse got 'em white blood, call ’em Euraustralian people.
1971		T.I. Moore Social Patterns in Aus. Lit. 199: Norman swaggers around thinking he is the son of a Malayan princess until he learns that he is a half- caste, a yeller-feller, his mother an aboriginal gin.
1977		K. Gilbert Living Black 12: In time the women used to take off into the bush when it was time for a little yeller-feller to be born.
1994		E. Michaels Bad Aboriginal Art 106: They distinguish themselves from more Europeanized Aborigines not by racist notions such as ‘half-caste’ or ‘yeller-feller’ but by concerns of law.

(orig. US gay) an obsession, either hetero- or homosexual, with having East Asian lovers.

1972		B. Rodgers Queens’ Vernacular 171: yellow fever (a sexual fondness for orientals).
1980		Maledicta IV:2 (Winter) 235: Rodgers has [...] yellow fever = penchant for orientals.

(US) an illegal Chinese immigrant.

1989

H. Rawson Dict. of Invective (1991) 430: yellowfish. A Chinese who has entered the United States illegally.

a mixed-race, a half-white, half-black or Aborigine woman.

1832		Schoolmaster & Edin. Wkly Mag. 10 Nov. 240/2: A fine-looking Negro, and the handsomest mulatto or yellow girl I had ever seen.
1834		Sun (N.Y.) 20 Mar. 2/2: A huge looking ‘yaller gall’ was hammering away at the eyes of a small white man in Anthony st., because he called her a snow ball [DA].
c.1845		‘Oh, Sandy Boy’ Emerald 9: Then I went down to New Orleans, / To hear de niggers pray, / Den I laid my head in a nigger girl’s lap, / And de yellow girl fainted away.
1853		S. Northup Twelve Years A Slave 94: As we approached, a yellow girl — her name was Rosa — was standing on the piazza.
1856		M. Griffith Autobiog. of a Female Slave 42: Here, you cussed yallow gal.
1864		W.R. Floyd Handy Andy in Darkey Drama 5 60: Why, dis ain’t an ole woman, dis is a young yaller gal!
1869		Man about Town 25 Sept. 22/1: [Y]aller gals and plantation hands in black faces and white waistcoats.
1880		J.F. Macardle Moko Marionettes 5: Dat yaller gal Delia, she’s bound to be bound to dis cullud gent.
1884		(con. c.1840) ‘Mark Twain’ Huckleberry Finn 318: ‘Missus,’ comes a young yaller wench, ‘dey’s a brass cannelstick miss’n’.’ [Ibid.] 336: You slide in, in the middle of the night, and hook that yaller girl’s frock.
1889		C. Chesnutt ‘The Conjurer’s Revenge’ Conjure Woman (1899) 116: A monst’us good-lookin’ yaller gal, name’ Sally.
1895		J.E. Howard ‘I’m Looking For A Bully’ 🎵 Spied my Bud a-dancing with a yeller gal in white.
1900		C. Chesnutt House Behind The Cedars (1995) 125: He had expected to see a pretty yellow girl. [Ibid.] 134: Of course you’re too dignified [...] to be hoppin’ roun’ an’ kickin’ up like Mary B. an’ these other yaller gals.
1904		Sydney Sportsman (Surry Hills, NSW) 7 Sept. 2/4: [A] handsome ‘yaller gal’ degraded by her brutal master,.
1905		N. Davis Northerner 122: When it comes to yallow gals – they’re all alike, and they’re all rotten!
1913		Chattanooga News 20 Sept. 8/3: Dinah was a product of New Orleans, a big fat ‘yellow gal’ [DA].
1928		N.I. White Amer. Negro Folk-Songs 315: [reported from Durham, N.C., 1919] It takes a long, tall yaller gal to make a preacher lay his Bible down.
1930		(con. 1900s–10s) Dos Passos 42nd Parallel in USA (1966) 122: A little yaller girl who lived directly across the street.
1935		L. Hughes Mulatto in Three Negro Plays (1969) Act I: I’ve given many a yellow gal a baby in my time.
1942		Z.N. Hurston ‘Story in Harlem Sl.’ in Novels and Stories (1995) 1003: You must of not seen me, ’cause last night I was riding round in a Yellow Cab, with a yellow gal, drinking yellow likker and spending yellow money.
1949		F. Brown Dead Ringer 112: There was a little knot of people, some of them dinges and yaller gals from the jig show.
1951		(con. 1860s) S. Longstreet Pedlocks (1971) 32: Ho, ho, don’t tell no big-footed yella gal that.
1959		W. Burroughs Naked Lunch (1968) 197: That yaller girl used to work in Marylou’s Hair Straightening and Skin Bleach Parlor over in Nigga town.
1965		(con. 1930s) R. Wright Lawd Today 78: Not even about that yellow gal who left you?
1979		E. Torres After Hours 22: The other looked like a short Pam Grier, yaller gal.

(US Und.) smuggled Chinese immigrants.

1949

Monteleone Criminal Sl. (rev. edn).

(US) a Viet Cong soldier.

1968

letter in Edelman Dear America (1985) 3 Jan. 92: I’ll drill a round into one of those yellow heads.

US a brothel specialising in mixed-race girls.

1833

Ely’s Hawk & Buzzard (NY) Sept. 21 n.p.: [He has] a peculiar liking for ‘yellow houses.’ he occasionally visits a certain yellow house in Doyer-street and has been seen in various other houses.

1. (US) a derog. term for a person of mixed race.

1832		Ely’s Hawk & Buzzard (NY) Sept. 15 n.p.: The door [...] was opened by a yellow nigger .
1843		‘Jonathan Slick’ High Life in N.Y. II 120/1: A yaller nigger stood inside a eyeing me from top tu toe.
1867		D.R. Locke Swingin’ Round the Cirkle 287: The per cent. uv yeller niggers in this State attests how faithful Kentucky hez bin [DA].
1891		F.D. Srygley Seventy Years in Dixie 283: He protested [...] and declared that it was ‘dat yaller nigger what ort to be lashed.’.
1926		E. Walrond Tropic Death (1972) 60: The Negro waiters abroad were sure he was a ‘yallah’ nigger.
1935		L. Hughes Mulatto in Three Negro Plays (1969) Act I: That damned yellow nigger buck of yours that drives the new Ford.
1943		A.G. Powell I Can Go Home Again 101: I tuk ’er ter de bush-arber meetin’, an’ a big yaller nigger preached de mos’ pow’rfulest sermin I ever heared [DA].

2. an Asian.

1965		E. Bond Saved Scene iii: In the jungle. Shootin’ up the yeller-niggers.
1966		W. Wilson LBJ Brigade (1967) 29: Rumor is that he calls the Vietnamese yellow niggers or brown kikes.
1990		(con. c.1970) G. Hasford Phantom Blooper 25: Uncle Sam he say to these Vietnams, you can live, but you can’t be men. Dance and sing for us and be little yellow niggers.

(W.I.) a person of mixed race.

1790		J.B. Moreton Manners and Customs in West India Is. 59: The yellow snake says to her poor black wench who she is learning to be a stitcher [...] ‘Dat will nebba do for me’ [DJE].
1793		J.B. Moreton West India Customs and Manners 52: A respite very short to sleep or to wake, / And to play with a yellow, or a black snake* [...] *A name of girls of colour.

1. (US) a Japanese person.

1926

J. Tully Jarnegan (1928) 248: Lie there, you Yellowtail.

2. (Aus.) a person from New South Wales.

1978

T. Davies More Aus. Nicknames 2: Cornstalks come from New South Wales, though they are also known around the country as Yellowtails on account of their fast driving and the fact the most you see of them is their yellow number plate.

an Asiatic woman, esp. in the context of sex.

1974–5		B. Humphries Barry McKenzie [comic strip] in Complete Barry McKenzie (1988) 114: Never had a bit of yeller velvet. Cripes, she’s like a little dolly.
1985		B. Humphries Traveller’s Tool 8: A Dettol-scented Singapore motel room with a couple of bits of yellow velvet and a cucumber.

(US Und.) a watch.

1897

Deming (NM) Headlight 28 May 1/3: In the last three years there have been three different terms for watch – ‘super,’ ‘thimble’ and ‘yellow and white.’.

(US) a dollar.

1853		W.G. Simms Sword and the Distaff 496: I won’t trust you [...] ontel the money’s put down here, the yallow birds, all a-flying about me [DA].
1892		W. Norr Stories of Chinatown 51: Georgie Appo was brought along for snatching a ‘yellow bird’ on Park Row.

1. a sovereign; a guinea (£1.05) or a golden guinea; thus any golden coin.

1656		R. Fletcher (trans.) Martiall his Epigrams XII No. 66 121: Rich Spanish Wooll eight pound, or Caesar’s coyn Ten yellow boys.
1663		Dryden Wild Gallant I ii: How now, yellow boys, by this good light! Sirrah, varlet, how came I by this gold?
1676		‘A Newgate ex-prisoner’ A Warning for House-Keepers 4: They rifle the house for yellow-boyes and pieces of white, which is Gold and Silver.
c.1698		B.E. Dict. Canting Crew n.p.: Yellow-Boy c. Piece of Gold of any Coin.
1700		T. Brown Amusements Serious and Comical in Works (1744) III 22: I cannot come within a furlong of the Rose spunging-house, without five or six yellow-boys in my pockets.
1712		J. Arbuthnot Hist. of John Bull 20: There wanted not yellow-boys to fee counsel, hire witnesses, and bribe juries.
1725		New Canting Dict. [as cit. c.1698].
1737, 1759, 1760, 1776		Bailey Universal Etym. Eng. Dict. [as cit. c.1698].
1751		Smollett Peregrine Pickle (1964) 40: They two cost me forty good yellow-boys.
1760		Foote The Minor 52: He creeps, like a ferret, into their bags, and makes the yellow boys bolt again.
1785, 1788, 1796		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.
1789		Harris’s List of Covent-Garden Ladies 40: Any Gentleman, that has three or four yellow boys to spare, may be always sure on an agreeable accomodation.
1794		Sporting Mag. Oct. V 6/1: I touched the spankers – the yellow boys, and intend to lay ’em out in a present for my Kitty.
1806		G. Colman Yngr John Bull II ii: Nineteen fat-yellow boys, and a seven-shilling piece.
1809		Horry & Weems Life of General F. Marion (1816) 177: A fist full of yellow boys!
1815		‘The Tortoise-shell Tom Cat’ in Vocal Mag. 1 Feb. 41: And who ever thought but an Auctioneer of selling us, / For near three hundred yellow boys — a trap for mice?
1825		Pierce Egan’s Life in London 14 Aug. 229/2: Jones [...] retired to count out the pewter and yellow boys.
1830		Lytton Paul Clifford II 113: Fighting Attie, my hero, I saw you to-day / A purse full of yellow boys seize.
1843		Whip & Satirist of NY & Brooklyn (NY) n.p.: A handful of large-sized ‘yellow boys’.
1843		W.T. Moncrieff Scamps of London I ii: I hastily wrapped the yellow boys in the first piece of paper that presented itself.
1847		Bell’s Life in Sydney 4 Dec. 2/6: Miss Ann Douglas [...] found therein four more ‘yellow- boys’.
1851		R.S. Surtees Young Tom Hall (1926) 159: He didn’t take tips — soveriegns or small coin tips, at least. [...] ‘No occasion for anything of the sort,’ he would add, as the yellow boys went back to the offerer’s pocket.
1859		Bell’s Life in Tasmania 12 July 2/6: What a mistake Mr. Single made when he refused 800 yellow boys for an aged gelding!
1862		J.R. Lowell Biglow Papers 2nd series (1880) 24: Though yaller boys is thick enough, eagles hez kind o’ flown.
1866		Wild Boys of London I 37/1: As soon as I gets the coin I’ll drop you a yellow-boy.
1873		W.H. Thomes Slaver’s Adventures 21: How the lazy rascals would flutter if they could only get a glimpse of these yellow boys! But they never will. Not a dollar of this money will they ever see, for I know how to prevent it.
1882		Cremorne I 26: Let me line my pockets with the rhino [...] let me get the yellow boys.
1884		(con. c.1840) ‘Mark Twain’ Huckleberry Finn 214: They pawed the yallerboys, and sifted them through their fingers and let them jingle down on the floor.
1896–9		(?) H. Lawson ‘A Gentleman Sharper and Steelman Sharper’ in Roderick (1972) 225: Steelman thoughtfully counted twenty-one sovereigns [...] ‘Smith, do you see those yellow boys?’.
1898		Binstead & Wells Pink ’Un and Pelican 174: The Captain pocketed the yellow-boys.
1899		H.E. Hamblen Yarn of Bucko Mate 110: Lemme have a hundred yaller boys, an’ I 'll bust that bank.
1904		Ade ‘The Fable of the Society-Trimmers’ in True Bills 78: Then he sprinkled a few Yellow Boys on the first twelve and couldn’t go wrong.
1908		Bulletin (Sydney) 3 Sept. 39/2: No, you’re the jugginses wot give her the yellow boys all mixed up with the casers. That’s why they cleared.
1909		D. Stewart Dead Man’s Gold in Illus. Police News 10 Apr. 12/3: ‘You had better leave those bags of yellow boys in the cab’.
1913		Dakota County Herald (NE) 4 Apr. 3/1: Good gold British sovereigns at that: two thousand [...] but not another yellow boy was uncovered.
1914		Sport (Adelaide) 14 Mar. 4/4: Talk about a swagger kid ! You couldn't do it with your pockets full of yeller boys.
1925		Western Mail (Perth) 28 May 21/1: [from Daily Mail, London] A sovereign had a lot of slang names [...] a portrait, a yellow boy, [...] a canary, a couter, a foont, a poona [and] a bean.

2. (US) money [note yellow back ].

1915		Van Loan ‘The Extra Man’ in Buck Parvin 21: It’s the dough that counts with the dolls – the dinero; the iron men; the large, smilin’ yaller boys.
1929		M. Prenner ‘Sl. Terms for Money’ in AS IV:5 357: For bills as such, we may say [...] frogskins, mint leaves [...] or yellow boys.
1935		A.J. Pollock Und. Speaks n.p.: Yellow boys, currency of large denominations.

gold, money.

1795

Sporting Mag. Nov. VII 74/2: A fellow who [...] were it not for the yellow dust in his pocket, would be despised by every soul but the very refuse and dregs of the town.

a guinea.

1785, 1788, 1796		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.
1809		G. Andrewes Dict. Sl. and Cant.
1811		Lex. Balatronicum.
1823		Egan Grose’s Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.
1835		G. Kent Modern Flash Dict.
1848		Flash Dict. in Sinks of London Laid Open.
c.1850		Duncombe New and Improved Flash Dict.

1. (US) a gold piece.

1853		W.G. Simms Sword and the Distaff 315: To fling the guineas away, the raal grit, all yellow jackets [...] that was the sin and the foolishness.
1884		(con. c.1840) ‘Mark Twain’ Huckleberry Finn 215: And he begun to haul out yaller-jackets and stack them up.

2. see also SE compounds below.

(Irish) a gold coin.

1997

Share Slanguage.

1. a gold coin.

1835

J.T. Haines My Poll and My Partner Joe I i: You see, my old cove, here’s the parchment — no gammon about it — all reg’lar. So you’s better out with the yellow ’uns.

2. a gold watch.

1899		J. Flynt Tramping with Tramps 386: Such expressions as a ‘yellow one’ for a gold watch, a ‘white one,’ for a silver watch.
1927		in ‘Jargon of the Und.’ in DN V.

gold; thus money, wealth.

1812		W. Combe Doctor Syntax, Picturesque (1868) 70/2: Thanks to my stars, I’ve got enough / Of that same yellow, useful stuff.
1843		T. Haliburton Sam Slick in England II 94: It was solid gold, no pinchback, but the rael yellow stuff.
1852		Sherborne Mercury 8 June 2/1: Seeing his master counting a lot of sovereigns he said he had found a piece of ‘yellow stuff,’ far bigger than all those together.
1868		‘Six Years in the Prisons of England’ in Temple Bar Mag. Nov. 534: If he can manage to begin every morning with the yellow stuff, he can make a couple of ‘quid’ a day; but if he can only muster white stuff, why, of course he can’t make so much.
1898		Binstead & Wells Pink ’Un and Pelican 183: That he must die some day and leave the yellow stuff behind him was a constant and an unhappy reflection for him.
1910		Bulletin (Sydney) 11 Aug. 43/2: It was only a blind so that I could get the yellow stuff away in the billy. If I hadn’t built that new caboose they’d never have smelt even the rat I put through the drain to fix my string!
1922		C.B. Booth ‘Mr Clacksworthy’s Pipe Dream’ Detective Story 11 Mar. 🌐 The guy what drags in the kale is the bozo what keeps peeled for the yellow stuff, huh?

1. a coward; thus yellow-backed adj., cowardly.

1893		R.G. Hampton Major in Wash. City 17: The gabble of that old yaller-backed Yankee riled me.
1922		J.O. Curwood Country Beyond 143: The world would call him a lying yellow-back if he betrayed what had actually happened on the trail between Cragg’s Ridge and Mooney’s cabin [DA].
1949		Monteleone Criminal Sl. (rev. edn).
1979		Maledicta III:2 156: yellow back [...] n [DAS 1924] Person without courage or fortitude.

2. see also SE compounds below.

cowardly.

1919		Van Loan ‘Piute vs. Piute’ Score by Innings (2004) 317: I’ll make that yellow-bellied pitcher quit like a dog.
1924		P. Marks Plastic Age 75: This is the goddamndest gang of yellow-bellied quitters that I ’ve ever seen.
1930		(con. 1900s–10s) Dos Passos 42nd Parallel in USA (1966) 258: A yellowbellied potatomouthed reformer.
1941		Burnley Exp. 19 Feb. 3/1: The crafty, cold-blooded, black-hearted, yellow-livered, bald-headed, big-mouthed, brazen-faced [...] snivelling, twisted Italian.
1943		J. Mitchell McSorley’s Wonderful Saloon (2001) 27: Don’t you talk like that to me, you yellow-bellied jerk.
1949		M. Leigh Cross of Fire 153: You stinkin’, yellow-bowelled farmer you!
1951		J.D. Salinger Catcher in the Rye (1958) 109: He’d start screaming at me, in this very high-pitched, yellow-belly voice.
1955		E. Abbey Brave Cowboy (1958) 54: Yellow-livered, yellow-bellied bitch’s sons.
a.1962		‘The Signifying Monkey II’ in D. Wepman et al. Life (1976) 27: He looked in that mirror with fire in his eyes / And said, ‘That old yellow-ass lion is about my size.’.
1963		B. Hecht Gaily, Gaily 43: It’s almost more than I can stand, hearing you talk to that yellow-bellied sonofabitch of a butcher.
1971		R.D. Pharr S.R.O. (1998) 43: ‘The rest are yellow-bellied idiots’.
1975		(con. 1900s) G. Swarthout Shootist 177: You’re a pimple-faced, short-pudded, yellow-assed kid.
1977		K. Gilbert Living Black 299: Yellow-bellied mongrels, you all are.
1986		C. Hiaasen Tourist Season (1987) 25: Mr. Cabal’s lawyer didn’t appreciate your description of his client as ‘yellow-bellied vermin culled from the stinkpot of Castro’s jails.’.
1999		Eve. Standard mag. 4 June 10: You’re sure it’s not because you’re a spineless, yellow-bellied, half-baked milquetoast?
2005		D. Bruce Funniest People in Sports 42: Listen, you yellow-bellied cowards, why don’t you yell at somebody who can answer back.

cowardice.

1918

H.C. Witwer From Baseball to Boches 16: I know what they was sufferin’ from — cold feet and yellow fever.

see yellow belly n. (8)

cowardly.

1921		Industrial Pioneer (IWW) 52/1: The characteristic peacemaker that plays a conspicuous part at this juncture is the yellow-gutted J. H. Thomas.
1927		Munsey’s 91 693: That yellow-gutted cur in the corner.
1945		R.S. Close Love me Sailor 222: Murder . . . is it, you white gutted bastard?
1951		(con. 1941) E. Lambert Twenty Thousand Thieves 215: Who sneaked up behind him and shot him in the leg? Dirty, sneaking, yellow-gutted coppers.
1963		A.E. Farrell Vengeance 84: You yeller gutted bastard of a gin man, Albanez!

see yellow belly n. (8)

1. (US) a strikebreaker [pattern of SE blackleg].

1930

(con. 1900s–10s) Dos Passos 42nd Parallel in USA (1966) 94: Every sonofabitchin’ yellerleg in the state of Nevada.

2. see also SE compounds below.

see white-livered adj. (1)

(S.Afr.) the departure of white South Africans in the face of the imminent take-over by a multiracial government.

1977

cited in J. & W. Branford Dict. S. Afr. Eng. (1991).

a jealous man, esp. a jealous husband.

1812		Vaux Vocab. of the Flash Lang.
1859, 1860		Hotten Dict. of Modern Sl. etc.
1864, 1867, 1870		Hotten Sl. Dict.
1873		Sl. Dict.

1. as a banknote [the former printing of certain denominations of US dollar bills in yellow rather than the usual green].

2. (Aus.) a gob of phlegm.

1941

Baker Popular Dict. Aus. Sl.

3. see also sl. compounds above.

a (golden) sovereign.

1891

Sporting Times 10 Jan. 3/1: [He[ offered the landlord half-a-crown for it. ‘I wouldn’t taken five darned golden yellowbellies, siree,’ said Roger.

(UK black) a light-coloured black girl.

2019

Headie One ‘Both’ 🎵 But I'm on road, yellow bones, brown ones, I get loving from both.

(US drugs) Arm and Hammer baking soda, as used in the manufacture of crack cocaine.

2016

Jeezy ‘Let Em Know’ 🎵 Took it out the bag, mixed it with the yellow box / Went to sleep woke up in a yellow watch.

(Aus.) a can of Castlemaine XXX beer.

2003		Aus. WordMap 🌐 When Territorians ask for a beer, they do so by the colour of the can and not the brand name e.g. green can is Vic[t]oria Bitter, red can is Melbourne Bitter, yellow can is XXXX.
2006		P. Brown Three Sheets to Wind 241: To crack the code, you need to know that beer is served by the tin, and different brands have different-coloured tins: a blue can is Foster’s, Green is Victoria Bitter, yellow is Fourex, and so on.
2017		Australianbeers.com Dec. 🌐 [I]n order to speed up and simplify the process of ordering the nectar of the gods, the NT’ers have invented their own little code for fast and accurate delivery. It is based on the colours of the desired beer can (or tinnie): […] Yellow Can: Can of Fourex.

(drugs) LSD, esp. when combined with another drug.

1982		K.B. Harder in AS LVII:4 290: When LSD is mixed with other drugs [...] [s]uch mixtures are today called [...] yellow dimple.
2001		ONDCP Street Terms 23: Yellow dimples — LSD.

(US) a school bus.

1972		D. Jenkins Semi-Tough 120: Hose Manning’s Cadillac got hit from the blind side by one of those old yellow-dog school buse [...] The kind junior college teams go to games in.
2012		http://thankq4commonsense.blogspot.com Jan. 🌐 [headline] What's Wrong With A Yellow Dog?

(US black) an egg.

1944

‘Jiver’s Bible’ in D. Burley Orig. Hbk of Harlem Jive.

a costermonger’s handkerchief, yellow with white spots.

1839		W.A. Miles Poverty, Mendicity and Crime; Report 115: The new term for handkerchiefs is a Billy, for which pickpockets have peculiar terms known only in the trade. [...] yellow fancy, yellow with white spots.
1847		G.W.M. Reynolds Mysteries of London III 85/1: A Stranger—looked like a spunk fencer. Green king’s-man, water‘s-man, yellow fancy and yellow-man .
1859, 1860		Hotten Dict. of Modern Sl. etc.
1873		Sl. Dict.
1882		Sydney Sl. Dict. (2 edn) 9: Yellow Fancy - Silk pocket handkerchief, yellow, white spots.
1890–1904		Farmer & Henley Sl. and Its Analogues.
1891		F.W. Carew Autobiog. of a Gipsey 130: He sported a brand-new yellow-fancy artistically tied and fastened with a fox-tooth pin.

(Aus.) a convict.

1852		Launceston Examiner (Tas.) 24 Dec. 862/3: [I]t is their wish they should be regarded as ‘transports,’ and let society comply with the request. Let them be known hereafter as Canaries, Yellow-Greys, or ‘our people,’ as the public choose.
1853		Launceston Examiner (Tas.) 7 May 479/4: DOGBERRY'S ADDRESS TO THE YELLOW- GREYS. (A Tasmanian ballad.) [...] The AUSTRALIAN LEAGUE shall understand / What Yellow-Greys can do.

yellow fever.

1834		Marryat Peter Simple (1911) 231: There be one thing to be said in favour of Yellow Jack, a’ter all. You dies straight, like a gentleman.
1841		A.M. Maxwell Run Through the United States II 169: Philadelphia used to have a fever commonly called ‘Yellow Jack.’.
1857		C. Kingsley Two Years Ago I 113: I’ve had the cholera twice, and yellow-jack besides.
1869		Echoes From the Living Grave 47: Cold weather set in; Yellow Jack disappeared.
1873		W.H. Thomes Slaver’s Adventures 16: He’s got a touch of the yellow Jack, and don’t know the main-boom from the jib-boom, or a doctor from a horse-marine. He will probably kick the bucket.
1887		G. Devol Forty Years a Gambler 120: He kept the city very clean, but old yellow-jack got in, and then Ben got a furlough.
1898		H. Macfall Wooings of Jezebel Pettyfer 240: Dey do tell me de yeller-jack don’t git de coloured folks.
1904		Kipling ‘The Bonds of Discipline’ Traffics and Discoveries 67: I hadn’t seen that sight, not since thirteen years in the West Indies, when a post-captain died o’ yellow jack.
1929		S.J. Perelman Dawn Ginsbergh’s Revenge 13: She broke out with the yellow jack. But she lived.
1930		G. Milburn ‘The Tropics’ Curse’ in Hobo’s Hornbook 201: Alone on a hot, flea-ridden cot, / I was down with the yellowjack.
1943		J. Mitchell McSorley’s Wonderful Saloon (2001) 43: Had the chicken pox, had the sleeping sickness, had the dropsy, had the yellow johnnies.
1947		Cornell Woolrich Waltz Into Darkness (1995) 9: Two men come out, bearing something dead on a covered litter. ‘Stand back. Yellow jack.’.
1951		(con. 1859) S. Longstreet Pedlocks (1971) 50: I went through it in New Orleans in ’59 when Yellow Jack hit.
1960		P. Larkin letter 28 Apr. in Thwaite Sel. Letters (1992) 312: I’m beginning to pray for a broken leg, yellow jack, close arrest. Anything to avoid the disparaging eye of colleagues.
1968		(con. mid-late 19C) S. Longstreet Wilder Shore 24: Epidemics of smallpox, yellow jack.
2001		D.H. Doyle Faulkner’s County 304: Yellow jack, as it was known, was a horrible disease that struck with little warning and killed rapidly.

1. (Aus.) a convict [the yellow uniform].

1874

M. Clarke Term of His Natural Life (1897) 21: I have seldom seen a face I liked less, even among my yellow jackets yonder.

2. (orig. US black, also jacket, yellow jack) usu. in pl., Nembutal, a proprietary brand of pentobarbital sodium [the packaging].

1952		Lannoy & Masterson ‘Teen-age Hophead Jargon’ AS XXVII:1 27: JACKET, n. Nembutal tablet.
1953		‘William Lee’ Junkie (1966) 158: Nembies, Goof Balls, Yellow Jackets . . . Nembutal capsules. Nembutal is a barbiturate used by junkies ‘to take the edge off’ when they can’t get junk.
1958		W. Motley Let No Man Write My Epitaph (1959) 95: Flora popped a couple of yellow jackets into her mouth.
1961		T.I. Rubin In the Life 161: Yellow Jack: Nembutal.
1963		M. Braly Shake Him Till He Rattles (1964) 21: Horse, pot, bennies, redbirds, yellow jackets, Christmas trees, perrys, dexies, or rainbows.
1967		M. Braly On the Yard (2002) 60: Movie broads gobbled up yellow jackets like they were jelly beans.
1971		D. Goines Dopefiend (1991) 167: They would shoot morphine, take yellow jackets, or Nembutal capsules, anything to take the edge off.
1978		S. King Stand (1990) 379: She had the big red-and-yellow gelatine capsules that were known as ‘yellowjackets’ on the West Coast. Big Downers.
1980		E. Folb Runnin’ Down Some Lines 167: Barbiturates were identified in terms of their colour [...] Nembutal (pentobarbital), yellow, yellow jack, yellow jacket.
1984		Totally True Diaries of an Eighties Roller Queen 🌐 10 May Today we found out Jackie couldn’t get yellow jackets for us for the dance. Were we ever pissed off.
1990		(con. early 1950s) J. Ellroy L.A. Confidential 178: Pills – bennies, goofballs, red devils, yellow jackets, blue heavens.
1999		T. Dorsey Florida Roadkill 33: The best drugs from four counties brown tat, china white, yellow jackets.
2001		ONDCP Street Terms 23: Yellow jackets — Depressants.
2002		L. Pizzichini Dead Men’s Wages (2003) 222: Amytal were the Blue Heavens he did not believe in, Nembutal were the yellow jackets he once had worn.
2005		E. White My Lives 280: Hopped up on blackbirds, yellow jackets, PCP and joints sprayed with angel dust.
2009		(con. 1960s) J. Ellroy Blood’s a Rover 25: Phil Irwin popped some yellowjackets with an Old Crow chaser.
2021		J. Ellroy Widespread Panic 9: Car thief/stickup man/weenie wagger. Hooked on yellow jackets.

3. see also sl. compounds above.

(Aus. drugs) home-manufactured heroin.

1997

L. Davies Candy 193: Caspar was probably on the nod at his place [...] with all that Yellow Jesus in a jar.

blonde pubic hair.

1790

‘Bumper Allnight. Esquire’ Honest Fellow 69: It shall e’er be spoke, / That Bess has been as yet outvy’d, / By black or yellow joke.

1. (US) an East Tennessean.

1857

Plough, The Loom, and The Anvil June 715: It is doubtless generally known that East Tennessee is proverbial for ‘sweet-cider and dried apples,’ and that her sons are known and called, west of the Mississippi, ‘Yellow Legs.’.

2. pertaining to a uniform, i.e. the yellow stripe running down the trousers.

3. see also sl. compounds above.

1. a costermonger’s handkerchief, coloured plain yellow.

1812		Egan Boxiana I 167: The yellow-man, which had so long been the pride and boast of the circle [...] were to be seen in great numbers.
1823		N.Y. Eve. Post 10 July 2/4: The coloured fogles, the blue bird’s-eye for Spring, and a yellowman for Neate, were then interwoven together on one of the P. C. stakes.
1826		Pierce Egan’s Life in London 10 Dec. 781/2: Sharp left the ground in triumph, followed by his numerous partisans in [...] vehicles supporting the yellowmen, in the honout of the Bishop’s victory.
1832		Egan Bk of Sports 199: Sam [was] sporting the yellowman, made on purpose for him at Spitalfields. The wipe was of bright yellow, with a scarlet border, and a garter in the centre, surrounding the initials D.S. and bearing the Latin inscription ‘Nil desperandum,’ with the portraits of the two men in combat.
1847		G.W.M. Reynolds Mysteries of London III 85/1: A Stranger—looked like a spunk fencer. Green king’s-man, water‘s-man, yellow fancy and yellow-man .
1864, 1867, 1870		Hotten Sl. Dict.
1882		Sydney Sl. Dict. (2 edn) 9: Yellow Man - Yellow silk handkerchief, plain.
1895		Mirror of Life 14 Dec. 14/3: [T]heir bag of tricks, or [boxing] gloves tied up in a yellowman, kingsman, birdseye or some such handkerchief.

2. (Scot.) lemonade.

1856

J. Strang Glasgow and Its Clubs 276: A tidy little old woman dealing in ‘yellow-man’ and ‘glassy’ was vastly admired by all juveniles.

see yellow n. (8a)

(Irish) the lowpaid employment of young people and the concomitant dismissal of more expensive senior employees; often attrib.

1995		Irish Times 7 Oct. n.p.: There has been much guffawing [...] at the proposals by the Government cost-cutters that Garda ministerial drivers and minders be replaced by ‘yellow pack’ chauffeurs and security people from the private sector [BS].
2000		F. Mac Anna Cartoon City 79: He got a call from Jarlath Boon to say that he was going to make a formal complaint to the NUJ about [...] Myles’s ‘blackleg double-jobbing yellow-pack scabbing.’.

(UK juv.) cheap, indicative of poverty.

2001

OnLine Dict. of Playground Sl. 🌐 yellow packet adj. Insult directed at povvos, doleys and so on. Derived from Fine Fare supermarket’s economy range of ‘Yellow Packet’ products. [...] ‘Ey, them trainies are dead yellow packet they are!’.

(US black) a mixed-race individual.

1941

C.S. Johnson Growing Up in the Black Belt 262: Although mulattoes on the whole appear to be proud of their lighter complexions, they are at a disadvantage when the question of paternity is raised by their darker associates. Such derisive terms as ’Yellow Pumpkin,’ ’Yellow Bastard,’ are used in this connection.

see punk n.³

(US Und.) a criminal’s record of arrests.

1955		Q. Reynolds Police Headquarters (1956) 75: ‘Gimme a yellow sheet on Joe Jerk.’ A ‘yellow sheet’ [...] is merely a typewritten copy of a man’s criminal record.
1966		J. Mills Panic in Needle Park (1971) 161: He looks real clean, too. Until you take a look at his yellow sheet, which is four pages, all the way back to when he was thirteen.
1977		B. Davidson Collura (1978) 51: At the age of twenty, she had a yellow sheet [...] two pages long.
1985		N. Pileggi Wiseguy (2001) 26: It sure was a dumb way to start a yellow sheet.

(drugs) a form of LSD.

1972		Dahlskog Dict. Contemp. and Colloq. Usage.
1985		G. Tate ‘Atomic Dog’ in Flyboy in the Buttermilk (1992) 32: We did the whole album in one day [...] on three or four tabs of yellow sunshine.
2001		ONDCP Street Terms 23: Yellow Sunshine — LSD.

(US prison) yellow lines on the ground that indicate areas beyond which prisoners are forbidden to step.

2000

Other Side of the Wall: Prisoner’s Dict. July 🌐 Yellow Brick Road: Yellow lines indicating path that prisoners [should] stay within.