Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(a) to have sexual intercourse.

a.1796		‘The Cooper o’ Dundee’ in Farmer Merry Songs and Ballads (1897) II 257: He hoopt them, he coopt them, he bor’d them, he plug’d them.
c.1800		‘The Cooper o’ Dundee’ in Burns Merry Muses of Caledonia (1965) 134: The most o’ his trade lay in pleasin’ the fair; / He hoopt them, he coopt them, he bort them, he plugt them.
1833		‘The Tuncock’ in Regular Thing, And No Mistake 67: There was a lad, Sam Plug’em call’d, attend, whilst I relating, / His sad mishaps [...] He wriggled into place, and kept it too by turning.
c.1850		Peeping Tom (London) 30 120/2: [a toast] ‘May every shot-hole [...] have a sailor at hand to plug it up’.
1870		Cythera’s Hymnal 12: The hole near her breech had a permanent itch / To be plugged.
1888–94		‘Walter’ My Secret Life (1966) II 241: I did [...] not even like the girl, though I liked plugging her.
1896		Farmer Vocabula Amatoria (1966) 245: Sonder. To copulate; ‘to plug’.
1928		in G. Legman Limerick (1953) 57: With one swerve he could plug / A boy’s bottom in Zug, / And a kitchen-maid’s cunt in Coblenz.
1941		in G. Legman Limerick (1953) 71: As he creamed my wife’s cunt, the coon said, / ‘I could fuck this until she was dead!’ / As he plugged up her trough, / I jerked myself off; / ‘If that’s how you feel, go ahead!’.
1951		in Randolph & Legman Ozark Folksongs and Folklore (1992) II 685: One hand on his rifle. / One hand on his cock. [...] With one he plugged the white man, / With the other plugged his squaw.
1966		A. Green in Oliver Screening the Blues (1968) 174: I’m not the plumber [...] But I’ll plug your hole, / Till the plumber comes.
1978		A. Maupin Tales of the City (1984) 160: I spent four fucking hours at Slater Hawkins last week trying to plug a chick a I wouldn’t have sneezed at in college.
1989		P. Munro Sl. U.
1993		B. Moore Lex. of Cadet Lang. 274: usage: ‘He plugged that blonde who works in the Bin on Friday nights.’.
2001		N. Barlay Hooky Gear 229: You are well and truly fucked and plugged with a used 10-inch strap-on dildo purchased on the Internet off a trannie crackwhore based in Harlem.

(b) to strike, either with the fist, a weapon or with a missile, usu. a bullet; also attrib (see cite 1842).

1829		Leicester Jrnl 4 Dec. 4/5: A half pint if I don’t plug that goose yonder.
1842		Whip & Satirist of NY & Brooklyn (NY) 5 Nov. n.p.: the whip wants to know What plug muss Ed, the butcher, and Steve, the pimp, got into [...] at the Bowery.
1851		‘Bainbridge’s Tid-Re I’ in Jack Tar’s Songster 16: We plug’d her hull.
1853		J.G. Baldwin Flush Times of Alabama and Mississippi 307: We settled it in the old way: I had my rifle, and I plugged him fust.
1866		C.H. Smith Bill Arp 129: I run [...] lookin ahead of me at every step to find an easy place to fall when I was plugged.
1870		Sportsman (London) 13 Apr. 2/1: [US speaker] ‘I’ve plugged an old sucker in the jaw’.
1875		‘Aliph Cheem’ Lays of Ind (1905) 103: ‘We’d like to see you plug the beggar neatly through the heart’.
1880		Bulletin (Sydney) 2 Oct. 8/4: Churchill says, ‘Actors as actors are a lawful game,’ but Mr. W. J. Holloway doesn’t seem to agree with him, as he ‘plugged’ Mr. of the Adelaide ’Tizer, in the ‘dose’.
1882		Nat. Police Gaz. (NY) 28 Jan. 3/4: The boys of St. Elmo are [...] hoping to give Painter a grand send off to the happy hunting grounds, as Rogers, who is a great favorite [...] says he’ll ‘plug’ him sure.
1888		‘Rolf Boldrewood’ Robbery Under Arms (1922) 243: If that old horse they put you on had bobbed forward level with him you’d have got plugged instead.
1890		Bulletin (Sydney) 2 Aug. 10/1: O Blessed Interpreter! / Scene – Suburban Police-court / Witness: ‘Prisoner said he’d plug me if I blew th’ gaff, yer Wusshup.’ / Stipendiary: ‘What does that mean?’.
1899		Kipling ‘An Unsavoury Interlude’ in Complete Stalky & Co. (1987) 79: Hi! There’s a bunny. No, it ain’t. It’s a cat, by Jove! You plug first.
1904		Number 1500 Life In Sing Sing 263: What does the greaser do but flash his rod and bark away. He plugged the main guy for keeps.
1904		Sun. Times (Perth) 25 Sept. 4/7: A battler with a heart of gold and a fist equally ready to assist a mate or plug a nark.
1904		Wodehouse Gold Bat [ebook] ‘If it had been a decent-sized rabbit, I should have plugged it middle stump’.
1909		‘O. Henry’ Roads of Destiny 135: I got into a little gun frolic down in Laredo and plugged a white man.
1909		Truth (Wellington) 28 Aug. 3/5: The Timaru lad plugged his enemy repeatedly on the smeller and the kisser.
1916		J. Lait ‘One Touch of Art’ in Beef, Iron and Wine (1917) 207: One squawk and I’ll plug ye.
1923		Wodehouse Leave it to Psmith (1993) 598: I shall immediately proceed to plug Comrade Cootes in the leg.
1924		(con. WWI) A.G. Pretty Gloss. Sl. [...] in the A.I.F. 1921–1924 (rev. t/s) n.p.: plug. To hit or punch.
1930		(con. 1900s–10s) Dos Passos 42nd Parallel in USA (1966) 95: The stiff that owned the joint got plugged.
1936		G. Greene Gun for Sale (1973) 19: Don’t say a word or I’ll plug you.
1938		D. Runyon ‘Sense of Humor’ in Runyon on Broadway (1954) 272: Joe the Joker is plugging them with pellets made out of tin foil.
1938		Smith’s Wkly (Sydney) 26 Feb. 3/3: [W]hen a tough guy felt the urge to go out and plug someone he didn’t pick on a respectable citizen .
1946		Mezzrow & Wolfe Really the Blues 96: Frankie probably began to see the faces of all the guys he plugged.
1959		J. Thompson Getaway in Four Novels (1983) 35: Suppose I decided to plug you right now. Do you think I’d kill you or not?
1965		R.L. Pike Mute Witness (1997) 29: He’s been plugged once too often already.
1969		‘Iceberg Slim’ Pimp 247: What if she made me right away [...] and plugged me in the skull.
1971		Wodehouse Much Obliged, Jeeves 160: Sidcup got a black eye. Somebody plugged him with a potato.
1982		G.V. Higgins Patriot Game (1985) 100: I can’t raise my brother’s family for him, after he gets himself plugged.
1992		Bentley & Corbett Prison Sl. 90: Pluggin’ When two inmates are fist fighting, they are said to be pluggin’.
1993		Tarantino & Avery Pulp Fiction [film script] 5: They’re just tryin’ to get you out the door before you start pluggin’ diners.
1999		J. Cameron Brown Bread in Wengen [ebook] Gravy came out his hooter and his lugs. Then more off his back where they plugged him.
2000		C. Cook Robbers (2001) 11: A conspiracy. Organized rednecks plugging foreigners.
2004		C. Hiaasen Skinny Dip 168: The egregious stupidity of plugging a gator.
2012		M. McBride Frank Sinatra in a Blender [ebook] If they’d suspected I had the money they would’ve kicked me door in and plugged me.
2012		(con. 1943) G.S. Manson Irish Fandango [ebook] ‘I might just have to plug ya’.
2020		G. Armstrong Young Team 10: ‘That Toi wan ended up gittin stabbed’ [...] ‘Who plugged him then?’.

(c) (US black) to damage oneself.

1929

C. McKay Banjo 236: That’s where I get plugged up for fooling with Christian charity.

(d) (gay) to perform anal intercourse.

1941		G. Legman ‘Lang. of Homosexuality’ Appendix VII in Henry Sex Variants.
1965		Guild Dict. Homosexual Terms 36: plug (v.): To pedicate.
1972		B. Rodgers Queens’ Vernacular 88: anal intercourse [...] plug (‘Boy, did I ever get plugged in Hawaii’).
1988		H. Max Gay (S)language.

(e) (S.Afr.) to fail.

1986

P. Slabolepszy ‘Boo to the Moon’ in Mooi Street (1994) 107: spider: C’mon. You okes think I plugged. myrtle: No, we don’t.

(f) (drugs) to hide sealed packets of illegal drugs in the rectum.

2002		Observer 17 Feb. 12: He used the time to seal the heroin in plastic and ‘plug’ it – hide it in his rectum.
2005		Guardian Society 13 July 🌐 There’s this new thing where you plug it [i.e. a package of drugs], which means you put it in between your arse cheeks.
2016		Guardian G2 1 Sept. 25/1: A close-up of a man stuffing a drug-filled condom into his anus [...] known as ‘plugging’.
2020		G. Krauze What They Was 262: Man are plugging mobile phones up their arse. Plugging hash. Plugging cro. Plugging work. Plugging b. Plugging razor blades and homemade shanks.

(g) (UK Black/gang) to ruin, to destroy.

2016

67 ‘Fuck You Feel Like’ 🎵 Pray the pigs don’t walk in the bando if they do that’s everything plugged.

(a) to persist, to struggle hard against whatever odds.

c.1865		(remembered on the river at Oxford) ‘Plug, you fellows, plug!’ ‘We plugged for all we were worth’ [OED].
1881		‘Bill Nye’ Bill Nye and Boomerang 67: I plug along and [...] have nothing under the broad blue dome of heaven but $150 per month.
1896		P.L. Dunbar ‘Keep A-Pluggin’ Away’ in Lyrics of Lowly Life 102: I’ve a humble little motto / That is homely, though it’ true, – / Keep a-pluggin’ away.
1900		Ade More Fables in Sl. (1960) 158: You take a Man who is Plugging along on a salary [...] and let him go out at Night and be an Exalted Sir.
1903		Bulletin (Sydney) 13 Aug. 14/4: Yet the £12 for which a struggling neighbor offered to undertake the whole job was considered too much, and the councillor’s sons are now plugging away at it instead.
1910		F.P. Dunne Mr Dooley Says 205: I plugged away at number siventeen, an’ it came up eighty-two times runnin’.
1913		Truth (Sydney) 22 June 9/4: Next she did plug for her ooftish, / Which had got back in arreer.
1915		S. Ford Torchy, Private Sec. 26: How long do you think I’ve been plugging at this thing? Nine years.
1915		R.P. Hamilton diary 19 Jan. 🌐 Long letter from W.D.; he still plugs on & still gives remarkably sound advice.
1922		E. Pound letter 9 July in Paige (1971) 179: I suppose I have by now a right to be serious about this matter, having been plugging away at it for twenty years.
1922		S. Lewis Babbitt (1974) 15: I do keep right on plugging along in the office.
1931		‘William Hatfield’ Sheepmates 278: There was nothing for it but to plug on through the night.
1936		‘Banjo’ Paterson Shearer’s Colt 20: You see, all my life I’ve just been plugging along, no more important than one sheep in a mob.
1939		H. Miller Tropic of Capricorn (1964) 66: I plug on, through one victim after another.
1943		J. Mitchell McSorley’s Wonderful Saloon (2001) 238: We’ll have to redouble our efforts [...] We’ll have to keep plugging away.
1952		W.R. Burnett Little Men, Big World 200: ‘Arky’s around some place.’ ‘Okay. Keep plugging.’.
1954		(con. 1940s) T.A.G. Hungerford Sowers of the Wind 171: They’d plug along as the flaming Army always did.
1954		Wodehouse Jeeves and the Feudal Spirit 115: I am in the process of plugging away at a thing called The Mystery of the Pink Crayfish.
1964		P. Larkin ‘Mr. Bleaney’ in Whitsun Weddings 10: He kept on plugging at the four aways.
1968		J. Hersey Algiers Motel Incident 156: I plugged along with the lessons for about three years.
1983		A. Payne ‘Get Daley!’ Minder [TV script] 34: So I keep plugging on, taking the risks.
1986		R.G. Barrett Real Thing 46: just pluggin’ along, gettin’ a quid the best way I can.
1991		J.B. Keane Love Bites and Other Stories 44: Should we prepare at all – only plug away until our time arrives?
1999		K. Sampson Powder 351: Mel plugged on.
2000		Guardian 11 Jan. 16: He plugged away at the live circuit.

(b) (also plug it) to continue moving, to be associated with.

1924		C.J. Dennis ‘’Ave a ’Eart!’ in Rose of Spadgers 77: We pays no ’eed to them, but plug along.
1930		M. Fiaschetti You Gotta Be Rough 32: I plugged it around with one veteran of the Italian Squad and then another.