score n.3
1. in Und. uses.
(a) (US) the profits from a robbery, fraud or similar criminal act.
![[Aus]](/static/img/flags/aus.png "Australia") | Truth (Sydney) 29 Sept. 7/3: Awl they gets is nixey weedin’, / Shice, or very little more; / P’rhaps they does it for the glory— ? / As it can't be for the score. | |
![[US]](/static/img/flags/us.png "United States") | Vocab. Criminal Sl. | |
| (con. 1905–25) Professional Thief (1956) 6: A good score (stolen object) and the opportunity of future success in that store were knocked out by someone who did not know his business. | |
| ‘Butch Minds the Baby’ in Runyon on Broadway (1954) 341: It means a nice score for him. | |
| Asphalt Jungle in Four Novels (1984) 130: The final score, the big last one they all dreamed about. | |
| Somebody Up There Likes Me (1956) 53: We laid up on the roof of my house, talking about what we were going to do with all the money if we made a real big score. | |
| Thief’s Primer 75: Why don’t I sign somebody else’s name, get the money, go play poker with it, and then I make two scores? | |
| Airtight Willie and Me 23: Shit, Slim, we could get busted counting the score. | |
| Wiseguy (2001) 56: Spending the unexpected score he might have made during his totally unpredictable day. | |
| Mr Blue 230: I made sure he had a few dollars for meals and cigarettes, and promised to find him a good score. | |
 | ‘Gut Feeling’ at coldbloodedgames.typepad.com 8 May 🌐 But I had reasons, all the wrong reasons for wanting in on the score. | |
| (con. 1962) Stark 13: The next score [...] would put him on easy street. | |
| ‘Occupy Opportunity’ in C. Rhatigan and N. Bird (eds) Pulp Ink 2 [ebook] We were never too greedy [...] One bank. One big score. We’d draw our yearly salary and then enjoy the time off. | |
![[UK]](/static/img/flags/uk.png "United Kingdom") | Killing Pool 77: It’s going to come as [...] a real bitter sting having come within touching ditance of the score of his life. | |
| ‘Crime 101’ in Broken 106: Maybe it’s the eleven mil, the walkaway score. |
(b) (Can./US) the site of a robbery or similar crime.
| Und. and Prison Sl. | |
| Gonif 102: The law is hanging around our score. | |
![[Can]](/static/img/flags/can.png "Canada") | Go-Boy! 64: We won’t make it to the score on time unless we ... |
(c) (orig. US) a success or coup; usu. in criminal activity or gambling.
| Comic Almanack Sept. 63: Ah! what to do I wish I knew, / Or where to run a score; / For all the town I’ve done so brown, / I can’t do any more. | |
| ‘The Flag of Their Country’ in Complete Stalky & Co. (1987) 205: Wasn’t old Foxy pleased? Did you see him get pink behind the ears? [...] It was an awful score for him. | |
| ‘Propagation of Knowledge’ in Complete Stalky & Co. (1987) 230: It’s always a score to know what your examiner’s keen on. | |
| ‘The Bloodhounds of Broadway’ in Runyon on Broadway (1954) 94: Regret makes a very nice score [...] against the horses. | |
| Big Con 11: Times were to change, and the days of the small score were to end. | |
| Junkie (1966) 14: They go on looking, fabricating preposterous lies about their big scores. | |
| Manchild in the Promised Land (1969) 136: He was always ready to pull any score. | |
| (con. 1960s) Black Gangster (1991) 27: We can’t make a score when we want to. | |
| Wiseguy (2001) 55: He would borrow from his pals until his next score paid off. | |
| Indep. Rev. 23 July 12: I’d like to make one good score and back off. | |
| Winter of Frankie Machine (2007) 121: They scored; they went out on scores. | |
| Whiplash River [ebook] Evelyn had threatened to hink their score if he didn’t agree to dime out the Armenians. | |
| The 3-0 215: In the 3-0, it’s always about a big score, and like clockwork the kid gave up the stash house. |
(d) (Can./US) a robbery.
| (con. 1905–25) Professional Thief (1956) 28: If they blew a score (failed in an attempted theft), it was just blowed. | |
| Duke 68: I pulled the score by myself. I was gone about an hour and when I came back I got fistfuls of alligator skins. I got more money than John D and Henry Ford. | |
| Rap Sheet 161: Me and Bob Steele stayed teamed up for a spell, keeping our eyes peeled for some quick scores, which we needed bad. | |
| Big Rumble 95: So we don’t make scores. We ain’t pulled a robbery since he come in. | |
| Down These Mean Streets (1970) 216: Me and Louie is gonna pull a score right now. | |
| No Beast So Fierce 50: I’d gone on one score with him [...] and it would be the last time. | |
| Go-Boy! 208: One of our partners got busted on a bank score trying to run a police roadblock. | |
| Mr Blue 257: It is nearly impossible to convict anyone of burglary unless they are caught on the score. | |
| Shame the Devil 11: Frank [...] asked his little brother if he would be interested in a quick and easy score. | |
| Heat [ebook] [A] big score. Bank, payroll van…Involving a crew and start-up costs. Careful planning over days or even weeks. | |
| Orphan Road 42: ‘Are you telling me you’d rather knock off another cult or some other bullshit score?’. |
(e) (US police/und.) ad hoc individual payments made to corrupt policemen by various criminals, e.g. motorists, narcotics violators loan sharks, etc; also as v.
| Knapp Commission Report Dec. 51: He [Police Officer William Phillips] had engineered innumerable ‘scores’ of gamblers, pimps, loan sharks, illegal liquor dealers, and other violators who had paid him as much as several thousand dollars for their freedom following arrest. | |
| Knapp Commission Report Dec. 66: A ‘score’ is a one-time payment that an officer might solicit from, for example, a motorist or a narcotics violator. The term is also used as a verb, as in ‘I scored him for $1,500’. | |
| (con. mid-1960s) Crusader 108: Gamblers who were on the pad were called ‘cousins.’ Other gamblers were vulnerable to ‘scores’—one-time bribes [...] to get them out of a particular brush with the law. |
2. (drugs) a purchase of drugs.
| (con. 1948) Flee the Angry Strangers 172: He’s like-makin a real score’n I figger for a hunk of it, myself. | |
| Drugs from A to Z (1970) 225: score [...] (2) purchase of narcotics. | |
| Inner City Hoodlum 31: The junkies would be doing life-or-death battle for their first score of the day. | |
| (con. 1940s–60s) ‘Ed Leary’ in Eve. Sun Turned Crimson (1998) 125: We located Hugh the pot connection and asked him to make a heroin score for us. | |
![[Scot]](/static/img/flags/sco.png "Scotland") | Trainspotting 15: Ma final score will be used tae help us sleep. | |
| Life 298: The bigger the score the more people are interested. |
3. any form of material gain.
| How to Talk Dirty 3: I always made a good score in back of Angelo’s Bar and grille. | |
| Six Out Seven (1994) 441: Ethan’s sweatshirt was a score from the Center. |
4. (orig. US) in context of commercial sex.
(a) a male or female prostitute’s client.
| [ | | in Pills to Purge Melancholy I 194: Smoaking, Toping, Landlady groping, / Whores and Scores will spend it again]. |
| Guild Dict. Homosexual Terms 40: score (v.): To find a paying customer. (Hustler slang.) (n.): The customer. | |
| Howard Street 107: For the younger kids ‘the man’ was school, for the older ones, employers, to the hustlers he was a trick or a score. | |
| Cutter and Bone (2001) 147: She made her first score within a half hour, an all-night trick. |
(b) a sexual conquest.
| In La-La Land We Trust (1999) 10: When Hollywood was still a small-town beauty and Whistler was just a youngster looking for a score. | |
| Makes Me Wanna Holler (1995) 41: He’d [...] run down the details of his latest score, from start to finish. |
(c) money gained from commercial sex.
| City of Night 24: Times Square — always good for a score. |
5. (US drugs) a drug dealer.
| Beyond Valley of the Dolls [film script] So, like, when did you score, man? [...] I went back in the stacks to do some research in the rare book collection. And who do I run into but my score? |
6. (US prison) anything sent in to a prisoner from the outside world.
| Prison Sl. 13: Property Anything sent to an inmate from the ‘outside,’ such as a stereo or TV. (Archaic: relief, score, boodle). |
7. (US black) a cache of illicit goods.
| Ebonics Primer at www.dolemite.com 🌐 score Definition: [...] 2. a stash of illicit goods. | |
| Eddie’s World 5: I can use whatever score you got. Computers, cash, cigaerttes, nylons, or bloody fuckin’ tampons. |
In compounds
(drugs) money set aside or offered for a purchase of drugs.
| Opium Addiction in Chicago 203: Score-dough. Money necessary to purchase drugs. | |
| Criminal Sl. (rev. edn) 201: score dough Money with which to buy narcotics. | |
| Junkie (1966) 60: Nick had just arrived at my apartment with some score money. | |
| Narcotics Lingo and Lore 163: Score dough – The price of a small packet of narcotics. |
(Aus.) in funds.
| Old Times in Bush 149: We was a ‘score strung’ (twenty pounds each) each on us. |
In phrases
(orig. US Und.) to reminisce over old successes, major villainies etc.
| Opium Addiction in Chicago 198: Cut up old scores. To talk about incidents in one’s past life. | |
| Big Con 295: To cut up the old scores. To gather together and talk over old times. Also to punch the guff. | |
| Thief’s Primer 127: I’ve been at parties and the police have been there, smoking grass, shooting dope, cutting up scores. | |
| You Bright and Risen Angels (1988) 314: They meet nightly [...] to cut up all the old scores. |
(US Und.) to share out illicit profits.
| Big Con 294: To cut up the score. To divide the profits of a con game. [Ibid.] 304: To put the shiv in the touch. | |
| , | | DAS 137/2: cut up [the] touches [...] to meet in order to divide loot. |
to perform a robbery.
| Teen-Age Mafia 110: This was a lousy piece of turf to hang a score in. |
to buy on credit, esp. at a public house.
| ‘Industrious Smith’ in Merry Songs and Ballads (1897) III 47: But, quoth the good wife, sweet hart do not rayl, / These things must be, if we sell Ale. / Men run on the score and little they paid, / Which made the poor Smith be greatly dismaid. | |
| Roxana in Works I (1840) 113/1: Having spent all his money [he] would willingly run up a score with me. | |
| Derby Mercury 7 Nov. n.p.: Sir Robert used to go [...] to the Tavern, order a Supper, and run up a Score of 18 or 20s. | |
| Dizionario Italiano Ed Inglese 416/1: To build a sconce [to run up a score from one publick house to another] . | |
| Bury & Norwich Post 25 Mar. 2/1: On Friday evening last a man went to the Half Moon Inn [...] and having run up a score of 4s [...] made his escape. | |
| Port Folio Apr. 301: Having run up a score of thirty or forty pounds, he suddenly absented himself. | |
| Figaro in London 20 June 103/2: The veriest pauper that ever run up a score at a village alehouse. | |
| Naval Jrnl 13-14 50: If, mayhap, they have let him run up a score, he is hastily shipped off [...] and the advance is grabbed by the hardhearted landlord, who made poor Jack worse than a brute with his maddening poison. | |
| Hansard (Commons) (UK) 9 July 124: His object was to take away from the seller of beer the temptation to persuade the poor man to continue to take it and to run up a score with him after the poor man had lost the use of his discretion as to what was good for him to take. | |
| , , | | Sl. Dict. |