Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(a) (US) a group of friends.

1802		G. Colman Yngr Poor Gentleman IV ii: I always told you, except myself, you kept a queer set.
1837		Disraeli Henrietta Temple 302: You look rather grave. I fancy I think we are a most miserable set.
1860		Cheshire Obs. 18 Aug. 8/1: Here’s a stunning set of us / Fast young ladies.
1875		J.H. Warren Crying Shame of NY 151: [T]he men, well, no matter what a man really is, he generally passes muster in his own ‘set’ as a high-toned model of virtue and all that is manly.
1895		H.B. Norris [perf. Vesta Tilley] The Piccadilly Johnny with the little glass eye 🎵 The set of boys I chum with are the best-known set down town.
c.1895		F. Norris Vandover and the Brute (1914) 38: On very rare occasions they saw him in society, at the houses where their ‘set’ was received.
1908		‘Doss Chiderdoss’ ‘The Hand-Shaking Peril’ in Sporting Times 18 July 1/3: She resolved that the next time she met / The deceitful and seemingly larcenous May, / She would cut her, as barred from her ‘set’.
1917		F. Packard Adventures of Jimmie Dale (1918) I vii: Maddon was a man in his own ‘set’— and Maddon, interfered with, was likely to prove none too tractable a customer to handle.
1930		M. Fiaschetti You Gotta Be Rough 46: What I wanted to do was give him a chance to choose between taking a stretch or tipping me off as to the big boys of his smart set [...] I grabbed him a couple of times [...] but on every occasion he was able to give me a well-bred, well-modulated laugh.
1936		‘Josephine Tey’ Shilling for Candles 23: Christine was too international a figure to belong anything so small as a ‘set’.
1967		J. Horton ‘Time and Cool People’, in Trans-action 4 n.p.: The more or less organized center of street life is the ‘set’—meaning both the peer group and the places where it hangs out.
1971		H.E. Roberts Third Ear n.p.: set n. [...] 2. a gathering of close friends.
1980		E. Folb Runnin’ Down Some Lines 253: set 1. The group that includes close friends. 2. Clique.
a.1990		Ice-T ‘That’s How I’m Livin’’ 🎵 You might call it a gang / But we called it a set.

(b) (orig. US black/gang) a local gang, part of the larger gang but working autonomously in its own neighbourhood or area of influence; e.g. the Crips are the larger gang, but sets include Eight Trey Gangsters or ETGs, West Side Crips, Compton Santana Block Crips etc; thus a gang hand sign.

1967		J. Horton ‘Time and cool people’ in Trans-action 4 6/1: In 1965 and 1966 I had intensive interviews with 25 set members [...] Cowboy, was a white dude of 25. He had run with Paddy (white), Chicano (Mexican), and Blood (Negro) sets.
1970		B. Seale Seize the Time 139: If you’re doing something for the community in the revolutionary struggle [...] we’ll join your set.
1985		T.R. Houser Central Sl. 46: set A gang hand sign shown to demonstrate one’s affiliation with a particular gang.
1987		King Tee & Mixmaster Spade ‘Ya Better Bring a Gun’ 🎵 But they took control, slingers walk real tall / While real down gangbangers write their set on the wall.
1991		L. Bing Do or Die (1992) xiii: She had already been arrested twice for beating up other girls who had pledged allegiance to rival sets.
1993		Snoop Doggy Dogg ‘For All My Niggaz & Bitches’ 🎵 Bring your whole set and get your hood lynched.
2000		Observer Mag. 9 Jan. 11: The original fight between the two ‘sets’, as the gangs prefer to call themselves, began here.
2001		(con. 1990s) J. Miller One of the Guys 43: A young man who was a member of a neighborhood crips set.
2008		ShortList (London) 22 May 32: A Crips loyalty isn’t to his country or with the marines, its with his ‘set’ – his fellow gang members [...] When they come home and shed that uniform theyre still going to put their rags back on.
2011		G. Hayward Corruption Officer [ebk] cap. 54: I ain’t going to lie, I ride for my set, but this shit ain’t panning out the way it’s supposed to. I’m here for taking the heat for my set.
2015		P. Beatty Sellout (2016) 235: It’s not like there aren’t Mexicans in predominantly black Crip and Blood sets and blacks in mostly Latino cliques.
2018-20		T. Thorne (ed.) ‘Drill Slang Glossary’ at Forensic Linguistic Databank 🌐 Set - group of associates, gang.
2021		T. Swerdlow Straight Dope [ebook] [T]here’s like ten guys from his set here. — What set? — Spook Town Compton Crips.

(c) a prison gang.

1999

E. Bunker Mr Blue 151: My friends were numerous, in a variety of ‘tips,’ as they were then called. Now they would be called ‘sets’.

(a) (US und.) a watch (? and chain).

1909

‘The Lang. of Crooks’ in Wash. Post 20 June 4/2: [paraphrasing J. Sullivan] A watch is [...] a set.

(b) (US drugs) a makeshift syringe combining a pacifier (UK dummy), an eyedropper and a needle, sealed together with a paper ‘collar’.

1972		E. Grogan Ringolevio 39: He squeezed the nipple of the pacifier and placed the set into the glass to draw-fill with water.
1978		H. Selby Jr Requiem for a Dream (1987) 19: Everyone always had a set stashed in the Bronx County Morgue.

(c) (US drugs) a dose of two Seconals and one amphetamine.

1971

E.E. Landy Underground Dict. (1972).

(d) (US drugs) between three and ten pills of comparable or varying type or strength.

1980

E. Folb Runnin’ Down Some Lines 169: Three to ten pills of similar or varying strength or type, a roll, a rack, or a set.

(e) (W.I.) the outsized speakers used in a dancehall sound system.

1995

Francis-Jackson Official Dancehall Dict. 47: Set the various components characterized by massive boxes, giant speakers that provide the music for dancehall.

(f) (US drugs) an injection of combined Talwin and Ritalin, the effect of which mimics a mix of heroin and cocaine.

2001

ONDCP Street Terms 19: Set — Talwin and ritalin combination is injected and produces an effect similar to the effect of heroin mixed with cocaine.

(a) (Aus.) the female breasts.

1960		A. Buzo Front Room Boys Scene i: She had a set on her, didn’t she?
1965		F. Pollini Glover 306: I’ll bet she’s got a set hoho. Big buds there.
1978		R. De Christoforo Grease 93: You ain’t got a set like hers.
1985		R.G. Barrett You Wouldn’t Be Dead for Quids (1989) 190: She’s got a big set. You always reckon you like big tits.
1996		(con. 1964-65) B. Thorpe Sex and Thugs and Rock ’n’ Roll 6: Ninety percent of [her costume] was straining to contain and support a forty-inch set.
2001		G. Pelecanos Right As Rain 42: She did have a nice set, though, the kind that stood at attention, with sharp pink-button nips.
2002		R.G. Barrett Mystery Bay Blues 183: She just handed you the bottle of oil, and said rub it into that giant monster set of hers.

(b) the male genitals.

1971

J. Mandelkau Buttons 71: He displayed the biggest set I have ever seen.