Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (US) a juvenile, e.g. on stage.

1935		L. Bogan ‘B.D. Woman Blues’ 🎵 B.D. Women ain’t gonna need no men [...] They can lay their juve just like a natural man.
1938		W. Winchell On Broadway 27 Dec. [synd. col.] Fred Stone’s daughter Carol and James Bush, who played the juve with Fred in ‘Lightnin’’ will be Parson’d in Jan.
1942		W. Winchell On Broadway 9. Jan. [synd. col.]The gal and the juve are Mad About Each Other.
1998		Big Punisher ‘Capital Punishment’ 🎵 My cousin juJe, barely a juvé, lost it and turned on the oven.

2. (US, also juve delinq) a juvenile delinquent.

1930		J. Lait Gangster Girl 48: Looked like that silly juve might o’ gone along neat.
1952		Lait & Mortimer USA Confidential 35: Alibis kid crime, juve delinqs and teenage gangs have virtually taken over some Gotham schools.
1955		B. Schulberg On the Waterfront (1964) 44: They were marked tough juves who bore watching.
1958		H. Ellison Web of the City (1983) 71: She had too much to live for, to let any gang of juvies louse her up.
1966		Time 2 Dec. 52: Los Angeles County police went after the ‘juvies’ (minors under 18).
1975		H. Ellison Deadly Streets (1983) 15: The juvies waged war against each other.
1981		J. Ellroy Brown’s Requiem 34: Three vandalism beefs as a juvie.
2001		Source Aug. 71: Juvies as young as 11 are facing life without parole.
2005		A. Lovejoy Acid Alex 204: I couldn’t get out of it for being a juvie any more.

3. (US) a juvenile court.

1995		L. Stavsky et al. A2Z.
1999		S. Grafton O is for Outlaw (2000) 301: I did Juvie till I was finally old enough to be tried as an adult.

4. (US, also Juvi, juvie) Juvenile Hall, reform school, a juvenile detention facility.

1967		New Yorker 25 Feb. 128: The teacher at juvey said, ‘You have to finish it’.
1968		J. Herndon Way It Spozed to Be (1970) 43: Maurice just back from Juvi! shouted out somebody.
1978		(con. WWII) T. Sanchez Hollywoodland (1981) 104: We didn’t send him down to Juvie because he looked over eighteen.
1980		E. Folb Runnin’ Down Some Lines 22: I lost the baby though, when I went to Juvie. [Ibid.] 244: Juvie Abbreviation for Juvenile Hall.
1981		E. Bunker Little Boy Blue (1995) 231: We met makin’ the bed in Juvie.
1992		J. Mowry Way Past Cool 98: What juvie most full of? Black kids! What jail an prison most full of? Black kids!
1993		L. Rodríguez Always Running (1996) 72: ‘They have a detention record a mile long and end up hard time — juvey or camp’.
2001		J. Stahl Plainclothes Naked (2002) 105: He’d been down three times. Two years in juvey, a bit in County, thirteen months upstate.
2003		Mad mag. Oct. 22: Then you go away for a seven-hour stretch. It’s almost as good as sending you to juvie.
2008		Metro (London) 20 Nov. 28: When asked what is wrong, he replies: ‘I’m going to juvie’ (youth prison).
2016		D. Whish-Wilson Old Scores [ebook] ‘Blakey was a week shy of being transferred out of juvie into Freo Prison’.
2019		D. Winslow Border [ebook] [Y]ou’re a minor [...] If you get caught with it [i.e. a gun], you go to juvie for a few months. I get caught with it, I go upstate for years.
2020		S.A. Crosby Blacktop Wasteland 160: ‘They could send you into juvie, and trust and believe you don’t want that’.

5. pornography featuring supposed ‘juveniles’.

1997

(con. 1960s) A. Frewin London Blues 69: juve is old streetwalkers dressed as Girl Guides or in schoolgirl uniforms being rogered by Sir.