lid, n. — Green’s Dictionary of Slang

lid n.

1. (also billy lid) a hat, a cap.

1858		A. Mayhew Paved with Gold 191: Jack tapped with his fives on the little ’un’s lid.
1896		Ade Artie (1963) 4: She meets me at the door, puts out the glad hand and says: ‘Hang up your lid and come into the game’.
1901		W. Irwin Love Sonnets of a Hoodlum III n.p.: I’ll get some green shoe-laces, by the way, And a straw lid to set ’em stepping high.
1906		Sun. Times (Perth) 7 Jan. 4s/7: When to the Bench you lift your lid / And say you’re sorry.
1907		News & Courier (Charleston, SC) 14 Apr. 18/1: I dodged into a hat store. I needed a new lid.
1913		Sport (Adelaide) 12 July 8/2: They Say [...] That Pidgy T. [...] has a new suit and lid.
1914		F. Dumont Darkey Dialect Discourses 8: Whenebber I sees a tall lanky youth wid legs crossed in de cars wid dem pasionate socks on, and a straw lid down ober his eyes.
1922		S. Lewis Babbitt (1974) 140: Who owns the bum lid?
1934		O. Strange Sudden 58: That there ventilation in my lid weren’t there night before last.
1935		Thieves Slang ms list from District Police Training Centre, Ryton-on-Dunsmore, Warwicks 6: Lid: Hat or cap.
1936		Wodehouse ‘The Amazing Hat Mystery’ in Young Men in Spats 105: [of a top hat] The lid was O.K. absolutely.
1938		Press (Canterbury) 2 Apr. 18: No man can strut who knows his hat is [...] a ‘lid’ or ‘tile’.
1940		E. Curry Hysterical Hist. of Aus. 172: [illus. caption] [He] put on his tin lid.
1941		A. Gurney Bluey & Curley 23 July [synd. cartoon strip] I keep her photo inside me lid!!!
1944		D. Burley Orig. Hbk of Harlem Jive 26: We were all knocked out by that Stud’s classy lid.
1951		D. Stivens Jimmy Brockett 153: I put on my lid and slipped out to meet Bob.
1959		C. MacInnes ‘Sharp Schmutter’ in England, Half Eng. (1960) 148: No hat: unless rear-buckled cap, or a very small-brimmed [...] lid.
1969		‘Iceberg Slim’ Pimp 80: Get your ‘lid’ and ‘benny’ and split.
1972		O. Hawkins Ghetto Sketches 17: Sweet Peter D. cocks his lid ace-deuce.
1981		J. Wambaugh Glitter Dome (1982) 71: Buckmore Phipps picked up the squashed lid and said, ‘Gibson, who knocked my fuckin hat off?’.
1984		(con. WW2) T. Jones Heart of Oak [ebook] Stand by to doff your lid.
1990		S. Morgan Homeboy 168: When he sees one of these lids he spooks.
1994		Eble Campus Sl. Apr. 5: lid – full-face helmet for motorcycle riding.
2001		(con. 1964–8) J. Ellroy Cold Six Thousand 326: The Tojoettes had Nazi lids.
2001		D. Looser Boobslang [U. Canterbury D.Phil. thesis] 18/1: billy lid n. 2 a hat.

2. (orig. US, also billy lid) the head; also attrib.; thus -lidded sfx, describing someone’s head.

1899–1900		C.L. Cullen Tales of the Ex-Tanks 78: Shined, and shaved, and with a scheme in my lid.
1906		Dly Capital Jrnl (Salem, OR) 20 July 1/5: Blew Off His Lid Geo. F. Simmonds [...] suicided by the pistol route.
1908		B. Fisher A. Mutt in Blackbeard Compilation (1977) 82: The lid inspector took one peep at Pickels’ bean and proceeded to remove his coat.
1916		R. Service ‘My Mate’ in Rhymes of a Red Cross Man 65: That bleedin’ bullet got ’im on the lid.
1939		(con. 1880–90s) S. O’Casey I Knock at the Door 198: You half-blind, sappy-lidded, dead-in-the-head dummy.
1944		‘Jiver’s Bible’ in D. Burley Orig. Hbk of Harlem Jive.
1960		‘Nino Culotta’ Cop This Lot 38: Joe told him to pull his lid in.
1972		E. Grogan Ringolevio 201: He nearly blew his tin-lid.
2000		(con. 1940s–60s) Décharné Straight from the Fridge Dad.
2005		P. Temple Broken Shore (2007) [ebook] She dropped him on the lid when he was tiny. Short-circuited the little bugger.
2013		K. Sampson Killing Pool 53: Under that smooth brown lid, Lanky had noodles too. He saw the bigger picture.
2001		D. Looser Boobslang [U. Canterbury D.Phil. thesis] 18/1: billy lid n. 4 the head.

3. (orig. US) constr. with the, a restraint, protection or confidentiality, or the lack of it; usu. in keep the lid on v., to keep it secret.

1890		Sporting Times 4 Jan. 6: To have to ask our relatives to deck us up a bit in case the lid comes off.
1904		Public Ledger (Phila.) 12 Sept. 16: He has taken frequent occasion to deny that the ‘lid’ was off, to use the slang definition of a lax police administration [DA].
1906		A.H. Lewis Confessions of a Detective 78: The phrases ‘lid on’ and ‘lid off’ are mere catch-words, invented to tickle newspaper reporters and amuse the public. There was never a moment in my time but what any one who wanted a game could get it.
1920		Ade Hand-made Fables 2: During the Open Season for Juleps, it delighted Freddie to have his Shack filled up over Sunday with the Right Sort and to pry off the Lid and let Joy be unrefined.
1920		F. Packard White Moll 168: I was to pass the word that the lid was to go down tight for the next few days.
1922		P.A. Rollins Cowboy 82: Few of the men were able long ‘to keep the lid on their can of cuss-words’.
1929		Illinois Association for Criminal Justice et al. Illinois Crime Survey 861: In 1924 [...] [t]he ‘lid’ was kept on by Mayor Dever and Chief Collins and there were no important developments concerning vice.
a.1930		D.H. Lawrence Phoenix II (1968) 236: Inland, in the isolation, the lid is on, and the intense watchful malice of neighbours is infinitely worse than any police system [OED].
1932		(con. 1917–19) Dos Passos Nineteen Nineteen in USA (1966) 578: Ah, the lid’s off today.
1935		A.J. Pollock Und. Speaks 22/1: Clamp on the lid, when all vice and gambling joints are closed by order of police commission.
1953		W.P. McGivern Big Heat 185: If this is straight, the lid’s going off.
1967		P. Thomas Down These Mean Streets (1970) 287: The next day the lid was down. There was no mail out, no mail in, no visitors, no recreation, no food in the mess hall.
1971		B. Short Black and White Baby 80: The bad old days of Prohibition were finally over, the lid was off, and the Edgewater boomed on Saturday nights.
1984		J. Ellroy Because the Night 60: ‘[Y]ou have to keep the lid on—let the employees only rip you off so much, that kind of thing’.
1988		D. Woodrell Muscle for the Wing 162: Keep the lid on and line up the employees.
2007		A.C. Shepard Woodward and Bernstein 250: ‘We broke it [i.e. the identity of informant ‘Deep Throat’] before the story was published because we knew our British edition was going to the printing plants [...] with the British tabloids, we didn’t know how to keep a lid on it. So we broke it early’.
2012		C. Stella Rough Riders 89: We’re trying to keep a lid on it but the kids that found him will probably blab it.

4. lit. or fig., a limit.

1907		W.M. Raine Bucky O’Connor (1910) 129: Playing with the lid off back there, ain’t they?
1914		Wimperis & Finck [perf. Elsie Janis] ‘Florrie was a Flapper’ 🎵 Florrie was a flapper, she was dainty, she was dapper / And her dancing was the limit or the lid.
1968		K. Brasselle Cannibals 408: ‘What’s your lid?’ [...] ‘I got ten thousand to play with.’.

5. (US black) the sky.

1976

cited in C. Major Juba to Jive (1994).

6. (US) fellatio.

a.1963

‘The Fall’ in D. Wepman et al. Life (1976) 82: You could cop her lid for the lowest bid.

7. (drugs) a quantity of marijuana, about 22g (¾oz) or 40 cigarettes’-worth, and often considered the equivalent of 1oz (28g) [the quantity of the drug that fills the lid of a tin of Prince Albert, a popular brand of tobacco].

1961		Rigney & Smith Real Bohemia 62: Marijuana sold at $20 a ‘lid’ (a lid is, for some reason, a Prince Albert canful).
1971		T. Gunn ‘Street Song’ in Oxford Bk Contemp. Verse 215: With Midday Mick man you can’t lose, / I’ll get you anything you need. / Keys lids acid and speed.
1980		E. Folb Runnin’ Down Some Lines 170: Man, in them olden days you could score a match. No more. Don’t even see no more can or lid!
1990		R. Campbell Sweet La-La Land (1999) 37: After dark everybody went out on the hustle [...] ready to do what had to be done for the price of a meal, new Reeboks, a lid of smoke, a chunk of crack.
1999		E. Bunker Mr Blue 126: He called me and asked for a ‘lid’, a one-ounce Prince Albert can.
2001		ONDCP Street Terms 14: Lid — 1 ounce of marijuana.
2001		D. Looser Boobslang [U. Canterbury D.Phil. thesis] 107/2: lid (also led) n. a marijuana foil.

In phrases

blow one’s lid (v.) (also blow (off) the lid, fly off the lid)

to go mad, to lose emotional control .

[1883		Life Mag. 1 95: Mr. F. J. Rollington, of Petaluma, Cal., blew the lid off his thinking box last week because he could not learn telegraphy].
1922		Maui News (Wailuku, HI) 12 May 4/1: Auto drivers and passengers are just plain, ordinary ‘humans’ and the human tendency to wrather is bound to [...] sometimes blow off the lid.
1929		Billy Murray & Dick Cherwin Orchestra ‘He’s a Good Man to Have Around’ 🎵 Oh, sometimes I fly off the lid; / ‘Go this minute!’ I shout.
1935		D. Lamson We Who Are About to Die 187: When she finds out about his money bein’ gone she blows the lid for fair.
1944		C. Himes ‘Let Me at the Enemy’ in Coll. Stories (1990) 41: Then it come to me all of a sudden I must be blowin’ my lid.
1953		J. Thompson Savage Night (1991) 26: She’d blown her lid so high we’d had to come upstairs.
1956		‘Hal Ellson’ ‘Cool Cat’ in Tell Them Nothing (1956) 73: Like I figured, the old guy starts to blow his lid.
1958		Hughes & Bontemps Book of Negro Folklore 481: blow your lid : To get angry. Don’t let a woman make you blow your lid.
2000		Guardian Weekend 9 Dec. 22: And they just blew their lids. Ha ha!
2003		Zaitzow & Thomas Women in Prison 161: You don’t know to what extent that people are going to fly off the lid.
2010		L. Arena Guardians of Crystal Skulls 278: Can we change the subject before I blow my lid?

blow the lid off (v.)

1. (also blast the lid off, blow off the lid) to reveal, to uncover esp. a scandal involving those ‘in high places’.

1905		Harper’s Wkly 49 971/1: [...] to blow the lid off at some inopportune moment, and astonish the nation with revelations compared with which all past ‘scandals’ will be tame and voiceless.
1917		M.C. Oemler Slippy McGee 378: ‘These,’ he slapped a letter, ‘would make any Grand Jury throw fits, make every newspaper in the state break out into headlines like a kid with measles, and blow the lid off things in general — if they got out’.
1925		Sheboygan (WI) Press 25 Sept. 1/3: Government attorneys [...] declared [...] that Druggan and Lake have decided to ‘blow off the lid.’.
1937		Eve. Teleg. (Dundee) 28 Aug. 2/6: Trade may seem good to you at present, but what I have seen and know will blow the lid off.
1938		W. Winchell On Broadway 16 Mar. [synd. col.] ‘Ken,’ when it comes out, will have a zingy expozay of Nazi activities in the U.S. [...] Borah and Nye are for blasting the lid off them too.
1949		A. Hynd We Are the Public Enemies 160: Don Mellett, who blew the lid off the city, is victorious in death.
1951		Cusack & James Come in Spinner (1960) 322: They reckon the last lot of grog practically blew the lid off the joint and they don’t want the police in.
1955		Mad mag. Aug.–Sept. 28: Answer that, and you’ll blow the lid off the scandal of the century.
1960, 1975		Wentworth & Flexner DAS.
1977		(con. 1960s) D. Goines Black Gangster (1991) 89: We can blow the lid off this thing.
1992		D. Burke Street Talk 2 187: The authorities just blew the lid off the scandal.

2. (US) to discard.

1912

Wash. Herald (DC) 18 Feb. 21/1: At what moment the associatgion will blow off the lid of convention and resort to primordial discussion [...] no man has ever been able to guess .

3. to celebrate.

1916		Day Book (Chicago) 22 Dec. 30/1: Hotel and loop bars will blow off the lid on New Year’s Eve in spite of the Sunday closing law.
1944		Dundee Courier 14 Aug. 2/6: Americans are preparing to ‘blow the lid off,’ on the day Germany falls.

4. to unleash a great deal of trouble.

1977

(con. 1960s) D. Goines Black Gangster (1991) 89: You’re going to blow the lid off this town.

dip one’s lid (v.) (also tip one’s lid)

(orig. Aus.) to tip one’s hat, esp. in fig. use, i.e. to acknowledge, to pay respect.

1914		Painter & Decorator 28 310: I have to dip my lid to the man who knows to -combine the ideal with the real.
1915		C.J. Dennis ‘The Intro’ in Songs of a Sentimental Bloke 21: ‘This ’ere’s Doreen,’ ’e sez. ‘This ’ere’s the Kid.’ / I dips me lid.
1919		E. Dyson ‘In Hospital’ in ‘Hello, Soldier!’ 21: N’ I dipped my lid to the big pub light.
1922		N.Z. Truth 29 Apr. 1/3: Every dinkum digger should dip his lid to the memory of Mrs Catherine Spotswood.
1927		Smith’s Wkly (Sydney) 20 Aug. 11/2: Slanguage [...] Arithy. [...] A bloke pads the ’oof ’tween Melbin and Sydney and dips ’is lid [to] every third tabbie ’e dekkos, ’ow far would he be from, Bourke before he does ’is block? Answer to nearest ’art tin o’ suds .
1935		Northern Times (Canberra, WA) 18 July. 20/1: We dip our lid to [...] Keith Pix.
1940		Northern Times (Canberra, WA) 9 Feb. 3/2: Only some powerful emotional upset would force a dustman to dip his lid after the Christmas present season is over.
1963		R. McGregor-Hastie Compleat Migrant 107: Lid, to dip the: to raise your hat.
1972		O. Hawkins Ghetto Sketches 89: Tippin’ my lid to every fox in the place.
1986		R. Beckett Dinkum Aussie Dict. 19: Dip my lid: To take off one’s hat to someone; a salute not necessarily to a woman out of politeness. One can dip one’s lid (metaphorically speaking) to a male who has performed some generous or courageous act.
1988		McGill Dict. of Kiwi Sl. 37/1: dip one’s lid honour or congratulate, originally by raising one’s hat.
2003		McGill Reed Dict. of N.Z. Sl. [as cit. 1988].

flip one’s lid (v.) (also flip the lid)

(orig. US) to go crazy, to lose emotional control.

1930		A. Arkhangel’ski? Parodies on Babel (1976) 10: I see that he’s flipped his lid about the engineer’s daughter.
1947		H.D. Skidmore Disturb Not Our Dreams 140: That guy looks like he’s about to flip his lid.
1948		(con. 1944) N. Mailer Naked and Dead 113: Three hours on a night like this is enough to make you flip your lid.
1959		W. Brown Teen-Age Mafia 38: He was on edge, ready to flip his lid.
1966		H.S. Thompson Hell’s Angels (1967) 199: So she flips her lid and brings the heat down on us.
1978		R. Caron Go-Boy! 80: Flashlight Freddy had flipped his lid.
1984		W. Ammon et al. Working Lives 109: That idiot Fred’s flipped his lid [...] Gone off his rocker altogether.
1998		M. Anthony Midnight Come 172: It was only after I’d pressurized him over the cottage sale that Lambkin really flipped his lid.
2004		P. Howard PS, I Scored the Bridesmaids 262: She’s totally flipping the lid.

fly off the lid (v.)

see blow one’s lid

off one’s lid (adj.)

(US) mad.

1909

John Guilpin & Bob Adams ‘Oh You Candy Kid’ 🎵 I’m so crazy about you I’m nearly off my lid.

put the lid on (v.) (also put a lid on, put the lid down)

1. (orig. US) to cover up, to hide, esp. news that is offensive or embarrassing to an establishment; thus imper. put a lid on it! be quiet! stop talking!; also used with off to mean the opposite.

1917		Wodehouse ‘The Mixer’ in Man with Two Left Feet 78: And then I put the lid on it. With the best intentions in the world I got myself into such a mess that I thought the end had come.
1979		B. Gutcheon New Girls (1982) 22: ‘Lisa,’ her father interrupted, ‘you can put a lid on that girl chat for just a minute, can’t you?’.
1982		N. Keesing Lily on the Dustbin 21: ‘Put the lid on. Do you want the whole street to know our business?’ rouses an exasperated woman.
2007		S. Maloney Sucked In 267: The Age described the casino event as ‘a hoop-la [...] ’ The knock-’em-downs didn’t get a mention [...] The lid was on and that’s where I hoped it stayed.

2. to be the ultimate, the ‘last straw’.

1909		Punch 30 June 452/2: Your astonishing letter puts the lid on it.
1911		Strand 42 540/1: Some fool scratches ’imself against a switch. Turns off the lights in the gallery. Then, of course, someone else must sing out ‘Fire!’ That put the lid on it!
1923		‘Sapper’ Jim Maitland (1953) 71: Six of you – all drinking – would fairly put the lid on.
1930		(con. 1920s) D. Mackenzie Hell’s Kitchen 241: That ‘put the lid on it’ straight away.
1961		B. Crump Hang On a Minute, Mate (1963) 189: Things were just going nicely [...] then young Jack has to go and put the lid on eveything again.

3. to clamp down on particular activities, often corruption, esp. that of an urban administration.

1914		‘High Jinks, Jr’ Choice Sl. 14: Lid (to put on), to put the lid on a town means to close the saloons, gambling houses and all other resorts except summer resorts.
1955		J.P. Donleavy Ginger Man (1958) 278: Got a few of those self-centred people down there [...] who don’t get much themselves who try to put the lid on lads like Dangerfield.
1961		L. Block Diet of Treacle (2008) 100: [of drug-dealing] They busted Mau-Mau and they put the lid on as tight as it gets around here.
1992		T. Williams Crackhouse 132: You know, they’re putting a lid on promotions.

4. to stop something from happening.

1919		Wodehouse ‘Leave It to Jeeves’ in My Man Jeeves [ebook] [T]ime, instead of working the healing wheeze, went and pulled the most awful bone and put the lid on it.
1925		Wodehouse Carry on, Jeeves 37: Time, instead of working the healing wheeze, went and pulled the most awful bone and put the lid on it.
1935		E.F. Benson Mapp and Lucia (1984) 88: That put the lid on Elizabeth: she said no more about the fête.
2000		M. Collins Keepers of Truth 86: Darlene snapped, ‘You want to put the lid on it, Ed?’.

5. (Aus.) to shut a bar at the legal closing time.

1955

N. Pulliam I Travelled a Lonely Land (1957) 237/2: put the lid on – to close a bar at the time the law specifies.

that’s put the lid on it

(orig. US) that’s finished it, that’s all one can do/say.

1911		Ainslee’s Mag. 28 45/2: I guess that’s put the lid on it,’ she said [...] ‘Oh, well’.
1916		G. Canaan Mendel 154: That’s put the lid on it. I’m done for.
1924		E. Philpotts Redcliff (2005) 77: That’s put the lid on it! [...] I’ll take no rudeness from man or woman.
1931		E. Raymond Jesting Army 154: That’s put the lid on it. You’ve driven me away, Johnny, and I hope yer satisfied.
1945		G. Morgan P.O.W. n.p.: There! Now that’s put the lid on it!
1960		H. Pinter Caretaker Act III: Well now, that puts the lid on it, don’t it?

tip one’s lid (v.)

see dip one’s lid