Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (US) to get for oneself.

1896		Ade Artie (1963) 43: I wonder he got next to that fancy pass about severin’ relationships [Ibid.] 81: You got next to how she give me that horrible jolt about the dance, did n’t you?
1908		K. McGaffey Sorrows of a Show Girl Ch. ii: Some hussy got next to all my toothpicks and I had to use a hairpin for a liner.
1911		‘Sing Sing No. 57,700’ My View on Books in N.Y. Times Mag. 30 Apr. 5/2: The Pride of Jennico [...] This is all wool and a yard wide. Don’t fail to get next.
1946		(con. 1910s) J. Thompson Heed the Thunder (1994) 45: That’ll [i.e. a loan] tide me over until I get next to something.

2. to become suspicious, to work something out.

1899–1900		C.L. Cullen Tales of the Ex-Tanks 44: I feared they might tumble to the rig and get next to me.
1901		W. Irwin Love Sonnets of a Hoodlum VI n.p.: Rubber, thou scab! Don’t throw on so much spaniel! [...] Get next, you pawn-shop sport! Come off the fence Before I make you look like thirty cents!
1904		C. Connors Bowery Life [ebook] ’It was a pipe [...] to get next to doin’ de act wid a pen an’ ink, an’ as fur de readin’ gag, oh, good night.
1906		C. M’Govern Sarjint Larry an’ Frinds 42: So as de ‘goo-goos’ would not get next of me schame it was all done on de Q.T.
1912		A. Berkman Prison Memoirs of an Anarchist (1926) 164: Don’ want th’ screws to get next.
1917		A.G. Empey Over the Top 114: It was a risky thing, too, because Old Pepper wouldn’t have been exactly mild with us if he had got next to the game.
1927		(con. 1917) J. Stevens Mattock 50: Why can’t you ninety-day wonders get next to yourselves? The army’s the old army, and a million of you guys can’t change ’er.
1952		‘I Was a Pickpocket’ in C. Hamilton Men of the Und. 76: The collector began to get ‘next’.

3. (US) to make a good impression, to curry favour with, to win over.

1896		Ade Artie (1963) 60: I’m a good mixer and I’ve kind o’ got next to the live ones.
1902		‘Hugh McHugh’ Back to the Woods 23: You wouldn’t trail along after Your Uncle Bunch and get next to the candy man, would you?
1910		Daily Trib. (Bismarck, ND) 17 Aug. 4/4: When it comes to getting next to the people, Colonel Blinks has all the other candidates lashed to the mast.
1918		‘Max Brand’ ‘Above the Law’ in Coll. Stories (1994) 19: Say, Jerry, you’re talking in your sleep. Wake up and get next to yourself!
1929		E. Dahlberg Bottom Dogs 22: Mary’s customers had tried to become friendly and get next to her, but she treated them all alike with a studied politeness and affable coolness.
1929		D. Hammett ‘Fly Paper’ Story Omnibus (1966) 51: Babe got next and fixed the pair of them.
1937		P. Cheyney Dames Don’t Care (1960) 32: Sometimes they [...] run off with these crooners, after which they get wise and spend the rest of their lives tryin’ to find another business man that they can get next to.
a.1941		A. Lomax Mister Jelly Roll (2001) 19: That was considered a big thing with some of the illiterate women – if you could shoot a good agate and had a nice highclass red undershirt with the collar turned up, I’m telling you were liable to get next to that broad. She liked that very much.
1952		T. Southern ‘The Night the Bird Blew for Doctor Warner’ in Southern (1973) 49: How you propose to to — get next to these people is more than I can see.
1967		P. Thomas Down These Mean Streets (1970) 22: Pops, you’re the best and greatest Pops in the whole world. It’s just that I don’t dig why I feel this way. Like I can’t get next to you.
1979		E. Torres After Hours 32: No one got next to Judge Joshua Kleinfeld.
1980		J.L. Gwaltney Drylongso 61: Old Turk was evermore trying to get next to her.
2023		(con. 1962) J. Ellroy Enchanters 284: He was a VD doctor. That was how he got next to [...] good-looking young women.

4. (US black, also get alongside) to become lovers, to seduce.

1928		C. McKay Home to Harlem 85: So soon as a woman is all sugar and candy for another man, you find a lot of them heartbreakers all trying to get next to her.
1941		A. Lomax Mister Jelly Roll (1952) 19: We’re liable to get next to that broad.
1957		H. Simmons Corner Boy 198: She was the best lay you ever had, wasn’t she? You’d trade your life to get next to her again.
1965		C. Brown Manchild in the Promised Land (1969) 208: Lord, when I saw her, I wanted to get next to her so badly.
1977		E. Torres Q&A 42: ‘[I]t can get sticky talking to a female witness alone. Later on she can say you tried to get alongside her or something’.
1978		W. Brown Tragic Magic 43: Growing up, I never thought seriously about getting next to her.
1979		E. Torres After Hours 35: A while later I’m sayin’ somethin’ to Steffie about gettin’ her into show business through my ‘downtown’ connections. (I’ll say anything to get alongside a broad).
1980		J.L. Gwaltney Drylongso 234: I put up with huh for a while because she always used to have a tas’ on her and naturally I wanted to git nax’ to huh if I could. She said she’d gi’ me some, but I want you to know I’m careful where I put my peduh!
1991		in J. Breslin Damon Runyon (1992) 2: He got next to Gloria Vanderbilt once and that took care of that. ‘I am in love with the Broccoli King,’ she said.
2006		B. Sher Tinsley Reconstructing Western Civilization 85: They could not even get next to their wives for the Lord made them do without sex for a few days.

5. (US black) to feel friendly towards, to tolerate; to empathize with.

1950		cited in C. Major Juba to Jive (1994).
1981		W.D. Myers Hoops 94: I could get next to what Paul was saying about his pops because I felt the same way [ibid.] 135: ‘I don’t know where you men pick up the myth that a woman’s place is always home waiting [...] We don’t wait at home, ever; it just seems that way. [...] The sooner you get next to that, the sooner you’ll make some woman happy’.
1996		W.D. Myers Slam! 83: I didn’t think on dying and stuff, and I couldn’t get next to it even with Grandma.
2009		W.D. Myers Dope Sick 138: ‘[T]he feeling that I was in a different place, a bad place, and nobody could get next to where I was’.
2012		W.D. Myers All the Right Stuff 3: My father [...] hadn’t been a guy you could really get next to, because in a way he was never where you thought he was.

6. to become business partners with.

1975

E. Torres Carlito’s Way 42: When you come out you can get next to me.

7. (US black) to embarrass, to annoy, to anger.

1972		B. Rodgers Queens’ Vernacular 95: get next to somebody 2. (kwn SF, black gay sl, ‘70) to bother, annoy, irritate, vex.
1977		W.D. Myers Mojo and the Russians 10: Kwami had a way about him that could really get next to you sometimes.
1981		W.D. Myers Hoops 91: [H]is boss [...] told my father to go out and get some coffee for them. [...] That got next to me.
1994		N. McCall Makes Me Wanna Holler (1995) 89: I know he’s a tyrant, but don’t let him get next to you.

1. to introduce, to direct towards.

1896		Ade Artie (1963) 16: I never put you next to how I come to meet her, did I?
1900		Flynt & Walton Powers That Prey 22: The two men separated and began ‘putting the blokes next’. Ruderick dropped into saloon after saloon, talking quietly with men.
1906		S. Ford Shorty McCabe 12: Taking me behind a hand-made palm, he puts me next. [Ibid.] 133: I knew he was goin’ to work Rajah in somehow; but he didn’t have any time to put me next.
1907		W.M. Raine Bucky O’Connor (1910) 225: Mrs. Mackenzie will put you next to the etiquette wrinkles where you are shy.
1914		Ade ‘The New Fable of the Wandering Boy’ in Ade’s Fables 122: They told him they would put him next to a lot of nice clean People.
1929		C. McKay Banjo 148: ‘What’s his gag, pardner?’ asked Banjo. ‘He’s a regular guy. I just got a hundred francs outa him.’ ‘How come? Why didn’t you put me next, too? Is he rough-trade business?’.
1932		(con. 1917–19) Dos Passos Nineteen Nineteen in USA (1966) 479: I’ll put you next to this guy if you want.
1956		J. Thompson ‘The Cellini Chalice’ in Fireworks (1988) 58: But all he’s put Mitch next to was being broke.

2. to warn, to inform.

1896		H. Blossom Checkers 19: The owner himself is going to ‘put me next’ [...] it’ll be a ‘lead pipe.’.
1901		‘Hugh McHugh’ Down the Line 81: Clarence hadn’t arrived. Somebody must have put him next.
1910		Wodehouse Gentleman of Leisure Ch. x: Put me next to de game. Is it de old lay? Banks an’ jools from duchesses?
1913		F. Klaeber ‘A Word-List From Minnesota’ in DN IV:i 11: put (somebody) next to (something), v. phr. To inform of, to acquaint with. ‘Put me next to the secret.’.