Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (US) a state governor.

1846		J.H. Ingraham Pierce Fenning 81: You know I live at the Gov’s! [...] I go in and out just as I choose.
1867		‘Mark Twain’ letter 25 Nov. in Letters (1917) II 115: Remember me to the Gov.
1880		Chicago Trib. 13 Sept. 3/1: The only way to wipe it off is to give Gov. Davis at least 10,000 [...] majority.
1936		W.R. Burnett King Cole 19: ‘You know how it is with these big important men. After all, you’re only the Governor of the State. You can wait’.
1964		H.S. Thompson letter 12 Jan. in Proud Highway (1997) 433: I can’t say when until I know more of what the Gov means to do with his crisis.

2. one’s father.

1875		‘Aliph Cheem’ Lays of Ind (1905) 145: His aged Gov. / Was anxious to see him.
1877		F. Remington letter 13 Nov. in Splete (1988) 16: He demands these articles and interests the Gov. to put on the ‘mitts’ with him.
1883		G.W. Peck Peck’s Bad Boy and His Pa (1887) 69: Pa came to the door [...] I slapped him on the shoulder and shouted ‘Hello, Gov., how’s your liver?’.
1908		Gem 17 Oct. 3: It will cost your gov. something in toppers.
1915		G. Bronson-Howard God’s Man 159: You need a private secretary, Gov.

3. one’s boss.

1934		T. Wood Cobbers 19: Tell the Gov. I can’t come to-day; I’m crook in the guts.
2001		J. Baker Shooting in the Dark (2002) 136: ‘Yes, gov,’ she said.

4. a prison officer.

1943		J. Phelan Letters from the Big House 13: Lem promptly produced the stock. ‘Sorry, guv.’.
2003		Guardian Society 10 Dec. 3: What if it was all black govs, and all the black lads on the servery? What if it was all the black lads that worked outside as orderlies and it was all the white lads that were banged up?

5. (US) the government.

1999

J. Ridley Everybody Smokes in Hell 77: Nervous foreign guy thinking he and Jay worked for the gov.

6. see governor n. (1)

7. see Guv n. (1)