Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(Aus./N.Z/US.) to put one’s hand in one’s pocket, esp. when one’s funds are running low.

1905		Little Falls Herald (MN) 31 Mar. 3/3: How to Operate the Shell Game with Profit [...] When the steerer gets the geezer in the push, let the boosters stall until the main plugger cops; then, if the gilly digs in his keyser [sic] or goes south for soft, give him a flash of the little dinkie doodle ball.
1941		Baker N.Z. Sl.
1942		Argus (Melbourne) 18 Apr. 3s/5: How many of us know that to ‘dip south’ means to search in one’s pockets for money.
1955		N. Pulliam I Travelled a Lonely Land (1957) 232/2: dip south – to see if you have any money in your pocket.
1988		McGill Dict. of Kiwi Sl. 37/1: dip south put hand in pocket for money, especially if running out of it.
2003		McGill Reed Dict. of N.Z. Sl. [as cit. 1988].

1. see dip south

2. (US) to perform cunnilingus or anilingus.

1941		G. Legman ‘Lang. of Homosexuality’ Appendix VII in Henry Sex Variants.
1965		Guild Dict. Homosexual Terms 49: way down south in dixie, to go (v., obs.): Fellation.
1972		B. Rodgers Queens’ Vernacular 139: to tongue the clitoris and vulva [...] go South (dated).
1982		Maledicta VI:1+2 (Summer/Winter) 147: From them she might pick up and more to startle than identify with her sisters use words and expressions such as [...] go [way down] South [in Dixie] (oragenitalism, says Legman, referring us to Cary’s Slang of Penery and Its Analogues, 1916).
1999		D. Lypchuk ‘A dirty little story’ in eye mag. 8 July 🌐 On the jewelled terrace he growled at the badger, blew some tunes and went way down south in Dixie, where he found himself grinning in the canyon.
2001		‘Randy Everhard’ Tattoo of a Naked Lady 156: I went south on her, slithering down that prepubescent-like body.
2003		‘Maureen’s Lusty Confessions’ on Apartment 231 🌐 My head is spinning at the mere thought of you hungrily feasting like a famished orphan on my sushi taco. Once you are finished eating my flowers way down south in Dixie, it will be my turn to polish your old German helmet...
2005		Leethal Bizzle ‘Had To Go’ 🎵 She likes to go down south.
2012		J. Díaz This Is How You Lose Her 209: From there what little life you got goes south.
2015		R. Reynolds The Dark Inside 36: I was low when things had started to go south at the Examiner.

1. to abscond with, to run off; note ad hoc var. in cit. a.1964.

1907		B. Fisher A. Mutt in Blackbeard Compilation (1977) 3: ’Shorrible. ‘Iras’ went south with my ten bones.
1914		Jackson & Hellyer Vocab. Criminal Sl. 78: Keep tabs and see that he don’t go south with the dough.
1926		D. Hammett ‘Assistant Murderer’ in Nightmare Town (2001) 138: She went south with a couple of silk pieces.
1937		E. Anderson Thieves Like Us (1999) 149: Lawyers knew better than to go south with a thief’s money.
1949		N. Algren Man with the Golden Arm 114: Schwiefka [...] went south with the bundle.
1956		N. Algren Walk on the Wild Side 198: I don’t mean that real hard swindle where she took the rap and you went south with the bundle.
a.1964		‘Honky-Tonk Bud’ in D. Wepman et al. Life (1976) 56: They took him to jail and gave him no bail / So he could slip away to the South.
1981		J. Wambaugh Glitter Dome (1982) 206: Both our mommas went south.
1990		(con. 1930s–60s) H. Huncke Guilty of Everything (1998) 289: A guy would come up with thirty or forty dollars to cop an ounce of A with and someone else would go south with it.
2012		W. Keyser ‘Carny Lingo’ in http://goodmagic.com 🌐 Going South — Stealing money (sometimes you put it into the apron to be counted, other times you 'go south' with it).

2. (also head south) to collapse, to malfunction, to break down; of events, to go wrong.

1916		A. Baer Putting ’Em Over 4 Dec. [synd. col.] September standings of the clubs indicate that some teams go so far south in the spring that they keep the habit all summer .
1940		Pittsburgh Courier (PA) 24 Feb. 7/1: The Notebook [...] is on the brink of going South.
1974		Business Week Sept. n.p.: The market then rallies, falls back to test its low – and just keeps ‘heading South,’ as they say on the Street.
1991		R.G. Barrett Between the Devlin 18: The painting went west and Peregrine went south.
1993		T. Jones Pugilist at Rest 229: These are my true feelings. I love you. Don’t fucking go south on me.
1999		N. Cohn Yes We Have No 324: The Deanna’s ankles went south.
2001		Indep. Rev. 29 June 7: I thought it was just my boobs going southwards.
2006		J. Ridley What Fire Cannot Burn 62: I’m a poster child for what happens when things go south.
2007		T. Dorsey Hurricane Punch 130: Let’s be honest [...] Membership isn’t going anywhere but south.
2012		T. Robinson ‘The Long Count’ in Dirty Words [ebook] [I]t became obvious that his minor talents [i.e. as a boxer] were heading south.
2016		D. Whish-Wilson Old Scores [ebook] The gun wasn’t registered [...] but it suited his purposes. If things went south he could ditch it.
2017		S.M. Jones August Snow [ebook] ‘You’re looking at how all of this could go south’.
2019		M. Herron Joe Country [ebook] Sometimes jobs went south, that was all.
2020		S.A. Crosby Blacktop Wasteland 117: He had heard gunshots [...] That was a good indicator things had gone pretty far south.

3. of a person, to be exhausted.

1917

Van Loan ‘Sanguinary Jeremiah’ in Old Man Curry 130: This yer night work sutny got me goin’ south for fair.

4. to be killed.

[1976		(con. 1969) C.R. Anderson Grunts 25: Half were ‘going south,’ [i.e. to Vietnam from US airforce base, Okinawa, Japan] [...] they were not at all sure they would survive the experience].
1994		(con. 1968) T. Wolff In Pharoah’s Army 206: ‘That was some bad shit, man, Whirl War One. [...] I mean, millions of assholes going south, right?’.
1999		Indep. Rev. 25 Sept. 3: I have known a few friends who have ‘gone south’ in war zones [...] But the shock of hearing of any new death is always powerful.

5. to lose deliberately, to ‘throw’ a contest.

1984

D. Jenkins Life Its Ownself (1985) 139: Who’ll remember those [...] games when the guys went south and bet the other side?

6. to lose interest.

1992

R. Price Clockers 93: If you can’t eat it, fuck it, or sell it something, Mazilli goes south.

7. to go to waste.

2002

Privilege Insurance [advertising leaflet] Drive a car in or around London and your money will certainly go south.