Green’s Dictionary of Slang

of a male, going on a blind date.

1918		El Paso Herald (TX) 19 Nov. 7/5: Most of the youths never see their partners unrtil the night of the dance. This custom [...] is known as ‘dragging blind’.
1926		Good Housekeeping 82 11: Taking a girl he'd never seen before to a dance — ‘dragging blind,’ they called it in the Navy.
1928		Everygirl’s Mag. 16-17 14: If they haven’t seen her [i.e. a date], they call it ‘dragging blind’.
1934		M. Fulcher ‘Believe Me’ in Afro-American (Baltimore, MD) 22 Sept. 12/4: Two well-known young-men-about-rown [...] are dragging blind to the Gadabouts’ Dance.
1940		R.G. Emery Wings over West Point 138: Don and Jan [...] allowed themselves to be inveigled into ‘dragging blind’ for Warren; escorting two friends of Bobby’s lady of the occasion to the hop.

see sense 5 above.

(US teen) to drive up and down the main street.

1967

Current Sl. I:4 1/2: Drag the gut, v. To drive up and down main street.

(US) to leave one’s job, to resign.

1940		‘Talk Talk of the Texas Trans-Pecos’ AS XV:2 221: He may be instructed either to ‘angle in’ (enter) or to ‘drag up’ (leave).
1967		(con. 1920s) J. Thompson South of Heaven (1994) 18: Some bo is going to drag-up!
1991		(con. 1920s) O.D. Brooks Legs 192: I might have to drag up if I can’t get a draw.

see separate entry.

see under blind date n.

see drag ass v. (1)

see separate entries.

1. (Aus. und.) to steal articles hanging on shop doors.

1882

Sydney Sl. Dict. (2 edn) 3: Dragging Down, or Pulling Down, Stealing articles from shop-doors.

2. (US) to earn a salary, wages.

1904		T.A. Dorgan in Zwilling TAD Lex. (1993) 33: What did you drag down.
1907		‘Bisbee’s Queen’ in Lingenfelter et al. Songs of the Amer. West (1968) 154: You drag down chucker’s wages when you run machines down there.
1914		R. Lardner ‘Horseshoes’ in Coll. Short Stories (1941) 257: When they’re through with me they’ll ship em to Hellangone, and I’ll be draggin’ down about seventy-five bucks a month.
1922		S. Lewis Babbitt (1974) 148: A chance to drag down his fifty thousand bucks a year.
1931		G.S. Schuyler Black No More (1971) 115: The longer we can make the process, the longer we continue to drag down the jack.
1941		J.M. Cain Mildred Pierce (1985) 541: She’s dragging down 500 dollars a week.
1953		T.A.G. Hungerford Riverslake 49: I drag down twice as much as both you mugs put together.
1974		‘P.B. Yuill’ Hazell Plays Solomon (1976) 39: According to the trades, Alan is dragging down quarter a million dollars a year.

(US) to arrive, to appear.

1900		E.H. Babbitt ‘College Words and Phrases’ in DN II:i 33: drag in, v. To arrive.
1933		N. Algren ‘So Help Me’ from Story mag. in Algren (1995) 19: [I] was settin’ on the packin’-shed platform sunnin’ myself, thinkin’ maybe Fort would drag in.
1982		(con. 1970) J.M. Del Vecchio 13th Valley (1983) 393: Man, look what just dragged in.
2000		C. Cook Robbers (2001) 209: She stays out all night, drags in when I’m leaving for work.

see drag one’s ass v.

(US) to add salad etc. to a portion of meat/fish.

1972		D. Morrell First Blood 15: How do you want your burgers? Plain or dragged through the garden?
2000		Ebonics Primer at www.dolemite.com 🌐 drag it through the garden Definition: to accompany a portion of food with all the extras – lettuce, tomato, onion, etc. Example: Slip me a slice of the porter and drag it through the garden.

1. to marry a woman.

c.1943		S .J. Baker Aus. Vulgarisms [t/s] 8: drag on: To marry, to live with (a woman). A man is said to drag on a woman, never the reverse.
1945		Baker Aus. Lang.

2. to perform a task.

1943

Baker Popular Dict. Aus. Sl. (2nd edn).

see under anchor n.

see separate entry.

see drag one’s ass v.

(US campus) to walk, to stroll.

1973

Eble Campus Sl. Mar. 1: drag heels with the chicks – walk on campus with some females.

(N.Z.) to leave.

1963		B. Crump ‘One of Us’ in Best of Barry Crump (1974) 141: I think it’s time we dragged our hook, Sam.
1967		B. Crump Odd Spot of Bother 53: When a bloke gets the sack there’s not much else he can do about it except drag his hook – move off and look for another job.

see drag one’s ass v.

see drag ass v. (2)

(Aus./N.Z.) to be slow, to be inferior, to be last in any work or contest, to be the slowest drinker of a group.

1912		Bulletin (Sydney) 28 Nov. 16/4: Hear some quaint slang among Australian shearers occasionally. One of the fraternity confided to me on the board the other evening that he ‘had peeled 88, and was dragging the chain behind Nugget Smith,’ but had ‘bet him a bottle of sheep dip’ that he’d ‘wheel him next day.’.
1925		Brisbane Courier 3 Jan. 20/3: ‘Who swung the gate’ at the Blow Blow when you were there, and who ‘dragged the chain,’ are phrases which convey no meaning to the uninitiated. Well, the man that shears the most sheep in a shed is the man who ‘swings the gate,’ and the man that shears the least is the man that ‘dragged the chain.’.
1933		(ref. to 1890–1910) L.G.D. Acland Early Canterbury Runs (1951) 375: Drag the chain, to – To be the slowest shearer in a shed.
1941		Baker N.Z. Sl. 39: From the New Zealand shearing sheds came those effective expressions to drag the chain and swing the gate, phrases applied to the slowest and the fastest shearer in a shed respectively.
1952		T.A.G. Hungerford Ridge and River (1966) 200: You was dragging the chain a bit, mate.
1955		N. Pulliam I Travelled a Lonely Land (1957) 232/2: drag the chain – loaf.
1961		T. Ronan Only a Short Walk 177: If you’re a fish-eater don’t drag the chain. There’s red rock schnapper for breakfast.
1972		A. Chipper Aussie Swearers Guide 43: Drag-the-chain merchant. A slowcoach.
1979		D. Maitland Breaking Out 136: He stepped back [...] dragging the main chain.
1986		R. Beckett Dinkum Aussie Dict. 22: Drag the chain: A person is said to be dragging the chain if he is either loafing on the job or not drinking fast enough. To loaf on the job is acceptable but to fall behind in a drinking school is regarded as a crime.
1988		McGill Dict. of Kiwi Sl. 39/2: dragging the chain holding up a group’s activities, such as a drinking school; originally the slowest shearer in the shed.
2003		McGill Reed Dict. of N.Z. Sl. [as cit. 1988].
2017		T. Spicer Good Girl Stripped Bare 9: Cigarette advertising has already been banned in Britain and the United States, but Australia drags the chain.

to rescue someone from financial difficulties, spec. to loan money.

1797

‘T.B. Jr’ Pettyfogger Dramatized II i: Dash it, I don’t know. I begin to be damn’d seedy — I must get some good-natur’d fellow to drag me through the sheets.