plunge v.
1. in fig. uses.
(a) to spend money or bet recklessly, to speculate heavily, to run into debt.
![]() | N.Y. Times 6 July 2/2: The heavy speculators plunged heavily upon [a race horse]. | |
![]() | Childe Chappie’s Pilgrimage 55: To me it’s all confounded slow, / Mashing and plunging, love and thirst. | |
![]() | Lantern (N.O.) 9 July 2: If he don’t quit plunging into the watered stock of Haley’s he’ll get his empty head bumped so hard for ice cream and cakes that he’ll have to tumble to the racket. | |
![]() | Sporting Times 29 Mar. 1/3: He plunged upon Sweetbriar, who, he said, was quite a flyer. | ‘The Rejected’|
![]() | Truth (Sydney) 23 Dec. 1/7: I will not plunge [...] but here goes. I’ll put a fiver on one horse for the first race. | |
![]() | Vandover and the Brute (1914) 250: Then they began to ‘plunge,’ agreeing to play a no-limit game. | |
![]() | A Pink ’Un and a Pelican 31: Harry, what d’yer say if we goes upstairs for a bit an’ sees this chap a-plungin’. | |
![]() | Nat. Police Gaz. (NY) 24 Mar. 6/1: [T]he plunging banker [...] was losing. | |
![]() | Society Snapshots 104: It was all through that brute of a mare . . .she plunged — I mean I plunged — and lost my neck . . . I mean she lost be a head. | |
![]() | ‘Tales of the Penance Track’ in Bulletin (Sydney) 31 May 31/2: Riley [...] plunged on Revenue to the extent of ten plugs. | |
![]() | Three Elephant Power 62: The priest and the young squatter won slightly; this was part of the plan to lead them on to plunge. | ‘The Downfall of Mulligan’s’ in|
![]() | Ulysses 255: – Sceptre will win in a canter, he said. – I plunged a bit, said Boylan winking and drinking. | |
![]() | Inimitable Jeeves 145: It wouldn’t do to plunge unless you’re sure. | |
![]() | Tramping with Tramps 180: Recklessly I plunged the lot for a meal of ‘sausage and mash’. | |
![]() | Sucker’s Progress 440: Any responsible player who wanted to plunge could always go higher by applying to Canfield. | |
![]() | Big Con 17: The atmosphere is one of reckless plunging and betting. | |
![]() | On Broadway 9 Sept. [synd. col.] Jerry Brady [...] counseled an actor he saw plunging at the $50 window. | |
![]() | Naked Lunch 150: They are lousy gamblers plunge in a losing streak and hedge when they win. | |
![]() | (con. 1940s) Autobiog. (1968) 207: Every weekend I’d pay my bill — anywhere from fifty to even one hundred dollars, if I had really plunged on some hunch. | |
![]() | Great Aust. Gamble 26: That day, however, he plunged and by the last race had built his bank to £3,000. | |
![]() | Thief’s Primer 164: He got to plunging at the VFW hall and places like that where they have a lot of gambling. |
(b) to perform anything intensely.
![]() | Hooky Gear 85: He plunge a brandy, bang his glass down an start to fill us all up. |
2. in lit. uses.
(a) to kill, to murder.
![]() | Vinnie Got Blown Away 71: Lucky he never got plunged even for what was up his back pocket. |
(b) to stab.
![]() | Inside 34: Plungin’s a stabbin’. | |
![]() | Layer Cake 153: Plunged him in the throat, straight in the fuckin jugular. | |
![]() | (con. 1980s) Skagboys 146: Ah jist plunged the radge a couple ay times, gie um something tae fuckin well think aboot. |