socket, n. — Green’s Dictionary of Slang

socket n.

the vagina.

1465–71		Mankind in Macro Plays line 140: If ye wyll putt yowr nose in hys wyffys sokett, / Ye shall haue forty days of pardon.
1621		Jonson Gypsies Metamorphosed 8: Lay by your wimbles [...] or vsing your nimbles in diuing the pocketts and sounding the socketts of simper-the-Cocketts.
1638		R. Brathwait Barnabees Journal III Q7: Having boldly thus adventur’d, / And my Sara’s socket enter’d.
1655		J. Cotgrave ‘To His Mistress Desirous to Go to Bed’ Wits Interpreter (1671) 259: The socket, plays at out and in.
1686		‘Court Diversion’ in Wilson Court Satires of the Restoration (1976) 151: [Lady] Berkeley and her youthful lover knock it; The jilt is ne’er without a dildo in her pocket; Old earl’s too short, too small for such a socket.
1741		‘Capt. Samuel Cock’ Voyage to Lethe 13: I took Possession of the Charming Sally and immediately fell to work upon her. The Main-Mast being a Long-side, we strove to heave it in [...] by greasing and working it to and fro [...] it went tolerably plumb into the Socket.
1823		‘Jon Bee’ Dict. of the Turf, the Ring, the Chase, etc. 19: Burning-shame — practised upon Bodikins, by the Authorities, who station a man with a lighted candle day and night, with the supposed intention of placing it in a socket of a queer kind, as soon as is convenient.
c.1886		Tilly Touchitt 42: Passing up the slippery sheath thus newly opened [...] piaston and socket work with a vengeance.
1890–1904		Farmer & Henley Sl. and Its Analogues.

In derivatives

socketing (n.)

the blackmailing of individuals involved in an adulterous relationship.

1893

Liverpool Echo 18 Mar. 3/2: This ruffianly practice of ‘socketing’ which recalls to my mind a similar predicament [...] in one of our large Yorkshire towns where this blackmailing has become very prevalent.

In compounds

socket-money (n.)

1. a dowry.

c.1698		B.E. Dict. Canting Crew n.p.: Socket-money, Demanded and Spent upon Marriage.
1725		New Canting Dict. [as cit. c.1698].
1737, 1759, 1760, 1776		Bailey Universal Etym. Eng. Dict. [as cit. c.1698].
1772		Bridges Burlesque Homer (3rd edn) 127: We’ll take her, be she wife or whore; But we must likewise come upon ye, By way of costs, for socket-money.

2. money paid by a man to his wife to placate her after he has been caught in an adulterous affair.

1700		N. Ward London Spy XV 363: The only good they’ve done, they’ve put a sort of Socket-Money upon whoring, and themselves are the Collectors of the Tax: By which reason the price of Venery is advanc’d.
1709		N. Ward Secret Hist. of Clubs 364: Nor indeed could [...] a Man of Honour marry a celebrated Beauty, or a great Fortune, but they would draw him in with a charming Epithalamium to pay them Socket-Money.
1774		Covent Garden Mag. Mar. 95/2: He was discovered by Miss ——, who, unluckily opened the door, and espied him in the very scene of action; demanded Mrs. B ’s socket-money, which she refusing, high words ensuing [etc.].
1785, 1788, 1796		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue n.p.: Socket-money [...] money paid for a treat, by a married man caught in an intrigue.
1811		Lex. Balatronicum [as cit. 1785].
1823		Egan Grose’s Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.
1895		Crowe Aus. Sl. Dict. 78: Socket Money, money extorted by threats of exposure.
1896		Farmer Vocabula Amatoria (1966) 64: Chiffre, m. The price of an embrace; ‘socket-money’.

3. the payment given to a prostitute.

1785, 1788, 1796		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue n.p.: Socket-money a whore’s fee, or hire.
1811		Lex. Balatronicum [as cit. 1785].
1823		Egan Grose’s Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.

4. (UK prison) money paid by a male prisoner to be allowed a conjugal visit.

1821		Investigation at Ilchester Gaol 92/1: Was there any fixed price for the constable granting this indfulgence for a prisoner seeing his wife in his bed-room? —I have heard they paid sixpence or a shilling, which was called ‘socket money’.
1821		A Peep into a Prison; or, The Inside of Ilchester Bastile 203/2: Did they give what is called socket money? [...] What was the sum you used to receive for allowing debtors to go upstairs with their wives? — 1 have had sixpence of some of the men.
1837		Freeman’s Jrnl (Dublin) 22 Dec. 2/3: The prisoner carroll and other boys [...] were next door, before that, looking for ‘socket money’ where a couple had been married .

5. hush-money.

1827		London Standard 25 Aug. 3/1: Mr Flint and the lady proceeded down a turning [...] deeply engaged in conversation, when 4 lads came running up to them, and in a loud tone demanded some ‘socket money’.
1864, 1867, 1870		Hotten Sl. Dict.
1873		Sl. Dict. 301: [...] money extorted by threats of exposure. socket-money is perhaps one of the most terrible inflictions that can befall a respectable man.

6. money paid by an employee to treat his workmates in the event of his marrying or becoming a father.

1839		J. Dunlop Philosophy of Artificial and Compulsory Drinking Usag 146: At marriages and births ‘socket-money’ is due ; but on these occasions the party concerned is not obliged to treat the whole establishment, but only that department in which he himself is employed.
1860		Freeman’s Jrnl (Dublin) 25 June 4/6: [H]e did not see the girls do anything except run up and down [...] crying out for ‘socket money’ as ‘Nell Sherwood and Hugh Harkness had come home after being married’.
1884		Leeds Mercury 8 Nov. 20/6: The money payed by a person getting married for his companions to drink [a] health.

In phrases

on the socket

practising blackmail.

1938

D. Runyon ‘Cemetery Bait’ in Runyon on Broadway (1954) 521: This Count Tomaso is on the socket, which is a way of saying his dodge is blackmail.

out of socket (adj.)

(US) retired, put on one side.

1976

D. Hall Dock Ellis 223: ‘I’ve been out of socket [...] On the shelf. I haven’t been doing anything but running the streets’.