Green’s Dictionary of Slang

see separate entries.

see walk-about n.

(US prison) a prisoner who has to exercise alone.

2000

Other Side of the Wall: Prisoner’s Dict. July 🌐 Walkalone: A prisoner who cannot exercise on a yard with other prisoners. San Quentin’s death row has a yard for ‘walkalones’ to exercise together.

see walk-about n.

(US) a paid personal assistant and companion.

1976

Jenkins & Shrake Limo 5: Cooper was my driver, my personal appointments secretary, and you could say my bodyguard [...] Mainly, he was my walk-around guy.

1. (US und.) in an assassination, the shooter’s companion who is handed the gun after the killing and immediately leaves the scene.

2017

D. Winslow The Force [ebook] ‘I didn’t shoot him. I was just the walkaway.’ The shooter passes the weapon to a junior member, who walks away.

2. (US Und.) used adj. of a robbery, that which yields sufficient profit for the thief to abandon the underworld for good.

2020

D. Winslow ‘Crime 101’ in Broken 106: Maybe it’s the eleven mil, the walkaway score.

(US black) an apartment at the rear of the block.

1944

D. Burley Orig. Hbk of Harlem Jive 17: The banter [...] went to stash in the skull’s walk-back on the topside of the rockpile on the heavy lump.

(US black) a close male friend.

1996

Eble Sl. and Sociability 80: Compounding is shown by crumbsnatcher ‘baby’ and walk-boy ‘good male friend.’.

(US black gang) a shooting in which the attacker walks past the victim or their home and fires.

1997		G. Sikes 8 Ball Chicks (1998) 74: We heard a lot of shots. Suspect is in black jacket and pants, black beanie, slim physique [...] Fucker did a walk-by.
2003		C. Stella Charlie Opera 122: Drive-by, walk-by, what’s the difference?

(Aus./US) a stroll on which the walkers chatter together; US use implies an effort to frustrate electronic surveillance.

1941		Baker Popular Dict. Aus. Sl.
2006		(con. 1972) Jurgenson & Cea Circle of Six 176: [I] walked to the corner of 125th Street [...] He approached and said, ‘Walk-talk?’ We started walking and talking through the streets of Harlem.

see separate entry.

see also under relevant n.

see walk the chalk v.

see walk the chalk v.

(US drugs) to adulterate a drug.

2003

Simon & Burns ‘Undertow’ Wire ser. 2 ep. 5 [TV script] Everything we get [...] been walked on. Each one weaker than the other.

1. (also walk on) to treat someone with contempt .

1786		J. Burgoyne Heiress II ii: My Lady looks over me; my Lord walks over me; and sets me in a little tottering cane chair, at the cold corner of the table .
1823		‘Jon Bee’ Dict. of the Turf, the Ring, the Chase, etc. 189: ‘To walk over’ another, is to domineer or assume the upper hand, swellishly; also, to set him at naught, as a racer which is so vastly superior to other cattle that none dare start, and he walks over the course.
1856		Sherborne Mercury 16 Dec. 2/6: He should think it ‘unjust to himself’, to allow himself to be so ‘walked over’.
1884		‘Mark Twain’ Huckleberry Finn 219: In the North he lets anybody walk over him that wants to, and goes home and prays for a humble spirit to bear it.
1896		W.C. Gore Student Sl. in Cohen (1997) 15: walk all over one To censure severely; to ridicule; to reprimand.
1900		Bulletin (Sydney) 26 May 31/1: The speakers were mostly spineless and vapid, but the assembled men wished to hear them, and the latter’s grinning apathy as the larrikin patriots walked all over them was shockingly sheep-like.
1916		P. Kyne Cappy Ricks 171: ‘Door Mat,’ he replied. ‘Your daddy has just walked all over me at any rate.’.
1936		W.R. Burnett King Cole 114: She can’t walk over me like that. She thinks she’s so much! She’s lived in Europe and [...] she thinks she is the last word and so sophisticated.
1953		J. Thompson Criminal (1993) 14: I’ll let them walk all over me.
1964		S. Woodward Paper Tiger 277: At times he was very considerate of my authority in the Sports Department. At other times he walked over me.
1967–8		Baker et al. CUSS 218: Walked on Be excessively submissive to your girl friend.

2. to defeat someone comprehensively.

1852		H.B. Stowe Uncle Tom 16: St Clare wouldn’t raise his hand, if every one of them walked over him.
1894		A. Morrison Tales of Mean Streets (1983) 91: You can walk over ’im!
1908		S.E. White Riverman 10: Are you going to let that old high-banker walk all over you?
1953		R. Chandler Long Good-Bye 68: A tough guy. Lets me come in here and walk all over him.
1981		W.D. Myers Hoops 155: They were scrub teams that we should have walked on, but we just managed to get by them.

(W.I.) a poor white; thus a sponger of any race.

1816		Colonial Policy of Great Britain 178: That miserable race of beings, known in Jamaica by the opprobrious negro epithet of ‘Walk and Nyam Buchras,’ or white men who only walk and eat, afford a striking example of this truth. These abject wretches are for the most part those who were once industrious and desxcended from good families.
1835		R.R. Madden Twelvemonth’s Residence in the West Indies I 121: The negro who attended me from an adjoining estate looked upon me as no better than a miserable ‘walk and nyam,’ for sitting so long in the house of the old brown washerwoman of Annotto Bay.
1929		M. Beckwith Jamaica Proverbs (1970) 112: Walk an’ nyam. [...] a sponger.

see work both sides of the street under work v.

see walk the chalk v.

(US black) to act in an unconcerned, relaxed manner, esp. in the face of problems or menaces.

1968

‘Sl. of Watts’ in Current Sl. III:2.

(W.I.) to kick out one’s legs when walking, the result of a deformity.

1956

cited in Cassidy & LePage Dict. Jam. Eng. (1980).

to tell off, to scold, to reprimand.

1890–1904

Farmer & Henley Sl. and Its Analogues.

taken off to prison.

1923

J. Manchon Le Slang.

(US black) to impose oneself on the world, to walk about in a deliberately self-assured manner.

1968

‘Hy Lit’ Hy Lit’s Unbelievable Dict. of Hip Words 44: walk heavy – To be important; to take command.

see separate entries.

to win easily, usu. in a sporting context.

1841		D. Boucicault London Assurance in London Assurance and other Victorian Comedies (2001) Act III: Walked the steeple, eight miles in thirty minutes, and scarcely turned a hair.
1936		‘Banjo’ Paterson Shearer’s Colt 214: With beautiful effortless strides he drew away and opened up a gap of half a dozen lengths and the roar went up ‘the favourite walks in.’.
1941		Headley ‘Values’ in Mann Coast to Coast 59: He reached down and patted one of the dogs. ’E oughter walk it in.
1951		T. Driberg Best of Both Worlds (diary) 14 Oct. (1953) 80: You’re all right, boy you’re all right —you’ll walk it.
1958		C. Lee diary 6 Mar. in Eight Bells & Top Masts (2001) 75: [He] started to test me. I walked it. Friggin’ hell, he says.
1979		H. Leonard A Life (1981) Act II: drumm: Presumably the horse won. kearns: Dezzie, it walked it. Fifty quid put into me fist.
1986		R. Hewitt White Talk Black Talk 147: B: Who d’you reckon’ll win the cup? [...] A: Sir Coxsone could walk it.
2000		Observer Rev 2 Apr. 5: You don’t stand a chance of winning – Buena Vista Social Club’s gonna walk it.

(W.I.) used of a woman who poses as an innocent, but lives a less restrained life.

1985		H.D. Campbell Woman’s Tongue 38: Them walk like them can’t mash ants, but I bet you everyone of them is as sinful as Satan.
1996		Allsopp Dict. Carib. Eng. Usage.
2010		E. Slade Tithe of Blood 28: That innocent little gal who used to walk like she can’t mash ants?
2011		Kon-shens ‘Bad Girl’ 🎵 If you cyan mash ants mi nuh like you.

see waltz Matilda v.

1. (orig. US campus) a woman’s public appearance after spending the night with a new lover.

1990		Eble Campus Sl. Nov.
1991		Harvard Crimson 19 Mar. 🌐 And at 5 a.m. on a Sunday morning, there’s nothing better than a friendly face to welcome you back home as you take your ‘walk of shame’ past the BD [i.e. Bell’s Desk].
2003		Eble Campus Sl. Nov.

2. of a man, the walk back to one’s friends, e.g. in a bar, after failing to pick up a woman.

2000

P. Howard Miseducation of Ross O’Carroll-Kelly (2004) 99: She turns her back to me and [...] I have to face the old walk of shame back to the table, where everyone’s been watching me.

see walk (all) over

see under chalks n.

(US) to walk unsteadily owing to an excess of drink.

1988		Lewin & Lewin Thes. Sl. 123/2: Drunk [...] walking on rocky socks.
2003		Daily News 1 Apr. 🌐 One such is the ‘Thesaurus of Slang’, a rather rare publication by Esther and Albert E. Lewin. [...] It is a rather large book and is very interesting and revealing. For instance, a bartender is described as a fizzical culturist, blood as people juice, death as a dirt nap, to be drunk to walk on rocky socks, gasoline as motion lotion.

1. (US) to cheat.

1844		Edinburgh Journal (US) I 302: Her husband [...] gave an account of how he had ‘walked round’ — alias cheated — another gentleman in the matter of a cord of wood [DA].
1853		T. Haliburton Sam Slick’s Wise Saws II 40: My ambassadors may not dance as elegantly as European courtiers, but they can walk round them in a treaty.

2. to defeat easily.

1901

Westminster Gaz. 29 June 9/3: To use a colloquial expression, they ‘walked round’ Gamble and Davies .

(US black) to behave modestly, quietly.

1971		E.E. Landy Underground Dict. (1972).
1986		J. Ellroy Suicide Hill 228: ‘I’ll give you some righteous advice: walk real soft around cops’.
1996		Eble Sl. and Sociability 83: The area of inter-personal relationships includes [...] walk soft ‘behave quietly and peacefully.’.

(US campus) to hurt someone.

1896

W.C. Gore Student Sl. in Cohen (1997) 18: walk some one’s log To do personal injuries to someone.

1. lit. or fig., to leave, to retreat; to disappear.

1818		St James’s Chron. 17 Nov. 2/1: [A] lucky shot knocked a large flake from [the rhinoceros’] horn and caused a pleasing change in his conduct; for he walked Spanish directly afterwards, tearing through the thickets with astonishing force.
1827		Morn. Chron. 29 Aug. 2/4: [of a disapproved relationship] Poor Devils! they are real objects of pity at present — the Regent’s character in the public opinion has, what we term, ‘walked Spanish,’ and this, they have no hesitation in saying, even in a public way.
1833		Jrnl Belles-Lettres n.p.: Our author [...] has already ‘walked Spanish’.
1837		Athlone Sentinel 27 Jan. 1/3: We feel satisfied that Benevenuto will walk Spanish the next election, and that John O'Connell will the chosen member for Athloue.
1844		J. Ballantine Miller of Deanhaugh 254: The ten pounds who I placed in Twopenny’s cupboard this morning has walked Spanish [...] We searched every corner of his house for them, but could not find them.
1848		Cong. Globe (Appendix) 999/1: Don Jesus [...] talked Spanish to them, and they walked Spanish, id est, retreated.
1850		Connecticut Courant (Supp.) 15-19 174/1: The man ‘walked Spanish’, of course, at the end of his year, and was succeeded by a quiet English laborer.
1855		Morn. Herald (London) 16 Feb. 6/2: They maintain the conflict sometimes for an hour; when finding our numbers increase, they ‘walk Spanish’ as fast as they can.
1861		Roscommon & Leitrim Gaz. 30 Nov. 4/1: Well I'm blest if ever I could ‘diskiver’ what was the fancy of drowning good hot hollands with water; give me the stuff stark naked with the jacked off, that’s my religion. So afore all that ‘Dutch broth walks Spanish,' give us another toothful.
1864		‘Cynthia’ in Leeds Eve. Exp. 16 Jan. 2/1: ‘Garotte! That is a Spanish instrument of execution?’ ‘Well, I don't know anything about Spanish executions or Spanish instruments either. All I know is that whenever we [i.e. garrotters] operates on a cove he generally walks Spanish after we is done with him’.
1875		Ardrossan and Saltcoats Herald 9 Jan. 2/3: I’ve no patience when I think of her, with her airs and graces dressing so that she really was mistaken for one of the family! And such impertinence! I made her walk Spanish very quick — ’ .

2. to walk in an effeminate or affected manner; to walk quietly, ‘on tiptoes’.

1823		New Globe 26 Feb. 4/1: [of a case of alleged homosexuality in Hyde Park] A destable offence [The particulars of this case cannot be entered into] [...] His companion could give no other account of himself that that ‘he walked Spanish’.
1861		Banner of Ulster 30 Apr .4/1: [of tourists] Wish I had you and Charlie here just now. Wouldn't we ‘walk Spanish’ and see the lions for one while. I am in good health and spirits .
1865		Barrow Herald 15 July 3/2: Mrs Blake was a Tartar, with temper enough for two Tartars. Old Jacob had to ‘walk Spanish’ for the most part, or suffer the .consequences, which usually descended on his head in the shape of any domestic utensil which happened to be lying around.

3. for an Stock Market investor to accept a loss and abandon the deal.

1839		Age (London) 24 Nov. 2/3: Some of the Fancy Clubs at the West [...] had a strong notion that flats were to , be caught in the City. The sharps, however, were caught, and so loaded with Stock as prices rose, that they have been glad to ‘walk Spanish,’ as the old saw was, and pocket the loss.
1840		Age (London) 8 Mar. 3/1: We have had roaring times this week in the Stock House, where the swell coves have been walking Spanish to some tune.

4. to resign from a job (against the employer’s will); to be dismissed from a job (see cite 1852).

1840		Waterford Mail 8 July 2/5: I shall not forget make the Spanish claim and prevent Tom [i.e. a servant] from walking Spanish.
1840		Westmoreland Gaz. 25 July 3/4: [A]s soon as any flighty dame thinks fit to ‘walk Spanish,’ [...] the master has nothing to but to apply to the police immediately, and she will find herself obliged to march back and do her duty cheerfully, or will be compelled to perform the much more arduous task of assisting to turn a certain spinning wheel in building appropriated for the reception of the refractory.
1841		Naval & Military Gaz. 6 Feb. 7/3: [T]he consequense [of flooded barracks] is that our chaps are cutting stick like winking, some walking Spanish, as thay calls it [...] and nothon but the goodness of the old Kurnell kips amany more from cutting.
1852		Bombay Gaz. 13 Aug. 3/3: Two Conductors, three Sub-Conductors, four Inspectors and as many under-writers and copyists walked Spanish, before they knew whether their boots were on.

5. (US) to move someone forcibly, to throw out or against their will.

1842		J.L. Stephens Travel in Central America 281: Fortunately he was not a suspicious man; if he had been [...] we should have ‘walked Spanish’.
1867		Liverpool Albion 12 Aug. 7/4: he Senator took the spy in that way by which one is enabled to make any other do what is called ‘Walking Spanish,’ and propelled him rapidly toward the reservoir of the fountain.
1870		F.R. Stockton Ting-a-Ling 61: [The] big fat man, [...] was seized by four slaves, who walked him Spanish right out of the door.
1876		Dublin Weekly Nation 8 Apr. 7/4: The old lady [...] grabbed the old man by the ear, and if he had worn striped stockings, about eleven inches of them would have been seen between the tops of his shoes and the bottoms of his pants legs, as she made him walk Spanish out to the waggon.
1878		Nassau Herald 33: [I]n his most approved style [he] swept up the floor with your Prophet, and then walked him Spanish into the ’82 Memorial alcove.
1891		(con. c.1860) Electrical Engineer (US) 10 Aug. 205/1: The writer seized him [i.e. Tad Lincoln] by the seat of his little pants with one hand, and with the other his collar, and walked him Spanish fashion back to the door.
1943		W.R. Burnett Nobody Lives for Ever 136: [He] had taken the gun away from Fargo—a coked-up Chicago hoodlum [...] he’d further humiliated him by walking him Spanish through the jammed night-club and throwing him out in the alley.

6. (Irish) to tackle, e.g. food, enthusiastically, to ‘wade into’.

1858

Tralee Chron. 15 Jan. 2/6: [T]hat very fine sirloin of Sweeny’s best beef," [...] I’ll be bound you ‘walked Spanish’ into it, even though there might scarcity of horse-radish itself [...] I’ll engage, too, it wasn’t with aqua pura you washed all down, but a dhrop something with a ‘stick’ in it.

to receive a reprimand, esp. of household servants.

1823

J. Galt Entail III 278: The necessity she was often under of making [...] her servants ‘walk the carpet;’ or, in other words, submit to receive those kind of benedictions to which servants are [...] so often and so justly entitled.

see separate entry.

see walk the chalk v.

(US campus) to walk deliberately out of a restaurant without paying the bill.

1975		G. Underwood ‘Razorback Sl.’ in AS L:1/2 68: We got caught trying to walk the check at Pat O’Brian’s.
1981		T. Wolff ‘Passengers’ in In the Garden of the North American Martyrs 80: [H]e was in jail for walking a check in East Jesus.

see walk the chalk v.

1. (US) to show off by driving or walking at speed.

1919		Noble Sissle ‘How Ya Gonna Keep ’Em Down on the Farm?’ 🎵 The Walk the Dog and Ball the Jack that cause all the talk, / Is just a copy of the way I naturally walk.
1927		(con. 1918) J.J. Niles Singing Soldiers 136: I went with a couple of frog friends o’ mine [...] And did we walk de dog? Cut my throat! Did we walk de dog!
1999		Guardian Weekend 19 June 22: As the musicians whip through their blues-flavoured hard rock, he walks the dog.

2. (US prison) to beat up.

2019

D. Winslow Border [ebook] ‘I was wondering if you’d walk the dog on him,’ Zuniga said. ‘No problem,’ Eddie said, intensely relieved it was just a beating.

(N.Z. prison) to walk between two lines of inmates who will beat one with fists or weapons.

2001

D. Looser Boobslang [U. Canterbury D.Phil. thesis] 200/1: walk the gauntlet v. or walk the line or walk the tunnel or walk the wing (of an inmate) to walk by oneself between two lines of inmates or gang­members as one is attacked.

see pound the pavement under pound v.²

to (start) work as a prostitute.

1823

‘Jon Bee’ Dict. of the Turf, the Ring, the Chase, etc. 134: ‘Piazzas, to walk the’ — is the first indication of a girl’s turning loose upon the wide world; a-while ’tis all sunshine, but briars and brambles soon spring up.

(US) to be dismissed from a job.

1873		J. Mair Hbk of Phrases 32: Walk the Plank. To be rid of.
2000		Guardian Guide 22–28 Jan. 28: You sneery I-Tie Frappaccino poncebad o’shite who’s gonna walk the plank.

(US campus) of a woman, to signal sexual availability.

1991		Eble Campus Sl. Mar.
1996		Eble Sl. and Sociability 93: Babes [...] who, Wayne and Garth hope, walk the way of a trollop ‘signal sexual availability.’.

(Aus.) of a bet, a certainty; of an individual, trustworthy.

1996

J. Byrell Lairs, Urgers & Coat-Tuggers 234: ‘I’ve got a funny feeling that The King is today no dead-set walk-up’ [ibid.] 337: [He] was always a dead-set walk-up to let me on at 5-2 when he’d just dropped his offer to 9-4.

to run up credit at a public house (cf. crawl up the wall under crawl v.² ).

1785, 1788		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue n.p.: Wall, to walk, or crawl up the wall, to be scored up at a public house.
1796		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue (3rd edn) n.p.: Walking up against the Wall. To run up a score, which in alehouses is commonly recorded with chalk on the walls of the bar. [Ibid.] To walk or crawl up the wall; to be scored up at a public-house.
1811		Lex. Balatronicum [as cit. 1796].
1823		Egan Grose’s Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.

to be hanged.

1830		N. Ames Mariner’s Sketches 223: Hanging, or as sailors call it, ‘taking a walk up Ladder lane and down Hemp street’.
1849		Melville Redburn 82: When a man is hung at sea [...] they say he ‘takes a walk up Ladder Lane, and down Hemp Street’.
1894		Burnley Exp. 8 Aug. 4/8: Other phrases now almost [...] obsolete were ‘to dance upon nothing’ [...] to walk up Ladder-lane and down Hemp-street’.
1909		Master 161: You git on the high ropes here an’ you’ll take a walk up Ladder Lane an’ down Hemp Street.
1937–84		Partridge DSUE (1984) 1305/1: C.19.
2003		Hampton & Moore Peter In Wonderland 🌐 He’s gonna go all decky with the whippersnapper. Cork his deadlights. Cut his painter. Board him in the smoke. Coil up his cables, give him the deep six, walk him up ladder lane and down hamp [sic] street. He’s gonna kill him, you stupid lummox!