Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (UK Und.) to work as a procurer [later use is SE].

1674		T. Duffet Empress of Morocco Prologue III: Doxie! Doxie! O thou hast a tender thing! [...] Did I her warlike Pimp full fourteen years.
1681		Otway Soldier’s Fortune I i: I’ll pimp for thee, dear heart.
1696		Character of the Beaux 19: Thou they be accounted Men of Fortune, and Reputation [...] yet are glad to Pimp and Sharp about the Town to get a Penny.
1701		Farquhar Sir Harry Wildair III ii: Why, you Dog, you ought to pimp for me; you should keep a Pack of Wenches o’pupose to hunt down Matrimony.
1740		‘The Cruel Mother in Law’ in Amorous Miller’s Garland 6: Did you hear of that great Whore, / That lately hath bought Tanfield Tower, / Yea, and to pay for it withall, / Her Husband’s Horns she’ll set i’ th’ Hall? [...] Now all the Town she Pimps about, / To see if she can find some out. / That have much Money in their Fob, / Which she may Pick when they’re at her Job.

2. (US campus) to toady, to curry favour by performing petty actions [SE pimping, petty].

1844		A. Peirce Rebelliad 33: Did I not promise those who fished / And pimped most, any part they wished.
1856		B.H. Hall College Words (rev. edn) 353: pimp. To do little, mean actions for the purpose of gaining favor, as, in college, with an instructor.
1996		P. Hensher Kitchen Venom 8: ‘Anyway, she had to stop pimping for Tories when she married my father. They wouldn't stand for that for a second’.
2005		W.D. Myers Autobiog. of My Dead Brother 57: ‘See you and Jesse out here pimping for the Man’ Mason said. ‘What he tell you to say?’ .

3. (Aus./N.Z., also pimp on) to tell tales; to inform on someone; thus pimping adj.

1900		Sydney Sportsman (Surry Hills, NSW) 5 Dec. 4/1: For the particular dirty job in hand — pimping — Anderson was secured by the police of north Shore.
1938		X. Herbert Capricornia (1939) 482: He reckons I pimped on him.
1948		R. Park Harp in South 97: [P]imping in Surry Hills rare went unpunished [...] She had squealed on Delie Stock mainly because she had refused to sell her some wine.
1959		G. Hamilton Summer Glare 81: Trizzie didn’t pimp.
1960		N. Hilliard Maori Girl 229: She’s bound to pimp and make trouble.
1965		D. Martin Hero of Too 239: Did I ever pimp on a mate?
1968		Current Sl. III:1 10: Pimp, v. To hinder or put down.
1988		McGill Dict. of Kiwi Sl. 84/1: pimp to sneak or tell-tale.
2003		McGill Reed Dict. of N.Z. Sl. 157: pimp Telltale. ANZ, originally used by children. C20.

4. (US campus, also pimp up) to dress up, of a person and of an object; to promote.

1945		E. Wilson I Am Gazing Into My 8-Ball 13: A night-club editor can run his job so that he winds up feeling like a business manager to a prostitute. He pimps for the advertising department. He dumps into the paper all the sugary handouts written by the press agents, exclaiming how wonderful So-and-so is down at the Club El-Burpo, and of course the Club El-Burpo is overjoyed.
1980		E. Folb Runnin’ Down Some Lines 249: pimp v. […] 4. Show off what one has or what one is.
1981		G. Tate ‘Knee Deep in Blood Ulmer’ in Flyboy in the Buttermilk (1992) 17: These days there’s a lot of funkploitation going down. But don’t read me wrong, ’cause pimping The Funk ain’t bad per se – truth is, pimping it’s always half of the game-play.
1989		P. Munro Sl. U.
2004		Eble Campus Sl. Apr. 5: pimp – upgrade, improve: I’m gonna pimp my ride as soon as I get my paycheck.
2008		‘Grandmaster Flash’ Adventures 200: Hip hop was starting to go mainstream, and it was leaving its roots behind. Hollywood was pimping it with movies like Breakin’ .

5. (US black) to strut (in the supposed manner of a pimp).

1970		Current Sl. V:2 11: Pimp, v. To walk in an urbane, ‘hip’ manner.
1994		N. McCall Makes Me Wanna Holler (1995) 26: The hip dudes profiled in their All Stars and pimped down the hallways.
2002		‘Touré’ Portable Promised Land (ms.) 58: Pimp [...] verb ‘Look at him pimpin down the block’.

6. (US black) to play on human emotions to obtain money.

1972		Milner & Milner Black Players 34: Pimpin’ as a verb also means the broader activity of using human emotions to get money. Thus it is good Ghetto English to say that a child who cajoles his mother out of extra allowance money is pimpin’ off his mother.
1985		B. Simon ‘Outers’ Born in the RSA (1997) 59: Hey, stop pimping my chommie man [...] He’s not a fucken millionaire.

7. to seduce, to flirt with.

1971–2		C. Shafer ‘Catheads [...] and Cho-Cho Sticks’ in Abernethy Bounty of Texas (1990) 211: pimping, n. – getting money from another; playing the female role in unnatural sex acts.
1997–2000		College Sl. Research Project (Cal. State Poly. Uni., Pomona) 🌐 Pimp (verb) [...] 2. (verb). To try to get with; to try to date.
2003		G. Tate Midnight Lightning 87: I think she wanted me to pimp this girl.

8. (US campus) to steal.

1982		G. Tate ‘Beyond the Zone of the Zero Funkativity’ in Flyboy in the Buttermilk (1992) 42: I had no use for the way my main Maggot Overlord was pimping that Monochrome Drone Brainwash Syndrome beat and doing free promos for ’KTU and ’BLS on the side.
1997–2000		Da Bomb 🌐 21: Pimp: To steal something.

9. (US) to nag, to harass.

1987

(con. 1967) E. Spencer Welcome to Vietnam (1989) 51: I get pissed off when the battalion asks why we are moving so slowly [...] They pimp me a lot. [Ibid.] 119: The prick from battalion keeps pimping me about how slowly we are going.

10. (US) to deceive.

1983

Goldman & Fuller Charlie Company 331: ‘I thought, ‘This is it, the Big Blink’,’ he said. ‘I ran out. But he was just pimpin’ us.’.