kicks n.3
(orig. US) thrills, pleasure.
![[US]](/static/img/flags/us.png "United States") | ‘All the Jive is Gone’ 🎵 All the jive is gone! / All the jive is gone! / What an awful fix, can’t get my kicks, / ’Cause all the jive is gone! | |
| ‘Are You All Reet’ 🎵 Stashed like a top, / Don’t miss a stop, / I dig my kicks from the groovy lot! | |
| Orig. Hbk of Harlem Jive 29: Dig my kicks as that Cat, / Morpheus, sends me right out of this world. | |
| Really the Blues 149: It was good kicks for us – about the last real spurt of collective improvisation. | |
| ‘Jailhouse Rock’ 🎵 Bugsy turned to Shifty and he said nix, nix / I wanna stick around a while and get my kicks. | |
![[UK]](/static/img/flags/uk.png "United Kingdom") | All Night Stand 8: Gerry the joker, the thinker, the kicks-merchant. | |
| Oz 4 11: Marriage as kicks, as a happening, as a rave. | |
| (con. 1950s) Whoreson 173: I know you have all had your kicks. | |
| ‘Posterity’ in High Windows 27: Not out of kicks or something happening – / One of those old-type natural fouled-up guys. | |
| Brown’s Requiem 182: I don’t play golf. It’s not my idea of kicks. | |
| Guardian Rev. 26 June 9: War offers him ‘chicks, kicks, cash and chaos’. | |
 | ‘Not Even a Mouse’ in ThugLit Nov.-Dec. [ebook] Never meant any harm — just wanted some kicks. | |
| (con. 1962) Enchanters 12: The dump job. The bent schoolmarm. Saturday night kicks gone wrong. |
In phrases
(orig. US black) to enjoy oneself.
| (ref. to late 19C) Amer. Madam (1981) 237: I always figured there was something screwy with a john if he had to get his kicks watching fake women carry on and cop each other’s joints. | |
| Kingdom of Swing 32: [W]e didn’t care much about the money at the time, because we got our kicks out of playing. | |
| Really the Blues 3: I still get my kicks out of the music I picked up in that reform school. | |
| ‘Route 66’ 🎵 Get your kicks on Route 66. | |
| Absolute Beginners 10: I know better than ever to argue with [...] anyone else who gets his kicks from an idea. | |
| Howard Street 18: Probably up there getting her kicks along with that john. | |
| Street Players 27: Does he get his kicks from beatin’ people up? | |
| (con. early 1950s) L.A. Confidential 139: You get your kicks that way? | |
![[Scot]](/static/img/flags/sco.png "Scotland") | Filth 322: Now I can see that this was how he was getting his kicks. | |
| Vatican Bloodbath 9: All those sick twisted rich fucks around him go ’bout humpin’ little kids and watchin’ folks fightin’ to the death to get their kicks. |
(US) to come to orgasm.
| Dopefiend (1991) 139: Then the son of a bitch will see enough to get his kicks off. |