Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. to beat up.

1874		Cultivator and Country Gentleman (US) 10 Dec. 799/2: A big man threatens to ‘wipe out’ a little one.
1900		Bulletin (Sydney) 6 Jan. 28/2: [A] holiday crowd which had mixed its ‘patriotism’ with its beer […] resolved to ‘wipe out’ the peaceful German Club, which hadn’t committed any worse offence than to prefer lager to tanglehoof.
1964		Larner & Tefferteller Addict in the Street (1966) 123: I’ll have to wipe you out completely. And you know what I mean by that: no guns, no knives – I’ll use my fists on you. I’ll beat you up.

2. to kill.

1872		Schele De Vere Americanisms 200: If the Arrapahoes will not keep the treaty [...] the settlers and traders unanimously assure us the whole tribe will be wiped out in another season.
1880		C.L. Martin A Sketch of Sam Bass (1956) 119: But for the fact that the robbers had [...] provided themselves with fresh horses, they would inevitably have been captured or ‘wiped out.’.
1889		H. Smart Long Odds I 68: Dick Bramton has got wiped out in a gambling-house row at Cairo.
1895		Crowe Aus. Sl. Dict. 96: Wipe Out, to kill.
1901		Boy’s Own Paper 24 Aug. 738: Don’t you know that they swore to wipe my men out, and that if attacked they’d give no quarter.
1916		Rising Sun 25 Dec. 3/1: Yer fought like struggling demons and the price yer made us pay, / Though we wiped yer out in hundreds on that glorious August day.
1925		D. Hammett ‘Dead Yellow Women’ Story Omnibus (1966) 168: It was more likely that he had seen me coming, had tried to wipe me out, and had been knocked off by my guide.
1935		S. Kingsley Dead End Act II: When I was a kid I used to think you were something, but you’re rotten ... see? You ought to be wiped out!
1940		O. Strange Sudden Takes the Trail 12: Wipin’ out customers is shorely pore policy.
1956		T. Thursday ‘The Big Squawk’ in Smashing Detective Mag. 15 Apr. 🌐 I have no doubt that this mug was wiped out.
1969		M. Puzo Godfather 94: The Tattaglia Family is going to be wiped out.
1976		P. Theroux Family Arsenal 191: You’ve had it. You’re snuffed. You’re wiped out.
1983		A-Team Storybook 12: The first sign of a plot to wipe out the A-Team came when a deafening explosion rocked the Tweaty Burg Restaurant.
1999		K. Sampson Powder 274: What matters is that they were wiped out in one little journey.
2002		(con. 1967) J. Laurence Cat from Hué 442: Of all the words American troops used to describe death in Vietnam — aced, blown away, bought it, croaked, dinged, fucked up, greased, massaged, porked, stitched, sanitized, smoked, snuffed, terminated, waxed, wiped out, zapped — the one I heard most was ‘wasted.’.

3. to ruin financially.

1823		implied in wiped out adj. (1)
1901		Sydney Sportsman (Surry Hills, NSW) 6 Feb. 1/5: They hollered and howled [...] like Jacob when he approached Esau with his bribes in front, lest he be ‘wiped out’.
1906		Gadfly (Adelaide) 14 Mar. 9/1: ‘Well, suddenly the commission agent goes broke over the Newmarket.’ ‘That puts the acid on him,’ says I. / ‘The acid?’ I queried. / ‘Wipes him out,’ explained the sporty person.
1957		H. Simmons Corner Boy 14: ‘That wipes me out,’ Jake said.
1964		D. Gregory Nigger 113: It’s supposed to be dollar night at the drive-in movie, which leaves me four dollars to grandstand with. Plenty for hot dogs. But a bottle of Scotch can wipe me out.
1973		D. Goines Street Players 212: This wipes me out, Carl. I’m busted, completely.
1989		L. Aparvary Legionnaire’s Journey 204: I would bid Saigon farewell somewhat depleted of cash but not totally wiped out .

4. (US) to defeat, to destroy.

1861		Journal Discourses (1862) IX 112: Many of the officers went away saying, ‘We will come by-and-by and wipe you out.’ .
1878		H.O. Flipper Colored Cadet at West Point 55: ‘To wipe out.’ — To destroy.
1895		Crowe Aus. Sl. Dict. 96: Wipe Out, to [...] utterly destroy.
1900		Marvel 15 May 3: We’ve got to find these ’ere Ku Kluxers and wipe ’em out.
1918		‘The 100 Squadron Lament’ in C.H. Ward-Jackson Airman’s Song Book (1945) 62: That brought the squadron their first fright. For he tried to wipe out Ochey.
1922		E. Raymond Tell England (1965) 302: ‘We can’t quit.’ ‘Not without being wiped out,’ he agreed.
1934		Rover 13 Jan. 50: There’s enough left to wipe out a battalion!
1942		Derby Dly Teleg. 2 Jan. 8/1: [headline] Guerillas Wipe Out Italians.
1948		C. Day Lewis Otterbury Incident 14: It’s the attack that’s going to wipe out the tank.
1962		(con. 1953–7) L. Yablonsky Violent Gang (1967) 67: We’ll wipe them out, once and for all.
1969		H. Rap Brown Die Nigger Die! 25: That’s the way the deal goes down for a lot of bloods. Wiped out by the time they’re eighteen and don’t ever really know why.
1971		E.E. Landy Underground Dict. (1972).
1979		E. Torres After Hours 73: I wiped the cop out on cross-examination.
1985		J. Sullivan ‘Happy Returns’ Only Fools and Horses [TV script] That’s because I wiped ’em all out with Akido.
1999		Guardian Guide 31 July–6 Aug. 21: It’s your job to make sure the bad guys don’t use it to wipe out Washington.

5. (Aus.) to ban.

1894		Truth (Sydney) 4 Nov. 6/2: Hardly a week passes at Kensington without somebody being ‘wiped out’. Last week Riot, owner and jockey went up for life. This week Jack Finn, his pony [...] and jockey [...] were warned off for 12 months.
1900		Sydney Sportsman (Surry Hills, NSW) 10 Oct. 1/3: For deliberately pulling the pony [...] the jockey Manly was wiped out for 12 moons.

6. (US campus) to destroy something, e.g. an automobile; to harm oneself.

1968

Current Sl. II:3 14: Wipe out, v. To wreck a car or airplane; to fall or have an accident.

7. to incapacitate.

1966		F. Elli Riot (1967) 243: ‘How’s the juice holdin’ out, Cully?’ ‘No sweat. There’s enough here to wipe the three of us out.’.
1974		Eble Campus Sl. Oct. 5: wipe out – [...] Man, am I wiped out!
1988		J. Stacy q. in Firestone Swing, Swing, Swing (1993) 146: ‘[E]very night about eleven, [. . .] he’d say, ‘This is impossible,’ and take the last drink [...] and wipe himself out.’ .
2000		N. Griffiths Grits 16: Whenever a do speed n E now thuh comedown wipes me out fuh days.

8. to astonish.

1964		H.S. Thompson letter 21 Feb. in Proud Highway (1997) 439: I wiped him out, mainly because he was unnerved by the awful roar of my .44 Magnum.
1977		C. McFadden Serial 37: You could just wipe everybody out by stuffing your own grape leaves.

9. (US campus) to fail.

1967–8		Baker et al. CUSS 222: Wipe out [...] Do poorly on an exam.
1974		Eble Campus Sl. Oct. 5: wipe out – to do poorly [...] I wiped out on that last test.

10. to exhaust one’s stocks, supplies.

2007

D. McDonald Luck in the Greater West (2008) 7: An oz [i.e. of amphetamine]? That’d wipe me out, mate.

11. see wipe v. (6)