Green’s Dictionary of Slang

to beat severely.

1954		J.E. Macdonnell Jim Brady 154: I’ll belt the Christ outa yer!
1955		E. Hoagland Cat Man 234: I’ll beat the living Christ out of him, playing me for a sucker.
1974		D. Ireland Burn 16: Gunner bashed Christ out of him. Knocked him silly.

(N.Z. gay) the male genitals.

2010

W. Ings ‘Trolling the Beat to Working the Soob’ in Int’l Jrnl Lexicog. 23:1 64: During sex a man made contact with Christ and the two apostles (penis and testicles) and a sex worker who limits himself to passive sex is known as an angel.

a general intensifier; usu. as wish to Christ.

1922		Joyce Ulysses 91: I wish to Christ he did!
1929		(con. 1916) F. Manning Her Privates We (1986) 4: Wish to Christ they’d get a move on.
1933		in W.C. Fields By Himself (1974) 446: I hope to Christ the next cold I get knocks me off and then you will know what real hardship is.
1934		H. Miller Tropic of Cancer (1963) 107: I wish to Christ I could stop thinking about myself.
1944		H. Brown Walk in Sun 121: I wish to Christ we had a mortar.
1947		J. Maclaren-Ross Of Love And Hunger 170: I made a bolt for the exit. I hoped to Christ Sukie hadn’t played another double shuffle on me.
1949		R. Chandler Little Sister 103: I hope to Christ this doesn’t mean Sunny Moe Stein’s mob have started in business again.
1963		(con. 1944) L. Glassop Rats in New Guinea 174: I wish to Christ I was going with you.
1964		H. Selby Jr Last Exit to Brooklyn 117: He wished to krist he could take the sounds and shove them up her ass.
1969		‘Iceberg Slim’ Pimp 22: I have wished to Christ [...] that the lunatic lovers had left me in Rockford.
1978		S. King Stand (1990) 257: I’m getting to Christ out of here. [Ibid.] 918: I wish to Christ I hadn’t left him behind.
1979		F. Norman Too Many Crooks Spoil the Caper 121: They didn’t know me and I hoped to Christmas that was the way it was going to stay.
1984		W. Murray Tip on a Dead Crab 208: I swear to Christ I’ll go straight from here to the stewards and the police.
1989		M. Amis London Fields 26: I wished to Christ I could do Keith’s voice.

(US) a general derog. description, lit. ‘bitten by Christ’, i.e. fanatically religious.

1927		D.W. King L.M.8046 144: ‘God damn those Christ-bitten .... Hope to hell we get another chance at them before we clear out!’.
1939		Dos Passos Adventures of a Young Man 257: The boys in Slade Country was f—d and now here was this christbitten hellbound party line f—g them proper.
1948		McHenry & Myers Home Is Sailor 95: She’s Christ-bitten. She thinks I need saving.
1958		L.F. Cooley Run For Home (1959) 169: Nuthin’ to do and nuthin’ to drink on Sunday in this Christ-bitten place!
2002		Globe and Mail (Toronto) 3 Aug. F3: That was when his father, although not Catholic, sent his son to a Jesuit high school to live with what Mr. Moriarty now calls ‘the Christ-bitten winos’.

1. a derog. term for a Jew [the teaching by trad. Christianity that the Jews killed Christ].

1830		Cobbett's Weekly Political Register 4 Dec. 895/2: The bloody Jews, the Christ-killing rascals [...] the Christ-killers do not remember that Pitt had paper money at will.
1843		‘Poacher’s Daughter’ in Lloyd’s Companion 10 Dec. 4/1: ‘Will you be silent, Christ-killer ? Comrades, twist me this old scoundrel's neck’.
1847		Sentinel (Sydney) 9 Dec, 2/3: ‘Better that we should eat black bread [...] from a wooden platter, than bury our noses in the State trough, from which the Christ-makers of the Mass house, and the Christ-killers of the Synagogue alike receive their mess of pottage’.
1850		Manchester Gardian 17 Apr. 6/4: The petition at the Town hall was carried by ‘catter-wauling mountebanks and hireling Christ-killers’.
1855		Knickerbocker 46 629: Often have we heard a Jewish child in our city sneered at by other urchins as a ‘little Christ-killer’.
1861		(con. 1840s–50s) H. Mayhew London Labour and London Poor IV 223/1: They [i.e. ‘bunters’] was mostly Christ-killers, and chousing a Jew was no sin.
1878		in Glanz Jew in Old Amer. Folklore (1961) 10: Get out, you bloody Christ-killer.
1882		Sydney Sl. Dict. (2 edn) 2: Chousing a Christkiller - Swindling a Jew (there used to be a prevailing superstition that it’s no sin.) Or, Having a Christkiller.
1909		J. Ware Passing Eng. of the Victorian Era.
1925		S. Anderson Dark Laughter 278: Boys who were ragging one of the Jewish boys. They followed him along a street shouting, ‘Christ-killer!’.
1932		(con. 1910s) J.T. Farrell Young Lonigan in Studs Lonigan (1936) 130: ‘Sa-ay, Christ Killer!’ Johnny said to his man.
1935		J. Conroy World to Win 146: A damned Christ-killer kike asking all sorts of questions.
1937		E. Anderson Thieves Like Us (1999) 41: I called him a Christ-killer and a few other things.
1953		S. Bellow Augie March (1996) 12: We were chased, stoned, bitten and beat up for Christ-killers.
1972		H. Teichmann George S. Kaufman, An Intimate Portrait n.p.: You goddamn Christ killer.
1997		T. Fontana ‘God's Chillin’ Oz ser. 1 ep. 3 [TV script] You don’t have a problem with me being Jewish? [...] You don’t think of me as a Christ-killer or anything like that?
2004		Dean’s World 19 Mar. [blog] You know, I’ve been around Christians of just about every stripe my entire life, and I have never in my entire life heard the words ‘Christ killer’ come out of anyone but Jews.
2018		T. Pluck ‘Hot Rod Heart’ in Life During Wartime 106: ‘Stop calling him kid, Christkiller [...] It’s too bad the Krauts didn’t get all of you’.

2. a noisy political orator [the majority of such orators were self-proclaimed atheists].

1932

L. Adamic Laughing in the Jungle 208: I stopped to listen to soap-boxers [...] and to the argufyers or ‘nuts’ in Pershing’s Park and on the Plaza, most of them professional atheists, or ‘Christ-killers,’ full of sound and fury.

see Christer n.

(US) a very long time ago.

1928		G. Boas Never Go Back 176: [W]hen Harper protested that after all he had the rudiments on which to build, he answered, ‘Why, what I know was old stuff when Christ was a corporal in the Jerusalem Hoosars’.
1972		Camden News (AK) 8 Dec. 21/1: Some of the gripes about Army life, first heard ‘when Christ was a corporal,’ will probably never change.
1982		(con. 1970) J.M. Del Vecchio 13th Valley (1983) 113: Egan was a cherry way back when Christ was a corporal.
1995		M. Rausenberger Somalia Journal [ebook] He looked like he was in the military when Christ was a corporal so l figured he had some rank.
2013		S.M. Mahoney Fighting for Afghanistan [ebook] ‘Okay, here we go again. This goes back to when Christ was a corporal’.

(US) lit. god-damned adj.

1912		R.C. Murphy Logbook for Grace (1948) 16 July 14: That usually leads to a gentle admonition [...] that he’ll be goddamned if he’ll stand for one such word from any Christless bastard on board, afore or abaft the mainmast.
1949		‘F. Bonnamy’ Blood and Thirsty (1952) 45: I’ve been tryin to figger for years how t’git that Christless picture down.
1968		‘Richard Hooker’ M*A*S*H 108: We wouldn’t be going out of our way for a Christless Regular Army Colonel if we didn’t mean it!
1979		Lewis How to Talk Yankee n.p.: I never did think we’d get that Christless truck out of the ditch [DARE].
1980		in N.E. Folklore XXVIII (1988) 43: He got this christless big book and opened it up [HDAS].
2006		www.izzlepfaff.com 17 May [blog] Get away from me, you Christless little choad.

a general intensifier.

1925		Dos Passos Manhattan Transfer 387: Jesus Kerist Almighty look at a guy who’ll give up a good job clerkin [...] to sign on as messboy in Davy Jones’ own steam yacht.
1961		C. Cooper Jr Weed (1998) 119: The Christalmighty work he had to do.

(orig. US) especially appalling; also as excl.

1947		N. Algren Neon Wilderness (1986) 83: The fellas begun giv’n me a Christ-awful razzin’ then.
1957		(con. 1943) A. Myrer Big War 192: Heading for what Christ-all horror we can’t imagine.

see Lord knows under Lord n.¹

a common blasphemous excl.

1928		in Randolph & Legman Ozark Folksongs and Folklore (1992) II 638: The moonlight lit on the nipple of her tit, / Oh, Jesus Christ, almighty.
1931		(con. 1900) L. Riggs Green Grow the Lilacs I iv: Christ all hemlock!
1934		B. Appel Brain Guy 148: Christ all hell, what sort of life was Bill leading?
1936		D. Stivens Tramp and Other Stories 49: Christ all bloody mighty! The little bitch!
1941		K. Tennant Battlers 118: Christamighty! [...] Anyone ’ud think I was trying to pinch the filling from your back teeth instead of doing you a good turn.
1951		Cusack & James Come in Spinner (1960) 331: ‘Christallbloodymighty!’ Lofty bellowed.
1967		M. Braly On the Yard (2002) 112: Christalmighty, if you don’t know, how the hell am I s’posed to tell you?
1974		D. Goines Swamp Man 145: ‘Christ Almighty, Sheriff,’ Sonny Boy yelled.
1987		T. Wolfe Bonfire of the Vanities 272: Christ almighty . . . I’ve got to think for a second.
1997		(con. 1950s) J. Byrne Slab Boys [film script] 101: Christ Almighty, Phil, it’s no’ every day somethin’ as tragic as this happens.
2001		K. Waterhouse Soho 78: Oh, Christ al-bleeding-mighty, all he needed.
2010		Codella and Bennett Alphaville (2011) 317: Jesus fucking Christ. if she knows about it, every bad guy in the neighborhood must know about it.

see Jesus! excl.

a mild excl.

1960		W. Styron Set This House on Fire 67: Christ on a bleeding toboggan!
1961		J. Gielgud letter 10 Oct. in Mangan John Gielgud’s Letters (2004) 268: Christ on a bicycle!
1961		J. Kirkwood There Must Be a Pony! 152: ‘Christ-on-a-buckboard,’ Sally Knapp says.
1989		(con. 1968) P. Theroux My Secret Hist. (1990) 337: ‘Christ on a bike!’ Potter cried.
1991		C. Hiaasen Native Tongue 155: Christ on a Harley, who wants goddamn lizards!
1996		A. Close Official and Doubtful 186: Christ on a bike, I forgot about the battered sisters.
1999		‘Squee Rat’ ‘This Sordid Little Business: The Furry Manifesto’ 🌐 If you don’t think you’re the astrally projected soul of a wolf trapped in a human body, or you don’t answer the phone with a ‘meow,’ you’re not furry. Yep. Don’t you feel terribly inferior now? Christ on a fire engine, what some people will try and force on you.
2006		G. Turner Guardian 25 June 🌐 Christ on a flippin’ bike! England were so, so lucky there.
2013		T. Black Ringer [ebook] n.p.: Christ on a bike, do I have to do everything around here?
2015		S. King Finders Keepers (2016) 18: ‘Christ on a pony,’ he said, ‘I call that pretty’.
2021		L. McInerney Rules of Revelation 17: ‘Christ on a Bike’ T-shirts.
2023		M. Herron Secret Hours 314: ‘Christ on a fucking bicycle. He’s got teeth. What else do you need to know?’.

a mild excl.

1948		(con. 1944) N. Mailer Naked and Dead 10: Christ on a crutch! Right off the farm, a barefoot boy.
1958		H.S. Thompson letter 31 Mar. in Proud Highway (1997) 113: Christ on a crutch, man: if you people are as hard up for writers as you appear to be, then you need help in the worst way!
1961		(con. early 1950s) J. Peacock Valhalla 30: Oh Jesus Christ on a wobbly crutch! [Ibid.] 54: ‘Jesus H. Christ on a stretcher!’ Giff exploded.
1971		(con. WWII) B. Aldiss Soldier Erect 132: Christ-on-fucking-crutches!
1978		L. Kramer Faggots 242: Oh, Jesus H. Christ on a crutch, whatever have we done!
1982		R.M. Brown Southern Discomfort (1983) 79: Jesus H. Christ on a raft.
1985		(con. 1969–70) D. Bodey F.N.G. (1988) 107: Jesus fuckin’ Christ on a warped yellow-pine crutch.
1986		L. Heinemann Paco’s Story (1987) 50: Christ Jesus on a bloody fuckin’ crutch [...] how long was this guy left like this?
1998		D. Hecht Skull Session 205: Christ on a crutch! Place is a mess, isn’t it?
2001		K. Waterhouse Soho 24: Christ on crutches, was she up for it or was she up for it?
2006		G. Iles Turning Angel 370: ‘Christ on a crutch,’ he says in his heavy drawl.
2010		Eve. Standard 20 Dec. 15/3: Dior perfume. Jesus on a moped.
2016		T. Robinson Rough Trade [ebook] ‘Christ on a crutch’.
2021		Twitter 27 May 🌐 Christ on a crutch, this [book] is hardcore in the best possible way. Bleak as with razor sharp prose.
2023		A. Nette Orphan Road 153: Christ on a crutch, but there’s one mongrel I can see in this room, thought Hardigan.
2023		J. Jackson Pineapple Street 1340: ‘Christ on a cracker.’ She showed Darley the screen, her father and brother holding the small brown bat in a net, victorious.

see for Christ’s sake! excl.

see separate entry.

see sweet Jesus! under sweet adj.¹