bitch n.1
1. of women.
(a) a derog. term for a woman, usu. judged an unpleasant one.
![[UK]](/static/img/flags/uk.png "United Kingdom") | Piers Plowman (B) V line 348: And thanne gan he to go like a glemannes bicche. | |
| ‘Mary Magdalene’ Digby Mysteries II line 927: Ye brawlyng breelles, and blabyr-lyppyd bycchys. | |
| Proverbs II Ch. vi: By God, th’olde bitche biteth sorer and more. / And not with teeth (she hath none) but with her tong. | |
| Malcontent I iv: He has as sweet a lady, too; dost know her little bitch? | |
| Bartholomew Fair IV iv: What, Urs’la, an’t be bitch, an’t be bawd, an’t be! | |
| ‘Ballad’ in Court Satires of the Restoration (1976) 11: Next comes Castlemaine, / That prerogative quean; / If I had such a bitch I would spay her. | |
| ‘A Ramble in St James’s Park’ in Works (1999) 78: So a proud Bitch does lead about / Of humble Currs the Am’rous Rout. | |
![[Scot]](/static/img/flags/sco.png "Scotland") | ‘The Bad Husbands Amendment’ in Broadside Ballads No. 133: But with foule words I’de abuse her, / and call her bitch and whore. | |
| Proc. Old Bailey 17 July n.p.: [He] drew his Sword and meeting first with the Deceased, he Cryed out to her, and said, Dam you Bitch, are you her that abused my Mother: and presently he thrust the Sword into her Belly. | |
![[Ire]](/static/img/flags/ire.png "Ireland") | Teagueland Jests I 102: Mee Wife did mauke very much Scolding upon me, and de Beesh did call me Cuckold. | |
| ‘Once, Twice, Thrice, I Julia Try’d’ in (1897) II 83: And since, I can no better, better thrive, / I’ll cringe to ne’er a Bitch alive. | |
| London-Bawd (1705) 87: A Pox take ye, for an Old Bitch. | |
| [Fake] Female Tatler (1992) 44 216: Mrs Crackenthorpe. You are a dirty, confounded, impudent B—ch of a Harridan. | |
| Hist. of John Bull 22: John had not run a madding so long, had it not been for an extravagant bitch of a wife. | |
| Authentick Memoirs of Sally Salisbury 60: Sally, whenever she was insulted by her Mother, would damn her with an Air, call her old Bitch. | |
| Select Trials ‘Thomas Beck for Robberies’ Apr. 356: Prisoner. He comes to me in Newgate, and says, Damn me, Tom Beck, how d’ye think this Bitch Whittle has served me ? She has given me a black Eye. | |
| Proceedings at Assizes (Surrey) 14/1: He said, Damn you, what’s that to you, she’s my Wife; the Bitch is Drunk. | |
| ‘Miss Betty’s Singing Bird’ in A. Carpenter Verse in Eng. in 18C Ireland (1998) 271: Call Aunt a Sow, or ugly Witch, / Cic’ly a Hussy, Slut or B—h. | |
| Tom Jones (1959) 564: There was my lady cousin Bellaston, and my lady Betty, and my lady Catharine, and my lady I don’t know who; d--n me if ever you catch me among such a kennel of hoop-petticoated b---s! | |
| Low Life Above Stairs II v: Damn the B-t-ch to Hell and the Devil, she has p-x-d me. | |
| Nancy Dawson’s Jests 6: A soldier was carrying to be hang’d [and] a woman cried out, oh! poor soul, but ’tis what we must all come to; upon which [...] he said, not to the gallows you bitch. | |
| Burlesque Homer (3rd edn) 181: If ’tis the man, some damn’d old bitch, / A Lancashire or Lapland witch, / Preserves the dog. | |
| Rev. Dr. Warner in George Selwyn (1843) III 356: When the mother [...] shall become a devotee, and God adore, with the same spirit that she plays the — (hitch in the rhyme yourself, for I would not say a syllable against her for the world). | |
| ‘Connelly’s Ale’ in A. Carpenter Verse in Eng. in 18C Ireland (1998) 387: ‘Get home you dam’d bitches, / You’ll surely be ruin’d by Connelly’s Ale’. | |
| , , | | Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue n.p.: bitch, a she dog or doggess; the most offensive appellation that can be given to an English woman, even more provoking than that of whore, as may be gathered from the regular Billingsgate or St. Giles’s answers, ‘I may be a whore, but can’t be a bitch’. |
| Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue ms. additions n.p.: [as 1785, then] Instead of the appellation of bitch the black Guards sometimes say, ‘your A—se is a Carrion Gallows because it is hung round with Dog’s Meat’. | |
| Sporting Mag. Mar. XXI 311/2: Damme, the bitch eats cheese. | |
| Abuses of Justice 35: Damn your eyes, we will come when we like. Do you think we shall ask such a bitch as you? | |
| Spirit of Irish Wit 111: A humped back nobleman [...] told Peg [Plunket, a well-known bawd] it was surprsing that ‘so ugly a B— [...] ever thought of taking up her trade’. | |
| Heart of Mid-Lothian (1883) 308: If the b---- queers the noose, that silly cull will marry her. | |
| Pierce Egan’s Life in London 31 Oct. 319/2: ‘D—n the b—h’. | |
![[Aus]](/static/img/flags/aus.png "Australia") | Sydney Herald 24 Feb. 1s/4: He heard the deceased call her a d—d bitch. | |
| ‘Peas, Beans, & Cabbages’ Knowing Chaunter 10: But since the young bitch / Has won the first heat, / I’ll challenge her out to f--t. | |
![[US]](/static/img/flags/us.png "United States") | letter in Saxon Sel. Letters (1983) 16: You generously advanced that ‘bitch’ $12. | |
| Sydney Morn. Herald 16 Apr. 2/3: [He] was indicted for having [...] maliciously writen [...] ‘Notice — A native dog was yesterday challenged by a native bitch in Druitt-street [...] the native bitch is Mrs Jane Nobbs [...] and the above libel was intended to bring the said Jane Nobbs into evil repute. | |
| Hants. Chron. 22 Nov. 4/5: He heard the voice of a man [...] calling out, ‘Lay hold of the old b—,’ directly after which he heard [...] two women screaming. | |
| (ref. to 1821) S. Aus. Register (Adelaide) 23 Oct. 3/1: A wife by letters [records] the husband finding himself unable in 1821 to disunite himself from ‘that bitch of a woman that torments me’. | |
| (con. 1840s–50s) London Labour and London Poor I 173/1: ‘I’ll not have her insulted’ he says, says he, lofty and like a gentleman, sir. ‘Why, who’s insulting the old b---h?’ says the woman, says she. | |
| Seven Curses of London 202: You don’t know what a b[itch] like that will say. | |
| Wanderings of a Vagabond 83: Why, you fool! Jack, don’t you know that every tale-bearing b—h in the town will be carrying the news to her before the dew is off the ground? | |
| Rockhampton Bulletin (Qld) 29 June 2/5: The defendant said to witness [...] ‘You drunken bitch’. | |
| Nat. Police Gaz. (NY) 4 Oct. 4/2: ‘I ran up and banged her again and that was the shot that killed the G—d d—n b—h’. | |
| My Secret Life (1966) I 163: No thank you, young devilskin [...] not with that bitch of Harriet about. | |
| Morn. Bulletin (Rockhampton, Qld) 20 June 5/6: Your red-headed bitch of a wife had a child three weeks before she was married. | |
| Nocturnal Meeting 42: A fine plum for two amorous bitches like us. | |
![[NZ]](/static/img/flags/nz.png "New Zealand") | N.Z. Truth 22 Feb. 6/1: He had called his mother a bitch and other dirty names. | |
| Kent & Sussex Courier 19 Oct. 16/6: That — little bitch had no business about here asking for trouble. I didn’t touch her. | |
| Diary I (1950) 25: What a bitch that woman is. | |
| (con. 1916) Her Privates We (1986) 33: Those two bitches didn’t pay any attention to us. | |
| (con. 1920s) Young Manhood in Studs Lonigan (1936) 376: He had danced with all kinds of girls and with that little bitch Nellie. | |
| Advertiser (Adelaide) 1 Sept. 114/2: Polly had a name for this woman. ‘She dog.’ ‘Bitch!’. | |
| Wide Boys Never Work (1938) 18: Flashy bitch [...] I bet I showed her! | |
| ‘Afternoon in Trinidad’ in Lehmann Penguin New Writing No. 6 81: Who you callin bitch, enh? | |
| (con. 1944) Naked and Dead 182: The truth is, Robert, my wife is a bitch. | |
| Argus (Melbourne) 12 Mar. 3/7: The woman [...] called her a ‘prostitute,’ ‘bitch,’ ‘guttersnipe,’ and a ‘stinking Gentile’. | |
| Crazy Kill 11: That bitch! She’d better mind her own business. | |
| Manchild in the Promised Land (1969) 118: Johnny was always telling us about bitches. To Johnny every chick was a bitch. Even mothers were bitches. Of course, there were some nice bitches, but they were still bitches. And a man had to be a dog in order to handle a bitch. | |
| Street Players 112: They got that damn bitch on the city council now. | |
| Family Arsenal 161: The bitch, the whore, the nag, the shrew: they lived in the actress, she gave them voice. | |
| Runnin’ Down Some Lines 118: Teenage vernacular is heavily laced with expressions borrowed from the pimp’s vocabulary. Terms like ’ho, bitch. | |
| (con. 1982–6) Cocaine Kids (1990) 87: Most of these sneaker bitches is looking to get skied, not looking for knowledge. | |
| Crosskill [ebook] ‘See if you can convince the bitch’. | |
| ‘Based on a True Story’ 🎵 And you ain’t nothing but the Dopeman’s bitch. | |
| Happy Like Murderers 63: He shook her about and they were both cursing her and calling her bitch. | |
| Westsiders 55: Fuck the bitches. Find one cool one. Kick it with her. | |
| (con. 1973) Johnny Porno 24: John’s mother, the bitch, she’s no piece of cake either. | |
| Thrill City [ebook] The way he freaked out, he’d probably threaten to tell that bitch Talbot. | |
| Mail On Line 27 Jan. 🌐 He claims Kris made the mistake of marrying Kim in the first place. ‘You shouldn’t have tried to wife the b****’. | |
| Glorious Heresies 164: On the behest of that crazy bitch Duane you’re coming to my home. | |
| Stoning 156: ‘I lost interest, never called her again. Frigid bitch’. | |
| Orphan Road 62: ‘I’ll [...] deal with the bitch who stabbed me,’. |
(b) attrib. use of sense 1a.
| Confederacy I i: I must fix my Affairs quickly, or Madame Fortune will be playing some of her Bitch Tricks with me. |
(c) a general derog. term of address to a woman; or female creature.
 | Chester Pl. 181: Whom calleste thou queine skabde biche? [F&H]. | |
| Gammer Gurton’s Needle in (1997) II ii: Come out, thou hungry, needy bitch! | |
| ’Tis Pity She’s a Whore IV iii: I’ll help your old gums, you toad-bellied bitch. | |
| Odyssey xviii 310: Ulysses looking sourly answered, You bitch [F&H]. | |
| London Spy VII 175: Z—ds you B—ches, what would you bilk me? | |
| Lives of Most Noted Highway-men, etc. I 3: You canting B—h, if you dally with me at this rate, you’ll certainly provoke my Spirit. | |
| Street Robberies Considered 11: My Mother told me the first Word I could speak plain was Bitch; which Epithet I gave my Mother, with which she seem’d much pleas’d. | |
| Memoirs of the celebrated Miss Fanny M-. 132: Those b—t—es the muses, who are more errant bunters than any that walk the Strand. | |
| Bloody Register III 95: You bloody murdering bitch you, says I. | |
| Burlesque Homer (3rd edn) 310: Neptune who knew the wheedling witch, / Answers her bluntly, No, you bitch! | |
| Adventures of a Speculist I 214: Do you prate, you brazen-faced b---h? | |
| Burlesque Homer (4th edn) II 104: Much he wonders what bewitches / Your busy pate, you bitch of bitches! | |
| Real Life in London II 149: Go it Kate!—Handle your dawdles, my girl; —shiver her ivory;—darken her skylights;—flatten her sneizer;—foul, foul,—ah you Munster b—ch! | |
| ‘Joe Buggins’ Gentleman’s Spicey Songster 37: Says he, you bitch, you’ve been and diddled me of my put in to night. | |
| Big Bear of Arkansas (1847) 46: That animal after you ain’t a she one, and mine is – I know by its being so infernal artful. Ugh! you bitch! | |
| Yokel’s Preceptor 8: Get out, you little bitch. | |
| Maitland Mercury (Aus.) 16 Nov. 3/5: It was a woman’s vioice that said ‘You — old bitch, you are murderign me‘. | |
| ‘Experiences of a Cunt Philosopher’ in Randiana 13: ‘You silly bitch [...] you might have known I couldn’t stand that long’. | |
| Horsham Times (Vic.) 13 May 4/2: Complainant called her a — cow — bitch and other offensive names whereupon my sister boxed her ears. | |
| Man of Straw 68: ‘All right, you pretty bitch!’ said one of the men, laughing. | |
| Nigger Heaven 260: You won’t say that to me, you dirty bitch! | |
| (con. 1920s) Young Manhood in Studs Lonigan (1936) 457: ‘Come on, bitch!’ said Studs. | |
| Amboy Dukes 100: You little bitch! You stood me up for that bastard! | |
| Tomboy (1952) 112: Listen, bitch, I want you to go out and get that information. | |
| Deep Down In The Jungle 36: Lookahere, bitch, when I say jump you jump. | |
| Howard Street 14: ‘Bitch, gimme my money back,’ he demanded. | |
| (con. 1960s) Whoreson 252: It don’t make me no difference if you tell your black ass mammy, bitch. | |
| Jones Men 178: Looka here bitch [...] don’t come questionin’ me. | |
| Outside In Act II: di: Here. She throws it to kate intending her to miss, but she just catches it. Smart bitch! kate: Cunt! | |
| Macho Sluts 37: She began to call me names – slut, bitch, whore, cunt. | |
| London Fields 36: ‘Bitch,’ said Keith, as he dropped his third dart. | |
| Vinnie Got Blown Away 126: What if she is bitch, least she knows how to treat a geezer. | |
| Guardian Editor 14 Jan. 16: She married the man I loved. Bitch. | |
| Beyond Black 122: We all tried. But you was stuck fast, you silly bitch. | |
| Running the Books 55: Bitch, I’m gonna cut your damn titties off. | |
| Razorblade Tears 35: B‘itch, bring me the goddamn phone’. |
(d) a prostitute [‘Bitch involves many connotations [...] Sometimes it is used insultingly or as a curse, but often it is used casually and without malice [...] Thus used, it simply implies that the woman is the member of a servile class and that this is the natural order of things, for example’ Milner & Milner Black Players (1972)].
| ‘Call to the Guard’ in Dryden Miscellaneous Poems (1716) 104: Some lodging with Bawds (whom the modest call Bitches). | |
| Answer to the Fifteen Comforts of Whoring 3: Then how he’d call me arrant Bitch and Whore, / And Swear some Stallion had been there before. | |
| Authentick Memoirs of Sally Salisbury 66: Gambolini [...] gave her three Fifty-Pound Bank-Notes, adding, that He would Glut the B---h with Money, could he secure her to his Embraces only. | |
| Laugh and Be Fat 114: Farewell damn’d Stygian Juice, that doth bewitch / From the Court-Bawd, down to the Common-Bitch. | |
| Life and Character of Moll King 12: My Blos has nailed me of mine [handkerchief]; but I shall catch her at Maddox’s Gin-Ken [...] and if she has morric’d it, Knocks and Socks, Thumps and Pumps, shall attend the Froe-File Buttocking B---h. | |
| Proceedings Old Bailey 30 May 60/1: He wrote to his wife, and call’d her a d – d bitch of a whore, and that he would never cohabit with her more. | |
| Burlesque Homer (3rd edn) 23: At such a rate he rav’d and tore, / I’m sure you would have ta’en him for / One of St. Giles’s black-mouth’d bitches. | |
| ‘The Lousiad’ Works (1794) I 239: The King long since had bid to kiss his b---h. | |
| Bacchanalian Mag. 66: Says I, ‘Father, I must str—e the bitches’ — / At which how the Codger did stare / ‘Although you keep roaring, / I must go a wh—ing’. | |
| Owl (NY) 25 Sept. n.p.: [He frequents a certain house in Orange Street, occupied by several black and white bitches [...] he must be void of shame and decency. | |
| Cythera’s Hymnal 5: Three bitches sat up in St Mary’s tower / And they trimmed their quims. | |
| ‘Till the Cows Come Home’ 🎵 Oh, talkin’ ’bout a bitch from Baltimore. | |
| Down in the Holler 97: Bitch is taboo where I come from, too, because bitch means a prostitute. | |
| Cross of Lassitude 174: ‘I got five [...] five good bitches.’ ‘A nice stable,’ comments Red. | |
| S.R.O. (1998) 57: ‘And how the hell was he going to give you to me if you weren’t his bitch?’. | |
| On the Stroll 7: He had a pocketful of bills from last week’s three-card monte game: enough to catch a bitch if his luck held out. | |
| Ebonics Primer at www.dolemite.com 🌐 bitch Definition: 1. a prostitute. [...] Example: Jimmy the pimp has thirty bitches. | |
| Boobslang [U. Canterbury D.Phil. thesis] 19/1: bitch 6 a female prison officer [...] bitchkeeper 2 a man going out with a female prison officer. | |
| ‘Int’l Player’s Anthem’ 🎵 I’m a million dollar mack that need a billion dollar bitch. | |
| All the Colours 84: ‘Hey, he looks like a pimp now [...] We’re his bitches’. |
(e) the queen in playing cards or in chess.
| ‘College Words and Phrases’ in DN II:i 23: bitch, n. Queen, at cards. | |
| DSUE (1984) 84/2: from ca. 1840. | |
| Night and the City 268: The thin man threw three queens. ‘Three bitches’, he said. | |
| One to Count Cadence (1987) 188: I dropped the queen of spades on David’s trick. ‘Har har har there Davey-boy. Guess ya caught the old bitch again.’. | |
| Family Arsenal 65: Deal them bitches. | |
| Makes Me Wanna Holler (1995) 153: [of chess] They called the queen [...] ‘the bitch’. | |
| Curvy Lovebox 33: His bitch was guardin’ all de fokkin’ squares. | |
| ADS-L 7 Mar. 🌐 I recall it [i.e. the Queen of spades] as ‘the Bitch’ simpliciter. I’m not sure whether we were more comfortable being sexist than racist, or whether the feeling was that since the Queen of Clubs was equally black but entirely non-bitchy, it wasn’t really the color that was to blame. |
(f) (US black) a girlfriend.
| Tenants (1972) 32: Sundays I ball my sweet bitch. | |
| Carlito’s Way 67: I knew he had a white bitch in the Village. | |
| ‘Personal’ 🎵 Signed his bitch an autograph. | |
| ‘Based on a True Story‘ 🎵 Not quite a bitch, but far from a wife. | |
| Scholar 290: An’ wh’ you talkin’ about, ‘my bitch’? Where d’you think you are man, Harlem? | |
| (con. 1970s) King Suckerman (1998) 13: That Hoss Cartwright-lookin’ bitch of his. | |
| Vatican Bloodbath 52: Then, in the classic gangster tradition, he would take the Queen as his own bitch. | |
| Deuce’s Wild 9: ’Ho. Bitch. Those are the words we use. We know that parents don’t like them. | |
| Guardian G2 3 July 5/1: I was so braggadocious: gold, bitches, all that shit. |
(g) (US campus) the middle seat in a car, i.e. where a woman sits.
| Sl. U. 37: bitch [...] 5. middle seat in the back of a car. |
(h) (N.Z. prison) a female visitor, a prisoner’s wife or girlfriend.
| Boobslang [U. Canterbury D.Phil. thesis] 18/2: bitch n. 1 a female visitor or female partner of an inmate 2 the wife, girlfriend or daughter of a Mongrel Mob member. |
2. an object or person, irrespective of gender.
(a) (UK/W.I.) a general derog. term for a man.
| E.E. Misc. 54: He is a shrewed byche, In fayth, I trow, he be a wyche [F&H]. | |
| Progress of a Rake 50: Had I again my Health and Riches, / How would I maul th’ ungrateful B— . | |
| Tom Jones (1959) 100: D—n un, what a sly b—ch ’tis. Ay, ay, sure as twopence, Tom is the veather of the bastard. | |
| Young Coalman’s Courtship 16: If that be your minister, he’s but a drunken b---h. | |
| Burlesque Homer (4th edn) II 85: That bullying, noisy, scolding bitch, / Call’d Diomede. | |
| Chester Chron. 9 Oct. 4/3: He comes up to me and says, ‘Daffer, you b—h, what brings you here?’ . | |
| Border Beagles (1855) 333: ‘Here, you b—hes,’ he cried aloud—‘here’s stuff enough, and sorts enough, if your stomachs not too swingy proud for an honest liquor.’. | |
| Hillingdon Hall I 44: Old Snarle, as you’ll have heard, has cut his stick Poor old bitch! | |
| Hillyars and Burtons (1870) 429: That b—h of a W.S. Lindsay’s Troubador. | |
| Rockhampton Bull. (Qld) 1 Oct. 3/2: It was but a simple and primitive socioety [...] when men caled each other Addlehead, Baldhead, Barebones, Bitch [...] Chisels, Dolt [...] Fogey [...] Gander [...] Maggot, Mangy, Muff, Muzzy. | |
| Proc. Old Bailey 12 Jan. 336: I [i.e. a male police officer] went to him again and said, ‘Will you go?’ He said, ‘No, you f——g old bitch,’ at the same time striking me violently on the forehead with his fist. | |
| Brain Guy (2005) 84: ‘You bitch,’ cried Bill. ‘Is that why you switched the wheel on me?’. | |
![[WI]](/static/img/flags/wi.png "West Indies") | Lonely Londoners 9: Jackson is a bitch [...] he know that I seeing hell myself. | |
| Plender [ebook] ‘Some of those bitches [i.e. the police] are just dying to bust me’. | |
| (con. 1950s) Harder They Come 129: You know how long da bitch deh owe me money? | |
| ‘More with Less’ Wire ser. 5 ep. 1 [TV script] ‘Why you fuckin’ with Duke?’ ‘He just actin’ like a bitch, that’s all’. | |
| Cherry 17: Madison Kowalski thought I was a bitch. | |
| ‘The San Diego Zoo’ in Broken 128: That was the best part, the monkey making the cop a bitch. |
(b) an otherwise unspecified object, or creature.
| Teagueland Jests I 18: [of horses] Who de pocksh would be so plaug’d wid a couple of deevillish Beetches [...] I wish [...] dat I had mauke one lushty auble Horse for both de Beetchesh. | |
| Australian (Sydney) 19 Oct. 4/2: I had been out for twelve days [...] along the rough coast of Americas too, in a little ‘bitch’ of a sloop. | |
| in Bk of Sports 320: [of a horse] She’s a stumbling bitch: / You should not have her, Dick. | |
| Tom Cringle’s Log (1862) 68: When the old hooker [ship] clipped out of sight, there was not a dry eye in the whole fleet. ‘There she goes, the dear old beauty, [...] There goes the blessed old b---h.’. | |
| ‘Black Jack’ Soldiers Three (1907) 102: ’Twill be Mulvaney’s rifle, she that is at the head av the rack — there’s no mistakin’ that long-shtocked, cross-eyed bitch even in the dark. | |
| Gun for Sale (1973) 14: The kitten came to him [...] ‘You little bitch,’ he said, ‘you little bitch.’. | |
| New Shoe 126: [of a car] ‘Old bitch’s boilin,’ remarked Dick. ‘Yair. Not as good as she was,’ observed Moss. | |
| Fowlers End (2001) 256: ’Emmingway, git some stones. Faulkner, pull the bitch out straight. | |
| Family Arsenal 173: Five pounds on Number Three – to win. [...] Now watch that bitch run. | |
| Rivethead (1992) 108: Your old pinup job is open. I can’t find anyone who wants to cover that bitch. | |
| (con. 1970s) King Suckerman (1998) 239: Park this bitch on the street. | |
| (con. 1986) Sweet Forever 167: [of a car] Turn this bitch over, man. | |
| Westsiders 243: I’m in this bitch. Whoop whoop whoop. I’m maxing. | |
| Hooky Gear 281: Good. Lets get the bitch open. | |
| Skylines Australia 28 June 🌐 It’s a solidly built cylindrical tool that you put your socket into [...] then hit the bitch with a wife pacifier. | |
| Corruption Officer [ebk] cap. 18: Once they come through those doors we decide whether they’re going to live in this bitch [i.e. a prison] or whether they are going to fuck around with one of us and die. | |
| Mother Jones July/Aug. 🌐 If you go’ be at this bitch [i.e. a job], you go’ do 12 hours a day. |
(c) (orig. US) something or someone considered extraordinary or surprising.
| letter lxv 6 June in Journal to Stella (1901) 550: When I read that passage upon Chester walls, as I was coming into town, and just received your letter, I said aloud—Agreeable B-tch. | |
| Really the Blues 13: That boy was really a bitch, even though he was never taught to play music. | |
| (con. 1920s–30s) Youngblood (1956) 406: Well, kiss my Aunty in the country [...] You working for Mr. Ogle too – Ain’t that a bitch. | |
| Baron’s Court All Change (2011) 49: Bashing every drum and cymbal for all he was worth and making a bitch of a noise [ibid.] 124: Someone gave him a bitch of a punch-up. | |
| Chosen Few (1966) 161: Yeah, that Five-First was a bitch of an outfit all right. | |
| San Diego Sailor 9: I had a bitch of a rail on and I couldn’t have got it back in my shorts. | |
| Underground Dict. (1972). | |
| Ladies’ Man (1985) 7: If I had any balls I’d quit, go back to school and get a teaching degree. I’d teach English. Books. Books were bitches. | |
| ‘Bad Brains’ in Flyboy in the Buttermilk (1992) 21: Even though three white acts they did [...] is all knee-deeper into black street ridims than the Brains ever been and ain’t that a bitch? | |
| Rent Boy 73: The bitch of it is, it’s a zillion times more swishy without the fucking condom. | |
| Corner (1998) 56: They’re standing there in the middle of Fayette Street, holding the shit up by the curl of the hangers, displaying it with pride [...] ‘Ain’t this a bitch,’ says Fran. | |
| Indep. Rev. 8 July 4: The OK-ness of referring to God as ‘a bitch’. | |
| Stalker (2001) 112: Her red Beemer convertible [...] It was a sassy, smart bitch. | |
| (con. 1981) East of Acre Lane 146: Some kinda half rat, half bird t’ing wid a bitch of a nose. |
(d) (W.I./UK/US black teen) a person, neither necessarily negative nor aimed solely at women, nor used solely by men.
| Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man 203: Is your lazy bitch of a brother gone out yet? | |
| (con. 1920s) Judgement Day in Studs Lonigan (1936) 561: Lucky old bitch! | |
| Roofs of Paris (1983) 115: She [...] struts across the room, parading back and forth like one of those beauty contest bitches. | |
| Chocolates for Breakfast 42: Hiya, Sondra, you bitch, where have you been? | |
| A House For Mr Biswas 251: You blasted little bitches! Let me catch one of you and see if I don’t cut his foot off. | |
| Schoolmaster (1979) 147: We really have some crazy bitches working on this gang. | |
![[Can]](/static/img/flags/can.png "Canada") | Buttons 89: We voted to split to a strip bar and spent the evening boozing and picking up bitches. | |
| Last Toke 73: Best show some respect fo’ the lady you been layin’ with ever’ Friday. Call that gal Miss black bitch from here on! | |
| Dragon Can’t Dance (1998) 166: ‘They [police] still behind?’ Fisheye asked gleefully [...] ‘No. The bitches gone.’. | |
| ‘Bitches Ain’t Shit’ 🎵 I used to know a bitch named Eric Wright. | |
| Workin’ It 208: You’s an evil black bitch. | |
| Guardian Rev. 25 June 19: Elliot has set herself the task of reclaiming the word ‘bitch’ by turning hip hop’s favourite epithet into a ‘power word’. | |
| Indep. Rev. 6 Nov. 5: Some friendly German students – whom Gilbert affectionately dubbed the ‘Nazi bitches’. | |
| Guardian Guide 1–6 Jan. 18: And the ladies were pure-fire bitches, make no mistake. | |
| Vatican Bloodbath 7: Be cool, bitches! | |
| Observer 19 June 11/3: All bitches ain’t women. Some of these men are bitches too. It’s a figure of speech, it has no meaning connected to it terminology-wise in the rap world. |
(e) (orig. US) an exceptionally skilled person.
| (con. 1920s) Hoods (1953) 62: He was what we called a ‘bitch at the wheel’ [...] the most skillful driver on the East Side. | |
| Tattoo the Wicked Cross (1981) 189: Carmen Carallero is a bitch on the piano, Aaron. | |
| Ladies’ Man (1985) 7: I would have been a bitch of a teacher though. | |
| (con. c.1920) Life in Jazz 44: Youngsters [...] heard praise from other youngsters. ‘Man, I heard Mr. So-and-so tell some musician that you were a bitch on your horn’. | |
| Rope Burns 176: You a bitch, man [...] I’ma try you shit on some fool stick up he chin like me. |
3. a weak or effeminate man; a homosexual.
(a) a derog. term for a weak or subservient man; thus as a term of address.
| Tom Jones (1959) 567: I can tell your landlord is a vast comical bitch, you will like un hugely. | |
| Hist. of the Two Orphans III 186: The apothecary jumped from his old horse Cobler, and gave the bridle to me with these words, ‘Here, you old bitch, take care that this horse does not run away’. | |
| ‘On a Noisy Polemic’ in Poetical Works (1871) 129: O Death, it’s my opinion, / Thou ne’er took such a bleth’ran b-tch, / Into thy dark dominion! | |
| diary n.p.: Today I pronounced a word which should never come out of a lady’s lips it was that I called John an Impudent Bitch. | |
| in Free Mulatto (1987) 143: Sir Ralph J. Woodford’s worthy secretary [...] wrote to Mr. Mathison as follows: ‘Dear M-, have you any record of this damned, nasty, ugly, stinking, blood of a bitch? He arrived in 1817, when Captain Careless of your corps kept our books’. | |
| Border Beagles (1855) 338: Do you think I’d be such a blasted b—h of a fool as to let anybody see me at my business? | |
| Mr Sponge’s Sporting Tour 202: ‘That must be from a woman,’ observed Jack, squinting ardently at the writing [...] ‘Not far wrong,’ replied his lordship. ‘From a bitch of a fellow, at all events’. | |
| Bodies are Dust (2019) [ebook] ‘I got to fix that bitch, Martin Lester’. | |
| ‘Johnny’s Dead’ et al. Songs of the Amer. West (1968) 49: He got an awful itch, / And he seemed a bit downhearted, / The poor old ----. | |
| ‘Death Row’ in et al. Life (1976) 117: He broke down and cried like a scared little bitch. | |
| ‘High Dice’ Gentleman Junkie 87: C’mon, bitch, throw them dice! | |
| Guntz 48: If she could attract these little bitches there was every chance she might have something. | |
| Black Players 134: As he sat forlornly on the curb a Black brother came up. ‘Now ain’t you a bitch — the way you were performing and carrying on.’. | |
| Bonfire of the Vanities 362: Suddenly the bitch comes out in him. | |
| ‘I’m So Bad’ 🎵 [Man] So bitch what’s up with the suckin action? [...] [Woman] (Bitch, you ain’t even my type). | |
| Workin’ It 173: My children’s father used to love it. That bitch would find me some dope. | |
| (con. 1970s) King Suckerman (1998) 66: Fuck you, bitch. | |
| ‘Bitch Ass Niggaz’ 🎵 If you act like a bitch (nigga) nigga you get smacked like a bitch. | |
| Snitch Jacket 27: They picked up pool sticks [...] ‘Come on, bitch!’ one cried. ‘Bring it, bitch!’ cried the other. | |
| Observer Sport 30 Jan. 9/5: I’m the only gay referee in Ceara, I'm sure of it. [...] But there’s never prejudice from players: they don’t abuse me, call me a gay boy or a bitch. | |
| Tales of the Honey Badger [ebook] The physio [...] in no uncertain terms told me to quit being a little bitch. | |
| The Force [ebook] He ain’t going down like a bitch, he’s going out slashing and stabbing. | |
| Widespread Panic 173: I’m Chief Bill Parker’s back-room bitch and punk pawn. |
(b) (UK campus) one who plays host at a tea-party.
| letter in Social Life at Eng. Universities (1874) 128: And rolls he cleverly does spread / Or from brown George toasts slice of bread / For Warren’s always bitch. | |
| Gradus ad Cantabrigiam 21: A young man who prforms with great dexterity the honours of the tea-table, is, if complimented at all! said to be ‘an excellent bitch’. |
(c) (US gay/prison, also bitchy) an effeminate male, supposedly the ‘passive’ partner in a homosexual couple; a male prostitute.
| Proceedings Old Bailey 20 Apr. 6/2: But they look’d a skew upon Mark Partridge , and call’d him a treacherous, blowing-up Mollying Bitch. | |
| Companion Volume 214: Isn’t it strange though how all the queer men in the United States are friends of mine – the bitches all love me. | |
| Miss Knight (1963) 49: In a group of sister bitches she had few thoughts but to see that none of them rose above the proper clan manner in elegance without being ‘raised proper’. [Ibid.] 51: For christ’s sake, yer supposed to be men, not bitches, when yer on the stage at least. Tomorrow night you come out with the real makeups on or we’ll import a new load of fairies to take your place. [Ibid.] 63: You shudda seen some of the drag costumes them bitches wore. | |
| Drag (1997) Act II: This big bitch thinks nobody has anything or looks like anything but her. | |
| Scarlet Pansy 269: The Beaches appeared, dragging their usual gorgeous laces and velvets regally behind them. [Ibid.] 301: La Bull-Mawgan and that damned bitch Elsie Dike, are aboard ship. | |
| Und. Speaks n.p.: Bitchy, a conceited sexual pervert. | |
| (con. 1944) Gallery (1948) 149: That’s one of the few facts that thrills me, old bitch that I am. | |
| Criminal Sl. (rev. edn). | |
| Gaedicker’s Sodom-on-the-Hudson 23: One of New York’s most delightful features is Bitches’ Beach (or, Queen’s Beach). | |
| Homosexual in America 113: A camp is also a bitch. | |
| Let No Man Write My Epitaph (1960) 390: He said to his friend at the bar, ‘Have respect for all the gay bitches!’ They laughed. | |
| Homosexual Society 53: Our special partners got on well together (our ‘bitches’ was the description). [Ibid.] 79: Most of them give it a trial and come back for more although they’ve not had any experience with ‘bitches’ (passive homosexuals). | |
| Pimp 165: If you a bitch, a sissy or something let me know. | |
| Zimmer’s Essay 55: Larry, you little bitch, you little bitch, there’s time to root you four hundred times before the bell’. | |
| Prisoner 41: Leave me alone you bitches [...] Just because I’m queer you think you can do what you like. | |
| Animal Factory 131: Watch it, bitch! . . . You’re a girl an Ah’m gonna put my dick in your ass. | |
| House of Slammers 6: You gon’ let a bitch come ’tween two men? | |
| Makes Me Wanna Holler (1995) 193: A man can use that [i.e. indebtedness] as an excuse to try to make you his bitch. | |
| (con. 1970s) King Suckerman (1998) 90: It looked like the white boy had become Cooper’s bitch. | |
| (con. 1986) Sweet Forever 257: There was this one bitch he had, his very own house mouse. | |
| Rebecca’s Dict. of Queer Sl. 🌐 bitch [...] 2) a gay man or drag queen who is out of favor with the speaker, rude, or especially catty or campy. | |
| Guardian Guide 3–9 July 9: On death row being somebody’s ‘bitch’. | |
| Westsiders 385: A bitch is prison slang for a gay submissive, or, equally shameful to a macho culture, a gay rape victim. | |
| Random Family 285: If you walk away from a confrontation you’ll get treated like a bitch & the next thing you know somebody’s going to be trying to make you their bitch. | |
| Mother Jones July/Aug. 🌐 As Brick is taken off to Cypress, he calls the man a ‘bitch’. A couple of officers look down at the young man disdainfully [...] He is Brick's punk. | |
| Razorblade Tears 178: ‘[F]our brothers tried to jump me and make me their cell-block bitch’. |
(d) in attr. use of sense 3d, pertaining to homosexuality.
| Life 127: Epstein fired Andrew [Loog Oldham] because they got into some bitch argument. |
(e) (US prison) a homosexual.
| Absolute Beginners 124: The classical choir-boy manoeuvre that every self-respecting bitch most cordially disapproves of. | |
| Homosexual Society 53: I always like to live with another bitch but it is difficult because when I bring a nice Homie home, she wants him too. | |
| Ball Four 175: Oyler [...] started mincing around the club-house, lisping, ‘Hello sweetheart,’ or ‘C’mere, you sweet bitch’. | |
| Powder 397: The coppers give chase and rugby-tackle the squealing bitch. |
(f) (gay) a fellow homosexual, usu. a friend.
| Homosexual Society 53: This relationship between two ‘lovers’ is quite different, however, from the relationship between two similarly sex-orientated homosexuals who are not interested in each other (i.e. two ‘homies’ or two ‘bitches’). | |
| Earthly Powers 20: Knowing, of course [...] that the old bitch hadn’t much longer to go and one might as well, my dear, see the whole bloody business through. |
(g) (gay) a submissive lesbian.
| After The Ball 103: A lesbian is beaten in the face, knocked to the ground and kicked repeatedly while attackers scream ‘dyke’ and ‘bitch’. | |
| Rebecca’s Dict. of Queer Sl. 🌐 bitch --1) a femme submissive. |
(h) a subservient person, a servant.
| Rivethead (1992) 39: This crunchin’ dinosaur was my bitch. | |
| Online Sl. Dict. 🌐 bitch n [...] 3. a servant. (‘I’m not your bitch!’). | |
| Rope Burns 150: Shawrelle think Hymn be his bitch, and next trick Shawrelle try to pull to tell Hymn to carry his gym bag down to the street. | |
| Boobslang [U. Canterbury D.Phil. thesis] 19/1: bitch 3 (also little bitch) an inmate enlisted as a servant or ‘runner’ or another inmate. | |
| Night Gardener 41: ‘Please,’ said Charles. ‘Beggin ass bitch.’. | |
| Busted 86: [female speaker] I’m your bitch,’ I once told a reserved editor [...] He didn’t know how to take my comment, which was just my quirky and profane way of telling him, ‘Look, I’ll do whatever you need’. |
(i) (N.Z. prison) a notably gullible individual.
| Boobslang [U. Canterbury D.Phil. thesis] 19/1: bitch 4 a person who is easily conned. |
(j) the victim of male-on-male gang rape.
| Blood Miracles : ‘I’m going to run a fucking train on you. You’ll only die after playing bitch to half the city’. |
4. a problem, a complaint.
(a) anything unpleasant, difficult, problematic, ‘the devil’, e.g. that’s the bitch of it; ain’t this (about) a bitch.
| Hist. of the Two Orphans III 103: Gentlemen, continued he, you find that I am constrained by that bitch necessity, to do what nothing but a fondness for liberty could make me think of, I mean the desertion of my friends. [Ibid.] IV 154: Well! well! continued Copper, to be sure that meagre bitch poverty has now striken us home. | |
| Life of Richard Nash in Coll. Works (1966) III 357: That damned bitch fortune, no later than last night, tricked me out of 500. | |
| Epistle to J. Lapraik (2) in Works (1842) 33/2: My worthy friend, ne’er grudge an’ carp [...] Ne’er mind how fortune waft an’ warp; She’s but a b-tch. | |
| ‘Tam Gibb & the Sow’ Laughing Songster 147: Odd, she was the most positive b---h o’ a sow that ever was born. | |
| ‘The Young British Soldier’ Barrack-Room Ballads (1893) 188: When ’arf of your bullets fly wide in the ditch / Don’t call your Martini a cross-eyed old bitch. | |
| ‘Kansas University Sl.’ in AS III:3 218: Jensen certainly gave us a bitch of an exam. | |
| (con. 1900s–10s) 42nd Parallel in USA (1966) 25: Middletown’s a terrible bitch of a dump if you ask me. | |
| Bound for Glory (1969) 262: Tucson’s a bitch, boys. | |
| Waiting for Godot Act I: That’s how it is on this bitch of an earth. | |
| ‘Suzie Q’ in Lover Man 67: Life is a bitch, ain’t it? | |
| Howard Street 63: Yeah — we a bad influence on you! Boy, ain’t that a bitch? | |
| Airtight Willie and Me 47: The struggle must have been a bitch of a drain. | |
| Muscle for the Wing 25: Yeah, life’s a bitch. | |
| Skull Session 432: Just a moment of understanding, an ain’t life a bitch smile. | |
| Thanksgiving 39: Setting it up was bitch central. | |
| Turning Angel 108: That’s no mystery, bubba. It’s proving it that’s the bitch. | |
| Running the Books 63: He’d slam the book shut, shake his head, and say something like, ‘Ain’t that a bitch’. | |
| Finders Keepers (2016) 230: He’s owed a payback, and payback’s a bitch. | |
| Sellout (2016) 17: That’s the bitch of it, to be on trial for my life, and for the first time ever not feel guilty. | |
| Crongton Knights 30: I was in one bitch of a mess. | |
| ‘Sunset’ in Broken 202: ‘It’s a bitch, isn’t it?’. |
(b) one, irrespective of gender, who complains or makes (what are perceived as) unfairly negative comments.
| Pikes Peek or Bust 95: Miss Constance Bennett was feuding with a lady Hollywood columnist [...] Miss B. said, ‘You’re awfully pretty to be such a b——’ ‘I’m not the biggest b—— in Hollywood,’ the columnist said. ‘No, but you run me a close second,’ Miss B. answered . | |
| Diaries 3 Oct. 56: Dale says I am out of key in production, and that all I need is cap and bells. Bitch! | |
| Online Sl. Dict. 🌐 bitch n [...] 2. a person who complains frequently. (‘Stop being a bitch.’). | |
| Cherry Pie [ebook] ‘You are such a bitch,’ I said, impressed. ‘You love it.’ He took another big swig. |
(c) (orig. US) a complaint.
| One Lonely Night 78: What’s your bitch, Marty! | |
| Essential Lenny Bruce 55: They have this bitch with the Communists. | |
| Semi-Tough 150: Seems like Barb ought to get the privilege of one bitch in a lifetime. | |
| Misery (1988) 271: I only bitched about it once [...] one bitch. | |
| Pugilist at Rest 131: J.Z. was a tit man and [...] his big bitch was the fact that my mother breast-fed me, causing hers to soften up. | |
| 8 Ball Chicks (1998) 69: Their primary bitch is their love life. | |
| ‘I Start Overin Knockemstiff 165: Her latest bitch has been over this old car I’m driving. |
5. (N.Z./US prison, often as big bitch, black bitch, the bitch, a conviction under any crime that carries a mandatory life sentence; or a sentence so long that it is an equivalent; in N.Z. prison, also PD) preventive detention.
| (con. 1950-1960) Dict. Inmate Sl. (Walla Walla, WA) 10: Bitch – a life sentence as a habitual criminal. | |
| On the Yard (2002) 39: ‘The big bitch?’ ‘Forty to life and that’s as hard as they come’. [Ibid.] 239: The judge [...] hit him with the bitch to run consecutive with his term for robbery. | |
| ‘Catheads [...] and Cho-Cho Sticks’ in Abernethy Bounty of Texas (1990) 198: big bitch, n. – a life sentence. [Ibid.] bitch, n. – life as an habitual criminal. | |
| Prison Sl. 20: Habitual Criminal Sentence Allows the state to impose an extra sentence to criminals with three or more unrelated felony convictions (Archaic: The Bitch). | |
| Other Side of the Wall: Prisoner’s Dict. July 🌐 Big Bitch: Convicted under the habitual criminal act which carries a mandatory life sentence. | |
| Boobslang [U. Canterbury D.Phil. thesis] 16/2: big bitch, the n. Preventive Detention (cf. PD) [...] .19/1: bitch, the n. a life sentence [...] black bitch n. 1 Preventive Detention. [Preventive Detention is an indefinite sentence; as one inmate explains: ‘There's no light at the end of the tunnel’. | |
| ‘Heaven’ 🎵 I wonder if they got a heaven for the convicts / Niggaz doin life, I saw old men in that bitch. |
6. (US gang) as infix.
| Warriors (1966) 98: The trailer told her to shut up because she was going to get him wasted if she didn’t shut her big bitch mouth. |
7. a large amount of money.
| Spidertown (1994) 6: On the trunk. In pretty script. Cost me a bitch, man. [...] It say. ‘My Baby does the hanky-panky.’. |
8. (US black) a thing.
| (con. 1916) Tin Lizzie Troop (1978) 174: Send down a truckload of mechanics – they’ll put on a new skin, the old bitch’ll fly again. | |
| Workin’ It 215: I didn’t know I was pregnant, and the bitch fell out in the toilet. Like a clog of meat. | |
| Pain Killers 83: [of a prison] Ain’t no secrets up in this bitch. | |
| Didn’t Nobody Give a Shit 52: [of a front door] You don’t leave no door open in Fort Greene! [...] You gotta dead-bolt that bitch! [...] 58: [of a prison] They got theyself a cunt sense of humor up in that bitch. |
In derivatives
1. of a woman, behaviour categorised as unacceptable, usu. in the context of sex.
| Caveat (1871) 85: Many of these hath had, and have children: when these get ought, either with begging, bitchery, or bribery as money or apparel, they are quickly shaken out of all by the upright men. | |
| Description of Ireland in Holinshed Chron. England, etc 14: The quip sat as unseemly in his mouth as for a whore to reprehend bitchery, or for an usurer to condemn simony. | |
| Scourge of Villainy in Works (1856) III 264: To-morrow doth Luxurio promise me / He will unline himselfe from bitchery. | |
| London Jilt pt 2 38: I ought to have considered on your Bitchery before I married you. | |
| London Mag. 38 34/2: [He] made her his harlot; and in double despite of marriage and religion, both lived with her openly, and Iyeth with her nightly, in shameful incest, and abominable bitchery. | |
| South Street 38: [A] long chat [...] about the world in general, the perfidy of men, the bitchery of women and the over-all lousiness of the universe. | |
| Anderson Tapes 24: The pale, white little mouse made of wire and steel. The essence of bitchery. |
2. (US gay) a bar frequented by homosexuals.
| Miss Knight (1963) 50: Miss Knight was holding forth when an American brother in sisterhood came into the Berlin bitchery. |
1. of a woman, a state of extreme unpleasantness; used by men to denote (unacceptable) independence .
| Monitor (McAllen, TX) 8 July 6E/4: The dialogue [is] cluttered with insults about independent professional women who come from ‘Bitchville’. | |
| Think Like a Guy 135: Don’t forget that in the process of making him feel like a jerk you’re going to come off like the Mayor of Bitchville. | |
| Anya & the Shy Guy [ebook] LJ and the bitch from bitchville just fired Natasha. |
2. (US) a notional state of cowardice.
| Everybody Smokes in Hell 25: Forget all the tough-guy, big-man talk he’d been slinging. Buddy was on the non-stop to Bitchville. All he was missing was a pretty dress. |
In compounds
see separate entry.
1. (US) a ‘bath’ in which the usual water is replaced by an application of cosmetics, masking the dirt rather than removing it.
| ‘Miscellany’ in AS XXVIII:2 145: A bitch bath requires talcum powder, deodorant, and perfume. |
2. (US) a cursory wash or ‘bath’ in a minimal amount of water (var. on whore splash under whore n.
| Eyes of Orion 247: I took a bitch bath, while two Iraqi artillery pieces burned about four hundred meters away. | |
| Long Time until Now [ebook] A bitch bath with an ammo can of hot water wasn't the same as a shower, but it was a fuck of a lot better than splashing in the stream. |
a rough, unsophisticated country woman (‘military term’, Grose).
| , , | | Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue. |
| Lex. Balatronicum. | |
| Grose’s Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue. |
1. a general term of abuse, underpinned by suggestions of effeminacy.
| College Sl. Research Project (Cal. State Poly. Uni., Pomona) 🌐 Bitch boy 1. (noun) Jackass; asshole. 2. (vocative) Name used for a best friend. | |
| My Infamous Life [ebook] I didn't call him a bitch boy to make him happy, I did it to provoke him to start dissin’ me. | |
| Finders Keepers (2016) 110: You ain’t gonna have no more trouble with that skinny bitchboy. |
2. used as a term of affectionate address between friends.
| see sense 1. |
(US black) vaginal secretions.
| JiveOn.com 🌐 JiveOn.com Brought To Yo Ass By Green Shit From Lubricunt Intimate Moisturizer With Bitch Butter. | |
| on MessedUp.net 🌐 Puss Juice: Bitch Butter, clam jam, crotch oil, fanny batter, flap snot, French Dip, goose grease, crotch gravy, love juice. |
1. (US gay) an argument between two homosexual men.
| Lavender Lex. n.p.: bitch fight:-Verbal disagreement and complaining on the part of effeminate homosexuals. |
2. a fight between two girls or women.
| Rubdown [ebook] I’d seen bitchfights at my country high school. Girls [...] brawling over some guy. | |
| Apples (2023) 43: I was sometimes up for a bitch-fight. | |
| Unatural Journeys 19: ‘I can see a bitch fight developing here,’ said Pablo. ‘That's always good value’. | |
| Middle of Nowhere 215: Everyone loves a bitch fight, right? |
see separate entry.
the penis.
| Get Your Cock Out 124: Horsecock Satan looked after his ferocious bitch hammer like a boxer looks after his fists. |
(US) grateful.
| Plainclothes Naked (2002) 207: Tony copped from L’il Pepe all the time, so he naturally figured the slinger would be bitch-happy one of his best customers had some stuff for him. |
see separate entries.
(W.I./UK black) a hard blow.
| Official Dancehall Dict. 31: [...] a bitch lick/a devasting blow. | |
| Deadmeat 153: Ah jus spin roun an gi im ah bitch kick. | |
| (con. 1981) East of Acre Lane 54: If me se ’im me gwarn gi’ ’im two bitch lick. | |
| Born to Tell 17: It was always a bitch lick from them, a slap or a blow. |
see under -magnet sfx
1. (orig. US campus) a tea party.
| Gradus ad Cantabrigiam 20: bitch. To bitch—A bitching party, (de tea narratur). | |
| ‘Characters of Freshmen’ in In Cap and Gown (1889) 176: He goeth to a small bitch-party. | |
| Dict. of Modern Sl. etc. (2nd edn) 96: BITCH, tea; ‘a bitch party,’ a tea-drinking. — University. | |
| Sl. Dict. | |
| Dict. of Sl., Jargon and Cant. | |
| Sl. and Its Analogues. |
2. a party composed solely of women guests.
| True Drunkard’s Delight 246: Weak tipple, swish-swash, fit only for drinking at a cat-, hen-, or bitch-party. |
see separate entry.
(US gay) a gay or bisexual man’s heterosexual wife.
| Queens’ Vernacular. |
(US gay) Halloween.
| Lavender Lex. n.p.: bitch’s christmas:-Halloween. This is the National Holiday of the Gay Set where they may dress as they please, either as The Sun King or Marlene Dieterich, George Washington or Judy Garland. This is the night that most of the drag balls are given. | |
| Queens’ Vernacular. |
see separate entries.
(US) a tell-tale, garrulous female.
| Tomboy (1952) 162: I know who told you. That bitch-squeak Tomboy! |
see sonofabitch n.
champagne.
| DSUE (1984) 85/1: from ca. 1850. |
(US) a bodybuilder’s over-developed pectoral muscles.
| Out Sept. 158/1: Among weight lifters and athletes, the most common cause of so-called bitch tits is anabolic-androgenic steroid use. | |
| et al. Adonis Complex [ebook] ‘A couple of cases of bitch tits, but not much else.’ [...] Of the hundreds of steroid users we've interviewed, most have never been conscious of a serious medical problem. | |
| Pound for Pound 301: Or have body builder bitch tits and strut, half whacked, with steroid-fueled rage. | |
| Breast Envy 324: We did the comparisons between men who had ‘pecs’ and men who had ‘bitch tits’, boobies that if filled with milk could nurse a pediatric ward! |
(US) a very large amount.
| Price You Pay 131: Some fucking awful piece of performance art that killed three thousand people and kicked off a bitch-ton of war and mortality. |
see separate entry.
(US) cologne.
| Gay Year 189: He looked over the colognes in the medicine cabinet [...] ‘Bitch water!’ [HDAS]. |
(US drugs) adulterated, contaminated, inferior or otherwise ‘bad’ marijuana.
| The Stoner Dict. 🌐 Bitchweed [US]- Adulterated, contaminated, rotten, or otherwise ‘bad’ weed. |
(W.I.) a large, round boiled dumpling.
| cited in Dict. Jam. Eng. (1980). |
mindless drudgery.
| Legion of the Lost 124: Woodman complained of the ‘bitch work’ he was assigned [...] forced to break granite with a sledgehammer to construct a base for the flagpole. |
1. see sense 5
2. see Black Maria n. (1)
(US black) a woman who lives off state- or city-provided welfare but often has another job, e.g. sex work, drug dealing.
| S.R.O. (1998) 244: Johnnie-Lee was a Welfare bitch if ever there was one. |
In phrases
a general phr. of intensification.
| Golden Spike 72: That’s the way I want to die [...] stoned as a bitch! | |
| (con. 1960s) Wanderers 223: The room was hot as a bitch. | |
| Skull Session 315: Cold as a bitch in here. | |
| Alphaville (2011) 125: Damn, it’s cold as a bitch. |
(US) often but not invariably of a woman, an extreme example, someone or something infinitely superior.
| Designs in Scarlet 326: Even the most ‘respectable’ of bawdyhouse madams can be a first-class bitch-on-wheels as long as she has police protection. | |
| Really the Blues 157: Bix, who was a bitch-on-wheels to Tesch and all kinds of a virtuoso. | |
| Seeking 119: ‘Man, de-pox is a bitch on wheels. I mean, it’s bad’. | |
| Your Daughter Iris 126: I know a bitch on wheels when I see one, and in Miss Kitty Priam I see one. | |
| (con. WWII) And Then We Heard The Thunder (1964) 247: Man, I’m telling you, these people a bitch on wheels. | |
| Down These Mean Streets (1970) 126: You think these paddies up here are a bitch on wheels. Ha! They ain't shit alongside Mr. Charlie down thar. | |
| New Year’s Eve 393: Bitch on wheels, Sam's friends called her, which couldn t have made her happier. | |
| (ed.) 100 Great Fantasy Short Short Stories 196: ‘Seventeen years old and washed up. I still can’t believe it. It’s a bitch, that’s what; a bull bitch on wheels’. | |
| Heart of a Woman 12: ‘Yeah, life’s a bitch, a bitch on wheels’. | |
| Why Men Love Bitches xiii: The bitch I’m talking about is not the ‘bitch on wheels’ or the mean-spirited character that Joan Collins played on Dynasty. | |
| Intern’s Hbk 128: ‘Problem is, getting in the door is a bitch on wheels’. |
1. (US campus) to make an illegal U-turn.
| CB Slanguage 40: Flip a Dick: turn around. | |
| Sl. U. 81: Mark [...] flipped a bitch in the middle of the street instead of waiting until the next intersection. | |
| Online Sl. Dict. 🌐 flip a bitch v 1. to perform a u-turn. (‘Flip a bitch at the intersection up ahead.’). | |
| Blood, Sweat & Fear [ebook] All of a sudden, the suspect tells me to ‘flip a bitch’. Now I have never heard that terminology so I am looking for someone to flip off. I keep driving straight and again he said ‘flip a bitch’. I asked him what he meant by that and he said make a ‘U-turn’. |
2. (US) to lose emotional control.
| Rule-breaker 130: ‘He‘d absolutely flip a bitch if he knew someone was blaming you for this’. |
(US campus) to yell at someone, to criticize, to nag.
| Online Sl. Dict. 🌐 get the bitch on v 1. to become angry at and yell (bitch) at someone. (‘I was sitting there in class, and Mrs. Ashe got the bitch on me because I didn’t turn in my homework’.). | |
| ‘Dead Soldiers’ Wire ser. 3 ep. 3 [TV script] Go down to twenty [degrees], niggers get they bitch on, get they blood complainin’. |
(US Und.) of a man, to act in a cowardly or effeminate manner (cit. 2006 refers to a woman police officer).
| Death Ship 179: These, surely, were words to pep me up when I was so near to go bitch and ditch. | |
| Love Is a Racket 192: He even goes bitch and sheds a few tears. | |
| What Fire Cannot Burn 81: She wasn’t going bitch, but Eddi couldn’t put enough cover between herself and this freak. |
(US campus) to be angry, to act aggressively.
| Campus Sl. Apr. 3: go bitchcakes – act aggressively angry: Everyone is going bitchcakes today. | |
| Between These Walls [ebook] Don't make me go bitchcakes on you, Carlisle. |
of a man, to have sexual intercourse, esp. with a prostitute.
| Sl. and Its Analogues. |
(W.I.) a man who hangs around the kitchen instead of going out and doing ‘man’s things’.
| Dict. Carib. Eng. Usage. |
a general intensifier.
| ‘Johnny Slice’s Stoolie’ in Deadly Streets (1983) 85: Fish was right in front, running like a bitch. | |
| Late Emancipation of Jerry Stover (1982) 51: The Termites are all small boys, rassed up by the Island and floundering like a bitch. | |
| Double Whammy (1990) 40: Raining like a bitch. | |
| Native Tongue 43: Hurts like a bitch. | |
| Money-Whipped Steer-Job 104: It rained like a bitch the day before the Players Championship. | |
| Dante’s Choice [ebook] Scalp wounds tend to bleed like a bitch, thus making themselves look very much more lifethreatening than they often are. |
(US prison) an exceptionally long prison sentence.
| (con. 1950-1960) Dict. Inmate Sl. (Walla Walla, WA) 11: Bitch, little – a long prison sentence that is invoked by reason of prior convictions. | |
| ‘Catheads [...] and Cho-Cho Sticks’ in Abernethy Bounty of Texas (1990) 209: little bitch, n. – a sentence that is very stiff due to repeated offenses; also a twelve-year sentence. | |
| Law & Disorder 179: Convicts used to call the maximum sentence [...] ‘the Little Bitch’. | |
| Other Side of the Wall: Prisoner’s Dict. July 🌐 Little Bitch: A sentence of fifty or more years. |
to bungle, to blunder, to ruin.
| posting at www.soccergaming.tv 10 Jan. 🌐 Does anybody know which files I have to back for the minikits. As I have have made a bitch of it and need to install the original ones. | |
| This Is a Picture and Not the World 184: Conservative politics [...] made a bitch of conservative morality. |
(US black) the most reliable and experienced of a pimp’s stable of prostitutes.
| Pimp 210: He’s gotta know what bitch in the family could be the bottom bitch when mama bitch goes sour. |
(US black) general insult aimed at a woman; spec. a prostitute who will not work or who will not hand over the money earned to her pimp.
| Black Players 41: A nothin’ ass bitch is a woman who will not make any money or, if she does, will not give it to a pimp. | |
| Ghetto Superstar 239: The possibility of losing everything for a nothing-ass bitch brought her back to reality. | |
| Da’ Life 54: ‘Peep game, you nothing ass bitch. Dis here is my new woman. Shawn, meet Rachael. Rachael, meet my trifling ass baby momma’. |
1. (US black) to complain, to fight, to cause a disturbance.
| Get Your Ass in the Water (1974) 138: I was standin’ on the corner of Forty-seventh and South Park / where the pimps and the whores and also sissies pitch a bitch in the dark. | |
| Late Emancipation of Jerry Stover (1982) 27: They were looking to Jerry for the first move, for the signal, as Paula said, to pitch a bitch in the late afternoon. | |
| ‘Dandy’ in King Black Short Story Anthol. (1972) 80: Sho nuf, hope ma gonna die but Harvey like ta pitched a bitch when he saw me traipsen my pretty black self down there on the mill floor amongst all them white gals. | |
| in Ebony July 122: Black parents should go to school and pitch a bitch, just for their child, just scream and yell. | |
| Burglar in the Closet 61: She got all the pretties, and I couldn't even pitch a bitch in court or the IRS might stand up and start wondering where the cash for those pretties came from in the first place. | |
| www.3blackchicks.com 25 Sept. 🌐 Riddle me this...why did he wait till the SECOND WEEKEND to pitch a bitch??? Hmmmm...Jesse ain’t nothin’ but a bullshit artist. |
2. to reject, to leave.
| Crackhouse 135: So I got angry and pitched the bitch. |
(US black) to correct someone by the use of excessive force.
| Ebonics Primer at www.dolemite.com pull someones bitch card Definition: to teach someone a lesson they won’t ever forget, to correct someone by using excessive force. Example: Dat fool stole your cousin so I’m about to pull his bitch card. | |
| posting at Street Source Mag. 26 June 🌐 Oh and uh Keith careful who call a pussy, I’ll pull your bitch card faster than you can say ‘Dont hit again Danellie’. | |
| at MySpace.com 🌐 I don’t talk to talk and if you fake I will pull your bitch card in front of whoever cause I’m real like that. |
to file charges against a criminal as a habitual offender.
| Thief’s Primer 59: put the bitch on: file charges against a criminal as a habitual criminal. |
(US black/teen) to ride in the middle of the back seat or pillion on a motorbike, i.e. the supposed ‘woman’s seat’.
| Urban Black Argot 144: Ride Pussy / Punk / the Bitch’s Seat to ride in the front of the car between two other males. | |
| Runnin’ Down Some Lines 162: To ride [...] the bitch’s seat defines a manipulative ploy whereby a young man finds himself [...] forced to ride in a car ‘on the hump,’ where the woman is supposed to ride. | |
| Sl. U. 159: ride bitch/sit bitch to ride in the middle of the backseat of a car. | |
| Online Sl. Dict. 🌐 bitch n [...] 4. the pillion (passenger seat) of a motorcycle. Also, a term of derision among bikers when one must ‘ride bitch’ with another due to breakdown, unavailability of one’s own bike, etc. Origin: according to common practice, men usually drive motorcycles and women sit behind the men. (‘Babycakes rode bitch with Bugs all the way to L.A.’) [...] 5. the middle seat in the front or back of a vehicle. (‘You’ve got to sit bitch.’). | |
| Pain Killers 78: ‘Get in,’ Rincin [...] patted the passenger seat. ‘You’re riding bitch’. | |
| Dead Man’s Trousers 3: Sitting bitch in economy, crammed iin between a fat cunt and a jumpy pissheid. |
(US black) of a man, to hit a woman hard enough to leave the imprint of his rings in her flesh.
| Ebonics Primer at www.dolemite.com 🌐 stamp a bitch Definition: when a pimp punches a bitch and leaves an imprint of his rings on her forehead Example: That bitch Andrea tried to hold out on the cash, so I stamped that bitches ass. |
to preside as hostess at a tea party; a task that involves preparing the tea.
| , , | | Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue n.p.: To stand bitch; to make tea, or do the honours of the tea- table, performing a female part: bitch there standing for woman, species for genius. |
| Lex. Balatronicum. | |
| Real Life in Ireland 166: At breakfast the doctor insisted upon Sally standing bitch in his place, and making tea, to which she agreed and did the honours of the table handsomely. | |
| Passing Eng. of the Victorian Era 31/1: Bitch the pot (University, down to 1850) Amongst a tea-drinking party of men it was asked, ‘Who’ll bitch the pot?’ — meaning who will pour out the tea. |
In exclamations
(US campus) an excl. used when choosing seats in a car, ‘I won’t ride in the middle of the back seat.’.
| Sl. U. |