Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. a derog. name for an Italian.

1918		H. Simon ‘Prison Dict.’ in AS VIII:3 (1933) 31/2: SPIC. [...] [From spaghetti, applied to Italians and, loosely, to other Latins and Latin Americans.].
1983		(ref. to 1915) Maledicta VII 23: Italians were called spig until 1915, after which […] it variegated to spic or spick and was applied to a variety of other groups, mostly Latin Americans, especially Mexicans.
2005		M.B. ‘Chopper’ Read Chopper 4 180: Abos, spooks, coons, slopes, chows, dagos, spags, spics, greasers and wogs – and whatever other third world gin jockey or porch monkey that came along.

2. any Spanish language.

1913		H.A. Franck Zone Policeman 88 🌐 Next he grasped a telephone and, in the words of the deskman, ‘spit Spig into the ’phone’ for several minutes.
1946		Mezzrow & Wolfe Really the Blues 165: Jabbering away in spic and smoking up all the profits.
1947		F. Brown Fabulous Clipjoint (1949) 81: We jabbered spik even to each other.

3. (also spig) a derog. term for a Spanish-speaker usu. Latin American, i.e. Puerto Rican, a Mexican, a Cuban, occas. a Spaniard; thus Spicsville, the Puerto Rican etc. area of a town.

1914		Day Book (Chicago) 26 May 13/2: All Cubans, Filipinos and Mexicans are ‘spiks’.
1918		A.N. Depew Gunner Depew 310: Then I took passage for the States on the C. Lopez y Lopez, a Spanish merchantman. We had mostly ‘Spigs’ on board, which is navy slang for Spaniards .
1919		in A. Cornebise Amaroc News (1981) 18 Sept. 107: The boys down along the Mexican Border who are [...] keeping an eagle eye on the treacherous ‘spick’.
1930		(con. 1910s) L. Nason A Corporal Once 13: A spik fought with his wife.
1934		F.S. Fitzgerald Tender is Night (1953 rev. edn) 275: ‘He’s a spic!’ he said. He was frantic with jealousy.
1937		E. Anderson Thieves Like Us (1999) 42: You look kind of like a Spick anyway.
1939		J. Weidman What’s In It For Me? 140: What is he, a spic or a wop or something?
1947		I. Shulman Amboy Dukes 87: The times he cut a spick or a nigger [...] he really felt swell.
1947		B. Schulberg Harder They Fall (1971) 101: That’s puttin’ the little spic in his place.
1950		‘Hal Ellson’ Tomboy (1952) 26: The spiks are just as bad [...] They’re getting in everywhere.
1953		W. Fisher Waiters 245: You—you dirty filthy spick!
1958		Murtagh & Harris Cast the First Stone 121: Chinatown is Cuban-dominated [...] Louie De Lord, an old-time [black] pimp [...] says, ‘Hell, I’d have my girls beating Chinatown in a minute if I was in a mood to tangle with them spicks.’.
1959		W. Brown Teen-Age Mafia 41: This was Mex Town, Spicsville, a lousy slum where [...] you could eat Mexican food and pick yourself up a hot little number for the night.
1962		F. Norman Guntz 147: The Spiks were queuing up to get their passports stamped.
1967		(con. 1920s) J. Thompson South of Heaven (1994) 220: Little Mexico job we pulled. Them spics.
1970		E. Tidyman Shaft 105: They were throwing a scrap to the Spics.
1975		J. Wambaugh Choirboys (1976) 44: One nigger plus one spick equals a Mexi-coon!
1989		C. Hiaasen Skin Tight 139: Freddie couldn’t understand: Why the spooks and spics even showed up for a band like this.
1998		K. Sampson Awaydays 9: We always call them The Spics, because they look a tad Latino.
1999		E. Bunker Mr Blue 4: Dad disliked niggers, spics, wops.
2004		C. Hiaasen Skinny Dip 189: The nigras and spics used to pick tomatoes for me had more common sense.
2010		(con. 1973) C. Stella Johnny Porno 208: A Hispanic illegal was putting out street loans [...] The wiseguy had acted indifferently to the information [....] ‘What’s that got to do with me, some spic is oputting out money?’.
2017		S.M. Jones August Snow [ebook] ‘Just like your old man. Full of pity for an old spic’.
2023		Rayman & Blau Riker’s 59: We [i.e. Hispanic gang members] went from being ‘spics’ to being Germans because a lot of us were hanging out with whites.

4. (US campus) a course in Spanish.

1975

G. Underwood ‘Razorback Sl.’ in AS L:1/2 67: I’ve had two years of Spic.

5. (also spicaroo) a Spaniard or Spanish-American.

1961		T.I. Rubin In the Life 113: She [...] can’t stand these here black girls and the Spanish Spicks.
1991		Cooper & Wright New Jack City [film script] Nino and his Cash Money monkeys... ...are dealing with those spicaroos up on Broadway and 171 st. [...] Pervian dogs.