built, adj. — Green’s Dictionary of Slang

built adj.

1. (US, also built up from the ground) of a woman, attractive and with a noticeably good figure.

1928		T. Alexander ‘Don’t You Wish Your Baby Was Built Up Like Mine?’ 🎵 Don’t you wish your woman built up just like mine? / She look chunky and squatty, built up from the ground.
1929		Blind Lemon Jefferson ‘Bootin’ Me ’Bout’ 🎵 I’ve got a brownskin mama, she’s built right to the ground.
c.1930		in P. Smith Letter from My Father (1978) 239: Most of the women and girls were well built.
1941		N. Davis ‘Don’t Give Your Right Name’ in Goulart (1967) 20: She’s sort of dark and built in a big way.
1949		L. Hughes Tambourines to Glory I iii: Baby, you’re built – no false brassieres.
1950		L. Fulson ‘Miss Lillie Brown’ 🎵 She’s long and tall / She’s built up from the ground.
1954		Mad mag. July 12: The subtle beauty of a delicate elbow ... of a shell-like ear ... and mainly ... watta bilt! [sic].
1955		‘Ed Lacy’ Best that Ever Did It (1957) 14: She was solidly built, the kind of strong figure the street-corner whistlers call ‘Built up from the ground.’.
1957		Mad mag. Jul.–Aug. 38: That nice-looking girl, eh? She built like bamboo house!
1963		M. Braly Shake Him Till He Rattles (1964) 144: Why should I sweat the broad? She’s built and her face is good, but she’s a lemon.
1972		C. Bukowski Erections, Ejaculations etc. 398: High heels, long nylon stockings, the mini way up around her butt, and she was built.
1980		J.L. Gwaltney Drylongso 161: You would still want to get into a built woman and you wouldn’t care what color she was.
1997		L. Pettiway Workin’ It 53: You know, built, and she had big knobs and shit.
2021		J. Ellroy Widespread Panic 12: A jug-eared cat was hassling a boss blonde. She was built.

2. of a man (or woman), well muscled; if a man, poss. referring spec. to his genitals.

c.1900		‘Ramrod’ Nocturnal Meeting 26: How are you built down below? She felt for my balls.
1966		D. Niland Pairs and Loners 91: Big Stafford [...] was built like a bush lavatory.
1967–8		Baker et al. CUSS 90: Built An athletic person.
1970		San Diego Sailor 9: He was built like a horse and I’d wondered what it would be like when it got hard.
1985		Eble Campus Sl. Apr.
1991		W.T. Vollmann Whores for Gloria 91: I picked up this real nice, clean-cut man, but he was built, really built good.
2003		Eble Campus Sl. Nov.
2004		Mail & Guardian (Johannesburg) 9 Dec. 🌐 That’s good as it shows off how built you are.
2015		T. Pluck ‘Big Snip’ in Life During Wartime (2018) 25: He was tall, but not built.
2020		G. Krauze What They Was 29: That kind of fatness where you could tell he used to be mad built.

In phrases

built for comfort (adj.)

of a man, overweight, fat; of a woman, agreeably plump.

1960		‘Lord & Marshall’ So Willing 41: He’d also heard it said that a thin woman is built for speed and a fat woman is built for comfort.
1984		Partridge DSUE (8th edn) 149/2: C.20.

built like a brick shithouse (adj.) (also built like a brick backhouse, (Aus.) ...butcher’s dog, ...dunny, …henhouse, …Kremlin, ...outhouse, …pizzeria, …...slaughter house, built like a shit brickhouse) [shithouse n. (1)]

(orig. US) describing a very strong, muscled man or woman, who resembles a squat, four-square, solid edifice, often euphemized as ‘schoolhouse’, ‘outhouse’ etc., thus brick shithouse, the person thus described.

1920–57		in Randolph & Legman Ozark Folksongs and Folklore (1992) I 779: Any stout woman is built like a brick shit-house and really does loom up like a shit-house in a fog.
1925		E. Hemingway in Baker Sel. Letters (1981) 2 Feb.: The little Blond Bastard is built like a brick slaughter house.
1928		E. Hemingway letter c.9 Oct. in Baker Sel. Letters (1981) 287: Pat has doubled his weight in three months [...] sleeps all nights built like a brick shithouse.
1932		(con. 1910s) J.T. Farrell Young Lonigan in Studs Lonigan (1936) 114: She was built like a brick out-house.
1935		N. Algren ‘Thundermug’ in Texas Stories (1995) 78: He was built all in one piece, like a brick backhouse.
1942		N. Algren Never Come Morning (1988) 125: The boy might really have handled the fellow at that; he was built like a brick backhouse.
1952		(con. 1944) Wilder & Blum Stalag 17 [film script] 25: Get a load of that blonde one! Built like a brick Kremlin!
1955		F. Brookhouser Now I Lay Me Down 99: She’s a pretty kid too. Built like a brick shithouse.
1956		J. Thompson ‘The Cellini Chalice’ in Fireworks (1988) 58: She was young, built like a brick henhouse in a windy country.
1957		Mad mag. Sept.–Oct. 49: He’s-a built like-a brick pizzeria.
1965		L. Dunne Goodbye to The Hill (1966) 101: Her oul’ fella was behind us and he was built like a brick shithouse.
1971		(con. WWII) B. Aldiss Soldier Erect 52: Alice Faye’s lovely, built like a brick shithouse!
1973		D. Goines Street Players 33: A girl can be beautiful, just like you are, and built up like the famous brick shit house.
1983		J. Byrell (con. 1959) Up the Cross 146: He was built like the proverbial brick dunny . . . say about five-eleven up and five-five across.
1985		O. Hawkins Chili 84: Dearest Katherine, an exquisite woman, built like a brick shithouse.
1986		R. Fitzgerald Pushed from the Wings (1989) 72: It was like fucking a hole in the wall. She’s built like a brick shithouse.
1986		C. Bowles G’DAY 38: The foreman appears. He’s built like a brick shithouse.
1996		(con. 1946) G. Pelecanos Big Blowdown (1999) 59: Goddamn, did she look put together that night. A brick shithouse don’t begin to describe it.
1996		(con. 1964-65) B. Thorpe Sex and Thugs and Rock ’n’ Roll 137: ‘Her bruvvers are [...] built like two Russian concrete shithouses’.
1996		Penguin Bk of More Aus. Jokes 451: No takers. No surprise – the Masked Monster was built like a brick dunny.
1999		R.G. Barrett Wind & Monkey (2013) [ebook] ‘Probably a team of coal miners from Kurri or somewhere. All built like brick shithouses’.
1999		N. Cohn Yes We have No 286: The man was built like a brick shithouse.
2004		(con. 1990s) N. ‘Razor’ Smith A Few Kind Words and a Loaded Gun 351: He [...] was an ex-boxer and built like a shit brickhouse.
2009		R. Milward Ten Storey Love Song 176: ‘Pint of Carlsberg and a gin and tonic please, my friend’ [...] he says to the brick shithouse behind the bar .
2010		K. Richards Life 439: Bill Bolton, my distant muscle on the road, built like a brick shithouse.
2010		L. Redhead Thrill City [ebook] He wasn’t much taller than me [...] but he was built like a brick shithouse.
2013		Baltimore Sun (MD) 4 Dec. E11: ‘A red dress that was cut down to my ying-yang, and [was] built like a brick shithouse’.
2017		A. Parks Bloody January 156: [H]e giggled. Sounded more like a five-year-old than a sixteen-stone brick shithouse.
2021		Betoota-isms 257: Built like a Butcher’s Dog [...] 1. To have a portly build, a heavy frame.
2022		A. Parks May God Forgive 73: [H]e kept getting bigger and broader. Six foot three of a brick shithouse bodyguard.

built like a tripod (adj.)

(US) having a large penis; the image is of a third leg under third adj.

1995		S. Moore In The Cut 98: I have new words for the dictionary. [...] to be built like a tripod, to have a large penis.
a.2003		K. Shuford ‘The Felcher’ on M-Files 🌐 This was the man they needed to question? He was melt your bones DDG. Dark hair, neon blue eyes, and built like a tripod. Who said clothes make the man.