Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. problems, trouble.

1969		It 13-25 June 16/2: If all the above sounds like too much aggro don’t [...] go and [...] run your benefit event in conjunction with an existing club.
1973		M. Harris The Dilly Boys 95: A few of the boys [...] had boasted with some of the others at the number of boys they could gather and rely on in case of ‘aggro’ (trouble).
1985		B. Humphries Traveller’s Tool 45: She’s never given me much aggro in all our married life.
1992		M. Frayn Now You Know 277: Sorry about the aggro I was giving you earlier.
1996		(con. 1964-65) B. Thorpe Sex and Thugs and Rock ’n’ Roll 118: ‘He quit. No aggro, [...] he’s not pissed off at you’.
2001		K. Waterhouse Soho 44: He’s the one that’s doing all the aggro.
2009		T. Black Gutted 42: Hod took the cig off me, stubbed it. ‘You don’t need any more aggro’.

2. violence, typically as enjoyed by skinheads, esp. at football matches, beating up Asians etc.

1969		Oz 22 in Hudson Lang. Teenage Revolution (1983) 3: After some agro, they were let free.
1977		S. Berkoff East in Decadence and Other Plays (1985) 59: On the streets a victim of nuclear aggro.
1989		A. Higgins ‘The Bird I Fancied’ Helsingør Station and Other Departures 202: But no Barnet skinheads were aboard, setting out for a night of wog-bashing aggro.
1999		N. Cohn Yes We Have No 173: Nothing life-threatening, just aggro and name-calling.
2001		N. Barlay Hooky Gear 228: You ever go to a Cat C fixture back in the heady days of aggro? Saturday afternoon on the turnstiles?
2006		B. Matthews Intractable [ebook] The aggro was quickly brought under control.
2012		(con. 1980s) I. Welsh Skagboys 14: Them fookin small shields [...] they’re for aggro, not fookin defendin their sen!
2017		G. Gilmore Headland [ebook]He’d forgotten how efficient prison violence was. [...] Aggro on the outside was different: badly planned – if planned at all– messy and difficult to hide.
2018		I. Welsh Dead Man’s Trousers [39]: the bairns, whae, eftir sleepin through aw the aggro, got woken up by the cop car sirens.
2023		R. Milward Man-Eating Typewriter 433: ‘I wouldn’t recommend aggro, comrade’.

3. an aggressive attitude.

1969		Byrne & Fabian Groupie 70: Grant launched into [...] some kind of explanation about the aggressive side of his personality [...] his aggro, as he called it.
1970		Times 5 May 9: The styling [...] is more sophisticated, more gentle [...] Afro with no aggro, you could say.
1980		J. McClure Spike Island (1981) 318: This aggro against the policewomen has lifted an awful lot.
1983		J. Byrell (con. 1959) Up the Cross 36: ‘Look,’ said Mick The Muso with much less aggro this time.
1989		M. Walker How to Kiss a Crocodile 95: ‘McEnroe’s my idol. He’s got so much aggro in him!’.
1990		S. Geason Shaved Fish 5: He smelt of grog and aggro.
2000		Daily Express 20 May 49: In-your-face-aggro (’I’m selling myself. So what?’ she once countered, when asked why she posed naked).
2006		G. Malkani Londonstani (2007) 28: Peeps like Kavi n Davinder [...] shud save up their aggro 4 Paki-bashers.
2013		D. Whish-Wilson Zero at the Bone [ebook] There was a buzz in the room, but it wasn’t as he remembered it, beer-driven and inflected with aggro.
2023		R. Milward Man-Eating Typewriter 84: [T]he cornerstone of my gloriosa aggro.

4. any form of problems, difficulties, harassment.

1972		P. Fordham Inside the Und. 185: They do it on purpose to aggravate you [...] Just aggro.
1983		S. Gee Never in My Lifetime in Best Radio Plays (1984) 70: Reckon you could handle the aggro?