roach n.
1. as a negative descriptor.
(a) (US) an inferior racehorse.
Down the Line 24: The roach quit me cold at the door of the safety deposit vaults. | ||
Vinita Dly Chieftain (OK) 9 Aug. 1/2: The wild bay known as the Roach horse was one of the bad ones. |
(b) (US Und.) a prostitute.
It’s a Racket! 236: roach—(Short for ‘Cockroach’)—A common prostitute, or immoral girl. |
(c) (US) a pej. term for a police officer; a prison guard.
Eve. Sun (Baltimore, MD) 9 Dec. 31/5: Roach — a policeman. | ||
Amer. Thes. Sl. | ||
DAUL 179/2: Roach. 1. (P) A prison guard. [...] 3. (South; chiefly among Negroes) A policeman. | et al.||
Bounty of Texas (1990) 213: roach, n. – an officer or guard. | ‘Catheads [...] and Cho-Cho Sticks’ in Abernethy||
Prison Sl. 97: Screw A prison guard. (Archaic: roach). |
(d) (US campus) an unattractive and/or unpopular man or woman.
AS XXXIV:2 154: Unpopular girls (and on rare occasion unpopular men), with no reference whatsoever to looks, are roaches, beasts, and pigs. | ‘Gator Sl.’||
CUSS 185: Roach An ugly person, male. | et al.||
Campus Sl. Nov. 6: The roaches at that party last night sketched me out. | ||
Gutted 112: This guy’s a fucking roach . . . you want me to do him? |
2. in drug uses.
(a) marijuana.
‘Jiver’s Bible’ in Orig. Hbk of Harlem Jive. |
(b) a marijuana cigarette.
Pittsburgh Courier (PA) 14 June 7/3: He showed her how to get ‘lushed’ (intoxicated) . . . How to ‘drag a roach’ (smoke a marihuana cigarette) and how to ‘fall to a pad’ (Drop into a speakeasy). | ||
(con. 1948) Flee the Angry Strangers 120: She finished the marihuana roach. | ||
Baron’s Court All Change (2011) 30: ‘What’s your name? [...] Mine’s Miss Roach [...] everyone calls me that — it’s rather fitting’. | ||
Shake Him Till He Rattles (1964) 123: He lit the roach, taking the first toke, and then handed it to her. | ||
Airtight Willie and Me 45: I hit the gangster roach and stepped into the arena. | ||
Powder 21: James winked and pointed at Tony with his roach. |
(c) the unsmoked, final portion of a marijuana or hashish cigarette.
Hi De Ho 16: roach: butt of a partially smoked reefer cigaret. | ||
N.Y. Amsterdam Star-News 29 Mar. 13: See this roach? Old man, I didn’t pick it up under the kitchen sink. | ||
On the Road (The Orig. Scroll) (2007) 203: Sulky Hunkey [...] fishing around old drawers for a roach. | ||
Junkie (1966) 26: Would you like to get high? [...] There may be a roach around here somewhere. | ||
(con. 1950s) Man Walking On Eggshells 230: Pezzarus had found a roach in Raymond’s car. | ||
Tharunka (Sydney) 8 Nov 28/3: ‘[G]ive me a drag at least you roach-eating son of a bitch’. | ||
Snowblind (1978) 36: He never left roaches behind, always sticking them in the end of his first post-joint cigarette. | ||
Family Arsenal 72: Here, hold this roach. | ||
Muscle for the Wing 34: Finally noticing the dead roach dangling from her mouth, Wanda spit it onto the tabletop. | ||
(con. 1970s) King Suckerman (1998) 18: Karras [...] pushed the roach to the back of the ashtray. | ||
Indep. Weekend Rev. 26 Dec. 1: Hoovered-up the roachez and the rubishe. | ‘Sir Gawayne and the Grene Knyght’ in||
Westsiders 372: Everybody broke smokin’ roaches. | ||
Panopticon (2013) 30: I double-drag the rest of the joint and flick the roach away. | ||
Riptide Ultra-Glide 95: Coleman pointed at the windshield with his roach. | ||
Boy from County Hell 90: He snagged the joint for a long drag, then ground the roach under his boot. |
(d) the cardboard ‘filter’ of a cannabis cigarette, often made of a rolled up piece of a Rizla packet.
Sopranos 203: When you’re skinning up [...] I find those Scotland Against Drugs business cards excellent roach material. | ||
Grits 121: Ah’m closely studying the ghost uv a bahcode on the Rizla packet which wuz used ferra roach and which is just visible beneath the moist cigarette paper. |
(e) a marijuana smoker.
Criminal Sl. (rev. edn). |
(f) the unsmoked portion of a cigarette.
Gentleman Junkie 87: I was smoking one after another, lighting the new one off the roach of the last. | ‘High Dice’ in
In compounds
(drugs) a marijuana smoker.
Amer. Thes. Sl. | ||
(con. 1940s–60s) Straight from the Fridge Dad. |
(Aus.) a small, dirty apartment.
‘Messman on C.E.’s Altar’ in Passing Strange (2015) 15: He had his one-bedroom ‘roach-cage’ on the other side of the [...] Expressway. |
(drugs) a small spring clip or pair of tweezers used to hold the last fragments of a marijuana cigarette, which is otherwise too hot to hold in one’s fingers.
Vice Trap 40: Shirley kept the radio stores busy replacing the alligator clamps she [...] used for roach holders. | ||
We are the People Our Parents Warned Us Against 174: I wish I had Chob’s old roach clip. | ||
Drugs from A to Z (1970) 221: roach pick roach holder. | ||
Hippie Trip 206: I started selling roach-holders. | ||
Harper’s Mag. Apr. 90: Candles, leather handbags, bejeweled roach clips. | ||
N.Y. Times Mag. 4 July 20: Petersen was sitting on the floor of his cabin, passing a joint on a bobby-pin roach holder to his live-in girlfriend. | ||
Christine 198: Three guys and two girls, hurriedly finishing a joint. They had it in a makeshift matchbook roachclip. | ||
Curvy Lovebox 33: You hear dat? says Shitsky attachin’ a roach clip to his spliff. | ||
Stingray Shuffle 45: The women nodded, one hitting a roach clip, the other holding her smoke. | ||
Sellout (2016) 271: Fred [...] uses the metal fastener as a makeshift roach clip to finish the rest of the weed in one mighty toke. |
1. (Aus./US) a mobile food van.
Canberra Times (ACT) 4 Feb. 2/1: [I]t is similar to the term ‘roach coach’ for the mobile canteen and ‘rat coffin’ for the pie purchased there. | ||
Google Groups: rec.aviation.piloting 28 Nov. 🌐 At least during the Summer, Pepperell (MA09) has a ‘roach coach’ that I have never been disappointed with . | ||
Google Groups: rec.food.cooking 9 Apr. 🌐 The roach coaches around the businesses I’ve worked are cleaner than many of the local restaurants. | ||
Gap Year [ebook] ‘Renting a trailer this summer was my idea. We made money and learned how to run a business. Then, later, we learned how to cook real food.’ [...] ‘A roach coach! That is what you threw all your college money away on!’. | ||
Word Is Bone [ebook] I had a roach coach I operated out front of Progress Park, selling Twizzlers to the teenagers [...] in the evenings, selling burritos to construction workers busy bitching by dawn. |
2. (US) any form of second-rate public transport.
Google Groups: rec.travel.caribbean 20 Sept. 🌐 Eastern had a special tariff on this flight: night coach, which quickly became known as roach coach . |
(US drugs) a collection of cannabis cigarette stubs that can be recycled [pun on US Roach Motel, a patented cockroach trap].
‘Stoner Dict.’ on Lil’ Bastard’s House of Heaven 🌐 Roach Hotel – A collection of roaches to be rolled into a new joint. |
In phrases
(drugs) to inhale deeply on a marijuana cigarette.
DAUL 29/1: Blast the roach. To draw deeply on a marijuana cigarette. | et al.||
ONDCP Street Terms 3: Blast a roach — To smoke marijuana. |
SE in slang uses
In compounds
1. the ‘coach’ or economy section of a passenger aircraft.
N.Y. Times 24 Jan. XX1: Puerto Ricans themselves call it the ‘cattle car’ because of its reputation for overcrowding from the old days. Snobbish stewardesses refer to it as the ‘roach coach’ because they expect the passengers to be unclean. | ||
Wash. Post 6 Oct. H10: Shuttle Nicknames: Roach Coach. Cattle Car (courtesy Jacob Javits). Glamor Glider. Bagel-less Bomber. Late Show. Waiting Room. Flying None. |
2. a food service wagon.
Sky Rangers 30: Greasy hamburgers and coffee from the Pan American lunch truck, affectionately called the Roach Coach. | ||
Wash. Post 10 Oct. D1: A roach coach is actually a food service truck, but neither the drivers nor the customers address it by its formal name. And when Shannon speaks of hers, it’s happily, with affection--as in, ‘You ought to taste what a fine cup of coffee my roach coach can make,’ or, ‘Today, this old roach coach is pretty much breezing along.’. | ||
L.A. Times 8 July 1: It may be San Diego’s most exclusive open-air dining experience. Certainly it is the most aromatic. It begins with a catering truck, like hundreds that ply San Diego work sites. Yes, but this is no ordinary roach coach, ptomaine wagon or gedunk truck. | ||
N.Y. Times 30 Nov. ST1: A day’s work [i.e. on a film set] cannot begin until the catering van, called the ‘roach coach,’ rolls up. | ||
Destination: Morgue! (2004) 209: He owned [...] three roach coaches. | ‘Hollywood Fuck Pad’ in
(US, also roach trap, roach motel, roach palace) a cheap, dilapidated, dirty room or building, usu. a hotel.
N.Y. Amsterdam News 22 Dec. 27: [S]queezed in apartments like most of Harlem’s roach harbors and trampy houses. | ||
Kept 96: The building was nicer than a lot of the roach-traps in the Village and her apartment was furnished cheaply but in good taste. | ||
Alice in La-La Land (1999) 123: He and my mother manage a roach hotel filled with winos, druggies and artists. | ||
From Potter’s Field (1996) 306: We found out where they were staying. The Hacienda Motel on US 1, that roach trap not too far from where you buy all your guns and ammo. | ||
Rose Madder 236: It’s like the Roach Motel. | ||
Shooting Dr. Jack (2002) 66: Your accountant had all of your business records [...] in the room, in that roach palace. | ||
A Steady Rain I i: Rearrange the affordable portables around that one-room roach motel you call home? | ||
Good Girl Stripped Bare 117: After a year renting our ‘roach palace’ [...] Matt and I [...] buy a semi in Rozelle. | ||
Squeeze Me 68: The workers shared rooms at a local roach-friendly motel. | ||
Didn’t Nobody Give a Shit 95: That face was like, I just checked out the roach motel in my fucked-up head an now I’ma shove yo ass in my white cargo van an take you to location number 2, where the truly crazy shit gon go down. |
highly pointed shoes.
in DARE. | ||
(con. 1960s) Antaeus Aut. 38: Johnson wore roach killers—to the point of a dangerous weapon, curving high over his ankle and low over his heel. | ‘Big Playground’ in||
(con. 1960s) Wanderers 5: Richie wore roach killers – pointy as a dangerous weapon, curbing high over his ankle and low over his heel. | ||
annika’s journal 22 Feb. 🌐 I’m not willing to part with my roach killers just yet. Chiffon and roach killers? Hmmm. | ||
(ref. to 1960s) | 20 Feb. [blog] I frothed at the mouth over ‘Beatle boots’. Every time I got a spare 8 bucks (this was in the 60s) I’d go over to Hardy’s or Flagg Bros. and cop another variation of the pointed ‘roach killers’.
(US) a run-down, dirty room, lit. one that is infested with cockroaches; also attrib.
Popular Detective Apr. 🌐 I used to room in this roach palace. | ‘No Place Like Homicide’ in||
Flunking Out 115: The lady at the Roach Palace wanted twenty-two fifty a week. | ||
Patterns of Nursing 151: Sea Camp, also known as ‘Roach Palace,’ has no heat, falling-down ceilings and walls, and a generally unsafe appearance. | ||
Shooting Dr. Jack (2002) 153: I’m in this roach-palace holding cell. | ||
Samaritan 218: OK, so, we spend the better part of an hour tearing up this hot, greasy, stinky four-room roach palace. |
1. pointed shoes or boots.
Active Measures 193: Owen Neely, of the gaudy silver prize-buckles with horses’ names on them and the lizard roach-stompers. | ||
Win from the Back 81: [He] used to have a pair of shoes that were real pointed. We used to call them Italian roach stompers. You could stomp a roach in a corner with those pointed shoes. |
2. (US) heavy, unfashionable shoes.
Albuquerque Journal 27 Oct. 🌐 We will start with Bill and the boots. The garish cream-and-tan roach stompers that peeked from the former U.N. ambassador’s trousers [etc.]. | ||
Fortress of Solitude 85: The shoes were an artifact from a fitful past [...] Everybody called them roach-stompers. |
In phrases
(W.I.) to be sexually unfaithful, to cuckold.
cited in Dict. Carib. Eng. Usage (1996). |