cake n.1
1. senses based on the lit. or fig. ‘softness’ of the foodstuff.
(a) (also cakehead, cakey) a fool; a stupid police officer.
![[UK]](/static/img/flags/uk.png "United Kingdom") | Cheats of London Exposed 2: Sharpers [...] are said to know life. They commonly resort to the billiard table, the cockpit, the race course etc. [...] Constant practice teaches them almost at a glance to discern the gamester from the cake, as they term it. | |
| Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue n.p.: Cake, or cakey, a foolish fellow. | |
| New Cheats of London Exposed 6: as 1770. | |
| ‘The Tight Little Island’ Jovial Songster 55: These proud puff’d up cakes thought to make ducks and drakes / Of our wealth, but they scarcely could spy land. | |
| Lex. Balatronicum [as cit. 1785]. | |
| Dict. of the Turf, the Ring, the Chase, etc. 21: Cake — a silly fellow; cakes being made, like him, of very soft dough and not over well baked. | |
| Satirist (London) 14 Aug. 151/3: The following are the names of a few of the company [...] A Cake...Lord Stormont. | |
![[US]](/static/img/flags/us.png "United States") | Charcoal Sketches (1865) 164: If we are briefly told that Mr. Plinlimmon is a ‘cake,’ the word may be derided as a cant appellation, [...] but volumes could not render our knowledge of the man more perfect. | |
| Comic Almanack Jan. 256: A female form, and this its cry: – / ‘Vy vot a Cake I’ve been!’. | |
| Whip & Satirist of NY & Brooklyn (NY) 23 July n.p.: the whip wants to know Whether Judah, the cake, will ever get his fantail coat. | |
| Sam Sly 24 Mar. 3/1: Sam would advise Sam K—n—d, the nobby pressman [...] not to make himself such a ‘soft cake’ before juveniles. | |
| Manliness 17: A man not remarkable for good sense is a ‘cake’. | |
| Vocabulum 17: cake An easy fool of a policeman; a flat cop. | |
| (con. 1840s–50s) London Labour and London Poor I 276/1: She repented what she’d done, / And said she must have been a cake, / To be tempted by A. Bunn. | |
| Sl. Dict. | |
| in Sporting Times 27 Mar. 1/3: When who should come in but a Juggins, / A fair agricultural cake. | |
| ‘Casey at the Bat’ at www.potw.org 🌐 And the former was a lulu and the latter was a cake. | |
![[Aus]](/static/img/flags/aus.png "Australia") | Aus. Sl. Dict. 14: Cake, a flat or fool. | |
| Regiment 8 Aug. 284: [cartoon caption] Lieutenants Cakehead, Mash and Flurrop have been wiling away the hours aflter mess by tying old Major Fizzletop’s spurs together under the table. | |
| No. 5 John Street 218: Git out, yer blessed little cake. What do you know about foriners? | |
| ‘College Words and Phrases’ in DN II:i 47: oat-cake, n. 1. Farmer. 2. Unsophisticated fellow. | |
| Twenty-Five Years of Detective Life II 386: They thought me a fit subject for banter, and did not conceal their opinion of the ‘cakey’. | |
| Passing Eng. of the Victorian Era 60/2: Cake (London, 1882). A foolish stupid fellow. Used in good society, Borrowed by Mr Emanual Duperre for a comedy of English manners called Rotten Row, produced at the Odeon (Paris, 1882). | |
| Und. Speaks 17/2: Cake, a stupid police officer. |
(b) (US/US gang) a dandy, a fop; youths who wore stylish wide-bottomed trousers.
 | in Old Amer. Songs (No. 10) 🎵 My mammy then sent me to school, for she did intend to make / A lawyer and a counsellor, but I’d sooner be a cake [...] with my new Suit on a Sunday, to the church I’d strut away [etc.] [HDAS]. | |
| Gang 340: ‘A handsome boy [...] Cakie’. | |
| ‘College Sl.’ in AS III:2 131: A student who spends much time in the society of the ladies is ‘a heavy-cake’ or ‘a tea hound’. | |
| in Marschall That Old Gang o’ Mine (1984) 124: Would you advise me to wear twenty-inch bottoms this fall? I can’t decide whether to go collegiate or cake. | |
| ‘Merry Clouters’ in Fellow Countrymen (1937) 402: ‘Hello, cake!’ ‘I say, cake, don’t trip over them skirts of yours.’. |
(c) (US campus) anything easy, simple; note mis-defined as an adj. in cit. 1997–2002 [underlined by piece of cake under piece n.].
| Current Sl. III:4 4: Cake, n. An easy test. | |
| Sl. U. | |
| Shoedog 43: ‘I’ve looked at this closely, and it’s as near to a sure thing as you can get. But it’s never all cake’ . | |
| Hope College ‘Dict. of New Terms’ 🌐 cake adj. Something that is very easy. The idiom ‘piece of cake’ has been shortened over time. |
(d) (US campus) a weak person.
| Campus Sl. Mar. 2: cake – person who will not stand up for his or her rights. | |
| Hope College ‘Dict. of New Terms’ 🌐 cake n. Referring to a member of an opposing football team, who is weak in stature. Someone you are able to dominate. |
(e) (N.Z. prison) lies, nonsense.
![[NZ]](/static/img/flags/nz.png "New Zealand") | Boobslang [U. Canterbury D.Phil. thesis] 36/1: cake n. lies: ‘xsays he’s got a new Harley and four million dollars in his bank account on the outside. |
2. that which is sweet or ‘good enough to eat’.
(a) (US black) the vagina [note cites 2011, 2014 for recent popularization].
| ‘Coal Black Rose’ 🎵 Come in, Sambo, don’t tand dere shakin, / De fire is a burnin and de hot cake a bakin. | |
| ‘Bakershop Blues’ 🎵 Girl in the bakershop she hollered, ‘Papa don’t look aso dad, / Come and try some of my cake and you won’t feel so bad’. | |
| ‘Beat it Right’ 🎵 Sharing her jelly all over town / I had a good cake now sweet as mama’s. | |
| ‘Stavin’ Chain’ 🎵 If you don’t shake, you won’t get no cake, / If you don’t hum, I ain’t gonna give you none! | |
| , | | DAS 84/2: cake n. The female genitalia. |
| Maledicta VI:1+2 (Summer/Winter) 131: Cabbage, cake, canoe, cock, poontang from putain. | |
| White Panty Superette 🌐 And indeed, by six o’clock that same evening we were noshing down on each others’ ‘cakes’ as if nothing untoward, like fame, success or sexual straightness, had ever taken place at all. | |
| ‘Birthday Cake’ 🎵 It's not even my birthday / But he want to lick the icing off / [...] / He want that cake. | |
| (ed.) UNC-CH Campus Sl. Spring 2014 CAKE — vagina. From Rihanna’s ‘Birthday Cake’ lyrics. |
(b) (orig. Aus.) a prostitute.
| Passing Eng. of the Victorian Era 17/2: Banbury (London, 1894). One of the more recent shapes of ‘jam’, ‘biscuit’, ‘cake’, ‘confectionery’, ‘tart’ — a loose woman. | |
| in Ozark Folksongs and Folklore (1992) I 46: There was an old lady lived on a hill, / Green grows the hill-O, / She had cakes and beer to sell, / Now you may know what I mean-O. | |
| I Travelled a Lonely Land (1957) 230/1: band (cake, cromo, low-heel) – a prostitute. | |
| Big Rumble 69: That girl. The gang ‘cake’. | |
| Deep Down In The Jungle 51: Least my mother ain’t no cake. | |
| Ozark Folksongs and Folklore I 46: She learned it from her grandmother, in the 1920s. Her grandmother said it was a very naughty song and would sing only this first stanza, which implies (in ‘cakes and beer’) that the woman in the song ran a ‘disorderly house’ or brothel tavern. |
(c) (US black) an attractive woman.
| Serenade (1985) 25: A Mexican tenor on one side of me [...] and a coffee cake on the other that scratched fleas while she was singing. | |
| Howard Street 64: Thinkin’ ’bout that new cake you pulled [...] huh? | |
| Dear ‘Herm’ 101: Flo hasnt seen this piece of cake yet. Man. She wears a Mini-Skirt so high you can’t tell if its a skirt or a belt. | |
| Street Talk 2 48: There are a lot of cakes at your party! |
(d) (US black) sexual gratification.
| S.R.O. (1998) 41: ‘They calls him crazy! [...] He ain’t crazy! He just likes to get his cakes that way’ [i.e. fake necrophilia]. |
(e) (Aus.) sexual intercourse.
| Aus. Vulgarisms [t/s] 7: cake: Sexual intercourse. Also, a piece of cake. |
(f) (US campus) the female posterior.
| Hope College ‘Dict. of New Terms’ 🌐 cake n. A term used to point out an ideal female rear-end. [...] It is most commonly used in the context, ‘Check out her cake’ or ‘I’d like a piece of her cake’. | |
| UNC-CH Campus Sl. Spring 2016 2: CAKE — large, curvaceous buttocks: ‘She got that cake, man’ . |
3. senses based on shape and size.
(a) (orig. US) usu. in pl., the female breasts.
| Rally Round the Flag, Boys! (1959) 61: A dame leans over ’em with her cakes falling out of her negligee. |
(b) (US) usu. in pl., the buttocks.
| Queens’ Vernacular. | |
| Maledicta III:2 231: He also may or may not know the following words and expressions: [...] bunghole, bummer (UK = fucker, US = bad trip also), buns and butt (with jokes such as cakes). | |
| Gay Sl. Dict. 🌐. | |
| Street Talk 2 48: The term ‘cakes’ refers to ‘buttocks’. | |
| I, Fatty 149: Keeping my cakes clenched. |
(c) (drugs) a round disc of crack cocaine.
| Wages of Sin 169: That cake of cocaine could lose a few flakes on its way to the evidence locker. | |
| ‘Put On’ 🎵 Know you niggas hungry, come and get a super plate / Y'all sing happy birthday, yeah I got that super cake. |
In compounds
(Aus.) a brothel.
| I Travelled a Lonely Land (1957) 231/2: cake shop (jacksie, poison shop) – a brothel. | |
| 5000 Adult Sex Words and Phrases. |
In phrases
(US) to dress in a rakish manner.
| ‘Merry Clouters’ in Fellow Countryman (1937) 395: He was caked out in a black suit with wide trousers but not bell bottoms. |
1. crazy, insane.
| Book of the Beginnings I 121: ‘He’s off his Cake’ is a provincial phrase, explained as meaning he’s off his head. It signifies he’s loose-witted, out of bounds. | |
| Educating Rita I ii: frank: What in the name of God is being off one’s cake? rita: Soft. Y’ know, mental. | |
| On the Ledge 34: You’re only off your fuckin’ cakes. | |
![[Ire]](/static/img/flags/ire.png "Ireland") | Slanguage 201/2: off one’s bap [...] Astray in the head. | |
| Killing Pool 248: Me off my cake, grinning into the camera, big mad cabbaged grin on me. |
2. intoxicated by drugs.
| in Adams Turquoise Days (2002) 47: I think I prefer the interpretation that it [i.e. a song] is about being off your cake on drugs. |
SE in slang uses
In compounds
(US prison) bread and water.
| Virginian-Pilot (Norfolk, VA) 9 Dec. 5/3: he will spend two days in jail on a diet of prisoners1 ‘sponge cake and wine’ — bread and water. | |
| ‘Chatter of Guns’ in Sat. Eve. Post 13 Apr.; list extracted in AS VI:2 (1930) 132: cake and wine, n. phr. Bread and water. | |
| Criminal Sl. (rev. edn). | |
| et al. DAUL 39/1: Cake and wine. (P) The bread and water ration in punishment cells. | |
| (con. 1950-1960) Dict. Inmate Sl. (Walla Walla, WA) 23: Cake-’n-wine – bread and water. |
(US) a limousine.
| Edwardsville Intelligencer (IL) 14 Sept. 4/4: The Flappers’ Dictionary [...] Cake-basket: A limousine. |
(US gay) a male homosexual; thus Navy cake under Navy n.
| Clueless [film script] Yo, look. Are you bitches blind or something? Your man, Christian is a cake-boy! [...] He’s a disco-dancing, Oscar Wilde-reading, Streissand ticket-holding friend of Dorothy, know what I’m saying? | |
| Ebonics Primer at www.dolemite.com 🌐 cake boy Definition: a homosexual, a faggot, a man that has sex with another man Example: Damm bitch, look at that Cakeboy, makes me sick. |
1. (orig. US black) one who short-changes a customer; thus cake cutting, short changing.
| Criminal Sl. (rev. edn) 41: cake cutter (N) One who shortchanges. | |
| Monster Midway (1954) 3: Cake cutting: short changing. | |
| , | | DAS 84/2: cake cutter n. One who short-changes the public Circus use. |
2. a long-pronged comb.
| Central Sl. 14: cake cutter An Afro comb with long wire prongs. |
see jelly-date n.
1. a self-indulgent or effeminate young man.
| One Man’s War (1929) 148: They’ve turned you from a snake-stomper into a cake-eater and soon you’ll be a duke or count or something. | |
| Wash. Times (DC) 3 Sept. 18/7: [headline] There’s A Great Day Comin For The Cakies. | |
| Morn. Tulsa Daily World (OK) 17 Dec. 74/5: She says she’s goin’ ter marry heh dancin’ cookie-chewer. | |
| Fighting Blood 257: ‘Come on and fight, you cake-eater!’ snarls Kid Christopher, coming out for the third round. | |
| ‘Nebraska Folklore Pamphlets No. 8’ in Botkin (1944) 7: Febold ain’t no lily-livered cake-eater like you. | |
| Little Men, Big World 116: His father always referred to the Betas as cake-eaters, dating himself, and making his son feel a little sorry for him. | |
| Gun in My Hand 44: You pansies never knew what a real war was. Buncha cake-eaters. | |
| email cited on Twitter 27 Oct. 🌐 [Trump] conncts with the people not like you cake eaters who think your [sic] clever. |
2. an effete young man who attends smart tea parties and charms old ladies.
| Appleton Post-Crescent (WI) 29 Apr. 7/2: Flapper Dictionary cake eater – A habitual Bun Duster. | |
| Milk and Honey Route 201: Cake eater – The nice boy of town. Not used much by hobos. | |
| (con. 1920s) Young Manhood in Studs Lonigan (1936) 325: Phil Rolfe was one of the best-dressed cake-eaters at an afternoon dance given on Washington’s Birthday. | |
| (con. 1950-1960) Dict. Inmate Sl. (Walla Walla, WA) 23: Cake-eater – one who is overly concerned about his manners and appearance; a fop. |
3. any wealthy young man, a playboy, thus adj. cake-eating.
| in Zwilling TAD Lex. (1993) 23: Trying to rush your sister who has a date with a ‘cake eater’ for a show. | |
| New York Day by Day 18 Jan. [synd. col.] This section has its cake-eaters. Flashy young dressers who take the young ladies out to afternoon teas. | |
| letter Feb. in Paige (1971) 269: Alas, as you are writing English, you can’t call them there bloody gallants, ‘cake-eaters’ or ‘lizards,’ ‘dudes,’ ‘gigolos,’ ‘young scum’ (I suppose my native tongue is still more flexible than English: ‘good for nothing young sprigs,’ ‘fils à papa,’ ‘spooners,’ ‘saps’). | |
| Father and Son 224: ‘I know you’re a cake- eater and that you take girls out every night,‘ Danny said. Danny imagined himself as a cake-eater who was always having dates. | |
| ‘Yellow Streak’ in Amer. Dream Girl (1950) 259: In those days, cake-eaters were wearing bell-bottomed trousers. | |
| Pretty in Pink 68: Being asked out by a cake-eater was something she might have dreamed about. | |
| Permanent Midnight 125: Mt. Lebo, see, was where the rich lived [...] Mt. Lebanon was home to ‘cake eaters.’. | |
| ‘Hula Hula Boys’ in What Pluckery Is This? (28 Jan 2024) 🌐 ‘I’ll file a grievance with the ombudsman, you cake-eating ratfuckers!’. |
4. as a joc./affectionate term of address.
| Adventures of a Boomer Op. 83: Well, old Cake Eater, it’s been almost two years since I have written you. |
5. in carnival use, a gullible victim.
| ‘Carny Lingo’ in http://goodmagic.com 🌐 Cake Eaters — Locals, rubes. |
1. the mouth; usu. in imper. shut your cakehole!
| ‘The Poetry Society’ Hancock’s Half-Hour [radio script] If you can’t appreciate the delicacy of the works, you might at least have the courtesy to keep your cakehole closed. | |
| Lore and Lang. of Schoolchildren (1977) 175: A boy’s mouth is his ‘cake hole’. | |
| Skyvers Act II: Look, if you don’t shut your cake’ole, I’ll do you. | |
| Enderby Outside in Complete Enderby (2002) 295: A large blurred photograph of Yod Crewsy with stretched gob or cakehole. | |
| (con. 1954) Spend, Spend, Spend Scene 25: Shut your bloody cake-hole! | |
| 1985 (1980) 175: This geezer’s got a fair number of pegs in his cakehole. | |
| Stand (1990) 754: Shut your dough-hole. | |
| Fish Factory 78: ‘Who the hell let that damn cat into the bar?’ he wailed. [...] ‘Eight pounds of my bug [i.e. crayfish] down his furry cakehole! Shell and bloody all.’. | |
| ‘The Bird I Fancied’ in Helsingør Station and Other Departures 157: Shut your bleedin cake’ole. | |
| Llama Parlour 166: I considered my options. I could [...] Sock him in the cake-hole. | |
| PS, I Scored the Bridesmaids 48: Shut your big focking cakehole. | |
| Gods of Asphalt I 10: So unless you're ready to die a virgin I suggest you shut your cakehole. | |
| me-stepmums-too-fuckin-hot-mate at www.fakku.net 🌐 Fuck me sideways! I’m blowin’ a load in Kasumi’s cakehole! | |
| Strong Language 13 Jan. 🌐 Trump has yet again opened his cakehole and gifted us – and especially lexicographers – with another citable instance of vulgarity. |
2. (Aus./Irish) the anus.
| Outcasts of Foolgarah (1975) 188: Let the bureaucrats shove their old-aged pension perks up their cakeholes. |
(US) basic, fundamental.
| We Who Are About to Die 197: The real income, the cakes-an’-coffee dough, come from the little fellows like me. |
In phrases
in the context of money/income, a small amount, change.
| Actors’ Boarding House (1906) 317: Well, I’m draggin’ in my little old thirty-five an’ cakes, an’ buyin’ my own wardrobe. |
(Aus. teen) quasi-interrog. phr. used for empahsis.
| Argus (Melbourne) 15 Nov. 7/1: Hi candle! Still burnin’? Wacko the beaut: the school dance is next Saturday, so bake a cake and call me cookie! |
one’s project has failed, one’s plans have not worked out.
| in Prayers, etc. 277: Or else your cake is dough and all your fat lie in the fire [Apperson]. | |
| Taming of the Shrew I i: Our cake is dough on both sides. | |
| Familiar Letters (1737) I 23 Feb. 129: Notwithstanding all these Traverses, we are confident here that the Match will take, otherwise my Cake is Dough. | |
| Crabtree Lectures 107: If thou hopest for any such thing, thou wilt finde thy Cake to be but Dowe . | |
| Diary 27 Apr. n.p.: Which puts [...] me into a great fear, that all my cake will be doe still. | |
| Maronides (1678) VI 15: In spite of all the Devils in Hell, / Thy enemies cake shall all be dough. | |
| Reflections on Dryden’s Plays 4: She is sorry his cake is dough, and that he came not soon enough to speed . | |
| (trans.) Gargantua and Pantagruel (1927) II Bk IV 260: You shall have rare sport anon, if my cake be not dough, and my plot do but take. | |
| Gloss. (1888) I 127: cake. ‘My cake is dough.’ An obsolete proverb, implying the loss of hope, or expectation; a cake which comes out of the oven in the state of dough being considered as utterly spoiled. | |
| Narrative of the Life of D.C. (1934) 32: I saw quick enough my cake was dough, and I tried to cool off as fast as possible. | |
| Bangor (ME) Daily Whig and Courier 7 Nov. 2/1: The superannuated old miser who marries a giddy girl, hoping to make a saving in expenditure, will generally find himself wofully mistaken, and the inconsiderate girl who marries without affection or respect, only with the hope of gratifying silly vanity, will be pretty sure to wish her cake was dough again. | |
| Ohio Repository (Canton, OH) 12 Jan. 1/5: The great bull fight will come off on Saturday. Governor Wood is already gored to death. His cake is dough. The old fellow is too conservative for the wire pullers. | |
| N.E. Police Gaz. (Boston, MA) 18 Aug. 8/2: I will expose him in a way he won’t like. Boy, your cake is Dow. | |
| Mayor of Casterbridge Ch. xiii: She’ll wish her cake dough afore she ’as done of him. | |
| Sun. Times (Perth) 6 Mar. 11/3: The team’s cake was dough. | |
| Bulletin (Sydney) 15 Sept. 3/2: Religiously, your cake is dough – / You haven’t walked the line; / Peter won’t know you from a crow; / So your address must be ‘Below,’ / Where Socialists and such-like go – / A Devil shouldn’t Whine. | |
| ‘Folk “Sayings” From Indiana’ in AS XIV:4 265: The common ‘Her cake’s dough’ means simply that someone has lost her chances or her prestige, social or other. |
(US) to go quickly.
| Glance at N.Y. II iii: If you want my company, you’ll have to hurry up your cakes. | |
| Dict. Americanisms 186: Hurry up the cakes, i.e. be quick; look alive. | |
| Athens Post (TN) 11 Oct. 1/2: Another convict [...] went boldly up to the northern gate and called out to the turnkey to hurry up his cakes and open. | |
| Western Border Life 68: All you ’ve got to do is to hurry up your cakes, and promise to clear these diggins in less than no time. | |
| War Letters of a Disbanded Volunteer 87: The hurry-up-your-cakes fackshin hes wunst more opend its saft-shell battrees agen the administrashin. | |
| Soldiers’ Jrnl (Richmond, VA) 13 July 7/1: He seemed perfectly indifferent to his fate, his last words being ‘Hurry up the cakes, Captain’. | |
| Joaquin 32: You better hurry up your cakes, then. | |
| (con. mid-19C) Adventures of Big-Foot Wallace 256: She appeared to be rapidly gaining on us, and it was soon reduced to a certainty that if we didn't hurry up the cakes, she would pass us before long. | |
| Americanisms 610: Hurry up the cakes, to, a slang phrase, originating in the great partiality Americans have for hot cakes at breakfast, which, in order to be satisfactory, must be brought to the table as soon as they are baked. Hence the phrase means, Be quick about it – be alive! | |
| Waco Dly Examiner (TX) 27 Mar. 3/1: We devoutly wish he’d hurry up the cakes! | |
| Highland Wkly News (Hillsboro, OH) 4 Nov. 2/2: Girls, Don’t Hurry up the Cakes [...] Young women, protract this Courtship as long as you can. | |
| Eve. World (NY) 24 July 2/5: So hurry up your cakes as the boy once said to the baker. | |
| Belle Islers 241: The Elder meant that if you didn't hurry up your cakes, and take out your fire insurance, you would be roasted and done brown, and boiled in oil for ever and ever. | |
| Rivals of the Trail 135: Hurry up your cakes, Max. |
see separate entry.