Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. a second (third, fourth etc) drink after one’s first.

1865

Leaves from Diary of Celebrated Burglar 114/1: What with the drink he had taken previous to his coming to our table, and the ‘repeaters’ he had swallowed while there, he soon began to look and act differently.

2. (US tramp) a veteran tramp.

1872		Galaxy (N.Y.) Mar. 317: Even the repeater may have lately been a man of substance, and such is the elasticity of metropolitan life that he becomes such again.
1899		J. Flynt Tramping with Tramps 396: REPEATER, or REVOLVER: and old-timer; a professional criminal and a ‘blowed-in -the-glass’ tramp.
1921		P. & T. Casey Gay-cat 304: Repeater, or Revolver—an old-time or professional tramp; a ‘blowed-in-the-glass’ hobo.

3. (Can./US) a recidivist.

1884		Fortnightly Rev. Mar. 389: A repeater before he was of age; a rounder, bruiser, and shoulder hitter [DA].
1899		J. Flynt Tramping with Tramps 386: ‘Revolver,’ or ‘repeater,’ is both a tramp and a criminal term for the professional offender.
1903		A.H. Lewis Boss 91: It was suspected by Big Kennedy and myself as a camping spot for ‘repeaters’ whom the enemy had been at pains to import against us.
1912		A. Berkman Prison Memoirs of an Anarchist (1926) 292: ‘Dutch,’ a repeater serving his fifth ‘bit’.
1927		‘Jargon of the Und.’ in DN V 460: Repeater, A tramp who is continually arrested.
1931		Irwin Amer. Tramp and Und. Sl. 157: Repeater.–A tramp who is continually in trouble and more or less frequently confined in a police station or workhouse.
1949		Sat. Eve. Post 23 Apr. 17/1: He became what the FBI calls a recidivist, or repeater [DA].
1950		Goldin et al. DAUL 177/1: Repeater. [...] 2. (P) A recidivist.
1967		in S. Harris Hellhole 112: There are other House of Detention repeaters like Bertha Green.
1978		R. Caron Go-Boy! 34: This time I entered into the mainstream of Guelph reformatory, not as a fish, but as a repeater.

4. (Aus.) in pl., belching after rich or ‘windy’ food [SE repeat v.].

1949		R. Park Poor Man’s Orange 221: Before Mumma could object, for it gave her the repeaters, Dolour had darted in to get some.
1984		Partridge DSUE (8th edn) 971: [...] C.20.

5. (US gambling) loaded dice [they keep coming up with the same numbers].

1986

Chapman NDAS.

6. a college student who is retaking a whole year.

1924

P. Marks Plastic Age 40: He was a repeater; that is, a man who had failed the course the preceding year and was taking it over again.

7. (US) in pl., beans.

1931		Irwin Amer. Tramp and Und. Sl. 157: Repeaters.–Beans.
1949		Monteleone Criminal Sl. (rev. edn).