Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(US) unfortunate, unlucky, in a difficult situation.

1918		Yorkville Wnquirer (SC) 3 May 1/4: ‘SOL’ — Soldier [sic] out of luck [...] If a soldier [...] is hit or killed or meets with any misfortune [...] ‘He’s just SOL’.
1925		Dos Passos Manhattan Transfer 355: We’re S.O.L. now but that dont mean we’re always goin to be.
1927		(con. 1917) J. Stevens Mattock 194: Johnny Hard is S.O.L. with his mitts full of paper-work again.
1935		J. Conroy World to Win 228: Of course he was s.o.l. then and had to open up and pull alibis.
1942		C. Himes ‘Strictly Business’ in Coll. Stories (1990) 141: If you got caught with the body you were just S.O.L.
1955		B. Schulberg On the Waterfront (1964) 212: One wrong step now and he’d be S.O.L. with Johnny.
1978		H. Selby Jr Requiem for a Dream (1987) 165: Now they were fucked . . . s.o.l., just plain shit out of luck.
1989		H. Rawson Dict. of Invective (1991) 353: shit out of luck. Out of luck, really and truly [...] The abbreviation, S.O.L., was about as common in World War I as was snafu (Situation Normal, All Fucked Up) in World War II.
1993		Eble Campus Sl. Apr.
2004		Vail Trail 18 Mar. 🌐 You can never really go back to Spring Break. If you missed it the first time around, well, you’re pretty much SOL.
2013		Slate 24 Mar. 🌐 She demanded $500 or she was going to call the cops. I simply told her she was S.O.L. and drove off.
2017		D. Winslow The Force [ebook] ‘You need a chicken or something [for a Voodoo ritual], you’re SOL’.
2023		Bluesky 10 Sept. 🌐 ‘If you don't know what AF means, you're SOL’ .