Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(US) to defecate.

1970

E. Thompson Garden of Sand (1981) 54: You do your dirty and be quick bout it!

to cheat (verbally or sexually), to betray, to inform against, to treat harshly.

1911		C. Aver Lady Ju 59: Someone’s bin and ‘alf-inched me powder. Someone’s done the dirty on me.
1916		Poison Gas Feb. 1:1 12: We have excellent grounds for believing that Esau did the dirty on his brother Jacob with a similar concoction.
1929		J.B. Priestley Good Companions 250: And now, because they’ve gone and done the dirty on us, the show’s finished.
1934		Wodehouse Right Ho, Jeeves 59: That didn’t alter the fact that Jeeves had attempted to do the dirty on me.
1944		J. Cary Horse’s Mouth (1948) 18: God has done the dirty on me.
1953		I. Hamilton Till Human Voices Wake Us 148: Rats, vermin, they’ve done the dirty on us.
1954		E. Hemingway letter 23 Dec. in Baker Sel. Letters (1981) 843: Hope this Larry Solon character won’t do you the dirty too.
1967		J. Hibberd White with Wire Wheels (1973) 224: He wouldn’t do the dirty on us.
1970		A. Sillitoe Start in Life (1979) 335: I’ve always been in love with you, you know that, and still am, even though you’ve gone and done the dirty on me by getting married to Alfie.
1989		H. Leonard Out After Dark 11: She gave a sworn statement to the police, so she could hardly go back on it and do the dirty on me.
1998		G. Burn Happy Like Murderers 234: Next thing you knew he’d done the dirty on you.
2000		S. Maloney Big Ask 73: My little brother Rodney did the dirty on her, shot through with a new cookie.
2005		P. Howard Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nightdress 83: Has he ever done the dirt on you?
2006		(con. 1972) Jurgenson & Cea Circle of Six 134: I’d been done dirty by the job, the New York City Police Department, but now it was my turn at infidelity.
2012		D. O’Donnell Locked Ward (2013) 138: It was all an Establishment plot by the pigs to hassle him and do the dirty on all heads and hippies by constantly harshing their mellow.
2015		L. McInerney Glorious Heresies 289: ‘First she did the dirt on you and now you can’t stop doing the dirt on her’.
2017		410 ‘Foolishness’ 🎵 The judge wanna do him dirty (dirty) / They don’t wanna send a man home.
2021		C. Hammer Opal Country 278: ‘[H]e was quite happy to do the dirty on Morris Montifore’.

(orig. US teen/campus) to have sexual intercourse; Current Slang (1970) suggests ‘applies only to girls’.

1965		L. Bruce How to Talk Dirty 54: Anybody who does that dirty thing deserves to get the clap.
1971		M. Angelou ‘The Thirteens’ in Cool Drink of Water 47: Your Momma kissed the chauffeur, / Your Poppa balled the cook, / Your sister did the dirty, / In the middle of the book, / The thirteens. Right on.
1985		B. Humphries Traveller’s Tool 8: She’s done the dirty deed the night before.
1986		J. Ellroy Suicide Hill 219: ‘Whores don't make love, whores do the dirty dog deed’.
1987		R. Campbell Alice in La-La Land (1999) 188: Twelvetrees’ daughter had walked in on her old man doing the dirty with the make-believe schoolgirl hooker.
2000		B. Wiprud Sleep with the Fishes 125: She knew he did dirty with other legs.
2004		P. Howard PS, I Scored the Bridesmaids 241: ‘She didn’t do the dirt, did she?’.
2014		K. Michaels Bride of Unicorn [ebook] I may have kissed you, but I didn’t let you do the dirty deed. I would never do that, not with you, not with anyone.
2021		. Howard Braywatch 320: ‘She didn’t catch you doing the dirty, did she?’.
2022		A. Parks May God Forgive 65: ‘[S]he was all dressed up. Out for a meal or a drink before the dirty deed’.

1. (US) to commit a crime; to murder.

[1864		Derby Day 51: I know he’s a blarneying Irishman; but s’help me, I didn’t think he’d do the thing what’s dirty [i.e. drug a horse]].
[1915		‘Sapper’ Michael Cassidy 106: They saw a line of white puffs [...] It was Achibald — or the anti-aricraft gun — ‘doing the dirty’].
1952		(con. 1948) G. Mandel Flee the Angry Strangers 336: You forcing me to do dirty like you. I don’t like to it that way, to do dirty.
1990		R. Campbell Sweet La-La Land (1999) 55: There was this killer — did the dirty out in your town, by the way — come from Dog Trot.

2. to vomit.

2001

J. King White Trash 117: Twenty five pounds and the first time she wore them a patient did the dirty on her. Papa splattering the leather with a collection of carrots and peas.

(S.Afr. prison) to make a false charge.

1949

H.C. Bosman Cold Stone Jug (1981) II 57: They would tell me [...] about how they tried to save the family honour or about how the johns rung a dirty on them with fabricated evidence.