Green’s Dictionary of Slang

dibbs n.

also dibs
[dibs or dibstones, a children’s game played with the knuckle-bones of sheep]

money (cf. dib n.).

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[UK]H. & J. Smith Rejected Addresses 120: Make nunky surrender his dibs / Rub his pate with a pair of lead towels.
[UK]‘An Amateur’ Real Life in London II 91: The dibs are in tune. †† [...] [footnote] †† The dibs are in tune—There is plenty of money].
[UK]T.E. Hook Sayings and Doings 2nd Ser. 9: See how we’ve made the ‘Miss Podger’ / Hunt for the dibs of the old Indian codger.
[UK]Mr Mathews’ Comic Annual 22: Each one suspects his neighbour of bribery; / Each thinks t’other cribs, / By planning, the dibs, / And truth when asserted, is thought to be fibs.
[UK] ‘Oh! What A Flare-Up’ Rambler’s Flash Songster 32: The jarveys had most of them met they say, / And were counting the dibs vot they’d took that ere day.
[UK]Comic Almanack Apr. 313: Governor, – Science can’t be purchased without dibbs. When we want subjects we must shell-out.
[UK]C. Selby London by Night II ii: hawk.: I’d give a good round sum to know the name of the treacherous rascal. jack.: Then hand over the dibs, for I did the trick.
[Aus]Bell’s Life in Sydney 26 May 3: He yielded [...] and forked out the dibs.
[UK]R.S. Surtees Young Tom Hall (1926) 142: I’ve no doubt you’ll come down divilish handsome — turn some of your dibs into land and buy them a god substantial family house.
[Aus]Melbourne Punch 20 Nov. 4/1: ‘Proposals for a New Slang Dictionary’ [...] PEWTER.—Noun. Brads, rhino, blunt, dibbs, mopusses, browns, tin, brass, stumpy, &c.
[US]S.F. Call 26 Mar. n.p.: [He] Went to fight the furious tiger, / Went to fight the beast at faro, / And was cleaned out so completely / That he lost his every mopus, / Every single speck of pewter, / Every solitary shiner, / Every brad and every dollar [...] All the tin he did inherit, / All the dibs he did discover.
[Aus]Melbourne Punch ‘The Lay of the Lags’ 14 Mar. 1/1: Therefore, pals, upon the ran-tan, / Here’s the health of Heales, my nibs, / For the less he pays the Peelers, / We shall bone the more of dibbs.
[UK] letter to Editor Daily News 25 Sept. 5/1: He, the driver, must get up earlier and go to bed without getting buffy, which he hadn’t done for a week of Sundays, before he found that little game would draw in the dibs.
[US]J.H. Nicholson ‘Bunkum in Parvo’ Opal Fever 97: I prefer a little dibs.
[UK]W.E. Henley ‘Villon’s Straight Tip’ in Farmer Musa Pedestris (1896) 177: For nix, for nix the dibbs you bag / At any graft, no matter what / Your merry goblins soon stravag.
[UK] ‘’Arry on St. Swithin’ in Punch 4 Aug. 49/1: I’d been piling the dibs for an outing, and saved up a couple of quid.
[UK]Albert Chevalier ‘The Racecourse Sharper’ 🎵 It’s odds agin ’is nibs – you’ve lost – I cop the dibs!
[Aus]Truth (Sydney) 10 Jan. 5/3: We helped his Nibs / To get the dibs.
[Aus]Stephens & O’Brien Materials for a Dict. of Aus. Sl. [unpub. ms.] 61: DIBS: Money, possibly an alteration of nibs or beans.
[UK]A. Bennett Card (1974) 232: I’ve got the dibs, of course.
[Aus]E. Dyson Spats’ Fact’ry (1922) 30: Slowly ’n’ sadly Benno doles out his cherished dibbs.
[Ire]Joyce Ulysses 272: Got up to kill: on eighteen bob a week. Fellows shell out the dibs.
[UK]E. Jervis 25 Years in Six Prisons 59: The first ‘farmer’ had brought out his well-filled wallet, the ‘con’ man’s eyes were fixed on the ‘dibs’.
[Aus]Western Mail (Perth) 28 May 21/1: [from Daily Mail, London] For the word money chink, tin, and dibbs survive.
[UK]E.F. Benson Mapp and Lucia (1984) 42: ‘What’s she got to pay you?’ said Irene impatiently. ‘Damage: dibs.’.
[US]R. Chandler Little Sister 33: How do you make your dibs?
[Ire]F. O’Connor An Only Child (1970) 79: Though wages were bad and jobs uncertain, they did bring in the regular dibs.
[UK]P. Barker Blow Your House Down 128: They still share the dibs out, same as usual.

In phrases