Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (US) a trick or swindle (cf. jig n.² (1)).

1629		R. Brome Northern Lasse III ii: Now the gigs up.
1672		J. Phillips Maronides (1678) V 2: They car’d not for such Punic Giggs.
c.1790		‘De Kilmainham Minit’ Luke Caffrey’s Gost 5: When to see Luke’s last gig we agreed, / We tip’d him our Gripes in a Tangle.
1950		Goldin et al. DAUL 80/2: Gig. (Carnival) A renewal of pressure; a final effort to swindle a difficult victim.
2007		N. ‘Razor’ Smith Raiders 24: When Bob was awakened by a kick in the thigh [...] he knew the gig was up.

2. (Irish) a joke, fun, mischief; as phr. all the gig, very amusing [HDAS sees this, and thus subseq. uses, as development of gambling use at gig n.⁷ but chronology would appear to militate against this; ? poss. imagery of SE gig, a spinning top, i.e. a plaything].

c.1785		‘Connelly’s Ale’ in A. Carpenter Verse in Eng. in 18C Ireland (1998) 387: He has a daughter both comely and handsome. / You’d know by her eyes she had gig in her tail.
1793		Sporting Mag. May II 128/2: Now, fore and aft having abus’d them / Just all for my fancy and gig.
1819		P. Egan Key to the Picture of the Fancy going to a Fight 22: [O]ne of the kids turned post-boy, just for a bit of gig.
c.1820		The Sapient Pig 22: All who with wonder would wish to surprize [...] No longer loose time, as it is now all the gig, / But go and see Toby, the rare Sapient Pig.
1820		Jack Randall’s Diary 62: In search of lark, or some delicious gig.
1833		‘The City Youth’ in Out-and-Outer in Spedding & Watt (eds) Bawdy Songbooks (2011) IV 139: His friends grow tired, he grows fonder of the gig.
1846		Swell’s Night Guide 73: Them chats and brown-crawls was clipping into me so, that it took all the gig out of me.
1847		Home News for India 7 June 330/1: Ronconi has played Figaro, and admirably full of life and ‘gig’.
1859, 1860		Hotten Dict. of Modern Sl. etc.
1864, 1867, 1870		Hotten Sl. Dict.
1883		Leics. Chron. 3 Feb. 9/1: [fropm M.Y. Independent] Ah! JennyMcSha / Ye’ll bless the day / Whin yer name is Mrs McFlarity / With a cow an’ a pig / An’ a bit of a gig .
1996		D. Healy Bend for Home 291: She asked me to phone Una. So I said Una was in America. Phone, said your mother, for the gig of the thing and she started laughing.

3. (orig. US) business, a state of affairs.

1793		Sporting Mag. Sept. II 343/1: I had the opinion of my brethren upon this gig [i.e. a lawsuit].
1907		in McClure’s Mag. Feb. 379: What’s this gig about militia? [HDAS].
1957		J. Blake letter in Joint (1972) 167: Some fatass got stuck and blew the gig.
1968		N. Heard Howard Street 52: That gig ain’t sayin’ nuthin’. Like, it’s a drag, man.
1977		B. Davidson Collura (1978) 103: As so frequently happens in undercover police ‘gigs’, the entire operation was stalled.
1981		J. Ellroy Brown’s Requiem 110: Gradually I got into some other gigs — heavyweight scenes, the Chicano movement, and this drug recovery programme I work at.
1990		(con. early 1950s) J. Ellroy L.A. Confidential 227: Cathcart never got his smut gig going.
2000		R.G. Barrett Leaving Bondi (2013) [ebook] ‘The whole gig’s over, man’.

4. a joker; an eccentric [OED: ‘Eton College slang’ or dialect].

1798

‘Ladies’ Wigs’ in Hilaria 81: You’ll pardon me, ma’am, I’m quite a gig, / Is it your hair, or isit a wig?

5. (orig. US) a live performance at a particular venue, usu. musical but also used of other forms of stage act.

1908		H. Green Maison De Shine 48: What kind o’ gig is that? [i.e. paper-tearing].
1926		Melody Maker Sept. 7: One popular ‘gig’ band makes use of a nicely printed booklet.
1931		Melody Maker May 369: Bill Henry and his orchestra were responsible for the undoubted success of half the local gigs.
1946		Mezzrow & Wolfe Really the Blues 105: Once in a while a gig in a small café that their mothers never knew about.
1959		C. MacInnes Absolute Beginners 76: A character called Two-Thumbs Tumbril [...] was holding some auditions for an out-of-city gig he thought might happen.
1966		T. Keyes All Night Stand 53: A week in Hamburg and then back to England to do a gig at Oxford.
1979		E. Torres After Hours 81: I’m thinkin’ of starting a little ‘showtime’ gig.
1986		C. Bowles G’DAY 25: A muso plays gigs and mainlines.
1989		C. Hiaasen Skin Tight 184: I had a gig in New York.
1992		R.G. Barrett Davo’s Little Something 11: They’ve got a gig tomorrow [...] supporting the Mentals.
1998		Hip-Hop Connection Dec. 12: We’d just seen the Wall of Sound gig in Nuremberg.
2000		Indep. Rev. 21 Jan. 13: We were pretty much always on the road [...] around 250 to 300 gigs a year.
2000		P. Temple Dead Point (2008) [ebook] I cam to make a fucckflick with Susan [...] Worst gig of my life.
2009		Observer Mag. 4 Jan. 16: He had invited me [...] to listen to Blanchard, who was playing trumpet with his small jazz combo. He sat through Blanchard’s gig uttering only a few words.
2010		K. Richards Life 52: I’ve still never played a better gig prestige-wise than Westminster Abbey.
2013		D. Whish-Wilson Zero at the Bone [ebook] He could see in her eyes that she was nervous about the gig.
2019		C.D. Rosales Word Is Bone [ebook] ‘I’m on my way to that gig.’ ‘No one says “gig.”’ She hopped out the window [...] ‘Do they?’.
2024		J. Meades Empty Wigs (t/s) 291: We were attracting a more sophisticated after-gig crowd.

6. a job, an occupation.

1946		S. Jackson Indiscreet Guide to Soho 100: The seedy-looking men [...] are on the prowl for ‘gigs’ (one-night jobs).
1957		H. Simmons Corner Boy 89: Ain’t no other gig in town I can make this kind of bread.
1959		Mad mag. Sept. 41: We really ought to be here with eyes fixed on this wild gig.
1968		L. Wolf Voices from the Love Generation 7: We worked with all phases [...] messenger gigs, paper distribution, whatever gigs we could get.
1971		L. Bangs in Psychotic Reactions (1988) 53: Even if I did turn in my chain an’ colors a year or two back for a gig in the rags.
1981		J. Ellroy Brown’s Requiem 35: How’s tricks, Fritzie? Still got the repo gig?
1990		(con. early 1950s) J. Ellroy L.A. Confidential 37: Welton Morrow offered him the security man gig.
1999		K. Sampson Powder 172: If he’d have pitched them a storyline involving corpulent middle-management types on a splat-gun assertiveness training weekend, he’d have still got the gig.
2000		Guardian Rev. 25 Feb. 6: Describing his movie career as ‘opportunistic’, he happily admits the film gigs are part of a bigger game plan.
2003		N. Green Angel of Montague Street (2004) 41: ‘We do a lotta security, lotta divorce, you know [...]’ ‘Don’t sound like a bad gig.’.
2005		L. Redhead Rubdown [ebook] [He] used the few contacts he had left to get her a gig on ‘Sassafras Street’.
2009		L. McIlvanney All the Colours 114: ‘Sorry, is this like an audition? I thought I’d got the gig’.
2010		K. Richards Life 267: I used to set up the riffs [...] and Mick would fill in. That was basically the gig.
2013		T. Robinson Hard Bounce [ebook] ‘PIs. Seems like their standard gig [i.e. finding runaways]’.
2020		C. Hiaasen Squeeze Me 287: ‘Being in bad shape was the only reason your client got this gig’.
2021		P. Papathanasiou Stoning 188: ‘It’s why he got the gig here as facility manager’.

7. (US black/teen) an event, a party; a jam session; also attrib.

1954		Hepster’s Dict. 5: Gig – Party.
1960		‘Lord Buckley’ Hiparama of the Classics 15: And we all dig this is the most righteous gig, that we can’t miss with all these bulgin’ eyes.
1970		G. Scott-Heron Vulture (1996) 16: I knew that the niggers would be out in full force. Gig time on a Friday night!
1974		V.E. Smith Jones Men 76: I was outta my class at that gig in the first place.
1998		I. Welsh Filth 79: The gig finishes early enough for Ray and I to hit the cannie.
2000		Guardian Guide 8–14 Jan. 24: The Essex gig is a joint birthday party.

8. (US Und.) a criminal job; a criminal charge.

1953		E. Hunter ‘Vicious Circle’ in Jungle Kids (1967) 37: He’d done nicely on a few gigs so far.
1968		K. Brasselle Cannibals 197: I went over to the small-town jail [...] ‘What’s his gig?’ I asked. ‘Theft.’.
1971		B. Malamud Tenants (1972) 56: On my first solo gig I was bagged out of my own stupidity, beaten shitless, and dumped in jail.
1986		F. Taylor Auf Wiedersehen Pet Two 240: We financed the gig with a loan, then went back and turned over the same bank.
2000		F. Mac Anna Cartoon City 2: What I’m saying is who in their right mind takes a bleeding ‘guest’ along on a gig?
2010		L. Berney Gutshot Straight [ebook] [of a commissioned ‘hit’] ‘Mr. Moby said I could handle this, you know? I was hoping this was going to be, like, my first real gig, you feel me?’.

9. (Aus.) a successful coup.

1968

S. Gore Holy Smoke 35: When he catches up with ’em near the Red Sea he thinks he’s got ’em cold. She’s a real gig, he reckons.

10. (US) one’s special interest, practice or plan.

1966		H.S. Thompson Hell’s Angels (1967) 69: That was Bobo’s gig; before the Hell’s Angles came into his life he was one of San Francisco’s more promising middleweight boxers.
1987		(con. 1967) E. Spencer Welcome to Vietnam (1989) 22: Granted, it is usually perverse, but each guy [in the Marines] has his own gig.
1993		I. Welsh Trainspotting 21: What the fuck, it’s Mike’s gig.
2012		J. Díaz This Is How You Lose Her 35: School had never been his gig.

11. any form of event.

1981		A.K. Shulman On the Stroll 127: That day they’d [i.e. a three-card monte team] already played four different gigs.
2023		J. Ellroy (con. 1962) Enchanters 7: This gig was strictly rogue and ad lib.