Green’s Dictionary of Slang

one who works security for a club, selecting those who may or may not be admitted.

2004

H. Kunzru Transmission 11: Guy Swift, thirty-three years old, UK citizen, paper millionaire [...] He had the number of the door-picker at the Chang Bar on his speed dial. You would have thought he was untouchable.

to work as a prostitute, standing or sitting in one’s own doorway; thus door-worker, a brothel prostitute.

1949		G. Johnston in Sun (Sydney) 16 June 3/4: There are a number of areas in the city from which they operate - the largest and most concentrated of which is in East Sydney, around Palmer Street. Their job is known as ‘working a door.’ In this particular area, small but compact, there are possibly about 100 girls and women working the doors. They sit, or stand in the door ways, but they don’t solicit. Their customers come to them — although often men are employed as outside agents or touts.
1949		G. Johnston in Sun (Sydney) 16 June 3/5: They are usually not a serious cause of the spread of VD infection (a recent charge brought against a woman in this area who had contracted VD was the first venereal infection among this particular group of doorworkers for over three years) and they act in some degree as a safety valve for animal forces in the community.
1953		Baker Aus. Speaks 124: Many of them [i.e. prostitutes] conduct their affairs by what is known as working a door.
1954		J. Steinbeck Sweet Thursday (1955) 42: Ever worked a house?
1966		M. Rumaker Exit 3 and Other Stories 43: ‘You working the house?’ asked the sailor.

(US) a tramp who approached farmers (by knocking on the farmhouse back door) for short-term casual work.

1920

Lincoln Eve. Jrnl (NE) 7 Apr. 9/3: The old ‘back door shaker’ either became a soldier during the war or [...] went to work in a munitions factory.

the neck and breast of mutton.

1909

J. Ware Passing Eng. of the Victorian Era.

see separate entries.

see separate entries.

see separate entry.

1. a security guard.

1903		Contested Election Case of Robert W. Bonynge Vs. John F. Shafroth from the 1st Cong. District Colorado I 786: Q. He is a half-pay policeman, a block watcher. Mr. Vidal. What you would call a door shaker? A. A door shaker, that is what he is.
1922		Baltimore Sun (MD) 15 Aug. 6/6: Brown, superintendant of Hagan’s one time force of ‘door shakers’ (the underworld parlance for special police).
1930		Pittsburgh Press (PA) 1 Feb. 3/3: Special Officer ‘Jake’ Spear, who is official night ‘door shaker’ for commission houses [...] on Penn Ave., fired at a burglar suspect and shot an owl.
1941		Kingsport Times (TN) 26 May 8/6: Every man who pays a merchant policeman for watching his business is required [...] to report the ‘door shaker’ as being on his payroll.
1953		Dick Tracy 28 Mar. [synd. cartoon] Night watchman or just a door shaker? [...] It’s the first time I ever knew a door shaker to grab anything but a door-knob.
1960		C. Cooper Jr Scene (1996) 225: I don’t know what professional is, unless it’s being a professional doorshaker.
1969		B. Jackson Thief’s Primer 97: in this town they have door shakers.
1975		J. Wambaugh Choirboys (1976) 132: I know it’s him because a the noises the doorshaker said he made.
1984		J. Bowers In Land of Nyx 22: He called himself a Security Enforcer; everyone else, I learned, called him the Door Shaker.

2. (US Und.) an opportunistic thief who takes advantage of unlocked doors, but does not actually break locks.

1939		Hutchinson News (KS) 8 May 3/7: A persistent window peeper and door shaker [...] made two separate attempts to enter the home of Mr and mrs Frank W. Sampson.
1952		Muncie Star (IN) 22 Oct. 4/4: Are store managers and merchants ‘getting careless or are door shakers at work trying to effect entries into local business places?’ wondered Capt. Jack Ertel.
1968		S. Lewin in Crime & Its Prevention 40 28: The ‘door shaker’ merely enters an apartment house or hotel and begins turning door knobs until he finds one that is unlocked.
1978		W. Camp Jacobs Park Killings 183: Sleet was a door-shaker [...] and door-shakers, like pimps, are strictly night workers.
1988		C. & G. O’Hara Fundamentals of Criminal Investigation 1988: It should be noted that many apartment dwellers are careless about locking their doors—a fact which is well known to the ‘door shaker,’ a burglar with minimal technique who simply goes through.

3. a police officer.

1942		Berrey & Van den Bark Amer. Thes. Sl.
1950		Goldin et al. DAUL 60/2: Door-shaker. A watchman or policeman who tries the doors of locked shops, etc.
1957		R. McAllister Kind of Guy I Am 63: ‘Go on, ya door shaker!’ ‘He's a yentzer! Wants our whiskey.’ I didn't alter my pace by a single beat, but marched directly [...] to the railroad tracks, then turned about and started back.
1970		Jrnl College & University Personnel Assoc. 22 111: Gone are the days of the ‘patriarchal patrolman’ who doubled in brass as night watchman, father confessor, door shaker, and tolerated tool of the administration.
1978		Criminal Justice Rev. 3-4 90: lt was my job to watch the joint for three or four nights and see when the door shaker (night watchman or policeman) would come by.

see separate entry.

(UK und.) in prison; restricted to one’s cell as a punishment.

1973		T. Lewis Billy Rags [ebook] ‘I don’t want to have to go back behind my door because of that filth’.
2020		G. Krauze What They Was 327: I done four years behind the door.

(US) from the very beginning.

1967		M. Braly On the Yard (2002) 27: It was the fuzz’s action from the door. They wanted me gone.
2008		R. Price Lush Life 105: The place had been a hit from the door on in .

see live up to the knocker under knocker n.¹

(US prison) to be released.

1956

N. Algren Walk on the Wild Side 274: Who’s makin’ it, Mr Foster? [...] Who’s makin’ the big door?

(US) an intensifer.

2002

(con. 1980s) i80s.com 🌐 out the door A suffix used at the end of a phrase. ‘Gag me out the door.’ Meaning, something gag[g]ed them so much they had to leave the room.

see up to dick under dick n.³

a phr. used to someone who is blocking one’s view.

1911		Sabetha Herald (KS) 14 Sept. 10/2: A boy yelled this at Tom Pace, who weighs 250 [pounds]: "Say you’d make a better door than a window’.
1923		Oswego Indep. (KS) 16 Feb. 6/3: Get your head out of my way. I can’t see. Say, you’d make a better door than a window.
1933		C. Clark Modern Ping-Pong 60: If you don’t move], your partner would have the right to say, ‘You make a better door than a window’.
1948		Southwest Rev. 33-4 232: ‘You make a better door than a window!’ Mr. Richter laughed roughly at his son for getting into his eye-way.
1958		Western Folklore 17 180: You make a better door than a window.
1978		St. Louis Post-Dispatch (MO) 1 Oct. 11F/2: He didn’t get [the ball] but blocked the vision of Denny, who did. ‘He makes a better door than a window,’ observed Denny.
1986		T. Ardizzone Evening News 27: ‘You make a better door than a window.’ Paul asks Maria if he can get her anything, [...] if she wants her feet or back rubbed.
1988		McGill Dict. of Kiwi Sl. 128/1: you make a better door than a window addressed to somebody needlessly in your way, perhaps standing in front of the television; c. 1920. NZ and US.
1998		J. McCormick Up on Plane 98: ‘You make a better door than a window,’ a voice behind him yelled.
2003		McGill Reed Dict. of N.Z. Sl. [as cit. 1988].