Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. a promiscuous man.

c.1597		Shakespeare Henry IV Pt 2 II ii: Even such kin as the parish heifers are to the town bull.
1609		Jonson Epicene III v: A man of your head, and haire, should ... not mount the marriage-bed, like a towne-bul, or a mountaine-goate.
1619–22		Fletcher Custom of the Country I i: A Town Bull is a meer Stoick to this Fellow, a grave Philosopher, And a Spanish Jennet, a most vertuous Gentleman.
1631		J. Shirley Humorous Courtier Act V: I’ld marry with a publicke stallion, A Towne Bull.
1639		Beaumont & Fletcher Wit Without Money III i: Four husbands, should not I be blest sir [...] what should I doe with them, turne a Malt mill, or tyth them out like town Bulls to my tennants.
1640		‘Mary Tattle-well’ The womens sharpe revenge 8: But for the man hee takes or assumes to himselfe such a loose liberty or liberty of licentious loosenesse, that though he be (as they call him) a Common Town Bull [...] his disgrace will be quickly worn out.
1649		Man in the Moon 23-30 Apr. 20: This is but a Town-bull trick, he hath more than these.
1654		Mercurius Fumigosus 6 5 July 46: Mistris Squirtington, so miserably troubled with the yellows, that she lives in perpetual fear lest her husband should act the Town-Bull of Smithfield, and ride every jade he comes near.
1666		G. Torriano Proverbi Italiani 70: Gallo To be the cock of the parish, viz. to be a great whore-master, to be the town bull.
1675		[Dudley Loftus] ‘The Wish’ in Carpenter Verse in English from Tudor & Stuart Eng. (2003) 434: He’l [sic] be the common Town Bull, must receive / Whatever plagues the angry husbands give.
1678		J. Ray Proverbs (2nd edn) 66: Then the town-bull is a Batchelour. i.e. as soon as such an one. He speaks Bear-garden.
1681		A. Radcliffe Ovid Travestie 116: What think you, lady, of your Father Jove? Shew me a town-bull h’as been more in love.
c.1698		B.E. Dict. Canting Crew n.p.: Town-bull, one that rides all the Women he meets.
1705–07		N. Ward Hudibras Redivivus II:5 26: Nouns, draw, tho’ you are some Town-Bully, / I’ll make you know, Sir, I’m no Cully.
1710		J. Dunton ‘The He-Strumpets’ in Athenianism II 93–9: in Norton Homosexuality in Eighteenth-Century England: A Sourcebook 🌐 The Town-Bull he does never prove His Mettle in the He-Alcove.
1725		New Canting Dict. [as cit. c.1698].
1737, 1759, 1760, 1776		Bailey Universal Etym. Eng. Dict. [as cit. c.1698].
1893		‘Bob Sterling’ Town-Bull 9: By Jove! what an expanse of buttocks! What a magnificent pair of legs! Twe [sic] town-bull was ready to serve.

2. a ‘whoremaster’, i.e. a pimp or procurer.

c.1698		B.E. Dict. Canting Crew n.p.: A Town-bull, a Whore-master.
1725		New Canting Dict.
1737, 1759, 1760, 1776		Bailey Universal Etym. Eng. Dict.
1764		K. O’Hara Midas II i: Off! [...] to some Brother-Trull Your beastly markets try There But know, obscene Town-Bull! You’ve, now, the wrong Sow by th’ ear.
1785, 1788, 1796		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue n.p.: Town bull, a common whore master.
1811		Lex. Balatronicum.
1823		Egan Grose’s Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.
1832		Ely’s Hawk & Buzzard (NY) Sept. 8 n.p.: This knight of the brush [...] now has been made town bull.

(US) a police officer working in a village or small town.

1914		Gas Power Age 9 69/1: The editor, the parson, the lawyer and the town clown have each told him that he was too smart for the farm.
1920		Police Jrnl 6-8 22: A county constable is known as a ‘town clown,’ and a uniformed policeman as a ‘harness bull’.
1923		N. Anderson Hobo 17: It is well that the jungles be not too far from a town, though far enough to escape the attention of the natives and officials, the town ‘clowns.’.
1930		(con. 1890) G. Milburn ‘A Convention Song’ in Hobo’s Hornbook 26: The night was getting started / When someone heard a clatter, / And the clowns from town came swarming down / And maybe we didn’t scatter.
1933		‘Goat’ Laven Rough Stuff 42: You can never tell what a small town ‘clown’ (country policemen) is liable to think and do.
1938		J. Curtis They Drive By Night 178: Shorty’s fingers drummed the same old tune. The town clown looked at him savagely.
1944		C.B. Davis Rebellion of Leo McGuire (1953) 54: ‘What’s the town clown?’ I asked. ‘The town constable or marshal or chief of police.’.
1959		J. Thompson Getaway in Four Novels (1983) 36: One of those little inland villages — some wide place in the road where every stranger gets the big-eye and maybe an interview by the town clown.
1966		E. McKinney Exacting Ear 258: I would under no circumstances wish to [...] cause any embarrassment to the local guardian of law and order, otherwise known as the town clown.
1976		D. McElroy Making It Simple 37: Strand, age 58, who waxed / the town clown’s ass, broke / his badge, jaw, and sternum / for messing with his daughter.
1984		H. King Harry King 39: The box was on the balcony and we laid on the floor and watched the town-clown [local policeman] go all over the first floor but he never came near the box.
1988		R. Heinlein Cat Who Walks Through Walls 169: I could see what he was: some sort of town clown; he was wearing a uniform that spelled ‘cop’.
1991		(con. 1920s) O.D. Brooks Legs 17: Sometimes a yard bull or a town clown – that’s a town cop – gets pissed off with one of two hobos he’s collared and locks him up.
1999		M. Temte Wrangler 20: He’s a paramedic, drives the ambulance and substitutes for the school-bus drivers when they’re sick or out of town. He’s also our only cop. Some folks call him the town clown.
2000		R. Robinson Diamond Trump 126: I suppose some town clown or county sheriff just marked down the unsolved cases.
2011		F. Bill ‘Coon Hunter’s Noir’ in Crimes in Southern Indiana [ebook] Marty [...] is Mauckport’s town marshal. Not a town clown or county mountie.

see crack n.³ (2)

(Polari) an uncircumcised penis.

2019

P. Baker Fabulosa 298/2: town hall drapes an uncircumcised penis.

see lady about town under lady n.

see ety. at Tipperary fortune n.

see miss n.¹

a very promiscuous woman.

1969		J. Crumley One to Count Cadence (1987) 305: Abigail had been [...] what is commonly known as a town punch, though she was never as promiscuous as she was thought to be.
1976		R. Price Blood Brothers 21: ‘Hey, Three-Finger Annette said she was going to the Camelot [...] ’ ‘I don’t need no town pump, Butler.’.
1983		D.D. Anderson (ed.) Michigan 297/2: You heard a lot of guys saying she was easy stuff, and she’d got a reputation around school as being the town punch board, and Fleming's number one Prone Joan.

see under shift n.

a womanizer, a lecher.

1698

N. Ward London Spy I 9: He [...] utters himself with as little Hesitation, and as great Grace as a Town-Stallion when he dissembles with his Generous Benefactress.

a smart dowager.

1835		G. Kent Modern Flash Dict.
1848		Flash Dict. in Sinks of London Laid Open.

(UK Und.) a gullible person, prey to confidence tricksters.

a.1790		H.T. Potter New Dict. Cant (1795) n.p.: town todlers silly fellows, frequently taken-in by sharpers playing at different games.
1809		G. Andrewes Dict. Sl. and Cant.
1821		Flash Dict.
1835		G. Kent Modern Flash Dict.
1848		Flash Dict. in Sinks of London Laid Open.
1859		Matsell Vocabulum.
1895		Crowe Aus. Sl. Dict. 88: Town Toddlers, foolish or silly persons easily taken in.

a pimp.

1698		N. Ward London Spy I 9: He is one half Town-Trap and the other half Sweetner.
1709		N. Ward Compleat and Humorous Account of Remarkable Clubs (1756) 111: A mottl’d Diversity of Rakes, Beaus, grave Hypocrites, and Apprentices; Pimps, Bullies, Stallions, Valets, Butlers, and disguis’d Livery-Men; Thieves, Gamesters, Sweetners, Town Traps and Highwaymen.

to lick and suck the partner’s body, incl. the genitals and sometimes the anus.

1941		G. Legman ‘Lang. of Homosexuality’ Appendix VII in Henry Sex Variants.
1965		Guild Dict. Homosexual Terms 19: go all over town (with) (v.): A tongue bath; licking the person over the entire body, ending with fellation (or cunnilinctus).

to commit oneself wholeheartedly.

1938		D. Burley N.Y. Amsterdam News 15 Oct. 21: Fats Savage and John Strickler ‘went to town’ on that landlady’s gumbo [...] the other peeyem.
1951		A. Perrott-White French Legionnaire 206: I really went to town buying socks, shirts, underwear, and other such luxuries.
1953		I. Hamilton Till Human Voices Wake Us 11: I didn’t take this [information] at all well. In fact I went to town about it.
1967		E. Shepard Doom Pussy 55: When I get the writing bug I go to town.
1973		F. Huelin ‘Keep Moving’ 45: ‘By cripes! She went to town properly, an’ the bloody dog’s growlin’ all the time’.
2001		‘Randy Everhard’ Tattoo of a Naked Lady 8: She’s a sight for sore eyes, ain’t she? And if you think I’m giving you lip, you oughta see her go to town on a dick.

1. well-off, having plenty of money.

1812		Vaux Vocab. of the Flash Lang.
1823		Egan Grose’s Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue n.p.: A man ‘in town,’ is in cash ? ‘out of town,’ without blunt.

2. (US campus) acceptable.

1969

Current Sl. III:3 8: In town, adj. Acceptable; Ohio — College males, Negro, Ohio.

of a man, extremely promiscuous.

1937–84

Partridge DSUE (1984) 669/1: ca. 1670–1800.

1. working as a prostitute; thus take to the town, to work as a prostitute.

1727		J. Gay Beggar’s Opera II iv: I hope, Madam, I ha’n’t been so long upon the Town, but I have met with some good Fortunes as well as my Neighbours.
1779		Nocturnal Revels I 32: Charlotte Hayes, Lucy Cooper, and Nancy Jones, started upon the Town at the same time.
1788		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue (2nd edn) n.p.: To be on the town; to live by prostitution.
1788		Harris’s List of Covent-Garden Ladies 61: Young, and not more than three months on the town, or in the town, fine hazel love-swimming eyes and dark brown hair.
1793		Sporting Mag. July II 235/1: Lookup [...] was acquainted with most of the fine women who flirted upon the town, and to whom a few guineas would procure a certain passport.
1811		Lex. Balatronicum.
1823		‘Jon Bee’ Dict. of the Turf, the Ring, the Chase, etc. 187: Upon the town — street-walkers, persons who live about at this place and that, and every where, whether men or women (the latter, particularly) with loose habits — sexually or otherwise.
1824		Pierce Egan’s Life in London 26 Sept. 7/2: Mrs Bertram, alias Mother Bang, well known on the town.
1833		‘The Blowing In Quod’ in Swell!!! or, Slap-Up Chaunter 39: When I was but green on the town, / At fifteen or sixteen years old, / Oh, then I had plenty of culls.
1842		Whip & Satirist of NY & Brooklyn (NY) 9 Apr. n.p.: Lady Jane Grey [...] perhaps the most noble looking woman on the town.
1849		Sam Sly 5 May 2/2: The green milkman, of St. Pancras-street [...] to feed his children, and not let a daughter go on the town for want of food.
1850		‘Ned Buntline’ G’hals of N.Y. 20: Yer’d better make yer minds up, like me, to turn out, at once, and make an easy, splendid livin’, on the town.
1850		Man of Pleasure’s Illus. Pocket-book n.p.: She has been upon the town about fifteen months [...] never accepting less than two guineas for her present.
1868		Sportsman 14 Mar. 2/1: Notes on News [...] Mrs Helen Pope [...] simpering out that she did not conic to Paris to steal — oh! dear, no—but only to go upon the town.
1869		G. Ellington Women of N.Y. 298: They differ from other classes in being what is called ‘street-walkers,’ or ‘cruisers.’ They are ‘on the town.’.
1881		Nat. Police Gaz. (NY) 8 Oct. 2/3: [headline] betrothed and betrayed A Young Girl Seduced by Her Lover and Left on the Town.
1888–94		‘Walter’ My Secret Life (1966) II 245: You [...] may do with Louise what you like, I shan’t be here, you will throw her on the town.
1901		Bulletin (Sydney) 14 Dec. 34/1: Half a lifetime passed in hotels convinces me that an intending barmaid might as well, as a rule, take to the ‘town’ at once. Let a woman be ever so virtuous physically, the degrading influence of a bar sullies the purest minds [...] A girl who spends her youth and beauty in such a service is, in 10 years, either on the town or taking in washing.
1914		Truth (Melbourne) 14 Feb. 7/2: ‘Go on the town and bring some home,’ was the reply given by a bill-poster [...] to his three weeks’ bride when she asked him for some money.
1914		Sydney Sportsman (Surry Hills, NSW) 29 July 3/2: I will show you tons of cases / Where there’s gells upon the town.
1915		G. Bronson-Howard God’s Man 144: More young fellows going in for being yeggs and grafters, more girls going on the town – all good business.
1938		H.M. Anderson Strip Tease 30: ‘A girl doesn’t have to make a living the hard way if she’s gonna be on the town’.
1939		J. Worby Spiv’s Progress 42: ‘Well, you’ve got me beat, if you’re not on the town,’ I said to Gladys .
1941		J.M. Cain Mildred Pierce (1985) 351: ‘I’m on the town.’ ‘Well – you don’t mean he actually left the money on the bureau, do you?’.
1951		D. Stivens Jimmy Brockett 241: She was flat broke and on the town when Harry Phillips found a job for her to do.
1987		(con. 1920s) L. Redmond Emerald Square 13: She’s on the town, hangs round McDaids, she does.
1993		I.L. Allen City in Sl. (1995) 77: A woman on the town meant a prostitute in New York since at least the 1860s.
1994		(con. 1930s) K.C. Kearns Dublin Tenement Life 86: Oh, the country girls got a hell of a time of it, that’s why all the girls was ‘on the town!’.

2. living as a professional criminal.

1823		Byron Don Juan canto XI line 133: Poor Tom was once a kiddy upon the town, A thorough varmint, and a real swell, Full flash, all fancy.
1830		Lytton Paul Clifford III 244: Harry spoke up for you, and said as ’ow though you had just gone on the town, you was already prime up to gammon.
1842		Egan ‘Jack Flashman’ in Farmer Musa Pedestris (1896) 141: Jack long was on the town, a teazer; / A spicy blade for wedge or sneezer; / Could turn his fives to anything / Nap a reader, or filch a ring.

3. living as a sophisticate, a man of the world.

1819		P. Egan Key to the Picture of the Fancy going to a Fight 24: [F]ellows who have been on the town all their lies and flattered themselves that they have been ‘up’ and ‘down’ to every thing in the shape of a ‘do!’.
1821		Egan Life in London (1869) 101: [note] ‘On the Town’ A man of the World. A person supposed to have a general knowledge of men and manners. In short, UP to everything!
1865		‘The Brave Old Jock’ Rambler’s Flash Songster 13: A song to the jock, the brave old jock, / Who has stood so stiff and strong, / Here’s health and renown, to his crimson crown, / And his stump so stout and long. / He’s out on the town, when the sun goes down, / In every corner dark.
1993		I.L. Allen City in Sl. (1995) 66: The phrase on the town, for men at least, since the early eighteenth century meant seeking a good time at various fashionable places around town.

1. in prison for debt, cite 1832 refs the Marshalsea on the south side of the Thames.

1823		‘Jon Bee’ Dict. of the Turf, the Ring, the Chase, etc.
1832		Satirist (London) 2 Sept. 286/3: But over the water, and o’er to the Bench, / When poor, he must start in a hurry: / When the bribe he can't pay, we must take him to stay / ‘Out of town for the season’—in Surrey.

2. hard up, penniless.

1823		‘Jon Bee’ Dict. of the Turf, the Ring, the Chase, etc.
1823		Egan Grose’s Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue n.p.: A man ‘in town,’ is in cash ? ‘out of town,’ without blunt.
1890–1904		Farmer & Henley Sl. and Its Analogues.

3. unexcited, unstimulated.

1837–8

‘The Rare Old Root’ in Cuckold’s Nest 9: It’s out of town when its head hangs down, / And its nuts wibble-wabble about.

4. (US Und.) in prison.

1928		Rocky Mountain News (Denver) 13 Nov. in AS III:3 255/1: In hock, in hospital, out of town, away — In prison.
1949		Monteleone Criminal Sl. (rev. edn).
1968		‘Hy Lit’ Hy Lit’s Unbelievable Dict. of Hip Words 52: out of town – Away to summer camp or college, (Jail).

5. (US) crazy.

1942

Berrey & Van den Bark Amer. Thes. Sl.

6. (US black) unacceptable, unfashionable.

1969

Current Sl. III:3.

(US) to punish (severely).

2006

(con. 1972) Jurgenson & Cea Circle of Six 244: I knew he wanted to take the NYPD to town, not only for what they’d done to me and Phil, but also to him.

see Windy City n. (1)

(W.I.) a call for speedy and generous service, esp. on arriving at a bar and calling for a quick round of drinks.

1958

cited in Cassidy & LePage Dict. Jam. Eng. (1980).

(orig. US black/campus) a general excl. of disbelief, dismissal.

1984		Eble Campus Sl. Sept.
1996		Eble Sl. and Sociability 56: Many phrases formed around get are fixed expressions that show disbelief (get outta here, get out of town).