Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (also nosebagger) a day-tripper to the seaside who takes their own provisions and thus makes no useful contribution to the local economy.

1807		Lloyds’ List 24 Nov. in Ware Passing Eng. of the Victorian Era (1909) 183/2: ‘Last season was a bad one; there were plenty of visitors, but nearly all “nosebaggers” – people who come for the day and bring their own provisions,’ said a Southend butcher in his examination at the Chelmsford Bankruptcy Court.
1860		Hotten Dict. Modern Sl., Cant etc. (2nd edn) 181: NOSE-BAGS visitors at watering places, and houses of refreshment, who carry their own victuals.
1873		Sl. Dict.

2. a veil.

1937–84

Partridge DSUE (1984) 803: ca. 1865–1915.

3. a handbag.

1887

Cornhill Mag. Apr. 370: So I yesterday packed up my nosebag, and away I posted down to Aldgate [F&H].

4. a hospitable hotel or lodging-house.

1898

Daily News 22 Dec. in Ware (1909) 183/2: ‘These gulls’, remarked the keeper before referred to, ‘come now in larger numbers from year to year. The fact is they are like a good many of the people you see walking about – if they once find out where there’s a good nose-bag they take care to be near it.’.

5. (Aus.) a bag in which an itinerant or swagman n.² carries his provisions.

1893		H. Lawson ‘Stragglers’ in Roderick (1972) 93: Three times a day the black billies and cloudy nose-bags are placed on the table.
1899		Morn. Bulletin (Rockhampton, Qld) 25 Sept. 3/4: This miscellaneous assortment when compactly rolled up in a cylindrical shape [...] ‘nosebag,’ he denominates indifferently a ‘drum,’ a ‘bluey,’ ‘the curse,’ or, satirically, a ‘little parcel,’ or affectionately ‘Matilda’. If its dimensions are small [he] contemptuously alludes to it as a ‘Condaminer’.
1901		H. Lawson ‘The Romance of the Swag’ in Roderick (1972) 501: To the top strap fasten the string of the nose-bag, a calico bag, about the size of a pillow-slip, containing the tea, sugar, and flour bags, bread, meat, baking-powder, salt, etc.
1924		Sun. Times (Perth) 2 Nov. 11/3: Our Wonderland of Wheat [headline] A Nation’s Nosebag.
c.1936		Anonymous ‘The Dying Bagman’ in Seal (1999) 96: A strapping young bagman lay dying / His nosebag supporting his head.

6. food, spec. as served in a restaurant; a meal.

1900		‘Doss Chiderdoss’ ‘A Dangerous Dad’ Sporting Times 3 Feb. 1/4: ’E’s a right to ’is share of the nosebag and trough.
1908		K. McGaffey Sorrows of a Show Girl Ch. ii: I climb into the nosebag without a peep.
1920		A. Baer Short & Sour 17 May [synd. col.] Twenty Big Berthas [...] organized a Skinny Club and cut ’emselves down to three nosebags a day.
1935		Thieves Slang ms list from District Police Training Centre, Ryton-on-Dunsmore, Warwicks 7: Nosebag: Meal.
1944		J. Archibald ‘It Could Only Happen to Willie’ in Popular Detective Apr. 🌐 I got to know how to ask my dame out to dinner tonight correct instead of sayin’ ‘How’s about the nosebag, Babe?’.
1949		Monteleone Criminal Sl. (rev. edn).
1983		A. Payne ‘Senior Citizen Caine’ Minder [TV script] 65: Thought I’d rustle up some nose bag.
1994		J. O’Connor Secret World of the Irish Male (1995) 207: Davo and myself go for what is called in vulgar circles a good nosebag in a posh French restaurant.
2005		P. Howard Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nightdress 25: The fockers put about eight hundred lids worth of booze on my tab, not to mention nosebag.

7. a gasmask.

1937–84

Partridge DSUE (1984) 803: 1915–18.

8. a bag of food (given to an itinerant), a lunch box, a (take-away) meal.

1879		letter 7 Mar. in T. Hughes Gone To Texas (1884) 63: I had just laid in a nose-bag full of grub [...] and was peckish.
1888		H. King Savage London 26: Yer don’t need to carry a nosebag when yer goes out of a night, for yer can stow away enough fer a week at wonst.
1912		E. Pugh Harry The Cockney 49: My nose-bag consisted of some sweets and an apple, or some other fruit, and a biscuit with some coloured sugar on it.
1925		Wodehouse Carry on, Jeeves 135: Biffy’s man came in with the nose-bags and we sat down to lunch.
1925		Townsville Daily Bulletin (Qld) 12 Dec. 6s/3: Give me your nose-bags so that I can fill them with good tucker.
1926		N. Klein ‘Hobo Lingo’ in AS I:12 652: Nose-bag—lunch handed out in paper bag.
1938		(con. c.1910) S.H. Holbrook Holy Old Mackinaw 192: A nosebag show is one where midday lunch is eaten not at camp but out of dinner buckets.
1945		F.H. Hubbard Railroad Avenue 353: Nosebag – Lunch carried to work.
1949		Monteleone Criminal Sl. (rev. edn) 163: nose bag [...] a meal given a beggar.
1964		(con. 1920s–40s) in J.L. Kornbluh Rebel Voices 407: Nose bag – lunch pail; lunch served in a paper bag or pail.
1966		(con. 1954) J. McGrath Events While Guarding the Bofors Gun I ii: Nosebag-time, Gunner Rowe.
1998		M. Newall ‘Sir Gawayne and the Grene Knyght’ in Indep. Weekend Rev. 26 Dec. 1: But nobody wantes a rukke bifore the nosebagge arrives.

9. in fig. use, cocaine.

2008

J. Niven Kill Your Friends (2009) 73: Off his nut on the nosebag.