Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (US black) a successful pimp or criminal.

1959		in R. Abrahams ‘The Great MacDaddy’ in Deep Down In The Jungle (1964) 162: Now Dillinger, Slick Willie Sutton, all them fellows is gone, / Left you, the Great MacDaddy, to carry on.
1988		Eazy-E ‘No More?’ 🎵 I’m a pimp, mack daddy, lookin for the dollar.
1998		C. Fleming High Concept 88: His company is called MacDaddy Entertainment. (MacDaddy is a street slang expression for ‘pimp’).
1999		‘Master Pimp’ Pimp’s Rap 1: It had that Mack Daddy’s flavor. It was supeme, a pimp’s dream.
2003		J. Lethem Fortress of Solitude 430: Every one of these retrofitted paramours was a former ho-slappin’ mack daddy.
2010		Redman ‘That’s Where I B’ 🎵 You gon’ see the mack daddy.

2. attrib. use of sense 1.

1990		N. George ‘Video Blackulinity’ in Buppies, B-Boys, Baps and Bohos (1994) 149: He is sporting a big brimmed, old school, mack daddy hat.
1997		E.J. Dickey Sister, Sister 181: We stopped trying to have a conversation because the music that blended with all the mack-daddy conversation made it too hard to hear.
2002		E. Cose Envy of the World 8: We can be anything from mack-daddy, jive-talking pimps to soulless, street-smart killers.

3. (US black) an important, influential black man, a power in the community, a very successful or skilful man.

1993		Snoop Doggy Dogg ‘Doggy Dogg World’ 🎵 Now I’m the mack daddy.
1994		N. McCall Makes Me Wanna Holler (1995) 311: It was beginning to look like I was a Mack Daddy in a suit and tie.
2002		‘Touré’ Portable Promised Land (ms.) 157: We Words (My Favorite Things) [...] Tar baby. Trick daddy. Mack daddy.

4. (US black) a handsome, virile man.

1997–2001		Online Sl. Dict. 🌐 mack daddy n 1. one who is good with the opposite sex. (‘Jeff is such a mack daddy.’) Note: interchangeable with ‘mack’.
2002		T. Dorsey Triggerfish Twist (2002) 262: Coleman! The Mac Daddy!

5. (US campus) an extreme, anything or anybody that is considered the best or worst example.

1995		Eble Campus Sl. Apr. 7: macdaddy – biggest and best: ‘Jordan is the macdaddy when it comes to basketball.’.
1995		Eble Campus Sl. Dec. 4: mack-daddy – expert, the best: ‘Jane Austen is the mack-daddy of English literature.’ ‘That is one macdaddy of a car.’ ‘I am the MacDaddy.’.
1999		J. Maple Crime Fighter 103: [used as a neg.] Maybe the Mac Daddy of all ‘blue walls of silence’ is the one that normally separates the Narcotics Division from the Detective Bureau.
2004		J. Buckingham Modern Girl’s Guide to Life 229: This is the mack-daddy of all poker hands.

6. (N.Z. prison) an inmate serving a long imprisonment; life imprisonment.

2001

D. Looser Boobslang [U. Canterbury D.Phil. thesis] 112/1: mack daddy n. 1 an inmate serving a long sentence, esp. life imprisonment [...] 3 (the mack or the mack daddy) life imprisonment.

7. (N.Z. prison) an inmate with regular supplies of goods that can be offered on credit.

2001

D. Looser Boobslang [U. Canterbury D.Phil. thesis] 112/1: mack daddy n. 2 (the mack daddy) = shop.