Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(US) wretched, lousy, unpleasant.

1953		W. Fisher Waiters 104: The Fishbowl was ‘a poor-ass businessmen’s luncheon clubhouse, where they could eat at half-price’. [Ibid.] 163: Not no cow like that poor-ass bitch. No, sir!
1969		‘Iceberg Slim’ Pimp 29: All right, you poor ass bastards, it’s party time.
1977		A. Clarke Prime Minister (1978) 67: This is a poor-arse country, pardon my expression, with a lotta yardfowls.
1977		B. Jackson Killing Time 195: The only way to do it, I figure, was to get me one of these jobs to keep these motherfuckers from running over these other poorassed motherfuckers.
1999		J. Ellroy ‘My Life as a Creep’ in Destination: Morgue! (2004) 121: They would point to my poor-ass origins and conclude that I coveted Hancock Park from an aggrieved perspective.

(N.Z. prison) a subservient indiiviidual in the prison hierarchy, a ‘servant’ to more influential prisoners.

2001

D. Looser Boobslang [U. Canterbury D.Phil. thesis] 143/2: poor boy n. one who acts as a servant or drudge for another inmate, performing mostly menial, and occasionally dangerous, tasks.

potatoes.

1823

‘Jon Bee’ Dict. of the Turf, the Ring, the Chase, etc. 139: Poor creatures—potatoes. Cockney mark of despication for the very best of all edible roots: high-treason against the prince of esculents.

(W.I.) proud but impoverished, unwilling to take charity, however much it might be needed.

1974

cited in Allsopp Dict. Carib. Eng. Usage (1996).

dried, salted hake.

1595		Shakespeare Romeo and Juliet I i: ’Tis well thou art not a fish; if thou hadst, thou hadst been poor John.
1602		J. Cooke How A Man May Choose A Good Wife From A Bad Act II: When next I finde him here Ill hang him vp Like [...] That Stock-fish, that poore Iohn, that gut of men.
1610		Beaumont & Fletcher Scornful Lady II iii: Like a type of Thames-street, stinking of pitch and poor-John.
1620		J. Melton Astrologaster 35: Penurious as the Irish Catch-pole, that will feed his Dogges with Rabbets in Lent, while he sits eating a piece of poore John.
1631		T. Heywood Faire Maid of the West Pt I IV i: My teeth are as strong to grind bisket [...] my stomachke as able to digest pouderd beefe and Poore-john.
1647–50		R. Ligon Hist. of the Island of Barbadoes (1673) 37: Ling, Haberdine, Cod, poor-John.
1654		Witts Recreations ‘Fancies & Fantasticks’ No. 105: Piscis the fish is said to rule the feet [...] One that purveys provision enough, / Of Ling, Poore-John, and other Lenten stuffe.
1665		Head Eng. Rogue I 162: A small steak of Poor John.
1825		‘The Jolly Fisherman’ Universal Songster I 133: Fish, just like men, I’ve often caught, / Crabs, gudgeons, poor John, codfish.
1892		Ipswich Jrnl 19 Mar. 2/1: Razor fish, wolf fish, poor john.
1895		Lincs. Chron. 25 Jan. 2/6: An Elizabethan Dinner [...] The second [course] of fish [...] lampreys, poor John, stock, dab and sturgeon.
1915		Liverpool Dly Post 8 Mar. 8/6: When a man is sick [...] a dish of buttered rice, with [...] a little poor John, or salted fish.

see separate entry.

see separate entry.

see under wee n.

see and did he marry poor blind Nell? phr.

(US) to be extremely poor, to be severely deprived.

1997		No Depression Issue 8 Mar.–Apr. 🌐 I’m having to poor-boy it. I mixed it in one night, and did the graphics and the cover in two hours. Working like that is pretty hard, but when it’s coming out of your own pocket, it’s the only way you can do it.
2003		KBUC News Script 12 Mar. 🌐 Marvin Quinney told those at the open forum Tuesday that they’d have to ‘poor-boy’ it for a while, since there was no extra money to throw at the marketing projects.

(US) very poor.

c.1863

letter quoted in Wiley Life of Billy Yank (1952) 187: The folks [in N. Alabama] is poorer than skim piss.