Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. to carry an inconvenient weight for an equally inconvenient distance.

1922		Joyce Ulysses 47: She trudges, schlepps, trains, drags trascines her load.
1930		C. Miller ‘Furniture Lingo’ AS VI:2 126: Schlepp [...], literally meaning ‘drag,’ refers only to moving furniture about and placing it.
1938		J. Weidman I Can Get It For You Wholesale 21: What are you gonna do with those muscles you developed from schlepping bundles and pushing trucks all these years?
1963		A. Baron Lowlife (2001) 20: You can see the old women [...] schlapping their big shopping bags.
1977		C. McFadden Serial 108: She waited till they [i.e. hardback books] came out in paperback so it wasn’t so much work schlepping them around.
1989		H. Harrison Bill [...] on the Planet of Robot Slaves (1991) 213: All that hardtack you’be been shlepping.
1994		Indep. Mag. 6 Aug. 32: He spent more than ten years weeviling through charity shops [...] schlepping big bags of tradeables.
2000		F.X. Toole Rope Burns 59: Hy! I can have my guys schlepp your gear over there for you.
2006		C. Hiaasen Nature Girl 118: Shreave decided to drive [...] so that he wouldn’t have to schlep their bags.
2010		K. Richards Life 175: More than your dad makes in a year, schlepping and working his fucking arse off.

2. to take someone somewhere; to drag physically.

1959		P. Roth Goodbye Columbus 118: ‘[W]e gotta shlep the kid with us’.
1965		L. Bruce How to Talk Dirty 3: My father would schlep me from under the porch.
1975		A. Goldman Lenny Bruce 12: Lenny used to wake up so drugged that his friends would have to schlep him out of bed and walk him around the room for an hour.
1978		R. Price Ladies’ Man (1985) 52: A sinus cold that gave him a nose like Rudolph the reindeer. He kept schlepping on his beak.
1990		S. Morgan Homeboy 14: To schlep a girl back to a hotel cost two hundred up front.

3. to travel further than one might prefer.

1965		R.L. Pike Mute Witness (1997) 166: I waste a whole evening schlepping around with him.
1979		F. Norman Too Many Crooks Spoil the Caper 15: ’Ow comes ’e shlapped all the way up West [...] to see a shmuck like you?
1983		A. Payne ‘Get Daley!’ Minder [TV script] 39: I’ve been schlepping all over the manor trying to pick up gossip.
1999		Guardian G2 11 June 10: Buying books and clothes on the internet rather than schlepping to the high street.
2001		N. Barlay Hooky Gear 11: Schlepp right up over the hill over Hornsey Lane to avoid Holloway Road and Archway roundabout.
2016		D. Halsall in http://spitalfieldslife.com 27 Dec. 🌐 It was hard for her schlepping up to the City everyday.
2023		B. Dreyer Blueskiy 25 Nov. 🌐 Not sure why you'd want to spend your later years schlepping around our nation's theatrical underbelly in a comedy that Eileen Heckart [...] couldn't keep running on Broadway a month.

4. to drag off something for one’s own benefit.

1967

L. Bruce Essential Lenny Bruce 77: Schlepping, grabbing [...] and then they punished him.

5. to travel, to walk wearily or slowly.

1971		Frank Zappa ‘The Mud Shark’ 🎵 The residents can [...] schlep back up to their rooms.
1981		H. Gould Fort Apache, The Bronx 88: Look how these guys shlepped in.
1988		A. Payne ‘The Last Video Show’ Minder [TV script] 32: So what are you saying, Dave? Mad Max ought to shlepp around on a moped?
1992		D. Burke Street Talk 2 156: Hurry up and quit schlepping!
2002		Observer Mag. 27 Oct. 42: I used to schlep into this sadistic dermatologist’s office every week.
2005		L. Redhead Rubdown [ebook] I schlepped around the kitchen in my PJs.
2011		J.J. Connolly Viva La Madness 151: Sonny schleps back to London.
2021		J. Ellroy Widespread Panic 93: I schlepped over to the north campus library.