Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. to feel insecure, esp. financially.

1939		V. Cranton Keepers of the Desert 173: Business was good but shipping [...] was beginning to feel the breeze and the more far-seeing underwriters at Lloyds were beginning to talk doubtfully of the future.
1984		Partridge DSUE (8th edn) 384/2: 1925.

2. (US black) to sense racial antagonism in one’s conversation or dealings with whites; thus drafty adj., unfriendly to blacks [the phr. is generally credited to the jazz musician Lester Young (1909–59)].

1957		Charles Mingus Jazz Workshop The Clown [album liner notes] Mingus feels the slightest draft, even when no draft is there.
1960		Esquire Sept. 91: The term ‘I feel a draft’ is used by Negro musicians when there’s evidence in a restaurant — or elsewhere — of Jim Crow. Ironically, white musicians who have played with Negro groups have sometimes used the same phrse in order to tell each other that they’re being frozen out of the conversation or an afterhours party.
1964		R.S. Gold Jazz Lex. xix: I feel a draft [...] usually means that the Negro speaker suspects hostility or discrimination directed against him by a white.
1996		Eble Sl. and Sociability 83: About 70 items refer to whites or African Americans or to relationships between them. [...] feel a draft means ‘sense racial prejudice’.

3. (US black) to warn one’s friends that a white person has entered the room.

1994

(con. 1940s–50s) C. Major Juba to Jive.

to feel unwell.

1923

J. Manchon Le Slang.

to feel pleasantly drunk.

1903

Mills & Scott [perf. George Leyton] ‘The best of friends must part’ 🎵 Young Spifkins and Jones, two smart clerks in the city, / Have been on the ‘ran-dan’ and feel just all right.

to feel the nauseous after-effects of drinking on ‘the morning after’.

1890		Kipling ‘Black Jack’ in Soldiers Three (1907) 100: Whin I roused the dhrink was dyin’ out inme, an’ I felt as though a she-cat had littered in me mouth.
1933		‘William Juniper’ True Drunkard’s Delight.

see under cheap adj.

see under froggy adj.²

1. to feel (unpleasantly) drunk.

1890–1904		Farmer & Henley Sl. and Its Analogues.
1933		‘William Juniper’ True Drunkard’s Delight 226: He is feeling funny.
1942		Berrey & Van den Bark Amer. Thes. Sl.

2. to feel very emotional.

1862		‘Windham Lunacy Case’ in C. Hindley Curiosities of Street Lit. (1871) 130: Oh, the money, the money, they wanted the money, / And that was the thing made the parties feel funny.
1948		N. Mailer Naked and Dead 280: It’s gonna make him feel mighty funny.

3. to feel ill.

2002

‘Pissed Off and Passed Out’ Diary 31 Oct. on Jealous Monk 🌐 I am feeling funny now, so I decide to head back to the bed room. I stand up, excuse myself, and head to the door of the dining room, but never make it. When I regain all senses, I find the world turned sideways.

1. to feel in good spirits or health; thus feel-good adj., life-affirming.

1839		Marryat Diary in America II 224: I don’t feel at all good, this morning [DA].
1854		Journal of Discourses II 224: You will see how good we will make the transient residents feel [DA].
1888		Texas Siftings 15 Sept. n.p.: The saloons are going Saturday afternoon, and the men feel pretty good before they come abroad [F&H].
1904		N.Y. Eve. Post 23 June 3: The captain himself said, ‘I feel good,’ but he did not look well [DA].
1924		Collier’s 26 Jan. 8/4: I began to feel pretty good [DA].
1999		Guardian G2 18 June 10: It combines a push-up effect with the all-important feel-good factor.
2000		Guardian Rev. 14 Jan. 4: Real, feel-good laughs.

2. to feel mildly drunk, to begin to experience a drug.

1887		G. Devol Forty Years a Gambler 246: The lad was feeling pretty good by this time, and he could not let a gentleman treat without returning the compliment, you know.
1927		E.C.L. Adams Congaree Sketches 84: He missed the water and got hold of the whiskey glass, and he got to feeling good and commenced to preach [DARE].
1939		Goodman & Kolodin Kingdom of Swing 107: [E]verybody had a few drinks and was feeling good.
1942		Berrey & Van den Bark Amer. Thes. of Sl. 106.7: Drunk. . . feeling . . good [DARE].
1955		‘Hal Ellson’ Rock 86: A cat gets up [...] He’s feeling good, singing.
1965		H. Williamson Hustler 31: I guess Callie was feelin’ pretty good ‘cause she had been drinkin’, and she set on my lap and kissed me.
1981		J. Bouton Ball Four Plus Ball Five 414: One afternoon we all came back feeling pretty good.
1997		D.H. Edwards The World Don’t Owe Me Nothing 40: We'd go out with our guitars, try to get a good shot of that white whiskey and feel good.

see feel one’s stuff under stuff n.

(Aus.) to feel exhausted.

1955		‘No. 35’ Argot in G. Simes DAUS (1993).
1959		‘David Forrest’ Last Blue Sea 128: Your feet wear down to the ankles, and your get falls in like a bag of string, but your mind stays quite clear to the end.

to feel ill.

1889		G.E. Wyatt Lionel Harcourt, the Etonian 263: I feel like a boiled rag. If I once get into bed, I don’t believe I shall get up again for a week.
1898		J. Winter Heart and Sword 156: I feel like a boiled rag [...] I will tell you what it is, Violet, I want a holiday.
1907		Pall Mall Mag. XL 760/2: ‘I always feel like a piece of chewed string afterwards.’ The rest of us felt the same, and said it.
1912		P.C. de Crespigny Mark 187: ‘I feel like a boiled rag.’ ‘As you played the same tune to four different songs , I should not have thought the strain would have been so very great.’.
1916		A.W. Myers Capt. Anthony Wilding 213: Have gone too quick, and feel like a piece of chewed string.
1942		G. Frankau Air Ministry, Room 28 239: And now I’d better try to get some sleep, otherwise I’ll feel like a piece of chewed rag in the morning.
1964		E. Huxley Man from Nowhere 253: I’ve got a heavy day tomorrow, I shall feel like a piece of chewed string and be about as useful.
1984		Partridge DSUE (8th edn) 385/1: feel like a boiled rag [...] C.20.
1989		E. Davies in Baker Nightingales in the Mud on ANZAC Day Commemoration Committee 🌐 I never did like working with mentals, for it takes so much out of me. I feel like a piece of chewed string after duty ... Shell shock is fearful, worse than death.
2003		R. Bryant-Jefferies on Bryant-Jeffries 🌐 Another important aspect of Collaborative Review is that it offers the opportunity for the practitioner to talk through difficulties with clients [...] whose level of neediness drains the practitioner and reduces their effectiveness in establishing a therapeutic relationship with clients (‘I just feel like a chewed rag after being with him, I think I’m losing my boundaries somewhere’).

(US) to be extremely hungover, to be very exhausted, run down.

1857		Harper’s Mag. Aug. 367/1: I felt, to use a certain figurative expression, ‘like a boiled owl’ [DA].
1871		C.G. Leland ‘Breitsmann in Holland’ in Hans Breitmann in Europe 246: Dwo weeks der Breitmann studiet, / Vile he vent it on de howl, / Ile shpree so moosh to find de troot, / Dat he lookt like a bi-led owl.
1892		Journal of Amer. Folklore V 60: To feel like a stewed owl, or like a stewed monkey. More idiomatically, like a biled owl [DA].
1905		Rising Sun (Kansas City, MO) 14 Apr. 3/3: What was that stuff I drank last night, and why [...] do I feel like the second joint of a stewed owl this morning?
1907		J.W. Carr ‘Word-List from Hampstead, N.H.’ in DN III iii 187: feel like a boiled owl, v. phr. To be nervously exhausted, as from loss of sleep. ‘I feel like a boiled owl this morning.’.
1909		L.W. Payne Jr ‘Word-List From East Alabama’ in DN III:v 375: stewed witch, n. phr. Used to indicate a very uncomfortable bodily condition or state or feeling. ‘I feel like a stewed witch this morning.’.
1919		letter dated 1904 in Bisbee Dly Rev. (AZ) 10 Dec. 3/4: By the time I get to five o’clock in the afternoon I will be feeling like a stewed owl.
1931		Lancs Eve. Post 23 Mar. 4/5: Here is a man [...] who has so saturated himself with drink [...] that he looks like a boiled owl.

to feel absolutely appalling, often used by those suffering from hangovers (cf. look like death warmed up under look like... v.).

1921		N&Q 12 Ser. IX 503: Death Warmed Up (To Feel Like). To feel ill.
1932		Hull Dly Mail 2 Jan. 6/4: There are asses who say, 'Got a cold?' when you totter into the ofice feeling like death warmed up.
1937		Hartlepool Mail 9 Mar. 5/2: A motorist who, according to the police, said after a fatality that he ‘felt like death warmed up’.
1946		Brickhill & Norton Escape to Danger n.p.: For hours and hours he had to stick to the controls, feeling like death warmed up.
1953		Yorks. Post 10 Dec. 5/2: ‘ don’t feel like death warmed up,’ he said.
1987		Eble Campus Sl. Fall 3: death [...] After last night’s party I feel like death on a bun.
2000		Guardian 19 Dec. 🌐 ‘We’re both absolutely exhausted all the time,’ he says, ‘but I’m quite happy to feel like death warmed up to feel like a family.’.

see under shit n.

(US campus) to feel humiliated, embarrassed.

1989

P. Munro Sl. U.

(W.I., Rasta) don’t take offence, don’t be sorry, don’t worry.

1983

Peter Tosh ‘Feel No Way’ 🎵 No bother feel no way / It’s coming close to payday, / I say No bother feel no way.

to manipulate a sexual partner to orgasm.

1974		Eble Campus Sl. Mar. 3: feel off – to manipulate another person’s sexually sensitive areas of the body.
1998		‘Bill E. Goodhead’ Nubile Treat 🌐 He pressed his thumb against her clit, and she pressed his prick in reply. It was so nice for both of them that each was tempted to just feel the other off.

see piss n. (1)

(UK Und.) to arrest, to place under suspicion.

1950		P. Tempest Lag’s Lex. 49: To ‘get your collar felt (or touched)’ is to be arrested or stopped by the police.
1954		R. Fabian London After Dark 11: Next time it came my way to ‘feel his collar’ for possessing stolen goods I would see the judge was told.
1961		(con. 1920s) J. Sparks Burglar to the Nobility 72: The Law is reaching out for my collar over this Mappin and Webb job.
1974		G.F. Newman You Flash Bastard 28: Transferring as a DCI might have been a prospect, only in the Squad they were generally administrative and rarely got to feel a collar.
1980		J. McClure Spike Island (1981) 86: You miss the hurly-burly, getting out and feeling a few collars.
1997		C. Newland Scholar 275: They surged through the council flat like a human tidal wave, eager to feel some collars and seize some product.
2002		J. Cameron Hell on Hoe Street 39: Some geezer tapped me on the shoulder. Fact he felt my collar [...] He was Karachi Old Bill.
2024		J. Meades Empty Wigs (t/s) 402: She can recall Suave Ted advising her not to risk driving: ‘You don’t want to get your collar felt’.

1. to be inconvenienced, suffering the consequences of something.

1925		Westminster Gaz 27 Apr. n.p.: When the wind changed it might be the Conservative Party which would be feeling the draught [OED].
2003		Guardian 2 Jan. 🌐 Birmingham are none the less feeling the draught of suspensions on top of injuries.

2. to have serious money problems.

1941		N. Marsh Surfeit of Lampreys 103: ‘Did he go bust?’ [...] ‘I don’t think so, Curtis. Must have felt the draught a bit.’.
1966		Listener 9 June 831/2: With only so much national advertising to go round [...], the oldest commercial stations are feeling the draught as well.
1970		Financial Times 13 Apr. 13/3: If the BSC or the bigger firms in the private sector felt the draught and turned their attention to smaller orders, the lesser firms could suffer badly to the point of extinction .
1999		Guardian 7 Jan. 🌐 In the US, growth is slowing fast as the manufacturing sector struggles against cheap Asian imports. Moreover, the non-manufacturing sector is now feeling the draught.

(US black) to get hurt.

1995

L. Stavsky et al. A2Z.

(Aus. prison) to inject heroin.

1990

Tupper & Wortley Aus. Prison Sl. Gloss. 🌐 Feel the steel. Inject heroin.

see separate entries.

(US) a dismissive phr.

1880

‘Tra-la-la-loo’ [ballad] And when I bid her stay at home, she says ‘Go feel around.’.