Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (also turn the trick) to make something happen as required or desired.

1897		A.H. Lewis Wolfville 7: There ain’t no camp this side of St. Looey could turn this trick.
1909		W. Irwin Confessions of a Con Man 72: If I could get away from our paper the trick was half turned.
1917		‘A-No. 1’ From Coast to Coast with Jack London 68: Two dollars for each of you will turn the trick!
1924		D. Hammett ‘Zigzags of Treachery’ in Nightmare Town (2001) 125: That would turn the trick — there was no doubt of it.
1939		V. Cranton Keepers of the Desert 1931: ‘Give me fifty francs and I will square the Orderly Room Corporal. Then the trick is turned’.
1945		B. Frame Crown Jewels are Missing 38: An additional $2,500 was offered as reward for the jewels, but this, too, failed to turn the trick.
1948		H. McCoy Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye in Four Novels (1983) 287: I’ve allotted myself five more years, and if I can’t turn the trick by then, I’ll give up.

2. (also do a trick, turn, turn a date, turn tricks) to be paid for sexual intercourse, either as a professional prostitute or on a one-off or occasional basis in between working as a student, actress or model; thus trickster n., a prostitute.

1929		R. Perryman ‘The Dirty Dozen’ in Oliver Screening the Blues (1968) 240: Now I had your mammy, she wouldn’t turn no tricks, / Hit her right ’cross the head with a big hickory stick.
1937		‘Boxcar Bertha’ Sister of the Road (1975) 63: Often she would meet a prostitute [...] She would often watch how the girl turned her tricks.
1946		Mezzrow & Wolfe Really the Blues 23: ‘Turning a trick’ was how they described one session with a john.
1952		Lait & Mortimer USA Confidential 163: She still occasionally turns a trick for an old friend.
1963		M. Braly Shake Him Till He Rattles (1964) 143: You know you can’t turn out a broad that doesn’t want to turn. They have to have the whore in them to begin with.
1966		J. Mills Panic in Needle Park (1971) 37: I gotta turn tricks for the bread, then score, then find him, and then practically put the needle in his arm for him.
1972		Milner & Milner Black Players 93: She had a tremendous hang-up of going out and turning a date with another man.
1974		(con. 1945) M. Angelou Gather Together In My Name 36: ‘You turn tricks?’ [...] ‘No I do not.’ How could she ask such a question? ‘Well, you sure look like a trickster. Your face and everything.’.
1979		‘Iceberg Slim’ Airtight Willie and Me 107: Damn girl, you look tore down, like you been turning a slew of buck Spic berry pickers.
1986		S. King It (1987) 868: The whores turned tricks all night long.
1997		L. Davies Candy 172: Candy couldn’t do a trick sick like this.
1999		E. Bunker Mr Blue 81: Don’t be surprised if she changes her mind. A whole lotta young chicks think they wanna turn tricks.
2005		E. White My Lives 122: [of male homosexuals] The thirty dollars he earned turning a trick was worth more to him than his three-hundred-dollar day rate selling vodka and toothpaste.
2005		Guardian Rev. 1 Jan. 29: He was openhearted to Molly-O and Steffi [...] who are forever in the pokey for turning a five-dollar trick with the wrong guy.
2010		(con. 1973) C. Stella Johnny Porno 85: The women wind up turning tricks in their old age.
2014		T. Black Artefacts of the Dead [ebook] He wasn’t supplying the flat for her to get comfortable in: it was where she worked, it was where she turned tricks.
2015		M. Peppiatt Bacon in Your Blood 224: Francis is convinced she used to turn tricks for a living.
2015		L. McInerney Glorious Heresies 299: Georgie turned a trick with a bloke who dropped her at the wrong end of the city centre.
2021		J. Ellroy Widespread Panic 85: Babs is turning cheap tricks out of Stan’s Drive-In.
2021		P. Papathanasiou Stoning 91: ‘Maybe she was turning tricks as well. Nice little earner’.

3. (also turn tricks) to have sexual intercourse.

1929		R. Perryman in Oliver Screening the Blues (1968) 240: Your pa wants a wash, your mother turns tricks.
1946		Drake & Cayton Black Metropolis 568: He was always watching her and signifyin’ she was turning tricks with Slick.
1965		A. James America’s Homosexual Underground 119: I know plenty of white boys who’d blacken up if they could get their hands on some of the tricks I’ve turned.
1969		S. Greenlee Spook who Sat by the Door (1972) 30: After he eats, after we done turned a trick, maybe three or four cigarettes all the time we together.

4. to pay for sexual intercourse.

1965		H. Williamson Hustler 118: Man didn’t look profitable, but she said he had a good deal of money, and that he wanted to turn a trick with her.
1971		R.T. Sale Blackstone Rangers 133: ‘[H]eavy police patrols—white cops who come down here to protect the white johns who comes down here to turn tricks’.