track, v.¹ — Green’s Dictionary of Slang

track v.¹

1. (UK Und.) to go; thus track the dancers, to go upstairs.

c.1698		B.E. Dict. Canting Crew.
1785, 1788, 1796		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.
1811		Lex. Balatronicum.
1847		Lytton Lucretia Pt II, Ch. vii n.p.: ‘Bob, track the dancers. Up like a lark – and down like a dump.’ Bob grinned... and scampered up the stairs [F&H].
1848		Flash Dict. in Sinks of London Laid Open 128: Track, to go.
1859		‘Scene in a London Flash-Panny’ Matsell Vocabulum 100: Come, Bell, let us track the dancers and rumble the flats, for I’m tired of pattering flash and lushing jackey.

2. (Aus./US) to accompany with a boy- or girlfriend, to wander aimlessly.

1895		Coburg Leader (Vic.) 27 July 1/5: The rest of the lads would like to know who is the young gentleman ‘tracking’ with Marie.
1913		Sport (Adelaide) 14 June 7/3: They Say [...] That Ross M. is tracking the little girl from the lolly shop. Turn it up Pickles [...] She is only ten.
1916		J. Lait ‘Charlie the Wolf’ in Beef, Iron and Wine (1917) 61: They sighed in relief and mechanically tracked it for Jake’s, across the street.
1926		K.S. Prichard Working Bullocks 46: Combo’s what they call a man tracks round with a gin.

3. to leave, to run off.

1912		Bulletin (Sydney) 18 July 16/1: In ‘Push’ Society. / Blinky: ‘Wot! Steve’s got married to Ginger Mag? I can’t take that tale on.’ / Dido: ‘Fair dinkum, Blinky. I see’d um tracking away from the Registry Office.’.
1950		‘Hal Ellson’ Tomboy (1952) 71: ‘Let’s track’, Angel said.
1959		‘Hal Ellson’ Jailbait Street (1963) 7: Man, let’s track [...] We can’t stay here all night.

4. to maintain emotional or verbal stability, to ‘keep on the right track’; to understand.

1977		C. McFadden Serial 101: Are you going to take him back? I mean, once they get him tracking again?
1987		(con. 1967) Bunch & Cole Reckoning for Kings (1989) 65: Taliaferro, being the blockheaded son of a bitch he was, still wasn’t tracking.
2016		C. Eble (ed.) UNC-CH Campus Sl. Spring 2016 10: TRACK — follow and understand: ‘I’m tracking now’.

5. (US black) to talk.

1992

D. Burke Street Talk 2 51: We tracked on the phone for an hour.

track square (v.) (also track straight) [square adv. (2)/straight adv. (4)]

(Aus.) to pursue a love affair with honourable intentions (i.e. eventual marriage rather than short-term sex).

1919		Aussie (France) XII Mar. 2/1: I’ll have to pull out now as I’m tracking square with Marie Flannelette and promised to drag her round some Spearmint chewing gum.
1924		(con. WWI) A.G. Pretty Gloss. Sl. [...] in the A.I.F. 1921–1924 (rev. t/s) n.p.: track square. To partake an amorous enterprise with honorable intentions.
1931		Bulletin (Sydney) 21 Jan. 20/1: ‘At last’, said Dave, ‘I think I’ve met me fate. I’m trackin’ straight As fine a sheila as you’d wish to see.’.
1948		Smith’s Wkly (Sydney) 25 Dec. 6/2: Anyway, it was around about this time the Crow started tracking square with a potato peeler — which [...] rhymes with sheila.

track with (v.)

(Aus.) to associate with someone of the opposite sex.

1906		Sun. Times (Perth) 16 Sept. 4/7: Even the tart I was trackin’ with cottened to the ’ulkin’ swine.
1915		C.J. Dennis Songs of a Sentimental Bloke gloss. 🌐 Track with – To woo; to ‘go walking with.’.
1919		C.H. Thorp Handful of Ausseys 200: The first time I met ’im ’e was with a sheila ’e’d bin trackin’ with.
1924		G.H. Lawson Dict. of Aus. Words And Terms 🌐 TRACK WITH — To associate in love affairs.
1930		K.S. Prichard Haxby’s Circus 151: I don’t need to worry while Mart’s tracking round with half a dozen girls.
1941		Baker Popular Dict. Aus. Sl.
1954		(con. 1940s) T.A.G. Hungerford Sowers of the Wind 270: I bet it’s that cross-eyed harlot he’s been tracking with.
1955		N. Pulliam I Travelled a Lonely Land (1957) 241/1: track with – to ‘go with’, to court.