Green’s Dictionary of Slang

trick n.1

[note Dillard, Lexicon of Black English (1977): ‘The term trick for the sexual performance of a prostitute probably comes, ultimately, from the voodoo term for achieving control (often sexual control), possibly reinforced by the nautical term meaning “a task”’ i.e, trick n.4 (1)]

1. sexual intercourse, occas. other forms of sexual encounter, esp. a prostitute’s intercourse (or other activity) with a client.

[[UK]C. Bansley Pryde and Abuse of Women line 49: Oure trotte, our trotte, our lustye trotte [...] Is now become a trickynge one, And a wanton trincklet agayne].
[UK] ‘Amorous Dialogue Between John & his Mistress’ in Farmer Merry Songs and Ballads (1897) II 67: I like no blades for a trick that I know, / For as soon as they’ve trod they are given to crow.
[UK]E. Sharpham Fleire II i: I could laugh, daunce, leape, or doe anie light tricks that belongs to a light wench.
[UK]Wandring Whore I 6: She was showing tricks upon her head with naked buttocks and spread legs in a round ring (see chuck-office).
[UK]N. Ward Adam and Eve 70: [She] never forgets the pretty Trick that she learn’d at London, ’till she has furnish’d the Family with such a mottled Breed, that are obscurely related, by their Fathers Sides, to half the Gentlemen in the County.
[UK]Bailey (trans.) Erasmus’ Colloquies 199: And I wondring that for so many whoring Tricks he enjoyn’d me so small a Penance.
[UK] ‘Henry The Brave’ Nobby Songster 14: Thither from the counting house adjourned a buck, / To spend the evening and to take a truck, [sic] / Young Iphigene a plump and hearty dame, / Was just the kind to sooth his amorous flame.
[US]Van Vechten Nigger Heaven 252: Now dady, do you know any more tricks?
[US]H. Miller Tropic of Capricorn (1964) 237: She’d drag me to a telephone booth and, queer girl that she was, she’d actually talk to some one [...] while pulling off the trick.
[US]L. Uris Battle Cry (1964) 224: You can beat paying them for a couple of tricks.
[US]C. Cooper Jr Weed (1998) 121: When she really wasn’t trying to end the trick in a hurry.
[US]E. Bunker No Beast So Fierce 154: The man before me was ‘Gold-tooth George’, a wretch who’d sold fellatio in prison for two packs of cigarettes a trick.
[Aus]J. Byrell (con. 1959) Up the Cross 64: Aside from the odd trick or two at dead horse [etc].
[US]R. Campbell Alice in La-La Land (1999) 169: If it’s a quick trick, I wait to drive you back.
[Aus](con. 1964-65) B. Thorpe Sex and Thugs and Rock ’n’ Roll 133: His girls could use the rooms in the back for tricks.
[US]C. Fleming High Concept 91: If you go on this trick, you’ll make $10,000.

2. a girl, a young woman.

[US]H. Green Actors’ Boarding House (1906) 14: Why that little trick’s the life of the show!
[US]Ade ‘The New Fable of the Lonesome Camp’ in Ade’s Fables 257: She was a snappy little Trick.
[US]Z.N. Hurston Sweat (1995) 958: She wuz a right pritty lil trick when he got huh.
[US]R.L. Bellem ‘Sleeping Dogs’ in Spicy Detective Sept. 🌐 She was a cute little trick — all curves and delicious contours.
[US]J. Archibald ‘Knife Thrower’ in Popular Detective June 🌐 Medusa was a blond trick wearing just enough to keep her out of the category of strip-teasers.
[US]H. Gold Man Who Was Not With It (1965) 265: A cute trick she is.
[US]B. Jackson Get Your Ass in the Water (1974) 47: I walked around the room and I seen this trick, / and we went upstairs and we started real soon. / Now me and this broad we started to tussle / and I drove twelve inches a dick through her ass before she could move a muscle.
[US](con. WWII) T. Sanchez Hollywoodland (1981) 67: I think you’re a real cute trick.

3. (also trip) a prostitute’s client, whether hetero- or homosexual, the implication being of deceiving any such client into parting with money.

[US]Odum & Johnson Negro and His Songs (1964) 189: Lawd, I went to my women’s do’, / Jus’ lak I bin goin’ befo’; / ‘I got my all-night trick, baby, / An’ you can’t git in. / Come back ’bout half pas’ fo’, / If I’m done, I’ll open de do’. / Got my all-night trick, baby, / An’ you can’t git in.’.
[US]Lucille Bogan ‘They Ain’t Walking No More’ 🎵 ’Cause tricks ain’t walkin’, tricks ain’t walkin’ no more / I said, tricks ain’t walkin’ no more, tricks ain’t walkin’ no more / And I got to make my livin’, don’t care where I go.
[US]‘Boxcar Bertha’ Sister of the Road (1975) 172: She didn’t have so many tricks but was a hard worker and made pretty good money.
[US]Mezzrow & Wolfe Really the Blues 45: [song lyric] I hear you knockin’ but you can’t come in / I got an all-night trick agin.
[US]N. Algren Walk on the Wild Side 164: For the next two weeks Reba topped the whole house, they had to hold her back from pulling tricks in off the street.
[US]N. Heard Howard Street 15: The other whores would ridicule her [...] if she let a trick run her bare-assed out into the night.
[US]Hall & Adelman Gentleman of Leisure 65: Most of my tricks are Mafia. These men pay the best money.
[US]A.K. Shulman On the Stroll 99: The first time Robin took a trick into the Hotel Venus [...] she was so terrified that her trembling fingers could not undo her buttons.
[UK](con. 1950s–60s) in G. Tremlett Little Legs 198: trick or trip a prostitute’s customer; originally the word trick was used, but trip has since become a derivation.
[US]G. Indiana Rent Boy 30: [of gay men] Chip and I had been doing trios lately with some of our more adventurous tricks. The high rollers.
[UK]Indep. on Sun. 22 Aug. 4: Outside King’s Cross station, prostitutes slope around looking for ‘tricks.’.
[US]UGK ‘The Game Belongs To Me’ 🎵 Bitch ain’t gotta hit the track, ain’t gotta give no tricks no head.
[UK]Guardian G2 16 Sept. 12/1: The police [...] saw a tatted Rawker white boy and a hot bootie shorted black girl and though we were Ho (prostitute) and a Trick (client).
[US]J. Ellroy Widespread Panic 22: He was Race Rockwell’s regular trick.

4. any casual sex partner.

[US](con. 1920s) J.T. Farrell Judgement Day in Studs Lonigan (1936) 621: Lucky lad with such a cute and neat trick [...] and maybe she was nuts about him and wanted it from the guy.
[US]H. Miller Sexus (1969) 123: God, the prettiest little trick you ever laid eyes on [...] And could she fuck!
[US]Kerouac On the Road (The Orig. Scroll) (2007) 342: I, her old trick, just talked and giggled.
[US]J. Rechy City of Night 183: [of gay men] I run away all those other hungry nelly queens first so I can have my pick of the cute tricks.
[US]K. Marlowe Mr Madam (1967) 64: I was very popular with all the beach queens. I’d take my new tricks home in the daytime and conduct my business.
[US]L. Kramer Faggots 23: When I tell a trick I wrote Sleep, it freaks them out.
[UK]S. Berkoff Decadence in Decadence and Other Plays (1985) 11: I know that those business trips were dirty business to see his trick.
[US]Dr Dre ‘Bitches Ain’t Shit’ 🎵 Bitches ain’t shit but hoes and tricks.
[US]Alt. Eng. Dict. 🌐 trick (noun, count) homosexual pickup.
[US]UGK ‘Ain’t That a Bitch’ 🎵 At first, all you want to do is (fuck) with the trick / Years pass by, now you stuck with the trick.
[SA]K. Cage Gayle 99/2: [of gay men] trick n. and v. • n. a casual sexual partner, usually a male prostitute (Who’s the trick?) [American Gayspeak].
[US]J. Stahl ‘Pure’ in Love Without 158: She didn’t like to think of them as tricks. She preferred the term ‘love partners.’.
E. White in Guardian Online 7 Dec. 🌐 Renaud Camus wrote a book called Tricks, which astonished everyone because he was determined to record his fiascos as often as his triumphs. (Today some people don't even know what the word ‘tricks’ means).
[US]S.A. Crosby Blacktop Wasteland 52: ‘I ain’t some trailer park trick you trying to talk out of her panties’.

5. a general term of abuse, equating the subject with a whore’s client.

[US]H. Simmons Corner Boy 109: Scar acting just like a trick.
[US]C. Cooper Jr Scene (1996) 53: Trick, was he? A trick to be georged and then told on?
[US]Milner & Milner Black Players 238: A pimp knows he is pimping, but only a few will admit that they are also tricks for the man who sells them Cadillacs, cocaine, television sets, jewelry and clothes.
[US]E. Folb Runnin’ Down Some Lines 46: Trick, fish, sucker, chump, and square carry with them a contemptuous and condescending attitude.
[US](con. 1998–2000) J. Lerner You Got Nothing Coming 156: Some fish that flunk the Heart Check [...] work off their rental and insurance overhead by serving as ‘Yard Tricks’ [...] In the corporation we called these guys gofers, or worse.
[US]‘Dutch’ ? (Pronounced Que) [ebook] You fucked her though, didn’t you? [...] Trick.
[US]C. Eble (ed.) UNC-CH Campus Sl. Spring 2014 13: SIMP — male easily manipulated by females. Also TRICK.

6. (US) a prostitute.

[US]J. Lahr Hot to Trot 181: You cheap, two-bit trick! You poxy whore!
[US]E. Richards Cocaine True 136: Nothin’ but tricks. Young kids, they come up to you, ‘Do you want any company?’.
[US]College Sl. Research Project (Cal. State Poly. Uni., Pomona) 🌐 Trick (tric) (noun) [...] 2. Usually a girl who sells her body for sex.
[US]G. Pelecanos (con. 1972) What It Was 194: The skinny trick called herself Cindy.
[UK]J. Meades Empty Wigs (t/s) 897: Who does she think I am? Ten quid trick?

7. (US black) one who can be easily manipulated, e.g. a longterm admirer who is never allowed sex, but merely kept in tow for the material pleasures they offer.

[US]W. King Jr. ‘The Game’ in Kochman Rappin’ and Stylin’ Out (1972) 394: ‘You a trick, Dan—a stiffy,’ Herman said. ‘You so square Little Orphan Annie could put game on you’.
[US]C. Shafer ‘Catheads [...] and Cho-Cho Sticks’ in Abernethy Bounty of Texas (1990) 216: trick, n. – [...] a fool or sucker.
[US]College Sl. Research Project (Cal. State Poly. Uni., Pomona) 🌐 Trick (tric) (noun) [...] 3. A person who has someone that likes them so they use them for their money and generousity and then go out with someone else.
[US]‘Touré’ Portable Promised Land (ms.) 161: We Words (My Favorite Things) [...] Tude. True. Trick. Trill. Trife.

8. a boyfriend; hetero- or homosexual.

[[US]A. Trumble Mysteries of N.Y. 11: Felicia is not a bad-looking girl [...] They played her five seasons in Saratoga but she never scored a ‘trick’. The nearest approach was her acceptance of the hand of a Silesian count].
[US]C. Shafer ‘Catheads [...] and Cho-Cho Sticks’ in Abernethy Bounty of Texas (1990) 216: trick, n. – a homosexual.
[US]G. Sikes 8 Ball Chicks (1998) 52: Oh, my trick is here [...] My boyfriend, Ice Capone.

9. (US prison) a prisoner who can be easily exploited for money or presents.

[US]Bentley & Corbett Prison Sl. 40: Trick A name women use in reference to men who are willing and eager to send them money or gifts. Inmates who are easily exploited for money and gifts are also known as tricks.
[US]Other Side of the Wall: Prisoner’s Dict. July 🌐 Trick: Someone from the outside who is used as a source of money or other favors.

In derivatives

trickster (n.)

(US) a prostitute.

[US]D. Jenkins Rude Behavior 7: She reminded me of those tricksters you’d see in Beverly Hills and Vegas. Drop-dead light hooks who’d hauled their racks out of their little hometowns to go scoop a rich guy somewhere.

In compounds

trick-ass (adj.) [-ass sfx]

(US black) a general derog. term, the implication is of sexual inadequacy (for a man) or promiscuity (for a woman).

[US]C. Cooper Jr Scene (1996) 38: You’re nothing but a young, trick-ass punk.
[US]E. Folb Runnin’ Down Some Lines 95: Call ’im ‘sack o’ mothafuckas,’ ‘trick-ass nigger.’ Tell ’im get out you face.
[US]Snoop Doggy Dogg ‘Ain’t No Fun’ 🎵 Hoe you’ll never be my only one, trick ass beeeitch!
[US]G. Pelecanos Right As Rain 305: Delgado grabbed hold of one of her thin wrists. ‘Trick-ass bitch.’.
trick baby (n.) [given no positive evidence to the contrary, the prostitute-mother assumes the father to have been one of the paying customers; note trick daddy ]

(orig. US black) an illegitimate child born to a prostitute.

[US]C. Cooper Jr Weed (1998) 157: Mama told him once, how they all had different fathers. Trick babies.
[US]Milner & Milner Black Players 144: Often a ho’s children will be cruelly taunted as ‘trick babies’ by the neighbors’ children.
[US]‘Iceberg Slim’ Airtight Willie and Me 200: A mulatto trick baby spewed out on the toilet floor of a Watts bucket of blood saloon.
[US]S. Morgan Homeboy 258: I dont want no trick baby!
trick bag (n.) [on model of scumbag under scum n.; the pimp assumption that only victims pay for sex and that such a victim deserves whatever happens to him]

1. (US black) an unpleasant and disadvantaged position, a no-win situation.

[US]P. Crump Burn, Killer, Burn! 115: I’m gonna try to put somebody in the trick bag.
[US]Milner & Milner Black Players 169: Silk said that his sister is a ‘ho’ because she puts men into a ‘trick bag.’.
[US]N. Heard House of Slammers 233: We’re caught in a trick bag. We’re going down.
[US]Bentley & Corbett Prison Sl. 47: Trick Bag A no-win situation. When a person is placed in an unfavorable and compromising situation, he is said to be placed in a trick bag.
[US]J. Lerner You Got Nothing Coming 13: ‘Yeah, dawg, caught a P.V. myself.’ ‘Parole in Nevada is a trick bag, bro! They violating motherfuckers from the jump.’.
[US]Simon & Burns ‘Transitions’ Wire ser. 5 ep. 4 [TV script] He weren’t the one that put me in this trick bag.

2. a fool, one who thinks they are better than they are.

[US](con. 1968) Bunch & Cole Reckoning for Kings (1989) 256: This ain’t basic training and you ain’t John fuckin’ Wayne, trickbag.

3. see also SE compounds below.

trick book (n.) (also trick list)

(US und.) a book or record kept by a pimp which lists his girls’ regular clients.

[US]C. Fletcher Pure Cop 86: She had a trick book in her condo that had pages and pages of girls’ names.
[US]J. Ellroy Widespread Panic 257: ‘He doesn’t keep a trick book or a girl book. He keeps it all in his head’.
[US]J. Ellroy Widespread Panic 257: I keep a trick list [of] all the big-name guys who put the boots to my girls.
trick bunk (n.)

(US prison) that bunk in a convict dormitory which is used for clandestine sex.

[US]S. Morgan Homeboy 199: So that’s what the dorm tender meant warning Joe that he’d been assigned to the trick bunk. Of course, it was the furthest from the door, least visible to passing guards, best suited for the quickie [...] date.
trick daddy (n.)

(US black) the father of a prostitute’s child.

[US]‘Touré’ Portable Promised Land (ms.) 157: We Words (My Favorite Things) [...] Tar baby. Trick daddy. Mack daddy.
trick day (n.)

(US gay) a day on which each partner of a gay couple is allowed to enjoy an alternative partner.

[US]Homosexuality & Citizenship in Florida 24: Glossary of Homosexual Terms [...] trick day: A day that two married homosexuals are free to go with someone else for one night .
trick dough (n.) [dough n. (1)]

(US Und.) money earned by a prostitute.

[US] in T.I. Rubin Sweet Daddy 21: She was forking a lot of her trick dough over to this here Indian tea leaver.
trick flick (n.)

(gay) a pornographic film.

[US]J.P. Stanley ‘Homosexual Sl.’ in AS XLV:1/2 59: trick flick n Pornographic movie.
trick house (n.) [house n.1 (1)]

(US black) a brothel.

[US]M. West Babe Gordon (1934) 123: A swell trade trick house, maybe?
[US]C. Cooper Jr Weed (1998) 219: It was a trickhouse, where the whores brought their customers.
[US](con. 1950s) D. Goines Whoreson 24: My mother tried... to stop me from hanging around pool rooms and trick-houses.
trick money (n.)

(US black) the money a prostitute earns and hands over to her pimp.

[US] ‘Sl. of Watts’ in Current Sl. III:2.
trick pad (n.) [pad n.2 (2)]

1. (US Und.) an apartment, room or hotel room used by prostitutes to entertain their clients.

[US]J. Wambaugh New Centurions 187: ‘[T]hese tails you been pulling where you tail the whore to the trick pad and hear her offer the guy a French for ten bucks’.
[US]J. Ellroy Silent Terror 47: It was a makeshift ledger of customers [...] and notations as to whether the ‘date’ would be held at a motel, the ‘trick pad’ or the girl's apartment itself.
[US]C. Fletcher Pure Cop 84: I arrested a woman in her fifties who ran a big call girl operation. She had trick pads in about five condominiums.
[Can]A. Highcrest At Home on the Stroll 48: The trick pad made it possible for me to cater for fetishists.
[US]C. Faust Money Shot [ebook] There were also a few minimally furnished studio apartments that looked like trick pads.
[US]G. Pelecanos (con. 1972) What It Was 123: Jones is cribbed up with Jefferson somewhere [...] Coco’s trick pad is way too hot.
[US]J. Ellroy Widespread Panic 112: These trick pads are hot-wired, and you never know who’s listening.

2. attrib. use of sense 1.

[US]G. Pelecanos Soul Circus 258: A blacktop badland [...] still littered with trick-pad motels, last-stand truck stops and drinker’s bars.
trick room (n.)

a room, in a hotel or motel, where a prostitute can take clients.

[US]‘Iceberg Slim’ Pimp 29: There was a ‘Fast sheet’ joint with the trick rooms in the rear.
[Can](con. 1920s) O.D. Brooks Legs 92: She took me to the trick room and closed the door.
trick suit (n.)

a prostitute’s dress that can be removed easily and is thus suitable for business.

[US]M. Spillane Return of the Hood 11: I’ve seen real treats done up in trick suits in the beatnik shops.
[US]B. Rodgers Queens’ Vernacular 200: trick suit easy to remove clothing.
[US]T. Wolfe Bonfire of the Vanities 212: He dresses like a pimp [...] wearing some kind of trick suit.
trick towel (n.)

(gay) a towel for wiping oneself after intercourse.

[US]Lavender Lex. n.p.: trick towel:– Towels, cloths, or anything used for cleaning or washing after sex intercourse. This is an old prostitute term.
[US]J.P. Stanley ‘Homosexual Sl.’ in AS XLV:1–2 59: trick towel n. Towel used to clean up after intercourse.

In phrases

beat a trick (v.)

(US Und.) of a prostitute, to rob a client.

[US]Maledicta IX 149: The original argot of prostitution includes some words and phrases which have gained wider currency and some which have not […] beat a trick (rob a customer).
boss trick (n.) [boss adj. (3) ]

in prostitution, a good customer.

[US]B. Rodgers Queens’ Vernacular.
[US]Maledicta IX 149: The original argot of prostitution includes some words and phrases which have gained wider currency and some which have not […] boss trick (good customer).
champagne trick (n.)

a particularly wealthy or generous client for a prostitute.

Desdemona at www.asstr.org 🌐 Baxter was her champagne trick. He always paid well.
cheap-trick (adj.)

pertaining to the poorer of a prostitute’s clients.

[US]‘Iceberg Slim’ Pimp 60: It was parked at an intersection in a cheap-trick district.
do the trick (v.)

1. of a man, to have sexual intercourse; also in homosexual use.

[UK]J. Shirley Lady of Pleasure IV i: I hope she has another customer / To do the trick withal.
[UK]M. Stevenson Poems 8: Like that desperate Dick / Will have none do the trick / With his Wife, but a Gentleman.
[UK]Rochester ‘Love to a Woman’ in Works (1999) 38: There’s a sweet soft Page of mine / Can doe the Trick worth Forty wenches.
[UK] ‘The Virgin’s Complaint’ in Ebsworth Bagford Ballads (1878) II 930: Richard took me in the Nick, / Told me that he was Love-sick, / Yet did intend to do the Trick.
[UK]London-Bawd (1705) 71: She wanted no Customers, each Person that came generally made Choice of her to do the Trick with.
[UK]Spy on Mother Midnight I 20: I’ll be hanged if you would do the Trick with the ’Squire’s Gentleman for half a Word.
[UK] ‘Flare Up!’ in Black Joke 5: He took her to a baudy-ken [...] And then he did the trick they say.
[UK] ‘Mother Jones’ in Ticklish Minstrel 32: The mot tells me I do the trick prime.
[UK] ‘The Copper Stick’ in Nancy Dawson’s Cabinet of Songs 4: He show’d a member long and thick, / A regular one to do the trick.
[UK] ‘The Devil To Pay’ Rambler’s Flash Songster 44: This is my sugar stick, / So do not cut your luckey, / I’ve come to do the trick, / For you, my dearest ducky.
[UK]Cremorne I 28: Three times I’d done the trick for her; she’d pretty well drained my tarse.
[Aus]Sport (Adelaide) 15 Mar. 12/3: [in the context of conception] They Say [...] That Oscar N [...] ought to have less to do with the girls, or they will be ‘doing the trick’ and putting in for the baby bonus.
[US]San Diego Sailor 35: I knew we couldn’t do the trick in that position.
[UK] ‘Baker’s Boy’ in Bold (1979) 11: On the third day to his surprise / After he’d done the trick, / The only result of his enterprise / Were the pimples on his prick.

2. (UK Und.) to blunder.

[UK]Vaux Vocab. of the Flash Lang. in McLachlan (1964) 236: do the trick: [...] a man who has imprudently involved himself in some great misfortune, from which there is little hope of his extrication is declared by his friends, with an air of commiseration, to have done the trick for himself; that is, his ruin or downfall is nearly certain.

3. (orig. UK Und.) to get what one wants, to succeed, e.g. to perform a successful robbery, to achieve a seduction [SE from late 19C].

[UK]Vaux Vocab. of the Flash Lang. in McLachlan (1964) 236: do the trick: to accomplish any robbery, or other business successfully; a thief who has been fortunate enough to acquire an independence, and prudent enough to tie it up in time, is said by his former associates to have done the trick.
[UK]Egan Grose’s Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue [as cit. 1812].
F. West Fun for Winter Evenings 43: Star of the stable! Ostler Dick, / Still in your calling wide awake; / I warrant you can do the trick – / A cunning cove, and no mistake .
[UK]J.C. Apperley Nimrod’s Hunting Tour (1874) 151: They [horse] are [...] picked out of these and other sale-stables, if likely to ‘do the trick’.
[UK]Era (London) 4 June 4/2: You have put us in the hole — you have done the trick at last.
[UK]Hants. Chron. 22 Nov. 4/5: Another witness heard them say that they had plenty of money, for they had ‘done the trick’.
[UK]‘Cuthbert Bede’ Adventures of Mr Verdant Green (1982) I 95: There’s the cove that’ll do the trick for you!
[UK]Derby Day 38: If the little ‘un don’t do the trick me an’ him’ll fall out.
[Ire]Joyce Ulysses 354: First kiss does the trick.

4. of a woman, to lose one’s virginity, to be deflowered.

[UK]Pearl 4 Oct. in Bold (1979) 135: She longs with her lover to do the trick, / And in secret she longs for a taste of his prick!

5. to impregnate a woman.

[UK]Farmer & Henley Sl. and Its Analogues.
[Ire]Share Slanguage.

6. (Aus.) to get married.

[Aus]Sport (Adelaide) 10 Aug. 14/4: They Say [...] That J..X. could not go to the football last Saturday, as he is saving up to do the trick.
[Aus]Aussie (France) 7 Sept. 7/1: Now, look ’ere, Dad, square an’ all, I’m dead shook on Marcelle ’ere; an’ if you’re willin’, I’ll do the trick any ol’ time when we ain’t in the line.

7. (Aus.) to buy a round of drinks.

[Aus]J. Byrell Lairs, Urgers & Coat-Tuggers 162: [I]t was about time for him to hit his kick because he was in the chair and everyone was as dry as a wart on an Arab’s donger from waiting for him to do the trick.
street trick (n.)

(N.Z. gay) an underage male prostitute.

[NZ]W. Ings ‘Trolling the Beat to Working the Soob’ in Int’l Jrnl Lexicog. 23:1 71: In New Zealand there have been many terms for a young male street worker. These include school bag, street solicitor, merchandise, Kleenex, commercial, trade, street trick, and Illegal Tegel.
do the trick of the loop (v.) [Gifford, Ulysses Annotated (1988) ‘“the trick of the loop”, a carnival game in which the contestants try to win prizes by pitching small wooden hoops at a group of upright stakes.’]

to have sexual intercourse.

[Ire]Joyce Ulysses 310: Belle in her bloomers misconducting herself and her fancy man feeling for her tickles and Norman W. Tupper bouncing in with his peashooter just in time to be late after she doing the trick of the loop with officer Taylor.
freak trick (n.) [freak n.1 (5) ]

(US prostitute) any customer who requires out-of-the-way sex or who attacks the woman physically.

[US]E.E. Landy Underground Dict. (1972).
[US]Maledicta IX 150: The original argot of prostitution includes some words and phrases which have gained wider currency and some which have not […] freak trick (session with fetishist or similar).
pull a trick (v.)

(US Und.) to perform male homosexual fellatio.

[US]Goldin et al. DAUL 166/1: Pull a trick. [...] 3. To engage in an act of oral sodomy or pederasty.
straight trick (n.) [straight adj.1 (14) ]

a prostitute’s client who requires no ‘extras’ beyond normal intercourse.

[US]B. Rodgers Queens’ Vernacular 190: straight trick normal heterosexual position.
[US]Maledicta IX 150: The original argot of prostitution includes some words and phrases which have gained wider currency and some which have not […] straight trick (no-frills sex).
turn a trick (v.)

see separate entry.

SE in slang uses

In derivatives

trickology (n.) [SE trick + -ology n.]

subterfuge, deception.

[US](con. 1950s) D. Goines Whoreson 29: Trickology must be used whenever it was impossible to rip it off.

In compounds

trick-acting (adj.)

(Irish) showing off.

[UK]B. MacMahon Children of the Rainbow 4: Trick-acting the girls were, with little attention for the coursing field.
[Ire](con. 1930s) K.C. Kearns Dublin Tenement Life 204: Most of the men wouldn’t have the price for a pint so they’d stand at the corners [...] You’d see them laughing and joking and trick-acting ... cause they’d no money to go in and get a pint.
[Ire]S. Power Those Were the Days n.p.: The street was teeming with people of all ages [...] the youngfellas trick-acting with youngwans [BS].
trick-bag (n.)

1. (US) a fig. respository of secrets and surprises.

Ellis & Newman ‘Six Ghetto Roles’ in Leacock Culture of Poverty (1971) 304: Concomitant with his ‘smarts’ is the ability to be flexible—the hustler’s skill to ‘come out of many different trick bags’.
[US]E. Torres After Hours 72: Looking into your trickbag again.

2. see also sex compounds above.

In phrases

can’t take a trick (v.) [card-game imagery]

(Aus.) to be consistently unlucky.

[Aus]L. Glassop We Were the Rats 211: He tells us we might be Aussies but we can’t take a trick. He says we got a canin’ in Greece an’ had to get out.
D.H. Crick Martin Place 192–3: Looks like curtains for you, pal. Can’t take a trick [GAW4].
[Aus]Bulletin (Sydney) 5 Feb. 11: The ACTU leader can’t take a trick.
cross-road trick (n.) [the trad. burying of suicides at a crossroads]

(Aus. prison) suicide.

[Aus]‘Price Warung’ Tales of the Early Days 117: If Felix could not execute the order of doom before the twenty-eighth day [...] he, the condemned, would perform the ‘cross-road trick.’ Which was — suicide.
pull a trick (v.)

to deal dishonestly with another person.

[US]Goldin et al. DAUL 166/1: Pull a trick [...] To commit any unethical or treacherous act against another.
put the trick on (v.)

(US black) to persuade into marriage.

[US]D. Burley N.Y. Amsterdam News 27 July 17: When will some slick chick put the trick on Johnny Silvers.
take a trick (v.) [card imagery]

(Aus.) to show promise; to be successful.

[Aus]Bulletin (Sydney) 28 Feb. 14/3: The Victorian Racing Club certainly ‘takes a trick’ for the period of the year fixed upon by them for their Autumn meeting. The worst of the heat has passed over, equines are fit, and previous running has given the handicapper a ‘line’ from which exciting finishes may be looked forward to.
whole bag of tricks (n.)

see separate entry.