soup n.
1. (Aus./UK Und.) melted plate metal; usu. as white soup under white adj.; thus soup shop n., a place where silver plate is melted down and disposed of.
![[US]](/static/img/flags/us.png "United States") | Fred Vernon 246/1: By the term soup-shops, the speaker meant those convenient houses where burglars and thieves dispose of any silver or gold plate which may fall into their hands. In such establishments the melting-pots are always kept ready . |
2. semen.
![[UK]](/static/img/flags/uk.png "United Kingdom") | Family Connections 35: Don’t be surprised when you get your mouth flooded [...] and then swallow his soup. |
3. (UK milit.) beer.
| Regiment 27 Jan. 288/1: Many of the terms used [in the British Army] are derived from India [...] Beer is variously known as ‘soup,’ ‘medicine,’ ‘pongelo,’ &c . |
4. (orig. US Und.) gelignite, nitroglycerine, as used in the blowing open of a safe; also as v., to use the above.
| S.F. Chronicle 6 Mar. 3: William Rudolph [...] was known as the man who boiled and carried ‘soup.’ In other words, he would procure half a dozen sticks of dynamite [...] and boil them in water. After much stirring and apparently reckless crushing a thin oil would exude and float to the top. | |
 | Winnipeg Trib. (Manitoba) 9 Dec. 19/1: ‘Soup’ — [...] used in connection safe-blowing and the liquid form, nitro-glycerine and gun cotton. | |
| Adventures of Jimmie Dale (1918) I viii: This is nitro-glycerin’, an’ we opens it fer you with this [...] We ties you up and sets you against the door of the safe before we touches off the ‘soup,’ an’ mabbe if yer a good guesser you can guess the rest. | |
| Bulldog Drummond 218: ‘I’ve got the soup here — gelignite,’ he explained. | |
| On Broadway 23 May [synd. col.] I was loaded with nose-paint caressing a box dat had more locks on it den Hoodeenee! But I gave it too much soup — and blew 200 Gs into a lotta confetti. | |
| Persons in Hiding 173: At first he worked [...] with old-timers, learning all his comrades knew about the ‘souping’ or dynamiting of safes. | |
| Phenomena in Crime 146: ‘Soup’ [...] has to be carried in a rubber water-bottle — but it will explode if dropped. | |
| et al. DAUL 202/1: Soup. 1. Crude nitroglycerine. | |
| Mad mag. May–June 10: First we drill a few holes... like so...Then we pack in the ‘soup’, like so... | |
![[Aus]](/static/img/flags/aus.png "Australia") | He who Shoots Last 77: Da best way ta git ’em ’d be fer me ta throw a few sticks of soup inta da dam. | |
| in Gonif 7: I decided to use every trick in the drilling business I had ever heard of to sieve it for the soup. | |
| Lowspeak. |
5. (US) insecticide.
| Moth (1950) 208: Dope. Soup. To kill the bugs [...] we put it in the tank and squirt it on the trees. |
6. (US) gasoline, petrol, esp. high-performance fuel used in customized cars.
| Go, Man, Go! 25: Tell nobody about our soup. | |
| (con. 1940s–60s) Straight from the Fridge Dad. |
7. (US gay) bodily excretions, such as sweat or anal juices.
| Queens’ Vernacular 187: soup 1. sweat 2. anal oil 3. broadly, fecal matter. |
8. (Aus.) electricity.
| Chopper From The Inside 13: With the shock treatment they put a big bit in your mouth and hold you down and give you a big charge of the soup. |
9. see super n.1 (5) .
10. see super n.2
In compounds
(US Und.) a safe breaker.
| Criminal Sl. (rev. edn). |
(US Und.) safe breaking with nitroglycerine.
| Criminal Sl. (rev. edn). |
1. a professional villain who specializes in handling nitroglycerine to blow open safes.
| Wash. Post 11 Nov. Misc. 3/5: The boxman has a string of monachers such as ‘peterman,’ ‘yeggman,’ ‘blaster,’ ‘heavyman’ and ‘soup man.’. | |
| Parole Chief 78: In New York [...] there was a great safe blower. He was one of the last of the ‘soup men,’ who crack safes by blowing them open. |
2. a person who mixes their own high-performance petrol for customized cars.
| Go, Man, Go! 24: ‘I’m a soup-man.’ ‘Huh?’ ‘Fuel mixture. Ya know Ethyl ain’t enough.’. |
In phrases
to dissolve a stick of dynamite in hot water to extract crude nitroglycerine.
| et al. DAUL 49/1: Cook soup. To dissolve a stick of dynamite in hot water to extract crude nitroglycerine, or picric, for safe-blowing. | |
| Fowlers End (2001) 235: They was cooking soup—I mean, home-made, and that’s tricky stuff. |
(Aus.) drinking.
| Bug (Aus.) 24 Feb. 🌐 [A] drinking problem [...] Too pissed to put the glass to your mouth. Too broke to afford another drink after six hours on the soup. | |
| Intractable [ebook] Roy was a violent drunk and used to wade into Mum when they got on the soup. |
to extract nitro-glycerine from sticks of dynamite.
| You Can’t Win (2000) 96: From black powder he turned to dynamite and afterward was one of the first to ‘thrash out the soup’ — a process used by the bums and yeggs for extracting the explosive oil, nitro glycerine, from sticks of ‘dan’ or dynamite. [Ibid.] 111: The yeggs threshed out their ‘soup’ and prepared for the road. |
SE in slang uses
In compounds
1. a dinner jacket, thus soup-and-fisher, a formal dinner (see cite 1948).
| Enemy to Society 232: Ain’t you dining out? What’ll I git you — the ‘soup-and-fish’ or the ‘thirteen-and-the-odd?’ Stephen disclaimed any desire for the dinner coat first mentioned, declaring his preference for the more formal tailed garment. | |
| West Broadway 27: ‘Come on in while I jump into the soup-and-fish’. | |
| ‘Art for Artie’ in Argosy All-Story 30 Dec. 🌐 He’s wearing one of them soup-and-fish outfits. | |
| Babbitt (1974) 15: He doesn’t want to go and hustle his head off getting into the soup-and-fish. | |
| (con. 1910s) Young Lonigan in Studs Lonigan (1936) 15: He’d get a soup-and-fish outfit, and go to the dinners all rigged out. | |
| ‘Truckin ’round Brooklyn’ in N.Y. Age 22 Feb. 7/1: The Debs About Town and their friends donned soup, fish and evening gown. | |
| Dames Don’t Care (1960) 31: I put on a very swell ‘soup-an’-fish’ that I have got, dinner pants an’ a white serge tuxedo that makes me look like the King of Japan. | |
| ‘Dog Collared’ in Popular Detective Oct. 🌐 Look, Fancy Pants. Why don’t you do something around here to earn that soup and fish I bought for you, huh? | |
| N.Y. Amsterdam News 8 May 15: The Epsilon and Tau Omega chapters’ soup-and-fisher at the Savoy was done eclat. | |
| Shroud for Jesso (2008) 259: Not a hair out of place, soup and fish as if they had been invented for him. | |
| Flesh Peddlers (1964) 57: Get your soup-and-fish clothes, Garry. | |
| Too Many Crooks Spoil the Caper 205: Al, also in soup and fish, appeared from behind the door. | |
| Swing, Swing, Swing 211: [S]ome older gentlemen in soup and fish and dowagers in evening gowns. |
2. in attrib. use of sense 1.
| Sun (NY) 6 Jan. 55/6: Why’re you all dresssed up like a sore finger? [...] You’re not figuring on crashing the gate at the movies in that soup and fish scenery, are you? |
3. in fig. use of sense 1, upper-class; smartly, in an upper-class manner.
| Two & Three 3 Jan. [synd. col.] The soup-and-fish hotels turned out their champagne-drenched crowds. | |
| Doctor Is Sick (1972) 197: Doesn’t he speak posh? Ever so soup-and-fish. |
(Aus.) a narrow beard running just below the jawline.
| Truth (Brisbane) 1 Aug. 20/4: The William Goat— this natty whisker goes around under the chin, and Iooks as though it were tied on with a string. Slang names for these beautiful hair trims are donegals, soup catchers, and whisk brooms. |
(US tramp) a cheap restaurant.
| [ | | ‘English Sl.’ in Eve. Telegram (N.Y.) 9 Dec. 1/5: Let us present a few specimens:– [...] ‘When the soup house moves away.’]. |
| ‘Vocab. of Bums’ in AS IV:5 345: Soup house—A third class restaurant. | |
| Amer. Tramp and Und. Sl. 177: Soup House.–A cheap restaurant, one in which the only article of food at all palatable is soup. |
(US) a waiter or waitress.
| Chronicle-Telegram (Elyria, OH) 25 Aug. sect. 2 1/4: Head waiters should never employ the old-fashioned trick of speeding up service by shouting: ‘Get a move on, you soup jockeys.’. |
1. (also soup-plate track) a small racecourse.
| Materials for a Dict. of Aus. Sl. [unpub. ms.] 147: SOUP-PLATE racing applied to racecourses of small circumferences: soup-plate tracks. | |
| Popular Dict. Aus. Sl. | |
| I Travelled a Lonely Land (1957) 36: Horse racing is their favourite sporting activity. Every township has a track, all the way from a little soup-plate on up. |
2. a soldier’s round hat.
| Rising Sun 4 Jan. 1/1: A regulation ‘soup plate’ at the ‘erase’ angle partially concealed a mop of hair. |
a large moustache.
| Ticket-of-Leave Man 9: Hullo! the devil, ‘Tiger!’ How your ‘soup-strainer’ being off has altered you! | |
| Indoor Sports 23 June [synd. cartoon] Hy-hy there. Say Schroeder. You don’t call that thing a soup strainer do you? [...] Why don’t you trim it, stupid. | |
| Adventures of a Boomer Op. 62: He also wears a bunch of brush on his upper lip that would make a good soup strainer. | |
| Smith’s Wkly (Sydney) 2 June 21/1: The carpet-bag, flowing soup strainers, and ’lastic-side boots which were once the hall-marks, of rural respectability. | |
| Western Times (Devon) 13 Dec. 3/3: Moustache: A soup strainer. | |
![[Scot]](/static/img/flags/sco.png "Scotland") | Eve. Teleg. (Angus, Scot.) 22 Feb. 3/7: When a heavy moustache is an added adornment it has been called a soup strainer. | |
| Really the Blues 181: With that waxed soup-strainer of his and that slick hair, Johnny took on some grotesque features in my hot mind. | |
| Western Times (Devon) 13 Jan. 3/6: Moustache: A soup strainer. | |
| Jeeves in the Offing 31: I wouldn’t say the moustache softened his face, but being of the walrus or soup-strainer type it hid some of it. | |
| Dict. Popular Sl. | |
| Good Words 267: Soup strainer. A moustache, especially a bushy one. | |
| Great Mortdecai Moustache Mystery 129: If you like having a soup-strainer hanging from your moosh. | |
| Frank Sinatra in a Blender [ebook] ‘Did that cocksucker with the flames tattoos rat me out?’ ‘No, that cocksucker with the thirty-pound mustache did.’ [...] then it hit me. That prick with the king-sized soup strainer. | |
| L.A. Times 14 Jan. F11/2: Public sentiment seemed slightly in favor of keeping the ‘shaggy soup strainer’ or the ‘old cookie duster’. |
In phrases
(W.I.) to be taller than someone.
![[WI]](/static/img/flags/wi.png "West Indies") | Dict. Carib. Eng. Usage 203/2: drink soup/water off/over (sb’s head) [...] To be much taller than (sb). |
to terrify.
| Reporter 123: Sticking up somebody’s uncle just to scare the soup out of him. |
to convert from Catholicism to Protestantism.
![[Ire]](/static/img/flags/ire.png "Ireland") | Slanguage. |