wall n.
SE in slang uses
In compounds
see separate entries.
(US Und.) San Quentin prison, California.
![]() | Limey 260: He’s the king of Wall City (San Quentin) and he knows it. |
1. of any work badly done.
![]() | Dict. Archaic and Provincial Words II 914/2: Any work irregularly or ill done is called a wall-eyed job. |
2. of any odd or irregular action.
![]() | Voice of the City (1915) 183: The wall-eyed thing! | ‘The Rathskeller and the Rose’ in|
![]() | You Gotta Be Rough 26: Sherlock Holmes has made people expect weird, wall-eyed stunts of the real coppers. | |
![]() | Bound for Glory (1969) 240: She bawls an’ squawls an’ throws wall-eyed fits. | |
![]() | ‘Old Zebra Dun’ in Whorehouse Bells Were Ringing (1995) 81: Old Dunny bucked and bawled, he had those wall-eyed fits, / His hind feet perpendicular, his forefeet in the bits. |
3. (US) drunk.
![]() | One Man’s War (1929) 294: Another American bozo came up and asked the Yale graduate who the Ninniesniffer was – meaning me, of course. So I said: ‘Why you wall-eyed dragon strangler, I’ll swing you a good sock on the jaw and you’ll know who I am.’. | |
![]() | ‘Sl. Expressions for Drunk’ in New Republic 9 Mar. in AS XVI:1 (1941) 70: [...] wall-eyed. | |
![]() | Three Negro Plays (1969) Act I: Said his name was Norwood – not Lewis, like the rest of his family [...] and all that kind of stuff, boasting to the wall-eyed coons listening to him. | Mulatto in|
![]() | From Here to Eternity (1998) 825: He would lay off the liquor – at least to the point of getting wall-eyed. | |
![]() | Cop This Lot 217: Yer useless bloody wall-eyed old bastard. | |
![]() | CUSS. | et al.|
![]() | Day of the Dog 90: That little wall-eyed prick. | |
![]() | Experience 88: Freeman was the wall-eyed DJ on Thank Your Lucky Stars. |
4. under the influence of marijuana.
![]() | Guardian Rev. 12 May 6: His hellish descent into a world of perverts, sex-criminals and wall-eyed tea-heads. |
(Irish) exhausted, tired out.
![]() | Mister, A Dublin Childhood 130: Now we’ll all have a nice cup of tea, I’m only wall-fallin’ . |
see separate entries.
sex, whether kissing or intercourse, against a wall.
![]() | ‘Wall Fruit’ in Randy Songster in Spedding & Watt (eds) I 213: No more I’ll require, keep my nose from the fire, / And never go seeking for wall fruit! | |
![]() | ‘The Rakish Gentleman’ in Knowing Chaunter 45: And it costs me a mint of money, sure – / Just only for wall-fruit. | |
![]() | ‘Lamentation Of The Bawds Of London’ in Cuckold’s Nest 17: He pays the young mot, who is not at all mute, / Then they go up a gateway, and there they have wall fruit. | |
![]() | Flash Dict. in Sinks of London Laid Open. | |
![]() | Life in Boston & N.Y. (Boston, MA) 14 Apr. n.p.: Wonder what she and C—y S—e were doing up against the laboratory fence [...] Does wall fruit agree with her? |
crazed, esp. through intake of drink or drugs.
![]() | Triggerfish Twist (2002) 87: ‘How do you feel?’ asked Bernie. Coleman looked slowly around the room. ‘[...] knee-walking, wall-hugging, [...].’. |
(US gay) anal entry done in a standing position.
![]() | (ref. to 1950s) Queens’ Vernacular 90: stand up job (’50s) anal entry done in a standing position. Syn: wall job. |
1. a man who leans against a wall while he has sex.
![]() | Queens’ Vernacular. |
2. (N.Z. gay) a man who stands in a public lavatory in the hope of meeting someone who has written an advertisement on the wall.
![]() | Int’l Jrnl Lexicog. 23:1 65: He might be called a wall queen if he was known to wait for hours in anticipation of meeting someone who had written an advertisement in a stall. | ‘Trolling the Beat to Working the Soob’ in
3. a gay man who enjoys reading the inscriptions on public lavatory walls.
![]() | Queens’ Vernacular. |
In phrases
1. to go to prison.
![]() | Observations of Orderly 228: If his guilt were established, he would be observed ‘going over the wall’ or ‘going to stir.’. |
2. (orig. US) to escape from prison.
![]() | AS VIII:3 (1933) 27/1: GO OVER THE WALL. Escape. | ‘Prison Dict.’ in|
![]() | Amer. Lang. (4th edn) 581: In virtually all American prisons [...] To escape is to crash, to blow, to cop a mope, or to go over the wall. | |
![]() | Popular Detective Mar. 🌐 Melvin had worked out a rap back in Joliet and had once gone over the wall out in Kansas. | ‘Dying to See Willie’ in|
![]() | Rap Sheet 23: The other prisoners was always talking about ways to get out. Quite a few did. They would go over the wall and take shelter in Spain, which was neutral. | |
![]() | Riot (1967) 16: I ain’t nuts enough to go over the wall at nine in the morning. | |
![]() | Gonif 21: I asked him why he didn’t try to go over the wall. | |
![]() | Hazell Plays Solomon (1976) 59: You really think Mancini would’ve tried to go over the wall? | |
![]() | Auf Wiedersehen Pet Two 71: ‘You’ve gone over the wall?’ said Neville dramatically. | |
![]() | Hard Candy (1990) 154: When I was in prison, I never thought of going over the wall. | |
![]() | Crimes and Punishments 163: He sought help from the prison guards; they ignored his pleas. [...] As you or I would have done under the circumstances, Green went over the wall. | |
![]() | Boobslang [U. Canterbury D.Phil. thesis] 200/2: go over the wall v. to escape from prison. | |
![]() | Chopper 4 21: It was [...] the biggest escape in Victorian history [...] That’s if you don’t count a few hundred Nips going over the wall at Corowa. | |
![]() | Deadly Dozen II 258: After entering the prison, Ed Scarborough went over the wall with two other convicts. | |
![]() | Old Scores [ebook] ‘Blakey was a week shy of being transferred out of juvie into Freo Prison. Went over the wall a few nights ago. Nobody’s heard from ’im since’. |
3. to leave a religious order; also as jump over the wall, leap over the wall; in army context, go over the wire; also in fig. use, to gain sexual experience.
![]() | Gidget Goes Hawaiian 110: Girls of my age just don’t stay all pure as a rose. Most of them go over the wall, if you know what I mean. | |
![]() | Peacekeepers 89: You all know there’s a whorehouse just outside the compound [...] Two boys from Alpha Company got caught going over the wire last night. |
4. to go mad.
![]() | DSUE (8th edn) 842/1: late C.20. |
(US) to make the utmost effort.
![]() | Stonewall 193: [Special Prosecutor Leon] Jaworski gone to the wall for the integrity of our investigations, he had won. | |
![]() | Loose Balls 144: I went to the wall for those two guys, telling Mike Storen to give them time and they’d be all right. |
1. to lose one’s temper.
![]() | Mrs. Gailey 160: You’ll only be speaking the truth [...] if you tell him your mother’s running up the wall because he came to dinner . | |
![]() | Yarns of Billy Borker 117: By this time the young copper is ready to go up the wall. | |
![]() | Happy Like Murderers 232: Fred went up the wall and gave her hell for a week. | |
![]() | Shooting in the Dark (2002) 95: If I’d told her about it, she’d’ve gone up the wall. |
2. to be terrified.
![]() | Long and the Short and the Tall Act I: Scared stiff. He’s going up the wall. |
to punish severely.
![]() | AS L 1/2 60: hang one to the wall v phr Punish severely. | ‘Razorback Sl.’ in|
![]() | Cool Man 29: Al warned Johnny never to strip a sucker. Never drive him to the wall. [...] . Just bleed him slowly and as painlessly as possible. | |
![]() | Blind Ambition 264: Maybe the President would thank me for what I had done. Maybe he was plotting to screw me to the wall. |
1. (US prison) to make an escape.
![]() | DAUL 98/1: Hit the wall. See Hit the hump. | et al.|
![]() | Prison Sl. 108: Goin’ Over the Wall […] escape […] (Archaic: hit the wall, hit the hump). |
2. (Aus. prison) to make an unsuccessful escape.
![]() | Aus. Prison Sl. Gloss. 🌐 Hit the wall. An unsuccessful escape attempt. |
see separate entries.
(US) confined in a hospital for the criminally insane.
![]() | Lowspeak. |
1. escaped from prison.
![]() | Und. Speaks n.p.: Over the wall, escaped from prison. | |
![]() | Four-Legged Lottery 86: A prisoner known as ‘Over-the-wall’ because he was twice escaped, was standing in the centre. | |
![]() | Billy Rags [ebook] [I]t was all the grief of not being over the wall twisting him up inside. | |
![]() | Lowspeak. |
2. stolen.
![]() | Und. Nights 90: A lorry load of Scotch which was supposed to be over the wall. |
3. in prison.
![]() | You Flash Bastard 188: The grass had been weighed off with two years over the wall; in other circumstances with his previous it would have been a result. |
see go up the wall
(US) crazy, eccentric or over-excited, anxious.
![]() | None But the Lonely Heart 200: I’m soppy about you [...] Straight up. I can’t see nobody else. I’m up the wall. | |
![]() | Come Day – Go Day (1984) 28: Shemie, you better go home with your Uncle Tommy. Your mother will be up the walls . | |
![]() | Look Long Upon a Monkey 39: As if to send Rosamund straight up the wall, Valerie was dressed for Longchamps rather than for Wayton Ducis. | |
![]() | Yarns of Billy Borker 130: They never caught him. Fair sent them up the wall, it did. Be an annoying thing that. | |
![]() | Makes Me Wanna Holler (1995) 182: Cincinnati was doing a hard forty, and it drove him up a wall at least twice a week. | |
![]() | (con. 1970) Dazzling Dark (1996) I ix: I’m up the fecking wall girls. I swear I’ll give every bob I have to Concern if I get my friend. | Danti-Dan in McGuinness|
![]() | February’s Son 334: ‘Mind you, we were half up the bloody wall with you. Nobody knew what was up with you’. |
to chalk up a debt on the wall of a public house.
![]() | New Dict. Cant (1795) n.p.: wall to be scored up at a public house. | |
![]() | Dict. Sl. and Cant. | |
![]() | Flash Dict. | |
![]() | Modern Flash Dict. | |
![]() | Swell’s Night Guide 135/2: Wall it, chalking a reckoning up at a public house. | |
![]() | New and Improved Flash Dict. |
1. everywhere, all over.
![]() | Show Business Laid Bare 165: [T]hey were met by a surge of people. It was wall-to-wall bodies. | |
![]() | (con. 1949) True Confessions (1979) 109: ‘Wall-to-wall nigger in 77th Street,’ Crotty said. | |
![]() | Runnin’ Down Some Lines 27: Like you fall by dis little ol’ party and dey be wall-to-walI-niggas-gettin’ down to the ground! | |
![]() | q. in Firestone Swing, Swing, Swing 197: ‘Out on the Coast there were wall-to-wall people, and nobody could dance. They just stood there and yelled and hollered and screamed’. | |
![]() | Guardian Guide 10–16 July 10: This guarantees wall-to-wall coverage on a rolling campaign. | |
![]() | Adventures 24: ‘Nearly every kid my age was running with a gang [...] They were wall-to-wall hardrocks, lookin’like black and Puerto Rican Hell’s Angels’. |
2. inaccessible.
![]() | London Fields 35: His life, he found, was sewn-up, was wall-to-wall. It was closed. |