Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (US) a native American, i.e. a Red Indian.

1886		‘Ned Buntline’ Buffalo Bill 16: ‘Jump for your tools, boys; mine’s handy! [...] we’ll soon let the reds know old hands are here’.
1891		Civil & Milit. Gaz. (Lahore) 2 Jan. 3/1: ‘Red ’ Warfare / [...] The Indian War in America is not quite the ruthless war of extermination that was anticipated.

2. a soldier [abbr. SE redcoat].

1899

R. Whiteing No. 5 John Street 217: Won’t it be fine to see the sojers on horseback? I hope it’s the Reds.

3. (UK Und.) gold, thus money, i.e. sovereigns.

1865		Leaves from Diary of Celebrated Burglar 108/2: Owing to the small rate of remuneration ‘slung’ to him by the ‘duffing’ third-rate ‘picking-up molls’ for his services in carrying the ‘cash,’ ne’er a red could be spared on new ‘toggery’.
1891		Sporting Times 10 Jan. 5/5: ‘Would you think enough of me to [...] put a couple of red in my hand, and send me away with your blessing?’.
1899		A. Binstead Houndsditch Day by Day 99: Still hanging about the bookie who had had his last bit of red.
1904		Sydney Sportsman (Surry Hills, NSW) 20 Apr. 3/7: There are friends who’d do you for your bank / The bronze, the white, and red.
1905		Sporting Times 27 May 1/5: Once outside, it seemed to the pug a sin and a shame to squander two reds in Piccadilly on that which could be obtained down Gravel Lane for two whites—with a kosher smoke thrown in!
1910		Register (Adelaide) 4 Jan. 10/3: I’ll take a ‘leather’, but I won’t touch ‘reds‘ or a ‘block’.
1922		Joyce Ulysses 146: Didn’t cost him a red like Maginni the dancing master self advertisement.
1935		Thieves Slang ms list from District Police Training Centre, Ryton-on-Dunsmore, Warwicks 9: Red and white: gold and silver.
1936		J. Curtis Gilt Kid 237: What you bring me this time? Stones, a bit of red?
1949		Monteleone Criminal Sl. (rev. edn).

4. (US) a cent, a penny [abbr. red cent n.] .

1849		Alta Calif. 12 July 1/5: Silver is not Plenty on the Pharaoh and his host’s Tables, and any body can sea it, and bet a red on any card he chuses [DA].
1856		‘Q.K. Philander Doesticks’ Elephant Club 244: Judge – ‘Have you got ten dollars?’ Mr. W. – ‘’Tis true, I hain’t a red.’.
1861		‘Joe Bowers’ in Bryant’s Songs from Dixie’s Land 26: When I got to that country, I hadn’t ‘nary red’.
1875		M. Thompson Hoosier Mosaics 27: Got every derned red o’ my money! Every derned red!
1889		S. Bailey Ups and Downs of a Crook’s Life 12: I had been ‘doing time,’ and hadn’t a ‘red’.
1899–1900		C.L. Cullen Tales of the Ex-Tanks 91: I was all out, to the last red.
1901		Sydney Sportsman (Surry Hills, NSW) 10 Apr. 2/5: I never sees him part a red / For beer.
1907		S.E. White Arizona Nights 26: ‘Got six bits about you?’ whispers Gentleman Tim to me. ‘Not a red,’ I answers.
1911		J. Lomax Cowboy Songs 16: When I got to this here country / I hadn’t nary a red.
1922		Gallagher & Shean ‘Mr. Gallagher and Mr. Shean’ 🎵 Well, well, Mr. Shean! Why, Mr. Shean! You don’t mean to say you haven’t got a bean? Not a red!
1935		J. Conroy World to Win 64: ‘You got any money?’ ‘Not a red.’.
1940		W.R. Burnett High Sierra in Four Novels (1984) 401: ‘Mac didn’t have a red.’ ‘Mac was broke, eh?’.
1950		Goldin et al. DAUL 176/1: Red, n. A penny. ‘That crumb ain’t got a red, and he’s puttin’ on a million-dollar front (appearance).’.

5. in pl., constr. with the, the menstrual period.

1896

Farmer Vocabula Amatoria (1966) 54: Cardinales (les), m. The menses; ‘the reds’.

6. in pl., blushes.

1984

Partridge DSUE (8th edn) 968/2: C.19–20.

7. (US) a chop.

1899

Atlanta Constitution 17 July 5/4: If one sat down to the table and ordered chops and eggs the order went to the cook as: ‘A stack of reds and two in the air.’.

8. orig. a radical; subseq. a Bolshevik, a Communist, a socialist or anyone considered to have left-wing leanings; often generically as the reds [red adj. (2)].

1837		Kentish Gaz. 31 Jan. 3/2: The Reform Swipyfication at the Concert Room [...] Then cozy pal, my cozy pal, / Do not delay the day / But hasten with your ugly mug / To fright the Reds away.
1840		Nottingham Rev. 7 Aug. 2/4: The witness reluctantly admitted he was a Red [...] At the next election the Reds will havce a flag with the words on it in gold’.
1851		Punch XX 245/2: I dreamt that I stood in the Crystal Halls, With Chartists and Reds at my side.
1873		Siliad 78: There was uproar in the Tory camp, / Jenkines, there, was roundly called a scamp, / And Squiros learnt a speech in which ’twas said / His rival was a traitor and a ‘Red,’ / And bills upon the wall in type of blue / Called him an atheist of the darkest hue.
1909		I.L. Nascher Wretches of Povertyville 47: The proprietor [...] moved to a saloon in Fifth Street near the Bowery, known to the police for years as the headquarters of the ‘Reds’ or rabid anarchists.
1918		C. Sandburg letter 3 May in Mitgang (1968) 129: Your Trotzky book is liked by the Reds.
1920		Thames Star (Waikato, NZ) 6 Jan. 4/4: The defeat at the polls of M. Longuet, leader of the french ‘Reds’, and grandson of Karl Marx.
1921		N. Putnam West Broadway 40: If those dam Reds had a right to go out and tell the world one thing, I had as good a right to tell them different.
1927		W. Edge Main Stem 54: ‘Oh! how I admire you militant reds.’ Militant reds, hell! Intelligent reds is what she means.
1930		(con. 1900s–10s) Dos Passos 42nd Parallel in USA (1966) 91: They lynched the pacifists and the pro-Germans and the wobblies and the reds and the bolsheviks.
1943		‘Henry Green’ Caught (2001) 123: A bit of a red he used to be in the old days.
1951		M. Spillane One Lonely Night 56: A Commie! She was a jerky Red.
1965		(con. 1950s) B. Behan Confessions 249: All the big-bellied bastards that I hate hate the Reds.
1978		(con. WWII) T. Sanchez Hollywoodland (1981) 54: Why the hell would I bed a Red? [...] I’m lots of things, old man, but I’m no stinking Commie.
1982		E. Mac Thomáis Janey Mack, Me Shirt is Black 113: Oh! the Reds were coming all right [...] Reds under the bed, Reds in City Hall.
1999		Guardian G2 13 Sept. 2: Joe McCarthy’s Un-American Activities Committee was looking for reds under beds.
2000		T. Udo Vatican Bloodbath 112: Maybe his real enemies hadn’t been the Catholics and the homosexuals, the pinkos and the reds.
2012		(con. 1943) G.S. Manson Irish Fandango [ebook] Reds, mate [...] anarchists, Communists, Trostkyites.
2023		M. Herron Secret Hours 356: Capitalism always eats its young in the end’ [...] ‘You sound like an old-school red’.

9. (UK Und.) a gold watch.

1906

O.C. Malvery Soul Market 289: Pickpockets who are adepts in ‘mugging a red’ or ‘pinching a leather,’ which [...] means taking a watch or stealing a purse.

10. (US, Texas) chilli.

1934		Dunkirk Eve. Observer (NY) 5 Oct. 16: [ad] Dance to the WOODCLIFFE / and Try / A Plate of Our Delicious / Fish or a Bowl of Red / Hot Chili.
1949		J. Trahey Taste of Texas 4: Here, step by step, ‘as even a Yankee could understand,’ [...] comes Mr. C. S. Boyles, Jr.’s recipe for ‘Bowl of Red’.

11. (US) irritation, anger; usu. in case of the reds [? mean reds under mean adj.].

1967–8

Baker et al. CUSS 183: Reds, get the Angry.

12. (drugs) usu. in pl., barbiturates, usu. Seconal [the colour of the capsules].

1958		W. Motley Let No Man Write My Epitaph (1960) 382: They took the bennies for kicks. Or red jackets and yellow jackets: goofballs. Or reds and yellows with bennies to give an additional kick.
1969		‘Iceberg Slim’ Mama Black Widow 227: He would sell reefers and pills like bennies, yellows and reds.
1971		J. Mandelkau Buttons 66: I popped a few reds.
1983		S. King Christine 387: She’d probably end up taking Big Reds to get out of first gear in the morning.
1992		S.L. Hills Tragic Magic 15: I started experimenting heavily with pills: Seconal [...] Reds, Black Beauties.
2001		D. Looser Boobslang [U. Canterbury D.Phil. thesis] 152/1: red n. 2 a Seconal capsule.
2002		J. Lerner You Got Nothing Coming 307: I was pretty wasted, taking downers — reds, I think.

13. (W.I.) a difficult or problematic situation.

1995

Francis-Jackson Official Dancehall Dict. 43: Red 1. an awful state of affairs: u. things red.

14. (Irish) blood.

1996

P. Howard The Joy (2015) [ebook] I spike a vein in my right arm, draw some red, and then ram the stuff into me.

15. (N.Z. prison, also red boy) a member of the biker/prison gang the Mongrel Mob.

2001

D. Looser Boobslang [U. Canterbury D.Phil. thesis] 152/1: red n. 3 a member of the Mongrel Mob [...] red boy n. 2 a member of the Mongrel Mob.

16. (UK black) in pl., menstruation.

2005

Jade LB Keisha the Sket (2021) 43: ‘II came on ma redz’ I lied.

17. see Panama red n.

18. see redneck n. (1)