Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(a) (US) to drink, occas. eat (see cite 1914).

c.1895		F. Norris Vandover and the Brute (1914) 227: You look all frazzled out, all pale around the wattles. Ah, you’ve been hitting up a pace again.
1899–1900		C.L. Cullen Tales of the Ex-Tanks 59: We couldn’t hit up a warm beer.
1903		A.H. Lewis Boss 272: He hits up th’ bottle pretty stiff.
1911		J. Lomax Cowboy Songs 305: Drink that rot gut, drink that rot gut [...] It don’t make a damn wherever we land, / We hit her up for joy.
1914		Sport (Adelaide) 25 Sept. 5/7: Will you hit up some wine and cake, Cec?
1923		H.C. Witwer Fighting Blood 125: Most of them engine makers has been hittin’ up the hooch.
1954		‘Hal Ellson’ ‘Pistol’ in Tell Them Nothing (1956) 105: He was out hitting up like a real wino.

(b) to buy (a round of drinks).

1906

Gadfly (Adelaide) 14 Mar. 9/2: ‘Are you going to play up a drip?’ he asked after a while. [...] ‘Hit up a round,’ he half explained. / ‘I don’t quite understand’ --- I began. / ‘Oh, come off,’ he said. ‘I mean, are you going to shout?’.

(c) (orig. US) to inject a drug; thus hitting up n., injecting.

1953		W. Brown Monkey On My Back (1954) 37: If you’ve never hit it up, no one can tell you what it’s like.
1970		Time 16 Mar. 18: I started hitting up once a day, and a couple of months later I started shooting two and three times a day.
1979		Lette & Carey Puberty Blues 115: Hitting up was the new cool thing to do. If you had needle pricks in your arm, you were tough, and top.
1987		Eble Campus Sl. Spring 2: coke – cocaine: We need some works (needle) to hit up (inject) this coke.
1997		L. Davies Candy 23: I hit up some coke before I met him.
2001		D. Looser Boobslang [U. Canterbury D.Phil. thesis] 87/2: hit v. 3 (also hit up) to inject a drug.
2006		G. Iles Turning Angel 400: It’s time to hit you up again.
2020		D. Whish-Wilson Shore Leave 94: [T]hey took turns hitting up the crank.

(d) to inject someone else with a drug.

1982		G. Newbold Big Huey 13: It’s [i.e. morphine] real good shit. Pure shit. I’ll hit you up if you like.
1994		B. Payne Poor Behaviour 29: ‘Can you hit me up, Sid?’ asked Flynn [...] I took the syringe and held it up to the sun, flicking at the bubbles with my forefinger.

(a) (US, also hit up for) to visit.

1899–1900		C.L. Cullen Tales of the Ex-Tanks 179: I’m a-goin’ t’ hev fully twelve dollars left [...] when th’ time comes fur me t’ hit up th’ range again.
1906		S. Ford Shorty McCabe 7: I ain’t seen you since we used to hit up the grammar school together.
1908		Bulletin (Sydney) 16 July 39/1: I’ve never held more than a ‘twenty,’ / To hit up the Earth, an’ to blew, / But I’ve found that a little is plenty, / To see a pore sailorman through.
1911		L. Chevalier ‘Getting into Society’ Variety Stage Eng. Plays 🌐 I can hit up the swell beaneries and assimulate me chuck the same as any other kid-glove boob.
1924		‘Digit’ Confessions of a Twentieth Century Hobo 90: We want to hit up the big guys. There are plenty of them around who would jump at the chance if we could only find them.
1964		B. Jackson Get Your Ass in the Water (1974) 133: I started hittin’ up the free lunch shacks just to keep myself alive, / till at last I lucked up on a chance to sleep in a Rampart Street dive.
1972		Frank Zappa ‘Billy the Mountain’ 🎵 He hit up for Ralph’s on Sunset.
2001		Source Aug. 59: A group of brothers on the way home from the club decide to hit up the nearest Mickey D’s.
2017		T. Pluck Bad Boy Boogie [ebook] ‘I figured you’d hit up Tony first’.

(b) (US) to attend to, concentrate on; to focus on.

1911		S. Ford Torchy 118: So gen’rally I hits up the books when there’s nothin’ else doin’.
1913		Sport (Adelaide) 22 Feb. 12/1: They Say [...] That Alan R was very glad they never hit him up in last week’s ‘Sport’.

(c) (US) to make affectionate and/or sexual advances towards.

1972		B. Rodgers Queens’ Vernacular 84: to make a proposition [...] hit somebody up.
1984		J. Ellroy Blood on the Moon 224: [H]e was afraid to hit up on McCarthy and she didn't even know he had the hots for her.
1999		J. Ridley Love Is a Racket 90: Love’s as good a con as any. I hit her up, made her feel special.

(d) (N.Z. prison) to search a cell.

2001

D. Looser Boobslang [U. Canterbury D.Phil. thesis] 87/2: hit v. 4 to search an inmate’s cell.

(a) to perform, to do, to make.

1903		‘Hugh McHugh’ I Need The Money 92: Two Parsifal pilgrims returning from the feast [...] hitting up the Wagner.
1906		S. Ford Shorty McCabe 116: He hadn’t been hittin’ up any real paresis pace, so far as I could make out.
1917		R. Lardner ‘Carmen’ in Gullible’s Travels 15: Well, the soldiers stands out in front o’ the garage hittin’ up some barber shops.
1937		P. Cheyney Dames Don’t Care (1960) 10: The band [...] is hittin’ up some swell Spanish stuff.

(b) (Aus.) vtr. to defeat, to overcome, e.g. in a horserace.

1912

Sport (Adelaide) 15 June 6/2: [of a racehorse] Last July Jim hit ’em up a treat with the Koran horse, and you can’t tell me that that neddy has gone to the pack .

(c) to harass, to make a request (for).

1913		Sport (Adelaide) 28 June 9/4: They Say [...] That The old man hit Ross up for board and lodging .
1950		R. Starnes Another Mug for the Bier 19: I hit up the operator. ‘Did Miss Chance stop off at the restaurant?’ I asked.
1962		S. Paige Maybe I’ll Pitch Forever 42: Even when we got to stay in hotels, they were the Negro hotels. [...] I hit up [team manager] Alex about it, but he couldn’t do much except let me stay with friends when we were on the road.
2010		Codella and Bennett Alphaville (2011) 264: Rockets never gave up a side career hitting up friends and acquaintances for money.
2010		L. Redhead Thrill City [ebook] Tottering around [...] using a combination of mime and pidgin English to hit the befuddled locals up for ganga.
2014		M.E. Fitch ‘Tommy, Who Loved to Laugh’ in ThugLit Sept. [ebook] ‘Why are they hitting you up about that kid?’.
2016		D. Whish-Wilson Old Scores [ebook] ‘[D]o me a favour and ask around, see if he’s been hitting up anybody else on the street’.
2021		J. Ellroy Widespread Panic 40: ‘[Ronald Reagan] hates the Reds. I’ll hit him up for some snitch-outs’.

(d) (US) to accelerate a vehicle.

1929		M. Levin Reporter 7: The reporter flung himself into a cab. Hit ’er up, old man.
1938		X. Herbert Capricornia (1939) 116: ‘He’s hitting her up,’ said someone. ‘So he oughter,’ said another, ‘seein’ he’s three hours late.’.

(e) (US Und.) to rob, to mug.

1997		G. Sikes 8 Ball Chicks (1998) 197: ‘Shit, I’m gonna go to the bank and hit up some old lady.’ I was used to this. Droopy was always promising to rob old ladies.
2011		G. Hayward Corruption Officer [ebk] cap. 43: Somebody snitched me out on that drug spot that me and you hit up.

(f) (US campus) to contact, usu. by mobile phone; thus h.m.u. hit me up.

2001		Eble Campus Sl. Fall 5: hit someone up – call, get back to: Hit me up on my cell if I’m not at home when you come by.
2003		Eble Campus Sl. Nov.
2014		A. Fox-Lerner ‘Traces of a Name’ in ThugLit Mar. [ebook] I hit up every graff writer I knew. The ones who hit me back didn't know anything. Next I hit up the web.
2020		Woods & Soderburg I Got a Monster 153: ‘I didn’t know if you had an issue with me or whatever,’ Snell wrote. ‘You haven’t been hitting me up’.

(g) (US black) to mark with graffiti .

2008

‘Grandmaster Flash’ Adventures 31: [T]he respect those [graffiti-making] cats got—oh man! [...] So when stay highsnuck into a hangar at JFK and hit up a TWA jet, it made the national evening news.

(h) (US black) to explain, to tell about .

2008

‘Grandmaster Flash’ Adventures 43: Bobo was hitting Sa Sa up with a play-by-play of his adventures from the night before.

(i) (US Und.) to break into.

2010

A. Steinberg Running the Books 242: I used to be a peteman. That’s the old name for guys who hit up safes.