natural n.
1. when pertaining to a ‘state of nature’.
(a) an idiot; one who is untutored or unsophisticated; often the potential victim of a confidence trick.
![[UK]](/static/img/flags/uk.png "United Kingdom") | Debellacyon Salem Works 934/1: It could never be done more naturally, not thovgh he that wrote it were even a very naturall in dede [OED]. | |
| Romeo and Juliet II iii: This drivelling love is like a great natural, that runs lolling up and down to hide his bauble in a hole. | |
| Gul’s Horne-booke 10: For they which want sleepe (which is mans naturall rest) become either mere Naturals, or else fall into the Doctor’s hands. | |
 | A Fooles Bolt is Soone Shott 22: The Duke of Brunswicke had a naturall, Whom all the Court did, sotton Ioris call. | |
| Dict. Canting Crew n.p.: Natural [...] a Fool. | |
| Conscious Lovers II i: I own the man is not a natural; he has a very quick Sense, tho’ a slow Understanding. | |
| New Canting Dict. [as cit. c.1698]. | |
| Hist. of Highwaymen &c. 102: Both condemned me to be anointed like a Witch, and to slabber like a Natural. | |
| Ipswich Jrnl 2 July 1/2: A Fellow half a Natural called Dicky [...] being aggravated by one of them [...] Stabbed him in the Back. | |
| Clandestine Marriage I ii: This ridiculous love! we must put a stop to it. It makes a perfect natural of the girl. | |
| Thraliana i Aug.-Sept. 147: [T]heir only Son six Years old & near a Natural. | |
| , , | | Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue. |
| Essays on Irish Bulls 206: I crept under a bough, and stood like a fool, or a perfect natural, till well nigh day. | |
| Lex. Balatronicum. | |
| Tom and Jerry III i: tom. We are, indeed, a regular trio; every part well harmonized. log. Ay, all sharps! not a flat or a natural among us. | |
![[US]](/static/img/flags/us.png "United States") | Brother Jonathan II 42: He’s your brother, I guess? [...] sort of a naiteral too, I guess. | |
| (con. 1843) White-Jacket (1990) 41: ‘What’s that ’ere born nat’ral about?’ – ‘He’s got a fit, hain’t he?’ were exclamations often made by the less learned of his shipmates. | |
![[Scot]](/static/img/flags/sco.png "Scotland") | Glasgow and Its Clubs 247: The half-witted natural who is found strolling through the nettled pathway. | |
| Our Mutual Friend (1994) 200: He was thought to be no better than a Natural. | |
| Johnny Ludlow II 242: The man opened his mouth and closed it again; like, as Molly put it, a born natural. | |
![[Aus]](/static/img/flags/aus.png "Australia") | (?) ‘A Gentleman Sharper and Steelman Sharper’ in Roderick (1972) 224: I suppose I’ll have to have patience with a born natural. | |
| Sporting Times 14 Mar. 1/5: An old woman of the village was about to marry a man who was looked on as what they call in Derbyshire a ‘natural.’ The vicar meeting her, said: ‘So, you are going to marry old Dick then, Susan. I suppose you know he isn’t quite right.’. | |
| Tramp-Royal on the Toby 117: City sharps, town flats, and village naturals. | |
| Walk on the Wild Side 251: A natural whose wife had had him locked up because he had made up his mind to have a baby by their fifteen-year-old daughter. | |
| Felony Tank (1962) 48: I bet they thought you were a natural. They probably thought you were going to cop out to every job pulled in this country in the last fifteen years. | |
| London Fields 254: Just when you thought she was a complete innocent or ‘natural’ or maybe even not quite right in the head. |
(b) a mistress; a prostitute.
| Squire of Alsatia I i: Ay, ay, you broke windows; scoured; broke open a house in Dorset Court, and took a pretty wench, a gentleman’s natural, away by force. | |
| Dict. Canting Crew n.p.: Natural c. a Mistress, a Wench. | |
| New Canting Dict. [as cit. c.1698]. | |
| , , , | | Universal Etym. Eng. Dict. [as cit. c.1698]. |
| , , | | Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue. |
| Lex. Balatronicum. | |
| Grose’s Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue. |
(c) an illegitimate child.
| Dict. Canting Crew n.p.: Natural-children, Bastards. | |
| , , | | Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue n.p.: natural a natural son or daughter, a love begotten, or merry begotten child; a bastard. |
| Lex. Balatronicum. | |
| Grose’s Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue. |
2. pertaining to gambling [abbr. SE natural winner].
(a) (gambling) a winning combination, esp. in craps.
| Citizen of the World I xxxviii 165: He loked all the time with such irresistable impudence, that [...] something in his face gave me as much pleasure as a pair-royal of naturals in my hand. | |
| in Zwilling TAD Lex. (1993) 59: They were playing ‘twenty one’ [...] The banker drew a ‘natural’ and the mob signed their checks. | |
| Sucker’s Progress 42: A great many of the technical terms used in Craps, including ‘nick’ and ‘natural,’ are derived from Hazard. | |
| Imabelle 23: Jackson threw another natural for the twenty; then crapped out. | |
| Rage in Harlem (1969) 24: [as 1957]. |
(b) fig. use of sense 2a, good luck.
| Thieves Like Us (1999) 7: There’s a natural for us up this road. |
(c) (US prison) ext. use of sense 2a, a seven-year sentence.
| ‘Prison Mass’ in Coll. Stories (1990) 167: Seven years, a natural — and all because a chippy blonde had mentioned a cocaine party, and he had been nuts about that blonde. | |
| Argot: Dict. of Und. Sl. | |
| Criminal Sl. (rev. edn). |
3. (orig. US) one who is naturally suited to a job or skill; one who is naturally talented.
| letter 31 Aug. in Breslaw Records of the Tuesday Club of Annapolis (1988) 141: We look upon the one to be a Natural [...] in vocal music, that is to Say [...] by nature furnished with those gifts that are requisite to form a good singer . | |
| Iron Man 50: It’s a good thing that bird’s a natural. | |
| No Red Ribbons (1968) 280: Decent people are doing it, too. You’d be a natural. | |
| Scully 148: That’s what I mean about you being a natural. You don’t have to do anything dramatic, you already are. | |
| ‘Thicker than Water’ Only Fools and Horses [TV script] He was a natural with the bugle. | |
| Layer Cake 93: I’d make a very good head-shrinker, a fuckin natural. |
4. when pertaining to ‘one’s natural life’.
(a) (also nat) one’s life.
| Gloss. Surrey Words 27: In my natural, phrase for ‘in my life’, ‘at any time’ [...] ‘I was never on good terms with her in my natural’. | |
| Dead Bird (Sydney) 16 Nov. 4/3: If I’da done ’arf the things before I was converted that I’ve done since, I’da bin wearin’ Government togs for the rest of my matural. | |
| Crissie 97: ‘The idea! [...] I’ve never been so insulted in all my natural!’. | |
| Bulletin (Sydney) 8 Dec. 16/4: [N]ext thing I knew my bathbrick wot I’d left behind took me right under the ear, an’ I cleared for me natural, with the ole woman’s son arter me – hell-for-leather. | |
| Sporting Times 15 Apr. 2/4: Do the canaries an’ git put away for three months! Me! Me, as has stood in Club Row, Befnal Green, every Sunday mornin’ for the las’ fifty-seven years an’ never faked a bird in me pleadin’ natural! | |
| Cockney At Home 134: They’s stuck me down aside one o’ the nicest bits o’ frock I’ve ever played the goat with in my nat. Reg’lar fancy rib! | |
| ‘The Intro’ in Songs of a Sentimental Bloke 20: A squarer tom, I swear, I never seen, / In all me natural, than this ’ere Doreen. | |
| Carry on, Jeeves 50: Much as I liked America, I didn’t want to have England barred to me for the rest of my natural. | |
| West Australian (Perth) 21 Aug. 5/5: We’re on the lousy thirty bob and we’ll be on it for the rest of our blanky natural. | |
![[NZ]](/static/img/flags/nz.png "New Zealand") | Tides of Youth 276: The Sounds’ll do me for the rest of me natural. | |
![[Ire]](/static/img/flags/ire.png "Ireland") | Scarperer (1966) 37: You can be sent to Prevention Detention for the rest of your natural. I’d die on the Isle of Sheppey. | |
| Billy Bunter at Butlins 191: You look the stoopidest idjit I’ve ever seen in my natural. | |
| Hazell Plays Solomon (1976) 86: I couldn’t be spending the rest of my natural doing little jumps when red-haired men came through the door. |
(b) (US) a life sentence.
| Sydney Sportsman (Surry Hills, NSW) 14 Aug. 1/2: ‘The square chivvied cow will be sent up for his gory natural’. | |
| ‘The Blue Wall’ in Stories for Men (1936) 132: The Commonwealth sent him to Graymoor for a ‘natural’ – for life. |
5. (US) something certain to succeed, a winner; something inevitable.
| Big Town 180: I’m going to tell you a secret and if you don’t keep your clam shut I’ll roll you for a natural. | |
| Broadway Melody 3: He has clicked with a new song [...] he knows ‘Broadway Melody’ is a ‘natural’. | |
| Argot: Dict. of Und. Sl. | |
| ‘Publicity for the Corpse’ in Thrilling Detective Dec. 🌐 I figured the fifteen round bout was a natural for a capacity house. | |
| Alcoholics (1993) 107: I’m telling you it’s a natural. | |
| Gambling Secrets of Nick The Greek 111: He has a Blackjack, or a ‘natural,’ and wins his bet at once. | |
| Positively Black 114: This equation of food and sex is a ‘natural’ since both are concerned with hungers and their satisfaction. |
6. (US black, also natch, natchie, natural hair) a bushy hairstyle, in which one’s hair is allowed to grow naturally, rather than being subjected to straightening or similar styling.
| ‘Time and cool people’ in Trans-action 4 5/1: [I]n 1963 a really sharp Los Angeles street Negro would be ‘conked to the bone’ (have processed hair) and ‘togged out’ in ‘continentals.’ Today ‘natural’ hair and variations of mod clothes are coming in style. | |
| Die Nigger Die! 111: It ain’t the dude with the natural. I’d rather see a cat with a processed head and a natural mind than a natural head and a processed mind. | |
| Black Jargon in White America 73: natchie n. a poorly groomed black hairstyle; a sloppy natural. natural n. 1. the normal, unstraightened hairstyle of a black person. 2. a large, bushy hairstyle. | |
| Street Players 53: The driver had a high natural. | |
| Runnin’ Down Some Lines 138: Tall, nice natural, wearin’ dat nice suit. [Ibid.] 141: Both males and females admired an attractive person with a ‘fonky’ natch. | |
| Way Past Cool 104: He pictured himself in that Afro-ish bush of the boy’s [...] the style had been called a natural way back in the sixties. | |
| Night Gardener 126: His cousin thought the world stopped turning in the 70s [...] He would have worn a natural too, if he could get it. | |
| ‘Pimp Game ’76’ in ThugLit Jan. [ebook] His Natural now an oily mess of Jheri curls. |
7. (US black) one’s ‘natural-born’ self.
| Who Took Weight? 33: He likes to see you being your natural? [HDAS]. |
In compounds
(US) cash in hand.
| The World Don’t Owe Me Nothing 42: [W]e pass the hat around and sometimes we'd make up five or six dollars apiece. That was natural money [...] 162: The last Saturday night I played there, running the game, I had made about thirty-five dollars natural money. |
see pick n.1 (6)
In phrases
all one’s life .
| Passing Eng. of the Victorian Era. | |
| ‘The Kid’ in Songs of a Sentimental Bloke 102: I’ll swear yeh never did / In all yer natcheril see sich a kid. | |
| Moleskin Joe 58: I never saw him in all my natural. |
as if one’s life depended on it.
| Quinton’s Rouseabout and other Stories 47: Many a time he went speeding back to the homestead for his natural, with the boys galloping at his heels, yelling threats of vengeance, cracking stock-whips, and occasionally firing a gun. |
(US drugs) to become intoxicated.
| Riot 44: If a guy wanted to get off the natural in a zoo like this, he didn’t have much choice. |
absolutely not.
| Gilt Kid 239: A core of quids? Never in your natural. | |
| (con. WWII) Soldier Erect 136: You’ve never been to Indore in your natural! |
to experience good luck.
| A. Mutt in Blackbeard Compilation (1977) 154: Mutt threw a natural yesterday and cleaned up. |